Google Fingers

Tiny, but it made me smile: scans of Google Books with fingers in them. The comments are maybe the best part. If you want to just check for yourself, here is the search for google books fingers.

The War on Science Fiction

Speaking of science fiction! I came across an article from The Spearhead called The War on Science Fiction and Marvin Minksy. It was so awesome I had to take several days to process it, or at least that's the excuse I'm using for now.

It starts out promising:

Science fiction is a very male form of fiction. Considerably more men than women are interested in reading and watching science fiction. This is no surprise. Science fiction traditionally is about men doing things, inventing new technologies, exploring new worlds, making new scientific discoveries, terraforming planets, etc. Many men working in the fields of science, engineering, and technology have cited science fiction (such as the original Star Trek) for inspiring them when they were boys to establish careers in these fields.

Okay. Sure. Science fiction is great and inspiring. Unfortunately, now boys won't get that inspiration because of the feminization of the genre. There are girls in space now and that just isn't cool, okay? Girls in space mean relationships and talking and fewer lasers.

Pro-Male/Anti-feminist Tech (that's the name on the byline of this article) quotes Marvin Minsky, a leading AI researcher at MIT. Minsky says,

General fiction is pretty much about ways that people get into problems and screw their lives up. Science fiction is about everything else.

I find that statement false; science fiction deals with the problems people make. Science fiction has held a mirror to modern problems with a setting of the fantastic. Racism, communism, ecology, cautionary tales... science fiction is the perfect forum for all these things.

All is not lost, however:

There is still a great deal of written science fiction that is real science fiction, so all is not lost. However, many boys who would have gone on to make scientific discoveries and invent new technologies will not do so since they will never be inspired by science fiction as boys.

Thank goodness for books! Science is saved! Just don't read any Honor Harrington books.

Science Fiction Books for Beginners and Others

I came across an article by Sarah Hope Williams suggesting good Young Adults (YA) books to start kids on. I have read exactly two of them: Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I approve of both those choices! I don't have a problem with the themes of Ender's Game, though I will agree the author is a little wacky. I'd kind of rather a kid was ignorant of just how wacky for as long as possible; I know knowing that kind of thing about authors will sometimes colour my enjoyment of the books (Dave Sim, I am looking at you).

I'll be looking at some of the other books on this list myself, as my science fiction knowledge is pretty crummy. Some books I do consider science fiction that I enjoyed:

• Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, the novel being better than the movie in my opinion;
• A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle, actually the first of her Time Quartet series I ever read and perhaps the one I enjoyed most;
• All the books from the Ender's Game universe featuring Bean, whom I enjoy as a character more than Ender himself;
• The Honor Harrington books by David Weber, which have a very positive female role model, even if they get slightly more ridiculous the longer the series goes on;
• The Otherland tetralogy by Tad Williams, often criticized for going on too long and having too many characters, which I have no problem with, and the occasional lapse into semi-purple prose that I do have a very minor problem with when it pulls me out of the story to snicker. Once you get used to it, it becomes less of a problem.
• 1984, one of those 'must-reads' of science fiction.
  

I have read some William Gibson and liked Virtual Light the best. I may be lynched for finding H.G. Wells' The Time Machine a little boring, but in my defense, that book is considered one of the forerunners to sci-fi and by the time I got around to reading it the ideas were old hat to me. While I consider the Pern books science fiction I can't necessarily say I recommend them. They did provide the main bridge between fantasy and science fiction and 'adult'* books for me, though the science aspect was introduced after I started reading the series. Also, Anne McCaffrey is another example of author weirdness you could do without having pointed out to you.


* Not that kind of adult.

Book Clubs

I was reading an article about why you should resist the lure of book clubs by Adam Sternbergh and I thought it was a little uncharitable. Or at least it made me think about book clubs in general and whether or not I would like to be in one.

I rarely seem to read the same books as my friends. The only time I get to talk to them about books, it seems, is when I borrow them directly from them. (The exception would be George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, which most of my buddies have read and enjoyed. In my opinion, the series is fun because it's grittier than most fantasy novels out there and it has a way of going in directions you wouldn't expect if you've read a lot of fantasy novels. The first book, A Game of Thrones, demonstrates this extremely well. George R.R. Martin pulls something so unusual it hooked me on the series.)

Anyway, I like to talk about books when I can. I like to hear other people's opinions on characters I like and dislike, on plot twists, or their general observations. If you talk to other people about books, they can show you aspects of the story you may have missed. And that's cool, the sharing.

