John Brunner - The Shockwave Rider (1975)

This story is set in 2010. The inhabitants of the world described by Brunner are living on the edge of an existential abyss.


The protagonist of the novel is Nickie Haflinger, orphaned at an early age, bounced from foster family to foster family and, finally, recruited at 10 years by a government agency whose purpose is to cultivate a generation of gifted children to use as a resource in a race with other nations.

Sickened by the moral deficiencies he has discovered in the project (including bioengineering the artificial production of genius ... no matter the price they, or worse, past failures, have to pay), Nickie escapes Tarnover (the laboratory name) at twenty seizing a computer code that allows him to erase his past and build a new identity whenever he needs on, and during the following six years he lives as a fugitive with no clear objective except to remain free.

Endowed with a complex internal structure, fragments of the past ar interspersed with other fragments in the present, chronicling the Nick's adventures (or Sandy's, or the name he will currently be using)

In essence, what this book is telling is the evolution of Nickie, a human being so deeply traumatized and lacking in affection that until he begins to heal (thanks to a chance meeting with Kate, a girl curious and clever in a world that penalizes both features) he's not aware of his crippleness. So, after finding something to fight for,he stops running and strikes back, putting to use the tools that have been supplied by his opponents and his natural talent for programming.

John Kilian Houston Brunner (24 September 1934 – 26 August 1995) was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1968 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. It also won the BSFA award the same year. The Jagged Orbit won the BSFA award in 1970.

Cory Doctorow - Little Brother (Download for free)

This is a great book for many reasons. I'll give you mine but you can find yours downloading it for free here:

http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

No DRM, Creative Commons and in every format: plain text, pdf, html, ePub, mobi, azw for Kindle, prc, ... every one.

"Little Brother is a scarily realistic adventure about how homeland security technology could be abused to wrongfully imprison innocent Americans. A teenage hacker-turned-hero pits himself against the government to fight for his basic freedoms. This book is action-packed with tales of courage, technology, and demonstrations of digital disobedience as the technophile’s civil protest"

Andrew "bunnie" Huang, author of Hacking the Xbox


Seventeen-year-old San Francisco native Marcus Yallow and his friends Darryl Glover, Vanessa "Van" Pak and Jose Luis "Jolu" Torrez are truant from school and playing an alternate reality game, when a terrorist attack destroys San Francisco Bay Bridge. Air raid sirens sound, and everyone in the area begins swarming toward a fallout shelter. Darryl is stabbed by someone in the crowd and the others try to find help for him, but since they didn't go into the shelter as expected, the foursome are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and held as enemy combatants.

My favourite Amazon review, by R'lyeh says this: "Cory Doctorow has managed to create a wonderful fusion of science fiction, action novel, political thriller, and whimsical romp. It's very hard to bring those elements together, but he has succeeded admirably. I haven't seen anyone pull this off since "The Long Run" by Daniel Keys Moran"

From my point of view, the most interesting thing about this book is that it shows the struggle that we all maintain between our desire to feel safe and our need to be free and how all states seek to exploit the fear and helplessness that we feel sometimes in order to convince us to give up basic rights such as privacy and freedom of speech.

Cory Doctorow's is an incredible author and also a strong critic of copyright laws and that is why all his works can be downloaded from his website, http://craphound.com/

For instance:

Download With a Little Help

Download For The Win.

Download Makers

Download Someone comes to town, someone leaves town.

Download Eastern Standard Tribe.

Download Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

Poul Anderson - Brain Wave (1954)

At dawn, the rabbit pulled his nose to the bars of the trap, pushed them up... and was released. From now on, humanity's dominion over the animal world has ended.

Before breakfast, a ten years old boy tinkered with some mathematical signs on his own... and re-discovered calculus.

The national education system has become obsolete overnight. By midafternoon, Peter Corinth's office at the Institute for Advanced Studies was buzzing with excitement. The first reports arrived raging and Corinth was thinking of the consequences. It was too early for the world to understand what was happening.

