I think that’s too crude to define the soul of science fiction. Most bookworms classify genre books by general topics, so if it’s about a murder, its a mystery, if its about love, its a romance, if its about alien invasions its science fiction. Science fiction, like mystery and romance novels, are generally seen as an escapist literatures, but great storytelling combined with deep philosophical insight often produces the classics of each genre, like The Maltese Falcon and Pride and Prejudice. Earth Abides succeeds magnificently at storytelling and philosophy, the two most important ingredients that I’ve come to admire the most. I’m also trying to find out why science fiction has been important to me my whole life.Įarth Abides is a novel I’d rank right up there in science fictional vision with The Time Machine. It’s easy to find a mind blowing book at 13, it’s much harder at 58. I’m looking for the books that have a lifetime of meaning, that hold up to a second reading after I’ve acquired an additional 30-40 years of wisdom. For the last several years I’ve been rereading the science fiction books that I fondly remember as being great when I first read them back in the 1960s and 1970s.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |