Dedicated to classics and hits.

Monday, December 20, 2021

A Planet for Rent (2015) by Voss


Book Review
A Planet for Rent (2015)
by Voss

   Voss is the pen name for Cuban author Jose Sanchez Gomez. A Planet for Rent is the first book in his series about a post-contact Earth where humans are junior partners in a hyper-capitalist galactic civilization.   Like third world countries today, the Earth is exploited for its mineral resources, raw materials and labor.   I saw A Planet for Rent on a list of post-apocalyptic  literary dystopias, and it doesn't quite match that category, being more of a negative take on what an actual intergalactic civilization might be like.  I think, if you just look at the history of the Earth, people usually don't spend a ton of time and money going to someplace new to just show up and be like, "Hey, you guys are awesome let's hang out."  Either they need someplace new to live, or they are trying to expand where they live, or they need something we have or they have some kind of important cultural principle that impels them to reach out across the galaxy.

  Which is all to say that the hyper-capitalist world of giant lizard men and sentient jelly fish that Voss depicts- one part Blade Runner, one part Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, is worth getting to know, and it's an interesting example of non-English language science fiction.   Most of the books that could be classified as science fiction that are translated into English tend to be more literary fiction or experimental fiction than straight forward genre work.

The Eye of the Heron (1978) by Ursula Le Guin


Book Review
The Eye of the Heron (1978)
by Ursula Le Guin

   Le Guin has been a huge beneficiary of my gender equality efforts.   She writes in an accesible genre, she has a lengthy back catalog and plenty of Audiobooks are available with little or minimal wait in the library app.  The Eye of the Heron is perhaps unfairly relegated to "minor work" status because it is a stand alone effort, not part of a larger universe.   Thematically, it fits with the general parameters of the books in the Hainish cycle, perhaps in a period before galactic civilization encountered Earth but after Earth achieved crude interstellar travel.  Here, the action takes place on the planet Victoria, populate solely by two separate exile communities from Earth.  The first, older group are a bunch of criminals and undesirables who seem mostly to come from Latin America.  The second, newer group are the survivors of an international peace movement who were imprisoned by the North American government of a Canada equivalent. 

  The first group literally lords over the second, who are familiar to contemporary readers as peace-loving non-violent anarchists.  The original inhabitants are in the midst of an attempt to feudalize the second group, which the second group resists through the tactics of non-violence.  Cementing the narrative is a Romeo and Juliet-ish scenario between the daughter of the local caudillo and the young leader of the peace lovers.  There's no magic, no aliens (not even a well described alien flora and fauna), the applicable level of technology is the middle ages of Europe.   I keep thinking I'm going to run out of adult Le Guin titles, and indeed I think this may be it. It's been a ride! I do prefer the Hainish cycle to the Earthsea cycle, but I understand by Earthsea might be the more enduring series.

Actress (2020) by Anne Enright


Book Review
Actress (2020)
by Anne Enright

   My attempt to achieve gender equality in my 2020 reading list appears doomed to failure.  With under two weeks in the year, and close to two hundred books either read or listened to in Audiobook format, the ratio is 55 percent male to 45 percent male.  Actress is another example of my attempt to force gender equity onto my reading list.  It's the most recent book by  former Booker prize winner Anne Enright(she's Irish).  Most importantly the LA library has an Audiobook edition available, and as I've often noted, if you want to read non-American authors your wait time for electronic editions goes way down in the Los Angeles Public library system. 

  Norah, the narrator, is the daughter of Irish actress Katherine O'Dell, a woman in the grand actress tradition of Judy Garland or Norma Desmond, but Irish. It's a dense, sophisticated gloss on a familiar theme. Enright is known for her emotionally sophisticated family interactions but here that view is expanded to the world outside mid 20th century Ireland, as Norah recounts Katherine's adventures abroad before her return home and long decline, witnessed, first-hand, by Norah.   

   

Blog Archive