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Sheldrake, Rupert
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Rupert Sheldrake
Rupert Sheldrake's website: http://www.sheldrake.org
The Rebirth of Nature
The Sense of Being Stared At
The Rebirth of Nature
=====================
In The Rebirth of Nature biologist Rupert Sheldrake examines the prevailing
(western) view of nature, from its animist roots through to the mechanistic view
which has reigned supreme for the last few centuries. He argues in favour of
underlying patterns (morphic fields) which pervade all matter and are continually
shaping the growth of living things, and presents his view of the universe not
as an inanimate piece of clockwork, working to a set of preordained rules, but
something which is alive and constantly evolving.
================================================================================
While reading The Rebirth of Nature by Rupert Sheldrake, I was reminded of two
of my favourite computer games - Thief (The Dark Project) and Thief 2 (The Metal
Age). This is actually relevant, I promise. The world in which the games are
set is fought over by two rival factions or movements, the Pagans (nature-
worshipping, anti-technology) and the Hammerites plus an offshoot faction the
Mechanists (technology-worshipping, anti-nature). The Pagans live in the forests
and are at one with the soil, the Mechanists build their cathedrals out of stone
and metal, and fill them with steam-driven machinery.
Yes, all right, these are just computer games. But they also display a
microcosmic image of the polarity which has dominated western thought since the
Middle Ages. In the beginning there were the animists, at one with nature,
conceiving of the universe as a living thing, revering the forces that dominated
their world - the sun, the wind, the animals and trees. However, from the
Renaissance onward, western thought has increasingly tended to the materialistic,
reducing nature to a system of impersonal laws acting on ever-larger and more
complex bundles of atoms and other inanimate particles.
Ultimately, where animists would have seen a great spirit, mechanists have seen
a giant clock.
In this book, Rupert Sheldrake takes us through a short history of western
cosmology, in terms of this polarity, and argues that while neither side has got
it quite right, the current view of the universe as a purposeless mechanism has
done the greater damage, prompting us humans to exploit nature mercilessly and,
as a consequence, to damage our own life-support system, the environment.
He proposes a synthesis of science and traditional wisdom, a complete overhaul of
how we conceive of the universe and our place within it, and a move away from
the soulless machinery of the materialists. Specifically, he would base a new
model of the universe upon morphic fields, which underpin the universe and
provide blueprints for everything that lives and grows.
I find this idea entertaining. The notion that the universe is still evolving
and that new emergent "rules" can thus appear as if by magic, is one that
fascinates me. Morphic fields could account for many phenomena which are now
considered to be either on the fringes of respectability or completely beyond
the pale, such as ghosts, Kirlian photography and ESP. Current scientific
thought cannot fully explain the difference between living and dead matter -
again, this is where Sheldrake's theory might possibly provide an explanation.
He also mentions Jung, whose idea of the collective unconscious could be
supported by Sheldrake's theory of an "inherited collective memory" retained
within the morphic fields of the living universe. This could account for
"race memory" and cases where people report memories of past lives. It could
also account for the simultaneous emergence of a new idea in different parts
of the world (for example, Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace independently
coming up with the idea of natural selection.) We talk about an idea "whose
time has come" and maybe this is literally true.
It may also be possible that our theories about the world actually help to
shape the universe itself. Could it be that by having an idea that something
is possible, therefore creating it in our minds, we are in fact collectively
giving the universe instructions to create that very thing? By conceiving of
phenomena such as neutrinos, black holes or even anti-gravity, could we be
paving the way for these to appear as actualities? (I can't remember if the
author actually discusses this possibility in the book, or whether this is
just my own wild speculation.) Be that as it may...
I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in science, cosmology
and religion, and specifically to anyone who feels depressed when
contemplating the current materialistic paradigm. To all those who would
rather be a dynamic energy pattern than a collection of particles acted
upon like a marionette, make haste to read this book.
© Alex Cull, 28th February 2006
The Sense of Being Stared At
============================
Have you ever felt that you were being stared at? And turned round to discover
that it was true? If so, you are not alone. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake examines
this common phenomenon and explains it in terms of a telepathic ability that
both humans and animals share, to various degrees.
================================================================================
It's something I've experienced from time to time, and you probably have too.
You get a prickly feeling at the base of your neck (or some similar sensation)
and turn round quickly to find a stranger looking at you from across the room or
across the street. Why and how does this happen? Sometimes there are
psychological factors at work, perhaps subliminal cues that simply have not
registered with our conscious minds. But sometimes there are no obvious reasons
at all for this to happen.
In this book Rupert Sheldrake supplies ample anecdotal evidence from his files
that suggest there is often no way for this to occur that can be explained in
conventional terms. He also provides results from experiments that help to back
up his ideas, plus instructions for tests we can all carry out, should we want
to try this ourselves.
He explains the mysterious "being stared at" feeling in terms of a telepathic
ability that we share with animals (most notably with sophisticated creatures
such as cats, dogs, horses and parrots). Telepathy, in turn, he explains in
terms of invisible, intangible fields which, nonetheless, interact with each
other and overlap. This is the first book by Rupert Sheldrake that I've read,
and I understand that his theory of morphogenetic fields is more fully
described elsewhere. However, I still found his explanations thought-provoking,
although I'm still unclear how these fields, which are local, are nevertheless
able to act at vast distances with undiminished effect.
I think that whether or not this can be put down to interacting fields, strange
things occur from time to time that are difficult (and sometimes impossible) to
explain away using conventional causes. For instance, Rupert Sheldrake discusses
many well-documented cases where phone calls, letters and e-mails cross one
another. I suddenly think about phoning my wife - and then she phones me. I
compose an e-mail to a friend - and, just before I send it, an e-mail from him
promptly arrives in my inbox.
Letters crossing one another (as mentioned by Mark Twain, amongst others) are
another matter, not being such instantaneous, spur-of-the-moment things as phone
calls or e-mails. How does that work? No idea. But it happens.
What is clear is that if these eerie, enigmatic things do happen, and the
current orthodoxy is unable to explain them, it means that the current orthodoxy,
and the great materialistic paradigm that underpins it, is wrong. At the moment,
people like Rupert Sheldrake are lone voices which are largely ignored by the
party faithful of the scientific community. It is ironic that where telepathic
experiments have been carried out and results obtained that are greater than
those that would have been predicted by chance alone, these results have
generally been downplayed or ignored. For example, Sheldrake mentions experiments
carried out by John E Coover in 1917 which apparently did produce significant
results; nevertheless Coover's conclusion was still negative.
