Already hampered with my first paper of summer semester, I am slightly relieved that at least I have freedom in subject matter. I get to write about any aspect of any piece of modern literature .... finally all those hours spent reading sci-fi novels are paying off!

I chose to write about some aspect of Peter Hamilton's Mindstar Rising series, mainly the first book... Mindstar Rising. Hamilton has really become my "new" favorite author, however Heinlein will continue to share this title. This series is one of his first ventures and after thoroughly enjoying his more recent work I had to go back to the beginning. Trey you may recognize the name, he is often associated with his use of "wetware" type technologies. I think we even pulled up his wikipedia page in class.

rough draft

Nice draft, John. When is the paper due? Have you thought about setting up your analysis of Hamilton's text with a brief analysis of the latest global warming reports? Should/could help you emphasize your point about the "oracular" dimensions of Hamilton and sci-fi.

Also, by way of a conclusion, you might comb through Hamilton's text and find scenes, plot-twists, or dialogues that seem to offer themselves as more than "representations" of global warming and it's effects. Could it be that Hamilton's intervention on global warming, as part of a larger body of sci-fi texts concerned with ecological issues, directly disciplines/alters our (the readership) relationship to Mama Gaia? Like rhetorically-tuned ecological theories, science fiction can do more than just reflect what's happening...

ShareRiff

Its was already turned in and graded (A). I am however about to start another paper for this class that compares two literary works, I think some of these suggestions will help more with it. I am going to compare Hamilton's "Night's Dawn Trilogy" to Heinlein's "Time enough for Love" (basically any of the Lazarus Long books) on the basis of human enhancement in sci-fi(selective breeding/cloning vs full-on nanoware and gene manipulation) - like an old-school vs new school. Should be interesting.

-JS