Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Experience

Classic Cyberpunk SF Novels: Reviews

2013-01-28T19:05:00.004-08:00

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(right image credit: Huxtable)

Neal Stephenson
"Snow Crash" (nv)
© 1992, Ace Special
--sf novel : 1993 Locus /10
--novel : 1993 Prometheus
--shortlist : 1994 Clarke
--novel : 1994 British SF
--Translated Novel : 1997 Imaginaire W
--foreign novel : 2001 Ignotus W
--/ second place sf novel
--/ wonder award
--/ idea award
--/ style award

Considered by many to be the ultimate cyberpunk novel (or second only to Gibson's Neuromancer), Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash has everything the genre requires: high-tech toys and low-life characters, a flash and dazzle style, a noir beat, enough concepts and ideas for a dozen other novels, and heaping helpings of bad boy attitude.

Set in a run-down LA in an archetypal "not too distant future," the novel is basically the story of Hiro Protagonist (wink, wink), the "Last Of The Freelance Hackers And Greatest Swordfighter In The World" and ex-pizza delivernator for the mafia; and Y.T., a nimble and nubile adolescent "kourier."

In the course of trying to survive a world run by corporations, and where the endless suburbs are lit by the omnipresent loglow of franchises like Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, and CosaNostra Pizza, Hiro and Y.T. stumble into a plot by billionaire villain L. Bob Rife to... well, rule the world using a special brand of information warfare with its roots in ancient Sumerian mythology. Along the way, Hiro and Y.T. meet characters such as Ng, the technofetishist weaponeer, and Raven Ravinoff, the nuclear bomb-connected Aleut harpooner and assassin whose preferred weapons are molecular-sharp glass knives.

Snow Crash, when it rocks and rolls, which it often does, is like strapping yourself in for a dose a blisteringly fast anime: a near-chaos of cyberdelic images, methamphetamine-fueled concepts, quick bursts of characters and characterization, along with flights of pure digital fantasy. For those new to cyberpunk, reading a chapter of Snow Crash is like taking a shot of science fiction espresso.

Luckily, Neal Stephenson also knows when to put on the brakes, to pull over by the side of his roaring information superhighway of a novel and let the rest of us catch up a bit. For all its flash and dazzle, Snow Crash also has some great moments of humanity. The scenes, for instance, with Y.T. and Uncle Enzo, CEO of the American Mafia and Hiro's ex-boss as head of CosaNostra Pizza, are charming without feeling cornball. Other characters, some of them only featured for a few paragraphs, manage the same.

Some have criticized Snow Crash as a perfect example of style over substance, sarcastically saying that it's cyberpunk's purest form. Sure, the book has some serious flaws – like when it slams on the brakes to lecture Hiro, and the reader, about Sumerian mythology's relationship to linguistics and human information processing. But what saves Snow Crash from being bubblegum and instead makes it a satisfying literary meal is the inescapable sense that Stephenson is not taking himself, the book, or cyberpunk itself, very seriously.

Snow Crash is, in its heart, a cartoon: a laughing, giggling, fun time. The heroes aren't heroes. The villains – for the most part – aren't villains. The Metaverse – Stephenson's version of cyberspace – is a bold and colorful place full of animated characters, and the real world the stages and settings are too bold and outrageous to be anything but Stephenson's elbow to the reader's ribs with a chuckle of "Get it?"

To press the point, just look at Stephenson's other novels. Some have the same pop and sizzle -- like The Diamond Age -- but after reading Snow Crash it gets pretty clear when he's going for serious and poignant and when he's taking us along on a digital, cyberdelic, outrageous, dazzling, bizarre, animated, good-time ride.
(review by M. Christian)

----------------------------------------------

K. W. Jeter
"Farewell, Horizontal" (nv)
© 1989, St.Martin Press
--second place : 1990 Campbell Memorial /2
--sf novel : 1990 Locus /18
--shortlist : 1991 Clarke
--/ second place sf novel
--/ idea award
--/ wonder award
--/ style award

Like most of Jeter's novels "Farewell Horizontal" is rich and vibrant, with amazing and engaging concepts, packed with imagination to spare, and populated with fascinating characters on bizarre yet human missions.