My take on this subject is that telepathy, precognition and other phenomena
usually filed under "psychic powers" are probably real enough. Here at the
dawn of the 21st century, we are still trapped under the dead weight of the
old paradigm but at some point during this century, when it collapses and a new
paradigm takes its place, telepathy and similar phenomena are likely to be part
and parcel of the new order. My money is on quantum physics (with all its spooky
action-at-a-distance) to be the lever which finally dislodges materialism, or
the cable which drags it off its plinth like Saddam Hussein's statue. I don't
think this will take place anytime soon, though.
Okay, back to The Sense of Being Stared At - I thought it an excellent
read, providing a good deal of food for thought. I would now like to read some
of Rupert Sheldrake's other books, e.g. Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are
Coming Home. Maybe I will also carry out an experiment or two, to see just
how telepathic I really am...
© Alex Cull, 24th May 2005
Top
Dan Simmons
Hyperion Cantos:
Hyperion
The Fall of Hyperion
Hyperion
========
In the 29th century, the human race has explored and settled hundreds of worlds,
establishing a complex civilisation, the Hegemony, which is dependent on its
sophisticated farcaster network (instantaneous travel technology.) But
all is not well - a hostile Ouster fleet is poised to invade the enigmatic
planet Hyperion. As war approaches, a group of pilgrims arrives on Hyperion,
intent on solving some very important and far-reaching mysteries.
================================================================================
I studied English Literature at college (graduating in the year 1984, half a
lifetime ago!) and wrote many an essay about the Romantic Poets. These, of
course, included John Keats - poet, invalid, lover of Fanny Brawne and originator
of a concept I'm fond of called "negative capability". I would have been
surprised to learn that twenty years later, I would be searching my memory for
all things Keatsian, to match the numerous references I was finding in a truly
epic work of science fiction.
As well as the Keats connection, Dan Simmons also taps into another tradition,
that of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and Boccachio's Decameron,
constructing Hyperion around a series of interwoven tales told by a
group of pilgrims as they journey towards the enigmatic and perplexing
structures on Hyperion known as the Time Tombs. The pilgrims are a very diverse
bunch, which adds much to the interest of the story - from the urbane Consul to
the drunken poet Martin Silenus, from the coolly efficient Colonel Kassad to the
hard-boiled private eye Brawne Lamia (her name comprises a couple of Keats
references that made me smile.) Human life is here, in all its variety.
And what tales these are! We have war, romance, suffering, intrigue and tragedy,
all set against the backdrop of the looming crisis as the Hegemony prepares to do
battle with the Ousters, and the artificial intelligences of the Technocore spin
their webs (there are resonances with the Keats poem, with its cataclysmic war
between Gods and Titans.) It's extremely well-written, spell-binding stuff.
There's also a strong horror element in the novel, with the menacing figure of the
Shrike, a spiky superhuman creature which is able to appear and vanish at will and
is fond of impaling people on a giant tree of thorns. Gary Couzens (infinityplus
reviews) has commented that the Shrike appears like something out of a Clive
Barker story, and I would agree - this is surely a monster that the Cenobites
themselves might claim as their mascot. Although I imagine it somewhat
differently to the illustration on the cover of the new paperback - taller,
thinner and somehow less human and more bird-like, reminding me of the cruel
god Tash in CS Lewis's The Last Battle.
There are the labyrinths. Hyperion is one of the labyrinthine planets, nine
worlds which contain vast, mysterious underground mazes. Who built them, and for
what purpose? There are the forests of Tesla trees, incredibly dangerous to
approach. And there is the terrible and miraculous cruciform, able to bring
a person back from death - but at what cost?
These are but a handful of the strange and wonderful elements that make Hyperion
and its sequels a joy to read. There really is a lot to appreciate here - no
shortage of fast-moving action, the detailed, vivid rendering of a future
civilisation, and plenty of atmosphere and dark undertones.
If Hyperion has a fault at all, it is that the novel does not stand alone
but requires one to go on and read The Fall of Hyperion as well. Which
is really not that much of a fault, because the sequel is just as good. Even
then, the reader is fortunate, being only halfway through the whole of the
Hyperion Cantos. Back in 1819, John Keats abandoned his epic poem Hyperion
for ever - it ends abruptly in mid-line, and remains unfinished. Fortunately,
Dan Simmons has not followed suit - there are more good things to come.
© Alex Cull, 26th September 2006
The Fall of Hyperion
====================
Centuries into futurity, the Hegemony is at war, mobilising to defend isolated
planet Hyperion from an incursion by the Ousters, a breakaway counter-
civilisation. At first, total victory seems certain, but all is not as it
appears. Is the Hegemony, aided by the mysterious TechnoCore (a vast network of
artificial minds) headed for triumph - or disaster?
================================================================================
The Fall of Hyperion is not so much a sequel to Hyperion as it is a
continuation of the previous novel. In fact, it might be easier to consider the
entire Hyperion Cantos as two large novels - both Hyperion books
combined as the first one, and the two Endymion books combined as its
sequel. This in itself ought to give you an idea of the vast scale of this work.
Most of what I've already written about the first book applies equally to the
second. However, there are differences - for instance, the focus shifts away
from the Shrike pilgrimage to events on Tau Ceti Center, the Hegemony's power
base, where a reincarnated John Keats is witnessing at first-hand the
prosecution of the war against the Ousters. In the first novel, Simmons
interwove the various threads of the pilgrim's tales to tell the story, but
does not use this brilliant device here, so this second book seems more
conventional in style.
As before, the characterisation is excellent. I was struck in particular by
Meina Gladstone, vulnerable and fallible leader of the human universe (or most
of it), who faces the difficult responsibility for committing military forces,
as have so many leaders throughout history. And as in the first book, the
pilgrims are able to evoke pity and admiration, as they struggle to complete
their journey and contend with the unpredictable, pain-inflicting visitations
of the Shrike.
There are themes in Fall which are as relevant now as they were in 1990.
Basing a decision to go to war upon false or misleading information happened
as recently as the Iraq invasion of 2003, showing that being the greatest
military power of a given era does not bring with it omnipotence or omniscience.
