Robert J. Sawyer
Calculating God
I found this an intriguing novel It's a first contact novel with a surprising theme. An alien spaceship lands on the grounds of the Royal Ontario Museum. The aliens speak English, of course, and ask to see a paleontologist. This happens to be Thomas Jericho, who by the way is an atheist. This is important.
The aliens want permission to study the large collection of fossils held by the museum. They are looking for more evidence that will scientifically establish the existence of god. According to the aliens, there are three sentient races,including humans, in this part of the universe, and all three have suffered five catastrophic events at about the same time, all of which actually increased the probability of sentient life developing on those three planets. Hollus, one of the aliens, believed this to be proof of a guiding intelligence who is trying to develop sentience in the universe.
Much of the novel consists of philosophical discussions regarding the findings and their implications. Jericho, being an atheist, provides a counter-argument to the aliens' conclusions. These discussions do not involve religion or theology to any extent. Sawyer does speculate somewhat on the reactions of the various religious groups to the aliens' and their conclusions. The discussions between Jericho and the alien Hollus are solely on the basis of physical evidence and its interpretations.
Overall, I thought it was an interesting novel on a very hotly debated issue, but it was brought out in a way I had never seen before. It is not a novel that works to persuade its readers in one direction or the other. It simply speculates on what would happen if there was unequivocal physical evidence for the existence of God in non-religious or theological setting.
Showing posts with label SF novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SF novel. Show all posts
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Monday, June 5, 2017
Gregory Benford: The Berlin Project
Gregory Benford
The Berlin Project
The Berlin Project is an alternate universe tale that up to a certain point reads more like a docudrama, a depiction of real events that have been filled out in places by the writer. The first part takes place in the days before WWII, of the beginnings of what was to become the Manhattan Project. The movement of the scientists from the first implications of what "splitting the atom" to the realization that this could be a source of power and a destructive weapon unlike anything possible at that day. There was at the same time the fear, supported by rumors and certain actions by German scientists, that Germany was also going along the same path. Eventually it was decided to try to beat the Germans to the bomb.
Research then suggested that U235 would be the best for such a bomb. The project then came to a decision point: what method would be most effective in separating out U235 from U238? It is at this point, that the novel moves, at least as far as I can tell, completely into the alternate universe. In the real world, it was decided to use the gas diffusion method, whereas in The Berlin Project, the powers-that-be went with the centrifuge method.
In the Afterword to the novel, Benford says that even by the '60s we knew that the centrifuge method would have been the best choice. The decision in favor of the gas diffusion method resulted in a delay of a year or more in developing the bomb, which then had little effect on the war in Europe. The decision in the novel to use the centrifuge method gave the Allies the bomb a year earlier; in fact the bomb was ready just before the Normandy invasion. This changed the outcome of the war.
I felt, to some extent that the novel had two parts. The first, as I mentioned above, reminded me of a docudrama as it had considerably more detail leading up to the production of the bomb than I would normally expect in an alternate history tale. What happens after the production and use of the first bomb is similar to what I usually find in an alternate history--a wide divergence from the events of the real world. The detailed account of the scientific struggles to produce the bomb is over and is followed by a more action-oriented story and speculation as to the long-term effects of its use in the other world.
In the Afterword, Benford tells us that most of the characters in the novel were real, including Karl Cohen, the POV character, who happens to be his father-in-law. Considerable information obviously came from him. In addition to physicists and mathematicians, other real people appear or are mentioned: James Benford (Benford's father was in the army during WWII) who appears in a walk-on role, as do these people who would be familiar to some, I suppose--Cleve Cartmill (author of a story that got the FBI interested), Anson McDonald (better known as Robert Heinlein, who also was the author of a story that got the FBI interested), John W. Campbell (who published both stories), Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp, and Arthur C. Clarke.
And, at one point in the novel, a character remarks: "tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun." Those familiar with the work of Alfred Bester will recognize this.
Overall I found it a very interesting read. While the details of the research and succeeding struggle to produce the bomb did not happen that way in our world, it gave me more of an idea of what those efforts were like, and also a closer look at the politics and in-fighting that tool place within the Manhattan Project, something I had never heard of before.
As I mentioned above, Benford provides an 18 page afterward with a brief discussion of the major events as it happened in the real world, and a brief biography of the major characters in the work. Benford says that several of the characters are still alive today. He also points out the irony of the development of the bomb in that many of the important scientists in the Manhattan Project were refugees from Europe, fleeing the Nazis.
If you have read a number of novels and short stories by Greg Benford, I think you will be surprised by this one. It's not like anything I have read by him so far.
The Berlin Project
The Berlin Project is an alternate universe tale that up to a certain point reads more like a docudrama, a depiction of real events that have been filled out in places by the writer. The first part takes place in the days before WWII, of the beginnings of what was to become the Manhattan Project. The movement of the scientists from the first implications of what "splitting the atom" to the realization that this could be a source of power and a destructive weapon unlike anything possible at that day. There was at the same time the fear, supported by rumors and certain actions by German scientists, that Germany was also going along the same path. Eventually it was decided to try to beat the Germans to the bomb.
Research then suggested that U235 would be the best for such a bomb. The project then came to a decision point: what method would be most effective in separating out U235 from U238? It is at this point, that the novel moves, at least as far as I can tell, completely into the alternate universe. In the real world, it was decided to use the gas diffusion method, whereas in The Berlin Project, the powers-that-be went with the centrifuge method.
In the Afterword to the novel, Benford says that even by the '60s we knew that the centrifuge method would have been the best choice. The decision in favor of the gas diffusion method resulted in a delay of a year or more in developing the bomb, which then had little effect on the war in Europe. The decision in the novel to use the centrifuge method gave the Allies the bomb a year earlier; in fact the bomb was ready just before the Normandy invasion. This changed the outcome of the war.
I felt, to some extent that the novel had two parts. The first, as I mentioned above, reminded me of a docudrama as it had considerably more detail leading up to the production of the bomb than I would normally expect in an alternate history tale. What happens after the production and use of the first bomb is similar to what I usually find in an alternate history--a wide divergence from the events of the real world. The detailed account of the scientific struggles to produce the bomb is over and is followed by a more action-oriented story and speculation as to the long-term effects of its use in the other world.
In the Afterword, Benford tells us that most of the characters in the novel were real, including Karl Cohen, the POV character, who happens to be his father-in-law. Considerable information obviously came from him. In addition to physicists and mathematicians, other real people appear or are mentioned: James Benford (Benford's father was in the army during WWII) who appears in a walk-on role, as do these people who would be familiar to some, I suppose--Cleve Cartmill (author of a story that got the FBI interested), Anson McDonald (better known as Robert Heinlein, who also was the author of a story that got the FBI interested), John W. Campbell (who published both stories), Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp, and Arthur C. Clarke.
And, at one point in the novel, a character remarks: "tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun." Those familiar with the work of Alfred Bester will recognize this.
Overall I found it a very interesting read. While the details of the research and succeeding struggle to produce the bomb did not happen that way in our world, it gave me more of an idea of what those efforts were like, and also a closer look at the politics and in-fighting that tool place within the Manhattan Project, something I had never heard of before.
As I mentioned above, Benford provides an 18 page afterward with a brief discussion of the major events as it happened in the real world, and a brief biography of the major characters in the work. Benford says that several of the characters are still alive today. He also points out the irony of the development of the bomb in that many of the important scientists in the Manhattan Project were refugees from Europe, fleeing the Nazis.
If you have read a number of novels and short stories by Greg Benford, I think you will be surprised by this one. It's not like anything I have read by him so far.
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Thea von Harbou: Metropolis--First Impressions
Thea von Harbou
Metropolis
Silent with some text
Black-and-white
First Impressions
This is my first reading of the novel, although I have seen various versions of the film, which, in my estimation, is one of the all-time great films. The most recent viewing was of the reconstructed two hour and twenty-eight minute film. It's one of the few DVDs that I now own. While it's been a few years since I last saw the film, I had a strange reaction when I began the novel. I immediately flashed back to the film, for the tone or atmosphere of the novel was very similar to the film, or so I thought. This may be because von Harbou wrote the screenplay for the film.
Both the novel and the film struck me as being rather formal, almost theatrical. It's been awhile, as I said, since I've seen the film, but looking back now, I think it was much closer to being a play filmed on stage rather than a film with its greater freedom and flexibility. This may make sense for a film, but a novel?
The beginning of the novel:
Chapter I
Now the rumbling of the great organ swelled to a roar, pressing, like a rising giant, against the vaulted ceiling, to burst through it.
Freder bent his head backwards, his wide-open, burning eyes stared unseeingly upward. His hands formed music from the chaos of the notes; struggling with the vibration of the sound and stirring him to his innermost depths.
. . . . .
Above him, the vault of heaven in "lapis lazuli;" hovering therein, the twelve-fold mystery, the Signs of the Zodiac in gold. Set higher above them, the seven crowned ones: the planets. High above all a silver-shining bevy of stars: the universe.
Wouldn't this be a great opening for a silent film? It's perhaps a bit overblown by today's standards, but it works, or at least it worked for me.
Overall, I found the novel strange. As I began reading, I immediately flashed back to the film. I've never before ever felt that the novel and the film were so perfectly matched in tone or ambiance or whatever.
It's dated, of course, but that just makes it seem more alien. This is not my world, even though it's depiction of a society that consisted solely of bosses and workers could be seen as a socio-economic allegory of today--the 1% who control everything versus the rest of us. There are also various religious elements in the story, as well as a reference to a Japanese pleasure quarter in Edo (it really exists).
The following are just first impressions and are presented only for discussion, revision, or even elimination and really need a serious rereading on my part.
Is this the story of an Oedipal conflict between Father and Son?
How accurate a depiction is this of actual Marxist practice? Marxists talk of class warfare between capitalists and the workers, represented in the novel by the bosses (the head) and the workers (the hands). However, in the real world there is a middle class. What happened to them?
Is this a type of Jekyll and Hyde novel featuring the virtuous, virginal Maria and her evil seductive android double--a virgin and whore dichotomy? Other examples of the double would be Dostoyevsky's novella "The Double" and Poe's "William Wilson."
A reread sometime in the near future is a must.
I will do a blog post on the film, eventually, but it will take awhile because I'm still floundering around about the novel, as you can tell from my comments above.
Metropolis
Silent with some text
Black-and-white
First Impressions
This is my first reading of the novel, although I have seen various versions of the film, which, in my estimation, is one of the all-time great films. The most recent viewing was of the reconstructed two hour and twenty-eight minute film. It's one of the few DVDs that I now own. While it's been a few years since I last saw the film, I had a strange reaction when I began the novel. I immediately flashed back to the film, for the tone or atmosphere of the novel was very similar to the film, or so I thought. This may be because von Harbou wrote the screenplay for the film.
Both the novel and the film struck me as being rather formal, almost theatrical. It's been awhile, as I said, since I've seen the film, but looking back now, I think it was much closer to being a play filmed on stage rather than a film with its greater freedom and flexibility. This may make sense for a film, but a novel?
The beginning of the novel:
Chapter I
Now the rumbling of the great organ swelled to a roar, pressing, like a rising giant, against the vaulted ceiling, to burst through it.
Freder bent his head backwards, his wide-open, burning eyes stared unseeingly upward. His hands formed music from the chaos of the notes; struggling with the vibration of the sound and stirring him to his innermost depths.
. . . . .
Above him, the vault of heaven in "lapis lazuli;" hovering therein, the twelve-fold mystery, the Signs of the Zodiac in gold. Set higher above them, the seven crowned ones: the planets. High above all a silver-shining bevy of stars: the universe.
Wouldn't this be a great opening for a silent film? It's perhaps a bit overblown by today's standards, but it works, or at least it worked for me.
Overall, I found the novel strange. As I began reading, I immediately flashed back to the film. I've never before ever felt that the novel and the film were so perfectly matched in tone or ambiance or whatever.
It's dated, of course, but that just makes it seem more alien. This is not my world, even though it's depiction of a society that consisted solely of bosses and workers could be seen as a socio-economic allegory of today--the 1% who control everything versus the rest of us. There are also various religious elements in the story, as well as a reference to a Japanese pleasure quarter in Edo (it really exists).
The following are just first impressions and are presented only for discussion, revision, or even elimination and really need a serious rereading on my part.
Is this the story of an Oedipal conflict between Father and Son?
How accurate a depiction is this of actual Marxist practice? Marxists talk of class warfare between capitalists and the workers, represented in the novel by the bosses (the head) and the workers (the hands). However, in the real world there is a middle class. What happened to them?
Is this a type of Jekyll and Hyde novel featuring the virtuous, virginal Maria and her evil seductive android double--a virgin and whore dichotomy? Other examples of the double would be Dostoyevsky's novella "The Double" and Poe's "William Wilson."
A reread sometime in the near future is a must.
I will do a blog post on the film, eventually, but it will take awhile because I'm still floundering around about the novel, as you can tell from my comments above.
Saturday, July 16, 2016
Alfred Bester's Masterpiece: The Stars My Destination, Pt. 2
Alfred Bester
The Stars My Destination
Some random disconnected passing thoughts:
I have read that the original title was Tiger! Tiger! but was changed for some reason. The title possibly may have come from the first line of Blake's poem, "The Tiger."
I know many who prefer the original title, but I, of course, have the opposite view. The only title I knew for decades was The Stars My Destination, so it's become part of it for me. On the other hand, Tiger! Tiger! does fit Gully Foyle, for it is much more closely related to Gully and to the story line, because, if Gully is nothing else, he is a predator. And, then there's that tattoo.
I read and enjoyed the Prologue to TSMD for several reasons. One is that it provided information helpful to the story, and the second reason is its opening paragraph, which struck me as being somewhat familiar. I have reformatted it. Does anyone else think this is remotely familiar to something else?
"This was a golden age,
a time of high adventure,
rich living, and hard dying. . .
but nobody thought so.
This was a future
of fortune and theft,
pillage and rapine,
culture and vice. . .
but nobody admitted it.
This was an age
of extremes,
a fascinating century of freaks. . .
but nobody loved it."
This, however, is how it appeared in the book:
"This was a golden age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard dying. . . but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice. . . but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, . . . a fascinating century of freaks. . . but nobody loved it."
And there's even an interesting short story buried there--the discovery of jaunting.
Pyre, a horrific weapon, becomes an important issue in the story, as there is a solar system-wide war going on at this time. Foyle knows the location of Pyre and therefore becomes a person of great interest to the Earth government. A pyre is also a funeral ritual, a traditional way of honoring a leader or important person in some societies. Is this weapon signifying the death of the present human civilization?
Another mythic element that seems relevant is the myth of the Phoenix, a long-lived bird that is the only one of its kind. Every thousand or more years the Phoenix in its nest bursts into flames and arises reborn out of the ashes. Foyle is trapped at the end when the Pyre is set off and as he attempts to escape, makes a discovery that transforms him into being able to jaunte at a new level. And humanity will be transformed from a species limited to the solar system to ultimately a galactic civilization. Both Gully and humanity, in one sense, are reborn.
It's a great story, one that rewards rereading, which I do every couple of years regularly. It's permanently in my TBR bookcase.
The Stars My Destination
Some random disconnected passing thoughts:
I have read that the original title was Tiger! Tiger! but was changed for some reason. The title possibly may have come from the first line of Blake's poem, "The Tiger."
| TIGER, tiger, burning bright | |
| In the forests of the night, | |
| What immortal hand or eye | |
| Could frame thy fearful symmetry? |
I know many who prefer the original title, but I, of course, have the opposite view. The only title I knew for decades was The Stars My Destination, so it's become part of it for me. On the other hand, Tiger! Tiger! does fit Gully Foyle, for it is much more closely related to Gully and to the story line, because, if Gully is nothing else, he is a predator. And, then there's that tattoo.
