The Peripheral

 

I read William Gibson’s The Peripheral at the same time as viewing the much-vaunted streaming series. Usually, I prefer the novel to the film/tv script, but in this case, I liked the latter. The tv series helped me through the challenging first hundred or so pages of Gibson’s jargon-filled novel. However, once settled into the strange future world of the Peripheral, I appreciated the writer’s skill in making the future world of time tunnelling and rampant, unchecked technological development entirely believable.

Imagine being dropped into a war zone in a faraway land at night, facing unknowable dangers, filled with more questions than answers, and you get the idea of Gibson’s world-building. Unrelenting, I suspect Gibson aims to make you think about how it would feel, never mind the entertainment value.

Faced with two timelines, the present and the future, 2099, Gibson convincingly portrays the language of both worlds, not an easy feat for a writer, but seemingly effortless in the hands of the scifi master writer.

On the other hand, watching the adaption entertained in the first instance before inducing more profound thought about the many heady themes, the main being the threat of unchecked technological development on humanity. Timely questions in our times of rapid AI development and imminent singularity.

A Brief History of Everything

 

As a keen follower of cosmology, I found Wilber's view of the awe-inspiring cosmos as little more than a flatland, a challenging concept. 

A Brief History of Everything is Ken Wilber's most accessible research on the Kosmos, as opposed to the cosmos, an ambitious attempt to marry the striking quantitative findings of science with the qualitative enquiry of the spirit. 

Wilber's book is a unique and sweeping work, filled with many ideas of how we can better ascend to higher planes through an integrative approach - taking the best concepts from previous stages of development and incorporating them into new systems.

The analogy of our current stage of development as an empirical-based world, Flatland, where nature  (science) and culture (morals) is the correct worldview, but at the expense of true consciousness (art). Spirituality isn't omnipotent but instead confined to the empirical flatland.

Goddesses in You

 

In the contemporary world, where women may be struggling with their personal, social and cultural identities, ancient archetypes could offer help. In her new novel, Goddesses in You, Christine Lister draws on Greco-Roman mythology’s ancient archetypes and relatively modern references to Jung to help the contemporary woman. 

Easy to read and supported by engaging case studies of sixty well-revered women worldwide (from Greta Thunberg to Jackie Kennedy), this fascinating book will help the reader understand some of the powerful psychological patterns that define their own lives. Lister identifies the twelve archetypal patterns, spanning the fulness of the feminine experience and the powerful threads shaping their beliefs, drives, motivations, actions and emotions during various life phases.

Concisely written and beautifully illustrated, Goddesses In You offers women fresh ways to see themselves in this fast-changing world.

Second Foundation

 

The final book in Isaac Asimov's trilogy follows the Mule's conquest of the First Foundation and his inevitable search for the Second Foundation, supposedly at the other end of the universe. However, the Second Foundation are a more challenging foe to the Mule's telepathic powers, given they have had centuries to develop their own mental and telepathic capabilities.

Part One immediately engages the reader as they follow the Mule's hand-picked investigators, Pritcher, a 'Mule-converted' General, and Channin, an ambitious, talented, but 'unconverted' investigator. They play a psychological cat-and-mouse game with the Mule and the Second Foundation, ultimately leading to the Mule's downfall.

Part Two moves forward some centuries, where the First Foundation has reaffirmed its foothold over the new empire. Still, the mystery of the existence and whereabouts of the Second Foundation remains. A scattering of evidence remains from the Mule's unsuccessful search, enticing further investigation. A small group of First Foundation scientists begin to uncover evidence that the Second Foundation not only exist but are actively tampering with the minds of the First Foundationers.

And so, the group of scientists recommence a galactic search, including unwanted assistance from Arkady, the adolescent daughter of one of the scientists, Darell, ultimately learning of the Second Foundation's true fate.

The third novel in the trilogy is an easy and intriguing read that ultimately rewards the patient reader with the outcome of the new galactic empire. 

Foundation and Empire

Isaac Asimov's second in the Foundation trilogy, Foundation and Empire, starts with an ambitious general of the Galactic Empire taking the onerous responsibility of defeating the Foundation's expansion at the end of the galaxy. But how are one military man's bold plans perceived by the leaders of the now stagnant Empire?

