The Kraken Wakes

This classic SF novel was first published in 1953 and is still in print, a testimony to John Wyndham's ability to create pleasantly chilling scenarios. His calm, matter-of-fact tone is perfect for relating catastrophic events.

In this book, ETs have arrived on earth and taken up residence in the deepest parts of the ocean. Soon ships begin disappearing, then coastal raids take place. Finally the glaciers and ice-caps start melting. London floods and Parliament is forced to relocate. Compounding the problem are inept governments, misguided newspapers, and befuddled scientists.

Through it all a husband-and-wife team working for the English Broadcasting Company provide a sane and steady perspective, especially when society begins falling apart. Their breezy and intelligent conversation helps carry the book through the slow buildup to disaster.

Wyndham's books are the equivalent of cosy English murder mysteries, perfect for summer reading.

Links

1965 CBC radio adaptation (downloadable)
Kraken book sculpture
Kraken Rum

More Tales of a Ruined Earth

The Last Man by Mary Shelley 1826
The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel 1901
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart 1949
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham 1951
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank 1959
Davy by Edgar Pangborn 1964
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban 1980
The Postman by David Brin 1985
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 2003
The Road by Cormac McCarthy 2006

A few that I've particularly enjoyed:

Daybreak - 2250 AD by Andre Norton 1952
On the Beach by Nevil Shute 1957
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller Jr. 1960
The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard 1962
Ariel by Steven R. Boyett 1983
Fiskadoro by Denis Johnson 1985
Cloud Master by David Mitchell 2004

The City & the City

A murder has been committed in Beszel, a city in Eastern Europe, and Inspector Tyador Borlu of the Extreme Crime Squad is assigned the case.

But far more mysterious than the crime is the setting. Somehow Beszel and a sister city, Ul Qomar, share the same location, even though the inhabitants speak different languages, have different customs, and are generally distrustful of each other.

Moreover, occupants of each city are forbidden to interact in any way. When they pass in the street they must "unsee" each other. There's only one official channel between the two, and that is (the brilliantly named) Copula Hall, which is a sort of customs and border post.

Should anyone violate the rules of non-interaction, they are said to have "breached" the invisible membrane separating the two cities, and are quickly apprehended by a shadowy but much-feared group known only as "Breach." Its powers take precedence over those of the local authorities.

It is uncertain whether Beszel and Ul Qomar were once a single city, or whether they were two cities that have somehow converged. Canadian archeologists have been working in Ul Qomar, and one of them has written a provocative book called Between the City and the City, which suggests a precursor civilization called Orciny.

Interpretations

At first the book reads like an urban fantasy, describing something that could never exist in the real world. Yet as the reader learns more and more about Beszel, Ul Qomar, and Breach, it becomes apparent that the situation is not beyond the realm of possibility. Surreal, yes, but not impossible.

Even if it were, it still contains uncomfortable echoes of the real world, where there are (or were) divided cities like Berlin and Jerusalem, and societies whose sense of reality has been distorted by secret police. And who among us has not walked past beggars or the homeless without seeing them?

Conclusion

Though the ending was not as satisfying as I wished for, The City & the City is built on a fascinating concept.

Mieville has also altered his style to one that is gritty and noirish, with lots of choppy dialogue and awkward sentences, to reflect the strange and ugly place he's describing. It's a risky but effective artistic choice.

I can't wait to get my hands on Mieville's latest, which came out just last month. There's no author better equipped to tackle a novel named Kraken.

Links

China Mieville talks about The City & the City
SF Reviews
Schuler Books

Moneyball

The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

This book follows the fortunes of the Oakland A's around the turn of the century.

Under the guidance of general manager Billy Beane, the team compiled some wonderful winning records despite having one of the smallest payrolls in major league baseball.

In an early chapter, "Field of Ignorance," we learn about sabermetrics, a word coined by baseball nut, Bill James, who came to notice in 1977 when he self-published a mimeographed annual Baseball Abstract.

In it he described his thinking about the need for better baseball stats. He sold 75 copies.

Now, decades after that humble beginning, sabermetrics has become a mainstream concept. Some of the ideas mentioned in Moneyball:

• clutch-hitting is a myth
• bunting, base-stealing, and sac flies are counter-productive
• on-base percentage is a more important stat than batting average or RBIs

Billy Beane's implementation of such radical new ideas makes for great reading, especially as he wheels and deals for players undervalued by traditional stats. People like submariner Chad Bradford, whose unnatural delivery kept scouts from seeing his true worth. His knuckles would actually scrape the ground when he threw.

And catcher Scott Hatteberg, whose damaged arm should have spelled the end of his career. He didn't have a flashy batting average, but he did have an uncanny ability to get on base, so the A's rehabilitated him as a first baseman. Says Lewis: "He waits for pitches like a man picking through an apple bin at a grocery store, looking for the ripest."

