Gregory Benford
"White Creatures"
a short story
from The Best of Gregory Benford
The story begins:
The aliens strap him in. He cannot feel the bindings, but he knows they must be there; he cannot move. Or perhaps it is the drug. They must have given him something because his world is blurred, spongy. The white creatures are flowing shapes in watery light. He feels numb. the white creatures are moving about him, making high chittering noises.
This appears to be an alien abduction story. However, it isn't as straightforward as that. The story has two narratives: one is of Merritt's experiences as a prisoner of the aliens and the second, of his memories that one would expect may explain what caused or led to his abduction.
When the second narrative begins we learn that Merritt is on Puerto Rico and is a technician involved with a seti project (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), probably at the Arecibo Observatory, although I don't remember it being mentioned in the story.
While the two narratives alternate between the inexplicable things being done to Merritt and Merritt's memories, something doesn't seem right. His memories cover a considerable passage of time, decades possibly, from his affair with Erika, the seti project's director's wife, to his resignation and subsequent employment at NASA where he becomes immersed in the study of other star systems, searching for those which approximate earth-like conditions.
He is totally dedicated to his work, and the only personal relationship he has is with Erika, the now ex-wife of the project director. She has created a career out of conducting guided tours of young, wealthy businessmen, and whenever she is in town, they get together. Her charm and attractiveness are her strengths, but as the years pass, these begin to fade. Finally she decides on the long sleep, to be awakened when effective rejuvenation techniques are developed.
Merritt doesn't understand her. They live in two worlds: she in the physical here and now, while he in essence lives in the future, absorbed in searching the universe for answers. Centuries ago Merritt might have been a theologian or philosopher searching the heavens for answers to the perennial questions. Or, perhaps a priest/astrologer searching the heavens for signs of or hints from a divinity or divinities. Is his now scientific search for signs of life in the universe that different? What is also surprising is that Merritt never considers going for the long sleep, to be awakened when there is definite proof of intelligent life on other planets. I wonder if, for Merritt, the search is what is important, not the result.
Some years later, seeking something, he visited the Krishna temple. . .they led him through a beaded curtain to the outside. They entered a small garden through a bamboo gate, noisily slipping the wooden latch. A small man sat in lotus position on a broad swath of green . . . Merrick explained his feelings, his rational skepticism about religion in any form. He was a scientist. But perhaps there was more to these matters than met the eye, he said hopefully.
The teacher picked up a leaf, smiling, and asked why anyone should spend his life studying the makeup of this leaf. What could be gained from it?
Any form of knowledge has a chance of resonating with other kinds, Merrick replied.
So? the man countered.
Suppose the universe is a parable, Merrick said haltingly. By studying part of it, or finding other intelligences in it and discovering their viewpoints, perhaps we could learn something of the design that was intended. Surely the laws of science, the origin of life, were no accident.
The teacher pondered for a moment. No, he said, they are not accidents. There may be other creatures in this universe, too. But those laws, those beings, they are not important. The physical laws are the bars of a cage. The central point is not to study the bars, but to get out of the cage.
Merrick could not follow this. It seemed to him that the act of discovering things, of reaching out, was everything. There was something immortal about it.
The small man blinked and said, it is nothing. This world is an insane asylum for souls. Only the flawed remain here.
Merrick began to talk about his work with NASA and Erika. The small man waved away these points and shook his head. No, he said. It is nothing.
(The italicized part above was actually one paragraph which I broke down)
Merrick can not understand the teacher's dismissal of the physical universe just as he didn't understand Erika's immersion in it. He seemed to be somewhere in the middle: the physical universe was important as something to study and learn from. While he went beyond Erika's immersion in the physical universe, he could not leave it behind as the teacher had insisted that he must.
Later, he encounters a woman in the street whom he thinks is Erika. However, when their eyes meet, she shows no reaction, and Merrick realizes that his interest is purely intellectual. That part of his life was over, for he hadn't been with a woman in years.
It is ultimately a sad story, for Merritt has grown old, but he refuses to believe it. He hadn't noticed the years passing by because of his obsession. He doesn't even have the satisfaction of having his abduction prove the existence of aliens, for those white creatures are doctors and nurses, and in his drugged state he doesn't recognize an operating room.
