Robert Heinlein "Starship Troopers" 1997

After world anarchy, order is restored by a government along the lines of the Roman Republic, or perhaps a better analogy would be modern Israel. Those who serve in the military earn "citizenship" and can vote. The rest who reside in this republic are perfectly free to bitch all they like. Then alien contact is made, and the aliens are not all that warm and fuzzy. Sex, politics, pacifism, war, ESP, personal growth and responsibility, Heinlein addresses it all. The book is a perennial favorite. Released uncut in 1987 it is reviewed here at Amazon. The movie version, criticized very unfairly upon its release for being "tits and fascism," was quite good, but disappointed some fans for leaving out much from the book. The spirit of the book adapted well to the movie. The movie is directed by Paul Verhoeven of Basic instict and Total Recall. It stars Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Michael Ironside and Neil Patrick Harris.

The Loeb Classical Library

This definitive bilingual hardcover collection of classical Greek and Roman writers is an essential for the student of history, literature, politics, or philosophy. An example is Suetonius' Twelve Caesars upon which Robert Graves' historical fiction I, Claudius was largely based. Also available are such authors as Homer, Aristotle, Epictetus, Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, Aristophanes, Lucretius, Augustine and Xenophon, and literally hundreds of other foundational classical works. They can be found in large Borders and Barnes & Noble book stores or be ordered on-line, new or used.

The Essential Stoics and Epicureans

The following recommended Loeb Classical Library Editions are excellent reproductions of the original Greek or Latin manuscripts, in those languages, with original text on the left and the English translation on the right. The volumes average about $20 each. Links point to the appropriate volume at Amazon.

Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Vols.I, & II

This Greek work, by the Epicurean historian, is the primary source for our knowledge of most philosophers up to the time of Epicurus, whose biography is the last and largest in the work. Other than fragments found elsewhere, Diogenes is the main source on Epicurus. The biographies often amount to mere sketches, but each philosopher's primary doctrines, original formulations, and remarkable sayings or accomplishments are given. Perhaps the most striking aspect of Diogenes' work is how it demonstrates that almost no modern issue in philosophy was not already known and debated over two millenia ago.

Lucretius De Rerum Natura "On the Nature of Things"

This work is considered one of the greatest literary accomplishments in Latin, as it is not only a treatise on natural history, but is set to classical Latin metrical form, a sort of scientific primer in verse. This work is the largest surviving Epicurean text. Lucretius' purpose was to provide a text which would help its readers understand nature enough not to suffer from suspicious fears. Given that experimental science was not a developed concept and that most of the work is based upon observation and speculation its sophistication is still striking. This text is not, however, essential in any ethical sense, and unless one is a devoté of Latin verse or the classics in general, this book might be better borrowed than bought.

Epictetus The Discourses, Vol. I & Vol. II, with Encheiridion

This Stoic work in Greek by a Roman Slave is perhaps the most impressive surviving ethical work of the Classic Era. Epictetus did not write the work, the lectures are recorded by Arrian from the school Epictetus founded after he had been freed and then expelled from Rome under the Emperor Domitian. At the end of the second volume is included the Encheiridion or "handbook" which contains as summary of the doctrines.

Marcus Aurelius The Meditations

This incredible work of one of the greatest and most tragic of Roman Emperors was written in his own hand, not in Latin, but in Greek. Containing much the same doctrines as Epictetus, the work is a shorter and more personal inspirational diary with brief remarks as well as longer passages. Marcus Aurelius has been fictionalized in movies such as Gladiator and Fall of the Roman Empire. Any student of history, philosophy or humanism should thrill to have this work in his own hands.

NEA Funds $1.3 Billion Poem

WASHINGTON—The National Endowment for the Arts announced Monday that it has begun construction on a $1.3 billion, 14-line lyric poem—its largest investment in the nation's aesthetic- industrial complex since the $850 million interpretive-dance budget of 1985.

"America's metaphors have become strained beyond recognition, our nation's verses are severely overwrought, and if one merely examines the internal logic of some of these archaic poems, they are in danger of completely falling apart," said the project's head stanza foreman Dana Gioia. "We need to make sure America's poems remain the biggest, best-designed, best-funded poems in the world."

Read more at the Onion.

Michael Crichton "State of Fear"

A series of deaths is traced to the toxin of the blue-ringed-octopus.

An MIT prodigy goes on an unexplained hiatus.

