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At first, The Ferryman by Justin Cronin appears to be an overcomplicated and boring science fiction novel, but later it simplifies and in the end becomes completely absorbing.

Justin Cronin is an American author who has won the Hemingway Award. The Ferryman is his seventh book, published in 2023.

The book tells about a group of people living in hidden utopian island called Prospera. The main character, Proctor Bennett, is a ferryman who transports elderly citizens to be reborn in the Nursery, where their memories are erased and their bodies are replaced by new copies. He begins to question reality when he has dreams (which are supposed to be impossible) and when his father gives him a mysterious message before boarding the ferry. Proctor joins resistance movement called the Arrivalists, who seek to expose the truth behind Prospera. He discovers that Prospera is actually a collective dream of the passengers on a spaceship called Oranios, who left Earth after a climate crisis and is now approaching a new planet called Caelus. Proctor also learns that he had wife and daughter who died on Earth, and that his wife is the Designer of the dream. Proctor and his companions escape the dream and wake up on Oranios, ready to face their new home.

One of the main points of the novel is to explore the theme of identity. “There is power in a name. It is through names that we bring all things into this world, and when they leave, it is names we carry with us, so they are never truly gone.” – This reflects on the theme of identity and how it is intertwined with memory, suggesting that what we remember – names, in this case – forms a crucial part of our identity.

PS. There are parallels with Inception and Passengers movies. And WALL-E cartoon, of course.

Foundation trilogy by Isaak Asimov was published in earlier 1950s. It consists of three parts: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation. 

The book describes fictitious story, fantasy, about organisation created with a purpose to cope with difficulties during barbarism and chaos times. That is also a story of Empire that collapses and makes a birth again with the help of Foundation. The help is mainly to shorten chaos times – between the first and second Empires – from 30 thousand years to just one. Foundation accumulates human knowledge and establishes new rules, laws and connections between distant worlds. There is no single main character in the book, except perhaps Hari Seldon who creates Foundation and appears episodically throughout the plot. He is the main character rather in terms of importance. There are however multiple key persons that develop the story: Salvor Hardin, Hober Mallow, Mule, Bayta Darell. They appear over a single plot line that binds logically all three parts in a complete coherent story.  

I find Foundation to be exciting, intriguing, and having a bit of scientific basis. It is a fantasy but statistically large masses of humans are tempted to be described with a unified physics law. Even appearance and importance of fluctuations, like a mutant, can be a part of theory. 70 years has been passed since publication but for me it still sounds scientifically attractive. And interesting. I like bluffs, coming one after another, and intrigue persisting until the very end of story. 

I recommend this book as a good example of fantasy genre, and especially for those who see recent adaptation from Apple. Finally, my favourite excerpt:

“Without pretending to predict the actions of individual humans, it formulated definite laws capable of mathematical analysis and extrapolation to govern and predict the mass action of human groups. … You mean that this art of his [Hari Seldon] predicts that I would attack the Foundation and lose such and such a battle for such and such a reason? You are trying to say I am a silly robot following a predetermined course into destruction.”

I would like to give few quotes which I like the most. The last is a part of Patrick’s letter to his daughter. If you unable to read whole book, just read that letter, at Chapter 10.

“There was a cliché about teaching: Once a teacher, always a teacher. But there was truth to it. Your sense of responsibility to your students never leaves you. You wonder about the different paths they might have taken. You wonder if you failed them.”

“For the sake of children’s education today—for the sake of real life, as he put it—people should concentrate on having quality education delivered to the schools these blacks are attending. W. E. B. Du Bois’s words in 1935 seemed prescient: There is no magic to either segregated or mixed schools, he warned. The Negro needs neither segregated schools nor mixed schools. What he needs is Education.”

“Time,” he said. “You can’t go back in time. Everything that happen is about cause and effect. One day lead to another. And now I’m here.”

“I mean that it frightens me that so little was required for him to develop intellectually—a quiet room, a pile of books, and some adult guidance.”

“You and I are canoeing down the Mississippi River. There are so many trees, bunched together in the water like bushes. The river is shadowy in some places, but the light shines through cracks of the trees. Near the bank there is a great blue heron, standing still, searching for fish. And as we are passing, a silver carp surfaces as if it is jewelry in the water. You say, “Dad look a snake.” I say, “Where” and you say, “No it’s just a vine.” We hear splashes, the fish jumping or the frogs croaking. The white light glitters on the muddy water, which you say looks like coffee.”