Reading for promise

A useful bit of thinking as I pull together some reviews for here and elsewhere.

Reviewing a debut novel is essentially reading for promise. I'll forgive much if there's ideas in the story and energy in the telling.
— Tim Atkinson (@Magpiemoth) June 25, 2014

A Case of Conscience and Category Failure

It’s a monstrous thing to let the fate of an entire people hang on a piece of religious or political casuistry – itself covering for fear of the Other.

But as our history suggests, it’s also a very human response.

Exploring this theme in a science-fiction setting is the great merit of James Blish’s A Case of Conscience – a mannered novella from the 50’s subsequently padded out to a full-length work.

The premise is a unique one. Ramon Ruis-Sanchez, a Jesuit biologist/priest surveys a new planet, Lithia, which shows disturbing parallels with the Biblical Eden. Considering its native, peaceful sentient reptile species, he comes to the conclusion that they lack original sin. These Lithians, like their entire world, are a snare of the devil and need to be quarantined.

There then follows a “Four Angry Men” debate between the survey team’s members – the Jesuit being joined by the Imperialist, the Liberal and the Pragmatist – to decide the fate of the planet.

The implications of their decision and subsequent actions – which I will gloss over in the interests of avoiding spoilers - are then worked out in the expanded but inessential second half of the book.

A Case of Conscience itself demands a leap of faith – that scientists in space, never mind Jesuit scientists in space, would not be competent to study another culture without resorting to misapplied theology. Significantly, there are no social scientists on this mission from the hard-science 1950's. 

That aside, it is an excellent demonstration of our tendency to explain away any novelty by reference to what we already understand. Each proposal by the survey team members to shun, exploit or embrace Lithia is a straw man with a purpose; they all reduce the complexity of an alien culture down to a single view-point based on preconcieved ideas and categories.

The first 87 pages are vital, thoughtful if a little dated reading. The rest is an unnecessary coda.

My Masters dissertation

Big thanks to my parents, who checked what was on their oldest computer before consigning it to Silicon Valhalla. As a result, they've re-united me with the text of my Masters dissertation (title page omitted).

It's 100+ pages of comparative analysis of traditionalists and modernisers in Labour and the German Social Democrats during the 1980's and early 90's. 

In German.

Taking the rhetoric of party conferences and  the motions debated there as core primary sources.

Yep. Specialist audience for this, right?

At the time, I loved writing my dissertation, and nothing else I did at university served to ground me in critical thinking like doing my own research and investigation for it. The irony in writing your magnum opus in a second language you haven't used for 15 years is that I now have to read it with the occasional aid of a dictionary.

Maybe it's time to refresh my German again?

Basecamp storified

And here's the story of Basecamp in tweets. :-)

Music without resolution: Bohren & Der Club of Gore

We're so accustomed to music which seeks resolution, there's something unsettling about music which withholds it. Ambiguity invites interpretation, allows a piece to hold contested meetings, contains multitudes. 

Bohren & Der Club of Gore take this principle and apply it to a genre already riddled with doubt: after-hours barfly jazz.

I've rarely heard a band so immersive - listening to them is being surrounded by fragments of film noir, built of sax, piano and Sargasso-slow rhythms, going anywhere/nowhere.

As a taste, here's Prowler, from their Sunset Mission album. 

I have a book to review - how exciting!

Yes, for the first time since those heady - and mildly embarrassing - days of student music journalism, I actually have been given something to review. Big thanks due to Theakers Quarterly Fiction, a rather nifty e-published compendium of SFF short stories and reviews, for letting me have a shot.

And what's the book? It's Apocalypse Now Now, the modern fantasy debut by Charlie Human, featuring this rather amazing front cover.

My elevator pitch summary? I guess Harry Potter coming over all Ferris Bueller in the streets of Cape Town will have to do for now. And, yes, I liked it, although I want to read it again before committing my thoughts to paper.

Scientists in white satin?

To cheer me up on a day of enforced relaxation - I've sprained my ankle at Basecamp - and prepare me for a morning of writing, here are some motivating Me Party dancefloor tunes.

Was Not Was, Wheel Me Out: apparently the spoken word on this seven-minute disco rock behemoth is David Was' mum! Can anyone confirm this?

Giorgio Moroder - Knights In White Satin (sic): fifteen minute Eurofunk workout for a Procol Harum classic? Why thank you, Giorgio! Genius, in spite of the unintentionally comic husky vocals.