Eden

Eden is an early science fiction novel written by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, in 1959. However, it wasn't translated into English until 1989-way, way later.

The characters here don't have names, rather the crew are called the Doctor, the Chemist, the Captain, etc. The story starts with a crew landing on an alien planet called Eden. The ship gets damaged, but its repairable. So the crew works on fixing the ship as well as exploring the planet. 

What they see sort of reads like a horror story. They find spider-like plants, mass graves of dead aliens with amorphous shapes and faces all over the place, a bio-factory of aliens, flying, spinning discs, etc. All of which makes the whole experience look like an alien concentration camp. The crew keeps trying to make sense out of everything but at the end of all the debate they realize that nothing makes sense no matter how much they keep learning. 

Most of the book is the crew repairing the ship, exploring, and explanations of what they see, in their jeep with their giant robot. At one point they get attacked by aliens [whom they call doublers], and they retaliate using an atomic weapon! 

Nothing is really known the longer the novel goes on until the last chapters. In fact, there's no character development nor is there any clear plot or story line. At the end the crew finds an alien [a doubler] that's wearing clothes [a rag-like thing]. They find out through the doubler's star maps that he is a man of learning and science. They figure out a way to get the ship's computer to translate the doubler's gurgling cough language. 

From here we learn that the alien civilization here is highly stratified. There used to be a tyrannical government in place in the beginning. Then there were leaders who led anonymously. There's jails set in place where the aliens serve voluntarily, sent there for punishments from the higher ups of the planet, perhaps for doing wrong, perhaps not, we don't know as the computer is iffy with the doubler's translation. The higher ups also control who gets to distribute information, an Orwellian influence. Basically a concentration camp without any guards, designed so that prisoners stay inside on their own free will. I still don't quite get it, but I'm not sure if I'm suppose to nor do I think its that important. Its an interesting concept nonetheless. 

We also learn that although the doublers have no sense of nuclear power, they did once conduct a mass experiment to enhance the species. The experiment failed, which resulted in deformed doublers, who are ostracized from the main society. The doubler tells them that because information gets you killed here, that when he found out that a ship with aliens crash landed, he took this as the chance of a life time, which the humans empathized with.

The crew realizes that they've been exploring something of a prison planet, that sort of thing. The two doublers that the crew found during their stay decided to stay behind the ship's exhaust and die, rather than go back to their oppressive society.  

Before the crew leaves the planet the Captain and the Doctor have a debate. Should they intervene? This is the book's philosophical angle. In the end the Captain decides they shouldn't interfere with these aliens and their society, which makes sense especially because this book was written under Soviet-style regime. However, it also makes the case against having an influence upon another society, another civilization. Sometimes its best to leave things be, which they decide to do. 

Although the prose here isn't anything grand, this book kept my attention. I finished the novel in three days because I was so curious about what was happening on the planet. The book was sort of terrifying in a way, what with the whole prison concentration camp vibe. However, I think that horror element keeps the story exciting, as the prose is sort of dry. 

When the crew is flying off they look back at Eden and see that its a beautiful violet sphere. They realize that it was because of its beauty that they accidentally flew too close and entered its atmosphere. Because of this beauty, that's the reason its called Eden.

I would definitely read more Stanislaw Lem, he's one of the only modern European science fiction writers I've read. I've seen the movie version of his book Solaris, a terrific 1970s sci-fi flick. I would be interested in reading that. 

The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale is a feminist dystopian fiction novel written in the 1980's by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. Thirty years after publication, the novel has captured the zeitgeist and inspired many female writers to take up dystopian feminist fiction, inspiring a new breed of science fiction writers. There's tons of nytimes articles about this sort of stuff. I can see how influential Atwood has been on the genre.

The Handmaid's Tale is told from the first person, from a woman called Offred. It takes place in a near future New England (2005), where women's rights have been taken away, and government has been replaced by a totalitarian state called The Republic of Gilead, resembling a theonomy (theo-god, nomos-law), basically a Divine Christian law. Most of the novel takes place at night and during the day when Offred is out with other handmaids running errands around town as well as the descriptions of other handmaids from Offred's point of view.

These Handmaids bear children for women called Wives, who take care of the kids. There are male Commanders that rape these so-called Handmaids in an attempt to impregnate them. In this world women are commonly infertile so a woman with healthy reproductive organs are usually the Handmaids. Although initially the Commander's relationship with Offred was supposed to be strictly limited to an initiation ceremony, a ritual of rape with the Wife in attendance, she ends up hanging out with the Commander and seeing him regularly, enjoying sex with him despite the rape ritual.

The Commander plays Scrabble with her in his study, something scandalous because women aren't allowed to read and write. In addition, the Commander takes Offred to a brothel, where she meets her college best friend Moira, and is told that these women are yes, prostitutes, but that they get drugs and alcohol as well, and that this is better than being a government rebel, ending up cleaning radioactive waste in the colonies. However, Moira says that its frowned upon to reject any man. So there's a strong sense of control over prostitutes as well.

Through another handmaid Offred learns about the Mayday Resistance, people who are working against the government. Eventually the Commander's Wife finds out about the fling with Offred and Offred contemplates suicide. However, she doesn't kill herself. Instead, Offred tells Nick that she thinks she's pregnant. Some time after that she is taken away by men in uniform (The Eyes, or the Eyes of God), basically the secret police. As she's waiting to go inside a van, Nick tells her not to worry. Offred goes but she isn't sure if these men in uniform are the Mayday Resistance or the Eyes, and if Nick is apart of the Resistance or part of the Eyes.

Lastly, I would have to say that this is a fine work of speculative fiction. Its very difficult to say this is science fiction, although its been up for the critically acclaimed Hugo award, an achievement in and of itself. Atwood has created a world not very different from our own, but goes to the dystopian extremes-of totalitarian religious government, male dominated hierarchy, and class, caste, and status symbols. Although not much happens plot-wise throughout the novel, you get a sense that this is realistic, that this has happened in other countries, and that yes, it could even happen here if powers go unchecked, unbalanced, and out of control. In fact, when Trump got elected this book became more popular, unsurprisingly. Although its a dark and at times deeply disturbing book, it really gives you a sense of ourselves, our country, a mirror not quite reflected yet, but could if we went out of bounds.