Category Archives: post-apocalypse fiction

The Monday Book: THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES by Ray Bradbury

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The-Martian-Chronicles(picture courtesy of By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31139878)

Sometimes you pull out an old favorite – or to be specific, you’re shelving in the bookstore and it falls off as you’re putting something on the shelf, and you pick it up and that’s you lost the rest of the evening.

But gained so much more. I love Bradbury’s writing, and I’d forgotten how he saw the slow progression of Earth people onto Mars, the many ways he’d envisioned people’s hearts moving through Space and not changing much once they landed in a new destination.

Chronicles is a mishmash of short stories, all centered around the theme of Earth colonizing Mars over time, but each a freestanding piece with few overlapping characters. I LOVE the ones where he explores social justice, as in Black People go live on Mars and when the White People blow up Earth, they have to ask permission to come ashore. I love the one where forgotten scary characters from Folklore take up residence because Earth minds don’t have room for them any more. I love the one, early in the book, where an unhappily married Martian couple wind up being the demise of the first explorers. Think of it: the colonization of another planet, ended by a jealous husband?

Bradbury thought of this and so much more in his Chronicles. They don’t feel dated. Even though he invented things willynilly and didn’t see half of what technology actually delivered coming, Bradbury’s writing feels timeless because it focuses on people: what we want, what we fear, what we crave (which is a little different than wanting) and what we pretend we don’t fear. So very interesting to read in the lyrical prose he pulls together. He’s so quick, like a comic caught in print.

This judge gives Martian Chronicles all the stars.

The Monday Book-turned-Movie: CLOUD ATLAS

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Cloud-Atlas-Actors-Different-Characters

I know, I know, you’re very disappointed in me. But I’m on a crochet deadline, and was  looking for Netflix background–less Netflix and chill than Netflix and hook, but there you go.

So I watched Cloud Atlas because the book by David Mitchell had intrigued me but we sold it before I could rad it. And three hours of movie lets one get a powerful lot of yarn moved into correct position.

The thing about this movie is it was able to add something the book wasn’t: jokes about who was playing what part.

For those unfamiliar, Cloud Atlas is pretty much based on the idea that no matter what century it is, people are behaving pretty much the same. There are good guys, bad guys, hustlers and altruists, and it all moves around in a big circle.

The funniest part is, the hunk hero from 2143 or so is the matron of an evil nursing home from 2012. That part cracked me up. Although the fact that “soylent green is people” was a funny line in 2012 and a real thing about food in 2143 was a bit sobering.

Cloud Atlas runs from the 1800s, when on ships running from Jamaica a bad guy is trying to poison a nice guy who saves another nice guy from getting beaten to death, through the 1970s when corruption in the oil industry is getting nice people killed, past 2012 when it’s the publishing industry and nursing homes that get the scrutiny, into ethical futurist questions in 2100 and 2300 (after the fall a few winters, if that tells you anything) when Earth is back to barbarism. If you don’t take it too seriously, it’s a good film. If you start to ask questions about how people know certain things or can gain access to certain places, forget it. This is a shallow, bright ride.

But it is a ride with some breadth, as the 2100s are shoot-em-up thriller, the 1970s are detective novel, 2012 centers around money, and 2300s is eat or be eaten with a few surprises thrown in. It was as bright and breezy as the afghan I was crocheting while watching, and less knotty if one didn’t ask too many questions.

For escapism or background noise, Cloud Atlas works well. For serious thought fodder, one doesn’t need two hours and 51 minutes of star-studded cast to know that everyone is pretty much after something, for good or ill, and that we recycle stock characters in the parade of our life. History repeats itself because we don’t learn the lesson the first time. Just ask Charlottesville.