First things first: truth in advertising or full disclosure or whatever it's called. First, I received a free copy of The Galactic Center Companion. Since I don't have an eBook reader, Gregory Benford sent it to me by way of a link in an email. Second, I am one of the contributors to the book. A series of posts I made in this blog were combined into an article for the New York Review of Science Fiction which Benford included in this eBook. It is included in the last section, titled "Perspectives." I do not receive any financial remuneration from the sale of the work. My sole reward, therefore, is being included in the work and being associated in some small way with what I consider to be the most imaginative hard SF series ever written.
Sections
INTRODUCTION
A Bit of History
A brief history of the sequence of the creation of the Galactic Center series during the years 1972 to 1995
A HUNGER FOR THE INFINITE
"Hunger for the Infinite" is a novella written for Robert Silverberg's Far Horizons, a collection of short works set in an author's universe. The collection includes short works by Ursula Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, Joe Haldeman, Nancy Kress, Dan Simmons and others.
This story tells of an attempt by the
Mantis (a recurring character in the last four of the six novels in the
series) to gain a fuller and deeper understanding of the way organic
beings think. One of the mysteries which the Mantis and all the higher
intelligences of the mech civilization can not crack is that of art. Mechs can do just about everything humans can do, but art is something
that puzzles the Mantis. Is art something that could enhance mech
survival? In "A Hunger for the Infinite," the Mantis interacts with a human in an attempt to discover the nature of art and its significance to humans.
LIFE AT THE GALACTIC CENTER: THE BIOLOGY I ENVISIONED THERE.
An accounting of the various life forms at the galactic center that Benford created for the series.
WRITING THE GALACTIC CENTER SERIES: THOUGHTS ON WRITING A SERIES ALMOST WITHOUT MEANING TO
An extensive account by Benford of the growth of the series from 1972-1995.
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, 1988: An Electrodynamic Model of the Galactic Center: my first published paper on the physics of the galactic center.
This is just what the title suggests: Benford's first paper on the galactic center and much of the science in the series comes from this paper.
PERSPECTIVES
Reviews and commentaries
Articles by
Gary K. Wolfe
Damien Broderick and Paul Di Filippo
Fred Runk
Interview conducted by Paul Witcom
Showing posts with label A Galactic Center Book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Galactic Center Book. Show all posts
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Gregory Benford: Sailing Bright Eternity, Galactic Center Book 6
Warning: I will discuss important plot elements and the resolution of the conflict between the Naturals and the Mechs.
Greg Benford's Sailing Bright Eternity is the sixth and final book in his mind-bending "Galactic Center" series, which began during the late 1990s in our solar system out on the rim of the galaxy and ended over 35,000 years later on the edge of a massive black hole, the Eater, at the center of the galaxy. I consider this series to be one of the greatest multi-volume SF works ever written.
Greg Benford is a physicist and astronomer, and he makes superb use of his knowledge as he takes what he knows and expands on it and does not allow it to set limits on his imagination. He has also created one of the most engaging characters in SF--Nigel Walmsley, the Brit who joined NASA in the 1990s and somehow managed to be around some 35,000 years later, thus being present at the beginning of humanity's role in the conflict with the mechs and also in at the resolution.
The story picks up where it ended in the previous book, Furious Gulf, with Toby, who has become separated from his father and the rest of the Bishop family. He has encountered a crusty old man who occupies what appears to be some sort of galactic library and who claims to be from the mythical planet Earth. He is of the Brit family, he jokingly tells Toby. It is Nigel Walmsley, whom we haven't heard of since the second novel, who then, as any old timer who hasn't had anybody to talk to for awhile, proceeds to fill Toby in on his part in the war against the mechs, a period which covers roughly 35, 000 years. Fortunately, for Toby, and for the reader also, Walmsley spent most of the time in deep sleep, so it's really not that long. In addition, Benford has kindly provided a Timeline for the Galactic series at the end of the novel.
As Walmsley finishes his tale, the mechs, once again, appear and attack. Walmsley and Toby are separated and we follow Toby as he flees the mechs and searches the Wedge for his family and friends. The Wedge is an habitat created long ago as a refuge for Naturals fleeing the mechs; it has various "pockets," with varying environments. Naturals are those life forms in the galaxy who evolved in the Darwinian mode whereas the mechs were initially created by a Natural species as a weapon of war (Fred Saberhagen has a similar entity in his "Berserker" series.)
What Toby doesn't realize is that the mechs don't want him dead, just yet. They are looking for his grandfather, Abraham (a great name for the founder of a family/tribe) . The mechs have recently learned, as have some of the humans, that there is a secret weapon that could destroy the mechs if it ever could be constructed. The instructions for the weapon are encoded in human DNA, that part called "junk" DNA that doesn't seem to play any role in human development. To get the information, DNA from three closely related humans is required. In this case, the mechs have decided on getting the instructions from Abraham, Killeen, and Todd. Therefore, the mechs keep prodding Todd on in hopes that he will meet up with his grandfather, whom everybody mistakenly had thought had died long ago.
At one point during his wanderings, Toby fashions a raft, deciding that that it would be easier to float down a large river than to try to make his way by foot along the bank. He eventually comes to a town built on the the river that seems quite strange. The prosperity of the town depends on the river and the mighty boats that move up and down that river carrying passengers and cargo. The inhabitants seem to have created a way of living possibly based on some historical setting.
Toby eventually gets a job on one of these boats, the Natchez, because of his recent experience coming down the river. At one point, Toby begins to have some thoughts about the river that seemed somewhat familiar to me.
"Under Mr. Preston he [Toby] was coming to see that the face of the wedded water and metal was a wondrous book, one in a dead language to him before but now speaking cherished secrets. Every fresh point they rounded told a new tale. Not one page was empty. A passenger might be charmed by a churning dimple on its skin, but to a true riverman that was an italicized shout, announcing a wreak or reef of wrenching space-time Vortex about to break through from the undercrust of timestone.
Passengers went oooh and aahhh at the pretty pictures the silver river painted for them without reading a single word of the dark text it truly was."
What's interesting is to compare this with a passage from Mark Twain's From Old Times on the Mississippi:
"It turned out to be true. The face of the water in time became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was devoid of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you could want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. . . The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a peculiar sort of faint dimple on it surface . . . but to the pilot that was an italicized passage; indeed it was more than that, it was a legend of the largest capitals with a strong of shouting exclamation-point at the end of it, for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there that could tear the life out of the strongest vessel that every floated. . . In truth the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading matter."
Again the mechs attack, and again Toby is forced to flee. After various adventures he does meet up with Killeen and Abraham. The Mantis, a mech who has long been the major foe of the Bishops, appears and is able to get the all-important DNA samples. The mechs now can decipher the DNA and study the weapon to determine just how dangerous it really is.
Yet, something is still missing, for there are gaps in the coding. Upon the threat of torture, Abraham reveals the code, which had been handed down through numerous generations in the Bishop family. He sings the code, which is actually a song, "a passage from the most hallowed of the musics the Bishops carried in their sensorium store. They had played it on the long marches together, knew its lines by heart. . . The highest of arts, the Mose Art."
The Mantis says, "I see the connection. The unused sites in the Bishop DNA--that is the key. The notes of this piece, arrayed in harmonics, yield the solution. I relay this to the Exalteds now."
Now the long search has ended: the Exalteds (higher-order mechs) had the information and could now begin to develop a defense against this weapon, whatever it was.