I read and enjoyed the Prologue to TSMD for several reasons. One is that it provided information helpful to the story, and the second reason is its opening paragraph, which struck me as being somewhat familiar. I have reformatted it. Does anyone else think this is remotely familiar to something else?
"This was a golden age,
a time of high adventure,
rich living, and hard dying. . .
but nobody thought so.
This was a future
of fortune and theft,
pillage and rapine,
culture and vice. . .
but nobody admitted it.
This was an age
of extremes,
a fascinating century of freaks. . .
but nobody loved it."
This, however, is how it appeared in the book:
"This was a golden age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard dying. . . but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice. . . but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, . . . a fascinating century of freaks. . . but nobody loved it."
And there's even an interesting short story buried there--the discovery of jaunting.
Pyre, a horrific weapon, becomes an important issue in the story, as there is a solar system-wide war going on at this time. Foyle knows the location of Pyre and therefore becomes a person of great interest to the Earth government. A pyre is also a funeral ritual, a traditional way of honoring a leader or important person in some societies. Is this weapon signifying the death of the present human civilization?
Another mythic element that seems relevant is the myth of the Phoenix, a long-lived bird that is the only one of its kind. Every thousand or more years the Phoenix in its nest bursts into flames and arises reborn out of the ashes. Foyle is trapped at the end when the Pyre is set off and as he attempts to escape, makes a discovery that transforms him into being able to jaunte at a new level. And humanity will be transformed from a species limited to the solar system to ultimately a galactic civilization. Both Gully and humanity, in one sense, are reborn.
It's a great story, one that rewards rereading, which I do every couple of years regularly. It's permanently in my TBR bookcase.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Gene Wolfe: A Borrowed Man, one of Wolfe's quirkiest novels
Gene Wolfe
A Borrowed Man
Gene Wolfe, who regularly turns out quirky novels (who else would write a quartet featuring a trained and licensed torturer and executioner as the hero), has turned out another one: A Borrowed Man.
The narrator is E. A. Smithe, well, sort of E. A. Smithe anyway. He's a reclone of the deceased writer of the same name. He has been created and then filled with all the information found about E. A. Smithe. He is then sent to a library where he spends his days, on a shelf, of sorts, waiting for a patron who is doing research to appear and ask him questions about E. A. Smithe or his writings. (This gives new meaning to the job title of resource person.) If he is lucky, a patron may even borrow him from the library (even though it's quite expensive) for a short period of time. While the reclone is not considered a person, the patron who damages one has to pay a hefty fine, just like that for a book or other item borrowed from the library..
Being consulted and being borrowed from the library is very important because the life span of a reclone depends upon usage. Since space, as always at a library, is limited, those reclones who are not consulted or borrowed are eventually burned. And, he isn't the only E. A. Smithe reclone, for there are others in other libraries.
Our Smithe reclone, one day, is borrowed by a patron, Collette Coldbrook, for ten days. He is a bit disappointed because the fee is only 4700 for the period. He had hoped it would be higher, a sign of his value to the library. Eventually he finds out the reason for being "borrowed." To be brief, the real E. A. Smithe had written a book, according to Collette, in which a clue to a fortune may be hidden.
Collette Coldbrook is the daughter of a recently deceased financier who had built up a considerable fortune, the source of which is unknown. Collette had been told by her brother, Conrad, that a book written by Smithe holds a clue to the source of her father's fortune. A short time later, her brother was murdered by person or persons unknown. Collette reveals this to the reclone only after having gone to an out-of-the-way-place to avoid any possible listening devices.
This is a slow-paced thriller with the reclone and Collette hoping to find the hidden clue in the book before the unknown others get there first. She has no idea as to the identity of these others--it could be a band of criminals or even one of several government agencies, also curious about the source of her father's fortune.
The novel takes place in the future, maybe a century or more. The US government has obviously been replaced by another government. Moreover, the world's population is now around one billion. Wolfe does not explain just what led up to these changes or to the dramatic reduction in population.
And, as this is a novel by Gene Wolfe, the reader should prepared for several surprises along the way. All is not as it appears to be.
Looking for something a bit strange? Try this one.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Olaf Stapledon: Star Maker
I suspect Olaf Stapledon is one of those SF authors more celebrated than read. His language is dense, and the vocabulary is considerably above the 10th grade level of most Americans. His diction can be formal and imposing. Reading his best known work, Last and First Men, is like reading an abridged historical account of the human race. That being said, the sheer sweep of Stapledon's imagination is sufficient to overcome those difficulties.
However, I am not going to comment on Last and First Men but on a more accessible work, Star Maker. In this work, Stapledon does provide us with characters and some dialogue. It is much closer to a traditional novel than is Last and First Men. It is a quest novel, in which the major character journeys in search of the answer to the ultimate or perennial question--what is this all about? After having read the work, or actually part way through it, I got the idea that Stapledon was strongly influenced by Dante's Divine Comedy when he wrote Star Maker.
The subject matter is essentially the same, and both narrators are undergoing a crisis which initiates their journeys.
Midway life's journey I was made aware
That I had strayed into a dark forest,
And the right path appeared not anywhere.
Ah, tongue cannot describe how it oppressed,
This wood, so harsh, dismal, and wild, that fear
At thought of it strikes now into my beast.
So bitter it is, death is scarce bitterer.
-- Dante --
Inferno, Canto 1, ll 1-7
The Portable Dante,
Laurence Binyon, translator
Star Maker begins--
One night when I had tasted bitterness I went out onto the hill.. . .
. . . there was bitterness. And bitterness not only invaded us from the world; it welled up also within our own magic circle. For horror at our futility, at our own unreality, and not only at the world's delirium, had driven me out onto the hill.
-- Olaf Stapledon --
Star Maker. page 1.
It is at this point that the voyage of discovery begins for both narrators. Both find mentors or guides. Dante is guided by Virgil, while the Canine species philosopher acts as companion and guide to the anonymous narrator. While Dante experiences a wide variety of behaviors from various individuals, both wise and foolish, Stapledon's narrator visits a variety of species which exhibit, like individuals, cultural patterns that are wise or foolish or a mix. And, at the end of their journeys, Dante and Stapledon's narrator meet the Creator.
Both works provide the reader with three levels, explicitly in Dante's work, of course, and implied in Stapledon's novel. The first level would include Dante's Inferno, whose inhabitants' behavior has condemned them to eternal torment, and in the Star Maker, the narrator visits those species that will never achieve contact with the Star Maker and are doomed to a miserable extinction. The second level includes Purgatorio and those species that have survived their mistakes, and now the individuals in Purgatorio and those species in Star Maker are on their way to achieving contact with the Creator/Star Maker some time in the future. The third and desired level would be Paradiso and those species that have achieved the ultimate goal: direct contact with the Creator/Star Maker.
At the end, after finally meeting the Star Maker, Stapledon cleverly sidesteps the issue as to which of the various creation myths promulgated by religions is "true" by showing that all are true, for the Englishman (as the anonymous narrator refers to himself) recounts many of the creations of the Star Maker that he experienced in the encounter. Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and Gnosticism show up in various guises throughout.
Stapledon also includes every scientific theory promulgated (as well as a few he made up, I suspect) about the creation of the universe. Some, I think, he made up were later seized upon by cosmologists. To be sure of this, I'd have to research just when these theories appeared.
The novel is heavy going, not only because of the content--ideas, theories, philosophy, speculations--but also because of the style, which is mostly narrative and has very little dialogue throughout.
Again, I find the imaginative sweep of the novel to be worth the effort of working one's way through a work that is not an easy few hours' read.
Recommended for those looking for something radically different, unlike anything published today. In fact, I doubt it could be published today, unless it was self-published.
However, I am not going to comment on Last and First Men but on a more accessible work, Star Maker. In this work, Stapledon does provide us with characters and some dialogue. It is much closer to a traditional novel than is Last and First Men. It is a quest novel, in which the major character journeys in search of the answer to the ultimate or perennial question--what is this all about? After having read the work, or actually part way through it, I got the idea that Stapledon was strongly influenced by Dante's Divine Comedy when he wrote Star Maker.
The subject matter is essentially the same, and both narrators are undergoing a crisis which initiates their journeys.
Midway life's journey I was made aware
That I had strayed into a dark forest,
And the right path appeared not anywhere.
Ah, tongue cannot describe how it oppressed,
This wood, so harsh, dismal, and wild, that fear
At thought of it strikes now into my beast.
So bitter it is, death is scarce bitterer.
-- Dante --
Inferno, Canto 1, ll 1-7
The Portable Dante,
Laurence Binyon, translator
Star Maker begins--
One night when I had tasted bitterness I went out onto the hill.. . .
. . . there was bitterness. And bitterness not only invaded us from the world; it welled up also within our own magic circle. For horror at our futility, at our own unreality, and not only at the world's delirium, had driven me out onto the hill.
-- Olaf Stapledon --
Star Maker. page 1.
It is at this point that the voyage of discovery begins for both narrators. Both find mentors or guides. Dante is guided by Virgil, while the Canine species philosopher acts as companion and guide to the anonymous narrator. While Dante experiences a wide variety of behaviors from various individuals, both wise and foolish, Stapledon's narrator visits a variety of species which exhibit, like individuals, cultural patterns that are wise or foolish or a mix. And, at the end of their journeys, Dante and Stapledon's narrator meet the Creator.
Both works provide the reader with three levels, explicitly in Dante's work, of course, and implied in Stapledon's novel. The first level would include Dante's Inferno, whose inhabitants' behavior has condemned them to eternal torment, and in the Star Maker, the narrator visits those species that will never achieve contact with the Star Maker and are doomed to a miserable extinction. The second level includes Purgatorio and those species that have survived their mistakes, and now the individuals in Purgatorio and those species in Star Maker are on their way to achieving contact with the Creator/Star Maker some time in the future. The third and desired level would be Paradiso and those species that have achieved the ultimate goal: direct contact with the Creator/Star Maker.
At the end, after finally meeting the Star Maker, Stapledon cleverly sidesteps the issue as to which of the various creation myths promulgated by religions is "true" by showing that all are true, for the Englishman (as the anonymous narrator refers to himself) recounts many of the creations of the Star Maker that he experienced in the encounter. Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and Gnosticism show up in various guises throughout.
Stapledon also includes every scientific theory promulgated (as well as a few he made up, I suspect) about the creation of the universe. Some, I think, he made up were later seized upon by cosmologists. To be sure of this, I'd have to research just when these theories appeared.
The novel is heavy going, not only because of the content--ideas, theories, philosophy, speculations--but also because of the style, which is mostly narrative and has very little dialogue throughout.
Again, I find the imaginative sweep of the novel to be worth the effort of working one's way through a work that is not an easy few hours' read.
Recommended for those looking for something radically different, unlike anything published today. In fact, I doubt it could be published today, unless it was self-published.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Kim Stanley Robinson: Aurora
Kim Stanley Robinson
Aurora
This will, no doubt, show up on my Favorite SF Novels List for 2016, as it's hard to believe more than ten novels will appear in the next ten months that are superior. Of course, it is Kim Stanley Robinson, who is one of my top SF writers just practicing his art. And, art it is.
Aurora tells the story of the voyage of a generation ship that is headed toward Tau Ceti, with several thousand humans aboard. The novel begins when the ship approaches Tau Ceti, some one hundred and sixty years, and seven generations, after it left Earth. Their mission is to plant a self-sustaining colony on one of the moons, which they have named Aurora, in the Tau Ceti solar system
While others may disagree with me, the generation ship is actually the main character. I think this way because the main plot involves the necessity of the survival of the generation ship, with a subplot about the slow growth of consciousness or self-awareness in a machine-based intelligence. In addition, the ship's AI is the narrator of the novel.
The humans in the ship have two main problems to resolve: one is the survival of the ship, which is slowly breaking down after one hundred and sixty plus years and the other is the need to maintain control over the human population which has known no other life than that confined to the ship. If the humans can't live together relatively harmoniously, then all are doomed. This turns out to be one of the many crises faced by the colonists, and it is resolved in a rather surprising (and potentially frightening) manner.
Kim Stanley Robinson must have done an incredible amount of research into the physical creation of the generation ship, along with the possible threats to the integrity of the ship from various chemical, biological, and mechanical sources.
He has also created a number of separate habitats, or biomes, each with its own climate, soil, and life forms. Part of the problem facing the ship's crew is maintaining those biomes, for they contain a myriad of living organisms, which must work together as they do here on Earth. And, those organisms are not static--they do evolve over time and not necessarily at the same rate, which poses additional problems.
Robinson also speculates on the psychological and emotional effects of life within a closed environment. Moreover, he asks a moral or ethical question I have never encountered in any generation ship story before, and to be honest, I have never asked this question myself. The first generation are volunteers, but the second? third? and so on. They were never asked whether they wanted to live this way. Is this a form of child abuse?
Rather surprisingly for an SF novel, near the end of the work one of the human colonists gives a speech in which he insists we will never be able to leave the solar system and successfully plant human colonies elsewhere, even in our own galaxy, much less anywhere else. He maintains this is impossible and provides a very strong argument in support. The opposing argument relies mainly on emotional issues.
This may be true today, but in the future? I was reminded of Clarke's First Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." There are also numerous examples of scientists who first declared that it was impossible for a ship to leave the planet and others who argued we could never even reach the moon, much less land on it.
What is Robinson doing here? Is he really arguing against space travel and the possibility of living on other planets? This seems strange considering that his Mars trilogy, "RGB Mars" goes into such great detail about terraforming Mars. I wonder if, however, he is really arguing with a theme that seems prevalent in many SF stories today--that we have ruined Earth and our only hope is to go somewhere else. Perhaps Robinson is really saying that we should be concerned now with protecting the environment so that future generations won't have to leave in order for the human race to survive.
This is a must-read for all who see SF as something more than sheer and mere entertainment. There are ideas here to think about, which is true of all of Kim Stanley Robinson's works.
Aurora
This will, no doubt, show up on my Favorite SF Novels List for 2016, as it's hard to believe more than ten novels will appear in the next ten months that are superior. Of course, it is Kim Stanley Robinson, who is one of my top SF writers just practicing his art. And, art it is.
Aurora tells the story of the voyage of a generation ship that is headed toward Tau Ceti, with several thousand humans aboard. The novel begins when the ship approaches Tau Ceti, some one hundred and sixty years, and seven generations, after it left Earth. Their mission is to plant a self-sustaining colony on one of the moons, which they have named Aurora, in the Tau Ceti solar system
While others may disagree with me, the generation ship is actually the main character. I think this way because the main plot involves the necessity of the survival of the generation ship, with a subplot about the slow growth of consciousness or self-awareness in a machine-based intelligence. In addition, the ship's AI is the narrator of the novel.
The humans in the ship have two main problems to resolve: one is the survival of the ship, which is slowly breaking down after one hundred and sixty plus years and the other is the need to maintain control over the human population which has known no other life than that confined to the ship. If the humans can't live together relatively harmoniously, then all are doomed. This turns out to be one of the many crises faced by the colonists, and it is resolved in a rather surprising (and potentially frightening) manner.
Kim Stanley Robinson must have done an incredible amount of research into the physical creation of the generation ship, along with the possible threats to the integrity of the ship from various chemical, biological, and mechanical sources.
He has also created a number of separate habitats, or biomes, each with its own climate, soil, and life forms. Part of the problem facing the ship's crew is maintaining those biomes, for they contain a myriad of living organisms, which must work together as they do here on Earth. And, those organisms are not static--they do evolve over time and not necessarily at the same rate, which poses additional problems.
Robinson also speculates on the psychological and emotional effects of life within a closed environment. Moreover, he asks a moral or ethical question I have never encountered in any generation ship story before, and to be honest, I have never asked this question myself. The first generation are volunteers, but the second? third? and so on. They were never asked whether they wanted to live this way. Is this a form of child abuse?