Set in a future where a large segment of civilization is living in – and on the outside of -- a monstrous building called Cylinder, Horizontal teases and tantalizes with a lack of detail, making the book seem more like a surrealist exercise than a traditional (quote) science fiction (unquote) novel. Still, there's enough intimate details present to draw you into Ny Axxter's strange world.

A graffex (which are sort of/kind of digital tattoos or markings) artist, Ny longs for the big time, a serious score that will lift him up – literally – from being a scavenging freelancer. And like everyone else who calls Cylinder home, he knows that his fame will come by not staying in the building, by being horizontal, but instead will come from what's on the outside, on the vertical.

The vertical is what makes Farewell Horizontal sparkle. Jeter has always had a brilliant imagination and with this novel, he lets it fly. Ny – and the rest of the outcasts and fringe folks of Cylinder – live their lives clinging to the building's staggering drop surface with a technofetish inventory of fun and interesting devices and technologies. It's when Jeter gets down – or up, as the case may be – with Ny and his life that the book really draws you in. You feel like you're there with him on the surface of the building, and when he sees what could be his score – a genetically engineered flying woman or 'angel' – you feel the exhilaration. The same goes when Ny is caught in a war between two warring gangs, a war fought on the same vertical he's trying to make his home. You are there alongside him as he tries to get through it all alive.

Unfortunately, Farewell Horizontal suffers from the feeling that it's just one part of a planned series, a series that was never completed: plot elements are left hanging, characters that are clearly meant to go somewhere go nowhere, and while the lack of details make the book refreshingly surreal (yet rich with cyberpunky elements), one gets the feeling that Jeter simply didn’t have the rest of the series he might have liked to set the stage and flesh out this fascinating world.

Still, Farewell Horizontal remains a very good book and deserves a read. While it might not be the perversely dark love poem to Philip K. Dick that his first book, Dr. Adder, was, or be a truly thought-provoking and sensitive book like The Glass Hammer, or – for that matter – a wickedly funny and strange thing like Infernal Devices, Farewell Horizontal is still more imaginative and vivid than many other books. If nothing else, it will change the way you look at skyscrapers … tripping your imagination into thinking what it would be like to live on the vertical and not just the horizontal.
(review by M. Christian)

----------------------------------------------

William Gibson
"Virtual Light" (nv)
(Sprawl Series)
(exp from "Skinner's Room")
© 1993, Bantams Spectra / Gollancz
© OMNI, Nov 1991
--novel : 1994 Hugo
--sf novel : 1994 Locus /4
--long-form, English : 1994 Aurora
--long-form, English : 1995 Aurora W
--international novel : 1995 Italia /2
--/ third place sf novel
--/ wonder award
--/ style award
--/ idea award
--/ adventure award

It's interesting that after he finished his masterpiece Sprawl Trilogy of Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive, Gibson – the master not only of cyberpunk but of postmodern literature as well – would step back in time but remain in the future to write Virtual Light, the first of another three-part series, the so-called Bridge Trilogy.

Interesting, because Virtual Light is a fine and at times brilliant book that owes very little to science fiction, even though it has some elements in common. Set in a very near future, it follows the adventures of bike messenger Chevette Washington and disgraced cop Berry Rydell, who get caught up in a McGuffin chase when Washington impulsively steals a pair of special, high tech glasses. Their chase takes them all over California, most fascinatingly to a squatter city built in the decaying spine of San Francisco's Bay Bridge. Darkly comic, the novel has all of Gibson's trademark vividness and wickedly cool language but is much more of a noir novel with some surreal/science fiction elements than the ferociously dark and vicious Sprawl books.