Prepared or not, humanity was heading for a great exaltation of mind. A new era was beginning, more exciting and more intense and nothing would be again as it was.


Plot Summary (Wikipedia)

At the end of the Cretaceous period the Earth moved into an energy dampening field in space. As long as Earth was in this field all conductors became more insulating. As a result almost all of the life on Earth with neurons died off, causing the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event. The ones that survived passed on their genes for sufficiently capable neurons to deal with the new circumstance. Now in modern times the Earth suddenly moves out of the field. Within weeks all animal life on earth becomes about 5 times as intelligent. The novel goes through the triumphs and tribulations of various people and non-human animals and groups on earth after this event.

Poul and Karen Anderson by Greg Bear, their son-in-law

The premise is fascinating in this thought-provoking novel. Worth reading although a little sad. 

John Calvin Batchelor: The birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica

 The book tells the strange story of Grim Fiddle, born in Sweden, and of his father, Peregrine, an American who escaped the U.S. war in Vietnam and is illegal in Sweden. Grim grows up around Peregrine's friends who take care of him, but things in Sweden get complicated, because Peregrine is imprisoned and becomes the symbol of a xenophobic nationalist revolt led by Mord Fiddle, the grandfather of Grim. Eventually, Grim, his grandfather and his friends are aimed at a sea voyage in the midst of a cruel, even mysterious war that shakes Europe and the adventure takes them to the Falkland Islands, then to South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula finally ...

Told in first person by an old Grim who recounts his memories, and talks about war crimes he committed, the novel creates an atmosphere of condemnation and guilt, and is full of philosophical reflections on human nature, the relationship between the powerful nations, poor nations and the relations of war. 

Classification? Future social history sci-fi, maybe. with the emphasison the sociology of a world involved in a war that is almost a worldwide phenomenon. "Norse saga" or "epic" could also be applicable categorizations. 


There are two distinct parts. In the first, which occupies almost all the book, deals with the long drift to the ice and the exile of Grim Fiddle. In the second part, it suggests vaguely historical events in the background. Western governments, concerned about the unstoppable wave of refugees and the problems that can cause, organize what is called the Cross of Ice, which is responsible to set up camps for resettlement in the Antarctic Circle which are reality nothing more than concentration camps where refugees are expected to stay away from civilization.

John Calvin Batchelor Show at the radio

 Surprisingly, the People's Republic of Antarctica has been finally founded in Aug. 18th of 2010 by the citizens of Antarctica (the Mary Byrd Land section). Although the country claims land amounting to an area greater than that of most nations, it is not recognised by other countries as of yet, however the United Nations has been notified of it's declaration of status. The Nation has no permanent population, and can thus be considered a micronation.

Lois Lowry - Giver

With a reputation for being "one of the most banned books in American schools", the Giver is a powerful novel that keeps you reading and thinking about.

 The Giver is a futuristic vision of a seemingly perfect society in which everyone wears a life nicely ordered and directed. Life goes quietly into a community where all are equal, there is no hatred or fear, but no feelings nor any memory of the past.

Jonah lives in a household in the community and faces the Ceremony of Twelve in which he will be given the mission to be carried the rest of his life.

But Jonah is special, and he's afforded the most honorable and respected professions within the Community: he will be the new host of memories. Above this, lie the burden of remembering all those feelings, experiences and pains that have no place within the Community. The old receiver becomes the giver that turns on Jonah all stored memories of past world and from that moment Jonah will never be the same ...

Some facts: titles: 

The Giver
Number the Stars
Gathering Blue
Messenger
Gossamer
The Silent Boy
Looking Back
A Summer to Die
The Gooney Bird Series
The Anastasia Series
The Sam Series

Lowry won the Edwards Award in 2007

Doris Lessing: Canopus in Argos

Canopus in Argos: Archives is a sequence of five science fiction novels by Nobel Prize in Literature-winning author Doris Lessing which portray a number of societies at different stages of development, over a great period of time. The focus is on accelerated evolution being aided by advanced species for less advanced species and societies.