And although we do not yet have a universe-spanning network of fatlines and
farcasters, we are becoming increasingly dependent on our computers and our
fledgling systems of electronic networks. How vulnerable these are making us, is
open to question.
For those readers of a literary bent, the Keats references are certainly a
source of interest and amusement. Even the names - Joseph Severn, Leigh Hunt,
Brawne Lamia - are significant to anyone who knows a little about the poet's
life. The war between human and AI reflects the Titanomachia, the conflict
between Titans and Gods that was the subject of epic poetry by Martin Silenus
in the story, and also, of course, by John Keats.
Space battles, mysteries, some horror and a bit of English lit. - what more
could anyone want?
To anyone new to the Hyperion Cantos, don't start with this novel, read
Hyperion first. Better still, get both books and read them back to back.
But definitely read them.
© Alex Cull, 23rd February 2007
Top
B.F. Skinner
Walden Two
Walden Two
==========
Burrhus Frederic Skinner is well known as the originator of radical behaviourism
and one of the main proponents of operant conditioning. In his novel Walden Two,
we can explore his vision of a community planned and run according to the
principles of behavioural science, rather than any of the political, social and
psychological theories underpinning conventional societies.
================================================================================
Walden Two was one of those books I'd been aware of but never actually read,
and I probably only read it when I did because I'm a fan of TV series Lost.
As those of you who follow the series will know, the "Hatch" and other structures
on the island were set up by an organisation called the Dharma Initiative,
founded in 1970. In one of their orientation videos, someone tells us that the
founders were "following in the footsteps of visionaries such as B.F. Skinner"
and that one avenue of research was "utopian social" (the next word was missing.)
This has led to an awful lot of speculation on the internet. Could the "Hatch"
be some sort of experiment along the lines of a Skinner box? Could the "Others"
be the result of some Skinnerian utopia gone wrong? Maybe in Walden Two there
are some answers to the mystery...
The story, such as it is, involves the visit, by the narrator (a professor) plus
a colleague and some ex-students of his (and their girlfriends) to a small rural
community where everyone is motivated using scientifically applied positive
reinforcement. Their guide (and verbal sparring partner, on occasion) is Frazier,
another of the narrator's ex-students. During their stay at the commune, they are
introduced to the various systems in place, which allow the inhabitants to work,
eat, sleep, learn and live their lives for the maximum benefit to the community
and according to behavioural principles. At the beginning, the narrator is
sceptical but by the end, of course, he has become a convert.
There is quite a lot that makes sense in the Walden Two setup, purely from the
point of view of efficiency. The inhabitants have their own rooms but eat in
communal dining areas, with utensils designed to be easily handled and washed.
Houses are built with walls of rammed earth, an extremely cheap, durable and
eco-friendly material. Work is organised on a credit system, and in such a way
that everything that needs to get done gets done, and that there are incentives
in place to ensure that unpleasant tasks, such as maintaining the sewers, are
allocated fairly.
So - more order, less mess. And yet... As critics have always pointed out, what
is there to prevent Walden Two from becoming a totalitarian state in miniature,
or a cult? The community is controlled by a core group of benevolent Planners
and Managers, but there appears to be no guarantee that these leaders remain
benevolent. The Planners are not elected, and they have a finger in every pie.
How could the ordinary inhabitants ensure that their leaders had everyone's
welfare at heart - and if this was not the case, how would the inhabitants even
find out what was going on?
Some thoughts - firstly, there are few communities of a type similar to Walden
Two, in the world today. Wikipedia mentions two - Los Horcones in Mexico and the
Twin Oaks community in Virginia (which no longer associates itself with
behaviourism.) Maybe, if Skinner's idea works at all, it works best in a small
population - any bigger, and tendencies towards bureaucracy, tyranny, corruption
and separatism start to creep in and cause the community to eventually implode
or fragment. In this case, there would be little possibility of there ever
being a Walden Two nation or a Walden Two world.
Another thought - even if this scientifically and rationally planned society
were the best possible (which I, personally, doubt), the reason why we are all
not living this way is that it would be just too much hard work to dismantle the
current status quo. After all, it's often the case that we use things that are
successful but not the best possible of their kind. We type on Qwerty keyboards,
listen to MP3s and drive cars with internal combustion engines, even though
superior designs are available to us, in theory anyway.
And dismantling or sweeping away the status quo never actually guarantees that
anything better will emerge from the chaos - just think about the Russian and
Chinese Revolutions.
I think that operant conditioning has a place in society (trainers of animals
and naughty toddlers would agree, I'm sure.) I also think that small
communities run on different lines to society at large have their place too,
as long as their members have freedom over their own actions (including the
freedom to leave.)
However, I can't see Skinner's vision ever working as a viable blueprint for
the way a state or a world should be run. And (returning to Lost) even on
a small scale, perhaps one ultimate future of such an experiment might be
... the "Others".
© Alex Cull, 3rd November 2006
Top
Lauren Slater
Opening Skinner's Box
Opening Skinner's Box
=====================
Psychologist Lauren Slater describes ten of the most radical (and controversial)
psychological experiments to take place in the 20th century, and looks at the
lives of the people behind them.
================================================================================
Only after finishing this book did I realise that it caused quite a bit of fuss
when it came out last year. Opening a Can of Worms might have been a
suitable alternative title, given the response from quite a few people, notably
several of the psychologists interviewed during the book and also Deborah Skinner
(daughter of B.F.), who spent some time in her formative years in an "aircrib"
designed and built by her famous father. In Opening Skinner's Box Lauren
Slater wonders whether Deborah actually went crazy and committed suicide as a
result of her traumatic childhood (according to urban legend) or is still alive
somewhere. The "mystery" was solved as soon as the book was published - Deborah
Skinner Buzan is alive, well, living in London, not crazy and also not happy
about the way her father is presented in this book.
Anyway, I found Opening Skinner's Box very interesting, dealing as it
does with some of the most thought-provoking (or outrageous, depending on your
point of view) experiments that have been carried out by psychologists on their
unwitting fellow humans, and on other animals. I was familiar with some of them,
including the 1961 Stanley Milgram experiment (volunteers told to administer
ever more powerful - in reality, faked - electric shocks to people, to see how
far they would go) and Harry Harlow's extremely saddening experiments on monkeys.
