a bit tardy with this one but...

Twas calm before the storm.

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sci-fi watch: the introduction

So, the other day (Feliz Navidad, one and all!) I found myself in the posession of two spangly new things to read, Art Spiegelman's Maus and Roberto Bolano's 2666. I'm dying to start on them, except one thing is holding me down - fucking Robert Heinlein and fucking Stranger In A Strange Land.

Because I'm a massive Lost geek, I decided a way to kill time between seasons would be to join The Lost Bookclub on Livejournal, which finally gave me an opportunity to read Watership Down (which is great) but also introduced me to Robert Heinlein's seemingly endless novel. Stranger in a Strange Land is about a man born on Mars by the name of Valentine Michael Smith, who is brought to Earth then imprisoned by the US government. However, they didn't count on a journalist by the name of Ben Caxton and his girlfriend Gillian Boardman, a nurse. Caxton is abducted due to his anti-government writings, Gillian captures Michael and runs to Caxton's friend, "Jubal E. Harshaw, LL.B., M.D., Sc.D., bon vivant, gourmet, sybarite, popular author extraordinary, neo-pessimist philosopher, devout agnostic, professional clown, amateur subversive, and parasite by choice." And it's around this point that the enjoyable novel falls apart as we are privy to page after page after page of Jubal talking about everything he can think of in relation to the Martian in his midst. It's the kind of talky-wannabe-philosophical bullshit that pisses me off when I read - do we really expect smart people to talk like that? And at such great length? Just because they're smart? (Oh, and he's blatantly an unlovable misogynist: "As I was saying, a woman who can't cook is a waste of skin. If I don't start having some service around here I'm going to swap all of you for a dog and shoot the dog. What's the dessert, Miriam?") Here's a rough example of how a Jubal/Gill/whoever-is-in-his-vicinity-enough-to-listen conversation:

JUBAL: You see, this is the problem. Bon vivant.
NOT JUBAL: But, but, I disagree!
JUBAL: You are an imbecile because [four pages of explaining why he is so smart, briefly and rarely in relation to the point he has to make and usually in reference to some kind of religious deity so you know he's smarter than you]. Altruistically.
NOT JUBAL: Ah, I am a fool all along!
JUBAL: I hate women!

So, now I hate this book. There is no sense of drama whatsoever - the US government's search for Michael is halted by basically how big Jubal Harshaw's brain is, which also brings back Ben Caxton, who the plot (and previous main character, Gillian) has forgotten. So, there's no threat - as a matter of fact, everyone sits down and has a press conference before retiring to a tea party or such bullshit (cue Jubal ranting on for twenty-seven or so pages). Then, because it was the Sixties at the time, a mature exploration of sexual politics!

"As they merged, grokking together, Mike said softly and triumphantly: 'Thou art God.'
Her answer was not in words. Then, as their grokking made them ever closer and Mike felt himself almost to ready to discorporate, her voice called him back: 'Oh!... Oh! Thou art God!'
'We grok God.'"

Or not. y'see, Valentine Michael Smith becomes a hunk, basically fucking every woman he can due to his quest to "grok", which the book coined as a Martian term for sharing the same line of reality with someone else. He doesn't fuck guys, though, because he doesn't grok them (grokking hurts my brain) and goes about dodging their advances by looking - no shit - less adrogynous. And that's before Gillian says "Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's at least partly her own fault". Fuck you, Robert Heinlein.

So, you'd think I'd be throwing this book away yet? No. I'm sorry, I've spent too much time reading it to just chuck it away, even if I know how it ends (Michael gets shot, haha spoiler) and I know I'll hate the end. I've been reading it for ages - it's time to destroy this book. Of course, there's also the claim that this is the best book in the entire sci-fi genre. Whaaaaaat? People, throw me your recommendations already: give me your sci-fi favourites and, hell, I'll read 'em. They can't be worse than Heinlein's, y'grok?

FRENCH MIAMI - Science Fiction
(found via The Bay Bridged)

Okay, this is what Stranger in a Strange Land (probably) influenced:

• the word "grok" to be used by nerds
• that really lame episode of Lost where Jack had an affair with Bai Ling's crazy tattooist chick
• Iron Maiden, maybe
• Jubal Harshaw seems like a less-hilarious and more dispicable version of The Architect, pre-Wachowskis
• the Church of All Worlds, who will never reawaken Gaia with a website like this
• Junichi Oguro's minimalist IDM project, Grok (amongst many others)

So, don't buy me any Heinlein stuff in the near future. Ahem.

GROK - Firewire

-DA.XOXO

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