Taboos in Science Fiction. Plus Book Reviews, Promotions and more.
The Lampworks Lamplighter SF & Fantasy News & Reviews
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In this issue
Taboos in Science Fiction
I got to thinking about taboos in Science Fiction recently. Not the sort that SF has so famously challenged, starting with Stranger in a Strange Land and Dangerous Visions back in the Sixties. That’s become so mainstream that I can hardly think of a taboo that Game of Thrones didn’t break. I’m thinking of the new taboos that authors invent to add depth to their worlds.
Isaac Asimov did this to good effect in a number of his stories. For example, in The Caves of Steel, it was unthinkable to speak to or acknowledge anyone in a public restroom. Sure, he described the Earth as crowded, but that detail brought home the buffers that people constructed to give themselves personal space when they no longer had any physical space. If only the people in today’s restrooms who talk on their cellphones in meeting-room voices, oblivious of background noises and everyone’s rolling eyes, would take a cue from that.
Asimov even raised his famous Laws of Robotics to the level of a taboo. Yes, they were built into the robots’ programming at an engineering level, but the robots themselves talked about those prohibitions in visceral terms. They became disturbed at the notion that one of them could disobey orders, and when one witnessed a murder, it nearly had a nervous breakdown. That’s more than engineering, that’s a taboo. (Asimov also invented the profession of Robot Psychologist to convey that their complexity had reached nearly human levels.)
In Asimov’s second robot novel, The Naked Sun (the title itself playing on the forbidden), the planet Solaria had an even odder taboo. On Solaria, the number of robots was so high and the amount of living space so vast that it became a status symbol to never come into the presence of another human, which in turn became a taboo. It was only acceptable to meet another person via video. The murder that was the centerpiece of the story shouldn’t have happened because it was taboo to get close enough to another person to do it and just as unthinkable that one of the robots could have done it. After more than a year of Zoom meetings, I’m not sure that would come to pass, though I am seeing people have anxiety about getting out and mingling once again.
What other invented taboos in Science Fiction have you come across? I’d love to hear about your favorites. Write me at nl@lamp.works to tell me about them.
Our Books
Midwinter Knots
Chuck Boeheim
A new short story in the world of Knots. Escher and Emeline have brought a tree into the house to decorate, and Trefoil the cat must investigate, of course. There’s something not quite right about this tree – they’ve brought trouble into the house along with it. It’s up to Trefoil to guard the house against the mayhem that ensues. If he doesn’t get put outside first.
Free download from StoryOrigin
Viral
Chuck Boeheim
Stories are repeated. They evolve. They are cross-bred and spliced. Ideas take on a life of their own. The oldest legends appear in the latest retellings. One day, by design or accident, it had to happen…
You shouldn’t read this. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Free download from StoryOrigin
The Ledger
Chuck Boeheim
The corpse showed up with an ax in its head and a map in its pocket. Chaucer had not been born yet, and crimes were common in London that year. But when Bartolomeo the Coroner found pages sewn in the victim’s jacket, pages in Bartolomeo’s own hand, he knew this wasn’t one of the common crimes.
Free download from StoryOrigin
Interaction Region
Chuck Boeheim
That place where you tripped? What if a prominent but slightly odd physicist told you that’s where two universes intersect, and you’ve just stumbled into a universe that’s just slightly different? What if he then recruited you to tour neighboring universes to assess their stability? What if you agreed to help out, then realized when you went home every evening, your spouse was a slightly different person?
A short science fiction story set at a modern-day accelerator laboratory, with a healthy dose of humor.
Free download from StoryOrigin
What We‘re Reading
I haven’t finished getting my thoughts in order about the last few books that I read, so I’m pulling three favorite books from my shelf for this issue’s recommendations.
Visit our archive of reviews and recommendations on the Books We Like page of our website. You‘ll find over one hundred recommendations in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Non Fiction.
Good Omens
Neil GaimanTerry Pratchett
The apocalypse is next week, after teatime. The forces of darkness and light are both pushing for it, because that’s what it’s all about, after all. Plans have been in motion for eons.
For the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale, it’s not so black and white. Crowley has had to keep the plan on track by doing what could be called, in the right light, good deeds. And Aziraphale has had some orders that don’t sit well with him either. They both agree that there’s a lot to like about these humans, once you get close to them. The Four Horsemen are riding, and the traffic jam of doom stands between them and the Antichrist. Who, in an embarrassment for both sides, seems to have been misplaced.
Two masters of understated and dark humor join forces to prophesy the end of the world. Even if you’ve seen the miniseries that was made from this, pick up the book as well.
Buy on Bookshop.org amazon
Prince Ombra
Roderick MacLeish
The apocalypse put me in mind of another favorite story. Prince Ombra is the lord of nightmares. He has brought war and strife to the world a thousand times. Each time, a hero is born to oppose him.
The thousand and first hero is born as usual, but this time Prince Ombra strikes early, when Bentley Ellicott is only nine, hoping to tip the balance forever in his favor.
This tale combines familiar elements — a hero, a companion, a wise elder advisor — with much that is unique and surprising. It’s a story that I’ve enjoyed through multiple readings. It appears to be out of print now, but used copies are still available.
To give you a flavor, here is how it begins:
IT IS SAID–and it is true–that just before we are born, a cavern angel holds his finger to our mouths and whispers, “Hush! Don’t tell what you know.” This is why we have a cleft on our upper lips and remember nothing of where we came from.
Buy on amazon
Passage
Connie Willis
At a hospital in Denver, a young psychologist studies near-death experiences (NDE). Are the experiences reported by patients visions? Dreams? Or are they confabulations born from the leading questions of unethical practitioners? Many people warn young Dr. Lander not to get involved in research so tainted by the occultists.
Dr. Lander believes there is a layer to the human mind to uncover, a layer that might help her treatments. She haunts the emergency room to get interviews with patients as soon as they’re revived. Eventually, she agrees to a proposal from a fellow doctor to experience a simulated NDE of her own. From there, things spiral rapidly into unexpected territory.
Half an exploration of of the fringe of science, half a tense mystery, it’s entirely a book that will leave you with plenty to think about. And it wouldn’t be a Connie Willis novel if there wasn’t a comically inept and overbearing bureaucracy to skewer.
Buy on Bookshop.org amazon
You may also enjoy…
Echoes of Gravity
James Murdo
Ancient machine intelligences. Resurrected species with no memories of the past. Creatures composed of gravity strings. What is hidden in the void between galaxies?
Buy via StoryOrigin
Invasion
Moud Adel
Armed with a weapon and armor that were built thousands of years ago, I’m preparing to save a world ignorant of what’s coming, but can one human and his old as Earth android mentor stop an entire fleet of aliens?
Free via StoryOrigin
The Retired S Ranked Adventurer
Fantasy Unlimited
They called him Sven, the Shatterfist. One of a group of heroes who fought the Demon Lord Mannon. He’s finally returned home. But for Sven, after returning from abroad, life isn’t what it used to be.
The obvious next step? Retire.
Buy via StoryOrigin
