The Forever War

 

  
The Forever War
by Joe Haldeman
read: 2021
Guardian 1000 Novels, Hugo Award, Nebula Award

According to the Theory of Relativity, time moves differently for bodies traveling at different speeds. The difference is miniscule for bodies moving at planet-bound scales, but at faster-than-light speeds, this time dilation has a dramatic effect. That's the case for protagonist William Mandella, who returns centuries later to a very different earth after military tours of duty at far-flung planets. Sometimes the differences are good, usually they are bad, but always they are foreign and leave him feeling like a fish out of water.

This feeling pushes Mandella (and girlfriend Marygay) to re-enlist in the military, though he harbors no illusions about the morality of the army itself or the conflict he is embroiled in. Perhaps this is the only constant in Forever War: death is big business, and those who stand to profit off the war business have little consideration for the lives risked by those forced to wage those wars.

American Gods

American Gods
by Neil Gaiman
read: circa 2008
Guardian 1000 Novels, Hugo Award, Nebula Award

My uncle lent me this book and I read it a decade back or so. I don't remember too much, other than the general setup: main character released from prison, wife died after (/during) having an affair, "old gods" in modern America.

The Man In the High Castle

   
The Man In the High Castle
by Philip K. Dick
read: 2013
Guardian 1000 Novels, Hugo Award

Fatalism is a theme that runs through quite a bit of Philip K. Dick's work. "Minority Report" and "A Little Something For Us Tempunauts" are two examples. In the former, the protagonist creates a police branch that can prevent crimes before they happen by foretelling the future, and in the latter time travelers get stuck re-living the same stretch of time over and over. Both situations imply an overarching fate that people are trapped in.

The same device is present in The Man In the High Castle, an alternate-history fiction where the Axis won World War II. Several of the characters employ the I Ching to help guide their actions and predict the success they will have in their ventures. World views are often expressed in terms of inevitability of outcomes; for example, the Germans are described as hastening humanity towards its inevitable destruction. Towards the end, the book almost breaks the fourth wall (through the introduction of a "fictional" book-within-a-book where the Allies won WWII), and the narrative hand of Dick himself adds a level of fatalism over the entire novel.

Neuromancer

Neuromancer
by William Gibson
read: 2011
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels, Nebula Award, Hugo Award, Philip K. Dick Award

A year after reading Neuromancer, I have a hard time remembering what happened in it versus what happened in Snow Crash, another book I read about the same time that also presaged a lot of the developments of the Internet.  Reading the plot summary on Wikipedia (which contains spoilers), I realize there are a hell of a lot of twists and turns that I don't really remember.

The novel brings to mind movies, too: Wikipedia references Escape from New York and Blade Runner but it also reminds me of Inception, which of course came afterwards.  The gritty, futuristic feel is reminiscent of those earlier works.  I think the plot structure of Inception with the "no one knows who anyone is really working for or what they're trying to do" paranoia owes something to Gibson.  

Stranger in a Strange Land

Stranger in a Strange Land
by Robert Heinlein
read: circa 1994
Guardian 1000 Novels, Hugo Award

I don't re-read a lot of books, but I've read Stranger in a Strange Land at least two or three times.  I wrote a paper on it for high school English class, one of the longest papers I've ever written on a novel. The subject was religion, and even at the time it seemed like an obvious choice; Valentine Michael Smith parallels Jesus Christ, and Stranger in a Strange Land is the story of him creating a new, superior church.

It's been a while, so a lot of the details of Stranger in a Strange Land are fuzzy.  I guess the adjective that comes to mind is "Heinlein-y."  Robert Heinlein has a lot of interesting characteristics as a writer, and even the negative ones are often charming.  He repeatedly suggests open relationships as superior to monogamy.  His male characters often seem like thinly-veiled representations of himself, and his women ... well, it's hard to say.  Some of my friends had a spirited Google Plus debate about whether Heinlein's writing is sexist.  On the one hand, he does sometimes create strong female characters, like the titular heroine of Friday, but they're always ... Heinlein-y.  They are strong, but within certain constraints.  It's like Heinlein has a tension between a liberal open-mindedness and a need to project a Hemingwayesque masculinity.

I'm not explaining this very well; it's hard to explain.  Just read one of Robert Heinlein's books.  You might as well start with Stranger in a Strange Land; it's his best.

Animal Farm

Animal Farm
by George Orwell
read: approximately 1997
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #31, Guardian 1000 Novels, Hugo Award (Retroactive)

Another book I read a long time ago and remember little of.  You've got to give Orwell a ton of credit for writing a history of Stalinist Russia that high school students can relate to.  Were the animals just to make the story more understandable, or was there symbolism in the allegory?  I'd have to re-read to have an opinion on it.