Ray Bradbury Experience Museum talk

Last week I got to participate in a panel on "Optimism in Dystopian Futures". It was hosted by the Ray Bradbury Experience Museum in Waukegon, and included some great folks:

• Moderated by Dominic Loise. Recently of Open Books (and organizer/contact person for many SFF events there), Dominic is still in the Chicagoland bookscene, now at Half Price Books in Niles.
• Marissa Lingen, SF writer who I've enjoyed hearing on panels before (notably ConFusion).  This panel used Marissa's article "The Roots of Hope" in Uncanny as a jumping-off point.
• Keisha Howard, the Chicago-based founder of Sugar Gamers and an innovator/organizer/speaker in the gaming world.
• Alec Nevala-Lee, an SF and non-fiction writer also in Chicagoland. Alec's book Astounding is a major work (an insightful and unflinching group biography of Campbell, Asimov, Heinlein, and Hubbard) that has sparked a lot of conversations about the "Golden Age".
• Jake Casella Brookins, that's me!

An interesting conversation; I think a lot of us are struggling with how to think about hopefulness that isn't wish fulfillment in near-future SF, given the realities of the present. Lots of SF writers putting optimistic stories, but often they're not particularly rosy on the surface. We also struggled to fit Bradbury into a discussion of future-facing optimism; my hot take is that 1.) Bradbury generally feels powered by nostalgia, which doesn't quite click with futurity, and 2.) he's really at his best where he's at his weirdest, which is just kind of sideways to the question.

You can check out more videos on the RBEM Youtube channel, and you may want to check out their virtual comic convention, WaukeCon, this weekend.

"The City in the Middle of the Night" by Charlie Jane Anders

This was a real treat to read! I seriously could not put this down. I loved the characters, and the worldbuilding is deep, weird, and inventive. The whole novel is an adventure—something I forget that I'm always looking for, until I find such a good example. Although there's plenty of darkness—dystopia, struggles for survival, tragedy and betrayal—the work as a whole has tons of exuberance. It's a sophisticated but unpretentious take on classic science-fictional topics, and I devoured it.

The story takes place on January, a tidally-locked planet colonized by humans. In the narrow strip between perpetual day and perpetual night, humanity has adapted to the world's challenges. Our main characters meet as a revolution is brewing, travel to a rival city, make forays into the night, encounter some of January's original inhabitants, and generally have an exciting time.

No plot recaps, but possible spoilers below:

Teresa Woodruff @ Northwestern: "History, Context, and Relevance of Reproductive Dystopias"

More One Book, One Northwestern programming, inspired by Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale! Last week, I got to catch reproductive scientist Teresa K. Woodruff, Ph.D., exploring some contemporary themes and issues through the lens of Atwood's novel. Very brief notes below:

• Talks about being inspired by the hatching-chickens exhibit at the Museum of Science & Industry, later inventing tools to measure egg thickness as part of a science fair project.
• Warns against assuming that reproductive technology tends towards dystopia.
• Woodruff was one of the discoverers of the "zinc spark" that occurs at egg fertilization, an important new tool for evaluating viability in IVF.
• Woodruff's talk framed around 3 selections from Handmaid:
• The established order can vanish overnight.
• Atwood insisted that technology in the book had to be currently available. (Part of why Atwood considered herself "not a science fiction writer", at least for a while there.)
  Quote from the novel's coda, with men mocking an educated women.
  

Weird & Wonderful- A Cure for Suicide

For the August meeting of City Lit's Weird & Wonderful book club, we discussed Jesse Ball's A Cure for Suicide.

Told in a sparse, slightly surreal voice, the novel is set some great time in the future, and follows a character who has chosen to forget his old life in lieu of suicide.

A great discussion! An intriguing book! I mostly forgot to take notes!

Weird & Wonderful- Wool

For the March meeting of City Lit Books' Weird & Wonderful book club, we discussed Wool (2012) by Hugh Howey.

Noted as a self-publication success, Wool is a post-apocalyptic tale that takes place in a self-contained silo. The inhabitants live with an absolute taboo around talking about the supposedly-deadly surface or the outside world, and this society's worst punishment is to send someone "for cleaning"—going outside to clean the external sensors, before inevitably dying despite precautions. The Wool omnibus gathers the first 5 chapters of the story, introducing us to a few different protagonists as they discover the truth behind their situation.

Brief notes and possible spoilers below!

Hive Mind: Futures (and Fantasies) Worth Fighting For

This is the Hive Mind column, where we ask fans from all around Chicago for suggestions.

