What if?

Last week’s meteor explosion over Chelyabinsk reminded me that good science fiction often begins with a question: “What if?  What if suddenly, and without warning, the earth’s rotation began to slow for no apparent reason? What if each time night fell, it lasted a little longer?  What if each new dawn heralded a longer day? These are the questions Karen Thompson Walker poses in her debut novel, The Age of Miracles, named one of the Best Books of 2012 by People, O: The Oprah Magazine, Financial Times, Kansas City Star, BookPage, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist.  “The slowing,” as it is comes to be called, not only wreaks havoc on crops, commerce, and circadian rhythms, but also pitches Julia, the novel’s thirteen-year-old narrator, into an altered world of shifting alliances. 

Tom Perrotta starts with a different hypothetical question in The Leftovers.  What if millions of people from all races and religions were to disappear miraculously in a “Rapture-like phenomenon”?  The Boston Globe says this about The Leftovers:  “In his provocative new novel Tom Perrotta dives straight into our unease…it’s a gentle, Perrotta-esque go at sci-fi, without any mangled bodies or bombed-out buildings; it’s a realistic novel built on a supernatural foundation.”

 Last, but not least, for the sci-fi inclined, I highly recommend Margaret Atwood’s In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination. This collection of essays (which includes both previously published and unpublished material) will appeal not only to readers interested in the evolution of speculative fiction, but also to those looking for insight into Atwood’s creative process. Who would have guessed that the author of the acclaimed The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood began her literary career writing about two superhero rabbits named Blue Bunny and White Bunny?   It's funny, insightful, and well worth reading.

Countdown

NASA is projecting that its largest and most sophisticated planetary rover, Curiosity, will touch down on Mars at 1:31 a.m , EDT on Monday, August 6. You can watch the landing live from Times Square (or from the comfort of your own home on NASA’s UStream.) Can't wait? NASA's preview of the landing sequence, "Curiosity's 7 Minutes of Terror," has already gone viral.

Weighing in at around 1 ton, Curiosity is much larger than its predecessors, Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity.  Steve Squyres, principal scientist behind the Mars Exploration Rover mission, presents an exciting nuts-and-bolts account of two previous rovers in Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity and the Exploration of the Red Planet.  Two other nonfiction books, William K. Hartmann's A Travelers Guide to Mars: The Mysterious Landscapes of the Red Planet and William Sheehan's The Planet Mars, furnish fascinating facts about Mars' history and geology.

And while you're waiting for Curiosity to land, why not dip into a classic science fiction novel?  Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is a collection of stories about cultures in conflict. Or try C.S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet, in which a kidnapped hiker wakes up on a mysterious red planet.

Film buffs may want to check out Walt Disney Productions' John Carter, an action-adventure movie based on A Princess of Mars by Edgar R. Burroughs.

Find your Hugo winner at the library

They announced this year's winners of the Hugo Awards for science fiction and fantasy literature the other day at Aussiecon 4, the 68th World Science Fiction Convention, in Melbourne, Australia (I guess they move the announcement site around). The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi tied with The City & The City by China Mieville for Best Novel of the year. I just checked the catalog in Evergreen, and there are several copies of The Windup Girl available at the library. Now would be the time to check it out before the other sci-fi fans start liniing up for it.