This is the best book of the last decade, and certainly one of my top reads for the 21st century so far. Ishiguro is aging, but is still the unqualified master of achingly beautiful novel-writing. Klara and the Sun is thoughtful; funny; sad; interesting; tightly written and intricately woven. There is no eat-your-peas here: this is an enjoyable and fun read, and yet comes densely (sneakily?) layered with a thoughtful discourse on artificial life and ethics. Do AI androids have feelings? dignity? religious impulses? Can they be discarded like last year's iPhone, or do they have a right to continuance? What happens when the android has more morality and "soul" than the beaten-down and narcissistic humans they interact with, and can the android teach the human something? An absolute masterpiece.
*The #1 Sunday Times Bestseller* *Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021* *A Barack Obama Summer Reading Pick*
'A delicate, haunting story' The Washington Post 'This is a novel for fans of Never Let Me Go . . . tender, touching and true.' The Times
'The Sun always has ways to reach us.'
From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges…
Americans can be crazy, but at their best they have an outrageous, defiant Bugs-Bunny-esque candor and optimism I admire as a foreigner. This is an extremely silly book about a deposed princess in Seattle who falls in love with an outlaw arsonist, symbolized by a pack of cigarettes and pyramids, possibly or possibly not inspired by an ancient alien race of red-heads. Add in the narrator continually complaining about his typewriter. None of this chaos and randomness makes much sense when I describe it, but imagine a warmer, happier version of Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. Sign me up for all the postmodern trickery and authors-arguing-with-characters, when it's done with heart and wit.
Still Life with Woodpecker is sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem of redheads.
I teach sci-fi, but reluctantly admit that much sci-fi is, well, bad: formulaic or cheesy geekiness, and impenetrably long book series. I am surprised how well Dick's 1968 novel holds up, and how good it is. What appears to be a formulaic noir-detective pastiche turns into a deeply problematic rumination on what, exactly, is human? In a post-nuclear setting of ruins, few people, and so few animals that consuming them has become horrendously unthinkable, what is left of civilization is augmented by artificial animal pets as well as semi-reanimated human-robot-androids ("andys," renamed "replicants" in the 1982 Bladerunner adaptation). As his job leads him into increasingly thorny ethical decisions, Decker gradually questions how he is any better or distinguished from these various life (life?) forms. The movie is thinky. The book is thinkier. Like any good fiction, "Androids" both entertains and poses complex questions to the reader.
As the eagerly-anticipated new film Blade Runner 2049 finally comes to the screen, rediscover the world of Blade Runner . . .
World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalked, in search of the renegade replicants who were his prey. When he wasn't 'retiring' them with his laser weapon, he dreamed of owning a live animal - the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of animal life.
Then Rick got his chance: the assignment to kill six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward. But in Deckard's world things were…
Leisure suits! Muscle cars! An annoyingly ethical cocktail-loving alien! Social justice radicals! Time-traveling terrorist music critics! Just like Jane Austen used to write! Why couldn’t Alan be cool like people in the ‘70s? After breaking up with his girlfriend Sheila and unsatisfyingly teaching English in South Korea, he befriends an alien grad student, Coff, who lets him time-travel to swingin’ 1967 England to live out his retro-boogie fantasy. But now 70 years old in Edmonton, Canada, Alan takes a chance in meeting Sheila again to confess his past, causing problems in time that Coff will need more than Fleetwood Mac and fuzzy dice to fix. When time-flow conflicts result in them being harassed by university radicals and half-real fictional characters out to prevent Starship from recording "We Built This City" in 1985, Alan, Coff, and Sheila must travel to a San Francisco disco in 1979 for a final showdown against the time-terrorists. "Shorter of Breath" is an enjoyable romp through expat life in Korea, retro 70's culture, and classic rock music.