Rather surprisingly for an SF novel, near the end of the work one of the human colonists gives a speech in which he insists we will never be able to leave the solar system and successfully plant human colonies elsewhere, even in our own galaxy, much less anywhere else. He maintains this is impossible and provides a very strong argument in support. The opposing argument relies mainly on emotional issues.
This may be true today, but in the future? I was reminded of Clarke's First Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." There are also numerous examples of scientists who first declared that it was impossible for a ship to leave the planet and others who argued we could never even reach the moon, much less land on it.
What is Robinson doing here? Is he really arguing against space travel and the possibility of living on other planets? This seems strange considering that his Mars trilogy, "RGB Mars" goes into such great detail about terraforming Mars. I wonder if, however, he is really arguing with a theme that seems prevalent in many SF stories today--that we have ruined Earth and our only hope is to go somewhere else. Perhaps Robinson is really saying that we should be concerned now with protecting the environment so that future generations won't have to leave in order for the human race to survive.
This is a must-read for all who see SF as something more than sheer and mere entertainment. There are ideas here to think about, which is true of all of Kim Stanley Robinson's works.
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Robert Silverberg: Downward to the Earth
Robert Silverberg
Downward to the Earth, Second Edition
Published in 1970, this one somehow escaped me at that time. It's one of his best. It's the tale of a man, Edmund Gunderson, who returns to the planet where he was a colonial supervisor when the earth government decided the local species was intelligent. Therefore, the Company (always an evil company here) had to leave the planet.
Gunderson has several reasons for his return. One is that he feels guilty for his mistreatment of the nildoror, the sentient indigenous inhabitants who look a lot like elephants, and there's more to them than their size. Another is his interest in the rumors that the nildoror undergo a rebirth at some time during their life span, and he wishes to find out more about that. In addition, he also plans on searching for friends of his, one of whom is Seena, whom Gunderson had been in love with. Another is Kurtz, who also stayed behind.
In order to accomplish these tasks, he must travel alongside a river deep into the heart of the continent where few Earth people have gone, and perhaps into areas where no Earth people have ever gone. Readers familiar with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness will recognize a number of elements here.
One of these elements, of course, is the long journey into a jungle that is dark, dangerous, mysterious, and brooding. A second is that one of the goals is to find Kurtz, which is the major reason for the journey in Heart of Darkness. A third element involves the mistreatment of the indigenous population by a large corporation. Another is the depiction of the nildoror which is far more sympathetic than the portrayal of the Earth people. Yet one more is a scene in Chapter Two which faintly echoes an early scene from Heart of Darkness, and in both, the people have just left the ship (sea and space types) and are heading for the village.
The path widened to become a clearing. Up ahead, one of the tourist women pointed into the bush; her husband shrugged and shook his head. When Gunderson reached that place he saw what was bothering them. Black shapes crouched beneath the trees, and dark figures were moving slowly to and fro. They were barely visible in the shadows.
Those, we learn, are the Sulidoror. Just who they are and what they are and what their relationship to the nildoror is remains another mystery Gunderson hopes to solve.
I also see some elements here that remind me of Dante's Divine Comedy, but it may be another example of my penchant for over-reading. Most others in the discussion group didn't see it, so either it isn't there, or I did an inadequate job of pointing out what I saw.
Gunderson's trip upriver, although he follows the river, but seldom travels on it, can be broken into three parts. The first is hell, a hot, steaming jungle, populated by various dangerous beasts--death is everywhere. I find this to be an echo of Dante's Inferno.
Once Gunderson escapes the jungle, he moves into the highlands which are much safer and the climate is more temperate. It is cooler, misty, with sparse vegetation. There is little danger there, and it becomes a time for reflection and enlightenment, as he moves closer to the rumored land of rebirth. This suggests Dante's Purgatorio to me. Gunderson has avoided death in the jungle and now is on his way to his ultimate goal.
The place of rebirth is the peak, the goal of Gunderson's journey, just as Paradiso, or heaven was Dante's goal, as it is for all Christians. And, just as there is in the Christian tradition, there is the judgement which Gunderson must undergo at the time of rebirth. What one becomes is determined by the life one has led.
This is only a brief summary of the work, and I haven't mentioned anything about Gunderson's meeting with Kurtz nor about Gunderson's lost love who stayed behind with Kurtz.
It's a fascinating work, with an interesting introduction by Silverberg and with some very interesting aliens. Those seeking this book should be careful and get the second edition. The first edition does not include Silverberg's introduction nor the map of Gunderson's journey.
I definitely need to do a reread on this one.
Downward to the Earth, Second Edition
Published in 1970, this one somehow escaped me at that time. It's one of his best. It's the tale of a man, Edmund Gunderson, who returns to the planet where he was a colonial supervisor when the earth government decided the local species was intelligent. Therefore, the Company (always an evil company here) had to leave the planet.
Gunderson has several reasons for his return. One is that he feels guilty for his mistreatment of the nildoror, the sentient indigenous inhabitants who look a lot like elephants, and there's more to them than their size. Another is his interest in the rumors that the nildoror undergo a rebirth at some time during their life span, and he wishes to find out more about that. In addition, he also plans on searching for friends of his, one of whom is Seena, whom Gunderson had been in love with. Another is Kurtz, who also stayed behind.
In order to accomplish these tasks, he must travel alongside a river deep into the heart of the continent where few Earth people have gone, and perhaps into areas where no Earth people have ever gone. Readers familiar with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness will recognize a number of elements here.
One of these elements, of course, is the long journey into a jungle that is dark, dangerous, mysterious, and brooding. A second is that one of the goals is to find Kurtz, which is the major reason for the journey in Heart of Darkness. A third element involves the mistreatment of the indigenous population by a large corporation. Another is the depiction of the nildoror which is far more sympathetic than the portrayal of the Earth people. Yet one more is a scene in Chapter Two which faintly echoes an early scene from Heart of Darkness, and in both, the people have just left the ship (sea and space types) and are heading for the village.
The path widened to become a clearing. Up ahead, one of the tourist women pointed into the bush; her husband shrugged and shook his head. When Gunderson reached that place he saw what was bothering them. Black shapes crouched beneath the trees, and dark figures were moving slowly to and fro. They were barely visible in the shadows.
Those, we learn, are the Sulidoror. Just who they are and what they are and what their relationship to the nildoror is remains another mystery Gunderson hopes to solve.
I also see some elements here that remind me of Dante's Divine Comedy, but it may be another example of my penchant for over-reading. Most others in the discussion group didn't see it, so either it isn't there, or I did an inadequate job of pointing out what I saw.
Gunderson's trip upriver, although he follows the river, but seldom travels on it, can be broken into three parts. The first is hell, a hot, steaming jungle, populated by various dangerous beasts--death is everywhere. I find this to be an echo of Dante's Inferno.
Once Gunderson escapes the jungle, he moves into the highlands which are much safer and the climate is more temperate. It is cooler, misty, with sparse vegetation. There is little danger there, and it becomes a time for reflection and enlightenment, as he moves closer to the rumored land of rebirth. This suggests Dante's Purgatorio to me. Gunderson has avoided death in the jungle and now is on his way to his ultimate goal.
The place of rebirth is the peak, the goal of Gunderson's journey, just as Paradiso, or heaven was Dante's goal, as it is for all Christians. And, just as there is in the Christian tradition, there is the judgement which Gunderson must undergo at the time of rebirth. What one becomes is determined by the life one has led.
This is only a brief summary of the work, and I haven't mentioned anything about Gunderson's meeting with Kurtz nor about Gunderson's lost love who stayed behind with Kurtz.
It's a fascinating work, with an interesting introduction by Silverberg and with some very interesting aliens. Those seeking this book should be careful and get the second edition. The first edition does not include Silverberg's introduction nor the map of Gunderson's journey.
I definitely need to do a reread on this one.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Felix Gilman: The Half-made World
Felix Gilman: The Half-made World
This is the first book I've read by Gilman, and it's a great advertisement for joining book discussion groups. I probably never would have read this except that it was a selection by an SF book group that I belong to. I was sufficiently impressed to look for the second book set in this universe which apparently focuses on a character mentioned only briefly in The Half-made World.
The characters are mostly humans, with a few demons around (or so they are referred to in the novel) and a sentient race that is now in decline as a result of human interference, either inadvertent or deliberate or both. Little is told of either the demons or the Hill People so far, but that may change in later novels.
There are three narrative threads. One follows the adventures of Liv Aylverhuysen, a psychologist who specializes in working with victims of brain trauma. She has volunteered to leave her hospital for a remote clinic, the House Dolorous, which is in a neutral zone between two warring factions: The Line and The Gun. She is a neutral in the war, and, therefore, she feels she will not become involved in the war. She is wrong, of course.
The second narrative thread follows Lowry, an employee of The Line, one of the two contending forces on this world, which is probably best described as corporate capitalism as seen by its enemies. Its primary symbol is the train, which is inhabited by a controlling demon that is in contact with thirty or more other trains, also controlled by demons. Decisions are made through group consultation involving all of the engines/demons. The scenes describing the areas controlled by the Line are horrific and seem to be based on the worst portrayals of late 19th and early 20th century workshops, sweatshops, and factories.
Lowry is searching for a general of the Republic who was mindwiped in a battle years ago. He is looking for him because of rumors that the general had known of a weapon that could defeat the Line. The Line, by the way, is slowly winning the war. Lowry's task is to determine if there is such a weapon and to prevent any others, especially the agents of the Gun, from discovering the nature of the weapon. Killing the general is considered the optimal solution.
The Line's enemy is the Gun, and just what they are is hard to characterize, except that they are opposed to the Line. Perhaps they are a symbol of individual freedom, perhaps even of anarchy, and their symbol is the Gun which is carried by each of the agents of the Gun. The Gun, like the train, is also inhabited by a demon, and like The Line, the Gun is seen through the eyes of its enemies, the Line. This novel will never reach the NRA top ten favorites list, for here Guns do kill people. And, to a considerable extent they control their agents, through pain if necessary. However, they do make the agent faster, stronger, and more agile than normal, and the demons have miraculous healing powers that make it extremely difficult, but not impossible, to kill an agent.
John Creedmoor is an agent of the Gun, and his half-hearted adherence to the Gun is his only saving grace. He has been sent to abduct the general and learn the secret of the weapon. If he can't learn the secret or if the Line gets the general first, he is to kill the general. Creedmoor is marginally more human than Lowry, but his reluctance to really make the effort to break free keeps him under the control of the Gun. Where he is a reluctant and obstinate agent of the Gun, Lowry is an enthusiastic supporter of the Line.
The Gun, like the Line, has little concern for collateral damage and will kill bystanders and non-combatants if necessary. There really is little to choose between them, although I must admit a slight preference for the Gun, if I had to make a choice.
As you can see, the three narrative threads will meet and meld at the House Dolorous.
I mentioned the Republic briefly above. The Republic was destroyed by the Line, I gather, though I'm not certain about that. If the Line and the Gun are the bad guys, then the Republic was the good guy. It appeared to be a much freer society and less harmful to its citizens than the Line and provided a rational rule of law in opposition to rule of the Gun.
But, there is more to this novel than what I have mentioned above. The Prologue is titled "How the General Died - 1878 - " That I presume is a year, and, while the planet doesn't seem to be Earth, Gilman has borrowed several elements from Earth history, more specifically US history, and transmuted them into this tale--perhaps an allegory.
To begin, "1878" is during that period US historians frequently call "The Closing of the Frontier" or "The Settling of the West." The transcontinental railroad, begun during the American Civil War, was finally completed in 1869, nine years earlier, just as the Line's railway is expanding during its war with the Gun. Also in 1878, the Lincoln County (New Mexico territory) war took place, featuring the West's most famous gunfighter, Billy the Kid. In addition, the railroad finally linked the territory of New Mexico to the rest of the country in 1878.
In the novel, the Line is expanding its territory through the use of the train. While the coming of the railroad was hailed by many as the link to civilization and increased freedom of movement and communication on our planet, Gilman has transformed the arrival of the railroad to a scene of horror as the railroad employees subjugate the townspeople and force them into slave labor and a life of grey drudgery. As a side note, it should be mentioned that employees of the Line wear grey suits.
The Republic, briefly mentioned above, might be the US during the late 19th and 20th century as it struggled and failed at the end to free its citizens from both corporate slavery and the horrors of the lawless faction.
Also reminiscent of the Old West are the indigenous people known as the Hill People, a humanoid race that was decimated, mostly by the Line or forces of "civilization," as the Line sees itself.
The Line is winning at this time, mainly propelled by its numerical superiority. The sign of the Line moving into a new territory is the arrival of a huge engine, which sounds suspiciously a lot like the arrival of a train as a symbol of civilization.
The nature of the demons has not yet been revealed, and a third type? of demon seems to have adopted the House Dolorous and helps in some ways to protect the House from attack, especially by the Line. It also has some healing function.
The Half-made World is an excellent SF novel, functioning on two levels: the upper level being an action-oriented novel of combat between two opposing forces, The Line (corporate capitalism as seen by its enemies) and The Gun (corporate capitalism's enemies as seen by corporate capitalism). Underneath that is a satiric view of both sides which is set in 1878 and involves the Closing of the West as civilization moves westward, heralded by the arrival of the train, which is a potent and horrific symbol of The Line's domination of people.
There is a sequel, The Rise of Ransom City, and the brief mention of it doesn't give me any clues as to where Gilman is going next. I'm just going to have to read the novel to find out.
This is the first book I've read by Gilman, and it's a great advertisement for joining book discussion groups. I probably never would have read this except that it was a selection by an SF book group that I belong to. I was sufficiently impressed to look for the second book set in this universe which apparently focuses on a character mentioned only briefly in The Half-made World.
The characters are mostly humans, with a few demons around (or so they are referred to in the novel) and a sentient race that is now in decline as a result of human interference, either inadvertent or deliberate or both. Little is told of either the demons or the Hill People so far, but that may change in later novels.
There are three narrative threads. One follows the adventures of Liv Aylverhuysen, a psychologist who specializes in working with victims of brain trauma. She has volunteered to leave her hospital for a remote clinic, the House Dolorous, which is in a neutral zone between two warring factions: The Line and The Gun. She is a neutral in the war, and, therefore, she feels she will not become involved in the war. She is wrong, of course.
The second narrative thread follows Lowry, an employee of The Line, one of the two contending forces on this world, which is probably best described as corporate capitalism as seen by its enemies. Its primary symbol is the train, which is inhabited by a controlling demon that is in contact with thirty or more other trains, also controlled by demons. Decisions are made through group consultation involving all of the engines/demons. The scenes describing the areas controlled by the Line are horrific and seem to be based on the worst portrayals of late 19th and early 20th century workshops, sweatshops, and factories.
Lowry is searching for a general of the Republic who was mindwiped in a battle years ago. He is looking for him because of rumors that the general had known of a weapon that could defeat the Line. The Line, by the way, is slowly winning the war. Lowry's task is to determine if there is such a weapon and to prevent any others, especially the agents of the Gun, from discovering the nature of the weapon. Killing the general is considered the optimal solution.
The Line's enemy is the Gun, and just what they are is hard to characterize, except that they are opposed to the Line. Perhaps they are a symbol of individual freedom, perhaps even of anarchy, and their symbol is the Gun which is carried by each of the agents of the Gun. The Gun, like the train, is also inhabited by a demon, and like The Line, the Gun is seen through the eyes of its enemies, the Line. This novel will never reach the NRA top ten favorites list, for here Guns do kill people. And, to a considerable extent they control their agents, through pain if necessary. However, they do make the agent faster, stronger, and more agile than normal, and the demons have miraculous healing powers that make it extremely difficult, but not impossible, to kill an agent.
