"Eyes of Fire" by Michael Bishop (1980)

"Gaidu's eyes bejewel the darkness of my dream, but still she keeps her peace, letting Mwezahbe accuse and chastise."

Michael Bishop, an American author of science fiction, passed away last year.  He won the Nebula Award twice, and was also nominated for several Locus and Hugo awards.  Eyes of Fire was one of his "anthropological science fiction" novels, of which he wrote many between the late 70s and early 80s.  He was never that famous within his chosen genre, but he is and was regarded as extremely influential.

In Eyes of Fire a human clone living on an alien world is sent as an envoy to a mysterious civilization several light years distant.  Throughout the course of his mission several cultures come into conflict, and in the midst of their squabbles he comes to question both the nature of his employment and his own identity.

It's a floridly written novel that brought Frank Herbert's Dune series to mind, though comparisons between Herbert's books and Eyes of Fire are not always to Eyes of Fire's disadvantage.  Frank Herbert was probably a better editor of his own work, more able to cut a story down to its essential elements, while Michael Bishop shows more facility with his characters.  Herbert was better able to "cut to the chase," while Bishop was better with personalities.

Overall I think Eyes of Fire is a good early effort by an author who probably wrote better books later in his career.  It's burdened with a lot of backstory -- the kind of backstory that Frank Herbert would have reduced to "aphorisms" in his more effective novels -- but I can't fault it in terms of plot, pacing and characterization.  Readers less devoted to science fiction will probably find its opening chapters somewhat obtuse and turgid, but if you can get through these early chapters the larger narrative and its attendant "twist" are both rewarding.

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"X-men: Battle of the Atom" by Brian Michael Bendis et al. (2013)

Sexiest (female) comic book character: Magick or Psylocke?  I'd have difficulty answering this question.  I was exposed to Magick at a much younger age, but Psylocke's "Eastern ninja thing" was more in line with both the kind of movies I was watching in the 80s and the kind of women I was fantasizing over.

But I've digressed before I've even started.  I was going to discuss Brian Michael Bendis' Battle of the Atom, wasn't I?  I should probably do that instead of sidestepping into the historically hot women of comic books. 

First, a bit of background.  Battle of the Atom is one of those "interim" X-men comics that follow the years in which "the X-men were important at Marvel" and Jonathan Hickman's House of X and Powers of X, which are regarded as a return to form.  This isn't to say that Bendis' work on the characters is bad or irrelevant, just that these "interim years" were disappointing for many fans, and that there was an impression that the mutants were being sidelined in favor of other, non-mutant characters that Marvel Studios had the rights to.

There was also a feeling that the X-men "couldn't catch a break," and yes, reading Battle of the Atom one gets a sense of this.  Just thinking of the deaths and upheavals that came before this series, yeah, it was a rough time to be a mutant.

In Battle of the Atom the X-men have split into two factions after the death of Charles Xavier.  One faction is led by Wolverine, the other by Cyclops.  At some point in the recent past these two factions were joined by the original X-men, who were transported to the future by Beast.  To these original X-men are then added a group of future X-men, who want the original X-men to return to their own time period so that everyone involved can avoid a catastrophic future.  Oh, and there's yet another group of X-men that show up, also from the future, to oppose the first group of future X-men, who may or may not be the good guys.  Confused yet?  I was.

But the problem with this comic book series isn't really the confusion it creates, but rather the ending, which just seems to represent a form of writer's block on the author's part.  After wading through so many iterations of the X-men, some of whose interactions are fun, one expects a grand finale, but this grand finale never arrives.  Instead the villain overexerts him/herself, and we're left with a series of epilogues that don't really add anything to the saga.

It's a comic book half full of good art and half full of mediocre art.  The story just barely holds together.  You could read it I suppose, but there are better comic books out there.

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"What Money Can't Buy" by Michael Sandel (2012)

I don't have much to say about this book.  It's short, the author makes good arguments, and he writes in a very fluid manner about what would be, in another's hands, a very thorny issue.

Here are the two main points he presents in What Money Can't Buy:

"It's worth taking a moment to clarify these two arguments for the moral limits of markets.  The fairness objection points to the injustice that can arise when people buy and sell things under conditions of inequality or dire economic necessity.  According to this objection, market exchanges are not always as voluntary as market enthusiasts suggest.  A peasant may agree to sell his kidney or cornea to feed his starving family, but his agreement may not really be voluntary.  He may be unfairly coerced, in effect, by the necessities of his situation.

