The Martian Chronicles

From the book cover
February 1999. On Mars, Mrs. K closed her golden eyes...and dreamed of a very tall man with very white skin, who came out of the sky. He was from Earth, the third planet, he explained in her dream.
But when she told Mr. K about it, he scoffed. "The third planet is incapable of supporting life...."
Shortly thereafter, the First Expedition from Earth landed on Mars. Colonization had begun.

December 2001. Young Benjamin Driscoll had found his niche at last. He wanted Mars green with trees - to cool the towns in the boiling summer, hold back the winter winds, add color, drop fruit, provide shade, become a child's playground...and, above all, to distill fresh, icy air. So he set out with a bin full of rich seeds and sprouts, Johnny Appleseeding his way across the harsh Martian landscape.
And there were trees.

November 2005. Everyone came out to look at the sky that night, to watch the green star of Earth. It was a move without conscious effort; they all did it to help them understand the news that had just come over the radio. There was Earth, and there the coming war, and there hundreds of thousands of friends and relatives, so very far away.
At 9:00 Earth seemed to explode, catch fire and burn....

A brilliant account of the human settlement of Mars, from 1999-2026, THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES is vintage Bradbury...a haunting blend of terror and wonder, the familiar and the fantastic, set against the incredible beauty of a fabulous new world.
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I couldn't have a Science Fiction and Fantasy Month without reading Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Most of the chapters were published as short stories in the 1940s, and with some editing for continuity published as a novel in 1950.

I loved the first half of this novel. Some of the chapters read like a Dr. Seuss story. The people and scenarios are just so out of this world!

This text really examines human nature and shines a light on our "earth" centric attitude. We assume that ours is the the only civilization. In "April 2000: The Third Expedition", Hinkson speculates that Mars' civilization is a result of earlier human travelers who settled Mars to resemble earth.

"June 2003: Way in the middle of the air" is one of my favorite chapters. It's more about life in the south (racism and injustice) than about Mars. In a small southern town in the United States all of the black folks have built a rocket and are planning a move to Mars. The story centers around Samuel Teece, a white hardware store owner who's domestic helper and one of his employees are scheduled to take off on the rocket. Teece is a bully, a racist and possibly a clan member.

I can't figure why they left now. With things lookin' up. I mean, everyday they get more rights. What they want, anyway? Here's the poll tax gone, and more and more states passin' anti-lynchin' bills, and all kinds of equal rights. What more they want? They make almost as good money as a white man, but there they go.

This chapter really had nothing to do with science fiction at all. It's just nice that Bradbury thought to add some colour to The Martian Chronicles, and imagine how society's marginalized might have viewed the possibility of an inhabitable Mars.

The Martian Chronicles is classic science fiction. It's not your typical novel, rather it's a bunch of short stories centering around Mars. Characters appear for one chapter and are never heard from again. If you're a true science fiction fan, you've probably already read The Martian Chronicles. For the rest of you, if it falls in your lap read it, otherwise don't worry about it, you're not missing much.

3/5

Scene from The Martian Chronicles mini-series which is based on Ray Bradbury's novel.

Up next: The Golden Compass

Woman on the Edge of Time

From the book cover
Woman on the Edge of Time is the fascinating story of Connie Ramos, a Chicana woman in her mid-thirties, living in New York and labeled insane, and committed to a mental institution. But the truth is that Connie is overwhelmingly sane, heroically sane, and tuned in to the future.

Connie is able to communicate with the year 2137. Two totally different ways of life are competing. One is beautiful - communal, nonsexist, environmentally pure, open to ritual and magic. The other is horror - totalitarian, exploitative, rigidly technological.

In Connie's struggle to keep the institution's doctors from forcing her into a brain control operation, we find the timeless struggle between beauty and terror, between good and evil... with an astonishing outcome.
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Baby Storm's parent would love the world in 2137, as depicted by Marge Piercy in this hybrid chic-lit science fiction novel. In this future people are very close to being genderless. Males and females still have the same external sex organs they have today, but women no longer give birth (all babies are created in incubators) and men can choose to breastfeed by taking lactate pills. Gender titles don't exist, everyone is referred to as 'per' short for person.  Bisexuality and homosexuality are on par with heterosexual relations.