John Creedmoor is an agent of the Gun, and his half-hearted adherence to the Gun is his only saving grace. He has been sent to abduct the general and learn the secret of the weapon. If he can't learn the secret or if the Line gets the general first, he is to kill the general. Creedmoor is marginally more human than Lowry, but his reluctance to really make the effort to break free keeps him under the control of the Gun. Where he is a reluctant and obstinate agent of the Gun, Lowry is an enthusiastic supporter of the Line.
The Gun, like the Line, has little concern for collateral damage and will kill bystanders and non-combatants if necessary. There really is little to choose between them, although I must admit a slight preference for the Gun, if I had to make a choice.
As you can see, the three narrative threads will meet and meld at the House Dolorous.
I mentioned the Republic briefly above. The Republic was destroyed by the Line, I gather, though I'm not certain about that. If the Line and the Gun are the bad guys, then the Republic was the good guy. It appeared to be a much freer society and less harmful to its citizens than the Line and provided a rational rule of law in opposition to rule of the Gun.
But, there is more to this novel than what I have mentioned above. The Prologue is titled "How the General Died - 1878 - " That I presume is a year, and, while the planet doesn't seem to be Earth, Gilman has borrowed several elements from Earth history, more specifically US history, and transmuted them into this tale--perhaps an allegory.
To begin, "1878" is during that period US historians frequently call "The Closing of the Frontier" or "The Settling of the West." The transcontinental railroad, begun during the American Civil War, was finally completed in 1869, nine years earlier, just as the Line's railway is expanding during its war with the Gun. Also in 1878, the Lincoln County (New Mexico territory) war took place, featuring the West's most famous gunfighter, Billy the Kid. In addition, the railroad finally linked the territory of New Mexico to the rest of the country in 1878.
In the novel, the Line is expanding its territory through the use of the train. While the coming of the railroad was hailed by many as the link to civilization and increased freedom of movement and communication on our planet, Gilman has transformed the arrival of the railroad to a scene of horror as the railroad employees subjugate the townspeople and force them into slave labor and a life of grey drudgery. As a side note, it should be mentioned that employees of the Line wear grey suits.
The Republic, briefly mentioned above, might be the US during the late 19th and 20th century as it struggled and failed at the end to free its citizens from both corporate slavery and the horrors of the lawless faction.
Also reminiscent of the Old West are the indigenous people known as the Hill People, a humanoid race that was decimated, mostly by the Line or forces of "civilization," as the Line sees itself.
The Line is winning at this time, mainly propelled by its numerical superiority. The sign of the Line moving into a new territory is the arrival of a huge engine, which sounds suspiciously a lot like the arrival of a train as a symbol of civilization.
The nature of the demons has not yet been revealed, and a third type? of demon seems to have adopted the House Dolorous and helps in some ways to protect the House from attack, especially by the Line. It also has some healing function.
The Half-made World is an excellent SF novel, functioning on two levels: the upper level being an action-oriented novel of combat between two opposing forces, The Line (corporate capitalism as seen by its enemies) and The Gun (corporate capitalism's enemies as seen by corporate capitalism). Underneath that is a satiric view of both sides which is set in 1878 and involves the Closing of the West as civilization moves westward, heralded by the arrival of the train, which is a potent and horrific symbol of The Line's domination of people.
There is a sequel, The Rise of Ransom City, and the brief mention of it doesn't give me any clues as to where Gilman is going next. I'm just going to have to read the novel to find out.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
China Mieville: Railsea
China Mieville
Railsea.
Railsea is certainly one of his most straightforward and least complex novels, and has that YA feel to it. But, what is unusual for a Mieville work, at least for the ones I've read, is that this one cries out for a sequel. Not that this episode doesn't conclude successfully, but it strikes me as really being the first in a series, at least a trilogy anyway. And, somewhere down the line, I can see a prequel coming.
Mieville has created a fascinating concept--a part of the world (Earth?) is almost covered with railroad tracks, especially the soft and non-rocky areas. It is dangerous to walk where there's dirt because underground are all sorts of carnivores--large hungry carnivores with fangs. Towns are build on the rocky places, much like islands in the sea, the sea of railroad tracks and soft soil. It's some sort of a post-holocaust world.
Sham, the main character, is a young man who works on a moletrain, which goes out hunting for the huge moles--think whales and transfer their behavior to living underground rather than underwater. Other trains are made up of merchants, salvage parties, pirates, war trains (war ships). . .
The captain of the train our hero is on has a prosthetic arm which she lost to a great grey mole, and now she's obsessed with killing Mocker-Jack. Part of the fun of this novel is picking out the scenes that echo Moby Dick, and there are several, including one nightmarish butchery scene when a huge mole is killed (See Moby Dick).
Railsea is not unique though in paying homage to Moby Dick. I think Bruce Sterling's almost forgotten Involution Ocean should be seen as a descendent of Moby Dick, where on the planet Nullaqua (no water), the great dustwhales plow through a sea of finely ground silica on top of which sailing ships pursue them for Flare, a highly addictive narcotic. (link to my post regarding Involution Ocean http://tinyurl.com/omjbbym). And this of course must bring to mind Arrakis or Dune, where the drug Spice could only be found as it was a mixture of the excretions of the sandworms and water.
If Mieville desires, he has plenty of room for prequels and sequels, as very little is presented about how the world got to be this way. And, while this episode is successfully ended, there is no clue as to what will happen to the train or the crew for little is known about what most of the world is like.
Railsea.
Railsea is certainly one of his most straightforward and least complex novels, and has that YA feel to it. But, what is unusual for a Mieville work, at least for the ones I've read, is that this one cries out for a sequel. Not that this episode doesn't conclude successfully, but it strikes me as really being the first in a series, at least a trilogy anyway. And, somewhere down the line, I can see a prequel coming.
Mieville has created a fascinating concept--a part of the world (Earth?) is almost covered with railroad tracks, especially the soft and non-rocky areas. It is dangerous to walk where there's dirt because underground are all sorts of carnivores--large hungry carnivores with fangs. Towns are build on the rocky places, much like islands in the sea, the sea of railroad tracks and soft soil. It's some sort of a post-holocaust world.
Sham, the main character, is a young man who works on a moletrain, which goes out hunting for the huge moles--think whales and transfer their behavior to living underground rather than underwater. Other trains are made up of merchants, salvage parties, pirates, war trains (war ships). . .
The captain of the train our hero is on has a prosthetic arm which she lost to a great grey mole, and now she's obsessed with killing Mocker-Jack. Part of the fun of this novel is picking out the scenes that echo Moby Dick, and there are several, including one nightmarish butchery scene when a huge mole is killed (See Moby Dick).
Railsea is not unique though in paying homage to Moby Dick. I think Bruce Sterling's almost forgotten Involution Ocean should be seen as a descendent of Moby Dick, where on the planet Nullaqua (no water), the great dustwhales plow through a sea of finely ground silica on top of which sailing ships pursue them for Flare, a highly addictive narcotic. (link to my post regarding Involution Ocean http://tinyurl.com/omjbbym). And this of course must bring to mind Arrakis or Dune, where the drug Spice could only be found as it was a mixture of the excretions of the sandworms and water.
If Mieville desires, he has plenty of room for prequels and sequels, as very little is presented about how the world got to be this way. And, while this episode is successfully ended, there is no clue as to what will happen to the train or the crew for little is known about what most of the world is like.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Gene Wolfe's NIGHTSIDE THE LONG SUN--First impressions
Gene Wolfe
Nightside the Long Sun
I've finally managed to get to the book and am now in Chapter 4. These are some random impressions based on the early chapters.
This reminds me of Wolfe's earlier series, The Book of the New Sun. It's the language that conveys this impression. It is archaic and very formal, with many foreign and obscure English words.
I find myself heading for the dictionary or search function on the browser. Just now I discovered, after a number of tries (the usual response was "no such word" while the others directed me to Gene Wolfe's novels), the following definition for manteion. And, it appears to be Greek.
Manteion: "An oracle; either a person or a shrine but usually a title denoting a prophet and reader of the omens of sacrifice. "
The story is illustrative of the role of the augur: "he does not predict what course of action should be taken, but through his augury he finds signs on whether or not a course already decided upon meets with divine sanction and should proceed."
Patera Silk is an auger; in the story he is one who reads the will of the gods by studying the entrails of sacrificed animals. It appears as though the term in the far future has become confused with another term--haruspex--for augers observe and interpret the flight of birds while a haruspex is the one who interprets from the entrails of sacrificed animals. Both augur and haruspex go back to the days of the Roman Empire.
As in his earlier series, Wolfe loves to show us how history and myth and legend become confused and intertwined over long periods of time.
The Christian Sign of the Cross has now become the addition sign that Patera Silk makes.
patera probably comes from the latin "pater" which means father.
Our Father--pater noster
Pater Silk, so far, appears to be a variation of the Holy Fool, an innocent who understands little of the world about him, but is blessed with almost divine wisdom in understanding the hearts of others.
That he is first seen as playing with children is indicative of the type of person he is. He is a strange mix of a Christian minister or priest and teacher and a Roman official who reads the will of the gods in bird flight and the entrails of sacrificial animals--two very contradictory actions.
Nightside the Long Sun
I've finally managed to get to the book and am now in Chapter 4. These are some random impressions based on the early chapters.
This reminds me of Wolfe's earlier series, The Book of the New Sun. It's the language that conveys this impression. It is archaic and very formal, with many foreign and obscure English words.
I find myself heading for the dictionary or search function on the browser. Just now I discovered, after a number of tries (the usual response was "no such word" while the others directed me to Gene Wolfe's novels), the following definition for manteion. And, it appears to be Greek.
Manteion: "An oracle; either a person or a shrine but usually a title denoting a prophet and reader of the omens of sacrifice. "
The story is illustrative of the role of the augur: "he does not predict what course of action should be taken, but through his augury he finds signs on whether or not a course already decided upon meets with divine sanction and should proceed."
Patera Silk is an auger; in the story he is one who reads the will of the gods by studying the entrails of sacrificed animals. It appears as though the term in the far future has become confused with another term--haruspex--for augers observe and interpret the flight of birds while a haruspex is the one who interprets from the entrails of sacrificed animals. Both augur and haruspex go back to the days of the Roman Empire.
As in his earlier series, Wolfe loves to show us how history and myth and legend become confused and intertwined over long periods of time.
The Christian Sign of the Cross has now become the addition sign that Patera Silk makes.
patera probably comes from the latin "pater" which means father.
Our Father--pater noster
Pater Silk, so far, appears to be a variation of the Holy Fool, an innocent who understands little of the world about him, but is blessed with almost divine wisdom in understanding the hearts of others.
That he is first seen as playing with children is indicative of the type of person he is. He is a strange mix of a Christian minister or priest and teacher and a Roman official who reads the will of the gods in bird flight and the entrails of sacrificial animals--two very contradictory actions.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Colin Wilson: THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE, an SF novel
Colin Wilson
The Philosopher's Stone
PART ONE
The Quest of the Absolute
I was reading a book on music by Ralph Vaughan Williams the other day, while listening to a gramophone record of his remarkable Fifth Symphony, when I came across the following remark: 'I have struggled all my life to conquer amateurish technique, and now that perhaps I have mastered it, it seems too late to make any use of it.' I found myself moved almost to tears by the poignancy of those words of a great musician. Admittedly, he was eighty-six when he died, but for practical purposes--the value of the music he wrote in his last years--it might well have been twenty years earlier. And I found myself thinking: Supposing by some fluke, Vaughan Williams had lived another twenty-five years . . . or supposing he had been born a quarter of a century later. Could I have passed on to him what I now know, so that he might still be alive and writing great music? . . .
It was this train of thought that decided me to tell the story of my discovery exactly as it happened. In doing so, I break my own vow of secrecy; but I shall see that the account is withheld from those whom it might harm--that is to say, from most of the human race. It should exist, even if it never leaves a bank vault. The carbon copy of memory grows thinner year by year.
It's hard to decide whether to call this a two-part novel or two novels (the second being a sequel) between the same covers. It's only 300 plus pages, but it's small print and much of which is narrative, which can provide far more information in a short space than dialogue. The strange turn occurs about two-thirds of the way into the book.
--------
The following is taken from the Wikipedia entry on "the philosopher's stone."
"The philosophers' stone or stone of the philosophers is a legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals such as lead into gold or silver. It was also sometimes believed to be an elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and possibly for achieving immorality. For many centuries, it was the most sought-after goal in alchemy. The philosophers' stone was the central symbol of the mystical terminology of alchemy, symbolizing perfection at its finest, enlightenment, and heavenly bliss. Efforts to discover the philosophers' stone were known as the Magnum Opus ("Great Work")."
The title is quite apt as the novel is an autobiographical account of the narrator's (first person narrative) details the results of his lifelong attempts to discover the means of increasing the life span of humans. He has noted that many of the greatest writers and composers have lived far longer than the average person and attempts to discover whether their genius is the result of a long lifespan or conversely, their long life span is somehow connected to their genius.
The first part of the novel is an extensive portrait of the narrator's life and the various experiments and theoretical considerations that he worked his way through in his attempt to discover ways of further developing human thinking and consciousness. Wilson has obviously done considerable research for this part of the novel, for I recognize many of the concepts from various psychology courses that I had taken many years ago. Eventually, as it happens so often in science, the breakthrough was made completely by accident.
The second part concentrates on the process of determining just what his new powers are and how to use them. The breakthrough comes from an experiment that initially involved inserting a small probe into a part of the brain. In one experiment, a minute piece of a metal breaks off and remains embedded in the cortex of the subject. This results in changes in the person's thinking and behavior. Eventually, the narrator tries the experiment on himself and begins an extended process of studying the changes occurring in himself.
The narrator discovers that his expanded consciousness and ability to focus allows him to detect details about objects that normally go unnoticed. In short, he can take an object and "see" its past history to a far greater extent than was considered possible. It is this new ability that is responsible for the sudden change in the novel. The effect of this is quite startling, and it turns the novel into a totally unexpected (unexpected by me, anyway) direction.
One example given occurs when he looks at a print of Goethe, Werner, and Napoleon. After studying it for a short time, he is able to see the scene as the sketch for the print is being made. It is in a large ballroom and he can see the three principles in the print and even hear the music.
Shortly after this, he is shown a figurine that comes from a sacrificial well in Mexico. His expanded powers of observation tell him that this comes from a period long before any human civilization, at least a half million years before this. He begins to study mythology, since there is no archeological or anthropological evidence. Eventually he stumbles across The Secrets of Atlantis, by Gabriel Guenon, who apparently really existed. There are references to a book with that title, but, according to The H. P. Lovecraft Archive web page, the book can not now be located.
In the book, Guenon supposedly states that H. P. Lovecraft had written a number of stories about "the Ancient Old Ones [who] had come from the stars, and once dominated the earth. . ." It is at this point that the narrator discovers that there are forces that are attempting to prevent any further research into this topic and seemingly are willing to do anything to stop him.
This is not an easy book to read. It, again, is one of those books that one settles down with over a period of several nights and concentrates solely on it. It was first published in 1969, but it has a very distinctly older ambiance about it. I'm reminded of works by Jules Verne by it or a more recent novel which I commented on a short time ago--Franz Werfel's Star of the Unborn.
The Philosopher's Stone
PART ONE
The Quest of the Absolute
I was reading a book on music by Ralph Vaughan Williams the other day, while listening to a gramophone record of his remarkable Fifth Symphony, when I came across the following remark: 'I have struggled all my life to conquer amateurish technique, and now that perhaps I have mastered it, it seems too late to make any use of it.' I found myself moved almost to tears by the poignancy of those words of a great musician. Admittedly, he was eighty-six when he died, but for practical purposes--the value of the music he wrote in his last years--it might well have been twenty years earlier. And I found myself thinking: Supposing by some fluke, Vaughan Williams had lived another twenty-five years . . . or supposing he had been born a quarter of a century later. Could I have passed on to him what I now know, so that he might still be alive and writing great music? . . .
