I spent Monday the 12th of August disassembling the main stage of Jurassic rock. I was already quite worn out from almost a week of working at the festival and before the end of the long day there were a bit too many slips and close calls. The work itself was rewarding, however, and the co-workers some of the best I know. Even at times when the skies ruptured with pouring rain and thunder and we were soaking wet, the air was filled with bad jokes and hysterical laughter.
When the workday finally drew to a close, we ventured to the shoreside sauna to enjoy some beverages and relax in the warmth of the löyly. Spirits were high, jokes were shared and songs of black humor sung. Later in the night, as I was going swimming, I noticed that all the dark clouds of rain and thunder had dissipated, leaving the late summer sky clear and filled with stars. This was something I had hoped for, because that very night held something special in store for the observant ones.
As I floated in the calm waters of lake Saimaa, straining to spread my field of vision as wide as it could go, I took in the millions of stars and planets shining across the vast gulfs of emptiness that we call space. At times, this grand fabric was painted upon by the comet Swift-Tuttle's tail particles, which left fine white lines as they burned their way through our atmosphere.
There I was, a fluke of probabilities, a tiny, semi-conscious blob of stardust, floating, breathing and witnessing a celestial event, the Perseids. The universe is vast and we are blind and deaf to most of it's beauty. Let us enjoy the fraction that we are able to sense during our brief visit.
Thoughts such as these make me return to a band that explores the what-ifs and maybes of the universe through songs inspired by science fiction films: Star One.
Let's start with some music that very nicely expresses in sound the endless abysses of space between celestial bodies:
Now, I've been bitten by a fly... a sci-fi-fly at that. After staying away from new fiction authors for almost two years, I decided to fill in some gaps in my knowledge. I was torn between Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series, Iain M. Banks' the Culture series and Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence. I had always been a big fan of Ursula K. Le Guin's approach to the cultural and social aspects of societies in a science-fiction setting. After some pondering I ended up starting with Card's "Ender's Game", in part because of it's brevity and also because I really wanted to read the next book, "Speaker for the Dead", but wanted to follow the series in the order the books were published.
So, I devoured the short book with enthusiasm, enjoying Card's plain, almost barren style of telling the story of Ender's youth. I finished the book while travelling, but that didn't stop me from purchasing the sequel with my kindle and continuing without a pause. The reason why I was so interested in "Speaker for the Dead" was that it dealt greatly with sociology and anthropology. One of the questions that persisted throughout the book was how can you study and be in contact with a society (or an individual!), without affecting it and in turn being affected by it and to what extent are impartiality and objectivity objectives that should be pursued. I was also eager to know how Card's imagination and creativity compared to Le Guin's when it came to giving birth to new species and their societies. I was not disappointed and at times I couldn't help but remember the time when I was reading "The Word for World Is Forest" for the first time, even if the approaches and styles of writing were very different.
Before I started reading the series, I hadn't even noticed that a film adaptation of "Ender's Game" is coming out this year. I'm trying hard not get too excited, but at the very least, based on the trailer, we're in for an audiovisual treat. And for the first time since he last played Han Solo in 1983, I think they've actually found a fitting role for Harrison Ford.
Well, as had happened before, I gobbled up the book and was prepared to move right on to "Xenocide". I bought the book and read the first chapter, but for some reason I didn't feel the urge to go on quite yet. So I hopped over to Banks' "Consider Phlebas", the first book of the Culture series. The difference in style and setting was dramatic, but I managed to adapt and found myself enjoying the change. Even if Banks' story is more action packed, it also packs plenty of deeper meanings, some of which are expressed very bluntly.
Experience as well as common sense indicated that the most reliable method of avoiding self-extinction was not to equip oneself with the means to accomplish it in the first place.
