Four of the Best Recent Science Fiction Novels to Read

SPACE - Image (modified) by Alexander Andrews

In the past years my interest in science fiction has grown. Maybe because sometimes I feel like living in a vision of the future already. Here are four good examples of pretty recent novels - all of them have been made into major movies or TV-series.

1. Andy Weir - The Martian (2011)

Known through the movie (2015) with Matt Damon in which protagonist Mark Watney finds himself stranded on Mars, the book was first selfpublished as a serial on Weirs blog, before it became an international bestseller. Weir researched extensively to make the book's content scientifically plausible (later confirmed by an employee of NASA). The book tells the story of an engineer who is left behind alone on Mars. He has to use all his wits and optimism to "work all the problems" he faces. The movie is quite funny. The book, told in log entries, much more so. Andy Weir followed with the novels "Artemis" (2017) and "Project Hail Mary" (2021), this one to be released as a movie starring Ryan Gosling as middle school teacher becoming world-saving astronaut. Both books are worth reading, especially the latter.

2. Liu Cixin - The Three-Body Problem (2008)

The Three-Body Problem became internationally famous when it was chosen by David Benioff und D.B. Weiss as their next project after creating the TV-Series "A Game of Thrones". Before that the novel had already been very successful in China. Here we stay on Earth but are faced with an alien species that has somehow arrived in the minds of some people. The aliens have left their own instable world in a nearby solar system, trying to reach Earth in the next 400 years. They aim to stop Earth-science from developing so that humankind won't destroy their fleet of spaceships before arrival. During the cultural revolution a Chinese scientist discovers them, but keeps silent despite being warned, because she believes that humans have no future. This book is not funny at all, but very intense and provokes challenging political and philosophical thoughts.

3. Martha Wells - All Systems Red (2017)

This novella is shorter than novel-length, but I'm adding it anyway. It was particularly successfull in the audiobook version read by Kevin R. Free. The first installment of the Murderbot Diaries tells the story of a security cyborg, a "SecUnit" that has hacked its own intelligence and is hence able to think (and sort of feel) free of human control. The specialty of this cyborg is killing, its passion is watching mediastreams, basically soap operas and it wants nothing more than to be left in peace to do this for days on end. The cyborg seems at times like an emotionally handicapped human, trying to decipher the signals of people and other computers without really knowing how to do this. In the first installment the murderbot has to save a group of scientists it is bodyguarding and grows attached to them. This book is very funny and had me laughing out loud on a regular basis. A TV Series starring Alexander Skarsgård was released on Apple TV+ in 2025.

4. John Sandford with Ctein - Saturn Run (2015)

Pulitzer Price winner John Sandford has written more than 50 novels, most of them crime thrilllers, since the late 80's. For Saturn Run he teamed up the Ctein, who was responsible to make the science in this novel as bulletproof as possible. The world in 2066: A rich surferboy and secrect special forces soldier discovers an Alien spaceship close to Saturn. Just the size of the ship tells a story of extraordinary (and dangerous) power. The United States build a spacecraft with VASIMIR electrothermal thrusters to go take a look and get as much alien technology as possible, trying to beat the Chinese who have a spaceship ready, but are using a different form of engine propulsion. A  fastpaced and interesting take on live in space and the covering of great distances using the knowledge of physics we have today. Sandfords solution for the meeting between humans and aliens is very clever.   

A Note from the Cambridge Union

False Confidence - Noah Kahan | Choreography by Sean Lew

 This one gave me joy.

Cold Bath at -2°C after 3 Rounds of Wim Hof Breathing

For the first time this year I went into the water at subzero temperature. Getting in is not a problem. Getting warm after getting out may take some time... The water feels great. Monkeymind is blown out like a candle in strong wind.

First Cold Bath in 2025, lost my Flip Flop!

After a break of 8 weeks I went into the cold water again. The air temperature was about 4°C, the water can't have been much warmer since it had been freezing all the nights before. 

Following a tip of a friend I kept my hands out of the water to be able to stay in longer. It worked.

The riverbank is muddy, so I tried going in with Flip Flops so as not to soil my towel so much with my dirty feet. Felt like Mr. Bean when I lost one...

Buddha at the Gas Pump - Interviews with Ordinary Spiritually Awakening People

A couple of years ago I stumbled across an interview from this channel, short name: Batgap (Buddha at the Gas Pump).

The Interview was with Gary Weber, still one of my favorite people - one of the few who managed to reach so deep into the teaching of Sri Ramana Maharshi, that his unconscious thinking ceased completely. 

The Website of Batgap.com offers today 719 long conversations with people who have something to say about enlightenment and spiritual awakening. They come from all corners. Different schools of Meditation, Religion, Yoga, Shamanism, Philosophy and so on. 

The Website is run by Rick and Irene Archer. Rick is the one who does the talks, while Irene takes care of much of the backround work. Rick is a very sympathetic Interviewer who gives space to his guests while at the same time probing deeply into their experience and knowledge. 

I listen to these talks often when I'm on the train or when I do the dishes in the evening.