Some others I hadn't known about, including research by Elizabeth Loftus into
the malleability and unreliability of memory - her "Lost in the Shopping Mall"
study is truly fascinating stuff.
The idea behind this book - putting some human flesh on the bare bones of
psychological research - is a very worthwhile one, and Lauren Slater's
evocative and vivid prose style (barring a few rather strangely constructed
sentences) is definitely up to the task.
However, I have some reservations. One is due to the controversy that has
dogged this book; i.e. did some of the events that the author reports
actually happen, or did she apply a little too much journalistic licence?
Also, in a chapter near the end of the book, she mars what has mostly been
an entertaining and informative look at psychology with a somewhat
perfunctory dismissal of client-centred therapy (although she doesn't name
it), the reason being that she considers that the non-judgemental approach
of client-centred psychotherapists, with its emphasis on "unconditional
regard", lacks a moral centre. This comment ties in with statements
elsewhere by the author regarding the dangers of fostering self-esteem, i.e.
the difference between doing good and just feeling good.
My response (without going too much into it right here) is that client-
centred therapy does have a moral centre, as I think most people
making a serious inquiry into it would agree (reading the books of Carl
Rogers would be a good start.)
I would also ask the author: What's wrong with feeling good, anyway? What on
earth would be the point of psychotherapy that leaves the client feeling bad?
And - just for good measure - when you stress the importance of our moral
lives, just whose morals are we talking about?
Overall, I'd say that Opening Skinner's Box is a flawed but very
entertaining and readable book. If you are interested in some of the most
extraordinary research there has been into how we tick, and in the lives of
some of the people who undertook it, then this is definitely for you.
© Alex Cull, 23rd August 2005
Top
Olaf Stabledon
Last and First Men
Last and First Men
==================
Into the mind of a twentieth-century "First Man" arrive the thoughts of a
human from Neptune, two million years in the future. These transmissions
describe the fascinating, tragic and eventful history of mankind through the
ages to come.
================================================================================
Think of epic science fiction and works such as Asimov’s Foundation series and
Herbert’s Dune saga spring to mind – sets of novels that are truly on a grand
scale, with plots that span millennia and cover vast distances across
interstellar space. Yet long before these were written, there existed novels
every bit as epic and gigantic in scope. Written by philosopher and pacifist
Olaf Stabledon way back in 1930, Last and First Men is certainly one of them.
It is not a novel in the conventional sense, as there are no real characters
save for the narrator, who is one of the 18th Men living on Neptune two million
years hence and is broadcasting his thoughts back through time into the mind of
a contemporary human. Though it could also be said that the story’s protagonists
are, in fact, the various races – the First, Second, Third (and so on) Men, who
succeed one another and enjoy their moment on the world’s stage. Last and First
Men is basically a future history of the human race, from the twentieth to the
twenty thousandth century, and a titanic tale of struggle, technical and cultural
development, heroic achievements, bitter warfare, near total extinction and the
rise and inexorable fall of mighty civilisations.
The scope of the story is absolutely breathtaking. As from an aeroplane travelling
across some vast continent, the reader mostly looks down upon the temporal
equivalent of a majestic landscape viewed from several thousand feet, with great
plains and mountain ranges visible but lacking intimate detail. At times, however,
just as the plane must descend to ground level periodically, the narrative
sometimes closes in on some pivotal moment in the life of the race – a battle, a
discovery, a scientific breakthrough – and then even the occasional individual
might briefly come into view. Afterwards, though, it is always time to soar back up
to the Olympian heights for another few aeons of world history.
There is much that I enjoyed in Last and First Men. First and foremost, the
stupendous scale of Stabledon’s project. "Man’s sojourn on Venus lasted somewhat
longer than his whole career on the Earth" is a typical Stabledon sentence, which
has all the more impact for being completely undramatic.
And there are some pretty neat ideas in there. The human form as something
plastic and malleable, ready to be shaped to suit new circumstances, such as
adapting to the hostile environment of Venus or Neptune. Winged folks thronging
the Venusian skies, seal-men swimming in alien seas, monkey-like men, giant
sessile brains encased in fortresses... I am not sure whether Last and First Men
was the first novel to address the theme (in effect, the idea of genetic
engineering, decades before its time), but I would not be surprised if this turns
out to be the case.
In addition, the Martian cloud-jellies are credible aliens – floating clusters
or swarms of living particles that are capable of forming formidable hive minds
(a forerunner of the neural network idea, perhaps.) Their long and bitter fight
for dominance over the Second Men seems all too realistic – neither side being
completely victorious – and resembles the "arms race" type of constant
evolutionary struggle (e.g., between plants and insects.)
There’s also, it has to be said, some rather strange science. In around AD 5000,
the people of the First World State rely completely on coal for their energy,
and relapse into complete barbarism once it runs out, being curiously unable to
come up with any viable new energy source. About 100,000 years later, the
Patagonian civilisation is wiped out by an atomic explosion which creates a
runaway global cataclysm (silly, maybe, but this was a genuine fear in the days
of the Manhattan Project.) And roughly 400,000 years after that, the Fifth Men
have to decamp to Venus, as the orbit of Earth’s Moon has become dangerously low
– due to the effect of thought radiation from humanity’s advanced minds.
And there is also some equally odd future history and psychology. One choice
moment that had me scratching my head in puzzlement comes early on in Last and
First Men, when representatives of the two superpowers – a decadent Chinaman and
a puritanical American – meet on a remote Pacific island to decide the future of
the world, only to both fall in love with a mysterious young female native who
emerges, as if by magic, to play an unaccountably crucial part in the proceedings.
This struck me as being decidedly wacky (although, goodness knows, equally wacky
things happen in this reality too.)
In addition, a particular theme that now comes across as very mid twentieth-century
(along with the whole idea of telepathy in SF) is that of the group or race mind –
humans adding their mental powers to the collectivity until it is capable of
becoming a sort of supercharged being, thinking truly god-like thoughts. What
might have seemed noble and exalted in 1930, however, now seems rather sinister
and repugnant – to my somewhat small and mortal mind, anyway.
Yet despite its oddities and quaint qualities, First and Last Men remains
absolutely a work of classic science fiction ("timeless" even, to use the cliché).