However, as smart as the mechs are, they can't come close to the deviousness of the Natural species. The humans are, in realty, bait. They never were expected to build this "weapon" and use it against the mechs. This is all part of the ruse designed to fool the mechs. The coding in the DNA and the aria is not a set of instructions for a super-weapon or even a revelation of some serious weakness in the mechs--it itself is the weapon. It is a virus, much like a computer virus, that attacks and ultimately destroys the memory and logic sections of the mechs. As a further example of the Natural's deviousness, the virus includes a directive that impels any mech infested with the virus to transmit the virus to any mech within reach.
The long war is over.
Now comes the hard part--persuading the few surviving mechs to join with the Naturals, for the universe will come to an end in a few billion years. The mechs must be convinced that they and the Naturals have a common goal here--to find out how to prevent this from happening or at least learn how to survive, until the next universe forms. Cooperation between them would seem to be absolutely necessary at this point.
I have already mentioned Benford's incorporation of some material from Mark Twain into his narrative. This isn't the only example for he skillfully and seamlessly interweaves some of the most common SF themes and plot devices into a coherent narrative structure frequently without the reader realizing what Benford has accomplished.
In the first novel, Benford confronts us with a situation that has already been found in numerous novels and films: a large asteroid is headed for earth and Walmsley is one of the two astronauts selected to destroy it. Yet, even in this situation that has almost become a cliche, Benford adds a twist that makes it a new and highly significant event. In the second novel, Across the Sea of Stars, the mechs' first attack on Earth reminds me of similar tactics used by the aliens in John Wyndham's Out of the Deeps (aka The Kraken Wakes).
Other situations and events in the Galactic Center series bring to mind Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and also his landmark short story, "The Sentinel." And, along with the incoming asteroid, Benford somehow manages to insert Bigfoot (aka Yeti) into the narrative as well as a religious cult that has gained sufficient political power to prohibit certain types of research and prevent the publication of research results that conflict with their religious beliefs (must be fiction, couldn't happen here in the USA).
The overarching plot structure of Benford's Galactic Center series is reminiscent of EE (Doc) Smith's Lensmen novels, which, like Benford's, consists of six works. In both works, the humans, although in the forefront of the fighting, are really weapons wielded by a superior race--Smith's Arisians and Benford's Higher-ups. And, the enemy forces also are controlled by superior beings--Smith's Eddorians and Benford's Exalteds. The identity of the leaders of the opposing forces aren't known to the humans at the beginning of the conflict. It's only as the conflict gains in intensity do hints and clues emerge which tell the humans that there are others involved in the struggle. Again, it's only in the final volume of both works that the ultimate leaders of both sides come out of hiding and reveal themselves. This is especially true of the first publication of Smith's series for he later revised the first volume to give the readers complete knowledge and novels' characters some knowledge of the Arisians and Eddorians and their struggle for control of the universe.
As I said earlier, I consider this to be one of the greatest SF series ever written, and I hope that I've been able to provide some convincing reasons why I believe this. Perhaps some time, someone reading this might be inspired to at least take a look at the first novel in the series.
The first novel in the Galactic Center series is In the Ocean of Night, in which we are introduced to Nigel Walmsley, who spends almost as much time and energy fighting NASA bureaucrats as he does the mechs. It is, therefore, fitting that these should be the last words of Sailing Bright Eternity, the final volume of this magnificent series:
"All was now quite modern and different around there and most of the ancient names on the graves mean nothing to anybody. There are Cards aplenty and Bishops and even a few Dodgers.
Nearby, old markers relate the names in a language now dispersed or dead. Killeen Bishop. Nearby, slightly less worn, Toby Bishop. These graves are unusually large, suggesting to archeologists that these were from the Hunker Down Era.
Always slightly distanced, alone and apart, Nigel Walmsley is buried on a separate knoll, in full view of the ocean of night."
Greg Benford's Sailing Bright Eternity is the sixth and final book in his mind-bending "Galactic Center" series, which began during the late 1990s in our solar system out on the rim of the galaxy and ended over 35,000 years later on the edge of a massive black hole, the Eater, at the center of the galaxy. I consider this series to be one of the greatest multi-volume SF works ever written.
Greg Benford is a physicist and astronomer, and he makes superb use of his knowledge as he takes what he knows and expands on it and does not allow it to set limits on his imagination. He has also created one of the most engaging characters in SF--Nigel Walmsley, the Brit who joined NASA in the 1990s and somehow managed to be around some 35,000 years later, thus being present at the beginning of humanity's role in the conflict with the mechs and also in at the resolution.
The story picks up where it ended in the previous book, Furious Gulf, with Toby, who has become separated from his father and the rest of the Bishop family. He has encountered a crusty old man who occupies what appears to be some sort of galactic library and who claims to be from the mythical planet Earth. He is of the Brit family, he jokingly tells Toby. It is Nigel Walmsley, whom we haven't heard of since the second novel, who then, as any old timer who hasn't had anybody to talk to for awhile, proceeds to fill Toby in on his part in the war against the mechs, a period which covers roughly 35, 000 years. Fortunately, for Toby, and for the reader also, Walmsley spent most of the time in deep sleep, so it's really not that long. In addition, Benford has kindly provided a Timeline for the Galactic series at the end of the novel.
As Walmsley finishes his tale, the mechs, once again, appear and attack. Walmsley and Toby are separated and we follow Toby as he flees the mechs and searches the Wedge for his family and friends. The Wedge is an habitat created long ago as a refuge for Naturals fleeing the mechs; it has various "pockets," with varying environments. Naturals are those life forms in the galaxy who evolved in the Darwinian mode whereas the mechs were initially created by a Natural species as a weapon of war (Fred Saberhagen has a similar entity in his "Berserker" series.)
What Toby doesn't realize is that the mechs don't want him dead, just yet. They are looking for his grandfather, Abraham (a great name for the founder of a family/tribe) . The mechs have recently learned, as have some of the humans, that there is a secret weapon that could destroy the mechs if it ever could be constructed. The instructions for the weapon are encoded in human DNA, that part called "junk" DNA that doesn't seem to play any role in human development. To get the information, DNA from three closely related humans is required. In this case, the mechs have decided on getting the instructions from Abraham, Killeen, and Todd. Therefore, the mechs keep prodding Todd on in hopes that he will meet up with his grandfather, whom everybody mistakenly had thought had died long ago.
At one point during his wanderings, Toby fashions a raft, deciding that that it would be easier to float down a large river than to try to make his way by foot along the bank. He eventually comes to a town built on the the river that seems quite strange. The prosperity of the town depends on the river and the mighty boats that move up and down that river carrying passengers and cargo. The inhabitants seem to have created a way of living possibly based on some historical setting.
Toby eventually gets a job on one of these boats, the Natchez, because of his recent experience coming down the river. At one point, Toby begins to have some thoughts about the river that seemed somewhat familiar to me.
"Under Mr. Preston he [Toby] was coming to see that the face of the wedded water and metal was a wondrous book, one in a dead language to him before but now speaking cherished secrets. Every fresh point they rounded told a new tale. Not one page was empty. A passenger might be charmed by a churning dimple on its skin, but to a true riverman that was an italicized shout, announcing a wreak or reef of wrenching space-time Vortex about to break through from the undercrust of timestone.
Passengers went oooh and aahhh at the pretty pictures the silver river painted for them without reading a single word of the dark text it truly was."
What's interesting is to compare this with a passage from Mark Twain's From Old Times on the Mississippi:
"It turned out to be true. The face of the water in time became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was devoid of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you could want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. . . The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a peculiar sort of faint dimple on it surface . . . but to the pilot that was an italicized passage; indeed it was more than that, it was a legend of the largest capitals with a strong of shouting exclamation-point at the end of it, for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there that could tear the life out of the strongest vessel that every floated. . . In truth the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading matter."