It was this train of thought that decided me to tell the story of my discovery exactly as it happened. In doing so, I break my own vow of secrecy; but I shall see that the account is withheld from those whom it might harm--that is to say, from most of the human race. It should exist, even if it never leaves a bank vault. The carbon copy of memory grows thinner year by year.
It's hard to decide whether to call this a two-part novel or two novels (the second being a sequel) between the same covers. It's only 300 plus pages, but it's small print and much of which is narrative, which can provide far more information in a short space than dialogue. The strange turn occurs about two-thirds of the way into the book.
--------
The following is taken from the Wikipedia entry on "the philosopher's stone."
"The philosophers' stone or stone of the philosophers is a legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals such as lead into gold or silver. It was also sometimes believed to be an elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and possibly for achieving immorality. For many centuries, it was the most sought-after goal in alchemy. The philosophers' stone was the central symbol of the mystical terminology of alchemy, symbolizing perfection at its finest, enlightenment, and heavenly bliss. Efforts to discover the philosophers' stone were known as the Magnum Opus ("Great Work")."
The title is quite apt as the novel is an autobiographical account of the narrator's (first person narrative) details the results of his lifelong attempts to discover the means of increasing the life span of humans. He has noted that many of the greatest writers and composers have lived far longer than the average person and attempts to discover whether their genius is the result of a long lifespan or conversely, their long life span is somehow connected to their genius.
The first part of the novel is an extensive portrait of the narrator's life and the various experiments and theoretical considerations that he worked his way through in his attempt to discover ways of further developing human thinking and consciousness. Wilson has obviously done considerable research for this part of the novel, for I recognize many of the concepts from various psychology courses that I had taken many years ago. Eventually, as it happens so often in science, the breakthrough was made completely by accident.
The second part concentrates on the process of determining just what his new powers are and how to use them. The breakthrough comes from an experiment that initially involved inserting a small probe into a part of the brain. In one experiment, a minute piece of a metal breaks off and remains embedded in the cortex of the subject. This results in changes in the person's thinking and behavior. Eventually, the narrator tries the experiment on himself and begins an extended process of studying the changes occurring in himself.
The narrator discovers that his expanded consciousness and ability to focus allows him to detect details about objects that normally go unnoticed. In short, he can take an object and "see" its past history to a far greater extent than was considered possible. It is this new ability that is responsible for the sudden change in the novel. The effect of this is quite startling, and it turns the novel into a totally unexpected (unexpected by me, anyway) direction.
One example given occurs when he looks at a print of Goethe, Werner, and Napoleon. After studying it for a short time, he is able to see the scene as the sketch for the print is being made. It is in a large ballroom and he can see the three principles in the print and even hear the music.
Shortly after this, he is shown a figurine that comes from a sacrificial well in Mexico. His expanded powers of observation tell him that this comes from a period long before any human civilization, at least a half million years before this. He begins to study mythology, since there is no archeological or anthropological evidence. Eventually he stumbles across The Secrets of Atlantis, by Gabriel Guenon, who apparently really existed. There are references to a book with that title, but, according to The H. P. Lovecraft Archive web page, the book can not now be located.
In the book, Guenon supposedly states that H. P. Lovecraft had written a number of stories about "the Ancient Old Ones [who] had come from the stars, and once dominated the earth. . ." It is at this point that the narrator discovers that there are forces that are attempting to prevent any further research into this topic and seemingly are willing to do anything to stop him.
This is not an easy book to read. It, again, is one of those books that one settles down with over a period of several nights and concentrates solely on it. It was first published in 1969, but it has a very distinctly older ambiance about it. I'm reminded of works by Jules Verne by it or a more recent novel which I commented on a short time ago--Franz Werfel's Star of the Unborn.
Monday, July 21, 2014
David Brin: EXISTENCE, an SF novel of the near future
David Brin
Existence
This is, as far as I can tell, Brin's latest novel, and it's a hefty one at some five hundred and fifty+ pages. As he did with an earlier work, Earth, Brin set it on Earth in the near future, the mid 2050's probably and used the multiple narrative structure following a number of people. This does distance the reader from identifying closely with any one character, but it does allow for a better overall impression of the world at that time.
Existence needs to be a large book for it explores a number of themes, disparate on the surface, yet Brin manages to interweave a fascinating tale with them. Existence, first of all, is a first contact novel, but not with just one alien, but with a wide variety of species. It is also a very dangerous crowd that comes visiting, for if nothing is done, civilization will be destroyed and humanity itself will bring it about. It's an insidious attack, well-meaning in its intent, yet humanity will be doomed unless it resists the invasion.
The Information Age is another theme. Here is a theme that I recognize as being a frequent topic on Brin's blog Contrary Brin --specifically the right to privacy and access to information. In essence, it appears to me that Brin believes that the issue of privacy is dead. There is too much information out there and generally speaking, today, only the privileged few have access to it, as well as governments, large corporations and powerful special interest groups.
Alvin Toffler wrote Power Shift in 1970 and posited that land, labor, and capital would no longer be the major sources of power in the 21st century: it would be information. In this novel, Toffler's prediction comes true. Brin argues that the solution to the problem of information control is to make access to information available to everybody. In Existence we see several people who are "outsiders" become important because they take advantage of the free flow of information. It isn't perfect yet, but they have better access than we do today, and they know how to use it.
Project Uplift appears at a very early stage. In fact, the process of "uplifting" dolphins and chimps has halted for lack of funding. As usual, governments are playing their usual game of getting enthusiastic about a project because a particular party is in power. When the opposition gains control, the funding stops, regardless of its value. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
This is a big, sprawling novel with a variety of major characters ranging from a reporter so badly damaged that she must live in a mobile metal cylinder; a Chinese man who makes his living scavenging homes flooded out by the rising sea level; a rich, young man who rents small shuttle craft to go into near Earth space; and an astronaut who gets into space because he is hired to clean out all the debris and garbage in orbit around earth. And, of course, there are the aliens who didn't come to destroy or even conquer Earth. They have come to spread the Good News.
This is not a book that can be read in short ten to fifteen minute segments. You have to turn off the TV and all the other distractions and settle down with this one. It's worth it.
Existence
This is, as far as I can tell, Brin's latest novel, and it's a hefty one at some five hundred and fifty+ pages. As he did with an earlier work, Earth, Brin set it on Earth in the near future, the mid 2050's probably and used the multiple narrative structure following a number of people. This does distance the reader from identifying closely with any one character, but it does allow for a better overall impression of the world at that time.
Existence needs to be a large book for it explores a number of themes, disparate on the surface, yet Brin manages to interweave a fascinating tale with them. Existence, first of all, is a first contact novel, but not with just one alien, but with a wide variety of species. It is also a very dangerous crowd that comes visiting, for if nothing is done, civilization will be destroyed and humanity itself will bring it about. It's an insidious attack, well-meaning in its intent, yet humanity will be doomed unless it resists the invasion.
The Information Age is another theme. Here is a theme that I recognize as being a frequent topic on Brin's blog Contrary Brin --specifically the right to privacy and access to information. In essence, it appears to me that Brin believes that the issue of privacy is dead. There is too much information out there and generally speaking, today, only the privileged few have access to it, as well as governments, large corporations and powerful special interest groups.
Alvin Toffler wrote Power Shift in 1970 and posited that land, labor, and capital would no longer be the major sources of power in the 21st century: it would be information. In this novel, Toffler's prediction comes true. Brin argues that the solution to the problem of information control is to make access to information available to everybody. In Existence we see several people who are "outsiders" become important because they take advantage of the free flow of information. It isn't perfect yet, but they have better access than we do today, and they know how to use it.
Project Uplift appears at a very early stage. In fact, the process of "uplifting" dolphins and chimps has halted for lack of funding. As usual, governments are playing their usual game of getting enthusiastic about a project because a particular party is in power. When the opposition gains control, the funding stops, regardless of its value. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
This is a big, sprawling novel with a variety of major characters ranging from a reporter so badly damaged that she must live in a mobile metal cylinder; a Chinese man who makes his living scavenging homes flooded out by the rising sea level; a rich, young man who rents small shuttle craft to go into near Earth space; and an astronaut who gets into space because he is hired to clean out all the debris and garbage in orbit around earth. And, of course, there are the aliens who didn't come to destroy or even conquer Earth. They have come to spread the Good News.
This is not a book that can be read in short ten to fifteen minute segments. You have to turn off the TV and all the other distractions and settle down with this one. It's worth it.
Monday, June 9, 2014
David Brin: EXISTENCE, an excerpt
David Brin
Existence
SF novel, 553 pages
I'm in the midst of reading a remarkable SF novel by David Brin. I've always enjoyed his previous works, but this one is something special. I never thought he would be able to match his earlier ground-breaking novel, Earth, but he has not only matched it, but I think he has gone a step or two beyond with Existence. I haven't finished it yet, so I won't comment any more, but I do want to provide this brief excerpt from the novel.
Hamish, a writer and one of many characters, is reminiscing:
"50
DIVINATION
The art that I practice is the only true form of magic.
It had taken Hamish years to realize this consciously, though he must have suspected it as a child, while devouring fantasy novels and playing whatever interactive game had the best narrative storyline. Later, at university and grad school, even while diligently studying the ornate laws and incantations of science, something had always struck him as wrong about the whole endeavor.
No, wrong wasn't the word. Sterile. Or dry, or pallid . . . that is, compared to worlds of fiction and belief.
Then, while playing hooky one day from biomedical research, escaping into the vast realm of a little novel, he found a clue to his dilemma, in a passage written by the author, Tom Robbins.
Science gives man what he needs.
But magic gives him what he wants.
A gross oversimplification? Sure, Yet, Hamish instantly recognized the important distinction he'd been floundering toward.
For all its beauty, honesty, and effectiveness at improving the human condition, science demands a terrible price--that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not. It's about consensus and teamwork and respectful critical argument, working with, and through, natural law. It requires that we utter, frequently, those hateful words--'I might be wrong.'
On the other hand, magic is what happens when we convince ourselves something is, even when it isn't. Subjective Truth, winning over mere objective fact. The Will, triumphing over all else. No wonder, even after the cornucopia of wealth and knowledge engendered by science, magic remains more popular, more embedded in the human heart.
Whether you labeled it faith, or self-delusion, or fantasy, or outright lying--Hamish recognized the species' greatest talent, a calling that spanned all cultures and times, appearing far more often, in far more tribes, than dispassionate reason! Combine it with enough ardent wanting, and the brew might succor you through the harshest times, even periods of utter despair.
That was what Hamish got from the best yarns, spun by master storytellers. A temporary, willing belief that he could inhabit another world, bound by different rules. Better rules than the dry clockwork rhythms of this one."
Whether this represents Brin's own thinking or is simply part of the creative process of constructing a character is up for you to decide, if you choose to read the novel.
I think, though, that there are hints or clues here to the present time, with all the conflict and partisan fighting going on all over the world, and right here at home. Those who fear and hate the inexorable changes that seem to overwhelm all are in a state of denial. Magic gives them what they want.
If there is anything that characterizes science for me, it is the following, idealized though it may be:
For all its beauty, honesty, and effectiveness at improving the human condition, science demands a terrible price--that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not. It's about consensus and teamwork and respectful critical argument, working with, and through, natural law. It requires that we utter, frequently, those hateful words--'I might be wrong.'
Other ways of thinking --magic-- do not face that ultimate challenge for if something is not to one's liking, one simply ignores it or mentally rewrites it. It may be more emotionally satisfying, but that really doesn't solve real world problems such as environmental pollution of water and air or global warming or disputes among belief systems. We must learn to face problems and do something about them or go the way of the dinosaur.
Existence
SF novel, 553 pages
I'm in the midst of reading a remarkable SF novel by David Brin. I've always enjoyed his previous works, but this one is something special. I never thought he would be able to match his earlier ground-breaking novel, Earth, but he has not only matched it, but I think he has gone a step or two beyond with Existence. I haven't finished it yet, so I won't comment any more, but I do want to provide this brief excerpt from the novel.
Hamish, a writer and one of many characters, is reminiscing:
"50
DIVINATION
The art that I practice is the only true form of magic.
It had taken Hamish years to realize this consciously, though he must have suspected it as a child, while devouring fantasy novels and playing whatever interactive game had the best narrative storyline. Later, at university and grad school, even while diligently studying the ornate laws and incantations of science, something had always struck him as wrong about the whole endeavor.
No, wrong wasn't the word. Sterile. Or dry, or pallid . . . that is, compared to worlds of fiction and belief.
Then, while playing hooky one day from biomedical research, escaping into the vast realm of a little novel, he found a clue to his dilemma, in a passage written by the author, Tom Robbins.
Science gives man what he needs.
But magic gives him what he wants.
A gross oversimplification? Sure, Yet, Hamish instantly recognized the important distinction he'd been floundering toward.
For all its beauty, honesty, and effectiveness at improving the human condition, science demands a terrible price--that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not. It's about consensus and teamwork and respectful critical argument, working with, and through, natural law. It requires that we utter, frequently, those hateful words--'I might be wrong.'
On the other hand, magic is what happens when we convince ourselves something is, even when it isn't. Subjective Truth, winning over mere objective fact. The Will, triumphing over all else. No wonder, even after the cornucopia of wealth and knowledge engendered by science, magic remains more popular, more embedded in the human heart.
Whether you labeled it faith, or self-delusion, or fantasy, or outright lying--Hamish recognized the species' greatest talent, a calling that spanned all cultures and times, appearing far more often, in far more tribes, than dispassionate reason! Combine it with enough ardent wanting, and the brew might succor you through the harshest times, even periods of utter despair.
That was what Hamish got from the best yarns, spun by master storytellers. A temporary, willing belief that he could inhabit another world, bound by different rules. Better rules than the dry clockwork rhythms of this one."
Whether this represents Brin's own thinking or is simply part of the creative process of constructing a character is up for you to decide, if you choose to read the novel.
I think, though, that there are hints or clues here to the present time, with all the conflict and partisan fighting going on all over the world, and right here at home. Those who fear and hate the inexorable changes that seem to overwhelm all are in a state of denial. Magic gives them what they want.
If there is anything that characterizes science for me, it is the following, idealized though it may be:
For all its beauty, honesty, and effectiveness at improving the human condition, science demands a terrible price--that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not. It's about consensus and teamwork and respectful critical argument, working with, and through, natural law. It requires that we utter, frequently, those hateful words--'I might be wrong.'
Other ways of thinking --magic-- do not face that ultimate challenge for if something is not to one's liking, one simply ignores it or mentally rewrites it. It may be more emotionally satisfying, but that really doesn't solve real world problems such as environmental pollution of water and air or global warming or disputes among belief systems. We must learn to face problems and do something about them or go the way of the dinosaur.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Franz Werfel: Star of the Unborn, Pt. 2
What will humans and civilization be 100,000 years from now?
The planet is unrecognizable to someone from the 21st century. For the most part, the mountains have disappeared and the world is uniformly flat. The ground is covered by something that sounds like artificial turf, grey and flexible. It is also the main means of transportation. The people have a device that they can enter in the coordinates of any spot on the planet and they will be transported there. Actually, according to F. W., their destination is brought to them! Just how this was done and just what would happen if two people in opposite directions both wanted the same destination at the same time was never explained.
Most people now live underground. It's seems as though this happened centuries ago before the present time of peace and prosperity was established. Constant warfare made it necessary to build homes underground, rather than build above ground with some sort of underground shelter. It just seemed more practical to go underground at that time. Today there really is no need, but habits and traditions are hard to overcome, especially, it seems, when there's no real need for them.