Woman on the Edge of Time has been labelled an angry and violent text. I feel it's more honest and unpretentious than anything. Connie is angry and violent because society has backed her into a corner:

If only they had left me something!" she whispered. Still trembling, she thought, If only they had left me Martin, or Claud, or Angelina, if they had even left me Dolly and Nita, I would have minded my own business. I'd have bowed my head and kept down. I was not born and raised to fight battles, but to be modest and gentle and still. Only one person to love. Just one little corner of loving of my own. For that love I'd borne it all and I'd never have fought back. I would have obeyed. I would have agreed that I'm sick, that I'm sick to be hungry and sick to be lonely and sick to be robbed and used. But you were so greedy, so cruel! One of them, just one, you could have left me! But I have nothing. Why shouldn't I strike back?
Yet her hands shook with fear. She lay cold and trembling, all the night.

Connie is not a naturally violent or angry person. If she were, the thought of intentionally harming the people she thinks are going to cause her death would not keep her up at night trying to come up with non-violent solutions. This is a story about how society can bring out the worse in people, especially when money and technology are in play. The people on the edge of society feel the brunt of society's cruelty. Connie and the other patients who are subjected to the experimental surgery are either minorities, poor or homosexual.

Woman on the Edge of Time is one of the most enjoyable novels I've read in a while. I have no hesitation about recommending this novel. If all science fiction and fantasy novels were like this gripping tale of the future, science fiction and fantasy would be my favourite genre.

5
Next up: Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles

The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy

From the book cover
From Del Rey Books and award-winning editor Ellen Datlow, two of the most respected names in science fiction and fantasy, comes a collection of fifteen all-new short stories, plus a science fiction novella, that add up to a virtual "best of the year" anthology. Here you will find slyly twisted alternate histories, fractured fairy tales, topical science fiction, and edgy urban fantasy.


In "Daltharee," World Fantasy Award-winning author Jeffrey Ford spins a chilling take of a city in a bottle - and the demented genius who put it there. In "Sonny Liston Takes the Fall," John W. Campbell Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear pens a poignant and eerie requiem for the heavyweight forever associated with his controversial loss to Cassius Clay. From hot new writer Margo Lanagan comes "The Goosle," a dark, astonishing take on the Hansel and Gretal tale. In the novella "Prisoners of the Action," Paul McAuley and Kim Newman take a trip down a rabbit hole that leads to a Guantanamo-like prison whose inmates are not just illegal but extraterrestrial.
Many of the writers you'll recognize. Others you may not. But one thing is certain: These stars of the today and tomorrow demonstrate that the field of speculative fiction is not only alive and well - it's better than ever.
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The Elephant Ironclads by Jason Stoddard
In this short story, two young Dine boys agree to serve as guides to two white men in exchange for $30 US - a large sum of money to the boys. Shortly after setting off through Dinetah, the boys, Niyol and Wallace, learn that the men are not rock hounds, as they've been told but are in fact looking for uranium, which is considered the heart of the Diyin Dine (the god who lives in the earth). The boys are caught in a moral and ethical dilemma. Will they go against all the beliefs they've been taught about honouring the Diyin Dine or will they opt for the power that comes with owning weapons of mass destruction?

Ardent Clouds by Lucy Sussex
Bet is a documentarian and volcano chaser who is on the caldera of a volcano in South America when it erupts. She was with a group of volcano chaser but she's the only one who survives.This short story gets its name from nuee ardente (ardent clouds in French). Ardent clouds describe the fast-moving clouds of hot ash and other materials produced by a volcanic eruption.

Gather by Christopher Rowe
Despite reading this story twice I didn't it. This is what I could make out:
Gather, an autistic? man, finds God in a piece of paper he and his scientist neighbour, Miss. Charlie, were using for an experiment. Set in Virginia, somewhere in the future, only a select few members of the community are allowed to read the bible and 'God' lives across the river on the far bank. To go to the house of God is forbidden, according to the bible. So, when Gather and Miss. Charlie find God they have three choices: take it to the preacher; hide it and never speak of it; or return God to the other side of the river.

Sonny Liston Takes the Fall  by Elizabeth Bear
In this alternate history the author suggests that maybe Sonny Liston lost his two fights with Cassius Clay (later known as Mohammad Ali) not because he was threatened by the mob but because he knew that the black community needed a symbol, and he (Sonny Liston) couldn't be that symbol.

