Espíritus de Marte, de Gabriel Bermúdez Castillo

«Otoño de 3006 de la Era Cristiana, del año 2458 de la Hégira, día 25 del mes de Tishri del año hebreo de 6766, año 795 de la Era Espacial, desde que el hombre puso por primera vez el pie en un planeta de otro sistema solar. Yo, Unaphistim Delver, Científico del Consejo, omitiendo mis títulos como procede, dirijo esta comunicación a mis compañeros del mismo, haciendo constar igualmente mi calidad de planetario o propietario de planetas en número de catorce, para aclarar mi situación de preponderancia en la economía de la zona. Esta comunicación guarda el carácter de la más absoluta reserva, por lo cual solo es dirigida a aquellos compañeros que ostentan la categoría de planetarios, además de científicos [...]»

     Es así como comienza esta fascinante novela de la pluma de uno de los mayores autores de ciencia ficción española. Es una novela en estado puro. Un estado tan puro, tan diáfano, que sólo puede compararse con dos cosas: con la serie marciana de Edgar Rice Burroughs (de la que esta novela es además un homenaje extenso y sentido en el total sentido de las palabras) y de la fabulosa serie del Mundo del Río (Riverworld Series) de Philip José Farmer. Pero también encontraremos ciertas puertas de entrada y conexiones estelares con las Crónicas marcianas de Ray Bradbury. El Marte que nos vamos a encontrar es el Marte soñado por tantos de nosotros, un mundo lleno de aventuras, princesas, guerreros, magos, científicos... todos ellos resucitados que buscan su destino entre las estrellas, como augurase en su momento Bradbury. Estamos ante la novela más reciente del notario y escritor valenciano Gabriel Bermúdez Castillo, quien criado y educado en Zaragoza reside en la actualidad en la ciudad de Cartagena, donde escribió esta novela de 520 páginas entre el 10 de septiembre y el 14 de noviembre de 2011. Aunque la novela es todo un prodigio de imaginación y fantasía, el autor se vale de los conocimientos científicos más actuales para dotarla del trasfondo de verosimilitud necesario para integrarla plenamente en la ciencia ficción más sólida y bien fundada. De ahí que en la página de agradecimientos exprese su reconocimiento «Al astrónomo argentino Enzo De Bernardini, de San Rafael, Mendoza, República Argentina, que me ayudó a determinar con precisión las conjunciones con Marte, así como todo lo relativo a las estaciones del planeta, la órbita de desplazamiento de la nave espacial, propagación de las ondas de radio en la ionosfera marciana y otras muchas cuestiones técnicas. Sin su ayuda, esta obra no hubiera sido posible».

Bibliografía: Gabriel Bermúdez Castillo, Espíritus de Marte, La biblioteca del laberinto, Madrid, 2012.

The World Inside, by Robert Silverberg

     Robert Silverberg (New York, 1935) wrote this novel in 1971 ("El mundo interior" in Spanish). The year is 2318. The place is Urban Monad 116 of the constellation Chippitts. The Population of this one-thousand story super-structure is 800,000 + and always growing. After two centuries of ruthless, selective breeding, the essence of life is to be bless worthy and to multiply; to afford one's neighbors any type of sexual fulfillment and, above all, to avoid the evil of frustration. But, within this seemingly blissful vertical world there are individuals who feel such perverse desires as a longing for privacy, a wish to descend from the heights, to walk on earth and bask in the sunshine. These rebel throwbacks to an earlier Earth are dangerous, disruptive elements. And they must be destroyed —if they do not destroy themselves first. This novel offers the ultimate answer to the population explosion, will it explode?

E. M. Forster: The Machine Stops

     E. M. Forster is best known for his exquisite novels, but this short story brilliantly combine the fantastical with the allegorical, or we would better say, the science fiction message. In "The Machine Stops", humanity has isolated itself beneath the ground, enmeshed in automated comforts, in much the same way as nowadays, where our society is immersed in a digital era in which social networks, electronic devices and sophisticated computers control our lives to such an extent that we do not even realize or we do not want to admit we cannot live without them. What is the price we have to pay for such digital progress? Maybe the answer comes with three more rhetorical questions: Are we more free? Are we becoming a new human species? Are we really prepared as human beings to cope with this digital frenzy? The story consists of only fifty pages where the reader can see himself/herself in one or two decades; but some people are already portrayed in such visionary scenery. But what would happen if this "machine stops", if this "digital era" suddenly stops? Can we survive? Are we ready to live without our "machines" (laptops, mobile phones, computers, etc)

Part I

The Air-ship

Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An arm-chair is int he centre, by its side a reading-desk -that is all the furniture. And in the arm-chair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh -a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs.

     An electric bell rang.

     The woman touched a switch and the music was silent.

     'I suppose I must see who it is,' she thought, and set her hair in motion.The chair, like the music, was worked by machinery, and it rolled her to the other side of the room, where the bell still rang importunately.

     'Who is it?' she called. Her voice was irritable, for she had been interrupted often since the music began. She knew several thousand people; in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously.

     But when she listened into the receiver, her white face wrinkled into smiles, and she said:

     'Very well. Let us talk, I will isolate myself. I do not expect anything important will happen for the next five minutes -for I can give you fully five minutes, Kuno.

Then I must deliver my lecture on "Music during the Australian Period".'

     She touched the isolation knob, so that no one else could speak to her. Then she touched the lighting apparatus, and the little room was plunged into darkness (Extract from E. M. Forster, The Machine Stops, London, Penguin, 2011, pp. 1-2).