Because of this, it's a much lighter and almost refreshing read, which threw a lot of Gibson's previous readers who may have been expecting something with a sharper edge. Still, when taken on its own or as part of the other Bridge books, Virtual Light remains a work by a master – a master who successfully took a different direction with a wonderful new book.
Review by M. Christian

Read other William Gibson reviews on our site ->

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Going back a few decades, here are some surreal fiction masterpieces that had immense influence on development of cyberpunk movement later in the years, seminal works of science fiction, perhaps even "must-reads":

Samuel R. Delany
"The Einstein Intersection" (nv)
© 1967, Ace Books
--novel : 1968 Hugo
--novel : 1968 Nebula W
--overseas novel : 1997 Seiun
--/ fourth place sf novel
--/ wonder award
--/ style award

As with all truly great science fiction novels, The Einstein Intersection is less about science and more about fiction – in this case, fiction told by one of the greats not just of science fiction but modern literature as well.

Surreal doesn't begin to describe the setting and characters of The Einstein Intersection. Ostensibly about aliens exploring and trying to understand human culture after mankind has either left the planet or died off, the book is much more about some of the more powerful human archetypes. From Lo Lobey himself, a goat herder based on the myth of Orpheus, to the subject of his quest, Billy The Kid (AKA death), the book is a literary stage, allowing Delany to explore the world of our myths, fables, legends and fantasies.

It's unfortunate that people often pick up the book only to be frustrated and confused by Delany's psychedelic style. But for those with imagination and patience, reading The Einstein Intersection can swing open a brand new universe of style, language, and story: it's a wonderful book by a magnificent writer, first, and a great science fiction author, second.
(review by M. Christian)

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J. G. Ballard
"Vermillion Sands" (coll)
© Berkley /Jonathan Cape, 1971
--/ third place sf collection
--/ third place sf series
--/ wonder award
--/ style award
--/ emotion award

I want to live in Vermillion Sands. I want to wake up in the morning and look out my bedroom window at the hypnotic world J.G. Ballard has created.

A collection of short stories, Vermillion Sands is set, mostly, in a Palm Springs-type vacation resort. There are two kinds of people there: the rich and the people who serve the rich. More importantly, though, the resort is a way for Ballard – in these stories – to explore the artistic process via a whole plethora of new technologies, from cloud sculpting to sound jewelry and more.

But Ballard is Ballard, so just writing stories about a resort, the people enjoying it or working there, or even the arts, is not enough: each of the stories in Vermillion Sands is also laced with his trademark psychological depth and lyrical subtlety. Sure, the stories might not be as subversively perverse, emotionally enigmatic, psychedelically strange, or horrifically languid as some of his other books and stories, but these light and almost funny tales are still J.G. Ballard – and that means they will always be as a brilliant and elusive as the landscape outside of Vermillion Sands.
(review by M. Christian)

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(image credit: Perihelio, Deviant Art)

Felix C. Gotschalk
"Charisma Leak"
(Dome series)
© New Dimensions #6, 1976
--/ fourth place sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ idea award
--/ style award

Felix Gotschalk was perhaps the most brilliant - and the most under-appreciated - of the SF writers in the Seventies; his style was way ahead of its time, and belongs with the cyberpunk (or even the post-modern) school, his ideas are plentiful and original enough to stick in the mind for days, like, say, a rainbow-painted mafia coffin. His "shattered glass" prose is intense and may be tiring in large doses - in other words, he may be a classified genius, whose work still waits to be discovered by the average Amazon / Chapters crowd. Most of his stories are about geriatrics in an "old folks" future Dome, who are slowly going nuts (and yet becoming more "hip" in the process). This story is about someone who's suffering from too much charisma: a person with three in-built charismatic personalities... so he needs to cut some of these personalities off in a suicidal move, leaving behind... well, let's just say, this was an ill-considered move.
review by Avi Abrams

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CONTINUE TO PAGE 2 OF THIS ARTICLE ->

Make sure to check out our
"SF WONDER TIMELINE!" ->

1992 - Year in SF&F: January

2013-01-28T18:00:00.006-08:00

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE
Read other issues here

----------------------------------------------

(right image credit: Huxtable)

Neal Stephenson
"Snow Crash" (nv)
© 1992, Ace Special
--sf novel : 1993 Locus /10
--novel : 1993 Prometheus
--shortlist : 1994 Clarke
--novel : 1994 British SF
--Translated Novel : 1997 Imaginaire W
--foreign novel : 2001 Ignotus W
--/ second place sf novel
--/ wonder award
--/ idea award
--/ style award

Considered by many to be the ultimate cyberpunk novel (or second only to Gibson's Neuromancer), Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash has everything the genre requires: high-tech toys and low-life characters, a flash and dazzle style, a noir beat, enough concepts and ideas for a dozen other novels, and heaping helpings of bad boy attitude.