Here are some of my favourite ones (all interviews are available as audio files on batgap.com):

1. Jeffery A. Martin

A very scientific approach to enlightenment. Mr. Martin claims (proven) that he can teach almost anyone to reach what he calls a "persistent nonsymbolic experience" in six weeks. To listen to how he got there is enlightening in itself.

2.  Gary Weber (unfortunately the sound quality is not too good)

Gary Weber experienced the cessation of the babbling of his mind while running a science lab with 2000 employees. He proposes that we change what he calls the "Operating System" of our minds.

3. Tree Wiseblood

Mrs Wiseblood is wonderfully down-to-earth. She works with Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) and Shamanism.

4. Adyashanti

In the US a very well known teacher of meditation and consciousness. Defenitely worth listening to.

There are many more interviews I enjoyed a lot. Just browse them on batgap.com. There is also a list of the most famous interviews.

Ice Bath in River Sieg, Germany

Wim Hof Method and Cold Bath in River at 4°C / 39°F

Cold Bath #3

 

Happy New Year 2024!

And Come They Did - Stephen King: Fairy Tale

My choices of reading matter must seem weird from the outside. I read both Nobel, Pulitzer and Bookerprize winners and what many people consider Pulp Fiction. For example Amercian writer John D. MacDonald of whom I'd read more if there were more than his roughly 50 novels.

When I look for new books the only method that works is: start reading. After a short time I get a feel for the sound of a book. If I like the sound, I keep reading, if I don't - most of the time I stop. Off course I can be wrong and might miss a great book. But every time I think: "Let's keep reading, this could still become good!" - I stop anyway after 50 more pages. It's not about quality. It's about taste. My own, weird taste.

Because of my method I try not to read blurbs. I don't want to know what's coming. I prefer to know if I like the sound and then explore a book like a completely unchartered country. A few weeks ago I hit gold. A book with great sound (in two senses, as you will see) and with a content that kept surprising me until it was almost over. You've read it in the headline: Stephen King's "Fairy Tale" is such a book. 

Before I come to that, allow me to say a few words about Mr. King. He's without a doubt a master. One of the mostread writers of all time, likely to surpass J.K.Rowling and with a productivity that astonishes all writers who try to match him. Like many Teenagers I read some of his books already when I was 13, though I wasn't so much into "It", "Pet Cemetery" or "The Shining" like most of my peers. 

"Christine" left deep impressions on me. I could very much relate to the main character Arnie, a somewhat classical nerdy looser, who, if you care to look beyond the horrorparts, is finely drawn and very alive. "The Long Walk" is another masterpiece, written under the pseudonym Richard Bachmann. The simple formular to reduce 100 boys to one through endless walking is done in a perfection that hasn't lost its appeal to me after four readings. The few strokes with which Mr. King draws a picture of the United States as dictatorship are also state of the art writers economy - and, believe it or not - poetic as well. Another book, an early one, that I've liked immensely is "Salem's Lot", a vampire story that keeps shocking and surprising its readers to the point where ... I won't spoil here: Better read it, if you haven't already.

So: "Fairy Tale". I didn't read it, I listened to it. Having a cold and headaches I needed something to keep me entertained while resting my eyes and my tired body. So I browsed audiobooks in my local online library and found "Fairy Tale" read by Seth Numrich. What luck for me. I liked the sound of Mr. Kings writing (which isn't the case with all of his works): the book feels like the late work of someone who knows his craft to the core and doesn't have a thing left to prove to the world. His pacing is cool and immaculate: Calmly detailed and yet moving forward with tension in every sentence. I also liked Mr. Numrichs voice, his sound and his rhythm - a beat that might feel strange to some people because it halts and swings at the same time. It went right into my head and my heart. 

For me it parallels with Stephem Fry's reading of the Harry Potter books, which I enjoyed like none other so far. Mr. Fry had a way of capturing both the heart and emotional warmth and the humor of Harry Potter.

There isn't much humor in "Fairy Tale", but Mr. Numrich is so convincing as Charlie Reade and all the people that pass through the story (not to mention the animals, lead by a German shepherd named Radar, whose soul has been caught in words like hardly a dog's before him), that I wanted to follow along from word one. I didn't know anything about the story but its title and the bookcover. It is, indeed, a fairy tale and no horror story even though the master can't help himself. Lucky me for not knowing a thing. The story keeps changing. When I thought: "Ok, I know what's going on here!" I discovered, that I still had three quarters to go and a dead main charakter left plenty of space for new surprises to come. And come they did.

Texte aus dem Schuhkarton #7: My Arms

Diesen 10 Jahre alten Text habe ich heute überraschend gefunden..

Handpoked tattoo by Marie Dinger

My arms are bleeding

someone's punched a hole into their skin
and drop after drop I'm leaking red
 
I don't remember when it happened
- just realized one day 
that my arms were bleeding
bleeding slowly, a thin string of blood
dripping down to the floor
 
I didn't do anything about it
I didn't have time, I was busy
- and I liked the red
 
Then I got used to it, to the bleeding
got used to all the paper towels needed
to keep the office clean
 
Gee. What a mess.
 