"The corruption objection is different.  It points to the degrading effect of market valuation and exchange on certain goods and practices.  According to this objection, certain moral or civic goods are diminished or corrupted if bought and sold.  The argument from corruption cannot be met by establishing fair bargaining conditions.  It applies under conditions of equality and inequality alike."

The rest of this book is basically and amplification and exploration of these two points.  A related point being that markets are never morally neutral, and that commodification always implies certain beliefs and attitudes about the commodity in question.  This, I think, is a very timely observation, and one that I hope we, as citizens of the world, can take a closer look at.

I didn't find this book as interesting or as eye-opening as the author's other book, Justice.  Nevertheless it's still very good and raises many pertinent questions.  If you've read Justice, What Money Can't Buy would be an excellent choice for further reading.

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"Make Way for the Super Humans" by Michael Bess (2015)

"When you acquire a godlike power (and you are not a god), an excellent virtue to cultivate is that of humility."

Michael Bess is a Professor of History at Vanderbilt University.  He has written four other books, but only one of them, Our Grandchildren Redesigned, explores topics similar to those presented in this book.

Like The God Species before it, and like Homo Deus after it, this book tackles the subject of how humans will adapt to changing technologies, and also how these technologies will work for good or for ill in the subsequent evolution of the human species.

Yet where The God Species was ecological, Make Way for the Super Humans is anthropocentric.  Where Homo Deus was historic/philosophical, Make Way for the Super Humans is practical, and far more focused on concrete examples.

Make Way for the Super Humans is also less depressing than either of the other two books, for obvious reasons.  I have the feeling that the author of The God Species would complain that Make Way for the Super Humans ignores Man's place in nature, and the obvious ecological catastrophes which could circumvent our development into near-gods.  I also have the feeling that the author of Homo Deus would complain that Make Way for the Super Humans is entirely too optimistic, and that the author's Humanist views fly in the face of how current technology is already diminishing (what we perceive of as) our individuality.

Both authors would have a point, but I have to say I like Michael Bess's optimism - even if it might not be the most realistic point of view.  Sure, it's cool to think about a future in which we can read each other's minds, engineer ourselves into Olympian levels of athletic performance, and live in peaceful coexistence with the Internet-of-All-Things.  And at the end of the day who knows how it's all going to turn out?  Maybe all three authors are wrong.  Lord knows that the topic of futurism is littered with books whose predictions ring false now.

If I have a complaint about this book, it's the "vignettes" (short stories) that head some of the later chapters.  I think such vignettes weakened the author's points, and in presenting them he sometimes comes across as a frustrated science fiction author.  I get that he was trying to liven up the subject, but any number of sci-fi anthologies are full of much better, much more insightful stories.  

Oh, and that jibe that most science fiction authors haven't anticipated the epigenetic developments he speaks of?  Plenty have.  Frank Herbert, William Gibson, and John Varley among them.  There's a long history of such fiction, and saying that there isn't only indicates that the author has some reading to do.  Even his list of "relevant" science fiction films leaves a lot out.

Props for including Moon in that list though.  That's one underrated movie.

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"Justice" by Michael J. Sandel (2010)

"What exactly is at stake in this debate between the narrative account of moral agency and the one that emphasizes will and consent?  One issue at stake is how you conceive human freedom.  As you ponder the examples that purport to illustrate obligations of solidarity and membership, you might find yourself resisting them.  If you are like many of my students, you might dislike or mistrust the idea that we're bound by moral ties we haven't chosen.  This dislike might lead you to reject the claims of patriotism, solidarity, collective responsibility, and so on; or to recast these claims as arising from some form of consent.  It's tempting to reject or recast these claims because doing so renders them consistent with a familiar idea of freedom.  This is the idea that says we are unbound by any moral ties we haven't chosen; to be free is to be the author of the only obligations that constrain us."

Michael J. Sandel is a Professor of Government at Harvard University.  Justice is (by far) his best-known book, though he has written elsewhere on other topics.

After a short introduction, he centers his discussion of justice around the utilitarian philosophers, namely Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.  Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, claimed that social justice consists of allowing the largest number of people to live/think/believe in the manner that makes them happiest.  Bentham's successor, John Stuart Mill, offered a softer approach to this doctrine, which included certain moral distinctions (or, some might say, equivocations) that Bentham hadn't anticipated.  The author's criticisms of utilitarian thought are sound, though I continue to suspect that utilitarianism might actually be the philosophy best suited to modern government.

