Chinese Science Fiction Short Stories (3.6🌟)

I read two science fiction short stories, publishes online on  Clarkesworld magazine, which I really enjoyed. I learned about them in a blog about chinese science fiction. Here the links:


Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight by XIA JIA, translated by KEN LIU

And

Wu Ding's Journey to the West by TANG FEI, translated by ANDY DUDAK

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (3.8🌟)

Siddhartha is the story of a man, son of a Brahmin (priest), who searches for enlightenment all his life. The novel relates important events in his life since he leaves his family to join the samana (people who abandon material possessions and their socialobligations in life). Siddhartha has an encounter with Gotama, the buddha, leaves the samana, to live a "normal" life, life he abandons after a few years as he feels dissatisfied with what he has become. In the final chapters of the book Siddhartha finds peace in the company of an old ferryman.

The above story may not sound exciting but I don't think this was the point of the book. To me the point was to reveal a man's inner thoughts as he observes the world that surrounds him, as he teaches what he knows and learns from others. Most importantly to show how a man (or woman? I guess) can choose spirituality over materiality and be happy. The novel provides some insights into Hinduism, Buddhism and their cosmology. I found the glossary, at the end of the book, pretty useful.  I think this an excellent read for anyone, who like me, wants to learn about Buddhism and the way Buddhists see the world.

My edition is a Penguin Modern Classics. It has 121 pages including an introduction by Paulo Coelho  and a glossary of indian terms.

The Early Cases of Akechi Kogoro by Edogawa Rampo (4🌟)

The early cases of Akechi Kogoro is a collection of 4 short stories. Actually it's 3 short stories and one long story. The stories were originally written in Japanese in 1925 and 1926, and were translated by William Varteresian.

The stories follow a detective called Akechi Kogoro solving crimes in a style which reminds me of Sherlock Holmes.

Kogorõ is some sort of private detective who works with the police. Two stories in this book relate murder cases. There is also kidnapping and stalking. The detective gets involved in the cases by chance or is called by the victims or relatives. There is always a veil of mystery around Kogorõ. He sometimes disappears for days to follow suspects or run enquiries.  He investigates crime scenes with great attention to detail and puts together facts and evidence using logic. I loved the way each of the cases is solved, particularly the one in the last and longest story.

Rampo does not reveal much about Kogoro apart from his detective work. We don't know much about his life except that he lives on his own in a rented room and that he likes to read. Despite this I found the  detective a likable and interesting character.

1. The Case of the murder on D. Hill. - a woman is killed inside a bookshop
2. The Black Hand Gang - a kidnapped girl
3. The Ghost - a dead man wants revenge
4. The Dwarf - a young rich woman disappears and her parents ask Kogorõ to find her.

My edition was published by Kurodahan press in 2014. It comes with an introduction and endnotes. 201 pages.

Robo Sapiens Japanicus. Robots, gender, family and the Japanese nation by Jennifer Robertson (4.8🌟)

I discovered this book back in 2019 at the AI exhibition at the Barbican centre. I first grabbed the book because of its title. I love everything Japanese and I am always interested in reading about technology, particularly about robots, cyborgs and transhumanism. But then I read the synopsis in the back cover and I almost jumped when I saw that it was an ethnography and a sociocultural study. This is my preferred, if  not favourite, approach to reading about technology.

Anyway, the book did not disappoint. It was a great read. Before reading the book I had always been curious about how the japanese seemed to manage a perfect balance between tradition and culture on one side and modernity on the other.  Two opposites in my mind. I wondered about how the Japanese society could be so open to so much technology everywhere, in real life and in fiction  (books,  anime,  games). Now, after reading Robo Sapiens Japanicus I have a much better idea. 

Robertson explains how the government has been promoting Innovation 25, a plan to modernise Japan adopting even more technology at home including domestic robots. She tracks down the foundations of this plan to events and policies in the 1940s, including the use of Manga characters to disseminate the government's discourse about how Japanese family should be.   Robertson thoroughly analyses the historical and cultural elements, and motivations of the government to promote such a discourse in the present. One of the motivations that got stuck in my head is that the use of robots in households will encourage Japanese women to have babies. Obviously the government is worried about the ageing population and believe women will opt to have a family if they are freed from the burden of domestic work (which can be carried out  by robots). This "solution" seems simplistic to say the least. As Robertson explains, there are sociocultural and historical reasons why women nowadays are refusing to have babies and even marry.

There is much more in this book, embodiment and gender, robot rights, cyborgs, etc. 

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in technologies from a sociocultural perspective.

The book was published by University of California press in 2018. 192 pages of content plus extensive notes, bibliography and notes. 

Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier (4🌟)

Jamaica Inn is a gothic novel set in early 19th century in the south of England. It contains elements of thriller despite its slow paced narrative.

Mary Yellan moves with her aunt and her husband at Jamaica Inn, a dreadful place where horrible things happen. No one dares to stop by or even talk about it. Evil lives there. The young womam arrives at the inn, ignorant and naive. Du Maurier sets the mood of the story right away. Dark, gloomy, unwelcoming. At the inn she is received by a horrible bad mannered man, her uncle and a fearful woman. Her aunt has changed a lot. She has aged and is not the shadow of her former lively self. Slowly the author uncovers bits and pieces about the characters's personalities and their secrets. Mary regrets her decision to go live with her aunt. Now she wants to leave and take the old lady with her. However this might prove impossible after she witnesses some frightening events.

Opinion: not as good as Rebecca or My Cousin Rachel but I liked it a lot. Although the story is gripping I found it hard to read more than 2 or 3 chapters a day. Most of the story revolves around the relationship between the protagonist and her horrid uncle as she comes to know about what he does for a living. However there are few scenes between them, including a couple which are crucial. I think I liked this as it kept the mystery of the uncle alive throughout the novel. Loved the atmosphere and the setting. The moors the marsh and the isolation of the Inn. There was another creepy character who caught my attention and who was at heart of the mystery of the novel. During Maurier kept me wandering about their role and motivations until the end.

My edition is another hardback published by Virago in its Virago Modern Classics collection. It has 302 pages and includes an introduction  y Sarah Dunant which I enjoyed reading.

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke (4🌟)

This is science fiction at its best. The novel relies on the strength of Ideas, all of which could be possible. Ideas about aliens and our evolution. About space travel and exploration. And about Artificial Intelligence, consciousness and sentience.

The story stars with ape men and a huge monolith. Aliens teaching apes how to use tools. Fast forward hundreds of thousands of years and we have humanity exploring the solar system and finding a monolith hidden in the moon. Who built it and why did they leave it there? More happens and then there is evidence of another monolith in one of saturn moons. Now, a small crew is sent to explore in a state of the art spaceship guided by an artificial intelligence called HAL.

My beautiful edition is from the Folio Society with 209 pages.

The Brain. The Story of You by David Eagleman (3.6🌟)

The Brain. The Story of You is a non technical journey through the various aspects of the brain and how those aspects shape us and our way of living. 

Very interesting read. It explains how the brain works, how we become what we are, how it perceives reality, how we control our body and actions and how we make decisions.

I particularly liked chapter 5 Do I need you? There is a section explaining how the human brain is wired to be social. How humans come together into groups to survive. It also explains how humans are also selective and look for similarities between them. This discussion led the author to explain, to a certain extent, how humans can become genocidal.

I also enjoyed the last chapter, chapter 6, which deals with fixing and or replacing senses as well as creating new ones, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Immortality. .