Pillars of existence

kw: book reviews, mythology, folklore, imaginative fiction

Having had a classical education, I am very familiar with the corpus of Greco-Roman mythology. I've had no prior exposure to Semitic mythology, knowing only what is written in the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible. Of course, I've heard of Kabbalah and its panoply of demons and its numerology, but paid little attention.

I picked up The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-Six, by Jonathon Keats, as a wild card, not even knowing what "the 36" means. If these twelve stories in any fair way reflect the Jewish myths on which they are based, then I must conclude that my education is quite lacking!

The basis of the stories is the idea that thirty-six (Lamedh-Vov in Hebrew) righteous souls maintain the integrity of the world, but their identity is unknown, even to themselves, being known only by the LORD God. For one of their names to become known means he or she will lose their special status, and God must choose a replacement. Were all to become known, some kind of disaster would result.

The opening chapter is a bit of myth-making in its own right, setting up a scenario for a scholar to learn the identities of one set of thirty-six from a prior century. The stories of twelve are then proffered. They seem an unlikely mix of "the righteous", including a fool, a gambler, a clown and a murderer, even a fallen angel-become-human and a golem. In each case, the key is their very deep simplicity.

Nearly everybody would like to be a god. But to grow from the human to the divine has three steps: redemption, transformation, and glorification. I have yet to read a convincing story of glorification; even the Biblical accounts are cloaked in mysterious language. Most good stories lead us through, or let us observe, a transformation. While there is transformation in these twelve stories, they are primarily stories of redemption, each and every one. Not all have happy endings, but they all have Better endings. The stories are too well crafted for me to detail any one without giving away too much. Seek out this book, and enjoy.

Meat vs Metal (as usual)

kw: book reviews, science fiction, imaginative fiction

In a story I read long ago, perhaps by Asimov, but maybe not; perhaps titled "The Perfect Robot," the president of the robot company is on a compulsive quest to produce a robot that cannot be distinguished from a person. Several models of ever-greater perfection are produced, until a robot is presented to that executive, that is so perfect, he cannot determine whether it is a robot or a young man. That day, aliens arrive: first contact! Wouldn't you know it, the robot company is one place they are taken to visit. The company president proudly shows off the robot, emphasizing that it cannot be distinguished from a man without disassembly. The alien responds, "So, what's the point?"

I grew up to stories of robots. In the 1950s and '60s, I read everything by Asimov, of course, but also by every other science fiction writer, especially about robots. It was the other stories by Asimov, primarily his "Habitats" stories, that clued me in to the secret. In both "Robot" and "Habitat" stories, Asimov was really exploring neurosis. Even later, as I read his frequent columns in various publications, including his own monthly SF&F rag, I realized that he was America's most successful neurotic. Until very late in life, for example, he never took an airplane flight.

There is a comparative dearth of good robot stories filling the time between his last new story (late 1980s) and about 2002. The current underlying theme of robot stories in this decade is exploring subjective reality and solipsism. Who am I, really? If you had an infallible test to distinguish human from android, would you dare to use it on yourself?

The robots in Robota, by Doug Chiang (ideator and illustrator) and Orson Scott Card (wordsmith), can in no way be confused for people. They don't want to be. They are extreme extrapolations of semi-anthropoid "mechanicals" that partake more the nature of industrial robots—generalized to insecto-humanic form—than of the Honda Asimo.

The story line is rather silly. It is the illustrations by Chiang and the lyrical writing by Card that bring the story and the reader/viewer's mind together in a willing suspension of disbelief. As with all great art, Robota brings you willingly into a created world different from your own. The visual art—more page space is given to images than to words—is worth perusal on its own merits.

So what does the book explore? It is deeply post-apocalyptic. Indeed, two apocalypses are in its past, and the story ushers in a third. The "who am I" twist in the denouement closes the knot.