Again the mechs attack, and again Toby is forced to flee. After various adventures he does meet up with Killeen and Abraham. The Mantis, a mech who has long been the major foe of the Bishops, appears and is able to get the all-important DNA samples. The mechs now can decipher the DNA and study the weapon to determine just how dangerous it really is.
Yet, something is still missing, for there are gaps in the coding. Upon the threat of torture, Abraham reveals the code, which had been handed down through numerous generations in the Bishop family. He sings the code, which is actually a song, "a passage from the most hallowed of the musics the Bishops carried in their sensorium store. They had played it on the long marches together, knew its lines by heart. . . The highest of arts, the Mose Art."
The Mantis says, "I see the connection. The unused sites in the Bishop DNA--that is the key. The notes of this piece, arrayed in harmonics, yield the solution. I relay this to the Exalteds now."
Now the long search has ended: the Exalteds (higher-order mechs) had the information and could now begin to develop a defense against this weapon, whatever it was.
However, as smart as the mechs are, they can't come close to the deviousness of the Natural species. The humans are, in realty, bait. They never were expected to build this "weapon" and use it against the mechs. This is all part of the ruse designed to fool the mechs. The coding in the DNA and the aria is not a set of instructions for a super-weapon or even a revelation of some serious weakness in the mechs--it itself is the weapon. It is a virus, much like a computer virus, that attacks and ultimately destroys the memory and logic sections of the mechs. As a further example of the Natural's deviousness, the virus includes a directive that impels any mech infested with the virus to transmit the virus to any mech within reach.
The long war is over.
Now comes the hard part--persuading the few surviving mechs to join with the Naturals, for the universe will come to an end in a few billion years. The mechs must be convinced that they and the Naturals have a common goal here--to find out how to prevent this from happening or at least learn how to survive, until the next universe forms. Cooperation between them would seem to be absolutely necessary at this point.
I have already mentioned Benford's incorporation of some material from Mark Twain into his narrative. This isn't the only example for he skillfully and seamlessly interweaves some of the most common SF themes and plot devices into a coherent narrative structure frequently without the reader realizing what Benford has accomplished.
In the first novel, Benford confronts us with a situation that has already been found in numerous novels and films: a large asteroid is headed for earth and Walmsley is one of the two astronauts selected to destroy it. Yet, even in this situation that has almost become a cliche, Benford adds a twist that makes it a new and highly significant event. In the second novel, Across the Sea of Stars, the mechs' first attack on Earth reminds me of similar tactics used by the aliens in John Wyndham's Out of the Deeps (aka The Kraken Wakes).
Other situations and events in the Galactic Center series bring to mind Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and also his landmark short story, "The Sentinel." And, along with the incoming asteroid, Benford somehow manages to insert Bigfoot (aka Yeti) into the narrative as well as a religious cult that has gained sufficient political power to prohibit certain types of research and prevent the publication of research results that conflict with their religious beliefs (must be fiction, couldn't happen here in the USA).
The overarching plot structure of Benford's Galactic Center series is reminiscent of EE (Doc) Smith's Lensmen novels, which, like Benford's, consists of six works. In both works, the humans, although in the forefront of the fighting, are really weapons wielded by a superior race--Smith's Arisians and Benford's Higher-ups. And, the enemy forces also are controlled by superior beings--Smith's Eddorians and Benford's Exalteds. The identity of the leaders of the opposing forces aren't known to the humans at the beginning of the conflict. It's only as the conflict gains in intensity do hints and clues emerge which tell the humans that there are others involved in the struggle. Again, it's only in the final volume of both works that the ultimate leaders of both sides come out of hiding and reveal themselves. This is especially true of the first publication of Smith's series for he later revised the first volume to give the readers complete knowledge and novels' characters some knowledge of the Arisians and Eddorians and their struggle for control of the universe.
As I said earlier, I consider this to be one of the greatest SF series ever written, and I hope that I've been able to provide some convincing reasons why I believe this. Perhaps some time, someone reading this might be inspired to at least take a look at the first novel in the series.
The first novel in the Galactic Center series is In the Ocean of Night, in which we are introduced to Nigel Walmsley, who spends almost as much time and energy fighting NASA bureaucrats as he does the mechs. It is, therefore, fitting that these should be the last words of Sailing Bright Eternity, the final volume of this magnificent series:
"All was now quite modern and different around there and most of the ancient names on the graves mean nothing to anybody. There are Cards aplenty and Bishops and even a few Dodgers.
Nearby, old markers relate the names in a language now dispersed or dead. Killeen Bishop. Nearby, slightly less worn, Toby Bishop. These graves are unusually large, suggesting to archeologists that these were from the Hunker Down Era.
Always slightly distanced, alone and apart, Nigel Walmsley is buried on a separate knoll, in full view of the ocean of night."
Friday, January 22, 2010
Greg Benford: Furious Gulf--Galactic Center Book 5
Furious Gulf is the fifth book in Greg Benford's Galactic Center series. In this novel, Killeen Bishop and Bishop family reach the center of our galaxy, at which is the black hole they call the Eater. (Current theory supports the existence of a black hole at the center of our galaxy and at the center of many other galaxies also.) In the first two volumes, In The Ocean of Night and Across the Sea of Stars, we followed the exploits of Nigel Walmsley, a Brit who somehow wrangled his way to becoming an astronaut for NASA. Those two novels covered the period from the 1990s to around 2060 or so and depicted humanity's first tenuous contacts with the hostile mech culture.
Book three in the series, Great Sky River, takes us some 30,000 years into the future and far from Earth. During that period humans have spread throughout the galaxy but had seemingly reached their peak and dwindled down into isolated remnants scattered throughout the galaxy. The planet Snowglade contained some of these remnants, a few bands of tech-nomads desperately trying to survive the mechs. Discovering a ancient human built spacecraft, which they name the Argo, and with the aid of a renegade mech (perhaps) known as the Mantis, the humans escape the planet.
In Tides of Light, Killeen Bishop, who has become the leader of the Bishop family and remnants of other families, leads his people to another planet which they had hoped to settle, free once again from the mechs. Instead, they find more bands of humans who are engaged in a struggle for survival, first against the mechs and then against the mulitpedia, who are an organic intelligent species far in advance of the humans and who are also apparently on the way to becoming an organic/mech hybrid. After a struggle, Killeen once again leads his people off-planet and heads for the Galactic Center, this time accompanied by Quath, one of the multipedia who comes along as a representative of and a contact with the multipedia, .
Furious Gulf opens with the Argo nearing the Eater, the massive black hole at the Galactic center. Killeen faces a mutiny aboard ship for his crew has been on reduced rations for some time, and he has ignored their requests to stop and replenish supplies. Killeen, at this point, resembles Melville's Captain Ahab much more than Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame. Killeen is obsessed with reaching the Center, for legends, myths, and his instincts tell him that the secret of survival in the war with the mechs lies at the Center, and he seems willing to sacrifice his ship and crew in pursuit of that secret.
Warning: I am going to discuss significant plot elements and the ending of the novel.
With the aid of the mysterious electromagnetic entity who has appeared previously, the Argo is able to avoid the mechs and find a temporary haven at a space station? on the edge of the black hole. At this point, the disagreement between Killeen and his son Toby emerges, and this appears to be the result of one of the strangest Oedipal conflicts I have ever read.