A playboy businessman donates $250,000 to an environmental fund, the check is deposited to buy war weapons.

A crew shows up to film hundreds of children drown in a flash flood, 30 minutes before rain begins to fall.

A cranky old professor interrupts a conference on the coming abrupt climate change disaster, calling the speakers "eco-pimps."

A movie star and "friend of the environment" learns the truth about cannibals.

The playboy is named NERF's "concerned citizen of the year," and after he turns down the environmentalism award, his Ferrari runs off the California highway.

State of Fear is 600pp of mystery, footnotes, beautiful women, fast-paced action, and parties where socialites who mouth ecochondriac slogans throw fits when their host asks them to explain exactly what they mean by what they say.

I give this book an unqualified positive recommendation.

Kerr Avon, Blake's 7's anti-Anti-Hero

"I have never understood why it should be necessary to become
irrational in order to prove that you care, or indeed why it should be
necessary to prove it at all."

Blake's 7, which ran on BBC1 from 1978 to 1981, was a groundbreaking science fiction show noted for stepping outside the normal narrative bounds of a television serial. The story of Blake, a political dissident, and his crew of ex-criminals on board a stolen alien ship, the Liberator, was sold to the network by Doctor Who writer and Dalek creator Terry Nation as "The Dirty Dozen" in space. The eponymous and stereotypical hero Roj Blake leaves the show half way through its run. Several of Blake's crew are killed off during the series. The character Servalan, played by Jacqueline Pearce, a glamorous dominatrix who rises to the rank of Supreme Commander and President of the Terran Foundation, literally steals the show (her character had been meant to appear in only one episode) becoming one of the best loved of all science fiction villains. And, significantly, the show is known for the character of Kerr Avon, played and developed by Paul Darrow, a computer expert and apparent lone wolf who comes to lead the Liberator's crew after Blake leaves the show.

Blake's 7 has been described as dark, cynical, amoral, and in effect, the anti-Star Trek. This reputation results in part from the over-the-top portrayal of Servalan by Jacqueline Pearce and in part from the death of members of the crew and many of the people whom they love and with whom they come in contact. But the main reason for this anti-heroic evaluation of the show lies in the rise of Kerr Avon, the brains of Blake's outfit, whom he replaces as the leader of the Liberator's crew in the third season. One reviewer says of Avon that "even though he is callous, and apparently without morals, he is still likable."

From the web:

"There's very few men that I would admit to loving as a heterosexual man. But I love Paul Darrow. I love this guy." -blackshogun77

"Avon is one of the few characters from TV sci-fi that actually really suggests what a person from a technological future might be like." -thregar

What are these morals which Avon supposedly lacks? Darrow explains that in order for one to have such an adventure show as Blake's 7, one has to have a "heroic" main character – one who is willing and even eager to put him self at risk to save others, whether from the evil oppressor, or, in the case of that oppressor, from himself. Being originally the second in command, the character of Avon was free to step outside that mold, serving as a check and a foil on Blake's willingness to sacrifice himself and the crew any time anyone needs help. In the episode Mission to Destiny, the Liberator's crew stumble upon a ship stopped dead in space, its crew, on a mission to save a planet from a plague, having been drugged and one of the crewmen murdered. Blake offers to ferry their vital cargo to the homeworld to stop the plague while volunteering to leave Avon behind to effect repairs. Avon quips that he doesn't care if the plague wipes out the planet – he's interested in solving the murder mystery as an intellectual challenge. In the episode The Keeper, Avon comes upon and destroys the ship of a Federation agent who has sworn to kill Blake and his crew. Blowing up the spacecraft with its crew unawares, he is criticized by a shipmate as having taken the easy way – to which he rationally asks, should he have given them a sporting chance? Every episode features this conflict between Avon and the rest of the crew, with him urging prudence and ruthlessness while they engage in naïve "chivalrous" acts.

Avon's long term goal is security from the pursuing agents of the malevolent Terran Federation. He tells Blake that the price of his cooperation is ultimate possession of the Liberator – the means to his security – once Blake's central mission to destroy the Federation's control center Star One has been accomplished. Avon is not driven by whim, self-sacrifice, fear or a desire to destroy. He values his own life and safety, and tries to act as much as possible on his own terms. He is not immoral. His actions are principled and value based – his principles and his values are simply not those of the crusading Blake and his followers.

