Category Archives: Literature

Isaac Asimov – The Stars, Like Dust

Not the most graceful fiction, nor are the characters well developed. But the story gets better if one knows a little backstory first. This is the first novel of a three-part series written early in Asimov’s career. It was something of a prequel to his Foundation series, Asimov’s best-known fiction. The story of The Stars, Like Dust is loosely based on the history of the Golden Horde, a Mongol faction led by Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan; the larger Foundation series is loosely modeled on the Roman Empire’s decline. It is filled with infighting and intrigue. That said, the surprise plot twist in the end firmly establishes this book as a product of mid-20th century America. This book is better as a slice of mid-20^th-century American culture than as a serious work of science fiction. Perhaps not coincidentally, Asimov called this book his least favorite novel.

Jonathan Swift – Gulliver’s Travels

The classic satire holds up well. In the first of four parts, Gulliver visits the Lilliputians. Besides the obvious lessons about cultural differences, there is also some amusing ribaldry, as when Gulliver gets into legal trouble for putting out a Lilliputian fire by urinating on it, and flooding the tiny town as a result.

In part two he sees the opposite side of the coin with the Brobdingnagians, a race of giants, though mercifully minus the peeing. In part three he bounces around among several different nations, giving Swift the opportunity to poke fun at philosophers and other elites, and for some reason Japan, possibly because it is an actual place. Part four gives us the word “yahoo,” which gives Swift ample opportunity to make fun of ordinary people’s prejudices and habits. When Gulliver is briefly home between adventures, the casual dismissiveness with which he treats his wife and children is an early example of shock value humor. Gulliver barely acknowledges their existence beyond conceiving a new child on each return. Nobody is spared, and nobody is a saint, which is likely the source of Swift’s enduring appeal.

James S.A. Corey – Tiamat’s Wrath: The Expanse, Book 8

This book’s theme is hubris. Though the book’s universe and most of the characters are secular, it has an underlying tone of angering the gods. The totalitarian Laconian regime is continuing to consolidate its rule over the entire 1,300-world ring gate system, and the main characters are continuing a small underground resistance in ways reminiscent of dissenters under Stalin and Hitler. But High Consul Duarte, in his hubris, attempts to wake up the forces that destroyed the civilization that destroyed the protomolecule’s long-gone creators. It goes about as well as one would expect.

There is also a bit of game theory involving the prisoner’s dilemma game. Duarte’s misuse of it results in a spectacular mistake about a third of the way into the book, and at least two facepalms from this reader. The book ends on a rather large cliffhanger, presumably to be resolved in the series-concluding book 9, which will likely come out in 2020.

Fyodor Dostoevsky – Crime and Punishment

The plot is simple—a young man commits murder basically for thrills, then deals with the anguish of what he has done. None of the characters are sympathetic, and the overall sensibility is constant tension, suffocation, isolation, and despair, with few letups. In other words, perfect beach reading.

Anton Chekhov – Complete Short Stories

Chekhov’s stories have a quiet domesticity that is both comforting and melancholy. His characters take delight in the littlest things, where something as little as a food’s smell can bring back associations and memories from happier times—or a relief that past unhappy times are gone. His characters also argue about trifles, sometimes aware of the low stakes, and sometimes not. The small scale of his plots lets the reader concentrate on how different personality types and people in different social situations react to different stimuli, as though Chekhov were conducting experiments in human nature. This makes some sense; Chekhov was a medical doctor in his non-literary life.