The Canopus in Argos series as a whole falls into categories of social or soft science fiction ("space fiction" in Lessing's own words)

These are the novels in the series:

Shikasta (1979) – A secret history of Earth from the perspective of the advanced Canopus civilization that is thinking in eons rather than centuries. The history spans from the very beginning of life into our own future. The book ends with a metaphorical telling of the trial of Socrates.

The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five (1980) – Depicts the influence of unknown higher powers on interactions between a series of civilizational "zones" of varying degrees of advancement that encircle the planet Earth. One zone is representative of an overtly feminine high civilization initially coupled by royal marriage to a militant and male civilization. The novel culminates with the latter, male, civilization allying with a tribal female realm again due to directives from Canopus.

The Sirian Experiments (1980) – Focuses, like Shikasta, on the history of Earth, but from the perspective of visitors from Sirius rather than Canopus. The Sirians are depicted as a highly managed society with fascist overtones, that attempt experiments on lesser civilizations while trying to mitigate the stagnation of their ruling class. The story is told from the perspective of Ambien II, one of a peer group of five who rule Sirius.

The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (1982) – The story of the civilization on a planet that, due to interstellar "re-alignments", is slowly facing extinction, and Canopus's relationship with them. The story is greatly influenced by Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic expedition, and is Lessing's homage to it.

The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire (1983) – A story of Canopean agents on a less advanced planet; explores hazards of rhetoric and mirrors events in revolutionary societies such as Communist Russia.


Although Lessing dropped school at the age of 14, it's impressive the amount of varied knowledge she's able to display in this interesting if difficult book, a fascinating parable or an alternative mythology, these books beautifully show how conditioning cripples our abilities to perceive and evolve. On my opinion, she takes advantage of the book to make quite a lot of personal moral/philosophical statements than sometimes end up getting a bit tedious. A worthwile exercise of "thinking outside the box" at times disfigured by excessive use of repetitive ideas. Too sanctimonious and politicaly correct for my personal taste, the book are, however, a glorious display of historical knowledge and love for humanity despite its many shortcomings (humanity's, not the books' :))))

Just read: Transition, by Iain (not M.?) Banks

Here starts the list of the last books I've read. No masterpiece to be found among them but a bit of fun and some surprises garantized. Let's see them and remember them although they're not staying home with me and a long journey to the public library awaits them:

Iain Banks - Transition

The absence of the middle initial M in Iain Banks' name on the front cover suggests that Transition is being sold by his publisher as one of the author's mainstream works, as opposed to his equally successful science-fiction books.

In fact, this 24th novel from the critically and commercially successful writer makes that distinction almost completely obsolete, its complex and wildly imaginative storyline ostensibly set on Earth, but infused with such mind-boggling phenomena as to make that setting seem stranger than any alien planet.
The critics to review Scottish novelist Iain Banks’ new novel Transition can’t agree on whether the book is a masterpiece or a hunk of junk but I've had a lot of fun with it, although it's not a simple one to read, needs attention and patience. Banks creates here an universe of infinite different but related worlds, giving his mind free rein to create and describe all sorts of weird and wonderful alternatives to our society. Although the rapid changes of perspective often become frustrating and confusing, this is also a properly thrilling read. Well, as a matter of fact, perhaps I'll manage to find some place left in a shelf for this one.
Sinopsis:

"A world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse, such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organisation with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers? On the Concern’s books are Temudjin Oh, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice; and a nameless, faceless torturer known only as the Philosopher.
And then there’s the renegade Mrs Mulverhill, who recruits rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, hiding out from a dirty past in a forgotten hospital ward. As these vivid, strange and sensuous worlds circle and collide, the implications of turning traitor to the Concern become horribly apparent, and an unstable universe is set on a dizzying course."

You will find more (and better) here:
http://www.keepingthedoor.com/2009/09/08/iain-banks-transition-gets-mixed-reviews/
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/transition-by-iain-banks-1777592.html
http://www.iain-banks.net/uk/transition/