The five novels in the Canopus in Argos: Archives series, by Doris Lessing, are among my favorite science fiction books. Their stories and images continue to haunt my imagination. The fourth book in the series, The Making of the Representative for Planet Eight, tells the story of how to face the collapse of a planet’s entire ecosystem. The first book in the series, Shikasta, contains one of the more interesting sustained meditations on racism that I have ever read, and as I thread my way through anti-racist theology, I find Lessing’s words coming up through memory. And the second book in the series, The Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five has no real relevance to current events (not that I can remember, at least), but the image of contact between the three different, and increasingly transcendent, zones of existence still fuels my imagination.

Two bits of trivia about Lessing: The Associated Press reported that Doris Lessing was less than enthusiastic about winning the prize at first, which makes me like her better….

Doris Lessing pulled up in a black cab where a media horde was waiting Thursday in front of her leafy north London home. Reporters opened the door and told her she had won the Nobel Prize for literature, to which she responded: “Oh Christ … I couldn’t care less.”

And the last bit of trivia: Lessing was the Guest of Honor (GoH) at the 1987 World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). (Via.) Whaddya bet she wins an honorary Hugo award for lifetime achievement at the 2008 Worldcon….