Books

Today we take a trip into Poetry Country, courtesy of my favorite, Gene Wolfe.  This is a reprint of a 1977 poem entitled The Computer Iterates The Greater Trumps.

So basically it’s Gene, tarot, computers, and weirdness.  Can’t say I could pack anything more into my day even if I had an espresso IV drip and ten pounds of smack.

Go read.

The Computer Iterates The Greater Trumps

My father-in-law has quite the collection of books. One the things I’ve recently turned up is the somewhat excellent Star Trek - Spaceflight Chronology that was published in 1980. Sternbach did the illustrations, so there’s some top-notch Trek-style starship stuff in here, and it’s at least entertaining. But what really got to me was the sheer level of divergence from what the book was predicting (and yes, I realize it’s Star Trek) and where we’re actually at in terms of spaceflight development. This might just be the “where’s my flying car” argument of the current decade.

It’s just amazing. I’ve found a decent online version that you can peruse, but I’ve simply got to list some of the highlights.

• 1983 - Space Telescope orbited.
• 1991 - We get samples of rock from Mars returned by a probe, and we have Cassini-Huygens a lot sooner than in reality.
• 1992 - the Space Shuttle program finishes its operational run.
• 1994 - Multinational manned missions to the moon.
• 1998 - Moonbase established.
• 1999 - Asteroid landing mission completed.
• 2001 - Mercury lander mission, complete with sample returns.
• 2004 - Mass drivers in use to return asteroid material to Earth orbit.
• 2005 - First baby born on Moon.

I mean, look at that - by 2005 we should be having babies on the Moon, and in 1980 someone was optimistic enough to put it on paper. I don’t know how I feel about the current state of the space program. . . wait, that’s a lie; I think it sucks hard enough to deflate a moonwalk ride at the county fair. But I can’t help but think we should be a little further along than we are right now.

Well, the title’s self-explanatory.

• The Algebraist, Iain M. Banks
• The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross

It’s Friday, I’m bored, that means it’s time for some free online reading for everyone. Today we wrap up a three-week tour of some free online Gene Wolfe short pieces, finishing up with what I consider to be the finest work of the three, Copperhead. It’s one of those very deep and subtle works than can come off as a abrupt and somewhat blunt on a casual readthrough, but is utterly rife with subtext and hidden meaning.

Read, and enjoy!

Once more, Gene Wolfe brings the noise with a short science fiction piece called Castaway.

This is a fantastic little piece of short writing. Read and enjoy.

The Arimaspian Legacy by Gene Wolfe.

Gene manages to pack more into a very short story than most people can manage in a novel. Fantastic.

Submit it for your approval. . . a collection of short stories written by a madman gone sane, now passed into the public domain and available for free viewing across the ethereal connections of a network gone crazy.

The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers.

A collection of short stories that preceded the Lovecraft tales of horror, Chambers’ work is generally considered being in the same mythos as the Cthulhu stories. These stories contain the same feeling of nihilistic futility of being human in the face of immortal evils.

Great stuff, share it with the kids!

Anyone who questions my undying love for the books of Gene Wolfe simply needs to read this, and realize that this is canon fucking truth.

Declare by Tim Powers is probably one of those books that everyone should read and take to heart. And then start reading other things. We’ll take it step by step.

Declare is a story of high espionage and the occult loosely based around famous double agent Kim Philby and his life. Powers takes an already amazing true story and adds an overtone of an occult conflict to it, creating an overarching story that just floors you.

This is the kind of well-executed and intriguing stuff that reminds you of John LeCarre on a bad acid trip, or maybe Dan Brown if he actually knew what he was doing with The DaVinci Code.

This is in fact the best kind of book, the one that makes you want to read more. From here, I would recommend getting deeper into Powers, with books like Last Call and Earthquake Weather. You can then branch into John LeCarre, who wrote amazingly good Cold War books like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

Keep reading, people. Eventually you’ll make it back to Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, and I’ll be proud of you.