The Rainbow Cadenza A Novel in Vistata Form eBook J Neil Schulman
Download As PDF : The Rainbow Cadenza A Novel in Vistata Form eBook J Neil Schulman 
"After 'Alongide Night' (1979) was praised by Anthony Burgess, Neil Schulman pulled out all the stops. Idolizing Robert A. Heinlein, he seems to emulate the later Heinlein works... In Schulman's 22nd Century, space colonies are independent, human cloning is commonplace, women are drafted for sexual duty, justice is administered by commercialized courts, and criminals ('Touchables') are hunted down, raped, and killed for sport. Sexual orientation divides four classes of people ..."
--Los Angeles Times
The People Who Care have remade the earth in their image, and it's an earthly paradise.
Gay men and lesbians are not only just tolerated at the fringes of society, but are among its most powerful and respected members. Gay marriage is an institution as normal as any other marriage.
War, hunger, racism, nationalism, random crime and violence, and most diseases have been conquered.
Humanity is joined together under a single, popularly-elected world government.
Technology is tamed to the needs of humankind, rather than despoiling the earth.
Women are more politically powerful than at any time in human history.
So why isn't everything perfect for everyone? Who are the new underclass called Touchables, and why are they hunted for sport? What social problems has cloning human beings created, and why are clones treated as inferior? Why do men outnumber women seven-to-one? And why are teenaged women being drafted into government service for three years?
This 1984 Prometheus-award-winning novel is the story of Joan Darris, a brilliant young artist in the medium of laser concerts.
Is it her destiny to play music for men's eyes, or to make herself a plaything for their desires? Why does her love for her mother threaten to subject her to three years of legalized rape, and why does her family--the very politics on Earth in her time--tell her it's her duty to comply? How does the murder she witnessed at five years old make legalized rape seem the lesser of evils twelve years later--and how does the lingering horror of that murder threaten not only to rob her of her artistic triumph but threaten the life of a man she loves but who can't give himself to her without betraying everything he believes in?
Joan Darris's world is an Earth with Marnies who hunt Touchables, with Gaylords and Ladies, with televised trials that sentence resisters to death in microwave ovens--an Earth that has eliminated war, but which has found new outlets for violence.
Like the cautionary tales of Orwell and Huxley, the philosophical novels of Ayn Rand, the realistic speculation of Heinlein, the satiric fiction of Anthony Burgess, The Rainbow Cadenza uses the device of futuristic fiction to ask fundamental questions about the personal, political, and religious values to which we dedicate our lives, and to shed light on the problems we face today.
"Every libertarian should read it. It should win the Prometheus Award."--Robert A. Heinlein, at the 1983 L-5 Society Conference
"I found it absolutely fascinating ... A splendid book."--Colin Wilson
" It strikes me as strange -- and fills me with hope -- that a man would write a novel, especially a science-fiction novel, with such a feminist message."--Beth Wickenberg, The Arizona Daily Star
"'The Rainbow Cadenza' is much more than merely a well and complexly plotted novel. It is also a novel of ideas -- ideas about art and commercialism; politics; economics and technology; and human psychology. It is that rare thing, a genuinely intellectual thriller."--Jeff Riggenbach, San Jose Mercury News
"The damn book haunted me for days after I read it. ... J. Neil Schulman has given us not only a fine story but a great deal to think about -- perhaps especially if we think ourselves sexually unprejudiced."--Poul Anderson, Reason Magazine
"An original and thoughtful book which raises questions that have not appeared in fiction before."--Gregory Benford
The Rainbow Cadenza A Novel in Vistata Form eBook J Neil Schulman
One hell of a story, and will make you think deeply on the subjects he explores. I am not usually a fan of dystopian fiction, but I was already quite familiar with J Neil Schulman when this came out. I had joked for years about a totalitarian libertarian society, and damned if he didn't write a moderately plausible if rather horrifying take on what that could be like. With all the noise these days about gender being a construct and anything goes sexuality, his take on where that could all end up is just as relevant today as when he wrote it over 30 years ago.Product details
|
Tags : The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form - Kindle edition by J. Neil Schulman. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form.,ebook,J. Neil Schulman,The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form,Pulpless.Com,Fiction General,Fiction Science Fiction General
People also read other books :
- A Brick City Love Story edition by Chanelle Alexandria Literature Fiction eBooks
- The Closet Marcellus Arterberry 9781524513252 Books
- Always on My Mind edition by Colette Caddle Literature Fiction eBooks
- Mrs Chiang Szechwan Cookbook edition by Ellen Schrecker Chiang Jungfeng John Schrecker Cookbooks Food Wine eBooks
- 2014 Precious Piggy Wall Graphique de France 9781621976110 Books
The Rainbow Cadenza A Novel in Vistata Form eBook J Neil Schulman Reviews
Joan Darris, the musician using laser light who is Neil Schulman's protagonist in this novel, is one of the most richly limned and fascinating female leads in any novel. Her quest for individuality and resistance to oppressions - societal and personal - are the backbone of the story.