After the utilitarians, the author discusses Kant's moral philosophy.  He offers an excellent summary of Kant's thinking, and I'm happy to say that yes, I finally understand the Categorical Imperative.  I've made attempts at Kant before, and I can assert that boiling his philosophy down to its essentials is no easy business.

And despite the beauty of the author's execution, I have to say that I remain a bit skeptical of Kant's philosophy.  This idea of a "rational actor" deep inside of us, working towards the greater good, seems (to me at least) at odds with much of human behavior.  I'm also unsure of how people, communities, and governments would go about realizing Kant's lofty ideals.  His ideas on sex fly in the face of modern morality, and his ideas on many other topics lead (seemingly) into blind alleys.

John Rawls is the subject of the next chapter.  I wasn't familiar with Rawls before reading this book, and if nothing else the discussion of his ideas has piqued my curiosity.  I'm not sure that I can picture any individual existing (much less coming to a decision) outside of his "veil of ignorance," but Rawls does have a lot to say about social justice.

Aristotle is the last major philosopher discussed, and I think putting him at the end was a nice touch.  His teleological (purpose-driven) thinking is described in the context of government and social harmony, and although this type of thinking leads one into absurdities, I found the author's presentation of it very refreshing.

If I have any reservations about this book, they only pertain to philosophers and  issues not included.  Communism, for example,  is never discussed.  Neither is the genetic basis of altruism (the "selfish gene").  No Nietzsche.  There is also no distinction made between laws and cultural norms, and the differing roles of each.  Certain facets of our society, such as information technology, are also noticeably absent.  It could be that the author thought including such things would have bogged the book down,  and he might have well been right,  but they would have also offered interesting counterpoints to some of the older, more familiar ideas.

But even with these omissions, Justice is a great book, and an invigorating take on what are, for many of us, tired philosophical concepts.  The author succeeds in bringing moral philosophy back to life, and has at the same time written a very timely, very necessary guide to social justice.

"The Cat's Table" by Michael Ondaatje (2011)

"One wave hit the Assistant Purser, and the force of it washed out his glass eye.  All this while our heads were stretched back to try to see how deep the bow would go on its next descent.  Our screams unheard, even to each other, even to ourselves, even if the next day our throats were raw from yelling into that hallway of the sea."

Michael Ondaatje is best known as the author of "The English Patient," a novel which was published in 1992, and later adapted into a film of the same name.  He is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet.

"The Cat's Table," his most recent novel, is a coming of age tale, featuring a group of Sri Lankan youths who embark on a boat trip from Sri Lanka to England.  The narrator and his friends are immigrating to London, and during their trip he meets an array of characters, each with a story to tell.

In many ways this book resembles the oft-celebrated "Life of Pi," which I also read not long ago.  But where "Pi" rambles, "The Cat's Table" is comparatively concise.  "Life of Pi" is of course a story of survival, where "The Cat's Table" is a coming of age narrative, but the two novels share many characteristics.

Books like "The Cat's Table" or "Life of Pi" showcase a saddening trend within modern fiction: the abandonment of literature's descriptive function.  I'm not exactly sure where or when this trend began, but it seems to me that within the last few years we've seen a whole slew of books in which characters are never adequately described, and in which environments are never adequately mapped out for the reader.

Yes, we could explain away "The Cat's Table" as a symptom of modernity, but in my opinion it's just lazy writing.  In leaving out so many details, the author has failed to give us a compelling work.  I'd like to think that the meaning of any great novel comes from the reality established through its characters, its plot, and its setting, and if the reality of these things has not been established, we are left with a "hollow" book, lacking the kind of depth one finds elsewhere.

This is not to say that there aren't writers who do minimalism well.  Authors like Philip K. Dick or James Ellroy are able to lay out a story in its barest outline, but they are dealing with much weightier themes, themes that easily lend themselves to such a minimalistic approach.  In "The Cat's Table" we are confronted by a reminiscence that doesn't feel real, by a set of memories that feel as if they've happened to someone else.  And why is this the case?  Because we are missing all the innumerable bits of "trivia" that would have made this book feel so much more real, and so much more vital.

The devil, as they say, is in the details.