Science Fiction and Fantasy Classics
Here are some books that have withstood the test of time and critical fashions. I pay attention to publishers devoting time and energy to bringing back books or authors in an organized way. For instance, MIT Press is doing such an admirable job with Stanislaw Lem that it inspired a separate page devoted to him. The new Dune films are reviving a sf landmark series. I will add others in time.
Venus Plus X
Venus Plus X
Charlie Johns has been snatched from his home on 61 North 34th Street and delivered to the strange future world of Ledom. Here, violence is a vague and improbable notion. Technology has triumphed over hunger, overpopulation, pollution, even time and space. But there is a change Charlie finds even more shocking: gender is a thing of the past. Venus Plus X is Theodore Sturgeon’s brilliant evocation of a civilization for whom tensions between male and female and the human preoccupation with sex no longer exist.
As Charlie Johns explores Ledom and its people, he finds that the human precepts he holds dear are profane in this new world. But has Charlie learned all there is to know about this advanced society? And why are the Ledom so intent on gaining Charlie’s approval? Unsettling, compelling, and no less than visionary, here is science fiction at its boldest: a novel whose wisdom and lyricism make it one of the most original and insightful speculations on gender ever produced.