A Sci Fi Reading Odyssey - 50 Novels

Remodeled the list significantly...

I want it to be a mixture of quirky choices and obvious ones...

1. Created list of Additions/Alternates, for "maybes" and author repeats...
2. Expanded main list to 18.
3. Added some new books to main list - works that fill time spots or theme spots (Simmons, Simak, Piper, etc.)
4. Removed two "major works" (Martian Chronicles and Foundation) It's going to be challenging saying much new about these. They have been reviewed and analyzed to death -- more so than many of the others.
5. Replaced Legion of Space with The Humanoids (arbitrary, intuitive call)
6. Replaced Odd John with Star Maker (it's more influential). Still will be doing review of Odd John too since I started it.
 
Last edited:
I'm a fan of Star Maker, although I haven't read Odd John.

Is it that important to you to say something new about these books? Mostly, a reading project like this is a personal journey (but whatever works for you, of course).
 
Have you thought about adding an anthology to your list? Something like the SF Hall of Fame edited by Robert Silverberg.
 
farseer2 said:
...Is it that important to you to say something new about these books? Mostly, a reading project like this is a personal journey (but whatever works for you, of course).
Click to expand...
Farseer, I thought about this... On the one hand it's kind of a "wimp out" to avoid, for example The Martian Chronicles. It should be the same as any other book according to my response rules (see head post). But worst case would be - just to restate what reader probably already knew... "It's a bit poetic, not for everyone, emotionally engaging..." blah, blah, blah... I should have more confidence in my reviewing imagination. Still mulling it.

(added)
Even though this is a personal/inner evaluation and journey, maybe it is kind of important to say something new. So I guess I am still thinking some of my reader. Also there are a huge number of alternatives to choose from.

To point out, I still have some pretty major works to review... I think probably Childhood's End and Ender's Game are the next most famous...
 
Last edited:
farseer2 said:
Have you thought about adding an anthology to your list? Something like the SF Hall of Fame edited by Robert Silverberg.
Click to expand...
Yep, great idea.. Phase 2 (I hope I get there!) is short stories. Will keep the Silverberg antho in mind. My reasoning for novels first is that in my view novels are easier to read (they're just longer..). Short stories need to be very compact and that often equals more difficult. But yes, as you pointed out, antho component would be a great thing.
 
The World of Null A is also good I just like his Weapon shop stories better. Overall the world building in them I found fascinating.
Selecting titles and authors for a few humorous stories is one of the toughest areas as the sense of humor varies so much between people. I just felt you ought to include a few for your overview.
 
img026.jpg


Odd John by Olaf Stapledon (1935)
DoverBooks
157 pages (small print)
Reader Response by Matt H. [v 2.1] from Reading Odyssey
Rating: Not Recommended

Story Summary [ *** WARNING! SPOILERS! ***]

A journalist decides to write the biography of an exceedingly unusual child that he has known from birth. Odd John is born to a fairly ordinary English household, but he is seemingly not quite human. Physically he has enormous eyes and pupils as well as other strange characteristics. Mentally, John is far more than a prodigy; he is a type of unearthly super-genius. Even as an infant John is a master manipulator of others. The narrator admits to the superior intellect and wisdom of John and he remains his unshakably loyal servant throughout the entire story.

As John grows he becomes ever more powerful. He also undergoes moral trials, including one of lethal violence. While still a child, he employs his immense wiles and seductive charms to enter into every aspect of British society – business, politics, religion, etc. Thus he samples the minds and lives of many different people, high and low and becomes even more wise about humanity. He also uses his super abilities in engineering and invention and, with the narrator’s help, amasses a fortune by a very early age. And his spiritual quest continues.

Soon it is revealed that he indeed does have paranormal abilities. There are other “supernormals” like him too. He begins a quest to track down members of his “species” in order to start a colony. As he encounters them, their various stories are told. The colonist collected are pre-adolescent children. Some of them have various forms of apparent deformity or disability. But all of them are super-beings. During the voyage to their isolated island destination, the children feel they are forced to commit several more acts of murder with many victims. Once at their island they are free to live naked and dedicate themselves to scientific, spiritual and sometimes carnal pursuits for several years. However the end comes as the “sapiens” discover the island and repeatedly attempt to disband the colony. Finally the supernormal colonists decide to catastrophically end the colony and themselves.

