The Nomad and the Olive Branch

Reza Aslan is one of those intellectuals notorious for their uncompromising stance, bluntness, and, to a certain degree, political incorrectness. It comes to no surprise, then, that his latest publication, God: A Human History , reflects his headstrong approach in the sphere of all things religion and spirituality. However, despite Aslan's misgivings, this book is a thoroughly enjoyable read and indeed a most enlightening one. While his previous book, Beyond Fundamentalism , explored the notion of a "cosmic war" of ideologies against a backdrop of globalization, God: A Human History instead looks at how religion came to be from a more scientific standpoint, coming to a conclusion based on his own personal experiences with faith and belief. The book starts with Aslan's recounting of his conversion to Christianity and subsequent reversion to Islam, followed by a revelation of his newly adopted pantheistic approach to which he returns to near the end of the book...

Critical reception for the titular novel has been fairly mixed. Although the book has been dubbed "the most famous science fiction novel" ever and has received the Hugo Award for best novel, the book was panned by many critics, such as NYT writer Orville Prescott, as a "disastrous mishmash of science fiction, laborious humor, dreary social satire and cheap eroticism", so bad that "when a non-stop orgy is combined with a lot of preposterous chatter, it becomes unendurable, an affront to the patience and intelligence of readers". Despite the vitriol poured at the novel, it has become a cult classic. Named as one of the 88 books that "shaped America" by the Library of Congress, " Stranger..." has inspired much of the hippie subculture of the 60's and 70's. Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" , an allegory to the prophet Abraham, is about the "Man from Mars", Valentine Michael Smith...

  Also dubbed the "Cyberspace" or "Matrix" trilogy, William Gibson's triad of far future dystopian techno-nightmare novels gave birth to the cyberpunk genre. The first title, Neuromancer, takes most of the credit, while the other two titles, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive flesh out the world and characters introduced in the first book and brings the trilogy to a close. In following with my previous reviews, my critiques will focus on style, content, and an overall "feel" of the story. Similar to my other novel series reviews, I will go over each novel one by one. However, for this review, I will begin with a sort of treatise on the man behind the books, American-Canadian (how about I just stick with North American?) author William Gibson, as well as an overall review with a summary. To start off, William Gibson, the author, is one of the few writers to whom the word "prophetic" is a fitting description. Like Ray Bradbury, George ...

  1984. Brave New World. These two literary works have re-defined the term "dystopia" at the turn of the 20th Century. However, another book, just as known and reputable, Fahrenheit 451, authored by one of the most creative writers America let alone the world has ever seen, has breathed life into this otherwise dank and dreary conception. The book is titled after "the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns." Unlike its older counterparts, it is shorter in length (about 160 pages) and is set in a world where intellectual thought is actively (and violently) suppressed and entertainment in all its forms is encouraged. The story follows Guy Montag, a "fireman" (I'll leave the word at that) who lives in this dark and gloomy future. Without spoiling too much, he gets caught in a series of events that unravel the flaws of his era. Having read 1984 and excerpts of Brave New World, I am pleased to say that Bradbury's work, despite i...

Few trilogies espouse a universe so encompassing, engrossing, engaging, and breathtaking as Mass Effect, a franchise that combines the best of classic space opera and traditional science fiction elements such as cyberpunk and Lovecraftian horror into one genre-defying masterpiece that draws influence from media greats such as Blade Runner, Dune, Star Trek, Star Wars, and Deus Ex. The trilogy was an absolute blast to play, with its story of memorable characters, beautiful locales, and myriad social, political, and religious themes. It is no surprise that it is deemed as one of the greatest if not the greatest science fiction franchise of our generation . It comes to no surprise that a universe this big has other products. They already have an animated movie being released and have published several Dark Horse comics to date. While tie-in novels are considered supplementary and not stand-alones, this set of books deserves special mention for several reasons. First, the books are...

This is the first post in a series of posts that deals with books I have read or come across. The first book to receive this treatment is "A History of the Arab Peoples" by the late Lebanese scholar Albert Hourani. I finished reading this book about a year ago and I remember feeling somewhat underwhelmed by its premise. The book serves as an excellent primer to Arabs at the advent of Islam, but falls short of giving us as detailed a history as possible about Arabs prior to the coming of the world's second largest religious group. It seems to run on the hypothesis that modern Arab history started with the coming of Islam, and that the Arabs have had no history prior to this. The same has been said of the Palestinians, who are accused of having no history prior to 1948. The presence of a people and the socio-political climate that governed them in the past is just as important as the one in the present. In fact, it can be argued that much of what we see in Arab society...

Many scholars have attempted to draw hypotheses regarding socio-political attitudes and, in the loosest meaning possible, ideologies from usually superficially unrelated discourses. Such analytical work, however, tends to provide a framework for more complicated and specific theses vis-à-vis current social phenomena. Oftentimes, this has worked with marginal success, such as Edward Said’s widely-read Foucauldian eponymous treatise on Orientalism (Vintage Books, New York, 1979), a plethoric “vault” of imagined constructions about the “Orient”, or the lands of the East. This tour de force has been used numerously in critiques of “Orientalist” discursive pieces. In other cases, it has resulted, in my opinion at least, in utter failure, such as Ibn Warraq’s – a bigot who has a serious ax to grind – The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims (Prometheus Books, New York, 2008), a book that errantly alleges that the Muslim psyche is geared towards violence against n...