Thoughts of no particular interest to anyone but myself:

• I was looking at The Modern Word the other night and learned that Stanislaw Lem wrote Solaris. I’ve always wanted to see the movie, but now I’ll have to read the book first. I’m sorely lacking in science fiction background anyway; the last science fiction book I read was Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. And before that, I hadn’t read science fiction in over ten years.
• I have about fifty pages left of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It’s similar to George Orwell’s 1984 in some respects—conformity is a major theme in both novels—but I like how Huxley’s book has some levity to it. 1984, by contrast, is as cold and as humorless as a morgue. The very absurdity of 1984 makes it even more frightening (remember the Two Minutes Hate?), but Brave New World is more subtle in its observations.
• Would either of these books qualify as science fiction?
• In any case, I like Brave New World better than 1984. The book’s themes are intriguing, but I can’t decide if I’d want to live in Huxley’s utopia. The idea that “everyone belongs to everyone else” is interesting and I admit I’m not against the idea—it has the air of sexual fantasy to it—but it seems superficial. Since everything in Brave New World is so easily obtained, it’s no surprise that the characters don’t really value anything. Sex, soma, and happiness are all taken for granted, which makes for a pretty vapid utopia.
• But doesn’t the very nature of utopia automatically render it meaningless?
• Yet, for all its attractions, I think Huxley’s utopia would also be my personal hell: books have been outlawed. The World State would rather have everyone take soma, have sex, and attend the feelies in order to stay distracted. And while this might appeal to some, I’d get pretty bored without a good book to read.