Gift: Four Futures
With the 99 books project, a couple new policies were enacted.
First policy: I read only one book at a time—no more teetering stack of half-read books on the bedside table, some languishing there for years. Admittedly I am not adhering to this rule with the utmost rigor.
Second policy: I always read books that people give me as gifts. I don’t always read the email they send me, but I’ll read a book. This policy actually predates the 99 books project by some years and began with a surprising holiday gift from my step-mother: Douglas Hunter’s Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage that Redrew the Map of the New World (2009).
Which brings me to my current detour: Peter Frase’s Four Futures: Life After Capitalism (2016), given by a student, who read it on the recommendation of a professor.
Not very far into the book, which I admit I was not much looking forward to, comes this remarkable paragraph:
In his three-hour meditation on the representation of Los Angeles in movies, Los Angeles Plays Itself, film scholar Thom Anderson suggests that ”if we can appreciate documentaries for their dramatic qualities, perhaps we can appreciate fiction films for the documentary revelations.” This book tries to incorporate that insight.
Frase is just trying to say that he will imagine possible futures with the help of science fiction novels, but I was so stunned and delighted to see my favorite film cited as a model that I gained the momentum necessary to cover the remaining 127 pages.
PS although I have 20 or so Nebula winners awaiting on the 99 books list, I am tempted by the dozen or so sf books Frase mentions — if I had time i would go back through and make a list for future reference.