Critical Reader Response

During the first third of the book or so, the story is interesting, though philosophically challenging. A question is posited – what would the moral and ethical outlook be for a race of super-beings born among mere mortals? Is it possible they would think of us as animals? Could we be rightfully used as such? We are confronted with a super-child and a point is made of his a-morality, arrogance and cruelty. At first an uncomfortable but original scenario is described.

Stapledon is not an unskilled writer. His words are clear, often vivid and imaginative. The action and plot are easy-to-follow, and in its broadest outlines, the story is intriguing. But the long philosophical passages are trying, and have a repetitive, haranguing quality that make them difficult to endure. A central idea in them is that modern life is hollow and bereft of true spirituality. The most extraordinary among us are actually stupid. The artistically Avant Gard are actually very conventional. It has a curious similarity to a flawed 1960’s “hippie” rant against society, with a hodge-podge of religions, suggestions of “free love”, new spirituality and supposedly progressive attitudes toward morality. Some of the points made are interesting, other less so. Largely there is a dated and topical quality to the writing's content. Parts of Stapledon’s story also bear an undisguised likeness to that of Jesus or Moses, perhaps with some tinges of New Testament apocrypha, and other scraps from East and West.

But as we read it becomes clearer - the writer is not just describing the philosophy of John he is proving it. He slowly takes over the interpretation of the story and begins to tell the reader what to think. It turns out that the supernormals are a type of human mutation, though a separate species; the science is weak. Notably they are not of extra-terrestrial origin. However it is stated unequivocally that they are in fact superior, not just mentally but spiritually.

Once you begin to see this as a Neo-religious tract disguised as fiction, a sense of horror sinks in, and there is hardly any going back. Every word then seems deeply sinister. Is it some kind of creative background material for a religion of justified rape and murder? One that has at its center a form of superior worship of God, unattainable and incomprehensible, except for members of a super-race? I can honestly image Charles Manson being a fan of this book, with its pseudo-mysticism, race wars, underage sex islands and baldly justified violence.

By this review you might expect the content of the book to be overtly sensationalistic. Not in the least! Stapleton’s narrator is a conspicuously discreet, absurdly circumlocutious, progressive and enlightened advocate of amorality. He is solidly middle-class and almost comically prude.

One can see the writer at work attempting to balance the need to mitigate the outrage, and the need to make the message crystal clear. He vacillates between rubbing the reader’s face in it and excusing, normalizing, complicating, disguising and obscuring both the justified violence and the suggested child abuse. He generously peppers his work with additional weak escapes and disclaimers. One can see him apparently grooming and prepping the reader to agree that successively more horrible acts could be justified; they could be ok for a master-race.

As for its glaring social, neo-religious and pseudo-scientific parallels with another philosophy already in full swing and well-known by 1935, I will mention just a few. The supernormals are a superior super-race. They seek their own kind. They are not subject to normal morality and thus are justified in murder. They practice eugenics. The origin of their super gene is possibly traced to central Asia. The unique characteristics of their face and skull are emphasized. To secure their "lebensraum", they exterminate the native population. They perform murderous medical experiments, develop super weapons, and contemplate exterminating the entire species of not-really-human Homo sapiens. Any bells?

It’s possible to go into far deeper analysis of the appalling and perverted possible intentions of this narrative. There are myriad other sick suggestions, as well as racist and sexist aspects of the work ranging from the probably unconscious to the intentionally grotesque which I will not bother to mention.

Are there any alternate interpretations or viewpoints? I just can’t see any. It's black and white in the actual text. Honestly, to me this book came across as a pretty vile work of moral pornography.
 
Last edited:
Finished review of Odd John. What an F-ed up book! Had zero idea what I was getting into. This one scared me. Anyone want to share the experience? Read this book carefully from cover to cover. Think about its message, then you tell me I'm over reacting.
 
Yes, it's odd: review for SFFWorld here.
A product of its time, when stories of 'supermen' (and presumably superwomen, though they're not around much here) were common. It's on such things the ideas of racial superiority and eugenics were made...
 