Perhaps I'm going too far here, but it seems to me that differing attitudes to life and existence are presented here. At one end of the spectrum is Erika's immersion in the physical world, while at the other end is the teacher's dismissal of it as unimportant, "it is nothing." Merrick would seem to be in the middle somewhere: the physical world is important, not in itself, but as a means of finding its purpose, its design. But, while it appears that three views are presented, I can't see any conclusion to be drawn from them as to which would be the most fulfilling one.
I am unhappy with my reading of the story. I wonder what I have missed or misread. I shall have to return to this tale sometime to see how it has "changed."
Showing posts with label alien encounters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alien encounters. Show all posts
Saturday, November 25, 2017
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Two by Timothy Zahn
Timothy Zahn
Pawn's Gambit and Other Stratagems
short stories
Pawn's Gambit is a collection of fifteen short stories, many of which made their first appearance in SF magazines and anthologies, ranging from 1981 to 2014.
"Pawn's Gambit"
This is the title story and also the last story in the book. It's an alien abduction tale. Kelly McClain awakens in a strange place, not knowing how he got there. He has heard recent stories from around the globe about abductions and that all agreed that they had to play some unfamiliar games and were then returned to Earth. After his initial panic, he settles down to wait. Eventually he is contacted by one of the Stryfkar who explains what will happen to him. The games, the alien explains, are their ways of studying other races.
The alien doesn't tell McClain is that the games have a deadly purpose. The Stryfkar were nearly defeated by another race, the Chanis. The games are designed to identify those races that possess characteristics similar to those of the Chanis, and they will be destroyed before they pose a threat to the Stryfkar.
Normally, the winners of the games were returned safely home while the losers would remain until they finally won. After losing several games they would have more experience with the games than newcomers, so they had an advantage, regardless of how poor a game player they were. Eventually they also would be returned. After having played several games, McCain is shocked to find the Stryfkar have changed the rules. Now, he and his opponent would play three games and the winner would be returned home while the loser would die.
Inserted into the narrative are communications among the Sryfkar which give the reader more insight into them and their actions and which allow the reader to see the growing threat to Earth which McCain is unaware of.
Several other SF works involving game playing for high stakes are Philip K. Dick's The Game Players of Titan, and The Player of Games by Iain Banks. There are many others, no doubt.
I found the most interesting part to be the relationship that developed between McCain and his opponent, Achranae, as they struggle to overcome the cultural barriers so as to be able to work together against their common foe. I can only wish this story be expanded to develop this more thoroughly.
"The President's Doll"
This tale points out something I should have noticed myself long ago, but never did. I actually don't feel that bad because I know of nobody else who saw it either. That something is a needle. This is why I think the story should have been titled "Voodoo Acupuncture."
In the voodoo tradition, a person is cursed by creating a small doll with some bodily parts of the victim, such as fingernails or hair clippings. Once constructed and the proper formula recited, needles inserted into the doll result in a corresponding damage to the victim. In contrast, in acupuncture, the practitioner inserts needles into the patient at certain specific nerve junctions to block pain or to solve some physical problem.
Two men got a brilliant idea. Dr. Sam Pak, expert in acupuncture, and Dr. Pierre Christophe, from Haiti, very knowledgeable about voodoo, decided to combine their skills and create, essentially, acupuncture at a distance. Once Christophe had created the doll, Pak wok insert the needles into the appropriate pain centers when necessary.
Detective Harland of the Washington DC police becomes involved when he is assigned to work with the Secret Service on a case, the Case of the President's Missing Doll. The President is a believer in the efficacy of acupuncture, but it wasn't as widely accepted in 1987 (when the story was first published) as it may be today, in some circles. It would be politically embarrassing if the President were to be seen visiting an acupuncturist or one being seen to enter the White House. So, acupuncture at a distance seemed the perfect solution, until someone broke into the Pak/Christophe Clinic and stole only one item, the President's doll.
Harland and Maxwell, the Secret Service agent, have one task: find the doll and get it back before it is used.
It's a clever tale, and probably one that Zahn wisely decided to leave as a short story. I don't think there's enough here to expand into a novella, much less a novel.
