By Philip Watson, George Osborne and Sophie Taylor
The Forever War: Joe Haldeman
Although published in 1974, Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War stands as one of the greatest sci-fi novels of all time; winner of the prestigious Nebula Award (as well as the Hugo and Locus awards), the novel recounts the 1000 year long interstellar war between humanity and the monstrous Tauran species through the eyes of disaffected military solider William Mandella.
Mandella begins the story as a solider unwillingly conscripted into an elite military corps, being assembled for war against the Taurans. Through the use of “time dilation” technology that prolongs the lifespan of the interstellar soldiers, Mandella experiences the futile and terrible war first hand, fighting for what becomes centuries. Eventually returning to earth, he experiences “future shock” at how rapidly and vastly humankind has evolved. To prevent overpopulation, homosexuality has become the norm, and society has fallen into discord through vast unemployment and the wide availability of deadly advanced weaponry. Alienated from this new world order, Mandella has no other option but to return to military service fight once more against the Taurans.
Haldeman himself was a veteran of the Vietnam War, and he wrote The Forever War as an allegory of the futility and brutality of war, the alienation Vietnam veterans felt when they returned to a changed America and also as a criticism of the warmongering culture of humanity. A film of The Forever War, directed by Ridley Scott, is due for release sometime in 2012.
PHIL WATSON
A Clockwork Orange: Anthony Burgess
If George Orwell’s 1984 is the prodigal son of bleakly dystopian science fiction, then Anthony Burgess’ cult classic A Clockwork Orange is the bastardised brother who refused to fully return to the flock. Now better known as the foundation for Stanley Kubrick’s controversial film adaptation, it remains an ineffable journey into an all too familiar world which still manages to take the reader by surprise at every turn. We are forced to explore our own conceptions of rape, murder and betrayal – no uneasy truth is left unquestioned.
The fact that this novel pushes reality’s boundaries without allowing them to penetrate fantasy’s borders is both deeply troubling and a testament to the novel’s strength. It ensures that we as readers question our own society and its way of dealing with minorities and taboo acts, in such a way that we can never go back. Disturbing and essential reading.
GEORGE OSBORNE
The Dispossessed: Ursula Le Guin
The Dispossessed blends both sci-fi and philosophy in its Nebula Award-winning depiction of the sister worlds of Urras and Annares. These twin utopias collide with the arrival of the young and ingenious Stevek, a physicist and traveller to Urras, who comes to the planet in an attempt to develop a General Temporal Theory in order to understand the nature of time.
With clear allusions to the discordance of an authoritarian Soviet Union and the capitalist USA reflected in the states of Thu and A-Io, The Dispossessed questions the notions of individualism and collectivism, conformity and subversion, never seeming to pause for breath. By the time Stevek delivers his theory, it is clear that ideas as well as property are all in the possession of the state. Stevek’s desire for revolution and for the communication of the two planets leads to a struggle for survival he could never have anticipated.
The paths to acceptance seem altogether strewn with dogmas, romances, dodgy medical tests and enough naked alien bits as you could shake a stick at. Even though, at times, the physics and the philosophy can be a little overwhelming, Le Guin captures perfectly these alien worlds and their very human fights for freedom. It questions the morality of rules and government without being overly imposing in a narrative that is both hopeful and mournful, delving deep into the impossibility of a perfect world, galaxies away, which remains only too close to home.
SOPHIE TAYLOR