Would I join an actual book club? I'm thinking not. Mostly because of this:

...We talk about the chosen book for a few obligatory minutes before we move on to the part of the club I think most of us really look forward to, which is not talking about the book.

I like books, but I can really only go on so long about them. Some books have more I'm interested in discussing than other books. Agreeing to read a specific book and feeling obligated to come up with things to talk about kind of reminds me of school. I like it fine when I have opinions, but if I'm indifferent it's going to be pretty dull unless someone else is really passionate about the story. That, and I'm slightly too reclusive.

I think the article raises some a good point - that books should not be treated as an incomplete experience if they're not discussed in a group setting. There was also an interesting commentary on the intimacy of reading:

Which brings us back to the intimacy of reading. Consider something even as silly and modest as this article: I’m in your head right now. You have graciously allowed me to slip inside the private sphere of your consciousness, if only for a few minutes. (It’s like a twist on that hoary babysitter horror movie: The voice is coming from inside your head! ) This is very different from how we experience any other kind of art: no matter how much you enjoy a painting or revel in a symphony, there’s not a sense that the painter has hijacked your eyes or the composer has hijacked your ears. The writer, though, hijacks your thoughts. (Hello! Hello! — I’m making you say that right now.)

I've thought that was a little freaky myself.

Banned Book Reading Room

Cheap post for Saturday! The Henrico County Public Library in Virginia has a sassy display for Banned Book Week. Someone deserves a pat on the back for that one. The comments section is also somewhat interesting. Look, the slippery slope of what gets banned and how severely!

Stop Talking About the Smell Already

I was reading this article by Gloria Mark in the NY Times online. The article was good, but there was one comment that made me roll my eyes:

No, no, no, no! E-books are Fahrenheit 451, long version.

On NYC and Boston subways, where you always see readers, I see only book readers. One guy had an e-book, and appeared to be skimming it, or embarrassed somehow, or both. Give us pages! Is that too much to ask? Fragrant paper pages that carry the author's words more closely to our senses, and our hearts. We do enough screen-scanning at work...please, let us keep real books for our leisure time!

I don't think I'd like an e-reader. I haven't tried it, but I don't think I'd like reading a little screen. Maybe I would; I'd have to test-drive one before buying. In any case, I am not necessarily pro e-book, so maybe someone can listen when I say stop talking about how important the smell and tactile sensations are. Just stop it. The smell thing is starting to get a little freaky.

The tendency to overreact to digital books is similarly annoying. E-books are not ruining it for everyone. There will not be a massive burning of paper texts even if it shifts toward digital copies. They will still be there.

The important part of reading is the actual reading, not what format it takes. Some people take exception to reading things on a screen; what about the people who would rather? There is a whole generation who look at computer screens not as something only for work. There are those who consider computer screens as a source of entertainment. A great thing about humans is their ability to adapt. Let's cross the no-physical-books bridge when we come to it, if we come to it. Right now, it's personal preference, and no one is forcing that commenter to start reading with a Kindle.

The book is important. The format of the book is not. And sorry, Dr. T from Atlanta, Georgia, for picking on you in particular. Not that anyone reads this blog!

I pity the fool who doesn't respect Dr. T.

One at a Time, Please

More about digital books in libraries. The article mentions a girl in Florida who uses her library card to download books to her laptop. I approve of her selection of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams (and I forgot Towel Day again this year), though I find Laurell K. Hamilton trashy. I figure being able to pick up a copy of anything Laurell K. Hamilton writes without setting foot in public place would probably be helpful. Now only the internet is judging her and not her local librarian.

But here's a weird bit:

Most digital books in libraries are treated like printed ones: only one borrower can check out an e-book at a time, and for popular titles, patrons must wait in line just as they do for physical books. After two to three weeks, the e-book automatically expires from a reader’s account.

One at a time? Really? But... why? It's not as though it's limited by only having so many physical copies. Is that a move to appease book sellers?

Speaking of book sellers, some have decided not to offer their books in digital format to libraries, with the argument that 'soon everything will be free'.

And as for physical libraries becoming obsolete, here is some hope:

For now, the advent of e-book borrowing has not threatened physical libraries by siphoning away visitors because the recession has driven so many new users seeking free resources through library doors.

Though they also mention that most people don't know the digital collection even exists. I wonder if my local libraries have any.