Set in a run-down LA in an archetypal "not too distant future," the novel is basically the story of Hiro Protagonist (wink, wink), the "Last Of The Freelance Hackers And Greatest Swordfighter In The World" and ex-pizza delivernator for the mafia; and Y.T., a nimble and nubile adolescent "kourier."

In the course of trying to survive a world run by corporations, and where the endless suburbs are lit by the omnipresent loglow of franchises like Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, and CosaNostra Pizza, Hiro and Y.T. stumble into a plot by billionaire villain L. Bob Rife to... well, rule the world using a special brand of information warfare with its roots in ancient Sumerian mythology. Along the way, Hiro and Y.T. meet characters such as Ng, the technofetishist weaponeer, and Raven Ravinoff, the nuclear bomb-connected Aleut harpooner and assassin whose preferred weapons are molecular-sharp glass knives.

Snow Crash, when it rocks and rolls, which it often does, is like strapping yourself in for a dose a blisteringly fast anime: a near-chaos of cyberdelic images, methamphetamine-fueled concepts, quick bursts of characters and characterization, along with flights of pure digital fantasy. For those new to cyberpunk, reading a chapter of Snow Crash is like taking a shot of science fiction espresso.

Luckily, Neal Stephenson also knows when to put on the brakes, to pull over by the side of his roaring information superhighway of a novel and let the rest of us catch up a bit. For all its flash and dazzle, Snow Crash also has some great moments of humanity. The scenes, for instance, with Y.T. and Uncle Enzo, CEO of the American Mafia and Hiro's ex-boss as head of CosaNostra Pizza, are charming without feeling cornball. Other characters, some of them only featured for a few paragraphs, manage the same.

Some have criticized Snow Crash as a perfect example of style over substance, sarcastically saying that it's cyberpunk's purest form. Sure, the book has some serious flaws – like when it slams on the brakes to lecture Hiro, and the reader, about Sumerian mythology's relationship to linguistics and human information processing. But what saves Snow Crash from being bubblegum and instead makes it a satisfying literary meal is the inescapable sense that Stephenson is not taking himself, the book, or cyberpunk itself, very seriously.

Snow Crash is, in its heart, a cartoon: a laughing, giggling, fun time. The heroes aren't heroes. The villains – for the most part – aren't villains. The Metaverse – Stephenson's version of cyberspace – is a bold and colorful place full of animated characters, and the real world the stages and settings are too bold and outrageous to be anything but Stephenson's elbow to the reader's ribs with a chuckle of "Get it?"

To press the point, just look at Stephenson's other novels. Some have the same pop and sizzle -- like The Diamond Age -- but after reading Snow Crash it gets pretty clear when he's going for serious and poignant and when he's taking us along on a digital, cyberdelic, outrageous, dazzling, bizarre, animated, good-time ride.
(review by M. Christian)

----------------------------------------------

Return to the Wonder Timeline

1989 - Year in SF&F: January

2013-01-28T17:34:00.003-08:00

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE
Read other issues here
----------------------------------------------

K. W. Jeter
"Farewell, Horizontal" (nv)
© 1989, St.Martin Press
--second place : 1990 Campbell Memorial /2
--sf novel : 1990 Locus /18
--shortlist : 1991 Clarke
--/ second place sf novel
--/ idea award
--/ wonder award
--/ style award

Like most of Jeter's novels "Farewell Horizontal" is rich and vibrant, with amazing and engaging concepts, packed with imagination to spare, and populated with fascinating characters on bizarre yet human missions.

Set in a future where a large segment of civilization is living in – and on the outside of -- a monstrous building called Cylinder, Horizontal teases and tantalizes with a lack of detail, making the book seem more like a surrealist exercise than a traditional (quote) science fiction (unquote) novel. Still, there's enough intimate details present to draw you into Ny Axxter's strange world.