The people are uniformly beautiful, if small statured and slight of build, reminiscent of the Eloi, one of the two human races found in H. G. Wells' The Time Traveler. Most seem to have little to do except enjoy themselves, as most of their needs are free. The human race at this time seems fragmented. and while F.W. spends time visiting the other groups, he spends most of his time with those whose life is spent in leisure.
Various groups have their own domiciles, separate from each other and the general population: the Roman Catholic hierarchy, Scientists and Scholars, Workers, Jews, all live in their own ghettos, separate from the population. There are rebels also. Parts of the transformed earth seem to be reverting back to its wild state, and there are those who have abandoned contemporary civilization and moved into these jungles, as they are called by the rest of the population.
Most animals and insects have disappeared, except for some that have been modified to form dwarf versions. The many varieties of dogs have disappeared, and those that are left are physically similar, as well as being able to use a limited form of speech. They seem to be obsessed with acting like humans. However, there is one species that hasn't changed. They are still the same size, still come in a variety of colors, and still act as they always have--the cat. For some inexplicable reason, humans have been unable to modify the cat. And, more and more cats are disappearing into the "jungles." As usual, the cat goes its own way.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, this is one of the most unique SF novels I have ever read. It is not an easy read, but it's well worth the effort. It is on my reread list.
The planet is unrecognizable to someone from the 21st century. For the most part, the mountains have disappeared and the world is uniformly flat. The ground is covered by something that sounds like artificial turf, grey and flexible. It is also the main means of transportation. The people have a device that they can enter in the coordinates of any spot on the planet and they will be transported there. Actually, according to F. W., their destination is brought to them! Just how this was done and just what would happen if two people in opposite directions both wanted the same destination at the same time was never explained.
Most people now live underground. It's seems as though this happened centuries ago before the present time of peace and prosperity was established. Constant warfare made it necessary to build homes underground, rather than build above ground with some sort of underground shelter. It just seemed more practical to go underground at that time. Today there really is no need, but habits and traditions are hard to overcome, especially, it seems, when there's no real need for them.
The people are uniformly beautiful, if small statured and slight of build, reminiscent of the Eloi, one of the two human races found in H. G. Wells' The Time Traveler. Most seem to have little to do except enjoy themselves, as most of their needs are free. The human race at this time seems fragmented. and while F.W. spends time visiting the other groups, he spends most of his time with those whose life is spent in leisure.
Various groups have their own domiciles, separate from each other and the general population: the Roman Catholic hierarchy, Scientists and Scholars, Workers, Jews, all live in their own ghettos, separate from the population. There are rebels also. Parts of the transformed earth seem to be reverting back to its wild state, and there are those who have abandoned contemporary civilization and moved into these jungles, as they are called by the rest of the population.
Most animals and insects have disappeared, except for some that have been modified to form dwarf versions. The many varieties of dogs have disappeared, and those that are left are physically similar, as well as being able to use a limited form of speech. They seem to be obsessed with acting like humans. However, there is one species that hasn't changed. They are still the same size, still come in a variety of colors, and still act as they always have--the cat. For some inexplicable reason, humans have been unable to modify the cat. And, more and more cats are disappearing into the "jungles." As usual, the cat goes its own way.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, this is one of the most unique SF novels I have ever read. It is not an easy read, but it's well worth the effort. It is on my reread list.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Franz Werfel: Star of the Unborn, an SF novel
Franz Werfel
Star of the Unborn
Published posthumously in 1946
607 pages
Opening lines from Franz Werfel's Star of the Unborn
"This is a First Chapter simply because it seemed inappropriate to begin this opuscule with a Second Chapter. The only factors that stood in the way of placing the words 'Chapter Two' on the first page of this novel were the publisher's sense of propriety, the reading public's well-known propensity for the discovery of monstrous typographical errors, and finally, the author's mania for originality, since he feared that some colleague in the gaily flippant era of romanticism must certainly have begun one of his rank works with a Second Chapter. For these reasons we begin with chapter One, no matter how superfluous this chapter may be for the progress of the action, or, more accurately, of the exploration."
The novel is a first person narrative, of a little more than 600 pages. Therefore, the nature or the personality of the narrator, especially in a long work such as this, becomes vital to the work and highly significant to the reader. Consequently, it behooves me to tell you somewhat about the narrator, as a sort of preparation for what you will experience if you decide to take up this work. And, since the narrator introduces himself in the very next paragraph (sort of, anyway), I have decided to let the narrator do all the work and simply let my fingers do the walking.
"Since we are dealing with a kind of travelogue I feel the obligation to introduce the hero, or, more modestly, the central figure of the occurrences here set forth. This particular literary form has the unfortunate weakness that the eye that sees, the ear that hears, the spirit that comprehends, the voice that narrates, the 'I' that is involved in many adventures, constitutes the central point about which, in the most literal sense, everything revolves. This central point, candidly designated as F. W., is, unfortunately, I myself. Purely from an innate aversion to getting into difficulties, I should have preferred not to be I-myself in these pages. Still it was not only the most natural, but the only way, and I was regrettably unable to invent any 'he' that could adequately have borne the burden of the 'I' for me. And so the 'I' of this story is not a deceptive, novelistic, assumed, fictitious 'I' any more than the story itself is the mere offspring of speculative imagination. It happened to me, as I must confess, quite against my will. Without the slightest preparation or premonition, contrary to all my habits and instincts, I was sent out one night as an explorer. What I experienced, I really experienced. I am quite prepared to embark upon a frank discussion of this little word 'really' with any philosophically minded reader and I am confident that I will with the argument in every instance."
As you no doubt may have noticed F. W. rambles on and on, but he does eventually get there, in a very roundabout way. And, that for me, is one of the charms of this very unique work as he somehow manages to drag in most of the social, economic, psychological, environmental, and religious issues of the day, which we have not yet managed to solve some seventy years later. Since we began with a quotation from the beginning of Chapter One, it is only appropriate that we conclude these introductory words with the last paragraph of Chapter One.
"And under the words 'Chapter One' that are still waiting for the story of our monstrous reality, I decided to sketch the foregoing paragraphs. It is a superstitious trick. I have not forfeited anything. I have not given up my original task. The 'Chapter One' that was to have borne an incomparable load, with the full agreement of my readers, is not a First Chapter. Instead, Chapter Two assumes the function of Chapter One."
And, thus he begins his little adventure in "Chapter Two."
F. W. is a time traveler, in a way. He lived and apparently died sometime during the 20th century. He now finds himself approximately 100,000 years in the future. He has been resurrected as a wedding gift by B. H., who had been a friend of his some 100,000 years ago.
B. H. had gone to Tibet and studied and learned the basic tenets of reincarnation so thoroughly that he has been successfully reincarnated and retained memories of his reincarnations for 100, 000 years now. Admittedly his memories of the far past were getting a bit jumbled, but he still remembered F. W. and had used the highly developed science of the day to bring F. W. back to life for some undetermined time as a wedding gift. B. H. was not fully accepted as a true member of the present civilization at this time and had hoped to gain admittance by presenting this unusual wedding gift.
Fantasy?
SF?
Satire?
Surreal allegory?
Socio/political commentary?
All of the above?
None of the above?
Some of the above?
Something entirely different?
I'm not sure what to make of this work. I first read it decades ago and recently came across it gathering dust in a remote corner of my bookcase. Intrigued, I reread it and now it's scheduled for another reread in the near future. There's just too much going on here to take it all in within one reading or two, or three.
This book requires a real commitment to finish, primarily because it is so different from what is popular today. It can't be read in ten or fifteen minute segments. Most people will never read it because of this. Moreover, the narrator's rambling discursive style will also turn readers off. And, some of those who have decided to read the book will never get around to it because they will wait for the right moment when they have enough time to spend on this book. But, this decision is unfortunate because spending the time with this book is far more rewarding than spending the same amount of time on lesser works. The best way to handle this is to get the book and start reading, without waiting for the opportune moment, for it will never arrive.
I supposed I've scared off most of you who have taken the time to get this far in my ramblings. I hope not, but . . .
Highly recommended.
Star of the Unborn
Published posthumously in 1946
607 pages
Opening lines from Franz Werfel's Star of the Unborn
"This is a First Chapter simply because it seemed inappropriate to begin this opuscule with a Second Chapter. The only factors that stood in the way of placing the words 'Chapter Two' on the first page of this novel were the publisher's sense of propriety, the reading public's well-known propensity for the discovery of monstrous typographical errors, and finally, the author's mania for originality, since he feared that some colleague in the gaily flippant era of romanticism must certainly have begun one of his rank works with a Second Chapter. For these reasons we begin with chapter One, no matter how superfluous this chapter may be for the progress of the action, or, more accurately, of the exploration."
The novel is a first person narrative, of a little more than 600 pages. Therefore, the nature or the personality of the narrator, especially in a long work such as this, becomes vital to the work and highly significant to the reader. Consequently, it behooves me to tell you somewhat about the narrator, as a sort of preparation for what you will experience if you decide to take up this work. And, since the narrator introduces himself in the very next paragraph (sort of, anyway), I have decided to let the narrator do all the work and simply let my fingers do the walking.
"Since we are dealing with a kind of travelogue I feel the obligation to introduce the hero, or, more modestly, the central figure of the occurrences here set forth. This particular literary form has the unfortunate weakness that the eye that sees, the ear that hears, the spirit that comprehends, the voice that narrates, the 'I' that is involved in many adventures, constitutes the central point about which, in the most literal sense, everything revolves. This central point, candidly designated as F. W., is, unfortunately, I myself. Purely from an innate aversion to getting into difficulties, I should have preferred not to be I-myself in these pages. Still it was not only the most natural, but the only way, and I was regrettably unable to invent any 'he' that could adequately have borne the burden of the 'I' for me. And so the 'I' of this story is not a deceptive, novelistic, assumed, fictitious 'I' any more than the story itself is the mere offspring of speculative imagination. It happened to me, as I must confess, quite against my will. Without the slightest preparation or premonition, contrary to all my habits and instincts, I was sent out one night as an explorer. What I experienced, I really experienced. I am quite prepared to embark upon a frank discussion of this little word 'really' with any philosophically minded reader and I am confident that I will with the argument in every instance."
As you no doubt may have noticed F. W. rambles on and on, but he does eventually get there, in a very roundabout way. And, that for me, is one of the charms of this very unique work as he somehow manages to drag in most of the social, economic, psychological, environmental, and religious issues of the day, which we have not yet managed to solve some seventy years later. Since we began with a quotation from the beginning of Chapter One, it is only appropriate that we conclude these introductory words with the last paragraph of Chapter One.
"And under the words 'Chapter One' that are still waiting for the story of our monstrous reality, I decided to sketch the foregoing paragraphs. It is a superstitious trick. I have not forfeited anything. I have not given up my original task. The 'Chapter One' that was to have borne an incomparable load, with the full agreement of my readers, is not a First Chapter. Instead, Chapter Two assumes the function of Chapter One."
And, thus he begins his little adventure in "Chapter Two."
F. W. is a time traveler, in a way. He lived and apparently died sometime during the 20th century. He now finds himself approximately 100,000 years in the future. He has been resurrected as a wedding gift by B. H., who had been a friend of his some 100,000 years ago.
B. H. had gone to Tibet and studied and learned the basic tenets of reincarnation so thoroughly that he has been successfully reincarnated and retained memories of his reincarnations for 100, 000 years now. Admittedly his memories of the far past were getting a bit jumbled, but he still remembered F. W. and had used the highly developed science of the day to bring F. W. back to life for some undetermined time as a wedding gift. B. H. was not fully accepted as a true member of the present civilization at this time and had hoped to gain admittance by presenting this unusual wedding gift.
Fantasy?
SF?
Satire?
Surreal allegory?
Socio/political commentary?
All of the above?
None of the above?
Some of the above?
Something entirely different?
I'm not sure what to make of this work. I first read it decades ago and recently came across it gathering dust in a remote corner of my bookcase. Intrigued, I reread it and now it's scheduled for another reread in the near future. There's just too much going on here to take it all in within one reading or two, or three.
This book requires a real commitment to finish, primarily because it is so different from what is popular today. It can't be read in ten or fifteen minute segments. Most people will never read it because of this. Moreover, the narrator's rambling discursive style will also turn readers off. And, some of those who have decided to read the book will never get around to it because they will wait for the right moment when they have enough time to spend on this book. But, this decision is unfortunate because spending the time with this book is far more rewarding than spending the same amount of time on lesser works. The best way to handle this is to get the book and start reading, without waiting for the opportune moment, for it will never arrive.
I supposed I've scared off most of you who have taken the time to get this far in my ramblings. I hope not, but . . .
Highly recommended.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Drew Magary: The Postmortal
Drew Magary
The Postmortal
Drew Magary's The Postmortal is probably the best SF novel that explores the theme of an extended life span that I've read in decades, if not ever. It attempts to realistically depict the effects of the development of an anti-aging medical treatment on society.
A researcher accidentally discovers a gene that controls aging and eventually comes up with a treatment that shuts down the gene. Those given the cure (as it is popularly known) immediately stop aging and remain at whatever physical state they were in when given the treatment. It is not immortality. They can still die from accidents, disease, etc., but they will remain physically the same for an unknown length of time.
The opening paragraph from the novel's introduction:
"A Note about the Text: From the Department of Containment United North American Territories
"In March 2090, a worker for the Department of Containment named Anton Vyrin was conducting a routine sweep of an abandoned collectivist compound in rural Virginia when he stumbled upon an eighth-generation wireless-enabled projected screening device (WEPS.8) that was still functional after charging. Stored inside the device's hard drive was a digital library containing sixty years' worth of text files written by a man who went by the screen name John Farrell."
. . .
"In its entirety,the collection contains thousands of entries and several hundred thousand words, but for the sake of brevity and general readability, they have been edited and abridged into what we believe constitutes an essential narrative, and incontrovertible evidence that the cure for aging must never again be legalized."
The four time periods of the novel:
1 Prohibition: June 2019
The news about the cure had appeared three years ago. The US government, along with other governments, put a temporary ban on its use, saying it wished to study the effects of a drug that would have such an almost unthinkable effect on society. While it is officially banned, it is available for those are willing to search for it and willing to pay for it.
John Farrell, a lawyer. locates a doctor who will administer the treatment. At the same time, violent protests break out by both the pro-cure groups and the pro-death groups. Many doctors who administer the cure are killed.
2 Spread: June 2029
Societal changes appear. The number of marriages has dropped. In the past, "until death do us part" usually meant maybe 40 or 50 years or less, whereas now it could mean centuries. Divorce is still possible, but people don't marry expecting to divorce.
Farrell tells Sonia, who is pregnant and wants him to marry her that "I could commit to you if we knew our lives were definite. But they aren't. I have no earthly idea what's coming next, and I can't promise you that from now until the end of time I'll always be by your side. Because I don't know. And you can't promise that either because you don't know."
Farrell, still working for the same legal firm, has helped to set up a new type of marriage, a "cycle marriage." It lasts for forty years with heavy penalties applied in case of divorce. At the end of the forty years, the marriage dissolves, as agreed upon by both parties at the beginning. They may apply for a new 40 year cycle, but this is rare. Ceremonies and parties are now the standard when an individual takes the cure. The in-place for this is the Fountain of Youth in Las Vegas.
Opposition groups to the cure have developed a wide variety of tactics, ranging from use of the courts to those who throw lye into the eyes of those who have taken the cure, condemning them perhaps to centuries of being blind. These extremists are known as trolls.
Some who have taken the cure now regret it. Farrell's father is one who wishes he hadn't because he misses his wife and is convinced that he will see her in heaven, once he dies. Now, he doesn't know when that reunion will be; it could be centuries.
