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sabI have all week to deal with things I don't want to think about -- my shrink told me to take the day off from guilt. So instead, Mormons!
While I'm collecting books I ventured back into the canon of Orson Scott Card. And before we all get too excited, this isn't the Ender books (though I finally read Speaker for the Dead and it was indeed good and Xenocide is next on my list, or, if not next, it's certainly on my list, but we're not talking about those books right now), this is The Memory of Earth and the subsequent books in the Homecoming series.
Ages ago I'd read the first one, when I was in a class called "Technology, Self, and Society" in college, and appreciated it purely along that line of questioning, the place of technology in human behavior, blah.
The Memory of Earth introduces human legacy on a planet called Harmony, around which orbits a series of satellites that make up a kind of telepathic god figure called the Oversoul, put in place by the human settlers who moved to Harmony after destroying Earth. Harmony's existed in, um, harmony for forty million years or something, largely due to the fact that the Oversoul prevents people from pursuing -- or even thinking about -- certain technological advancements. So these people have computers, say, but no cars, pulse weapons but no projectile weapons; the Oversoul's telepathic capacity has prevented people from comprehending or developing any technology that it considers insidious, that led to the downfall of humanity on Earth, through war and self-destruction.
At the start of the book, the Oversoul is failing, degrading, and people who are sensitive to it begin to "remember" things that they have no words for -- airplanes, bombs, armies. These new thoughts are dangerous because there's the threat that the inhabitants of Harmony will start to develop the insidious technologies and destroy one another, go to war, end up killing themselves like the people on Earth did.
Blah blah Oversoulcakes, now I'm on Book Four, Earthfall and I've never read the Book of Mormon but apparently this series parallels it, Card's homage to his church. So I'm torn between being fascinated by the narrative and put off by the religious imagery, which I was able to avoid ('cause I'm stupid) up until the last installment. And now I'm afraid I'm falling prey to Mormon propaganda? Or something? Having spent four books with these characters and their very unsubtle value system, all of a sudden I feel tricked into accepting Mormon ideals and resentful that such blatant propaganda masqueraded as rollicking sci-fi adventure.
The Oversoul at this point has chosen sixteen people to form the genetic basis for a new civilization on Earth, and has sent these people on a trek across the deserts of Harmony to where the Oversoul's original computer -- and the spaceships the original settlers arrived in -- is stored. Eight men and eight women are very neatly paired off and they have flocks of children, five or six each before they reach the valley where the ships are. And of course one of the characters is a zhod, a homosexual, but he's celebrated in his remarkable triumph over his crippling gay defect, and he's even accepted as a full member of the Tribe once he's able to suck it up and impregnate his wife, despite the fact that she repulses him in all of his gayness.
Back in Basilica -- the city that served as setting for the first two books -- women ruled, and men were second-class citizens only allowed to live within the city's walls if they were married. But it's this very left-handed capitulation, where the women rule as homemakers, or as seers/teachers/goddess-figures, and it's still the men who do the heavy lifting and heavy leading.
Out in the desert, the women and men succumb to their innate human natures (under advisement from the Oversoul?) and the men compete for leadership while the women pop out babies and cry a lot. And it's just so suspicious -- as we get closer to the promised utopia of Earth we see a much more misogynist power structure, with reluctant bones tossed to the women (the gay fellow's wife, Shedemai, learns she would have been chosen to lead the expedition had the prophet cloakwearer hero Nafai not accepted the burden of his destiny -- fortunately Nafai does accept it so we don't have to trouble ourselves with any pesky female leadership) in what strikes me as this very obvious attempt to modernize and politically correct the story for a contemporary audience. Then again, I have no idea what the role of women is in the Book of Mormon.
Anyway, so I feel duped. Because The Memory of Earth offered Basilica, city of women, and then every subsequent book proceeded to prostletyze (dear GOD don't make me try to spell that word) the message that Basilica is dead and the new community on Earth is the best and only future.
Eh. I'll finish the series. Because it's still an interesting sci-fi adventure. Chalk this up to me just being resentful of propaganda for its ability to sneak up on me unwitting.
To counteract the effects, I had to watch the Starship Troopers DVD documentary for the umpteenth time, to appreciate propaganda that sneaks up on me in a good way.
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qowf, I know you're a Card fan and I also know how you hate Starship Troopers, you're gonna smack me, aren't you. *g*
In conclusion, boy do I ever love Starship Troopers. That Paul Verhoeven is a freakin' genius.
While I'm collecting books I ventured back into the canon of Orson Scott Card. And before we all get too excited, this isn't the Ender books (though I finally read Speaker for the Dead and it was indeed good and Xenocide is next on my list, or, if not next, it's certainly on my list, but we're not talking about those books right now), this is The Memory of Earth and the subsequent books in the Homecoming series.
Ages ago I'd read the first one, when I was in a class called "Technology, Self, and Society" in college, and appreciated it purely along that line of questioning, the place of technology in human behavior, blah.