The long-dead Foundation's founder, Harry Seldon, has accurately predicted the General's outcome. However, in Part Two, a new, less predictable adversary threatens the Foundation, seemingly winning large sways of the Foundation's planetary territory with little effort. The Mule, a human mutant possessing extraordinary psychic powers, sets the stage for the Foundation's greatest challenge.

Although his writing style could be considered dated, with 3rd person POV and minimal character development, Asimov still swept me up in his grand saga. He tends to describe less of the character's feelings and more of their relationships to the galactic events that sweep over their lives, with an ever-witty style that is easy to enjoy.

In part, his trilogy is space opera, but Asimov inserts grander political events throughout, events based on the rise and fall of previous great human empires, particularly Rome. In all, a thinking person's space opera. It is written 70 years ago and remains a timeless tale that offers insights into the potential fate of current global empires. He deserves all the accolades that have come his way. 5 STARS

Foundation

 

Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy, a Hugo Award winner for Best of All Time Series 1966, was inspired by an earlier work, The Decline of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbin. Asimov speculated that, as in the past, future human civilisations again powered a mighty empire of Galactic proportions and, like the Romans, experienced their kingdom's inevitable decline and fall.

But unlike the Romans, the Galactic Empire had access to the scientific power of ''psychohistory'', complex mathematics with vast predictive capabilities that could forwarn the empire of their decline with unerring accuracy. The inventor, Harry Sheldon, foresaw the signs of decay and predicted the empire's fall, which would result in dark ages many thousands of years in duration.

Seldon believed he and his ten thousand followers could significantly reduce the time before civilisation recovered from the inevitable decline if the empire allowed his team to finish their work. Instead, the realm took Sheldon and his followers to trial but, despite their suspicions, allowed them to continue their work, but at the far edges of the Milky Way galaxy.

Asimov's work is poignant to the twenty-first century, where modern civilisation faces a similar crisis, including the decline of the nation-state, the rise of China, and the global climate crisis. Will Western civilisation as we know it lose influence, giving way to a new world order?

This book's ''tell not show'' style is dated, given today's preferences for solid characterisation and action learning. The characters feel one-dimensional, given the many different protagonists spread over centuries, and seem similar, almost as if it were Asimov's voice applying the same logic to his characters and their challenges, from the Encyclopedists to the Mercantilists.

However, what's lacking in character development is compensated with intellectual power and creativity. Asimov wrote with freedom, using his gifted genius to express fundamental truths and big ideas rather than only entertain. Like all the great speculative fiction novelists, Asimov observes civilisations profoundly, making him arguably one of the greatest SFF writers. His work should continue to grow in stature as writers apply his ideas to modern storytelling. 5 STARS

The High House

Francesca, a climate scientist, and her husband secretly prepare their home, high on a protected bluff, to shelter against the coming environmental crisis, a significant flooding event. Called overseas to help with the global policy effort, they enlist the help of neighbours, Grandy and his granddaughter, Sally, to maintain the 'high house', and care for their teen daughter, Caro, and young son, Pauly.

Deservedly shortlisted for the 2021 Costa Novel Awards, The author, Jessie Greengrass, takes the reader on a family's intimate journey through the coming climate disaster. Told from alternating first-person POVs of Sally, Caro, and Pauly as they face the impending floods from the vantage point of their home, safely perched high above the rising ocean.

I connected with their unfolding distress, having faced the impact of flooding, albeit less deadly. I remember feeling helpless as the swelling river banks engulfed many homes while I watched from a high-rise unit with a birdseye view of the emergency. It is a surreal feeling. On the one hand, my immediate area was unaffected. Yet below, an emergency unfolded under the ever-present news choppers, bringing constant television updates.

The narrative is told mainly in chronological order. Still, occasionally the characters' fate is mentioned early in the story, but that never softens the tension as they all realise that the irreversible climate crisis worsens. The High House is a powerful story that reminded me of Cormack McCarthy's The Road. A must-read for climate deniers. 5 STARS