3 Saturation: 2059
Forty years have passed since the introduction of the cure. The effects of the cure are now widespread and becoming clear to all--just too many people around. One problem that I hadn't considered was human fertility. Prior to the cure, humans were fertile for roughly 40 years, plus or minus a few years depending on the individual. Now, humans are able to have children for as long as they live, which may be centuries, excluding such causes as accident or disease. It's becoming a very crowded and hostile world.
Farrell is job-hunting. He retired from his position at the law firm and partied for a decade or two, and now he's broke. The job turns out to be an end specialist. In the film Soylent Green, the character played by Edward G. Robinson, decides to end it all. He goes to a government facility and assisted by the staff arranges for his death, surrounded by pictures and music of his choice. In The Postmortal, the government has subcontracted this function to various independent firms (always doing their part to support small businesses). On an assignment, Farrell and his partner visit the individual, make sure all the formalities and paperwork are in order, and then provide that person with an end to the cure. Farrell insists he is only a clerk and is there to handle the legalities and paperwork: his partner is the terminator.
Correction: 2079
Society is, essentially, at war with itself. Farrell is still an end specialist, but he frequently works alone. One of his tasks is to do a sweep. He is given a territory, and his task is cover the area and find those who are suffering from sheep flu, which is invariably fatal. He has two vials of medicine. One is free, the one that kills painlessly and quickly. Those who have access to $5000 can buy the cure for sheep flu. Most do not, otherwise they would have gotten it already. Farrell no longer insists on being just a clerk: he has become a full-fledged end specialist. Then he gets an assignment to kill a woman whose only crime is that she's old.
Interspersed among the narrative of Farrell's life, Magary has also provided news headlines and articles that provide a fascinating picture of the effect of the cure on society, its laws, its mores, and reactions of various people in the US, as well as some information about the rest of the world.
--The Vatican threatens cure seekers with excommunication.
--"I'm always gonna get my period."
--Cigarette sales are now at an all-time low.
--Sales of adult incontinence undergarments (you know them as Depends) have fallen 46 percent since 2016.
--Suicide bombings in the Middle East are down nearly 70 percent over the past decade while nonsuicide bombings are up 220 percent.
--In an interview, Russian president Boris Solovyev vigorously denied numerous reports of police executing any Russian citizen over the cure age of fifty.
--Mia Burkhart is 44 years old with a cure age of 29. She's divorced, and her two sons have gone off on their own. She decides she wants another child to raise on her own and contacts the local sperm bank. All goes well. Emilia is a beautiful child, and Mia is supremely happy.
After the child is about 18 months old, neighbors, friends, and relatives begin to notice something strange: Emily is not growing. Concerned, they investigate to find that Emily has been given the cure at age ten months. She will be a ten month infant for as long as she lives, which may be centuries.
--Two large cities in China have been hit by nuclear explosions. The official government story is sabotage. However, rumors persist that China has nuked two of its own cities as art of a radical population control program.
The above is only a small part of the novel. There's so much more.
Overall Rating: Read it. It's the most underrated SF novel, or perhaps just novel, of the decade.
The Postmortal
Drew Magary's The Postmortal is probably the best SF novel that explores the theme of an extended life span that I've read in decades, if not ever. It attempts to realistically depict the effects of the development of an anti-aging medical treatment on society.
A researcher accidentally discovers a gene that controls aging and eventually comes up with a treatment that shuts down the gene. Those given the cure (as it is popularly known) immediately stop aging and remain at whatever physical state they were in when given the treatment. It is not immortality. They can still die from accidents, disease, etc., but they will remain physically the same for an unknown length of time.
The opening paragraph from the novel's introduction:
"A Note about the Text: From the Department of Containment United North American Territories
"In March 2090, a worker for the Department of Containment named Anton Vyrin was conducting a routine sweep of an abandoned collectivist compound in rural Virginia when he stumbled upon an eighth-generation wireless-enabled projected screening device (WEPS.8) that was still functional after charging. Stored inside the device's hard drive was a digital library containing sixty years' worth of text files written by a man who went by the screen name John Farrell."
. . .
"In its entirety,the collection contains thousands of entries and several hundred thousand words, but for the sake of brevity and general readability, they have been edited and abridged into what we believe constitutes an essential narrative, and incontrovertible evidence that the cure for aging must never again be legalized."
The four time periods of the novel:
1 Prohibition: June 2019
The news about the cure had appeared three years ago. The US government, along with other governments, put a temporary ban on its use, saying it wished to study the effects of a drug that would have such an almost unthinkable effect on society. While it is officially banned, it is available for those are willing to search for it and willing to pay for it.
John Farrell, a lawyer. locates a doctor who will administer the treatment. At the same time, violent protests break out by both the pro-cure groups and the pro-death groups. Many doctors who administer the cure are killed.
2 Spread: June 2029
Societal changes appear. The number of marriages has dropped. In the past, "until death do us part" usually meant maybe 40 or 50 years or less, whereas now it could mean centuries. Divorce is still possible, but people don't marry expecting to divorce.
Farrell tells Sonia, who is pregnant and wants him to marry her that "I could commit to you if we knew our lives were definite. But they aren't. I have no earthly idea what's coming next, and I can't promise you that from now until the end of time I'll always be by your side. Because I don't know. And you can't promise that either because you don't know."
Farrell, still working for the same legal firm, has helped to set up a new type of marriage, a "cycle marriage." It lasts for forty years with heavy penalties applied in case of divorce. At the end of the forty years, the marriage dissolves, as agreed upon by both parties at the beginning. They may apply for a new 40 year cycle, but this is rare. Ceremonies and parties are now the standard when an individual takes the cure. The in-place for this is the Fountain of Youth in Las Vegas.
Opposition groups to the cure have developed a wide variety of tactics, ranging from use of the courts to those who throw lye into the eyes of those who have taken the cure, condemning them perhaps to centuries of being blind. These extremists are known as trolls.
Some who have taken the cure now regret it. Farrell's father is one who wishes he hadn't because he misses his wife and is convinced that he will see her in heaven, once he dies. Now, he doesn't know when that reunion will be; it could be centuries.
3 Saturation: 2059
Forty years have passed since the introduction of the cure. The effects of the cure are now widespread and becoming clear to all--just too many people around. One problem that I hadn't considered was human fertility. Prior to the cure, humans were fertile for roughly 40 years, plus or minus a few years depending on the individual. Now, humans are able to have children for as long as they live, which may be centuries, excluding such causes as accident or disease. It's becoming a very crowded and hostile world.
Farrell is job-hunting. He retired from his position at the law firm and partied for a decade or two, and now he's broke. The job turns out to be an end specialist. In the film Soylent Green, the character played by Edward G. Robinson, decides to end it all. He goes to a government facility and assisted by the staff arranges for his death, surrounded by pictures and music of his choice. In The Postmortal, the government has subcontracted this function to various independent firms (always doing their part to support small businesses). On an assignment, Farrell and his partner visit the individual, make sure all the formalities and paperwork are in order, and then provide that person with an end to the cure. Farrell insists he is only a clerk and is there to handle the legalities and paperwork: his partner is the terminator.
Correction: 2079
Society is, essentially, at war with itself. Farrell is still an end specialist, but he frequently works alone. One of his tasks is to do a sweep. He is given a territory, and his task is cover the area and find those who are suffering from sheep flu, which is invariably fatal. He has two vials of medicine. One is free, the one that kills painlessly and quickly. Those who have access to $5000 can buy the cure for sheep flu. Most do not, otherwise they would have gotten it already. Farrell no longer insists on being just a clerk: he has become a full-fledged end specialist. Then he gets an assignment to kill a woman whose only crime is that she's old.
Interspersed among the narrative of Farrell's life, Magary has also provided news headlines and articles that provide a fascinating picture of the effect of the cure on society, its laws, its mores, and reactions of various people in the US, as well as some information about the rest of the world.
--The Vatican threatens cure seekers with excommunication.
--"I'm always gonna get my period."
--Cigarette sales are now at an all-time low.
--Sales of adult incontinence undergarments (you know them as Depends) have fallen 46 percent since 2016.
--Suicide bombings in the Middle East are down nearly 70 percent over the past decade while nonsuicide bombings are up 220 percent.
--In an interview, Russian president Boris Solovyev vigorously denied numerous reports of police executing any Russian citizen over the cure age of fifty.
--Mia Burkhart is 44 years old with a cure age of 29. She's divorced, and her two sons have gone off on their own. She decides she wants another child to raise on her own and contacts the local sperm bank. All goes well. Emilia is a beautiful child, and Mia is supremely happy.
After the child is about 18 months old, neighbors, friends, and relatives begin to notice something strange: Emily is not growing. Concerned, they investigate to find that Emily has been given the cure at age ten months. She will be a ten month infant for as long as she lives, which may be centuries.
--Two large cities in China have been hit by nuclear explosions. The official government story is sabotage. However, rumors persist that China has nuked two of its own cities as art of a radical population control program.
The above is only a small part of the novel. There's so much more.
Overall Rating: Read it. It's the most underrated SF novel, or perhaps just novel, of the decade.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Stanley G. Weinbaum: The New Adam
Stanley G. Weinbaum was born on April 4, 1902 and died on December 14, 1935, when he was only 33. He's one of those writers, composers, or artists about whom any conversation always turns to wondering what he would have accomplished if he had lived another decade or two or three. He published his first SF short story in July 1934 and died about 18 months later. That short story was "A Martian Odyssey," which, in 1970, was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the top three short stories of all time. Only Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" got more votes, and Weinbaum's story beat out Daniel Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon" for the second spot. I have read a collection of his short works, The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum, but this is the first novel I have read by him. I think I will search out his other two novels.
Edmond Hall is The New Adam. Aside from his extraordinarily high intelligence, he has two unique features. The first is an extra joint in his fingers and toes. This, of course, posed some problems for him while growing up. The second wasn't noticeable, and he only told a very few people about it. He had a double mind, each of which could be working on a separate track. And, when he wished, he could bring them together to have a conversation, each developing a different solution to a problem. He thought everybody was like this, until in school one day, a teacher told him to pay attention to class because nobody could do two things at once. By this time, he had learned that it was best not to argue with adults.
Weinbaum's novel is a unique treatment of the subject. It reads more like a 19th century biography than the typical SF novel of the theme. This is not the usual tale of a superman forced to go into hiding while defeating or at least eluding his enemies with his superpowers or his ability to create high-tech weapons and various other almost magical devices. Instead, we are given the story of an individual who is the classic outsider, one who doesn't fit in society. Therefore there is no crowd of enraged or frightened standard humans out for his blood. The government is unaware of his true nature, and as long as he doesn't break any laws, it will ignore him as it will any law-abiding citizen.
Edmond Hall is the first person to appear in the further evolutionary development of homo sapiens. He is seen as a bright boy and a genius when he matures into an adult. But., nobody suspects that Hall is the next evolutionary step in the development of homo sapiens.
For a story to work, there must be conflict, and conflict there is. Only it's the typical conflicts faced by every child during the process of growing up: making friends, getting along with fellow students at school, or placating one's parents or relatives while striving for independence. Nothing stands out that would identify Edmond Hall as being other than a very bright boy. But, inside his head, there are two minds working.
Once Hall is an adult, he has to decide on a career. First he tries science and invents some gadgetry that brings in enough money so that he does not have to work. He is now free to experiment: science, political power, the arts. But, he can find nothing that satisfies him.
His intellectual superiority wasn't a problem while he was maturing, for he could communicate with highly intelligent adults. But, as he matured the number of adults who who were at his intellectual level dwindled until he found himself alone. He searches for others like him but finds no evidence to suggest there are others who could be equals. He is like a standard human marooned on an island with only dogs for companionship..
Finally he discovers love. There is just one problem: Vanny is a normal human being. He is attracted to her physically, but she cannot come close to him on an intellectual level. It is then that he discovers there are a few others like him, a woman and two men. With Sarah, he finds the opposite problem: he feels nothing for her, but at last he has found his intellectual equals.
The conclusion, in keeping with the rest of the novel, is not the standard ending found in most works that focus on homo superior, but it is appropriate and satisfying, if unexpected.
If you are looking for a unique treatment of this theme, I recommend The New Adam.
Edmond Hall is The New Adam. Aside from his extraordinarily high intelligence, he has two unique features. The first is an extra joint in his fingers and toes. This, of course, posed some problems for him while growing up. The second wasn't noticeable, and he only told a very few people about it. He had a double mind, each of which could be working on a separate track. And, when he wished, he could bring them together to have a conversation, each developing a different solution to a problem. He thought everybody was like this, until in school one day, a teacher told him to pay attention to class because nobody could do two things at once. By this time, he had learned that it was best not to argue with adults.
Weinbaum's novel is a unique treatment of the subject. It reads more like a 19th century biography than the typical SF novel of the theme. This is not the usual tale of a superman forced to go into hiding while defeating or at least eluding his enemies with his superpowers or his ability to create high-tech weapons and various other almost magical devices. Instead, we are given the story of an individual who is the classic outsider, one who doesn't fit in society. Therefore there is no crowd of enraged or frightened standard humans out for his blood. The government is unaware of his true nature, and as long as he doesn't break any laws, it will ignore him as it will any law-abiding citizen.
Edmond Hall is the first person to appear in the further evolutionary development of homo sapiens. He is seen as a bright boy and a genius when he matures into an adult. But., nobody suspects that Hall is the next evolutionary step in the development of homo sapiens.
For a story to work, there must be conflict, and conflict there is. Only it's the typical conflicts faced by every child during the process of growing up: making friends, getting along with fellow students at school, or placating one's parents or relatives while striving for independence. Nothing stands out that would identify Edmond Hall as being other than a very bright boy. But, inside his head, there are two minds working.
Once Hall is an adult, he has to decide on a career. First he tries science and invents some gadgetry that brings in enough money so that he does not have to work. He is now free to experiment: science, political power, the arts. But, he can find nothing that satisfies him.
His intellectual superiority wasn't a problem while he was maturing, for he could communicate with highly intelligent adults. But, as he matured the number of adults who who were at his intellectual level dwindled until he found himself alone. He searches for others like him but finds no evidence to suggest there are others who could be equals. He is like a standard human marooned on an island with only dogs for companionship..
Finally he discovers love. There is just one problem: Vanny is a normal human being. He is attracted to her physically, but she cannot come close to him on an intellectual level. It is then that he discovers there are a few others like him, a woman and two men. With Sarah, he finds the opposite problem: he feels nothing for her, but at last he has found his intellectual equals.
The conclusion, in keeping with the rest of the novel, is not the standard ending found in most works that focus on homo superior, but it is appropriate and satisfying, if unexpected.
If you are looking for a unique treatment of this theme, I recommend The New Adam.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Dan Simmons' The Fall of Hyperion
Dan Simmons' The Fall of Hyperion is really the second part of one massive 900 page novel, the first part being Hyperion which was published the year earlier in 1989. I have both in one volume, Hyperion Cantos, named after the massive epic poem being written by Martin Silenus, one of the characters. I would strongly urge any potential reader to begin with Hyperion, for these really aren't separate works. They are as separate as the three parts of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and the second part of the Cantos begins immediately after the end of the first part.
In Hyperion, we meet the pilgrims who have inextricably been allowed by the Church of the Shrike to visit the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion, the first such visit allowed in a long time. The pilgrims have no idea of why they were selected while so many others were rejected, and, moreover, at least one hadn't even applied for permission to visit.
The pilgrims agree to tell the story of an incident in their past which might be related to the pilgrimage, hoping that the stories might provide clues as to the puzzle of why they were selected. Hyperion, therefore, is the recounting of past events and to some extent the troubles they encounter on their journey first to Hyperion and then to the valley of the Time Tombs. Hyperion ends with the pilgrims walking abreast on the wide road leading into the valley, singing "We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz."