Going into 2017, the future seems even scarier than usual for many of us. Rather than having you pick your favorite dystopia of the moment, however, we'd like to share a more positive reading list. So, we asked people to contribute some Futures (and Fantasies) Worth Fighting For: what are the fictional worlds or societies that make you hopeful, that you'd like to live in, or that give you inspiration? We're interested in utopian ideas, visions of just societies in fantastic realms, non-doomsday takes on climate change, and more.

---

News From Nowhere
William Morris (1890)

This is such a great (and I think central to SF) topic that it's hard to know what to pick -- humans modifying their species being to live with the whales in Vonda McIntyre's Superluminal? The struggle over terraforming Mars or learning how to be a different kind of planetary creature in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books? The Dispossessed?

Think Galactic- Lizard Radio

For January's Think Galactic meeting, we discussed Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz.

One of our YA picks, Lizard Radio takes place in a vaguely dystopian world that seems like it might be a alternate Earth (not clearly a near-future or otherwise tied to the our timeline). The story follows Kevali, aka Lizard, who is a 15 year-old sent to "Camp", a kind of vocational-training-slash-indoctrination facility. While there, Lizard learns a bit more about this world's system of control, sparks some localized acts of rebellion, and explores the mysterious "lizard radio" (and other mysterious phenomena).

Brief notes and possible spoilers below:

Megatext 2: Octavia Butler

Megatext 2: Octavia Butler

Thursday, August 25th, 7pm

Open Books, 651 W. Lake St.
(Facebook Event Page)

For our second Megatext discussion, we're going to be talking about Octavia E. Butler (1946-2008), who's had a powerful impact on the genre. This discussion is being supported by Open Books, who are hosting, and by Think Galactic.

The idea behind the "Megatext" book club is that we talk about an author as a whole, rather than one specific book. Feel free to come if you've read everything Butler's written, if you've only read one book, or if you're just interested!

photo via Joshua Trujillo

Classic Sci-Fi Meetup- Children of Men

For the last meeting of the Classic Sci-Fi Meetup, we read and discussed "Children of Men" (1992) by P.D. James. More known for her crime and mystery novels, James' foray into science fiction has become more known since Alfonso Cuarón's 2006 film adaption, which is a pretty big departure in terms of tone and theme, while still hewing to the basic thrust of the novel.

"Children of Men" is set in a kind of slow apocalypse. For unknown reasons, the human race has become infertile, and thus the entire population is aging and looking towards their eventual extinction. Set in England, it follows our mild-mannered protagonist as he is drawn into a kind of bumbling revolutionary conspiracy with an unexpected secret. Spoilers below!

Think Galactic- Elysium

For the March convocation of Think Galactic, we discussed "Elysium" by Jennifer Marie Brissett.

This novel is *really* difficult to describe without spoiling. And also just difficult to describe...The key feature that strikes one first is the gender-swapping of all the main characters, from chapter to chapter, sometimes from sentence to sentence. As it goes on, there are elements of dystopia, alien invasion, and AI.

Spoilerific and intriguing discussion points below:

Chicago Nerds- Time Salvager

For February's Chicago Nerd book discussion, we read "Time Salvager" (2015) by Wesley Chu.

To summarize: fractally dumb. Astonishingly, breath-takingly bad:

• Painful, terrible writing. Shocking to us that editors of a major publisher would sign off on this.
• Sneaky, creepy sexism. Not as blatantly bad as the puerile wish-fulfillment of "Lives of Tao", but maybe worse for that. Normalizes/excuses abusive, controlling behavior.
• Dumb, dumb, a thousand times dumb. Science, logic, continuity, common sense: leave them behind.
• The cleverest suggestion put forth is that this is actually an ironic work: a poorly-executed, derivative novel about ineptly ripping off the past. Clever! We don't buy it, though.
• Shockingly little time-travel, really.
• I would like to pass a law that when characters do/say something unnecessary purely to drive home that they are villains, they must twirl their moustaches, whether or not that makes sense.
• Despite our opinion of the book, a discussion full of laughter. And groaning.
• We are now completely cynical about blurbs and reviews.

The end! I'll waste no more brain-time on this. I took literally 100 notes on this, in order to stay sane, which I won't burden you with. Indeed, if this novel had been written a little better, I would have stopped reading: it was only a sense of editorial horror--"what basic grammar will he forget next?"--that kept me going page to page.

