I just finished Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother and found it a worthy read.  The attentive among you will have noticed that I picked this book for my sf class without having read it.  For the most recent book in the course I choose the sf title with the highest critical and marketplace impact.  Last year the Oprahized The Road was the obvious choice.  And while hardback Little Brothers on sale in the local Kroger a full year after pub date with no paperback in sight, might not be Oprah, it’s close enough for sf.  That it’s about the War on Terror when the theme of this particular class is war, made it inevitable.  Besides, I like Doctorow.  He’s smart, important in his own right as a mover and shaker.

I haven’t read the bibliography yet, which gives a hint to one of the problems with the narrative.  Forget the Xbox.  There’s plenty of soapbox here for anyone, and maybe too much for many.  For my purposes, this makes it a perfect ending for a course that begins with Heinlein’s Starship Troopers—originally written as YA also and larded with right-wing lectures.  Doctorow’s info-dumps are shameless, but this didn’t bother me so much.  He’s always interesting, which James says is the only requirement of a novelist.  This isn’t exactly Melville and the whales or even Stephenson in The Diamond Age, but interesting enough and clear.  At heart, perhaps, Doctorow is an essayist.

I did find myself longing for some shades of gray in the tale.  The only untrustworthy soul under twenty-five is so cartoonishly over the top he’s impossible to take seriously.   Surely, there’s one right of center kid in California with more than two brain cells firing.  My favorite YA writers like Robert Cormier or Philip Pullman allow for dark ambiguity in the narrative, but here the whole thing’s pretty easy after the nasty torture bits are over.  No one betrays our hero except the DHS.  Despite all the paranoia, it’s never personal.  Lucky fellow.  The villain lives to fight another day and that’s supposed to be enough darkness?  It all just seemed a little too sunny by the end.

I quibble.  Except for a bit of a lull toward the end, the narrative remains interesting and the hero engaging.  I agree with his politics, so I’m not the one to ask how effective the book is for those who don’t.  I trust some of my students will have something to say on the matter this summer.  My favorite fan of The Watch (a thoroughly lefty book) is self-described conservative Lelia Taylor who owns Creatures n Crooks.  It makes me proud to have poisoned her mind.  Here’s hoping Little Brother charms my class as well.

I’ll be on electronic hiatus for a while.  I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.  Enjoy the spring.

The second class I teach this summer will be Urban Fantasy, June 22-July 23, Monday-Thursday, 10:30 am-12:45 pm.  I use the term loosely to mean fantasy in a contemporary setting, rather than the narrow marketing niche which seems to be all about sexy vampires and werewolves, neither of which interest me much, except that book Wilderness, but I can’t teach my own stuff.  There has been a growing interest from students in years past to look at some of the earlier incarnations of the form in fiction and film, so hugely influential on guys like Gaiman (and myself).  So the biggest change here is in the starting point.  The reading list—

Thorne Smith.  Topper.  (Modern Library.  ISBN: 0375753052)
Neil Gaiman.  Anansi Boys.  (Harper Torch. ISBN: 0060515198)
Sean Stewart.  Perfect Circle.  (Small Beer Press. ISBN: 1931520119)
Jeffrey Ford.  The Empire of Ice Cream.  (Golden Gryphon. ISBN: 1930846584)
Haruki Murakami.  Kafka on the Shore.  (Vintage. ISBN: 1400079276)

The films will be Harvey, Pan’s Labyrinth, Sixth Sense, Being John Malkovich, and Donnie Darko.

I’ll probably show a few clips from the film version of Topper as well.  The novel is quite charming and seductive and an acknowledged influence on Gaiman.  If I can only show one classic film fantasy, it will have to be Harvey.  The pairing of Sean Stewart and Sixth Sense, both non-horror ghost stories, is always popular.  Both Anansi Boys and Pan’s Labyrinth embed conventional mythologies to tell a modern story.  Jeff Ford and Malkovich are my favorite representative of the wacky weird.  I would like to find a shorter Murakami (or his equal) to manage the magic Kafka on the Shore conveys, but so far I haven’t found it.  Darko‘s destiny driven pseudo-science and adolescent edge make it a suitable companion.  I’ve cut Kelly Link for now and am giving Edward Scissorhands a rest.

Once again I’ll be teaching two classes at Virginia Commonwealth University this summer.  The first one is Science Fiction May 18-June 18, Monday-Thursday, 10:30 am-12:45 pm.  I’m teaching a completely new reading list this year.  It’s still an historical survey from the fifties to the present, but it’s also a thematic selection centered around war in some way or other.  The reading list is—

Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

Joe Haldeman, The Forever War

William Gibson, Count Zero

Cory Doctorow, Little Brother

Rereading the Heinlein with the prospect of teaching it, I almost chickened out several times before turning in the book order.  This is one right wing book, but it’s a good book.  My biggest fear is that it will bore students, since it’s no action thriller.  But if the ideas don’t piss you off at least once, you’re not paying attention.  Dick was an obvious choice to represent the alternate history approach to the war theme, and an sf course without Dick isn’t one I’m teaching.  Haldeman’s brilliant answer to Heinlein is one of the best sf novels ever written.  Joe has agreed to address any sticky questions the class might confront along the way.  Gibson’s Count Zero is one of my favorite sf novels and the best of The Neuromancer trilogy.  His depiction of corporate warfare in a world where nations are more or less irrelevant is convincing, influential, and possibly prescient.  Last year, I instituted a policy whereby the book representing the current state of sf would be the one that ignited the biggest critical and mainstream buzz.  The Road was an obvious choice last year and would’ve been a logical choice this year if that didn’t mean I’d have to reread it for the sixth time, and I’m just not cheerful enough these days to face that prospect.  Doctorow’s Little Brother won’t likely be Oprahized, but it’s certainly got buzz, and the course wouldn’t be complete without that war we all know and love, the War on Terrorism.  Doctorow is always interesting.  Films will be Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dr. Strangelove, Star Wars (1977), The Terminator, and Children of Men.  Terminator in light of the interesting TV series it’s evolved into, as well as its use of the time travel theme so often a companion to war themed sf, made it an obvious choice for the eighties, the governator and all.  The tough choice was Star Wars.  I remember teaching the Bible in world survey classes back in Texas.  I fear it could be like that.  To me it’s Flash Gordon meets Parzival, but to some it was a cinematic miracle.  I’ll never forget seeing the thing for the first time at a Texas drive in, starry skies backed by starry skies.  After the second (and best) film, the franchise steadily erodes in quality to me, but their influence is enormous.