The humans who run the station are not doing this out of any warm feelings for humanity but out of a profit motive. The Bishops and the Argo can stay, but there are various fees, one of which is access to the so far untranslatable tiles found on the ship.
Benford has allowed us to listen in while the mechminds debate their course of action with regards to the humans, and we have discovered that they also are intrigued by these same tiles. They just might be a threat to the mech civilization. The mechs are also concerned because they know that mysterious intelligences superior to them exist. Are these intelligences more highly evolved mechminds or could they impossibly be organic?
In the first two novels, the POV character was Nigel Walmsley, whose struggles with his superiors in NASA was a significant part of the work. The third and fourth novels featured Killeen Bishop and his struggles, not surprisingly, with various authority figures and to some extent with his crew, which could replace him if they became too disenchanted with him. In this novel, the POV now shifts a third time, to Killeen's son Toby. We experience events from Toby's perspective, including his view of his father, who is struggling to keep the crew under control.
Toby, about two-thirds of the way into the novel, finally breaks with his father and escapes into the strangest environment yet presented. To a considerable extent the landscape consists partially of more or less "solid" time. No, I'm not going to attempt to explain this.
While Toby is on the run, the mechs make a concerted attack on the human stronghold. They, like Killeen, believe there is a threat to mech survival, and it seems to have something to do with getting three generations of a family together. Somehow, Abraham (interesting name for a patriarch), Killeen's father, has managed to escape the final attack on the Bishop stronghold on Snowglade and get to the Galactic Center. The mechs want capture them, if possible, and discover just what the nature of the threat might be, or at least eliminate them to remove the threat.
Toby eventually manages to reach a sanctuary and is greeted by Nigel Walmsley, who has managed to survive for 30,000 years through judicious use of cold sleep and the time-dilation effects of existence on the edge of a black hole (these effects are a generally accepted and respectable part of the theory regarding black holes). Time is the strangest thing, especially around black holes. We are now ready for the climactic struggle between the mechs and humanity.
Thus ends Furious Gulf.
The star of the show is the Eater, the black hole at the center of our galaxy. I've read other accounts and have even seen at least one film of the environment of a black hole, but Benford is the first to really focus on and bring out its strangeness, and that includes several life forms. That he is able to do this is, no doubt, the result of his education and training as an astrophysicist. In the "Afterward" to Furious Gulf, Benford writes--
"It has been an unusual experience to conjure up imaginary events about a place that I was also doing hard calculations about. Freed of the bonds of The Astrophysical Journal, I have felt at liberty to speculate on what processes might have transpired, over the galaxy's ten billion years of furious cooking, to create forms of life and intelligence beyond our ken."
Overall Rating: again a superb effort on Benford's part.
Now, on to Book 6, the final book in the series, Sailing Bright Eternity.
Book three in the series, Great Sky River, takes us some 30,000 years into the future and far from Earth. During that period humans have spread throughout the galaxy but had seemingly reached their peak and dwindled down into isolated remnants scattered throughout the galaxy. The planet Snowglade contained some of these remnants, a few bands of tech-nomads desperately trying to survive the mechs. Discovering a ancient human built spacecraft, which they name the Argo, and with the aid of a renegade mech (perhaps) known as the Mantis, the humans escape the planet.
In Tides of Light, Killeen Bishop, who has become the leader of the Bishop family and remnants of other families, leads his people to another planet which they had hoped to settle, free once again from the mechs. Instead, they find more bands of humans who are engaged in a struggle for survival, first against the mechs and then against the mulitpedia, who are an organic intelligent species far in advance of the humans and who are also apparently on the way to becoming an organic/mech hybrid. After a struggle, Killeen once again leads his people off-planet and heads for the Galactic Center, this time accompanied by Quath, one of the multipedia who comes along as a representative of and a contact with the multipedia, .
Furious Gulf opens with the Argo nearing the Eater, the massive black hole at the Galactic center. Killeen faces a mutiny aboard ship for his crew has been on reduced rations for some time, and he has ignored their requests to stop and replenish supplies. Killeen, at this point, resembles Melville's Captain Ahab much more than Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame. Killeen is obsessed with reaching the Center, for legends, myths, and his instincts tell him that the secret of survival in the war with the mechs lies at the Center, and he seems willing to sacrifice his ship and crew in pursuit of that secret.
Warning: I am going to discuss significant plot elements and the ending of the novel.
With the aid of the mysterious electromagnetic entity who has appeared previously, the Argo is able to avoid the mechs and find a temporary haven at a space station? on the edge of the black hole. At this point, the disagreement between Killeen and his son Toby emerges, and this appears to be the result of one of the strangest Oedipal conflicts I have ever read.
The humans who run the station are not doing this out of any warm feelings for humanity but out of a profit motive. The Bishops and the Argo can stay, but there are various fees, one of which is access to the so far untranslatable tiles found on the ship.
Benford has allowed us to listen in while the mechminds debate their course of action with regards to the humans, and we have discovered that they also are intrigued by these same tiles. They just might be a threat to the mech civilization. The mechs are also concerned because they know that mysterious intelligences superior to them exist. Are these intelligences more highly evolved mechminds or could they impossibly be organic?
In the first two novels, the POV character was Nigel Walmsley, whose struggles with his superiors in NASA was a significant part of the work. The third and fourth novels featured Killeen Bishop and his struggles, not surprisingly, with various authority figures and to some extent with his crew, which could replace him if they became too disenchanted with him. In this novel, the POV now shifts a third time, to Killeen's son Toby. We experience events from Toby's perspective, including his view of his father, who is struggling to keep the crew under control.
Toby, about two-thirds of the way into the novel, finally breaks with his father and escapes into the strangest environment yet presented. To a considerable extent the landscape consists partially of more or less "solid" time. No, I'm not going to attempt to explain this.
While Toby is on the run, the mechs make a concerted attack on the human stronghold. They, like Killeen, believe there is a threat to mech survival, and it seems to have something to do with getting three generations of a family together. Somehow, Abraham (interesting name for a patriarch), Killeen's father, has managed to escape the final attack on the Bishop stronghold on Snowglade and get to the Galactic Center. The mechs want capture them, if possible, and discover just what the nature of the threat might be, or at least eliminate them to remove the threat.
Toby eventually manages to reach a sanctuary and is greeted by Nigel Walmsley, who has managed to survive for 30,000 years through judicious use of cold sleep and the time-dilation effects of existence on the edge of a black hole (these effects are a generally accepted and respectable part of the theory regarding black holes). Time is the strangest thing, especially around black holes. We are now ready for the climactic struggle between the mechs and humanity.
Thus ends Furious Gulf.
The star of the show is the Eater, the black hole at the center of our galaxy. I've read other accounts and have even seen at least one film of the environment of a black hole, but Benford is the first to really focus on and bring out its strangeness, and that includes several life forms. That he is able to do this is, no doubt, the result of his education and training as an astrophysicist. In the "Afterward" to Furious Gulf, Benford writes--
"It has been an unusual experience to conjure up imaginary events about a place that I was also doing hard calculations about. Freed of the bonds of The Astrophysical Journal, I have felt at liberty to speculate on what processes might have transpired, over the galaxy's ten billion years of furious cooking, to create forms of life and intelligence beyond our ken."
Overall Rating: again a superb effort on Benford's part.