A graffex (which are sort of/kind of digital tattoos or markings) artist, Ny longs for the big time, a serious score that will lift him up – literally – from being a scavenging freelancer. And like everyone else who calls Cylinder home, he knows that his fame will come by not staying in the building, by being horizontal, but instead will come from what's on the outside, on the vertical.

The vertical is what makes Farewell Horizontal sparkle. Jeter has always had a brilliant imagination and with this novel, he lets it fly. Ny – and the rest of the outcasts and fringe folks of Cylinder – live their lives clinging to the building's staggering drop surface with a technofetish inventory of fun and interesting devices and technologies. It's when Jeter gets down – or up, as the case may be – with Ny and his life that the book really draws you in. You feel like you're there with him on the surface of the building, and when he sees what could be his score – a genetically engineered flying woman or 'angel' – you feel the exhilaration. The same goes when Ny is caught in a war between two warring gangs, a war fought on the same vertical he's trying to make his home. You are there alongside him as he tries to get through it all alive.

Unfortunately, Farewell Horizontal suffers from the feeling that it's just one part of a planned series, a series that was never completed: plot elements are left hanging, characters that are clearly meant to go somewhere go nowhere, and while the lack of details make the book refreshingly surreal (yet rich with cyberpunky elements), one gets the feeling that Jeter simply didn’t have the rest of the series he might have liked to set the stage and flesh out this fascinating world.

Still, Farewell Horizontal remains a very good book and deserves a read. While it might not be the perversely dark love poem to Philip K. Dick that his first book, Dr. Adder, was, or be a truly thought-provoking and sensitive book like The Glass Hammer, or – for that matter – a wickedly funny and strange thing like Infernal Devices, Farewell Horizontal is still more imaginative and vivid than many other books. If nothing else, it will change the way you look at skyscrapers … tripping your imagination into thinking what it would be like to live on the vertical and not just the horizontal.
(review by M. Christian)

----------------------------------------------

Return to the Wonder Timeline

1971 - Year in SF&F: February

2013-01-27T18:23:00.002-08:00

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE
Read other issues here

----------------------------------------------

J. G. Ballard
"Vermillion Sands" (coll)
© Berkley /Jonathan Cape, 1971
--/ third place sf collection
--/ third place sf series
--/ wonder award
--/ style award
--/ emotion award

I want to live in Vermillion Sands. I want to wake up in the morning and look out my bedroom window at the hypnotic world J.G. Ballard has created.

A collection of short stories, Vermillion Sands is set, mostly, in a Palm Springs-type vacation resort. There are two kinds of people there: the rich and the people who serve the rich. More importantly, though, the resort is a way for Ballard – in these stories – to explore the artistic process via a whole plethora of new technologies, from cloud sculpting to sound jewelry and more.

But Ballard is Ballard, so just writing stories about a resort, the people enjoying it or working there, or even the arts, is not enough: each of the stories in Vermillion Sands is also laced with his trademark psychological depth and lyrical subtlety. Sure, the stories might not be as subversively perverse, emotionally enigmatic, psychedelically strange, or horrifically languid as some of his other books and stories, but these light and almost funny tales are still J.G. Ballard – and that means they will always be as a brilliant and elusive as the landscape outside of Vermillion Sands.
(review by M. Christian)

----------------------------------------------

Return to the Wonder Timeline

1967 - Year in SF&F: January

2013-01-27T02:06:00.001-08:00

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE
Read other issues here

----------------------------------------------

Samuel R. Delany
"The Einstein Intersection" (nv)
© 1967, Ace Books
--novel : 1968 Hugo
--novel : 1968 Nebula W
--overseas novel : 1997 Seiun
--/ fourth place sf novel
--/ wonder award
--/ style award

As with all truly great science fiction novels, The Einstein Intersection is less about science and more about fiction – in this case, fiction told by one of the greats not just of science fiction but modern literature as well.

