Something New (No 5)

[smallhobbit]

When I was considering things to do in my Year of Something New, mafief came up with several suggestions.  Amongst them was to read some sci-fi.  I took up the challenge and it confirmed my previous thoughts - I'm not a fan of sci-fi, other than in a vague Dr Who/Star Trek way.  And of course Rudybago.

I reserved two books from the library, which duly climbed out of the vaults to make their way to my local library for collection.  As an aside, I am a great fan of the library, even if I am number 45 in the list for the new Robert Galbraith (J K Rowling) Cormoran Strike novel - that's out of 102 reservations.  (There are 14 copies in the library, but a lot are currently on fast back - ie one week loan.  I'm sure that will change in a few months.)  But I'm not in a rush to read it.  However, I digress.


The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

I found this hard going at first, but gradually got into it and wanted to know what happened.  As someone with a competency kink I got very annoyed when the author stated baldly the scientists did the wrong thing.  They were working to a very tight timeframe, they were tired and they had to make decisions as to the best way to proceed, given limited people resources.  They made the wrong decisions but entirely reasonable ones given the circumstances.  And the ending was a total anticlimax.


Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley

Not fiction this time.  The book was written in 2000 and I did wonder how much has changed since the book was written.  Not that I have a particular interest in following up on the topic, but clearly there will have been many further discoveries regarding our genes in the last 18 years.  I found it hard work at the beginning, getting to grips with the scientific terms, but then it became easier.  The middle sections of the book were interesting, and gave me some interesting background information.  But by the end the writer had fallen into the trap of saying those in the past were wrong, we are the ones who are right.  This is just arrogant.


An interesting challenge, and one which confirmed me in my previous thoughts.  But still I learnt things, broadened my horizons, and that's never a bad thing to do.

Comments

[badly_knitted]

I love the Andromeda Strain movie, and the book is okayish, but there is far better SF out there - I know because I'm an avid SF reader. Still, the genre isn't for everyone. We all read what appeals to us most. I can't stand romantic fiction, except when it's fanfic with my favourite characters.

[smallhobbit]

Fanfic is a totally different category!

My favourite genre is the classic detective story, although I do read other things too. I read Ray Bradbury's 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' when I first started regularly reading again, but still wasn't keen on the sci fi genre.

As you say, we all have our own preferences, because life would be very dull if we were all the same.

[badly_knitted]

Something Wicked is great =D

I read SF, fantasy, and some detective stories. I got hooked on reading SF (as opposed to watching it on TV, which I'd been doing as long as I could remember) when a friend loaned me one of Colin Kapp's Unorthodox Engineers stories, which I still love. I've had phases of reading all sorts of things, but I always go back to SF and fantasy.

Variety is the key, there's something to suit everyone.

[sanguinity]

Michael Crichton is pretty meh in my opinion; I think of him more as a popular thriller author who writes SF-y premises than as an actual SF-genre writer. There's a thing where genre writers -- and this includes romance and mystery, from what I've read of them -- are writing in conversation with each other, and for an audience that's familiar with that conversation. Crichton doesn't seem to have any interest in those conversations, he just... throws out a sexy pop-sci premise, develops it poorly and along purely action/thriller lines, and calls himself done. Which is fine if you're looking for a page-turner -- they're certainly popular enough! -- but is singularly unsatisfying if you want anything else in a story, like characterization or worldbuilding or tantalizing ideas.

Which isn't to say that you'd like SF better if you tried a different author! I trust you know your own tastes, after all. I just find Crichton a disappointing read in SF terms, is all.

I couldn't quite follow from the way you prefaced it above: were you counting Genome as sci-fi, too? Or as a related subject?

[smallhobbit]

Genome isn't scifi of course - I've used the full book title. I read it because it is of a scientific nature and therefore outside my normal reading and history interests. Michael Crichton is probably a good way of getting into scifi from another genre, but for me the issues raised weren't really of interest.

[sanguinity]

Oh, I'm familiar with Matt Ridley (although I don't remember any individual book well enough to discuss it now), and I'm well aware he isn't SF -- it was just that I was expecting both of the reserved books to be SF, and then got tangled about whether Ridley was related to the "read SF" new thing or not. That's all. :-)

[mafief]

Hehe, well, I am glad I can provide a new experience even if it was not quite your favorite one. 😊 But, thank you for giving it a go and being honest with your experience.

I’ll be sure to find new things for you to do when you ask again. (haha, read that with dread if you want. :D)

Matt Ridley writes in an arrogant style - I won’t dispute that. He also wrote “The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature”. Richard Dawkin’s also has that style. Perhaps this is more of the male science writer’s styles… ;) The “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” book is not like that at all and written by a women. I’ll be reading “The Gene: An Intimate History” by Mukherjee Siddhartha soon, so we’ll see if my generalization is valid. The excerpt I read about human sex determination and how it’s not exactly binary was really good (I might be biased here, since I find this topic fascinating).

The information in Genome, while written in 2000, is still up to date (most of it is in textbooks now). There is more in-depth information now since there is more than one human’s genome sequenced.