[lbo-talk] What are you reading now?

wrobert at uci.edu wrobert at uci.edu
Sun Sep 9 01:43:17 PDT 2007


Kim Stanley Robinson is a he. The Mars trilogy is what really returned me to reading SF agaon. It's such an amazing radical utopia. The new books on climate change are good, but they focus on Washington, rather than the emphasis on constituent power that you find in the trilogy. I'm actually reading George Schuyler's Black Empire (Schuyler is a black arch-conservative and anti-communist), which is a pulp SF novel printed in black newspapers in the 1930's. It's a story about a secretive and authoritarian black nationalist organization decolonizing Africa by force.

It predicts solar power, the fax, etc. as well as supporting eugenics, gassing people and mass death. It's a mixture of really good pulp, parody of utopia, and nearly fascist approach to black nationalism. I would recommend.... (I'm also slowly working through Paz's excellent bio of Durutti....)

robert wood


> Hey LOBsters,
>
> I'm reading Kim Stanley Robinson's RED MARS. It's first novel in a
> trilogy--terra forming the red planet and the social relations springing
> therefrom... I got turned on to Kim by Gar Lipow's post concerning one of
> her
> speculative fiction novels...PACIFIC RIM, I think it was. I couldn't find
> that
> one in my local library. Still, RED MARS is quite engrossing, so far. On
> the
> non fictional side, I'm indulging in THE HITLER BOOK, edited by Henrik
> Eberle
> and Mattias Uhl-- the secret dossier prepared for Stalin by the NKVD.
> Lots of
> intimate, gossipy details here e.g. Hitler and his pals really love their
> military fashion--image, very important to these right-wing thugs.
>
> Curious,
> Mike B)
>
> Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the
> world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production,
> abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.
>
> http://www.iww.org/culture/official/preamble.shtml
>
>
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