Surreal doesn't begin to describe the setting and characters of The Einstein Intersection. Ostensibly about aliens exploring and trying to understand human culture after mankind has either left the planet or died off, the book is much more about some of the more powerful human archetypes. From Lo Lobey himself, a goat herder based on the myth of Orpheus, to the subject of his quest, Billy The Kid (AKA death), the book is a literary stage, allowing Delany to explore the world of our myths, fables, legends and fantasies.

It's unfortunate that people often pick up the book only to be frustrated and confused by Delany's psychedelic style. But for those with imagination and patience, reading The Einstein Intersection can swing open a brand new universe of style, language, and story: it's a wonderful book by a magnificent writer, first, and a great science fiction author, second.
(review by M. Christian)

----------------------------------------------

Return to the Wonder Timeline

1993 - Year in SF&F: January

2013-01-27T01:34:00.000-08:00

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE
Read other issues here

----------------------------------------------

William Gibson
"Virtual Light" (nv)
(Sprawl Series)
(exp from "Skinner's Room")
© 1993, Bantams Spectra / Gollancz
© OMNI, Nov 1991
--novel : 1994 Hugo
--sf novel : 1994 Locus /4
--long-form, English : 1994 Aurora
--long-form, English : 1995 Aurora W
--international novel : 1995 Italia /2
--/ third place sf novel
--/ wonder award
--/ style award
--/ idea award
--/ adventure award

It's interesting that after he finished his masterpiece Sprawl Trilogy of Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive, Gibson – the master not only of cyberpunk but of postmodern literature as well – would step back in time but remain in the future to write Virtual Light, the first of another three-part series, the so-called Bridge Trilogy.

Interesting, because Virtual Light is a fine and at times brilliant book that owes very little to science fiction, even though it has some elements in common. Set in a very near future, it follows the adventures of bike messenger Chevette Washington and disgraced cop Berry Rydell, who get caught up in a McGuffin chase when Washington impulsively steals a pair of special, high tech glasses. Their chase takes them all over California, most fascinatingly to a squatter city built in the decaying spine of San Francisco's Bay Bridge. Darkly comic, the novel has all of Gibson's trademark vividness and wickedly cool language but is much more of a noir novel with some surreal/science fiction elements than the ferociously dark and vicious Sprawl books.

Because of this, it's a much lighter and almost refreshing read, which threw a lot of Gibson's previous readers who may have been expecting something with a sharper edge. Still, when taken on its own or as part of the other Bridge books, Virtual Light remains a work by a master – a master who successfully took a different direction with a wonderful new book.
Review by M. Christian

----------------------------------------------

Return to the Wonder Timeline

1970 - Year in SF&F: January

2013-01-26T23:29:00.000-08:00

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE
Read other issues here

----------------------------------------------

(right image: art by Courtney Skinner)

Larry Niven
"Ringworld" (nv)
(Ringworld series)
© 1970, Ballantine Books
--novel : 1971 Hugo W
--novel : 1971 Nebula W
--novel : 1971 Locus W
--international sf : 1972 Ditmar W
--all time novel : 1975 Locus All-Time Poll /12
--foreign novel : 1979 Seiun W
--all time sf novel : 1987 Locus All-Time Poll /9
--sf novel (before 1990) : 1998 Locus All-Time Poll /25 (tie)
--/ second place space sf novel
--/ wonder award
--/ adventure award
--/ idea award
--/ style award
--/ awesome scale

The cornerstone of Niven's "Known Space Universe" series of stories and novels Ringworld is pure science fiction adventure – on a scale that's quite literally immense. Set in a very distant future where humanity is just one of dozens of space-faring species, the novel is about several unique beings (two aliens and two humans) on a very unique quest: to explore the single greatest engineering feat in the universe: The Ringworld. Initially at each other's throats, the cowardly Puppeteer, the savage Kzin, the 'lucky' Teela Brown, and Louis Wu -- the book's 200-year-old hero – they soon find a way to work together to try and survive as well as solve the riddle of the staggeringly huge structure. How big? Well, the Ringworld is a band the size of Earth's orbit and thicker than the diameter of our tiny planet.