(See my posts of November 26 and 27, 2011)
The Fall of Hyperion begins immediately thereafter or approximately at that time since Einsteinian relativity does not allow for simultaneous events, at least in any objective sense of the word. The human government, The Hegemony has sent an armada to Hyperion to prevent the Ousters from taking over the Hyperion System. The Ousters are human who have rejected the authority of the Hegemony. In other SF novels, they are usually referred to as the Barbarians and travel in hordes, rather than organized units. This undisciplined behavior results in their being underestimated by the more traditional military units facing them, with the usual outcome of what happens when one side underrates the other.
This not just a war of two combatants, the Hegemony and the Ousters; there are three forces engaged in combat, something the humans didn't understand at first. The third force is the AI:TechnoCore, the artificial intelligences that long ago broke free of human control and had their own plans for who or what should control the universe. The Hegemony and the TechnoCore are supposedly at peace and cooperate whenever feasible. Both recognize that this situation can't last forever, but the TechnoCore has one highly significant advantage over the Hegemony: the human planets were known to the Core, but the location of the Core was still a mystery to the Hegemony. They didn't know if the Core's home was in the universe or in cyberspace, making it impossible to consider attacking it.
The novel interweaves the political infighting among humans in the upper ranks of the Hegemony, the physical combat between the Hegemony and the Ousters, the machinations of the AI: TechnoCore, and the fates of the pilgrims as they attempt to resolve the question of why they were selected to come to Hyperion and survive amidst the fighting between the Hegemony and the Ousters and also to avoid being killed by the Shrike, the metallic monster that comes and goes and slays or kidnaps as it pleases. Who or what is the Shrike and what is its role in the conflict are questions all face who are involved in the struggle for control of Hyperion.
Just as Hyperion had an inner structure related to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with considerable borrowing from Keats' poetry, so The Fall of Hyperion also has an inner stucture, also including the poetry of Keats. The inner structure in the second part is that of various religious traditions that include as part of their doctrines the idea of the Judgement Day or the Last Days.
The AI have begun to realize just what the situation really is. There is a conflict far in the distant future for the control of the universe. Both sides have sent back representatives to aid those on their side of the struggle. This is straight from the teachings, first of all, of Zoroaster, the Persian mystic, whose dates range from 1800 B. C. to 600 B. C. Some accounts push him as far back as 6000 B. C. He taught that there would be a great battle at the End of Days, in which the God of Light (good) and the God of Darkness (evil) would fight for supremacy, and they would be joined by those humans who have chosen the side of the good and the side of the bad. The battle would be decided by the size of the two forces, and therefore the outcome will be unknown until that day. Christians, Moslems, and Gnostics, on the other hand, tell of the End of the Days, but it is a Judgement Day, for evil has already been defeated and the forces of Good are in control.
In Fall of Hyperion, which follows the Zoroastrian tradition, the AIs have deduced that the two contending forces are the Ultimate AI and a human oriented consciousness, two godlike beings fighting for supremacy. The Ultimate AI has sent back the Shrike to prepare the way for thousands of shrikes to destroy the Hegemony, while the human enhanced consciousness has sent back a representative to aid the humans. While the overall theme follows the Zoroastrian tradition, I can see strong elements of both Gnosticism and Christianity here, for both tell us that the Supreme Being sends a part of itself to aid humans in the struggle against evil.
One AI, Ummon, plays a very significant role in the novel, and it seems to come out of the Zen Buddhist tradition. Ummon was a late 9th and early 10th century Zen Buddhist Master who founded one of the five major schools of Zen. in China. He specialized in short, one word answers that made little sense in the context of the discussion. Much of what the AI Ummon says are quotations taken from Keats' poem, "Hyperion."
Overall Comments: As in the first part, much of the fun comes from piecing out literary references and fragments from the life and times of John Keats. Being familiar with Keats and his time isn't necessary for understanding and following the plot, but it does add to the enjoyment, or at least it did for me. It's an action-oriented tale that delights on several levels. Since Hyperion ended as the pilgrims entered the valley of the Time Tomb singing "We're off to see the Wizard," it is only appropriate that Simmons has the survivors at the end of this novel leave the valley singing "Somewhere over the rainbow."
I think Dan Simmons thoroughly enjoyed writing the Hyperion Cantos.
Highly Recommended
P. S. There are actually two more novels in this universe. The third and fourth novels are Endymion and The Rise of Endymion, which are set some time after the Hyperion Cantos, and some characters occur in both. The titles are also based on Greek mythology which forms the foundation for a long poem by Keats. It's been years since I've read these two so I won't say anything more about them. But, one of these days . . .
In Hyperion, we meet the pilgrims who have inextricably been allowed by the Church of the Shrike to visit the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion, the first such visit allowed in a long time. The pilgrims have no idea of why they were selected while so many others were rejected, and, moreover, at least one hadn't even applied for permission to visit.
The pilgrims agree to tell the story of an incident in their past which might be related to the pilgrimage, hoping that the stories might provide clues as to the puzzle of why they were selected. Hyperion, therefore, is the recounting of past events and to some extent the troubles they encounter on their journey first to Hyperion and then to the valley of the Time Tombs. Hyperion ends with the pilgrims walking abreast on the wide road leading into the valley, singing "We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz."
(See my posts of November 26 and 27, 2011)
The Fall of Hyperion begins immediately thereafter or approximately at that time since Einsteinian relativity does not allow for simultaneous events, at least in any objective sense of the word. The human government, The Hegemony has sent an armada to Hyperion to prevent the Ousters from taking over the Hyperion System. The Ousters are human who have rejected the authority of the Hegemony. In other SF novels, they are usually referred to as the Barbarians and travel in hordes, rather than organized units. This undisciplined behavior results in their being underestimated by the more traditional military units facing them, with the usual outcome of what happens when one side underrates the other.
This not just a war of two combatants, the Hegemony and the Ousters; there are three forces engaged in combat, something the humans didn't understand at first. The third force is the AI:TechnoCore, the artificial intelligences that long ago broke free of human control and had their own plans for who or what should control the universe. The Hegemony and the TechnoCore are supposedly at peace and cooperate whenever feasible. Both recognize that this situation can't last forever, but the TechnoCore has one highly significant advantage over the Hegemony: the human planets were known to the Core, but the location of the Core was still a mystery to the Hegemony. They didn't know if the Core's home was in the universe or in cyberspace, making it impossible to consider attacking it.
The novel interweaves the political infighting among humans in the upper ranks of the Hegemony, the physical combat between the Hegemony and the Ousters, the machinations of the AI: TechnoCore, and the fates of the pilgrims as they attempt to resolve the question of why they were selected to come to Hyperion and survive amidst the fighting between the Hegemony and the Ousters and also to avoid being killed by the Shrike, the metallic monster that comes and goes and slays or kidnaps as it pleases. Who or what is the Shrike and what is its role in the conflict are questions all face who are involved in the struggle for control of Hyperion.
Just as Hyperion had an inner structure related to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with considerable borrowing from Keats' poetry, so The Fall of Hyperion also has an inner stucture, also including the poetry of Keats. The inner structure in the second part is that of various religious traditions that include as part of their doctrines the idea of the Judgement Day or the Last Days.
The AI have begun to realize just what the situation really is. There is a conflict far in the distant future for the control of the universe. Both sides have sent back representatives to aid those on their side of the struggle. This is straight from the teachings, first of all, of Zoroaster, the Persian mystic, whose dates range from 1800 B. C. to 600 B. C. Some accounts push him as far back as 6000 B. C. He taught that there would be a great battle at the End of Days, in which the God of Light (good) and the God of Darkness (evil) would fight for supremacy, and they would be joined by those humans who have chosen the side of the good and the side of the bad. The battle would be decided by the size of the two forces, and therefore the outcome will be unknown until that day. Christians, Moslems, and Gnostics, on the other hand, tell of the End of the Days, but it is a Judgement Day, for evil has already been defeated and the forces of Good are in control.
In Fall of Hyperion, which follows the Zoroastrian tradition, the AIs have deduced that the two contending forces are the Ultimate AI and a human oriented consciousness, two godlike beings fighting for supremacy. The Ultimate AI has sent back the Shrike to prepare the way for thousands of shrikes to destroy the Hegemony, while the human enhanced consciousness has sent back a representative to aid the humans. While the overall theme follows the Zoroastrian tradition, I can see strong elements of both Gnosticism and Christianity here, for both tell us that the Supreme Being sends a part of itself to aid humans in the struggle against evil.
One AI, Ummon, plays a very significant role in the novel, and it seems to come out of the Zen Buddhist tradition. Ummon was a late 9th and early 10th century Zen Buddhist Master who founded one of the five major schools of Zen. in China. He specialized in short, one word answers that made little sense in the context of the discussion. Much of what the AI Ummon says are quotations taken from Keats' poem, "Hyperion."
Overall Comments: As in the first part, much of the fun comes from piecing out literary references and fragments from the life and times of John Keats. Being familiar with Keats and his time isn't necessary for understanding and following the plot, but it does add to the enjoyment, or at least it did for me. It's an action-oriented tale that delights on several levels. Since Hyperion ended as the pilgrims entered the valley of the Time Tomb singing "We're off to see the Wizard," it is only appropriate that Simmons has the survivors at the end of this novel leave the valley singing "Somewhere over the rainbow."
I think Dan Simmons thoroughly enjoyed writing the Hyperion Cantos.
Highly Recommended
P. S. There are actually two more novels in this universe. The third and fourth novels are Endymion and The Rise of Endymion, which are set some time after the Hyperion Cantos, and some characters occur in both. The titles are also based on Greek mythology which forms the foundation for a long poem by Keats. It's been years since I've read these two so I won't say anything more about them. But, one of these days . . .
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Thomas Mullen: The Revisionists
When I first picked up Thomas Mullen's The Revisionists, I thought it was going to be a traditional Time Patrol novel. Some agency in the future sends operatives back into the past to either capture criminals who have gone back to use their superior technology to commit various crimes or to prevent those who would like to prevent certain events from taking place or perhaps to bring about a different future. For example, one might attempt to prevent the holocaust by assassinating Hitler long before he ruled Germany. The agency then would attempt to prevent the assassination because of the fear that this would change the future, even though it meant allowing the deaths of millions of people during WWII. Preventing WWII might make for a better future, but it could also bring about one that was worse: averting WWII in the 1940s might bring about a nuclear war in the 50s.
Thomas Mullen gives us this, but he also does something more. Normally, the focus would be on the Time Agent's attempts to either prevent something that would happen or to make sure that something did happen, so as to ensure that the future remains unchanged. In this novel, Zed (or Troy Jones, his false contemporary identity) is sent back to counter the efforts of the hags, or historical agitators. These people, from Zed's own time, are dissidents who believe the government is a dictatorship and go back into time to prevent events from happening which would lead to the years of warfare that would eventually bring the future world-wide government to power.
While this all sounds very typical, it is only part of the story. Mullen not only follows the Agent, but he also introduces several plot threads which all eventually, and logically, come together at the end. It is a tangled plot which seemingly involves the FBI, the CIA, Enhanced Awareness (a company that creates and sells advanced surveillance technology to anybody), various whistle blowers (one from a law firm and another from the CIA), and a young Indonesian woman who somehow manages to become a domestic slave to a South Korean diplomat living in the US.
The tale is closer to being an espionage thriller than a typical time travel novel, especially if one ignores the "Z" chapters which focus on Zed's activities as he strives make sense of what has become a very confusing situation. He must now contend not only with the hags but also with various contemp (Zed's term for the people of the time he now inhabits) forces, all of whom seem determined to stop him. Along with Zed's problems, the various contemp heroes and heroines (Leo, Tasha and Sari) all find themselves being confronted by various strangers, all of whom carry badges from one or more agencies--some governmental, some quasi-governmental and claiming to be working for a governmental agency, and some who seem to be thugs really to kill somebody or anybody for some inexplicable reason, at first anyway.
To add to the general confusion, Zed encounters a fellow Agent, who has also been assigned the same task, which is something that normally never happens. In addition, when they compare notes, they find that each has been given only partial information about the present situation, again something very odd. To complicate matters even further, the fellow agent expresses some doubts about their mission and their government.
Zed is a complex character, or at least, he becomes one, as he moves from total acceptance that the world he comes from is the best of all possible worlds (or so he is frequently told by the government, so frequently I began to suspect propaganda rather than a factual appraisal) to confusion, and then to doubts about the government, his role, and even his identity, especially as he gradually loses most of the special technology that allows him to function in ways superior to the contemp forces.
Is he really an agent from the future or is he psychotic and reinterpreting his past to fit in with his delusions? Troy Jones was a real person whose short life actually resembled Zed's life, including the loss of his wife and children. Zed also only needed minor plastic surgery to make him resemble Troy. This is why Zed was given this identity. Since his superior technology no longer works, Zed really has nothing to prove that he really comes from the future. I think P. K. Dick would be very happy at this point.
Overall Comments: I'm going to take a close look at other works by Thomas Mullen, as his writing style (clear and striaghtforward), characterization, and plot construction really impress me.
Thomas Mullen gives us this, but he also does something more. Normally, the focus would be on the Time Agent's attempts to either prevent something that would happen or to make sure that something did happen, so as to ensure that the future remains unchanged. In this novel, Zed (or Troy Jones, his false contemporary identity) is sent back to counter the efforts of the hags, or historical agitators. These people, from Zed's own time, are dissidents who believe the government is a dictatorship and go back into time to prevent events from happening which would lead to the years of warfare that would eventually bring the future world-wide government to power.
While this all sounds very typical, it is only part of the story. Mullen not only follows the Agent, but he also introduces several plot threads which all eventually, and logically, come together at the end. It is a tangled plot which seemingly involves the FBI, the CIA, Enhanced Awareness (a company that creates and sells advanced surveillance technology to anybody), various whistle blowers (one from a law firm and another from the CIA), and a young Indonesian woman who somehow manages to become a domestic slave to a South Korean diplomat living in the US.
The tale is closer to being an espionage thriller than a typical time travel novel, especially if one ignores the "Z" chapters which focus on Zed's activities as he strives make sense of what has become a very confusing situation. He must now contend not only with the hags but also with various contemp (Zed's term for the people of the time he now inhabits) forces, all of whom seem determined to stop him. Along with Zed's problems, the various contemp heroes and heroines (Leo, Tasha and Sari) all find themselves being confronted by various strangers, all of whom carry badges from one or more agencies--some governmental, some quasi-governmental and claiming to be working for a governmental agency, and some who seem to be thugs really to kill somebody or anybody for some inexplicable reason, at first anyway.
To add to the general confusion, Zed encounters a fellow Agent, who has also been assigned the same task, which is something that normally never happens. In addition, when they compare notes, they find that each has been given only partial information about the present situation, again something very odd. To complicate matters even further, the fellow agent expresses some doubts about their mission and their government.
Zed is a complex character, or at least, he becomes one, as he moves from total acceptance that the world he comes from is the best of all possible worlds (or so he is frequently told by the government, so frequently I began to suspect propaganda rather than a factual appraisal) to confusion, and then to doubts about the government, his role, and even his identity, especially as he gradually loses most of the special technology that allows him to function in ways superior to the contemp forces.
Is he really an agent from the future or is he psychotic and reinterpreting his past to fit in with his delusions? Troy Jones was a real person whose short life actually resembled Zed's life, including the loss of his wife and children. Zed also only needed minor plastic surgery to make him resemble Troy. This is why Zed was given this identity. Since his superior technology no longer works, Zed really has nothing to prove that he really comes from the future. I think P. K. Dick would be very happy at this point.
Overall Comments: I'm going to take a close look at other works by Thomas Mullen, as his writing style (clear and striaghtforward), characterization, and plot construction really impress me.
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