The Memory of Earth introduces human legacy on a planet called Harmony, around which orbits a series of satellites that make up a kind of telepathic god figure called the Oversoul, put in place by the human settlers who moved to Harmony after destroying Earth. Harmony's existed in, um, harmony for forty million years or something, largely due to the fact that the Oversoul prevents people from pursuing -- or even thinking about -- certain technological advancements. So these people have computers, say, but no cars, pulse weapons but no projectile weapons; the Oversoul's telepathic capacity has prevented people from comprehending or developing any technology that it considers insidious, that led to the downfall of humanity on Earth, through war and self-destruction.
At the start of the book, the Oversoul is failing, degrading, and people who are sensitive to it begin to "remember" things that they have no words for -- airplanes, bombs, armies. These new thoughts are dangerous because there's the threat that the inhabitants of Harmony will start to develop the insidious technologies and destroy one another, go to war, end up killing themselves like the people on Earth did.
Blah blah Oversoulcakes, now I'm on Book Four, Earthfall and I've never read the Book of Mormon but apparently this series parallels it, Card's homage to his church. So I'm torn between being fascinated by the narrative and put off by the religious imagery, which I was able to avoid ('cause I'm stupid) up until the last installment. And now I'm afraid I'm falling prey to Mormon propaganda? Or something? Having spent four books with these characters and their very unsubtle value system, all of a sudden I feel tricked into accepting Mormon ideals and resentful that such blatant propaganda masqueraded as rollicking sci-fi adventure.
The Oversoul at this point has chosen sixteen people to form the genetic basis for a new civilization on Earth, and has sent these people on a trek across the deserts of Harmony to where the Oversoul's original computer -- and the spaceships the original settlers arrived in -- is stored. Eight men and eight women are very neatly paired off and they have flocks of children, five or six each before they reach the valley where the ships are. And of course one of the characters is a zhod, a homosexual, but he's celebrated in his remarkable triumph over his crippling gay defect, and he's even accepted as a full member of the Tribe once he's able to suck it up and impregnate his wife, despite the fact that she repulses him in all of his gayness.
Back in Basilica -- the city that served as setting for the first two books -- women ruled, and men were second-class citizens only allowed to live within the city's walls if they were married. But it's this very left-handed capitulation, where the women rule as homemakers, or as seers/teachers/goddess-figures, and it's still the men who do the heavy lifting and heavy leading.
Out in the desert, the women and men succumb to their innate human natures (under advisement from the Oversoul?) and the men compete for leadership while the women pop out babies and cry a lot. And it's just so suspicious -- as we get closer to the promised utopia of Earth we see a much more misogynist power structure, with reluctant bones tossed to the women (the gay fellow's wife, Shedemai, learns she would have been chosen to lead the expedition had the prophet cloakwearer hero Nafai not accepted the burden of his destiny -- fortunately Nafai does accept it so we don't have to trouble ourselves with any pesky female leadership) in what strikes me as this very obvious attempt to modernize and politically correct the story for a contemporary audience. Then again, I have no idea what the role of women is in the Book of Mormon.
Anyway, so I feel duped. Because The Memory of Earth offered Basilica, city of women, and then every subsequent book proceeded to prostletyze (dear GOD don't make me try to spell that word) the message that Basilica is dead and the new community on Earth is the best and only future.
Eh. I'll finish the series. Because it's still an interesting sci-fi adventure. Chalk this up to me just being resentful of propaganda for its ability to sneak up on me unwitting.
To counteract the effects, I had to watch the Starship Troopers DVD documentary for the umpteenth time, to appreciate propaganda that sneaks up on me in a good way.
qowf, I know you're a Card fan and I also know how you hate Starship Troopers, you're gonna smack me, aren't you. *g*In conclusion, boy do I ever love Starship Troopers. That Paul Verhoeven is a freakin' genius.
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-27 08:56 pm (UTC)I tried the Homecoming series, and they just turned me off completely within two books. I slogged through to reach Earth, but gave up before the end. I don't even remember much except the basic plot, but I felt they were too heavy, obvious, annoying, blatant. Like sledgehammers.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-28 08:25 am (UTC)Paul Verhoven should be horsewhipped for that film. Read the book, CaptainmyCaptain. Every time the film is shown, Robert Heinlein spins like a lathe in his grave. The book's the real deal; scary and gritty and hardcore inside the mind of an infantryman.
As for OSC, I do love Ender and the Bean books. The first three Alvin Maker's are great, too. However, he has the same "prolific" syndrome that Stephen King has
without the formula that King uses. The man can produce, however, they aren't all good. In fact, some of them are downright awful. I wouldn't read everything Card writes, however, when there's a good one, it's just brilliant.
Now go read "Starship Troopers" and turn off that silly DVD. Subtle propaganda, my left buttock.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-28 08:27 am (UTC)The Ender Series and the first three Alvin books remain his real works of genius. I also liked Wyrms and I have a great fondness for Treason, the one about all the exile rogue scientists and the civilizations they've spawned.
Even when he's being awful, though, he really knows how to write compelling characters and interesting plots.