Reviews

philosophical science fiction in the most literal sense

NECESSITY by Jo Walton

BY Jonathan Crowe

Necessity, the third and concluding volume of Jo Walton’s Thessaly trilogy, is not a book that can be read on its own. You really do want to read the first two volumes, The Just City and The Philosopher Kings, first. As I pointed out in my review of those two books last year, this series is philosophical science fiction in the most literal sense. It’s the story of Greek gods creating a real-world city based on Plato’s Republic as a thought experiment, designed to explore concepts of consent, volition and equal significance.

Visionary writers of Gretna, Manitoba

A.E. van Vogt’s Clane of Linn

BY J.J.S. Boyce

A.E. van Vogt is surely the most famous literary figure in the English science fiction world to come out of the tiny community of Gretna, Manitoba, populated primarily by German-speaking Mennonites during his childhood. Of course this is a comical understatement for a writer spoken of in the same breath as the Big Three of Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov, and sometimes wedged, retroactively into the number one or number two spot.