Avon's self interested motivation does not lead to the dissolution of the story once Blake leaves the crew. Rather, instead of the writers having the convenience of a "hero" who actively seeks danger, they have a protagonist whom they have to put in dangerous situations to see how he will escape. This move from a fantasy type conflict where the hero seeks danger to a realistic conflict where the hero has to face a danger that finds him leads to better writing, not worse. Blake's leaving the show is the best thing that happens to it, moving it from a fairy tale of knights on quests to an adult drama with conflict between a self-aware hero and an enemy that would hound him until he is dead.

Much of the last two seasons revolves around the interactions between Servalan and Avon. Servalan is bright and ruthless. She pursues power as a means to control a universe she ultimately fears. She attempts to make alliance with and to seduce Avon, playing the femmefatale to a tee. But she is damaged goods, and Avon knows it. He does see her in some ways as his equal, and this allows the writers to maintain a witty sexual tension that gives the show suspense and zest. But, in the episode Orac, when offered the chance of alliance with the temptation of a kiss, he embraces Servalan only to grab her by the neck and throw her to the ground saying "Partnership? I'd be dead within a weak!"

Paul Darrow is an unusual thing in entertainment, an actor who not only thinks he has better ideas than a show's writers, but one who actually does. (Darrow was fast friends with Nation.) Darrow had been involved, after three decades, with a plan to reprise the show with himself as the only returning character. It is unfortunate that due to creative differences this fell threw. Luckily, Darrow speaks at length on the show in this recent three-part interview, available onYouTube:



Here is a compilation of Avon's finest moments:



A full list of episodes is available at Wikipedia. Most of the episodes are available in five installments of ten minutes each at YouTube.

Steven Pinker "The Stuff of Thought"

Who would have thought a psychology professor could do stand-up? Formerly a professor of psychology at MIT, Steven Pinker is not only such a good writer, but he is also such a dynamic and entertaining speaker that one can see why Harvard would want to acquire him for its faculty. How the Mind Works is perhaps his best work, addressing consciousness largely at the perceptual level. This current book approaches the mind from a physico-linguistic standpoint, dealing with words not primarily as tags for conceptual abstractions, but rather as mental nexuses which are processed physically in various parts of the brain. For example, he studies how expletives and other taboo words not only have objective referents as universals, but how they also tend to hijack our emotional circuits and, if we do not exert focused mental self-control, cause us to act as outraged mammals rather than rational animals. Read an excellent technical review of the work at Babel's Dawn blog by Edmund Blair Bolles - but keep in mind that the book is less technical in presentation than the review.

I cannot highly enough recommend Pinker's appearance on BookTV. The topic may sound difficult, yet Pinker is not only crystal clear, he is also laugh out loud funny. Click here to see him speek for 45 minutes, commercial free. If you watch the talk, you'll be sold on the book.

Here is Steven Pinker at the Authors@Google conference:

"The Morphodite" by M. A. Foster

Luto Pternam's Mask Factory manufactures shock troops and assassins to maintain the static totalitarian society of Lisagor on the Planet Oerlikon. His latest "creation" is a conditioned assassin with two unique abilities. The morphodite can initiate Change, a biochemical process that leads to regeneration and sex change. And this morphodite has a symbolic societal calculus that allows it to identify the keystone member of a society, whose removal will instigate catastrophic change. Half believing in his creation, Pternam looses him on Lisagor society, thinking that the chaos he will cause will lead to personal advantage. The morphodite, kidnapped and brainwashed, does his calculations, identifies the keystone individual, and sets loose forces that lead to revolution.

This book is extremely well written. The society is quite plausible. Characters are well developed. The hero does the best he can in his situation, refusing to initiate further force once his situation allows for a semi-peaceful existence. The concentration on sociological themes and the care with linguistic realism is reminiscent of Frank Herbert. Simplistic ad hoc moral dilemmas are not employed, rather, the hero acts with regret when necessary, according to the logic of the situation. Justice, while often cold-blooded and delayed, is done in the end. The writing is often wry and the language is formal, but this lends an authentic atmosphere to the Byzantine culture, into which the author put a lot of thought. The hero could seek power or revenge, but in the end, refuses to "rule."

I first read this book at 13 when it was published. Foster wrote two more books, which I have not read. They are reviewed under this title on Amazon. I have reread most of the fiction I have enjoyed over the years many times. I am happy to add this title to the list of books worth such attention.