By G.R. Nanda
Read! Read as much as you can. Especially now, during the coronavirus pandemic. Reaching out into the human imaginations of past and present time periods where the age old mythological arcs like the Hero’s Journey have been explored in different contexts is a great way to pass the time.
Many fantasy novels are about an epoch of unparalleled hardship and characters who exist through those hardships and emerge triumphant. Well, we have all been going through unparalleled hardship in 2020, the likes of which is so different from the past. So why not look for some lessons on living from fantasy? Or from different places. You could read history and truly appreciate how much easier your life compared to those who lived through the Black Plague.
Here are some memorable reads from my summer. I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but I always like to branch out and experience different books to enrich my knowledge. As a writer, I will pull from that knowledge so it helps to have as diverse a set of knowledge as possible.
I would to establish that the length of the commentary for any given book below does not indicate my liking for it. Just because I wrote more about the book, it does not mean that I liked it more.
Skyward by Brandon Sanderson
Sanderson has proven himself to be a connoisseur of speculative fiction. This Young Adult science fiction novel was actually the first Brandon Sanderson novel I had read. Since then, I’ve read Elantris and the first Mistborn book of the Mistborn trilogy. While he does appear to truly excel with epic fantasy, here is a novel that is fantastic as a Young Adult novel and as science fiction.
Sanderson’s fantasy Cosmere works are about fully realized and compelling characters. Skyward is no exception. Spensa is an assertive teenage girl with a chip on her shoulder and a bravado that’s actually a mask for her own insecurities. She grows up despised by her peers for the idea that her father defected from his comrades in a battle between human starships and the Krell, a race of aliens that humans on the planet of Detritus have been at war with for a long time.
The premise of the world and conflict is one that we’ve seen before: backdrop of long lasting war between humans and an eerie confusing alien species and human militaries and governments have covered up events and truths about such war. We’ve seen this in notable science fiction works such as the novel Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card and the anime TV series Neon Genesis: Evangelion.
While Skyward is no Ender’s Game, it is a great coming of age story with a great arc for Spensa. Her arc ties into the plot, revealing new layers to the worldbuilding alongside and tied into setbacks and complications for a teenager coming into herself and trying to understand a world that presents many problems for her.
Who can’t relate to that?
There’s also a very interesting seed planted at the beginning of the book a family tradition of being able to listen to the stars.
We know that the Skyward books are for Sanderson to take breaks from his larger books like The Stormlight Archive, but he doesn’t slack off in these breaks. While we’ve seen this human race vs. alien species with governmental mystery setup, unique worldbuilding, three dimensional characters and compelling character arcs make for a strong Brandon Sanderson book.
Also, man those dogfight scenes from the perspective of Spensa piloting a starship in the sky are so fun to read! Seriously, I would say the book is worth it for sci-fi fans just because of how cool those scenes are. It’s impressive that Sanderson was able to pull them off so well in prose.
The physics and military culture is also very well researched and realized.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
This book is extremely informal to anyone looking for a dive into the source of human developments and science. It’s a careful distillation of science, history, politics, philosophy, economics and psychology that explores some large anthropological questions about the root cause of cultural patterns and societal trends like arms races and the rise of empires throughout history.
Even if you disagree with any of Yuval Noah Harari’s claims, his intellect, research and deliberation make for a compelling read that is ought to be appreciated and considered.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
This book is a classic that’s a careful snapshot of a time bygone with issues that still linger today, unfortunately.
It’s also a great work of drama and literature. Crispus Atticus is one of my favorite characters in all of literature including all of the novels that I have ever read.
His court monologue is also one of my favorite monologues ever.
This is a great showcase of how childhoods and perspectives are affected by things like privilege, peer pressure, alienation and societal problems.
Just because of its subject matter, I recommend this book to people of all tastes
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Dickens is Dickens. His prose is Dickens prose and reflects the embellishments of a literary Victorian England gone by.
Granted, reading this on my own resulted in more going over my head than if I had read this for an English class. Nonetheless, anyone interested in the classics and anyone who wants to learn about the political climates of past historical periods should check out this book.