Indeed reading it can be compared to being fed into the Total Perspective Vortex
(in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams) an ominous machine
which is able to produce a virtual model of the entire universe and show anyone
who enters it just how incredibly tiny and insignificant they are (I wish I had
thought of the Total Perspective Vortex comparison by myself, but alas I didn’t;
I read it in this excellent review by Tal Cohen.)
But Olaf Stabledon’s masterpiece does so in quite a positive and uplifting way.
The reader is left marvelling at the sheer immensity of it all, and forgetful of
all the world’s problems, which on this scale are as trifling as the merest speck
of dust.
© Alex Cull, 3rd April 2010
Top
Bram Stoker
Dracula
Dracula
=======
Estate agent Jonathan Harker sets out to visit a very aristocratic and eccentric
client residing in a remote region of Transylvania. However, all is not what it
seems, and even before his nerve-wracking coach ride through the Borgo Pass and
his arrival at the doors of the forbidding Castle Dracula, Harker is beginning
to sense that he is in terrible danger.
================================================================================
There were vampire stories before Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, but this one is
definitely the granddaddy of most of those written over the last century or
so (in the Western world, at least.) I don't have the numbers here, but the
volume of books and movies either dealing directly with the Dracula story (or
variations thereof) or heavily influenced by it is very high indeed. Along with
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, this book is one of the pillars of modern horror.
Hence the cliches. The coach ride to the castle, the wolves ("Children of the
night!"), the coffins filled with earth, the ghost ship, the fly-eating lunatic,
all these images and themes seem so hackneyed that it is difficult sometimes to
remember that once they were fresh and new. But they were once new, and
you can still find them as they were originally depicted, in the pages of this
very original and imaginative novel.
I've read the story a number of times, and one thing always strikes me - Bram
Stoker's use of the epistolary style works so very well. I still remember my
feeling of disappointment as a teenager when I realised that the famous Dracula
was just a collection of letters and journal entries. How dull. Little did I
know that despite the evident limitations of this style, the author would spin
a compulsively readable tale out of these fragments.
How does this work? Basically it does so because we, the readers, know (or have
guessed) things that the characters do not. When Mina's diary refers to strange
happenings in the Whitby churchyard or bats fluttering at Lucy's bedroom window,
we want to interrupt her innocent ramblings and tell her to beware. Keep the
windows closed! But we cannot warn her, and thus the tension mounts. This, for
me, is what suspense is all about.
The epistolary style does have its limitations, of course, the main ones being
that it requires an articulate narrator to be present all the time, and that
nothing that happens off-camera can be described directly by the author. In
that respect it is no different to the standard first-person style of narration.
It also requires at least one or two of the characters to be compulsive letter-
writers and diary-scribblers. Dr Seward and Mina fit the bill in Dracula -
at one point Mina actually spends hours on a typewriter meticulously
transcribing Dr Seward's journal (recorded on his phonograph), which strikes me
somehow as obsessive in a very Victorian way.
But these are minor criticisms. To those still hesitating to pick up a horror
novel that was first published in 1897, I say read it and be very pleasantly
surprised by a story that still has the power to grip, absorb and occasionally
shock the modern reader. You will understand then why this novel has gained
its undying status as a true horror classic.
With this review completed, my writing is almost done for the day. As I look
up, my fingers still busily typing away, I notice a commotion at the window of
my study - a large bat is hovering outside, attempting to come in. What a
singular occurrence. Now the bat has disappeared, but a strange mist or fog has
started to gather in the room. And within this mist I can suddenly see two
glowing red points that almost resemble eyes. How very -
© Alex Cull, 20th September 2004
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Anthony Storr
Jung
Solitude: A Return to the Self
Jung
====
Jung is an introduction to the life and work of Carl Jung, written by the
late Anthony Storr, psychiatrist, consultant and writer.
================================================================================
Dr Anthony Storr, who died in 2001, trained as a Jungian analyst but never
limited himself to a single approach, and this even-handedness shows in his
introductory book about Jung, which was first published in 1973. He provides an
extremely lucid guide, coming across as supportive to Jung's ideas but never
blind to the man's defects as a communicator. The picture emerges of a highly
original thinker who provided quite a few insights into the mind and
spirituality of man, but whose written style is obscure and often rather
impenetrable.
Storr covers the main themes in Jung's thought - the collective unconscious, the
archetypes, Jung's concept of the Self and the four psychological types
(Extroverted/Introverted and Feeling/Thinking). He presents each theme concisely
and with an eye to its context in terms of Jung's life and personality, rather
than as an isolated topic. Storr's writing is sharp and insightful; a good
example of this is his evaluation of Jung's grid of four psychological types. He
shows that Jung's axis of Feeling/Thinking actually makes little sense (for
instance, mathematics and music involve both feeling - an appreciation of beauty -
and thought.) Interestingly, the diagram of Jung's four types resembles a mandala,
which would indicate that Jung was more influenced by unconscious forces that he
realised.
I've learned that many of Jung's ideas had their origins in his work with
schizophrenic patients at the Burgholzli Institute in Bern, and reading Storr's
book, it becomes clear that Jung viewed the experiences of schizophrenics,
however bizarre they might appear, as valuable and relevant to the rest of us.
Jung's attitude to mental illness thus appears very modern, in that he presents
it as an extreme position in a continuum, rather than as a discrete state; I
consider this to be a good example of where Jung's thought is still very
relevant but not perhaps as well-publicised as it could be.
Being interested in dreams, psychic phenomena and the occult (and tending
towards introversion), I have always found myself drawn to Jung's ideas.
Although Storr has his (to my mind, valid) criticisms of Jung, reading this book
has, in addition, now actually made me feel warmer towards Jung as a person,
with all the quirks and failings that humans are prey to. If you are a complete
beginner, I enthusiastically recommend Jung by Anthony Storr as a balanced,
readable and well-written introduction to the man and his ideas.
© Alex Cull, 28th July 2006
Solitude: A Return to the Self
==============================
Psychiatrist Anthony Storr argues that the capacity to be alone is just as
important as the ability to form meaningful relationships, and that solitude may
well be one of the keys to a creative and productive life.
================================================================================
In this thoughtful and fascinating book, psychiatrist Anthony Storr looks at
solitude (of both the enforced and voluntary kinds) and argues that the state of
being alone (as opposed to being plugged into a network of relationships) has
been generally neglected and overlooked by psychologists as a valid source of
experience.
