Reviews for The Rulebreaker

The average rating for The Rulebreaker based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-09-26 00:00:00 Darrin Wagner H.G. Wells is undoubtedly an exceptional human being! Apart from the fact that "The Island of Doctor Moreau" is clearly part of the Victorian science fiction tradition, it contains all elements of a timeless study of the human condition, as well as a reflection on issues that are more worrying now than they were in the 19th century. Do scientists have to follow ethical rules, or are they entitled to indulge in experiments that satisfy their curiosity, regardless of the consequences? In the tradition of a kind of pre-catastrophe Frankenstein, Doctor Moreau himself answers the question without any doubt: "I asked a question, devised some method of getting an answer, and got - a fresh question. Was this possible, or that possible? You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator, what an intellectual passion grows upon him. [...] To this day, I have never troubled about the ethics of the matter." While Wells leaves it to Moreau's creatures to punish him for this detached attitude, I am reminded of a real scientist who reflected upon the question himself, and understood the ethical dilemma of unrestrained science. When Oppenheimer quoted the "Bhagadvad Gita" to express his pain over his contribution to the development of the atomic bomb, he illustrated the path towards responsible science: "I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds!" The need to understand the consequences of scientific curiosity is the implicit message. Only if we manage to act responsibly with our inventions, hope in the future will be possible. Interestingly, Wells ends his story with the notion of hope, not because there is any reason for it, but because it is not possible to live without it. This closes the circle of Pandora's box, opened out of curiosity, unleashing all the terrors of the world, but leaving hope for humankind to be able to bear its fate. Apart from the obvious question of science and ethics, I found another story line in the short novel equally interesting. What makes us human? Main character Prendick paraphrases Descartes' idea when he notes: "He was a human then[...] for he could talk." Being able to communicate thoughts, feelings and ideas certainly makes us human, and it makes us storytelling animals, readers, Goodreads users. Over and over again, we repeat our stories, we reread them and re-interpret them, and I find it almost heart-breaking to follow the Beast Men's ritualistic repetition of the story they commit to - The Law, told with authority, transmitted as a poem to recite. It evokes the development of Margaret Atwood's Crakers, who also need religious origin stories and powerful poetical words to become fully human. Her MaddAddam develops the idea of humanity as a community based on mythical storytelling to perfection, but Wells reflected on the same theme, as did Oppenheimer, when he chose to quote a timeless Indian classic to express his feelings of distress regarding the creation of modern horror. Looking around my house on this typical Swedish sunless summer day, I can only agree with the definition of humanity as a bunch of voracious story consumers: My eldest son is on the living room sofa, reading Zola's "Germinal", and I am vaguely jealous that he gets to do it for the FIRST time. The magic of it! My middle child is on his bed, reading a fabulous golden hardback version of Star Wars, the trilogy, and the story behind this reading adventure is well worth reflecting on: he found it in a bookstore, and begged me to buy it, despite the fact that he had already seen the movies, and we have as a rule that you read first and watch then. But since he DIDN'T KNOW there was a (thick!) novel, he asked for permission to reverse the procedure. Verdict on his part: so much more detail in the book! My youngest child is at the kitchen table with a pile of books that she seems to be reading simultaneously: She is in the middle of the Laura Ingalls Wilder series, and well into the fourth or fifth of "Anne of Green Gables". Oh, to be going back to Avonlea with her. Another memory of childhood reading bliss! So, I can hear my Middle School students pointing out that I am digressing from the digression right now, but my point is that "The Island of Doctor Moreau" brought it back to me why I read in the first place, why it makes me feel happy even when the content of the book scares and worries me. There is something unifying, peaceful and fulfilling in sharing books over cultural, generational and language borders, and it gives me hope for the future, even in times of violence. I will let Prendick have the last words, since he inspired this digression: "There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope. I hope, or I could not live."

Review # 2 was written on 2011-08-02 00:00:00 Peter Corrigan "Not to go on all-Fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men? Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men? Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is the Law. Are we not Men? Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men? Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?" H.G. Wells 1896 novella The Island of Dr. Moreau may have been a science fiction / fantasy precursor of William Golding's 1954 classic Lord of the Flies. Both works explore the theme of the fragility of humanity and civilization and the unguarded impetus towards chaos inherent in us all. Or it's a fun book about a guy stuck on an island with beast people. The character of Dr. Moreau himself can be seen as an extension of Dr. Frankenstein, willfully toying with the mysteries of creation for his own scientific curiosity and blithely uncaring about his experiments until he is forced to deal with it. In this sense, Wells' work is fundamentally tied to modern writing about the morality and ethics of genetics and with the integrity of our science and technology and how it affects nature. Published a couple of years before Joseph Conrad's brilliant Heart of Darkness, this also provokes thought about the intellectual climate of the end of the 1800s to lead such talented writers towards these questions. Sometimes this can be painfully dated and the language is in that stilted Victorian prose, and there are some gaps in the plot, but this is a seminal work that should be read for fans of speculative fiction.