Christopher Nolan has said that The Dark Knight Rises is heavily inspired by this book, which makes me want to re-read it. TDKR is a movie that like A Take of Two Cities carefully depicts the political anxieties of its culture at the time of its publication. That can be said of the entire Dark Knight trilogy which is a great post-9/11 commentary of Western civilization.
The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
I wrote about this series extensively in my two blog posts about it and I still stand behind what I said in them. This is very interesting work of cerebral science fiction and also a snapshot of the writing styles of older early 20th century science fiction. There is very little substance for characters and the three books are very plot and concept oriented. There is little to no action as all of the wars and battles occur outside of the page.
Nonetheless, if you can get past the distinct and sometimes difficult writing style, you can be immersed in a saga of political speculation that is based off of the fall of the Roman Empire. There are lots of thought provoking questions posed about the changes in political movements over the course of the generations that inherit them.
This series also champions science and reasoning. A galactic empire is on the decline and a group of scientists and thinkers retreat to the edge of the galaxy to form the Foundation, a research group centered on finding a solution to the Empire’s decline and distilling the culture of the empire into the Encyclopedia Galactica for generations who live after the fall of the Empire.
This is all prompted by the psychohistorian Hari Seldon who predicts the fall of the empire. Psychohistory is a fictional science centered on the study of political systems and cultures which use mathematics to accurately predict the future of political systems.
Cool stuff. My lengthier blog posts about this series are posted at the end of this article.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
I read the Harry Potter series when I was in middle school. Picking this book up over the summer at the age of 16, I was curious to see if the teenage woes of this story were accurate to what I’m through right now. I wondered if the read would be any different since I actually have gone through the adolescent phases of Harry Potter.
I picked up the fifth book particularly because I’d just gone through the year that Harry had gone through. His fifth year was my sophomore year.
I can attest that the adolescent gripes and experiences in this book are definitely true to real life. Confused about how to girls? Check. Getting caught up in what your peers think about if even if you don’t want to? Check. Getting stressed over mounting schoolwork and increasing responsibilities? Check. General moodiness? Check.
The Harry Potter series will stand the test of time as being an extremely unique coming of age story that blends the British school story with fantasy and mystery.
The kind of portal fantasy that Harry Potter is, is a response to the gradual starvation of spirituality that Western civilization has gone through due to an overemphasis of scientific thought and objectivity. Those are the anxieties that are exaggerated in the Dursley household where imagination of any sort and anything outside of “normal” is basically banned.
No wonder those books connected with so many people! While most of us don’t live with Dursley types, so many of us are from suburban communities like the Dursley’s and have lived amidst a culture of scarce spirituality.
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (being the first book in The Wheel of Time series)
This is a behemoth of an epic fantasy novel. I rank it as one of my favorite books ever and Robert Jordan as easily one of my favorite writers ever. Jordan deserves to be ranked among the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien as one of the greatest of Western fantasy authors and speculative fiction authors.
His is a refreshing take on fantasy because it moves away from the mold of traditional European fantasy. Like Tolkien, Jordan served in a war, the Vietnam War. His exposure to and research in Asian culture is on display as the name itself, The Wheel of Time refers to the cyclical nature of the world’s magic and pattern of history which occurs in repeating ages. This is alludes to the cyclical nature of time in Buddhism and Hinduism.
The influence on Sanderson is also on display. The characters are extremely well realized, diverse and Jordan describes the psychological effects of the story on the character as Sanderson is well known for doing. Female characters share just as much of the spotlight as the male characters and are just as powerful and have just as much agency if not more.
The effects of an “adventure” take its toll on characters whose psychological consequences are carefully explored. The character’s agony, exhaustion and trauma are detailed. Jordan is obviously drawing upon the toll that war had taken on him.
Fans of Dune will find influences here and shared characteristics between this epic fantasy and the science fiction epic of Dune.
This is a great blend of world cultures, taking from European culture as well as different Asian cultures and the world mixing supposedly continues throughout the series. In that light, The Wheel of Time is truly American fantasy because of how much of a melting pot its cultural influences are.