It's been going on for weeks now
my arms becoming paperdry
I thought my bones where thin

but they are much thinner really
- nothing left but skin and bone 
 
There's a girl in my neighbourhood

who probably has anorexia
her arms look as thin as mine

But with me it's just the arms
- the rest looks the same
with her it's the whole body

looking thin but full of energy

just her face is round

(she works in my favourite burger joint
frying burgers all day
but never eating)
 
Sometimes I think:
why don't I stop the bleeding?
it should be very easy
shouldn't it?

But I've gotten so used to the drip

the red, the lightness of my arms
so used to the thin, the dry feeling
 
And I'm curious what's going to happen
I'm curious if that someone 
comes around again with his needle
maybe punctuates my legs or

Happy New Year 2023!

 

Helpful words about anger, by Abraham Twerski

Who doesn't have problems with anger? Either you have to much of it or too little. Abrahm Twerski gives a helpful line of thoughts, starting with separating anger into three parts: anger, rage and resentment. Personally I'd be happy to feel less resentment. Working on it.

Movement - Sugar Ray, Maradona, Rickson

Some people who really know how to move:

Flashback #5 UNTITLED | Matilde Mørk

Matilde and I studied together at Danseværkstedt in Copenhagen. We were both around twenty years old and our wish to become professional dancers was quite new - considering our age we'd had little training. After finishing the one-year-course in Copenhagen Matilde went to England to study dance in Leeds, I went to Essen to study German Dance Theatre at Folkwang. For about seven years I passed through Copenhagen almost every summer on my way north to Sweden and Norway. We met and shared our experiences as aspiring dancers. 

After moving back to Denmark Matilde, founded Mørkdans and began to train as dance therapist. Over the years our connection thinned out - but the internet is a good place to reconnect.

A couple of weeks ago I came across some of Matilde's work on Vimeo. This one I like especially - there is a simplicty in it that is difficult to find. It reminded me of a show of Yvonne Rainer's work at Museum Ludwig in 2012. Matilde told me later, that it was in fact a reinactment of a Yvonne Rainer's Trio A.
 

Nothing is a mistake

click to enlarge picture

I like John Cage very much. There is a joyfull, egofree openness about him and his lifelong working companion Merce Cunningham - and their relation to work, which keeps inspiring me. (Please read his books.)

This note was typed by Cage and put to the door of Cunningham's studio. There's a lot of good advise in there. When I teach, which I do not very often, I ask the students to stop thinking in terms of 'right' and 'wrong', because it usually results in a severe reduction of mental power and freedom. 

One of my teachers once said: "What's interesting to me, is when you make mistakes and how you deal with them." I would go even further and stop thinking about mistakes at all.

Another quite interesting thought which is everything but en vogue at the moment is "follow the leader". Sometimes I think that since individualism has become a common rule we forget to accept role models. We forget heavy respect as a basical everyday principle. Could that be a mistake?

Lemmings

Two crows
chasing each other
at three o'clock

Far out in the carpet sky
- piled on top of the roofy landscape
an endless repetition of greys

I listen to the silence of traffic
of computer ventilation
and of my own sneezy breath

The seconds've formed a queue
on my right shoulder
like lemmings they jump down

one after one

***

Happy Birthday Leo!

Jump On This Boat!

It's considered bad manners to write about a book before you are finished reading it. But there's a but: Due to coincidence I'm reading A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra at the same time. 

They seem to share quite a deal.

And since I've laughed out loud three time before reaching page 6 in Toole's weird tale of Ignatius J. Reilly, I need to quote one of his lines (he's thirty, living with his mother):

"I dust a bit," Ignatius told the policeman. "In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip."

I am very sure that I'm going to enjoy this book.

Don Quixote was lost to me for many years. A clear victim of German class - where they seem to have taught most people NOT to read. We read the first page of the first chapter. I still remember the words - the translation, compared to the English one by John Ormsby I'm reading now must've been lousy. We had to write a content summary. I didn't only consider Don Quixote boring crap for years - I disliked content summaries for as long as I was a student as well. What a waste! 

The tale of the Spanish knight (remember: bad manners - I've hardly started reading) seems to be miraculously funny, witty, strange and deep. 

Thanks to Kevin Dorney for tipping me into his direction again. And thanks to Daniel Wouters for sending A Confederacy of Dunces by mail from Spain or Switzerland or wherever it were...

Pillow Over Me Head

I've put a pillow over me head
feels better that way  -
it protects me
from too much noise
and it sort of slows down time

Does time run or walk?

I nick the corner of the pillow
when people look at me
their eyes telling me that I look stupid
but I'd rather keep it on my head
and pay that price

I don't know if time runs or walks
it probably can do both - like people
and sometimes I think it's gaining speed
(that's an old one, of course..)

---

My pillow and me
we went to the supermarket
a couple of days ago

I bought nuts and yoghurt
and went to the counter
where an old lady looked at me
 - she found my pillow perfectly normal
in its fluffy whiteness
and I thanked her for letting me go first
(she was reading the headlines)

I think she could've been Margaret Thatcher
or a sister of Roger Ebert
and I think she wanted a pillow too

All those people dying:
another reason
to keep mine