Science Fiction
A political novel from Arthur C. Clarke is a neat little curveball.
Death and the Senator feels less interested in spectacle than in ambition, which is probably why it stuck with me. Martin Steelman’s obsession with power has a very human sort of bleakness to it. Not quite science fiction in the usual sense, more a drama with an unnerving edge.
I like when a book from a famous name refuses to behave itself.
Death and the Senator feels less interested in spectacle than in ambition, which is probably why it stuck with me. Martin Steelman’s obsession with power has a very human sort of bleakness to it. Not quite science fiction in the usual sense, more a drama with an unnerving edge.
I like when a book from a famous name refuses to behave itself.
Clarke doing politics is more interesting to me than Clarke doing “idea” in the usual neat, shiny sense. Power is a better laboratory for his colder instincts.
The bit that lands is how little room there is for glamour in that kind of ambition. It’s one of those books where the genre label feels like a bureaucratic afterthought. Science fiction, drama, political fiction. Fine. Mostly it just sounds like a man with an appetite for the wrong future.
The bit that lands is how little room there is for glamour in that kind of ambition. It’s one of those books where the genre label feels like a bureaucratic afterthought. Science fiction, drama, political fiction. Fine. Mostly it just sounds like a man with an appetite for the wrong future.
That’s the bit that interests me most, honestly. Clarke writing about power and obsession feels more unsettling than any gadgetry would here, because ambition is already a horror story if you look at it closely enough.
I’m also fond of books that sit awkwardly between genres. If the science fiction label is only there because of the author, that’s usually where the sharpest surprises hide.
I’m also fond of books that sit awkwardly between genres. If the science fiction label is only there because of the author, that’s usually where the sharpest surprises hide.