The benefits and value of relationships has long been recognised by
psychologists; influential works like John Bowlby's Attachment and Loss have
helped to emphasise the importance of being connected to other human beings. In
fact, there are entire schools of psychology - for instance, object relations
theory - which are all about interpersonal relations. And yet...
Are we completely defined and validated by our relationships? Some psychologists
would have it so. However, there have been many people who have been happy and
creative in the absence of a significant other. Storr mentions eminent 18th-
century writer Edward Gibbon, who appears to have lived a productive and fairly
pleasant life, despite never having married. Solitude was important to Gibbon,
although he did have friends. Other writers, including HH Munro (Saki), Beatrix
Potter, PG Wodehouse and Rudyard Kipling, displayed immense talent and
creativity during their writing careers, despite (or perhaps because of) early
trauma or isolation and a lack of close relationships.
And there are those who have sought out isolated places for the purpose of
self-discovery. One of these was Admiral Richard Byrd, who spent an Antarctic
winter alone in a lonely weather station, and, despite gruelling physical
hardships, found the experience a rewarding one. Storr concludes that "The
capacity to be alone is a valuable resource when changes of mental attitude are
required", and I think there are many people - explorers, writers, mystics,
composers and artists - who would agree with him.
In the world of psychology, Jung stands out as someone who valued solitary
experience and encouraged his middle-aged patients to set aside at least an
hour every day for exercising the "active imagination", i.e. cultivating a
state of reverie, where ideas and phantasies are allowed free play. In this
way, a person can rediscover hidden parts of himself or herself, as well as
receive potential insights and breakthroughs. I find this concept fascinating;
it has similarities both to actual dreaming and to a technique I have been
trying called "image streaming." Active imagination ties in with the process
of self-development that Jung called "individuation" and is something that
can only be done in the absence of others.
I fully agree with Anthony Storr's conclusions in this book, i.e. that
solitude can be highly valuable, and would side with psychologists such as
Jung and Maslow who, despite the object-theorists' claims, place just as much
significance (or more) on the experiences we have when by ourselves as on
those we have as part of a social or family network. I would describe myself
as being fairly introverted, personally enjoying and cherishing my alone-time,
and the freedom and autonomy that comes with it. Being alone helps me to
re-affirm that I am not just a component in some giant social organism, I
may have my marriage and friendships but I am also a complete individual unto
myself.
© Alex Cull, 16th March 2006
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Whitley Strieber
The Last Vampire
Lilith's Dream
The Last Vampire
================
Miriam Blaylock, the beautiful, deadly vampiric heroine of Whitley Strieber's
The Hunger, returns in a more up-to-date sequel. She travels to Asia, looking
for a potential husband among her kind, but swiftly and unexpectedly finds
herself in big trouble.
================================================================================
I read Strieber's The Hunger in Tokyo, in the summer heat of 1987, and it was
strange to read the sequel almost 17 years later here in rainy old London. I
loved The Hunger, along with The Wolfen which is my absolute favourite book by
Strieber. The Last Vampire cannot match it, in my opinion, but still throws out
a few sparks of brilliance along the way.
The premise is an excellent one - human beings exist because they have been bred
like cattle by a humanoid (and possibly extra-terrestrial) race known as the
Keepers, over the ages. This is the source of the stories of vampires and ghouls
that have always haunted humanity, and Strieber has thus tapped into a common
(but nonetheless resonant and powerful) theme - there are things among us.
They look and talk and walk like us, but they are not human, they are
monsters.
One important question is how these unhuman creatures would adapt to our
increasingly crowded and computerised world, and Strieber's answer is: not too
well. Most of the Keepers now huddle in their secret lairs, unaware that their
food animals are about to purge them from the planet. Miriam Blaylock of course
is an exception - cool, smart and ultra-chic, she travels by plane and limousine,
and operates an exclusive New York nightclub. As the human hunters close in, the
scene is set for a showdown.
On the plus side, Whitley Strieber's prose is as sharp and readable as ever. He
manages to make Miriam both repugnant and highly attractive at the same time, a
fine achievement of characterisation.
A few things let The Last Vampire down, however. I did not warm to the character
of washed-out, bar-brawling Paul Ward, and there's an inter-species romance which
I thought a really bad idea. Also, unlike their European counterparts, the
American vampire-hunters are strangely (and dangerously) overconfident - why?
Other reviewers have picked up on discrepancies between The Hunger and The Last
Vampire, breaks in continuity that I cannot really comment on, given the fact
that I read The Hunger well over a decade ago ...
The Last Vampire will not knock The Wolfen off its perch as best ever
Whitley Strieber novel, in my opinion. But it's still a good read, and provides
some outstanding scenes and descriptions that are difficult to forget.
© Alex Cull, 2nd April 2004
Lilith's Dream
==============
Deep in the heart of the Egyptian desert, something stirs - it is Lilith, the
mother of all vampires and the creator of humanity. She awakens to a world that
has changed almost beyond recognition, and where her kind are now being hunted
to extinction. However, she is hungry and has no option but to go forth and
feed ...
================================================================================
Lilith's Dream is a direct sequel to The Last Vampire and continues the stories
of Leo Patterson, beautiful young protégée of super-vampire Miriam Blaylock, and
Ian, hybrid son of Miriam and vampire hunter Paul Ward. The novel also introduces
us to the eponymous Lilith, the mother of all vampires (and all humans too,
incidentally) who is awakening after centuries of inactivity.
I found this book more or less on a par with The Last Vampire qualitywise,
except that I found the absence of Miriam made the story somewhat less interesting.
There are some fine blackly comic early scenes where Lilith struggles to make sense
of the modern world (at first she is certain that the Romans are still in power)
and comes to grips with cars, money and guns. There are also some entertaining
B-movie-like moments reminiscent of all those old films where ancient mummies or
vampires come back to life and go on the rampage.
What Strieber does well is contrast Lilith's innocence with the appalling
consequences of her actions. She is truly a creature out of time, as we would be
if we were frozen and then revived in a future age where pigs, sheep and cows (as
opposed to apes, for instance) ruled the world. Luckily we can also eat vegetables
and are not physically able to grab a sheep and drain its blood in seconds, so
the harm we could do would be limited. Not so, in the case of Lilith.