North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud
This short story is about two monsters: the one that washes up from the lake and the recently paroled father who has rage issues and is unintentionally alienating his wife and daughter. The story spans one day. While contemplating how to dispose of the dead monster's body, Grady downs his sorrows in a bottle of vodka and comes to the realization that he is a monster.

All Washed Up While Looking for a Better World by Carol Emshwiller
After wishing for a fresh start, the protagonist finds herself washed up on a shore inhabited by human-like people who treat her like a pet. She can understand them but they can't understand her.

Special Economics by Maureen F. McHugh
Jieling is a 19-year-old girl who's leaves her home in Northern China to take advantage of the job boom in Shenzhen and ends up working for a company that practice serf-like work conditions. Instead of getting a pay cheque she gets a debt notice. The company charges its workers more for food and board than they make resulting the workers being in constant debt to the company.

Aka St. Mark's Place by Richard Bowes
The lives of three young people intertwine when they find each other on St. Mark's Place in the summer of 1965. All three are able to see visions of the future and realize that they will meet again in 1971. Are the visions self-fulling prophecies?

The Goosle by Margo Lanagan
This controversial retelling of the classic fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" is not for the faint of heart. Gretel is eaten by the witch and Hansel is repeatedly raped by Grinnan, a thief who rescues him from the witch's cage.

Shira by Lavie Tidhar
Nur, a Damascus University students, finds herself the protagonist of a science fiction short story. Shira is set in the Middle East sometime in the future. A 'small holocaust' has taken place and Jerusalem is no more. The pain and destruction of losing Jerusalem has resulted in peace throughout the Middle East.

The Passion of Azazel by Barry N. Malzberg
This twisted tale explores reincarnation and animal sacrifices. Schmuel, the narrator and protagonist believes that he was a scapegoat in a previous life. In his current life, as a soon-to-be-rabbi and Kabbalist, he creates a golem in the form of a goat. The golem, Azazel, turns out to be Schmuel's brother from his previous. Schmuel's goat brother was sacrificed before Schmuel and is now determined to get his revenge on all rabbis.

The Lagerstatte by Laird Barron
When Danni's husband and son are killed in a plane crash she suffers from depression and eventually starts to see her husband in every man she sees.

Gladiolus Exposed by Anna Tambour

When the protagonist and his wife go to a couples retreat he finds a bone specimen that he calls a gladiolus because it is so perfect. His fondness for the gladiolus drives a deep wedge in the strained relationship he has with his wife, who can't stand the gladiolus.One night he returns from a business trip to find that his wife has thrown the gladiolus away.

Daltharee by Jeffrey Ford
Mando Paige is a mad scientist obsessed with creating miniature life. After serving a prison sentence for creating the town of Daltharee in a bottle, he returns to the lab and shrinks himself!

Jimmy by Pat Cadigan
When Jimmy a troubled boy goes missing, no one cares with the exception of his social worker and his only friend, the story's narrator. The narrator discovers Jimmy in a force field where humans can't see or hear you, even when you are directly in front of them. In the force field strange creatures impart knowledge. To receive their knowledge is to be marked an outsider in the regular world.

Prisoners of the Action by Paul McAuley and Kim Newman
The story takes place on St.James Island, a Guantanamo-like army based that is the centre of a national controversy because alien Prisoners of the Action (POTA) are being held captive and have been abused, and a large portion of the army's officers are suffering from St. James Syndrome (island fever). When the army sends Colonel Dice to investigate, he must go into an Alice in Wonderland type rabbit hole to understand what is going on the island.
2/5

Wide Sargasso Sea

From the book cover:
Jean Rhys's late, literary masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea, was inspired by Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s.

Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and beauty. After their marriage the rumours begin, poisoning her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is driven towards madness.
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 I read the edition with edits, an introduction and notes by Angela Smith.


Wide Sargasso Sea tells the story of the mad woman locked in the attic in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, while exploring the racial inequalities and injustices of the post-colonial world.

The novel is split into three parts.

Part one is set in Jamaica and narrated by Antoinette. We learn about her upbringing, her mother's marriage to Mr. Mason, the fire that killed her brother and her mother's resulting descent into madness, her education at a catholic convent and her arranged marriage, to a man assumed to be Mr.Rochester of Jane Eyre.

Part two is set in Granbois, Dominica. Antoinette is married and her husband takes over the narration. We learn how his mind and heart were poisoned against her and of the beginning of her descent into madness.