Next time we're reading Charlie Jane Anders' "All the Birds in the Sky", which narrowly edged out Jeff VanderMeer's "Southern Reach" trilogy. Clearly, we are craving the good stuff.

Also, a reminder: lots of Chicago Nerd stuff coming up, including C2E2-related events and Pi Day.  Keep up to date via the CNSC website and Facebook.

Chicago Nerds: Cloud Atlas

For the last book discussion of the Chicago Nerd Social Club, we dove into (ascended? attempted to map?) David Mitchell's 2004 novel, "Cloud Atlas".

The novel is actually a carefully arranged mix of six novelletes, with a mirrored structure. More on that below. Each story is a different genre, time period, and style, with a host of recurring imagery and themes.

Our reception of the book was generally positive, modulo some caveats about its "literariness". We struggled with the question of what it's really "about"--always a vexatious question, but the fact that these six stories are presented as a single novel, rather than as a collection, makes one long for a cohesive theme or two. And, follow-up question: is this book optimistic or depressing vis-a-vis the human condition?

Some structural analysis, synopsis, and likely spoilers below:

Classic Sci-Fi: Woman on the Edge of Time

The era of the Mad River Grille meetings of the Classic Sci-Fi Meetup appears to have passed--another private event forced us to relocate again, this time just a building or two over to Vaughan's Pub, and we'll be trying out a new (hopefully good, long-lasting location) next time.

Still, a lovely patio on a Chicago summer, and a nice discussion of Marge Piercy's "Woman on the Edge of Time" (1976): definitely a bit of classic SF, this one particularly in the feminist SF tradition of the 60s/70s, often mentioned alongside work by Le Guin, Russ, or Atwood. The novel follows Consuelo Ramos, a woman who is (seemingly wrongfully) placed in a mental institution, and who is having (seemingly real, albeit psychic) visits to and from the future.

A couple points that we all agreed on: this is a hard book to read. Partially because it takes a while to really pick up, partially because it is about 30% utopia with attendant infodump-itis, but primarily because, emotionally, it's grim. Connie's experience being held against her will, misdiagnosed as an act of oppression, and the way that sexism, racism, and classism are magnified by being institutionalized all make for a rough read.

Notes & Quotes from Neal Stephenson's Printer's Row Talk

Photo from the Printer's Row
Twitter feed.

This past weekend was my first time at the Printer's Row Lit Fest: a lovely affair downtown, lots of books & printed sundries, lots of authors, all kinda good stuff.

I was particularly excited to see Neal Stephenson; I've really dug a lot of his work and recently got a chance to read an advance copy of his new novel "Seveneves" through the good graces of City Lit Books (whose Weird & Wonderful club recently discussed Stephenson's "Snow Crash").

"Seveneves" is truly delightful, particularly for fans of Teh Hard Ess Eff: it opens with a huge bang, Earth basically doomed within a short timeframe, and humans rush to get a viable colony in space. That's the first 500 pages or so--then the narrative jumps five thousand years ahead to show how things are going. It's really gripping if you're into this kind of thing--high amounts of realism, long passages on bits of space tech & orbital maneuvers, lots of brutal/fatalistic/pragmatic bits. And ultimately pretty hopeful, with lots of pleasing weirdness and Stephenson's delightful style--sort of droll and gonzo in equal measures, with some eyeball-kicking metaphor mixed in.

Most of the questions from the audience and "conversation with"-ist Christopher Borrelli revolved around the new novel, with a few others. Just a couple paraphrased highlights:

Think Galactic: The Summer Prince

Alaya Dawn Johnson's "The Summer Prince" (2013) is set a few centuries after some nigh-apocalyptic events: a "Y plague" that wiped out greater than two thirds of the male population, some kind of massive nuclear exchange that has left large swathes of the planet radioactive, and the resulting nuclear winter that seems to have made most of the temperate zones too cold for dense human civilization. Oh, and it's a YA work, set in a utopian (or is it DYSTOPIAN?! DUN DUN DUN) mega-city-structure in Brazil, where elected kings (I'm not sure that's what king means but whatever) reign for one year before being ritually sacrificed as they select the queen, who's the real ruler.

Yep, that's the gist of it. Oh and also there's a lot of stuff about art and art-as-politics and fame and fame-as-politics. I found myself enjoying the book quite a bit, as long as I remembered to do some eye-ball stretching so as not to strain anything with occasional YA-induced rolling. And we had a pretty delightful discussion of it at Think Galactic. Possible spoilers below!