That it takes place about 200 years in the future is almost beside the point, for we need people like Darris now ... and we have them now, in and out of literature. (She compares to Dagny Taggart in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged.")
Yet Schulman's extrapolation of trends in technology, religion, sociology, and State control ends up being extremely helpful to his characterizations. Darris and her friends and enemies wouldn't be nearly so compelling if they were contrasted to a more or less contemporary background.
No, this is not "libertarian propaganda," as other reviewers have insisted. Politics, both tolerable and twisted (and wickedly and constantly satirized), is only a small portion of the story. Most of it involves the heroic Darris challenging, dealing with, and ultimately defeating the base impulses of the leaders of her society, and with most of that being in artistic, not political, terms.
It is, however, anti-authoritarian to its core, and makes a host of issues that impinge on politics - from conscription to the judiciary to sound money to sexual freedom - affect its story line and the efforts of the characters to build a working life for themselves.
Schulman adds potent and provocative afterwords about some of the topics of the novel, but they're just that, and are not relied upon by the novel itself. Certainly not in any sense comparable to Orwell's afterword about Newspeak in "Nineteen Eighty-four."
You will have a compelling and unforgettable experience in letting this world wrap around you. One of advanced technology, transformed religious norms, sexuality that transcends societal distortions, and the indomitable spirit of Joan Darris.
I have an important caveat about the "Pulpless" edition, however. (In both printed and eBook form.) It was converted by OCR from a previous edition - and it has prominent typos on every page, especially if the original hardcover and paperback versions are taken as the standard. A few of them greatly alter the meaning of key passages.
I approached the author about this having happened, and he was more or less indifferent to it - quite surprising, given that he published the "Pulpless" version himself.
I'd strongly urge you to buy the 1986 Avon paperback, still available through Marketplace (The Rainbow Cadenza A Novel in Vistata Form). It actually had a proofreader, and it uses a stylized and dramatic painting as its far better cover art.
Or that you buy this edition, but send the author (you'll find links to him in the book) a note asking that he have the text repaired. You would be missing a superb reading experience if you forego it, even in this flawed form.
Great extrapolation of what it means to accept government control. Really enjoyed the use of a new media of artistic expression as a plot device. Don't forget the afterwards (plural). Even the glossary has some hidden gems.
Given the author's political bent, I wasn't truly surprised by how the society on the protagonist's home world was structured. But I don't find how it deals with the skewed male-female ratio believable at all. Societies that truly view men and women as equals would not force women into more or less sexual slavery, even temporarily. And the opposite tends to be true as well; a society that would do that to women would not pay them lip service of giving them a so-called vote.
As such, the whole novel reads like a thinly-veiled treatise on how incels think. I can only assume the author has no idea how women really think and feel or how privileged a man must be to think he's entitled to sex. And to make the protagonist female seems like an attempt to not come off as misogynistic but only shows how the author cannot write a three-dimensional female character.
I got this first when it was released. I didn't expect much out of it, but laser music was a different concept, so I bought it. Never would have thought it would be on my all-time-favorites list.
The society has sort of worked itself into a corner with sex selection in favor of males. So much of a glut of males that gay relationships are actively encouraged, and it is the very rare heterosexual male who finds a mate - women are that scarce. The government, in its wisdom, has fixed that. All females get to give a year or so as prostitutes - trained by the government, told it is their sort of military obligation. Set up in houses on hour long appointment schedules. Of course, after you finish your obligation, there are many opportunities waiting, but still. . . And avoiding "your duty" is likely to get you executed/
The interesting thing is that the author makes all this logical and real. i don't know anything about Mr. Schulman, and haven't read anything by him since, but he did a great job. You've got to get it used, but they are available and worth reading.
One hell of a story, and will make you think deeply on the subjects he explores. I am not usually a fan of dystopian fiction, but I was already quite familiar with J Neil Schulman when this came out. I had joked for years about a totalitarian libertarian society, and damned if he didn't write a moderately plausible if rather horrifying take on what that could be like. With all the noise these days about gender being a construct and anything goes sexuality, his take on where that could all end up is just as relevant today as when he wrote it over 30 years ago.
0 Response to "∎ [PDF] The Rainbow Cadenza A Novel in Vistata Form eBook J Neil Schulman"
Post a Comment