Hobbit said:
Yes, it's odd: review for SFFWorld here...
Click to expand...
Will definitely check out your review when I have recovered... Glad to be onto another book and get this one out of my system. lol.

Such are the dangers of doing a "blind review"... I didn't especially want to pick a book I would find so controversial.. Oh well... Save me Frederick Pohl! :)
 
I think blind reviews are sometimes better - you tend to get honest responses.

Sorry you really didn't like it, though I think reading books that are like that are valuable. Even if it's only to decide what you like/don't like.

It's not one of my favourites, and the ideas it portrays are not mine; but the fact that it made me think about such things I see as valuable.

As an alternative, you might want to look at Wyndham's Midwich Cuckoos which deals with superhumans (or aliens?) in a different way..
 
Hobbit said:
I think blind reviews are sometimes better - you tend to get honest responses...
Click to expand...
Thanks Mark. Read your review and it's very well-written. Seems we picked up on many of the same things.

I know my review was pretty extreme, but the book just deeply creeped me out and disgusted me.. like I wrote, once you start to see it as some kind of "track" whether that view is justified or not, it's just truly appalling...For me this is the line between "historical context" and morality. I'm sure the writer was swept up in the tide of fascist philosophy, which we now abhor in light of history. Still he made a choice to contribute via fiction to its literature. (as you noted in review)

(added)

Apologies, that perhaps sounded too final. I still welcome any discussion, as always. :) Gallery? Anyone read it? (recently)

(added)

Btw, also agree it can be valuable contemplating any work, even one that you don't like, most certainly.
 
Last edited:
Hobbit said:
Yes, it's odd: review for SFFWorld here.
A product of its time, when stories of 'supermen' (and presumably superwomen, though they're not around much here) were common. It's on such things the ideas of racial superiority and eugenics were made...
Click to expand...
Another example of the type is the novella "Gulf" by Heinlein written in 1949 and for me rather more palatable than OddJohn for me. I did not like OddJohn either.
Good coverage of “Gulf" here at Wikipedia,if you don’t want to read it. But I think it is an interesting example of early Heinlein
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_(novella)
Most likely found in a volume with 3 other early RAH stories ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assignment_in_Eternity
 
My UK edition of that is this one, Windy:

1090857._SY475_.jpg

It's on the reread pile, but split across volumes in the Virginia Edition. The only problem is that I don't remember it as being very good, but hopefully nothing like the horror that was Methuselah's Children.

Joining the dots - Gulf (in the collection) is linked to the much later novel Friday: which I have a signed copy of!
 
Matt H. said:
I know my review was pretty extreme, but the book just deeply creeped me out and disgusted me.. like I wrote, once you start to see it as some kind of "track" whether that view is justified or not, it's just truly appalling...For me this is the line between "historical context" and morality.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. And that's why your response is a good and honest one!
 
Matt H. said:
Thanks, Vince. Not familiar with that term. Have a chance to check out my review? :) Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Well, that was quite a review. It was clear and direct and your tone is obvious. I've not read Odd John myself, so I can't comment on the particulars of the book. While it is clear that you don't like the book and your reasons for your position, you never actually say 'Don't read the book for reasons x,y, and z.'

After reading your review I certainly go out of my way to read Odd John, but there are many people to whom this review would be a reason to read it. I don't think you need to go into any great detail, but a simple Recommend/Don't Recommend/Strongly Don't Recommend would finish the review off nicely. That's just my opinion though.
 
Vince W said:
Well, that was quite a review....
... a simple Recommend/Don't Recommend/Strongly Don't Recommend....
Click to expand...
Hey Vince, thanks. Yeah I can see the review as possibly a reason to read or not to.. Like I said, would be curious to know other reactions. Mark both read it and reviewed it. Sounds like he was not a huge fan, but didn't have quite the visceral reaction that I did. I guess it pushed my buttons in a big way... :)

Btw, as per suggestion of the group I did a "rating" at the beginning of the review (to this and all others). Odd John got a "not recommended, offensive" I had to invent a new category, hahaha...

I didn't set out to be a political policeman critic... I try to see the historical context and give the writer a break generally... This one just seemed to go way beyond.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Sponsors


We try to keep the forum as free of ads as possible, please consider supporting SFFWorld on Patreon


Your ad here.
Back
Top