Book Review

The Marching Morons

Book Cover - the Marching Morons

If you’ve never read this 1951 Science Fiction story, I recommend you do. The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth. I’ve long held this up as an example of the direction in which U.S. society has been headed and I just read a note from Ben Bova to science blogger Pharyngula (P.Z. Meyers)  in which he calls it the ‘most prescient and chilling’ of science fiction stores. Meyers takes issue with this and finds the story stupid because the ‘solution’ to the problem is a non-solution.

Well, of course a scientist would see it that way, but I’m pretty sure Kornbluth wasn’t thinking like a scientist when he wrote it. He was just bugged by something and chose a semi-comedic form of storytelling in which to complain about it. I’ve often been tempted to write a story in which all the stupid people are wiped out by an anti-stupid virus, so I could understand his frustration.

Meyers came to pretty much the same conclusion as me with respect to workable solutions to the problem of self-satisfied idiots, but no one seemed to be following up on those ideas decades ago, when I read the story. And from what I can see now, the situation has only gotten worse.

So what will the future be? I am not any more sure than I was back when I first saw The Marching Morons, only these days, I’m a lot less inclined to find it funny.

Book Review – Dead Mann Walking

Dead Mann Walking (Hessius Mann #1)Dead Mann Walking by Stefan Petrucha

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a true noir tale, only it happens to include zombies. Mann is the name of the detective and ever since he found out his wife was having an affair with his boss, his existence has been a major disappointment to him. First, his wife is murdered, then he’s arrested, convicted, and executed for it, then he gets brought back to a pseudo-life as a zombie. And zombies in this world have few rights and are nearly everyone’s favorite punching bag.

Then along comes a guy with seemingly more money than brains of his own, to hire him to find another zombie. If he wasn’t constantly forgetting what he wants to do, perhaps he would have passed on the assignment. Especially since it brings him into unsavory contact with ferals – zombies who have completely lost their minds -, liveblood perverts, a nascent zombie rights movement, and worst of all, his old colleagues on the homicide squad, including his old boss, who still thinks he killed his wife.

The story moves along at a good clip and provides plenty of noir style insight into the foibles of men, both live and undead. For a zombie, Mann is pretty good at figuring things out and retains a tenacious insistence on the truth that would bring any detective from Sam Spade to Mike Hammer to those places he would be better off out of. Mann is wryly amusing at nearly all times and is mostly aware of his own shortcomings. The other characters in this crazy quilt of an adventure are all drawn well and possessed of their own outlandish personalities.

Some of the plot was guessable, if you’re a fan of noir, but there were still plenty of twists and surprises – enough to keep the reader guessing. Hessius Mann may be beat-up, looked down upon, dead and held together with crazy glue and sewing thread, but he’s still a detective.

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