The story starts off in a traditional hero’s journey format and displays a lot of unique culture, but around the one-third mark it really takes off pacing wise and becomes tonally darker. From there on out, the world unfolds rapidly becoming bigger and bigger with each page.
This is a wonderful and super effective coming of age story and a must read for anyone coming into fantasy.
Carrie by Stephen King
Carrie is a Stephen King classic. His trademark suspense, thrill and scare factor are all on display in this book which can also qualify as science fiction.
You can find the hidden anxieties of a late 20th century suburban American mosty white town that was also on display in It.
It is hard not to empathize with Carrie so when she does do questionable things, it makes them even more horrifying since you can understand her motives very well.
This is a short read and an exciting one at that. I highly recommend this to fans of speculative fiction. Stephen King does not go as in depth as a book like It, but it shares a lot of characteristics including an elaborate depiction and condemnation of bullying.
I’m going to have to write an whole blog post on Stephen King and Stranger Things and how they resonate so well with an America of anxious suburbanites like myself.
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The Martian Chronicles is a wonderful work of science fiction and speculative fiction. It is a great speculation on the human colonization of a foreign planet and the potential interactions of human beings and aliens.
Here, aliens are akin to the many indingeous cultures of real life Earth history who were trampled upon, marginizaled and eventually driven out and stripped of their culture by colonists. This book is definitely a commentary and critique of Western colonalism. It’s also a warning about the potential capitalist ventures and monopolizations of space exploration.
This isn’t a surpirse for Bradbury since so much of his science fiction works serve as warnings. I mean, the guy wrote for The Twight Zone for god’s sake!
There’s a lot of wonderful flowery prose depicting large Martian landscapes and also exploring the mysticism of the Martians themselves. The human colonizers are the scientific, materialistic and capitalistic culture trampling upon a culture of authenticity, appreciation for nature and art. In short, they are the the culture that emphasizes spirituality.
Badbury predicted a lack of interest in things like reading, religion and art in Fahrenheit 451 and that commentary is also found here. There are many lone human characters who defect from other humans for reasons related to ethical disagreements and a disdain for a lack of appreciation or spirituality on the part of humans.
The book consists of self-contained cerebral stories each with its own message that pertains to the overall message of the book. This is a must read for science fiction fans and a great encapsulation of the “water canals on Mars” era in science fiction when it was falsely believed that there were canals on Mars.
At the end of this article is linked a video dissecting the book and explaining the canals on Mars phenomenon. The reason is actually hilarious.
World Mythology Third Edition: An Anthology of the Great Myths and Epics by Donna Rosenberg (reading still in progress)
This books has taught me a lot about World mythology and the culture and history that determines and influences it. It spans regions from Ancient Greece to the ancient African tribes of long ago. This world spanning curation allows one to see the archetypical parallels of different cultures’ mythologies.
Each region and myth is started off with historical background which explains what historical and geographical circumstances affected the mythologies.
Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies: The Screenwriter’s Guide to Every Story Ever Told by Blake Snyder (reading still in progress)
This book is a very useful tool for anyone interesting in screenwriting or at least story structure. It details a format that most culturally successful movies follow. It spans so many different genres and typed of stories. There’s a whole section called “Dude with a Problem” where “Dude with a Problem” movies from Die Hard to Deep Impact are dissected.
Personal favorites of mine such as Alien, The Matrix and Blade Runner are also discussed.
Everything is viewed through the Blade Snyder Beat Sheet named by the author of the book after himself. The Beat Sheet consists of 14 parts.
Each movie is analyzed and then compared against its “type” of story and a list of similar movies is included.
This is a great thoughtful book for anyone interested in screenwriting. It’s also a sequel to a book called Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need.
External Links
The Foundation Trilogy
Part 1: https://grnanda.wordpress.com/2020/07/27/asimovs-foundation-trilogy-in-speculative-fiction-part-1/
Part 2: https://grnanda.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/asimovs-foundation-trilogy-in-speculative-fiction-part-2/
The Martian Chronicles
G.R. Nanda 