Now, on to Book 6, the final book in the series, Sailing Bright Eternity.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Greg Benford: Tides of Light-- Galactic Center Book 4
Greg Benford's Tides of Light picks up the story about two years after the conclusion of Book 3 in the series, Great Sky River. In that work we learn of the slow decimation of the human population on the planet Snowglade and the escape of Killeen and those members of the Bishop clan who decide to search for a planet free of mech domination. Aided by the Mantis, possibly a rogue mech or at least one with its own agenda, the humans lift off in the Argo, not in search of the Golden Fleece, but in hopes of finding a planet they can settle without fear of extermination by the mechs.
Now, they are approaching a planet that they hope will be the new Eden. So optimistic are they that they've already named the planet New Bishop, prematurely as they soon learn. The planet is not unoccupied. Already on the planet are mechs, other humans, and the Cybers, an alien race that has been locked in a deadly struggle with the mechs for thousands of years. Whereas the humans have usually fled the mechs for other parts of the galaxy, hoping to elude them and build a civilization in peace, the Cybers have done the opposite. Feeling that the mechs pose an inescapable threat to all organic life, they have deliberately engaged in battle with the mechs whenever the opportunity arises, and in some cases, have gone searching for opportunities.
Briefly, the mechs on the planet, who have been programmed by their central intelligence to engage in competition with one another to simulate the effects of evolution found in organic life, have lost contact with the central intelligence. Over the years, the competition has gotten severe enough that it degenerated into open warfare among competing mech groups. The warfare weakened them sufficiently that humans on the planet were able to take advantage and began their own campaign against the mechs. Just as the humans were about to destroy the mechs, the Cybers arrived on the scene, took advantage of the situation, and quickly destroyed the remaining mechs.
It is at this point that Killeen and the others arrive. Initially mistaken for mechs by the Cybers, the humans barely escaped to the planet surface where they made contact with the humans already there. They discover that the humans are led by a religious fanatic who believes God had directed him to attack and destroy the mechs and now directs him to destroy the Cybers. Killeen is doubtful about this but must go along or he and the rest of the Bishop clan will be destroyed. Warfare among the humans would only weaken them, so the Bishop clan joins in.
To make life even more interesting, the Cybers, led by by their ruling council, the Illuminates, are puzzled by the arrival of Killeen and the Bishop clan. Once having taken the Argo, the Cybers discover information about the humans that results in an open division among the Illuminates, which ultimately breaks out into a civil war. One group feels that the humans must be destroyed, while a second group believes that the humans, in some way unknown as yet, are necessary for the destruction of the mechs and therefore, the safety of organic life in the galaxy.
Overall, this novel is as good or perhaps even better than the three that precede it. It has action, interesting characters (human and alien), and, what's always necessary for good SF, some scientific extrapolation. In this novel, the major scientific idea is the control of cosmic strings by the Cybers. (For a very brief and readable explanation of string theory, click on the link below to a PBS site. http://tinyurl.com/ncqm5t)
The Cybers have learned to control the strings and are using it for planetary mining. The string is used to slice into a planet. Once it reaches the core, it becomes a conduit for draining the core of needed minerals. There is much talk today that SF is too often being overtaken by real events. Well, I don't think Benford has anything to worry about here. Assuming the strings even exist, it will be some time in the future before we learn to control them, if that's even possible.
Benford has included a four page appendix to the novel--"Chronology of Human Species (Dreaming Vertebrates) at Galactic Center." There's sufficient material here for another 20 or 30 novels, but so far Benford has resisted the temptation and the series seems to have ended at 6 novels. We still don't know what happened to Earth. For those who are wondering about the fate of Nigel Walmsley, as I am, we still don't know. However, in Books 3 and 4, Benford did include some oblique references to him, so perhaps we are not to forget about him completely.
Now, on to Book 5, Furious Gulf.
Overall, got to give this a 5/5 rating.
Now, they are approaching a planet that they hope will be the new Eden. So optimistic are they that they've already named the planet New Bishop, prematurely as they soon learn. The planet is not unoccupied. Already on the planet are mechs, other humans, and the Cybers, an alien race that has been locked in a deadly struggle with the mechs for thousands of years. Whereas the humans have usually fled the mechs for other parts of the galaxy, hoping to elude them and build a civilization in peace, the Cybers have done the opposite. Feeling that the mechs pose an inescapable threat to all organic life, they have deliberately engaged in battle with the mechs whenever the opportunity arises, and in some cases, have gone searching for opportunities.
Briefly, the mechs on the planet, who have been programmed by their central intelligence to engage in competition with one another to simulate the effects of evolution found in organic life, have lost contact with the central intelligence. Over the years, the competition has gotten severe enough that it degenerated into open warfare among competing mech groups. The warfare weakened them sufficiently that humans on the planet were able to take advantage and began their own campaign against the mechs. Just as the humans were about to destroy the mechs, the Cybers arrived on the scene, took advantage of the situation, and quickly destroyed the remaining mechs.
It is at this point that Killeen and the others arrive. Initially mistaken for mechs by the Cybers, the humans barely escaped to the planet surface where they made contact with the humans already there. They discover that the humans are led by a religious fanatic who believes God had directed him to attack and destroy the mechs and now directs him to destroy the Cybers. Killeen is doubtful about this but must go along or he and the rest of the Bishop clan will be destroyed. Warfare among the humans would only weaken them, so the Bishop clan joins in.
To make life even more interesting, the Cybers, led by by their ruling council, the Illuminates, are puzzled by the arrival of Killeen and the Bishop clan. Once having taken the Argo, the Cybers discover information about the humans that results in an open division among the Illuminates, which ultimately breaks out into a civil war. One group feels that the humans must be destroyed, while a second group believes that the humans, in some way unknown as yet, are necessary for the destruction of the mechs and therefore, the safety of organic life in the galaxy.
Overall, this novel is as good or perhaps even better than the three that precede it. It has action, interesting characters (human and alien), and, what's always necessary for good SF, some scientific extrapolation. In this novel, the major scientific idea is the control of cosmic strings by the Cybers. (For a very brief and readable explanation of string theory, click on the link below to a PBS site. http://tinyurl.com/ncqm5t)
The Cybers have learned to control the strings and are using it for planetary mining. The string is used to slice into a planet. Once it reaches the core, it becomes a conduit for draining the core of needed minerals. There is much talk today that SF is too often being overtaken by real events. Well, I don't think Benford has anything to worry about here. Assuming the strings even exist, it will be some time in the future before we learn to control them, if that's even possible.
Benford has included a four page appendix to the novel--"Chronology of Human Species (Dreaming Vertebrates) at Galactic Center." There's sufficient material here for another 20 or 30 novels, but so far Benford has resisted the temptation and the series seems to have ended at 6 novels. We still don't know what happened to Earth. For those who are wondering about the fate of Nigel Walmsley, as I am, we still don't know. However, in Books 3 and 4, Benford did include some oblique references to him, so perhaps we are not to forget about him completely.
Now, on to Book 5, Furious Gulf.
Overall, got to give this a 5/5 rating.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Greg Benford: Great Sky River, Galactic Center 3
Great Sky River is the third book in Benford's Galactic Center series. The first two novels, see earlier posts on In The Ocean Of Night and Across The Sea Of Suns, took place in the years between 1999 and 2064. Nigel Walmsley played a leading role in both works, and events on Earth were highly significant, although in the second work, it had to share the focus with events on the exploratory asteroid ship.
This work is set on the planet Snowglade, location unknown except that it appears to be in orbit around a star and a black hole. Just when this takes place is not clear either, except for a brief mention that the original settlers of the planet traveled some 70, 000 years to reach this planet, and that was long ago. Earth is not even mentioned in this work, so all we know is that a nuclear war had taken place and we can only guess at what has happened since then. Were the original settlers refugees from a destroyed Earth? Or, perhaps from colonies that had been settled by humans? Moreover, several large structures are in orbit about the planet--they are called Chandeliers. Were they of human or of mech origin. Tradition says human, but if so, when were they constructed--by the original settlers? by a later group?
