Here’s a strange science fiction book I read…

I just finished reading Limbo by Bernard Wolfe the other day. It is a truly bizarre book. I’m not even really sure how to begin describing this book.

A dystopian science fiction novel that creates and explores an extended metaphor of amputation, lobotomy, castration and cybernetics. It’s the story of a disaffected military doctor who goes AWOL during World War III and returns 18 years later to discover that a world society has been created based on writings that he considered to be a joke. A so-called pacifist society which is led by people who have voluntarily amputated their own limbs and replaced them with much improved cybernetic limbs.

The writing in this book is… feverish and so incredibly pun-heavy. If the book weren’t so grim, I might have enjoyed it more. Also, there is quite a bit of sexual weirdness… I don’t really know what else to say. Wouldn’t really recommend it, but it IS one of the strangest books I have ever had the fortune to read. If extremely weirdly written science fiction is your bag, go for it!

I did, however, find some places where you can read about it, if you so choose:
Ray Davis, he of the Bellona Times website, writes a bit about the sexual weirdness in this book, as well as related science fictional tomes.

I’m not sure who this is, but he (?) seems to like Bernard Wolfe quite a bit. Makes a good point though about out-of-print books and the public domain, though.

Some pretty kickass litcrit by N. Katherine Hayles of UCLA.

3 thoughts on “Here’s a strange science fiction book I read…”

  1. What’s REALLY weird about this, before I even read what you wrote, is that I’m reading that book.

    I tend to read a lot of books at once; I started that one just before leaving for vacation a couple of weeks ago. I read other stuff while there, so it’s sort of in the half-discarded pile, but I’m about halfway through it so i’ll probably finish it. And now just this coincidence has me wanting to finish it. That’s a pretty old, obscure kinda book for both of us to pick up and start reading at approximately the same time.

    I bought a paperback copy of it, used, a few months back when I went to the store armed with some list of the 100 best sci-fi something-or-others. I don’t remember if that book was on there or just the author, but maybe we both read that list? Did I find it through here? i can’t remember.

  2. i don’t think you found it here.
    (by the way, that’s a pretty bizarre coincidence)
    i found a reference to it on the aforementioned Bellona Times website and it piqued my interest. So, I did some more searching and found those other websites too.

    It seemed worth checking out, because about that time I had remembered reading a science fiction book a long time ago (which I now can’t remember the name of) which had one of the fictional main characters describing Wolfe’s LIMBO. All of these things (and it’s outofprint state) made me want to check it out. I guess I’m curious about those books which fall by the wayside.

  3. Oh, I remember now.

    The science fiction book was Julian May’s THE SURVEILLANCE (part one of two/many parter). The character: Rogatien Remillard.

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