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Title: Shikasta by Doris Lessing ISBN: 0-00-654719-2 Pub. Date: 1994 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Like the series, but ...
Comment: Lessing's criticism of the twentieth century is pointed, somtimes funny, and ultimately hopeful. The other four books in her 'Canopus' series are much stronger, though.
Shikasta - the outsider's name for Earth - is presented in a series of vingettes, case studies, and partial exchanges of letters. Perhaps the intent was to create a mosaic from those many pieces. I just found it fragmentary; somehow, it never formed a whole, coherent image for me. Also, this book is longer than the others in the set. In those, Lessing makes her points concisely; this book's increased length just gave more of the poor organization.
I recently re-read the other four books (not the proper order of the set of five), and came away more impressed than ever. Singly and as a set, they are wonderful. I'm glad I read this one last. If I had read this before the others I might not have bothered with them - that would have been a true loss on my part.
I recommend the Canopus series most highly. The other books are among the finest literature I know. It is unfortunate that Shikasta does not rise to their standards, and it would be sad if a new reader judged the series by it's first member.
Rating: 5
Summary: The best in socio-cultural sci-fi
Comment: Shikasta is my all-time favorite sci-fi book -- and I've been reading sci-fi for over 40 years! If you like Ursula LeGuin's work, you'll love Shikasta, by Doris Lessing. It is a gripping, visionary tale. Written over 20 years ago, the story seems prophetic, as it describes much that is happening on our planet today. But it's not a sociological treatise. Far from it! The story revolves around the lives of three siblings, and the agony of trying to remember and then fulfil the reason they decided to reincarnate on Earth during a time of global crisis.
Shikasta ties together the very personal, the immediate global, and the cosmic at the heart level. While there is plenty of action, this is not Buck Rogers. The story of Shikasta is the story of real people, human and non, struggling with the issue of how an individual can make a difference.
I'm buying another copy because I lent my tattered one to someone who kept it!
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Title: The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five by Doris Lessing ISBN: 0006547206 Pub. Date: 1994 List Price(USD): $21.98 |
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Title: The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 by Doris Lessing ISBN: 0006547184 Pub. Date: 1994 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Sirian Experiments by Doris Lessing ISBN: 0006547214 Pub. Date: 1994 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Shikasta: Re, Colonized Planet 5 : Personal, Psychological, Historical Documents Relating to Visit by Johor (Grade 9) by Doris May Lessing ISBN: 0394749774 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1981 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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