The humans who had initially settled this planet were technologically developed far beyond the humans of the first two books, but their descendants had lost most of it, and what little they retained was a mystery.
After having co-existed with the mechs, each ignoring the other for the most part, the humans were almost eliminated by a surprise attack by the mechs. Humans, up to a decade or so, lived in various citadels, and Killeen Bishop, the main character in this work, is now on the run with perhaps 250 other survivors of the devastating sneak attack on their citadel. Their situation is so desperate that they have shut down their sex drive and reproductive cycle because on the run, a pregnant woman is a liability and her survival chances are minimal, if not non-existent. The problem is that in each encounter with various mechs, the humans manage to destroy the mech, but usually at the cost of one or two of their own. Killeen's group, the Bishops, are slowly dwindling. They don't even know if any humans in other citadels had survived the mech attack.
It is clear that the humans are slowly losing the battle with the mech civilization.
They have come close to becoming cyborgs, as they rely on electronically enhanced senses and mechanically enhanced physical abilities. The electronic senses allow them to detect the mechs at a distance, but it also allows the mechs to use electronic measures to attack them.
Generally, most mechs were of low intelligence and were primarily workers with limited skills. They ignored humans unless humans got in their way and treated them at that point as they would any natural obstacle--go around them. More intelligent mechs, called Marauders by the humans, also ignored the humans unless its became aware of them At that point, it would attempt to destroy them.
But, recently, something new has appeared, or something that had been only the subject of rumor and considered myth by most--the Mantis. The Mantis was supposed to be designed to be a hunter, and its prey?--humans. The humans could now occasionally detect a mech of some sort following them, something that hadn't happened before. There were several encounters with it in which the humans thought they had destroyed it, but shortly afterwards, something showed up again, on their trail. Killeen began to wonder about this for it seemed as though it was herding them somewhere, as the humans would move away from it rather than risk an attack.
His suspicions increased as the Bishops encountered another group for the first time since they had been on the run. And, at the moment of the encounter, when both groups in their joy at meeting another group of surviving humans relaxed their vigilance, the mech attacked again. Eventually it was destroyed, or so they thought, but the humans lost more than 38 irreplaceable lives. And, in the distance, they could see worker mechs picking up the various parts of the mantis and carrying it off, perhaps to be reassembled again, and once again on their trail.
But, Benford has not simply created a tale of warfare between the good humans and the bad mechs. Both humans and mechs are far more complex and complicated in their actions and even their loyalties. When mechs wear out or suffer a serious malfunction, they are ordered back to a mech center to be dissembled and its parts stockpiled for other mechs. Some however rebel and turn renegade (Rennies). They exist by preying on other mechs and also by stealing parts and equipment from mech centers. Some even make deals with humans. And, the Mantis, as Killeen learns, a highly intelligent mech, is not just a hunter of humans, but an artist, or at least an artist as mechs understand the term.
Along with the humans and the mechs, Benford introduces a third entity, an entity that can use the magnetic storms that enclose the planet to communicate. It apparently lives partially in and partially outside the event horizon of the black hole. I wonder what Stephen Hawking would make of this. It seems to want to help the humans and informs them of a space ship that was buried in the vicinity. How it knew of this is unknown.
And Nigel Walmsley of the first two volumes? We left him and his fellow human crew members of the asteroid ship in control, maybe, of a mech ship. He doesn't appear in this volume, but during their wanderings, Killeen and his group came across an ancient human structure, one which the Mantis knew something about. It said that the humans had called it the Taj Mahal, and that the leader of the humans who had built the structure had put his initials on the structure: NW. If this is a replica of the Taj Mahal, or something that serves the same purpose as the Taj Mahal, then whose wife is buried here? Nigel outlived Alexandria, his first wife. Has he also outlived Nikka, his second?
Overall Rating: an excellent novel with fast-paced action and a host of ideas sufficient for three or four novels. It would be fascinating just to read a story about the Mantis.
This work is set on the planet Snowglade, location unknown except that it appears to be in orbit around a star and a black hole. Just when this takes place is not clear either, except for a brief mention that the original settlers of the planet traveled some 70, 000 years to reach this planet, and that was long ago. Earth is not even mentioned in this work, so all we know is that a nuclear war had taken place and we can only guess at what has happened since then. Were the original settlers refugees from a destroyed Earth? Or, perhaps from colonies that had been settled by humans? Moreover, several large structures are in orbit about the planet--they are called Chandeliers. Were they of human or of mech origin. Tradition says human, but if so, when were they constructed--by the original settlers? by a later group?
The humans who had initially settled this planet were technologically developed far beyond the humans of the first two books, but their descendants had lost most of it, and what little they retained was a mystery.
After having co-existed with the mechs, each ignoring the other for the most part, the humans were almost eliminated by a surprise attack by the mechs. Humans, up to a decade or so, lived in various citadels, and Killeen Bishop, the main character in this work, is now on the run with perhaps 250 other survivors of the devastating sneak attack on their citadel. Their situation is so desperate that they have shut down their sex drive and reproductive cycle because on the run, a pregnant woman is a liability and her survival chances are minimal, if not non-existent. The problem is that in each encounter with various mechs, the humans manage to destroy the mech, but usually at the cost of one or two of their own. Killeen's group, the Bishops, are slowly dwindling. They don't even know if any humans in other citadels had survived the mech attack.
It is clear that the humans are slowly losing the battle with the mech civilization.
They have come close to becoming cyborgs, as they rely on electronically enhanced senses and mechanically enhanced physical abilities. The electronic senses allow them to detect the mechs at a distance, but it also allows the mechs to use electronic measures to attack them.
Generally, most mechs were of low intelligence and were primarily workers with limited skills. They ignored humans unless humans got in their way and treated them at that point as they would any natural obstacle--go around them. More intelligent mechs, called Marauders by the humans, also ignored the humans unless its became aware of them At that point, it would attempt to destroy them.
But, recently, something new has appeared, or something that had been only the subject of rumor and considered myth by most--the Mantis. The Mantis was supposed to be designed to be a hunter, and its prey?--humans. The humans could now occasionally detect a mech of some sort following them, something that hadn't happened before. There were several encounters with it in which the humans thought they had destroyed it, but shortly afterwards, something showed up again, on their trail. Killeen began to wonder about this for it seemed as though it was herding them somewhere, as the humans would move away from it rather than risk an attack.
His suspicions increased as the Bishops encountered another group for the first time since they had been on the run. And, at the moment of the encounter, when both groups in their joy at meeting another group of surviving humans relaxed their vigilance, the mech attacked again. Eventually it was destroyed, or so they thought, but the humans lost more than 38 irreplaceable lives. And, in the distance, they could see worker mechs picking up the various parts of the mantis and carrying it off, perhaps to be reassembled again, and once again on their trail.
But, Benford has not simply created a tale of warfare between the good humans and the bad mechs. Both humans and mechs are far more complex and complicated in their actions and even their loyalties. When mechs wear out or suffer a serious malfunction, they are ordered back to a mech center to be dissembled and its parts stockpiled for other mechs. Some however rebel and turn renegade (Rennies). They exist by preying on other mechs and also by stealing parts and equipment from mech centers. Some even make deals with humans. And, the Mantis, as Killeen learns, a highly intelligent mech, is not just a hunter of humans, but an artist, or at least an artist as mechs understand the term.