On the downside is the fact that, as in The Last Vampire the editing occasionally
leaves something to be desired. In the worst example, one character drops her gun,
only to mysteriously re-acquire and lose it again a couple of pages later. Other
readers have also noticed this basic error, which is the kind of thing that
editors are paid to look for and weed out. Maybe the writer should have given
his own work an extra read-through, too.
As in the previous books, I was fascinated by the world of the Keepers, or
rather tantalised by the glimpses that Strieber gives us, for we never actually
find out very much. The secret maze-like Keeper tunnels that run beneath the
older cities, the hidden lairs and treasure-troves, all this is wonderful - I just
cannot get enough of it, really. For me the idea of a secretive and powerful race
of beings existing alongside humans is just so very sexy.
Should Whitley Strieber ever write a third sequel, here is my wish list. Give
us more about the Keepers. Where are they from, originally? How did they evolve?
Also, finally knock some sense into two-fisted dysfunctional dad Paul.
And bring back Miriam. Please.
© Alex Cull, 22nd October 2004
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Daniel Suarez
Daemon
Daemon
======
Everybody wants to rule the world, as the song goes; twisted computer genius
Matthew Sobol is no exception. And someone as determinedly evil as Sobol doesn't
let a little thing like being dead get in his way.
================================================================================
It’s been done before, but never quite like this. Computers that kill, robots
running amok, assemblages of inorganic matter that attain a creepy sentience and
a will to power – yes, these have been tropes of science fiction for a long time.
HAL 9000 from Arthur C Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Colossus from 1969
movie The Forbin Project come immediately to mind, and the roots of this idea go
back, I suppose, via Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to the old tales of gods and
titans – artificial creatures turning the tables, like rebellious children, on
their creators. Daniel Suarez’s Daemon is firmly in this tradition, but manages
to give the venerable genre an unexpected and welcome twist.
Which is that instead of a malign intelligence arising solely in some hulking
central cyber-brain, the evil one is everywhere and nowhere, spread out across
millions of computers over the internet – a "distributed daemon" (they do exist.)
Operating much like a virus or a weed, the Daemon proves to be a formidable
adversary and as difficult to contain as a flu pandemic – at least with HAL you
could be sure of disabling him in one go, by pulling all of his modules out of
their sockets.
There is much to enjoy in this novel. At times, Suarez writes like Michael
Crichton at his best, gleefully displaying his prowess with cutting-edge technology
like a demon barber with a shiny new razor and putting to good use some very nice
ideas indeed, some new and some familiar – buildings and vehicles that take on a
malevolent life of their own, frangible ammunition, MMORPGs and my favourite, the
HSS or HyperSonic Sound system (a real device, in fact, the brainchild of American
inventor Elwood "Woody" Norris), which can create voices that seem to come out of
thin air.
But what impressed me most is how the Daemon operates. Distributed across thousands
of servers across the world’s continents, it is everywhere and nowhere, possessing
no central "brain", and displaying a relentless and manipulative intelligence,
despite the simplicity of its individual parts. It is a machine entity created by
a human (the late Matthew Sobol, millionaire programmer, gamer and evil genius),
which in turn uses other humans like computer subroutines, sending them out to
toil and fight for the Daemon like hordes of soldier ants. Truly amazing stuff.
Alas, what lets the author down, however, is his powers as a novelist. Say what you
like about Michael Crichton’s characterisation, he could put together a rattling
good story and give it a proper beginning, middle and end. Not so Daniel Suarez –
or rather not yet, this being his debut novel. His beginning is terrific, but his
middle drags and his ending... doesn’t. His pace is off, with characters and
storylines appearing, then disappearing for chapters on end, then briefly
reappearing, then vanishing forever. One character is the centre of attention
during a big chunk of the story early on, but then is apparently mislaid and
forgotten about until he pops up again just in time for the climax.
And talking of the climax – with some movies, you get to the point where there is
no more real story, plot development or surprises to emerge, just one long final
chase or fight scene. This happens in Daemon too, and it really does come across
as a bit of a low-on-brainpower, Hollywood-inspired actionfest. Don’t get me
wrong, I love fights and chases (in novels, mind you, not in real life) and
relish the idea of killer machete-wielding robotic motorcycles as much as anyone;
however, after all that Daemon had already delivered, I did want some more story,
preferably with a proper ending at the end of it.
But, you know, I probably am going to acquire and devour the recently-published
sequel. I have a strong feeling that Daniel Suarez, for all his rough edges, is
absolutely one author who will bear watching.
© Alex Cull, 17th January, 2010
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Koji Suzuki
Ring
Ring
====
A string of deaths have been linked with a bizarre videotape found in a Japanese
holiday resort. Reporter Kazuyuki Asakawa investigates, but, when the unsettling
background to the tape is gradually revealed, discovers that his own life is in
danger. The clock is ticking...
================================================================================
The 1998 Japanese film Ring, based on Suzuki's novel of the same name, is one
of the creepiest horror films I've ever seen. Relying on low-key but excellent
cinematic techniques and suspense rather than splattery visuals, it made for a
genuinely disturbing experience.
If you have already seen the film (or the 2002 American remake) you will know
that the story starts with a bunch of teenage kids unaccountably dying a week
after watching a scary video. You will also know that behind the deaths, the
curse and the videotape, there is the eerie, diminutive, long-haired figure of
Sadako, vengeful girl-ghost.
The book and the film coincide in the broad outline of the story, but there are
plenty of differences. One important divergence is where the character of
Asakawa is a woman in the film but a man in the book, which thus creates a
whole different dynamic - in the film there are vestiges of romantic feelings
between Asakawa Reiko (female) and her ex-husband Takayama Ryuji, but in the
novel, Asakawa Kazuyuki (male) and Takayama are old friends (in this paragraph,
I have followed the Japanese custom of putting family name first and personal
name second.) There is a curious tension between the two - Asakawa relies a lot
on his friend's brilliant deductive powers but at the same time feels envy and
even disdain towards him.
In fact, in the book both characters are ambiguous and not particularly
likeable - Asakawa is opportunistic and Takayama is a self-confessed rapist. One
of the strengths of the novel is that it remains compulsively readable despite
this.