Part three is set in England. Antoinette, locked in the attic of the 'great house', resumes the narration. She is now completely mad and closely resembles the madwoman in the attic, as described in Jane Eyre.

I really enjoyed this novel. The fact that a large part is set in Jamaica, my homeland, was definitely part of the appeal. I left Jamaica when I was a young child, so all of my education is North American centered. I don't know a lot about the emancipation act and its affect on the West Indies and Jamaica, so this book offered me a glanced into the experience of the freed slaves and former slave owners.

If you're a regular reader of this blog you probably already know that I enjoy reading about women's issues and historical fiction, this novel is a blend of both of those genres. 

My only grievance is with some of the end notes Angela Smith provides. A lot of the notes seem unnecessary. Who needs a definition of shingles or a mango tree? I found the abundance of end notes distracting at times, as I'm not the type of reader who can ignore end notes. Even when I'm positive I know what the end note is going to say, I still flip to the back of the book. Despite this, I am really grateful for the introduction and notes on the emancipation act, Creole and obeah.

Before reading these notes I did not know about the compensation paid to slave owners (£19 per slave, slaves were valued at £35) or the proposed 7-year transition period. I also did not know about the history of the Creole people in the West Indies and Jamaica. I had always assumed that the slave owners where all of British or European descent. It was surreal reading about obeah. It's something I grew up hearing stories about but never took seriously, rolling my eyes when the grown folks would tell stories.

Wide Sargasso Sea is a powerful novel about a young girl caught up in a vicious cycle created by the patriarchal world surrounding her, in a time when the world is going through a metamorphosis. I recommend this book to those who enjoy reading about women's issues, historical fiction and race relations.

5

 Movie Trailer for the film adaptation of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea.

Fly Away Home

From the book cover:
Sometimes all you can do is fly away home...
When Sylvie Serfer met Richard Woodruff in law school, she had wild curls, wide hips, and lots of opinions. Decades later, Sylvie has remade herself as the ideal politician's wife - her hair dyed and straightened, her hippie-chick wardrobe replaced by tailored knit suits. At fifty-seven, she ruefully acknowledge that her job is staying twenty pounds thinner than she was in her twenties and tending to her husband, the senator.
Lizzie, the Woodruffs' younger daughter, is at twenty-four a recovering addict, whose mantra HALT (Hungary? Angry? Lonely? Tired?) helps her keep her life under control. Still, trouble always seems to find her. Her older sister, Diana, an emergency room physician, has everything Lizzie failed to achieve - a husband, a young son, the perfect home - and yet she's trapped in a loveless marriage. With temptation waiting in one of the ER's exam rooms, she finds herself craving more.
After Richard's extramarital affair makes headlines, the three women are drawn into the painful glare of national spotlight. Once the press conference is over, each is forced to reconsider her life, who she is and who she is meant to be.
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I'm not sure why I put Fly Away Home on my reading list. I think I saw it advertised on a subway poster. It was probably around the time of some sex scandal or another. Anyhow, I read it this past week. It's an alright book but it doesn't fill me with satisfaction, inspire any new realizations about life or leave me wanting more. In fact, I feel like this novel could have been at least a hundred pages shorter.

 Porn anyone?
I don't think of myself as a prude but I found the sex scenes a bit too graphic, and they seemed to go on forever. At times I felt myself blushing and praying that no one in the subway car was reading over my shoulders. Weiner's sex scenes are comparable to the stuff I imagine would be found in a porn magazine.

Enough with the foreshadowing already!
Weiner goes over board with foreshadowing; she doesn't give the reader enough credit to pick up on hints. Almost every paragraph starts off with a flashback that inevitably foreshadows the main events of that chapter. In some cases this is good because it's a window into the relationship between the main characters but other times it's just too much. One of those times is when Lizzie discovers she's pregnant. Several pages are spent in a flashback of Lizzie and a high school friend smoking pot and watching I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant; both girls agree they would know if they were pregnant.

The characters are cliches:

• Cheating politician
• Devoted, wool suit wearing wife
• Successful but emotionally cold daughter
• Black sheep daughter
• Brash, Jewish mother

Need I go on?