Along with the humans and the mechs, Benford introduces a third entity, an entity that can use the magnetic storms that enclose the planet to communicate. It apparently lives partially in and partially outside the event horizon of the black hole. I wonder what Stephen Hawking would make of this. It seems to want to help the humans and informs them of a space ship that was buried in the vicinity. How it knew of this is unknown.
And Nigel Walmsley of the first two volumes? We left him and his fellow human crew members of the asteroid ship in control, maybe, of a mech ship. He doesn't appear in this volume, but during their wanderings, Killeen and his group came across an ancient human structure, one which the Mantis knew something about. It said that the humans had called it the Taj Mahal, and that the leader of the humans who had built the structure had put his initials on the structure: NW. If this is a replica of the Taj Mahal, or something that serves the same purpose as the Taj Mahal, then whose wife is buried here? Nigel outlived Alexandria, his first wife. Has he also outlived Nikka, his second?
Overall Rating: an excellent novel with fast-paced action and a host of ideas sufficient for three or four novels. It would be fascinating just to read a story about the Mantis.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Greg Benford: Across the Sea of Suns, Galactic Center Book II
Nigel Walmsley is back--just as obstreperous and cranky as before, and still a pain in the bureaucratic backside. This is a bit surprising because Nigel is getting up there in years now. The first book in the series, In the Ocean of Night, covered the period between 1999 and 2019. In 1999, Nigel was an experienced astronaut, which suggests that he was at least in his late 20s, if not older. Across the Sea of Suns begins in 2056 and ends in 2064. Even if Nigel had been in his twenties in 1999, he must now be getting close to 90. The only difference is that he's getting a bit creaky and can't handle physical chores now. But, his brain is still as good, and he's one of the few around who can go beyond the narrow limits of the various sciences and get an overall view.
And, that's his problem now. His overall view doesn't coincide with the official view. He sees a connection between the three encounters with aliens in the previous novel and the observations they are now making of a planet circling a star some 8.1 light years from Earth. Rather than remain silent, he keeps pushing and finagling and just generally irritating the wrong people. Back on Earth, that wouldn't have been a problem; he could just go on vacation or take a leave of absence and stay out of sight until all was forgotten or the bureaucrats he had angered had moved on. But, he's not on Earth now, and he can't drop out of sight.
A decade or so ago, transmissions were received from that unnamed star that appeared to be English words, but just English words transmitted at random. Several probes were sent, but little was learned except that the radio signals appeared to be coming from a small planet circling that star. The major powers on Earth, therefore, decided to send people and confiscated a colony ship that was under construction. Based on information gained from the three alien encounters, Earth decided to build its own asteroid ship, the Lancer. It was this ship that was hastily converted into a research vessel and sent to the star.
And aboard were Nigel and Nikki, a woman he had met while working on the alien ship that had crashed on the moon, thousands of years ago. Nikki, in fact, was the one who had found the ship when its still active automatic defense system shot her down as she came within range of its sensors.
The first part of the book details the discovery of the source of the signals, a alien race that is one of the strangest I've ever encountered in over 50 years of reading SF. This race survives on a planet on which it seems impossible for life to have evolved in the first place. And, around the planet orbits a satellite, apparently doing nothing. Nigel argues that life evolved first, and then the planet was attacked and reduced to its present state. And, he also insists that the satellite is there, at least, to observe the planet, a Watcher.
After leaving that system, the Lancer visits several other systems and finds Watchers around other planets that also appear to have been attacked, and also around other planets on which life had yet to appear, if ever.
Meanwhile, Earth is facing its own problems. Aliens have suddenly appeared in the oceans and have completely disrupted shipping and travel. (Reminds me of the John Wyndham novel, Out of the Deeps, aka The Kraken Awakes). Benford provides a second plot which focuses on Warren, a survivor of an attack by the aliens on his ship. He shares some characteristics with Nigel, namely that bad things happen and the best course is to deal with it, and forget about recriminations and finger pointing. And, most ominously, a Watcher has appeared in orbit around Earth.
Human leaders on Earth and in Space are prone to make mistakes, especially when they don't listen to the right advisers. The novel ends with a full scale nuclear war on Earth and the surviving crew of the Lancer on board a Watcher. Nigel, however, has managed to survive, so there's hope yet for the human race.
The novel includes some interesting speculations on life in a restricted area, with a limited population. In addition, Nigel repeats his adventure of the menage-a- trois in the first novel which featured Nigel, Alexandria, and Shirley, with a new adventure featuring Nigel, Nikki, and Carlotta. It may be the human version of the three-body problem (which I hear about frequently in SF but don't really understand, to be honest) in which there are two suns, Nigel and Alexandria or Nigel and Nikki, and a planet, Shirley or Carlotta, that must orbit both of them. Ultimately both Shirley and Carlotta decide that their primary purpose is to protect Alexandria and Nikki from the uncaring and insensitive Nigel, even though this insensitivity has yet to be noticed by either Alexandria or Nikki.
Overall Rating: Great science stuff and good human interest material here. Benford has incorporated enough new ideas for 10 books. I'm looking forward to the third book in the series,
Great Sky River.
And, that's his problem now. His overall view doesn't coincide with the official view. He sees a connection between the three encounters with aliens in the previous novel and the observations they are now making of a planet circling a star some 8.1 light years from Earth. Rather than remain silent, he keeps pushing and finagling and just generally irritating the wrong people. Back on Earth, that wouldn't have been a problem; he could just go on vacation or take a leave of absence and stay out of sight until all was forgotten or the bureaucrats he had angered had moved on. But, he's not on Earth now, and he can't drop out of sight.
A decade or so ago, transmissions were received from that unnamed star that appeared to be English words, but just English words transmitted at random. Several probes were sent, but little was learned except that the radio signals appeared to be coming from a small planet circling that star. The major powers on Earth, therefore, decided to send people and confiscated a colony ship that was under construction. Based on information gained from the three alien encounters, Earth decided to build its own asteroid ship, the Lancer. It was this ship that was hastily converted into a research vessel and sent to the star.
And aboard were Nigel and Nikki, a woman he had met while working on the alien ship that had crashed on the moon, thousands of years ago. Nikki, in fact, was the one who had found the ship when its still active automatic defense system shot her down as she came within range of its sensors.
The first part of the book details the discovery of the source of the signals, a alien race that is one of the strangest I've ever encountered in over 50 years of reading SF. This race survives on a planet on which it seems impossible for life to have evolved in the first place. And, around the planet orbits a satellite, apparently doing nothing. Nigel argues that life evolved first, and then the planet was attacked and reduced to its present state. And, he also insists that the satellite is there, at least, to observe the planet, a Watcher.
After leaving that system, the Lancer visits several other systems and finds Watchers around other planets that also appear to have been attacked, and also around other planets on which life had yet to appear, if ever.
Meanwhile, Earth is facing its own problems. Aliens have suddenly appeared in the oceans and have completely disrupted shipping and travel. (Reminds me of the John Wyndham novel, Out of the Deeps, aka The Kraken Awakes). Benford provides a second plot which focuses on Warren, a survivor of an attack by the aliens on his ship. He shares some characteristics with Nigel, namely that bad things happen and the best course is to deal with it, and forget about recriminations and finger pointing. And, most ominously, a Watcher has appeared in orbit around Earth.