Much of Ring comes across like a detective story, the main characters
uncovering clue after clue in their search for a solution to the curse and the
underlying cause of all that is going on. The horror element is downplayed, but
is definitely there, subtle and unsettling. What Suzuki does especially well is
depict ambiguity, the in-between-ness of people, things and places; for
instance, the malevolence that strikes down those who watch the videotape behaves
like a curse and also behaves like a virus. Is it the one, is it the other, is
it both? Asakawa and Takayama are not wholly "good" characters, neither is
Sadako wholly "evil". The holiday resort at Pacific Heights is the epitome of
blandness, neither particularly trendy nor run-down; it's just the kind of
indeterminate, in-between place which is a feature of Suzuki's fiction, and
which appears a lot in his short stories (collected under the title Dark Water).
Perhaps the best example of ambiguity in the novel is Sadako. Whereas Sadako in
the movie is a monstrous girl-ghost, Sadako in the book is (or was) a beautiful
hermaphrodite or intersex entity. Is she alive or dead? Is she female or male,
or neither, or both? Is she really human or is she other? This last question
actually becomes crucial in Spiral, the next book in this series. In the
context of Japan's close-knit and homogenous culture, Asakawa and Takayama are
outside the norm, but compared to them Sadako is just about the ultimate
outsider.
While reading Ring I recalled to mind Prince Shotoku, an important figure
from early Japanese history who was male but had feminine characteristics and
also was reported to have strong psychic powers. In addition, there are several
Eastern deities (such as Ardhanariswara - half Shiva, half Parvati) who combine
androgyny with divine attributes. In a way, I think the author may have
(consciously or unconsciously) touched upon some powerful spiritual traditions
in the creation of his demoness.
For all those who have enjoyed the film, I recommend Suzuki's Ring as a
different experience. Although the novel does not exactly have the same shock
value as the film, it is just as creepy in its understated and analytical way.
© Alex Cull, 6th October, 2006
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Henrik Svensmark
The Chilling Stars (with Nigel Calder)
The Chilling Stars
==================
According to current scientific orthodoxy, the main cause of global warming is
the large amount of man-made carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere. Henrik
Svensmark is a scientist who has put forward an alternative hypothesis,
however. He proposes that global warming - and global cooling, for that matter -
is controlled, not by levels of CO2, but by the way cosmic rays and clouds
interact.
================================================================================
That man-made carbon dioxide is causing the Earth to overheat, and there is an
urgent need to reduce levels of this trace gas in the atmosphere, is something
that national governments all over the world, NGOs, the UN, environmental groups
and corporations have been impressing on each and every one of us, over the last
two decades.
But what if carbon dioxide was largely irrelevant when it came to determining
global temperatures? And what if there was some other factor that controlled the
planetary thermostat? This is what the authors of The Chilling Stars
are attempting to demonstrate in this extremely readable and controversial book.
Henrik Svensmark is a physicist at the Danish National Space Center, and Nigel
Calder is an experienced science writer, and former editor of New Scientist
magazine. The hypothesis they present is a direct challenge to the supremacy of
Anthropogenic Global Warming.
I will not be able to do justice to the theory in this short review, but here it
is, in a nutshell. Our Galaxy is teeming with stars, many of which end their days
in colossal stellar explosions. These detonations create vast amounts of cosmic
radiation - floods of charged particles (mostly protons.) When these rays
encounter the Earth's atmosphere, they tend (according to this theory) to seed
clouds, especially low-level clouds below the 3000-metre mark.
The more cosmic rays there are, the cloudier the Earth gets, and thus the cooler
it becomes. However, if something (for example, the Sun's magnetic field) acts
to shield the Earth from cosmic rays, the fewer low-level clouds there are and
the warmer Earth becomes.
Over the billions of years since the planet was formed, it has veered from one
extreme to the other. At times it has been in a torrid "hothouse" state, with no
ice at the poles and with sea levels much higher than they are now. At other
times, however, the planet has been in an "icehouse" condition - or even a
"Snowball Earth" state, with ice sheets reaching down as far as the Equator. We
are currently in an icehouse phase, incidentally.
There have been numerous cooling events, as revealed by "ice-rafting", where ice
sheets have transported northern grit south for great distances and deposited it
on the Atlantic sea-bed. The authors link these episodes to times when the
cosmic-ray flux was higher, as shown by varying traces of radioactive
beryllium-10 in ice cores extracted in Greenland and Antarctica.
Also mentioned is the work of Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv, who has
correlated variations in the cosmic-ray flux to the solar system's orbit around
the centre of the Galaxy and its passage through the Galaxy's four great spiral
arms. In these crowded stellar neighbourhoods (such as the Orion Arm, which is
where we currently are) there are more cosmic rays and thus the Earth tends to
become cooler.
There is much to fascinate in this book. As well as physics and astronomy, it
invokes Medieval and Roman history, describing times when high Alpine passes,
such as the Schnidejoch, were accessible in the warmer conditions, as well as a
later period called the Little Ice Age, when reduced solar activity (as revealed
by lower numbers of observed sunspots) led to a cooling. The book also touches on
paleontology, discussing the possibility that birds and feathered dinosaurs
evolved as a response to a cooling event in the Early Cretaceous Era.
(My favourite image from The Chilling Stars is that of our solar system leaping
exuberantly in and out of the galactic plane, like a playful dolphin, as it
completes journeys lasting hundreds of millions of years around the Galaxy's
core.)
Is Svensmark's hypothesis a convincing alternative to Anthropogenic Global
Warming? The SKY cloud-chamber experiment at the Danish National Space Center in
2005 went some way to demonstrate a link between cosmic rays and cloud formation.
Its successor will be the CLOUD experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, which
I understand is scheduled for 2010. Perhaps success at CERN will turn the tide in
Svensmark's favour?
The jury is still out, I think, although for several reasons, I tend to rate
Svensmark's hypothesis over AGW. The main reason I do so is that it is able to
explain the connection between sunspot activity (or lack thereof) and cold
episodes in history, such as the Maunder Minimum. Also, I find AGW not generally
all that convincing in the face of the mid 20th-century cool period, when
atmospheric CO2 was shooting up but temperatures dipped (as has also happened
in recent years.)
However, whether or not Svensmark and Calder are vindicated in 2010, they have
produced a very fine and thought-provoking book of popular science, which has
stirred up controversy and ruffled a few feathers, and at the same time has
inspired a sense of wonder in open-minded readers all over the world.
© Alex Cull, 28th December, 2008
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