Planet of Exile by Ursula K Le Guin. ❤ 🤍 💙

Hundreds of years ago an expedition from the League of all Worlds arrived on a planet inhabited by humans resembling nomad hunter gatherers. The expedition left and took with it all of their technology. However a few people were left who had to accommodate to the new planet. Years and generations go by, and the locals haven't evolved their tools or technology much. The descendants of the expeditioners have lost touch with their home, barely keeping track of their origins by books and stories. They keep apart from the locals and think of themselves as exiles, still following the Law of the League which forces them to live like the locals. The story follows a local tribe and the expedition which are forced to work together to defend themselves from an attack of a barbarian northern tribe. I liked this novel more than Rocannon's World. The story is much more engaging and Le Guin builds a richer world, rasing issues such as racism, fear of the unknown, superstitions, technology (or the lack of), isolation and others.

Mildred Pierce by James M Cain

This novel was a surprise to me. As it came in the same volume with The Postman always rings twice and Double Indemnity I thought this was going to be another noir, crime novel, but it wasn't. I googled it and got "hardboiled novel" but to me it felt like a drama with a dark twist. There were no detectives or crimes but a couple of excellent female characters not always doing the right thing. Mildred Pierce is the name of the protagonist, a middle class housewife who, after a divorce, has to work to support her family. Set in the 1930 in California, USA, Mrs Pierce is a rarity. A successful, independent working, single woman. She is a fully fleshed out character showing resilience, commitment and ambition. But she is not a saint. Her struggles with her daughter Veda give the story a dark tone, which I enjoyed. Veda is detestable, capricious, manipulative with a personality disorder it seemed. Loved her. She is to blame for a couple of plot twists in the second half of the novel. While I liked Double Indemnity more, I think this novel is worth reading for its depiction of credible, complex women and the exploration of daughter-mother relationship.

Stories of your Life and others by Ted Chiang.

Eight speculative, sci-fi stories. An excellent compilation of short stories, I liked most of them. ❤💙💜💖 

1. Tower of Babylon -let's climb the tower and meet god. It was okay.

2. Understand - man develops Superintelligence after an accident. Did he ceased to be human? Excellent. 

3. Division by Zero - a mathematician goes mad when she discovers flaws in mathematics. Liked it.

4. Story of your Life - sweet and engaging. What would you do if you could remember your future? Aliens and linguistics. Wonderful.

5. Seventy-two Letters - boring.

6. The Evolution of Human Science - normal humans are not the ones creating knowledge anymore. It was Okay. 

7. Hell is the Absence of god - a world where angels visit earth to cure or kill people. Liked it. 

8. Liking what you see: A documentary - excellent, thought provoking. A world where people can switch off their abilities to see beauty.

Science Fiction and Philosophy. From Time Travel to Superintelligence. Edited by Susan Schneider. Introduction and Part 1. 🧠🧠🧠🧠

Essays on philosophical concepts using elements from Science fiction literature and films. I read the Introduction and Part 1 which includes 1 short story, 2 essays and 2 extracts from classic Philosophy works. 

Introduction: excellent. Clarifies some of the concepts to be explored throughout the book and provides some examples from literature and films. 

1. Reinstalling Eden: Happiness on a hard drive by Eric Schwitzgebel and R. Scott Bakker. Loved it. It's about a researcher who creates a virtual woman and then a partner for her. As they develop a relationship the researcher starts using more computing resources to provided a better world for them. But when should he stop? 

2. Are you in a Computer Simulation? by Nick Bostrom. Four pages of dense text with Bostrom trying to convince the reader why we might be living in a simulation. And yes, we might 🤔 I liked one point Bostrom makes: If we are in a simulation, Afterlife might be possible. We can be recreated in another simulation or maybe we can be brought to the real world. 

3. Plato's Cave. Excerpt from the Republic. Not my cup of tea. 

4. Some Cartesian thought experiments. Descartes: do our minds exist outside space-time? 🤔 

5. The Matrix as Metaphysics by David J. Chalmers. My favourite chapter in Part 1. Discussing ideas about humans living in a simulation or a matrix. The author explains the Matrix Hypothesis (are we in a Matrix?), Envatment (brain in a vat) and the Skeptical Hypothesis (which explains how some beliefs, if true, would falsify every other beliefs we have). The aim of the essay is to explain why, for Chalmers, Matrix Hypothesis and Envatment are not skeptical Hypothesis but Metaphysical Hypothesis (concerned with the fundamental nature of reality).

Rocannon's World by Ursula K Le Guin. ❤💙💜

Not a masterwork but this is a good short novel following a man on a journey to save a planet. It has science fiction and fantasy elements. This is the first Hainish novel and the protagonist is an ethnographer who travels to new worlds to investigate new species. In Rocannon's planet there are 3 or 4 different species with zero to little technological developments. The settings reminded me of pre medieval eras, with castles, people carrying swords and riding gigantic (dragon-like) birds. Not my cup of tea tbh. However I loved the kind of emotional ending.

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai.

I have conflicting thoughts. It is very well written and in a way gripping. I couldn't stop reading it. It's dark. It's character driven and follows the protagonist, Oba Yoso, into an emotional roller coaster of depression, suicide, alcoholic, drug addiction and more. The character is well developed, an unlikeable being, selfish, useless who has lost the will to live, but who keeps living on the expenses of others. So, what's not to like? Well, I read the novel as a cold, distant observer. Couldn't engage or empathise with the protagonist nor hate him. I wasn't dragged into the protagonist's dark hole. Something was missing. .... hmm oh, got it, Yoso was No Longer Human. It makes sense now!!! 

The Body-Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson. 😰😰😰😨

A short story about men who rob bodies to sell to medicine students. It wasn't as bloody as I thought but it was much darker than I expected. Very well written, chilling and gripping. . The main protagonist is a alcoholic wasted man, disillusioned of life. By chance he meets an old acquaintance who triggers memories when both of them were medicine students. And then we are told the story of the body snatcher. Muaahahaha . There is an old movie adaptation which looks really good.

Double Indemnity by James M Cain. ❤ 🤍 💙 🧡 🖤

Second novel in this beautiful book. Just over 100 pages. . An insurance agent falls for a married woman who manipulates him into killing her husband. I loved the story and the mess the main character gets into. I liked the femme fatale and the mysterious aura around her and the ending was brilliant! I think I liked this novel more than the Postman always rings twice.

Blacksad by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido.

Beautiful Spanish edition by Normal Editorial. Includes the 5 stories released so far. 

1 . Un lugar entre las sombras (Somewhere within the shadows) - John Blacksad has to investigate the murder of his ex-girlfriend. 

2. Artic-Nation - Blacksad investigates the disappearance of a little girl in an atmosphere saturated with racism and rage. 

3. Alma Roja (Red Soul) - Blacksad has to save a friend's life, a friend with a dark past. 

4. El Infierno, El Silencio (Silent Hell) - Blacksad is hired to find a musician. Crime and drugs in New Orleans. 

5. Amarillo - A couple of writers steal Blacksad's car (not his but he has to return it to the owner). The detective has to chase the robbers across cities.

I liked the stories. Each about 50 pages so probably each a graphic novel? Noir graphic novels. Blacksad has to deal with crime and broken-troubled people. Blacksad himself isn't the typical noir detective though. He is a good person. A good cat 😁. As far as the stories reveal we find no dirt in his past. All stories end up satisfactorily, cases sorted not necessarily happy endings.

And the art is superb!