Hatteberg's patience at the plate, and his ability to foul off pitches he didn't like, furnishes a priceless anecdote. During a game a frustrated pitcher stepped off the mound and said to him, "Just tell me what you want. Tell me what you want and I'll throw it."

Billy Beane

Baseball is full of colourful characters, and Billy Beane is one of them. His own story is as fascinating as any in the book, first as a highly regarded prospect, then as a maverick GM.

It was hard to know which of Billy's qualities was most important to his team's success: his energy, his resourcefulness, his intelligence, or his ability to scare the living shit out of even very large professional baseball players.

J.P. Ricciardi, who was the A's director of player development, said that watching Billy do a deal was "like watching the Wolf talk to Little Red Riding Hood."

(Ricciardi took Billy Beane's approach with him when he was hired as the Blue Jay's GM. One of the first things he did was hire Bill James as a consultant.)

More Lewis

This book was so interesting, so entertaining, that I could not stop reading. I sped through it with increasing delight, and when I finished I immediately made plans to buy more books by Michael Lewis.

One of these has already been turned into a pretty good movie, The Blind Side. Moneyball is next, with Brad Pitt playing Billy Beane.

Anthill

As fascinating as ant societies are, they seem to have limited narrative potential. Usually they're portrayed as menacing hordes or anthropomorphized creatures with little resemblance to the real thing.

Thus, when I heard that the great myrmecologist, E.O. Wilson, had brought forth a novel, I was keen to see how he approached this challenge.

The Ants

The heart of the book is a 70-page account of warring anthills in southern Alabama. A slight mutation has caused one of the anthills to become a supercolony with thousands of "queenlets." This allows it to outcompete all other colonies in the vicinity, to the point that its success becomes its downfall. It is out of balance with its surroundings, and on the verge of a Malthusian downfall, when humans intervene.

The name of this section is "The Anthill Chronicles." It is centrally positioned in the book and purports to be a laundered version of Raff Cody's honours thesis. The colonies inhabit a patch of old-growth forest with which he is intimately acquainted.

The People

Prior to "The Anthill Chronicles" we learn the story of Raff's upbringing, and are given a satisfying glimpse of life -- both animal and human -- in southern Alabama where Wilson himself grew up.

In the final portion of the book, after "The Anthill Chronicles," Raff heads off to Harvard to study law, the application of which he decides is the best way to save the old-growth forest. Wilson's acquaintance with academic life in "the great brainy anthill" of Harvard infuses this part of the story.

After graduating Raff returns to Alabama and, in a nice dove-tailing of events, gets caught up with the very people who intervened in the fate of the supercolony.

The Ending

The novel so far has been an enjoyable read. It educates, it entertains, it keeps us guessing. Now it suddenly shifts gears and becomes a plot-driven thriller with a conclusion that felt (to me) unsatisfying and out of character with the rest of the book.

The Lesson

In a short prologue Wilson says, "This is a story about three parallel worlds, which nevertheless exist in the same space and time." They are the world of ants, the world of humans, and the world in which both live, the biosphere.

The supercolony then is a symbol for humanity. It "mastered the environment, subdued its rivals and enemies, increased its space, drawn down new sources of energy..." We too are in danger of authoring our own demise by our very success. And just as humans played a godlike role in the supercolony's destiny, so too might the biosphere play a similar role in ours.

Links

Margaret Atwood's review ("Homer of the Ants")
Barbara Kingsolver's review ("Ear to the Ground")
Radio interview with Anna Maria Tremonti

Suggested Reading

"The Empire of the Ants" by H.G. Wells (1905) appeared in The Time Machine and Other Stories.

Consider Her Ways by Frederick Philip Grove (1947) is a Canadian SF classic, not to be confused with the John Wyndham novella of the same name.

The Ant Men by Eric North (1953) is pure pulp fiction, yet appeared first in hard cover before going through several softcover printings.

The Fungus Garden by Brian Brett (1988) takes the reader on a surreal journey underground into the world of termites.

Les Fourmis trilogy by Bernard Werber includes Les Fourmis (1991), which sold more than two million copies worldwide and has been translated into over 30 languages (Empire of the Ants in English), Le Jour des Fourmis (1992), and La Revolution des Fourmis (1996).

The Hacker and the Ants v. 2.0 by Rudy Rucker (2003) is a sci-fi tale involving software ants.

Journey to the Ants by Wilson and Holldobler (1994) is one of my favourite books, and likely more fascinating than any work of ant fiction can aspire to. Highly recommended.

Adventures among Ants by Mark Moffett (2010) is a work of popular myrmecology by a former student of E.O. Wilson. Fabulous photos.

Battle Cry of Freedom

The Civil War Era

This 900-page treatment of the Civil War was published in 1988. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and may be the finest one-volume history of the war.

It's not just an account of the terrible battles that took place. It also provides political, economic, and social commentary. The first shots are not fired until page 273.

Having read the book, it now seems to me impossible to understand the United States without having a sound knowledge of the Civil War. As the author points out, more books have been written about it than on any other topic of American history.