Although the book does require a pretty good grasp of Niven's Known Space Universe to understand and appreciate the complexity of the Ringworld and how it fits into the other books and stories, the knowledge is by no means essential to enjoying the book. It remains a truly classic novel of science fiction and is worth reading over and over again.
Review by author M. Christian

----------------------------------------------

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10 Possible Sources of "Avatar" in Classic Science Fiction

2010-01-05T20:34:00.001-08:00

Going beyond the obvious comparisons with "Ferngully" and "Dances with Wolves"
Article by Avi Abrams

By now many of you have seen James Cameron's epic "Avatar" and marveled at its breakthrough 3D immersion technology. Visually, the movie is beyond breathtaking. Perhaps it can even be compared to the advent of widescreen in movie history.

Plot-wise, however, it is a simple, old-fashioned and perhaps overly familiar adventure, bringing to mind a range of stories from "Pocahontas" to Miyazaki's "Nausicaa" and "Princess Mononoke". Some see this as a drawback, others praise the straightforward approach to story-telling and dialogue - after all, it's one less thing to distract you from the awesome spectacle that unfolds on the screen.

"Yes, it is predictable in a way that roller coaster ride is predictable", says one reviewer. Likewise, it's even possible that the main character was intentionally made somewhat bland and toned down in personality, so that any viewer could identify with the main hero - seamlessly inhabiting his "avatar" to explore the glorious new world of Pandora.

It is not our intention to argue how and if the plot of "Avatar" could've been made better or more original. After all, it is an old-fashioned fairytale; a personal dream of maestro James Cameron many decades in the making.

Instead, we are going to list some possible influences from obscure and even forgotten classic science fiction sources that came to our mind while watching "Avatar" - there is no telling if James Cameron read any of them or was influenced by any particular tradition, but it was a good fun to find out and remember the jolly good reads that they are (see if you can remember any of the stories mentioned below, or if you can think of other ones):

1. Robert F. Young - "To Fell a Tree". First published in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1959, this obscure and rarely reprinted novella is perhaps the closest to the plot of "Avatar".

A giant tree sacred to humanoid natives razed to the ground by the greedy, crazed human military outfit - the parallels are too many to recount here. Robert F. Young's prose is powerful and efficient, and the ending evokes similar emotional response to that of "Avatar". It is also a criminally under-rated piece of fiction - we can only rejoice that "Avatar" brings it to life to beautifully - but it's also sad to see top-notch science fiction stories by Robert F. Young remain out of print and uncredited for so many years.

The idea of "projected consciousness" into the bodies of natives on hostile planets was also explored at length in classic science fiction. Here are a few examples:

2. Poul Anderson - "Call Me Joe" First published in Astounding Science Fiction in April, 1957. Read more detailed analysis here.

"Like Avatar, Call Me Joe centers on a paraplegic — Ed Anglesey — who telepathically connects with an artificially created life form in order to explore a harsh planet (in this case, Jupiter). Anglesey, like "Avatar"'s Jake Sully, revels in the freedom and strength of his artificially created body, battles predators on the surface of Jupiter, and gradually goes native as he spends more time connected to his artificial body."

3. Ben Bova - "The Winds of Altair" First published as a novel in 1973. Six-legged beasties, remote-control "avatars", greedy terraforming humans.

"The classic SciFi novel tells the story of humans trying to terraform the planet of Altair IV, where they cannot breath the air. The natives of this planet are a cat-like race and humans are able to transfer their minds into these cats in order to explore the planet safely. Throughout the course of the novel, the main character inhabits the body of one of these cats (just like in Avatar) and grows to side with the natives against the Military in the story." (source)

4. Clifford Simak - "Desertion" First published in November 1944 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Same idea: human research team on the surface of a hostile planet needs to inhabit "avatar" bodies more suitable to environment. One small problem - those who were sent did not come back, but "deserted" and remained behind, choosing a more liberating alien culture.

Another work very similar in plot and feel is actually an award-winning piece by a well-known writer:

5. Ursula K. Le Guin - "The Word for World is Forest" (more info). Published back in 1972, in Again, Dangerous Visions, it was even a winner of the 1973 Hugo Award for Best Novella.

