The Guardian’s Daniel Kalder wasn’t crazy about Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s book of short stories, marketed in the UK under the title Escape To Hell (Kalder calls it “surreal gibberish”). But there’s always something fascinating about reading the work of a dictator, especially one who has tried his hands at science fiction. Though most of the essays and stories in Escape To Hell are ranty invectives against city life, it appears that Qaddafi reserved a special kind of hatred for people who leave the planet. Kalder writes:
Slightly more interesting (and almost a story) is “Suicide of the Astronaut,” in which a man visits the moon, finds nothing, and upon his return to earth discovers that his qualifications as a space explorer leave him, like an arts grad, unable to secure useful work. He commits suicide. Thus, Qaddafi seems to be stating that space exploration is, well, a load of bollocks.
via UK Guardian