There are useful quotes from speeches, newspapers, diaries, and letters from soldiers. Scarcely a page escapes a footnote, yet the writing is clear and easy to follow.

There are two sections of black-and-white photos, and numerous battlefield maps.

Lincoln

The Civil War (1861-65) exactly defined Lincoln's presidency. His election in 1860 triggered the secession of seven Southern states before he even took office. The month after he was inaugurated in 1861, the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, and four more states joined the Confederacy. Four years later, within days of Lee's surrender to Grant, he was assassinated by a Rebel sympathizer who took umbrage at a speech promoting black suffrage.

Lincoln was the first Republican president. The party had only been in existence for a few years. It opposed the pro-Southern Democrats, and one of its avowed goals was to prevent the sanctioning of slavery in newly formed states. Since it was composed completely of Northerners (making it the first "sectional" party in power), the South realized it had lost the ability to influence the federal government, and thus elected to secede.

Lincoln took an active role in the war -- haunting the telegraph office for reports from the battlefield, suggesting strategy to his generals and urging them to take the offensive, visiting fortifications when Rebels invaded the North (where he was told to keep his damn fool head down). When the Confederate capital of Richmond was captured, Lincoln was sitting in Jefferson Davis's study within 40 hours of the Confederate President's departure.

During the war Lincoln and the Republicans enjoyed public support as long as the war was going well. At other times there was widespread alarm, panic and even riots. Confederate forces at one point were five miles from the White House. Lincoln feared that he would not win re-election in 1864.

Generals

In combat, officers "led from the front, not the rear" and "generals suffered the highest combat casualties, their chances of being killed in battle were 50 percent greater than the privates'." In one battle, when Robert E. Lee tried to lead "a desperate counterattack," his troops pleaded with him to return to the rear.

Two of the Confederacy's most effective generals, Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet, were mistakenly felled by Rebel fire. Jackson died, and Longstreet was out of combat for five months.

During the war several Union generals were removed from command for their timidity in engaging the enemy.

John C. Breckinridge, Vice President under James Buchanan (the President who preceded Lincoln), became a general in the Southern army.

After the war Union General Lew Wallace wrote Ben-Hur, the best-selling American novel of the 19th century.

Tactics

"The close-order formation was...necessary to concentrate the firepower of these inaccurate weapons [muzzle-loaders]" and "bayonet charges could succeed because double-timing infantry could cover the last eighty yards [the effective range of muzzle-loaders] during the twenty-five seconds it took defending infantry men to reload their muskets after firing a volley."

"The transition from smoothbore to rifle had two main effects: it multiplied casualties; and it strengthened the tactical defensive. Officers trained and experienced in the old tactics were slow to recognize these changes. Time and again generals on both sides ordered close-order assaults in the traditional formation. With an effective range of three or four hundred yards, defenders firing rifles decimated these attacks."

"The tactical predominance of the defense helps explain why the Civil War was so long and bloody. The rifle and trench ruled Civil War battlefields as thoroughly as the machine-gun and trench ruled those of World War I." Photos of battlefields in both wars are eerily similar.

"...the large caliber and low muzzle velocity of Civil War rifles caused horrible wounds with the bullet usually remaining in the body rather than going through it... Stomach wounds were generally fatal because there was no known prevention of peritonitis."

Miscellaneous

Over 600,000 soldiers died, more than the combined total of all other wars that America has fought in, before and since.

Both sides claimed to be fighting for freedom and liberty. The industrial North wanted to keep the Union intact and end slavery. The rural gentrified South fought for autonomy and against the "wage-slavery" of Northern workers. "We are either slaves in the Union or freemen out of it," declared a secessionist without irony.

The ironclad CSA Viriginia, aka Merrimack, sank two unarmored Northern warships in the space of a few hours, "a feat no other enemy would accomplish until 1941." The next day it met the Union ironclad, Monitor, and fought to a draw. The battle caused the London Times to declare that nearly all of the British fleet was now obsolete.

The James and Younger brothers began their careers as Southern guerillas in Missouri. Wild Bill Hickok was a scout for the Union army in Missouri. Another famous name on the Union side was George Armstrong Custer, who took part in the "bloodiest cavalry action of the war" north of Richmond.

During the war, the North enacted for the first time conscription on a national level. However, draftees still had the option of hiring substitutes to take their place, a practice "hallowed by tradition."

"Several hundred women...dressed as men and managed to enlist as soldiers...."

Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were both born in Kentucky.

Nova Scotia

My interest in the Civil War was triggered last month by a grave marker ceremony organized by the Maritime Civil War Living History Association. A re-enactment unit, the 20th Maine Volunteers, No. 1 Company (New Brunswick), paid tribute to three local veterans:

Ardent Tupper - served in the 20th Maine Infantry, present at Lee's surrender at Appomattox

William Kinsman - served in the 1st Massachusetts Light Artillery, took part in 17 battles

Ben Jackson - served in the Union navy, awarded the Civil War Campaign Medal