Similarities? Well, how about a forested planet with the deeply "connected" natives, a human military raid on a huge tree-city and a subsequent retaliation of natives... some scenes seem incredibly familiar, even though Le Guin plot is markedly deeper and more sophisticated. We highly recommend seeking out this book if you thought the plot of "Avatar" was one-dimensional - it should fill in all the details you would ever need.

Other visual and atmospheric clues (no similarities with the plot):

6. Harry Harrison - "Deathworld" First published in Astounding Science Fiction, January-March 1960. A militaristic gung-ho colonization with disregard for complexities of native life. Top-notch depiction of tough space marines as only Harrison can do it. Extremely hostile life-forms populate that planet: Avatar's quote "everything that crawls, flies or squats out there... will want to kill you" seems right at home with "Deathworld". Highly recommended as a great adventure read.

7. Some other wonderful examples from the Golden Age of Science Fiction also come to mind: "Exploration Team" by Murray Leinster; hilarious interactions between human military colonization force and natives in various stories by Eric Frank Russell ("...And Then There Were None", "Somewhere a Voice", etc.) Various jungle planet environments were nicely explored by Robert A. Heinlein in his juvenile-fiction novels, and also in Bob Shaw's "Who Goes There?".

(on the right - Magazine of F&SF with Robert F. Young's novella "To Fell a Tree")

8. Anne McCaffrey - "The Dragonriders of Pern" series. This is an obvious allusion to exhilarating sequences of taming and riding on dragons - very analogous to the thrilling winged-beast taming in "Avatar".

(image via)

9. Na'vi - Dark Elves, anyone? Or if you'd like, "Elfquest" (more info). A cult comic series started in 1978. There are very broad visual similarities, but I can't stop thinking of dark elves when I look at na'vi ways and romance.

10. The interior and exterior views of the spaceship which brings Jake Sully to Pandora reminds me of Alastair Reynolds "Revelation Space" light-hugger ships (significantly scaled down, of course). The opening sequence can easily serve as an opening for hypothetical "Chasm City" movie, for example. The flying mountains and islands are also a feature of Alastair Reynolds great story "Minla's Flowers".

So here is a brief list of possible influences on visual creation of "Avatar" and examples of classic science fiction that elaborate on the (very basic) "Avatar" plot. Let us know of other similarities you've noticed - after all, just like the case with "Star Wars" we are witnessing the birth of yet another mythology, and it is only proper that we should honor the original sources of this particular science fiction tradition.

For more details on Pandora's gorgeous world visit Pandorapedia site.

BONUS: do you remember the wonderful tiny helicopter-like creature that lit up the night on Pandora? It turns out to be the design of Leonardo da Vinci, no less:

1972 - Year in SF&F: March

2009-09-30T00:14:00.000-07:00

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE
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James Tiptree, Jr.
"And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side"
© F&SF, Mar 1972
Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home, 1973
--short story : 1972 Nebula
--short story : 1973 Hugo
--short story : 1973 Locus
--/ third place space sf story
--/ wonder award
--/ style award
--/ emotion award
--/ shock value

The way how humans get plastered over some aliens, and fall head-over-heals in love (or lust) spells disaster for humanity's self-esteem and erodes its soul... This is a sad, shining, bittersweet, irresistible tale, the true masterpiece of story-within-a-story narration and simply gorgeous alien / spaceship visions. I am in awe of Alice Sheldon - one of the best space adventure / space romance writers ever to grace the face of the Earth.

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1984 - Year in SF&F: February

2009-09-29T20:41:00.001-07:00

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE
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Edward Bryant
"Dancing Chickens"
© "Alien Sex", ed. by Ellen Datlow, 1990
"Light Years and Dark", ed. M. Bishop, 1984
--/ emotion award
--/ shock value

This story is probably the most offensive in the whole history of science fiction, no wonder that it could not get an editor brave enough to publish it, nor was reprinted ever since in author's story collection. However, it reminded me of "District 9" sci-fi movie, and many other "alien abuse" stories. This time, though, it is pretty unflinching in its approach, so see if you can stomach it.

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