Philosophy And Science Fiction edited by Michael Philips
01/01/2008 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Pyr/Prometheus Books. 392 page enlarged paperback. Price: $28.00 (US). ISBN: 978-0-87975-248-4. Buy Philosophy And Science Fiction in the USA - or Buy Philosophy And Science Fiction in the UK  check out website: www.pyrsf.com
I wasn't sure what this 1984 book was about when I asked the nice people at Prometheus to let me have a look when I saw it in the back catalogue. To tell the truth, I was expecting a discussion on the philosophy in Science Fiction rather than a seventeen story anthology as a basis for what looks like the basis for a degree course.
This brings me to two minds on the subject. Is editor Michael Philips looking at philosophical interpretation based on these authors or how the characters in the stories deal with their problems? As he asks the pertinent questions to the reader there's little take on this aspect. If anything, from the introductions to each section he does, I got the impression he's using the stories as a way into his students' psyche so they ask questions.
For the moment, let's leave that aside. Are the selection of stories any good? There's quite a selection in here, including chunks out of Stanislaw Lem's 'Solaris'. Most of them are by recognised authors like Heinlein, Spinrad, Leiber, Dick, Aldis, Boucher and Sheckley. A few names I didn't recognise like Jorge Luis Borges, James Causey, Lee Sutton, Winston Sanders, Thomas F. Monteleone and E.M. Forster. I was pleasantly surprised to see Karel Capek's 'R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)' from 1920 included.
For those not in the know or only heard about this particular story, 'R.U.R.' is the first story about robots. Only it isn't a story but a play translated into English in 1923, and acknowledged as the first story about robots and more importantly how they take over the world. I have a feeling this story is talked about more than read as until I finally did here that I discovered these weren't robots but androids. Of course, the word was probably never around in Capek's time and wasn't even used in SF until the mid-1940s. It is only when a humanist, Helena, tries to encourage these robots to develop souls that production goes astray and they view humans as irrelevant to an orderly society. An interpretation to this could easily give rise to stirrings against the communist regime that was developing and spreading in the Balkan states but I think there is a sterner message in that we should never take anything for granted or lose the manufacture's handbook.
Of the other stories that are worth looking at is Asimov's 'The Bicentennial Man'. This has an interesting parallel to 'R.U.R.' in the robot Andrew's strive for humanity and to do so feels he has to lose the one distinction that makes him different to Man.
'The Seventh Victim' by Robert Sheckley is a worthy chuckle where an American society allows its members to become hunters and prey with the roles neatly reversed. A demonstration of 'The Most Dangerous Game' in an urban setting with a neat punch at the end.
Those of you who are intent on buying this book will no doubt be after the stories than the university lecture and if you're missing reading any of the material, its not a bad way to get it.
GF Willmetts |
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