{"id":280,"date":"2011-09-11T10:49:21","date_gmt":"2011-09-11T08:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/?p=280"},"modified":"2011-09-21T12:41:38","modified_gmt":"2011-09-21T10:41:38","slug":"sci-fi-summer-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/09\/11\/sci-fi-summer-roundup\/","title":{"rendered":"Sci-fi summer roundup."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/files\/scifi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-282\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/files\/scifi.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/files\/scifi.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/files\/scifi-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>After about 5400 pages of sci-fi I a happy to drop this theme. It went too far took too long, and did not yield enough interesting perspectives to be worth it. Of course, I did it for fun, but in the end it was more bloody-minded-ness that kept me going than enjoyment, and that, admittedly is rather pointless. It would have helped if some of these books were not so hellishly long.<\/p>\n<p>It all began with me happening to pick up that absolutely delightful little novel by Moorcock. This happened while I was quite tired after a hard year of teaching and was in need of a break. I got curious about to what degree similar things were out there &#8211; of course I read quite a bit of sci-fi as a kid &#8211; things that I even now too would be inspired by. Guided part by chance &#8211; raiding my fathers collection &#8211; part by google (i found <a href=\"http:\/\/www.catb.org\/~esr\/writings\/sf-history.html\">this<\/a> useful) I decided to read the following titles, that I have previously reviewed on this blog. My theme was political sci-fi, that is I tried to avoid space adventures and things that focus on technology too much. Religion became a secondary focus.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Moorcock<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/04\/11\/michael-moorcock-the-warlord-of-the-air\/\">The Warlord of the Air<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/04\/26\/michael-moorcock-a-nomad-of-the-time-streams\/\">A Nomad of the Time Streams<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/05\/12\/michael-moorcok-dancers-at-the-end-of-time\/\">Dancers at the End of Time<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Frank Herbert<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/06\/09\/frank-herbert-the-great-dune-trilogy\/\">The Great Dune Trilogy<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/07\/07\/frank-herbert-god-emperor-of-dune\/\">God Emperor of Dune<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/07\/27\/frank-herbert-heretics-of-dune-chapterhouse-dune\/\">Heretics of Dune<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/07\/27\/frank-herbert-heretics-of-dune-chapterhouse-dune\/\">Chapterhouse Dune<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Brian Aldiss<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/06\/29\/brian-aldiss-roundoup-equator-the-interpretor-frankenstein-unbound-the-eighty-minute-hour\/\">Equator<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/06\/29\/brian-aldiss-roundoup-equator-the-interpretor-frankenstein-unbound-the-eighty-minute-hour\/\">The Interpretor<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/06\/29\/brian-aldiss-roundoup-equator-the-interpretor-frankenstein-unbound-the-eighty-minute-hour\/\">The Eighty-minute hour<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/06\/29\/brian-aldiss-roundoup-equator-the-interpretor-frankenstein-unbound-the-eighty-minute-hour\/\">Frankenstein Unbound<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/09\/07\/brian-aldiss-helliconia\/\">Helliconia<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ursula K LeGuin<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/06\/20\/ursula-k-leguin-the-dispossessed\/\">The Dispossed<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is pretty clear to me that LeGuin&#8217;s book is the only one of these that is absolutely worth reading apart of entertainment value. It is a solidly good novel that opens up countless questions. Moorcock was the one I enjoyed the most, along with the first few Dune books. The shorter of Aldiss&#8217;s books were also fun, I likes the 80-minute hour the best but Helliconia was a drag.<\/p>\n<p>So, did I learn anything? Well, as my reading progressed it occurred to me that I was exploring the idea of &#8221;entertainment&#8221; something I treat very briefly and rather harshly in my book <em>Om Kristet Motst\u00e5nd<\/em>. I needed some more material to reflect about what positive and negative aspects occur when we do stuff &#8221;just for fun&#8221;. As an experience it kind of failed, as it turned out to be less fun than I hoped, but I have reflected a bit about what part serious ideas play when we enjoy something. I guess this varies, but my main point is probably that we are trained to enjoy different things. This means that it probably isn&#8217;t because of some inherent personality feature that I enjoyed the books that explored the kind of ideas that are philosophical the most, whereas the one&#8217;s that relied on action and romance etc. left me bored. It is because I am trained to think about those things. And this means others could be trained likewise i.e. we can be trained to enjoy worthwhile things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After about 5400 pages of sci-fi I a happy to drop this theme. It went too far took too long, and did not yield enough interesting perspectives to be worth it. Of course, I did it for fun, but in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/2011\/09\/11\/sci-fi-summer-roundup\/\">Forts\u00e4tt l\u00e4sa <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-read"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/phagman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}