I am having a ball. Reading fiction again. Short stories nonetheless. Science Fiction. All because of Neal Stephenson.
It was mostly detective novels in junior high, but when I got to high school, Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Heinlein got me hooked on science fiction. I wanted to be a chemist and felt science was the best thing man had created. We had just walked on the moon, and I was ready to follow. I told my 6th-grade teacher I would be on the moon before the new millennium. I only got to Japan, but that is pretty close.
Asimov, the Foundation Trilogy. The Dune Trilogy by Frank Herbert, with the extra couple tacked on. Cycle back to the new Vonnegut, less science, more fiction. I credit him as much as my church for the decision to be a Conscientious Objector, refusing to go to Vietnam.
Mid-career took me away to Tom Clancy and Stephen King, still fiction, but light. Oh so light. I was busy raising a family. Then on to non-fiction. I have drifted into almost exclusive non-fiction until about a year ago. Not sure what happened. Maybe I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Retirement. I can see all the non-fiction was good, but not so sure it helped a lot. I know a lot of things.
So some Thomas Pynchon last year, and I did a course in poetry. I am starting to “get” poetry. Just have to keep at it.
Don’t get me wrong, but there has been one big exception, the James Joyce of our day, Neal Stephenson. Cryptonomicon is my favorite. The Baroque Cycle the most rewarding. I read everything he writes, down to branching fiction about sword-fighting on a website (Mongoliad). Last year, Seveneves came out and it was more science than in a long time. Some great new concepts about the world too.
Best of all, he has been involved in the Project Heiroglyph, based at Arizona State University. The goal of the project is to bring back science fiction from its current state of common dystopia to something that works closer with scientists, to stimulate and be stimulated, to advance the human race. The first book came out over the summer, and I bought it, but only started reading yesterday. Can’t put it down, except to write this. Good thing my classes are all prepared.
The first story is by Stephenson, about building a skyscraper…..actually a skypuncturer. Twenty kilometers high, this building goes right up into space. A crazy billionaire starts the project and has his ashes taken up to the top to get sprinkled, just as an unforeseen event occurs. Typical Stephenson, but with a tack that feels good.
The second story is by Kathleen Ann Goonan and it blows me away. Illiteracy is a disease. It gets cured. The guinea pigs are the dyslexics, and a little girl is the hero. Eventually, the treatment to improve brain function no longer needs drugs, but just mental stimulation from one to another. When everyone can read, it changes how people interact. Fear falls away. Education goes away, learning triumphs. I don’t want to spoil it, but I just bought her other books, and both volumes of Arc Magazine. See you in April.