Prometheus: a reading list (updated)
Whether you like Prometheus or hate Prometheus it has made your head spin and that’s a good thing. Here are some books that tackle the themes in the Ridley Scott movie.
Ancient Astronauts
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft
At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
We’ll pass on the L.Ron Hubbard novels
Genetic Engineering
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
First and Last Men by Olaf Stapledon
The Star-Maker by Olaf Stapledon
Dune by Frank Herbert, which covers everything, basically.
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Artificial Humans
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, source material for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
The Electric Grandmother by Ray Bradbury
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, for the rules governing the behavior of robots towards humans.
Science and Religion, Comparative Religion
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
The Star by Arthur C. Clarke
The Book of J by David Rosenberg and Harold Bloom, on the transmission of ancient images.
Yes, this list is woefully inadequate. Help.
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Din’s List:
“I guess everyone will recognize that Prometheus borrows a lot from H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, or at least they will when they read the article in The Atlantic. I read somewhere that Guillermo del Toro gave up on filming the latter when he heard what Prometheus’s story was. At any rate, I am considering re-reading the Cthulhu Mythos, maybe after I finish ASOIAF.
“Genetic engineering as a plot device has been around in science fiction for a long time. Naturally, there’s Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength. Jerry Pournelle’s CoDominium/Empire of Man series might count, too.
“Again at a tangent, Clifford Simak won Best Short Story, Nebula 1980 and Hugo 1981, for Grotto of the Dancing Deer, where an archeologist finds some cave paintings, and also the painter, still living.
“More recently, there’s Beggars in Spain (1991 Hugo and Nebula best novella winner) by a favorite of mine, the brilliant Nancy Kress, though I think it’s really more of a discussion of “What do (genetically enhanced) productive members of society owe the unproductive masses, the beggars in Spain?” Ayn Rand vs. Communism! It’s off-topic, sorry, but one of my favorites, R.A. Lafferty has a nice answer to that question in his short story, Eurema’s Dam, Hugo 1974:
“–only the sick oyster produces nacre. Nothing rises without a leaven, but the yeast is itself a fungus and a disease. You be regularizers all, splendid and supreme. But you cannot live without the irregulars. You will die, and who will tell you that you are dead? When there are no longer any deprived or insufficient, who will invent? What will you do when there are none of us defectives left? Who will leaven your lump then?”
Post your recommendations in Comments.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
June 13th, 2012 at 07:30
I’ve never actually fully read any of them, just browsed through them in the bookstore way back, and a lot of scholars label the series/theories as crackpot at worst and pseudoscience at best…
… but I suppose Zecharia Sitchin’s works fall under Ancient Astronauts… the series “Earth Chronicles.” These books aren’t fiction, at least not in the strictest sense, but publications of his theories and research on ancient astronauts based on his studies of Ancient Sumerian myths and culture. The books include “The 12th Planet,” “The Stairway to Heaven,” etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharia_Sitchin
In fact, when I watched “Prometheus,” his work was what first came to my mind.
I can’t believe H.P. Lovecraft’s works didn’t click in my head – but yes, that’s a good one!
June 13th, 2012 at 10:31
The Streets of Ashkelon by Harry Harrison
June 13th, 2012 at 12:37
Aaaaaaaa Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Daniken.
Big hit among the grownups in my house when I was a kid.
June 13th, 2012 at 12:37
A pun on Erich von Daniken “Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past”:
“Toilets of the Gods”
June 13th, 2012 at 17:06
not really artificial humans, but “More than Human”, by Theodore Sturgeon, I guess. (PhP9 from Booksale :)
P.S. Beautiful post in praise of clutter, wouldn’t have it any other way.
June 13th, 2012 at 19:56
Sandkings by George R.R. Martin. I only discovered recently that I have read his work even before A Song of Ice and Fire. Sandkings deals with the idea of how a lesser species starts dealing with you when it evolves into sapient creatures.
The Streets of Ashkelon deals with the theme of science conflicting with religion in an innocent society.
June 13th, 2012 at 20:29
Artificial Humans: Ghost In The Shell Vol. 1 By Masamune Shirow. Avoid Vol. 2 (Man-Machine Interface) as it tends to get into contemplate-our-navels territory.
June 14th, 2012 at 11:07
I liked “The Star”.
June 14th, 2012 at 20:57
How about the tentacles-up-your-orifices meme? It’s called shokushu goukan (tentacle rape). Here are some examples-
La Blue Girl, the Urotsukidoji series, Demon invasion – imagine Alien happening at a high school and the monster rapes the school girls) etc. and then there’s a painting from the 1800s called “Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife”
http://64.19.142.12/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Tako_to_ama_retouched.jpg/800px-Tako_to_ama_retouched.jpg