Human leaders on Earth and in Space are prone to make mistakes, especially when they don't listen to the right advisers. The novel ends with a full scale nuclear war on Earth and the surviving crew of the Lancer on board a Watcher. Nigel, however, has managed to survive, so there's hope yet for the human race.
The novel includes some interesting speculations on life in a restricted area, with a limited population. In addition, Nigel repeats his adventure of the menage-a- trois in the first novel which featured Nigel, Alexandria, and Shirley, with a new adventure featuring Nigel, Nikki, and Carlotta. It may be the human version of the three-body problem (which I hear about frequently in SF but don't really understand, to be honest) in which there are two suns, Nigel and Alexandria or Nigel and Nikki, and a planet, Shirley or Carlotta, that must orbit both of them. Ultimately both Shirley and Carlotta decide that their primary purpose is to protect Alexandria and Nikki from the uncaring and insensitive Nigel, even though this insensitivity has yet to be noticed by either Alexandria or Nikki.
Overall Rating: Great science stuff and good human interest material here. Benford has incorporated enough new ideas for 10 books. I'm looking forward to the third book in the series,
Great Sky River.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Greg Benford: In the Ocean of Night, Galactic Center Book I
I've just begun rereading Greg Benford's "Galactic Center" series, which I consider to be one of the best SF series ever written. Unfortunately, I find I'm pretty much alone in this as I've never heard anyone speak of the series or even of one of the books in it.
The first one in the series is In the Ocean of Night, which begins in 1999, with a classic threat to Earth--a threatened encounter with Icarus, an asteroid whose orbit approached Earth's but never posed a threat until it began emitting a plume of gas and dust, thus turning it into a cometary object and gaining considerable interest among solar system astronomers. Not only was it transformed, but its trajectory was affected and put it on a collision course with Earth. Something was going to have to be done about it, and soon.
The novel actually consists of three separate encounters within some twenty years--the abandoned asteroid ship, an AI probe that passes through the solar system gathering information about the system and life forms, and a crashed spaceship on the moon, but these are not three completely separate incidents, for several reasons.
One reason and the most obvious reason is that the Nigel Walmsley is the significant character in all three encounters. Nigel is a rather unique character; for example, he's British, and he somehow convinced NASA to accept him as an astronaut. Moreover, when Icarus' threat is discovered, he somehow ends up being chosen to approach and plant the h-bomb which is expected to destroy it. However, once there, Nigel discovers that the asteroid/comet isn't what it seems to be. It is a small rocky body that has been turned into a spaceship, one that is at least several hundred thousand years old. It is at this point that Nigel, on the scene, and Houston, back on Earth, began to differ about what to do next.
Nigel is always one to make his own decisions, regardless of what Houston Control decides. So, he's frequently on the black list at NASA, but, rather than quit as many would do, he sticks around and slowly and quietly and unobtrusively works his way back into significant positions. So, when the next encounter occurs, he's there on the spot causing more problems for those who disagree with him, but only in a non-confrontational way, if possible (while his former enemies in the bureaucracy have long since moved up and out). What his supervisors find most irritating about Nigel is that he tends to be right, more often than not, or at least more often right than they are.
Nigel's personal life is also intriguing. He's married or at least partnered with Alexandria. Then there's Shirley, who makes up the third of the trio; she's decided that her role in the threesome is to protect Alexandria from Nigel--they make up an interesting menage-a-trois. (Correct my French, if necessary.)
Another subplot involves a religious group, the New Sons. They have gained sufficient political power that they can control or direct scientific research on the basis of their religious beliefs-- obviously a fantasy as such things could not happen here.
Almost forgot another subplot: one of Nigel's friends has a close encounter with several hairy? shaggy? furry? bipeds in Northern California.
The other reason the three incidents are closely related is not so obvious at first because the full importance of the three encounters is not fully realized on Earth until the second book, Across the Sea of Suns, which takes place some three or four decades later. At the end of In the Ocean..., Nigel and some of his friends suspect there's a connection of some sort, but they don't have sufficient information to draw a connection.
This delayed revelation of the threat reminds me of E. E. (Doc) Smith's fabulous Lensmen series in which each novel initially gave the reader a slightly better idea of the threat looming in the background. After the series was initially published, Smith then produced the first novel which provided the necessary background, so subsequent readers all knew from the beginning who the real villains were.
In the Ocean of Night is an independent work, though, and according to the inside cover it is the first in a trilogy, which was probably Benford's thinking at that time. However, we all know what frequently happens to two or three book series. This trilogy turned into a sextet.
It's going to be a great trip.
The first one in the series is In the Ocean of Night, which begins in 1999, with a classic threat to Earth--a threatened encounter with Icarus, an asteroid whose orbit approached Earth's but never posed a threat until it began emitting a plume of gas and dust, thus turning it into a cometary object and gaining considerable interest among solar system astronomers. Not only was it transformed, but its trajectory was affected and put it on a collision course with Earth. Something was going to have to be done about it, and soon.
The novel actually consists of three separate encounters within some twenty years--the abandoned asteroid ship, an AI probe that passes through the solar system gathering information about the system and life forms, and a crashed spaceship on the moon, but these are not three completely separate incidents, for several reasons.
One reason and the most obvious reason is that the Nigel Walmsley is the significant character in all three encounters. Nigel is a rather unique character; for example, he's British, and he somehow convinced NASA to accept him as an astronaut. Moreover, when Icarus' threat is discovered, he somehow ends up being chosen to approach and plant the h-bomb which is expected to destroy it. However, once there, Nigel discovers that the asteroid/comet isn't what it seems to be. It is a small rocky body that has been turned into a spaceship, one that is at least several hundred thousand years old. It is at this point that Nigel, on the scene, and Houston, back on Earth, began to differ about what to do next.
Nigel is always one to make his own decisions, regardless of what Houston Control decides. So, he's frequently on the black list at NASA, but, rather than quit as many would do, he sticks around and slowly and quietly and unobtrusively works his way back into significant positions. So, when the next encounter occurs, he's there on the spot causing more problems for those who disagree with him, but only in a non-confrontational way, if possible (while his former enemies in the bureaucracy have long since moved up and out). What his supervisors find most irritating about Nigel is that he tends to be right, more often than not, or at least more often right than they are.
Nigel's personal life is also intriguing. He's married or at least partnered with Alexandria. Then there's Shirley, who makes up the third of the trio; she's decided that her role in the threesome is to protect Alexandria from Nigel--they make up an interesting menage-a-trois. (Correct my French, if necessary.)
Another subplot involves a religious group, the New Sons. They have gained sufficient political power that they can control or direct scientific research on the basis of their religious beliefs-- obviously a fantasy as such things could not happen here.
Almost forgot another subplot: one of Nigel's friends has a close encounter with several hairy? shaggy? furry? bipeds in Northern California.
The other reason the three incidents are closely related is not so obvious at first because the full importance of the three encounters is not fully realized on Earth until the second book, Across the Sea of Suns, which takes place some three or four decades later. At the end of In the Ocean..., Nigel and some of his friends suspect there's a connection of some sort, but they don't have sufficient information to draw a connection.
This delayed revelation of the threat reminds me of E. E. (Doc) Smith's fabulous Lensmen series in which each novel initially gave the reader a slightly better idea of the threat looming in the background. After the series was initially published, Smith then produced the first novel which provided the necessary background, so subsequent readers all knew from the beginning who the real villains were.
In the Ocean of Night is an independent work, though, and according to the inside cover it is the first in a trilogy, which was probably Benford's thinking at that time. However, we all know what frequently happens to two or three book series. This trilogy turned into a sextet.
It's going to be a great trip.
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