Book Klub 2.0: The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five (1980)

Correspondence from our Second Book Qlub organizing. We eventually settled on Doris Lessing's The Marriages Between Zone Three, Four, and Five, from her Canopus in Argos series.

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Next on the agenda: what's our next read? We agreed on Doris Lessing, and her Science Fiction opus is called Canopus in Argos and is the following books:

1. Shikasta (1979) – A secret history of Earth from the perspective of the advanced Canopus civilization that is thinking in eons rather than centuries. The history spans from the very beginning of life into our own future. The book ends with a metaphorical telling of the trial of Socrates.
2. The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five (1980) – Depicts the influence of unknown higher powers on interactions between a series of civilizational "zones" of varying degrees of advancement that encircle the planet Earth. One zone is representative of an overtly feminine high civilization initially coupled by royal marriage to a militant and male civilization. The novel culminates with the latter, male, civilization allying with a tribal female realm again due to directives from Canopus.
3. The Sirian Experiments (1980) – Focuses, like Shikasta, on the history of Earth, but from the perspective of visitors from Sirius rather than Canopus. The Sirians are depicted as a highly managed society with fascist overtones, that attempt experiments on lesser civilizations while trying to mitigate the stagnation of their ruling class. The story is told from the perspective of Ambien II, one of a peer group of five who rule Sirius.
4. The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (1982) – The story of the civilization on a planet that, due to interstellar "re-alignments", is slowly facing extinction, and Canopus's relationship with them. The story is greatly influenced by Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic expedition, and is Lessing's homage to it.
5. The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire (1983) – A story of Canopean agents on a less advanced planet; explores hazards of rhetoric and mirrors events in revolutionary societies such as Communist Russia.

If we really want to keep on with the gender theme, then I personally Vote for Book Number 2: The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five. Check 'em out.

Okay, so, on the agenda for votes that we should have decided by, let's say this weekend.

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Summation:

Hoorah!

We have officially had our second highly entertaining and delicious
Book Qlub! We ate some awesome Sicilian pizza and had a wonderful
collection of Salads, while drinking some beers, wine, and arguing the
finer points of gender and social development in the science fiction
novel The Mariages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five, by Doris
Lessing.

Next up is Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower! Let's get to reading!

-SFSFBQ