Sex Scandals
Society is saturated with sex scandals. Just this week, alone, two major scandals are in the headline. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger revealed the existence of a 10-year-old "love child" that he fathered with a former household staffer. International Monetary Fund Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn  was arrested and charged with attempted rape. Admittedly, the Strauss-Kahn scandal is a criminal matter but it can still be classified under PEMS (Powerful Entitled Man Syndrome). In contrast to this week's news, the 'scandal' that is the centre of the Fly Away Home plot is boring.

2.5/5

The Color Purple

From the book cover:
Life wasn't easy for Celie. But she knew how to survive, needing little to get by. 

Then her husband's lover, a flamboyant blues singer, barreled into her world and gave Celie the courage to ask for more - to laugh, to play, and finally - to love.
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Alice Walker's The Color Purple is set in a dark place in history yet manages to be uplifting. Set in the early twentieth century, the characters are one or two generations removed from slavery, and racism and sexism are a large part of life. The novel tells the story of the abuses heaped upon a small group of African-American women. The women are so different that together they represent almost every black woman. Or at the very least, it can be said that there is a little bit of at least one of these characters in each of us.

The colour purple is representative of God's creation or all things that are so magnificent that no man can destroy.

More than the abuse that that these women suffer as a result of sexism and racism, this novel is about the healing bonds of the female friendship. This strong bond and  friendship is illustrated amongst the African-American women living in America and the African women Netty comes across during her mission work in the village of Olinka. Despite being a continent apart these women have a lot in common. Celie's relationship with Shug and Sophia's relationship with Squeak is comparable to the relationship that exists between the sister wives in Africa. Although it would seem natural that the women would not get along and compete for the men's attention, they develop supportive relationships that are independent of the men.

I love that this story is told through a series of letters from: Celie to God; Celie to Nettie; and Nettie to Celie. The language is clear, colourful and unpretentious. I also like the redemption of two of the main male characters, Harpo and Mr. _________.

There are so many lessons to be learned in this book and messages to take away. This was my second time reading this novel but I feel like it's my first time because I've learned so much. I can't wait to read it a third time!

5

 A scene from the 1985 film, The Color Purple, which is based on Alice Walker's novel.

The Bell Jar

About the author
The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's only novel. It was originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963. Plath suffered from clinic depression. It is an accepted theory that The Bell Jar is semi-autobiographical with names and places changed. Plath committed suicide in 1963, a month after The Bell Jar was published in the United Kingdom.

Plot Summary
Set in 1953, The Bell Jar is about Ester Greenwood's clinic depression. As the novel opens, Ester is in New York on a one month summer internship at a prominent magazine. As the month comes to an end Ester starts to ponder her future. The few options she has leave her feeling trapped. Upon completely her internship, Ester returns to her home in Massachusetts feeling down. And that feeling increases when her mom tells her that she did not get into a writing course she hoped to enroll in for the rest of the summer. Ester's depression worsens, she sees a psychiatrist, attempts suicide and winds up in an asylum.


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The Bell Jar is a hard novel to get into. At times I found it dragged. In the end, I came to enjoy Plath's subtle way of telling the story. At first I didn't think there was anything wrong with Ester, I thought she was just quirky. I didn't realize she wasn't all there until her last night in New York, when she is almost the victim of date rape. Once she started to decline in happened fast and furious. As her depression worsens, Ester describes herself as feeling trapped under a bell jar. A bell jar is a piece of laboratory equipment used to create a vacuum. In essence, she feels trapped in a vacuum.

Imprisonment is a major theme in this novel. Being a female Ester feels trapped by society's expectations, the consequences of sex and a lack of career choices.

Although times have changed and women have a lot more choices, many of us still feel pressure to live up to society's expectations. It's still expected that women are going to marry and have children, and when they choose not to go down this path, they are described as spinsters, old maids, cat ladies, or their sexual preference is questioned.

The world has gone through a sexual revolution since the 1950s but women still face more consequences when it comes to sexual relations. Just think how many words you've heard to describe women who are believed to be promiscuous. How many words do you know for promiscuous men? Also consider, women in committed relationships are more likely to be responsible for birth control. And when birth control fails, a woman's life definitely changes more than a man's life. Until oral contraceptives are widely available for men and they have the ability to physically bear children, women will always face more consequences in sexual relations.

My point in comparing the 1950s and 2011 is not to stand on a soap box, but merely to explain why I think The Bell Jar is still very relevant almost 50 years after it was first published. Read it if you like, you can only gain knowledge and insight into one of society's taboos - mental illness.

4/5