These are just two of the fifteen short stories in this collection. There's a post-holocaust love story, a drug sniffing dog tale, aliens who pose a threat to the solar system on their way elsewhere, a strange telephone book, a troll who works at a toll-booth, a wizard who, for fifteen years, has always showed up too late to use his powers to solve a problem, and an old-boys insider trading network that employs telepaths, among other strange and entertaining tales. Some are demonstrably SF while others are fantasy, and some are somewhere in-between.
Pawn's Gambit and Other Stratagems
short stories
Pawn's Gambit is a collection of fifteen short stories, many of which made their first appearance in SF magazines and anthologies, ranging from 1981 to 2014.
"Pawn's Gambit"
This is the title story and also the last story in the book. It's an alien abduction tale. Kelly McClain awakens in a strange place, not knowing how he got there. He has heard recent stories from around the globe about abductions and that all agreed that they had to play some unfamiliar games and were then returned to Earth. After his initial panic, he settles down to wait. Eventually he is contacted by one of the Stryfkar who explains what will happen to him. The games, the alien explains, are their ways of studying other races.
The alien doesn't tell McClain is that the games have a deadly purpose. The Stryfkar were nearly defeated by another race, the Chanis. The games are designed to identify those races that possess characteristics similar to those of the Chanis, and they will be destroyed before they pose a threat to the Stryfkar.
Normally, the winners of the games were returned safely home while the losers would remain until they finally won. After losing several games they would have more experience with the games than newcomers, so they had an advantage, regardless of how poor a game player they were. Eventually they also would be returned. After having played several games, McCain is shocked to find the Stryfkar have changed the rules. Now, he and his opponent would play three games and the winner would be returned home while the loser would die.
Inserted into the narrative are communications among the Sryfkar which give the reader more insight into them and their actions and which allow the reader to see the growing threat to Earth which McCain is unaware of.
Several other SF works involving game playing for high stakes are Philip K. Dick's The Game Players of Titan, and The Player of Games by Iain Banks. There are many others, no doubt.
I found the most interesting part to be the relationship that developed between McCain and his opponent, Achranae, as they struggle to overcome the cultural barriers so as to be able to work together against their common foe. I can only wish this story be expanded to develop this more thoroughly.
"The President's Doll"
This tale points out something I should have noticed myself long ago, but never did. I actually don't feel that bad because I know of nobody else who saw it either. That something is a needle. This is why I think the story should have been titled "Voodoo Acupuncture."
In the voodoo tradition, a person is cursed by creating a small doll with some bodily parts of the victim, such as fingernails or hair clippings. Once constructed and the proper formula recited, needles inserted into the doll result in a corresponding damage to the victim. In contrast, in acupuncture, the practitioner inserts needles into the patient at certain specific nerve junctions to block pain or to solve some physical problem.
Two men got a brilliant idea. Dr. Sam Pak, expert in acupuncture, and Dr. Pierre Christophe, from Haiti, very knowledgeable about voodoo, decided to combine their skills and create, essentially, acupuncture at a distance. Once Christophe had created the doll, Pak wok insert the needles into the appropriate pain centers when necessary.
Detective Harland of the Washington DC police becomes involved when he is assigned to work with the Secret Service on a case, the Case of the President's Missing Doll. The President is a believer in the efficacy of acupuncture, but it wasn't as widely accepted in 1987 (when the story was first published) as it may be today, in some circles. It would be politically embarrassing if the President were to be seen visiting an acupuncturist or one being seen to enter the White House. So, acupuncture at a distance seemed the perfect solution, until someone broke into the Pak/Christophe Clinic and stole only one item, the President's doll.
Harland and Maxwell, the Secret Service agent, have one task: find the doll and get it back before it is used.
It's a clever tale, and probably one that Zahn wisely decided to leave as a short story. I don't think there's enough here to expand into a novella, much less a novel.
These are just two of the fifteen short stories in this collection. There's a post-holocaust love story, a drug sniffing dog tale, aliens who pose a threat to the solar system on their way elsewhere, a strange telephone book, a troll who works at a toll-booth, a wizard who, for fifteen years, has always showed up too late to use his powers to solve a problem, and an old-boys insider trading network that employs telepaths, among other strange and entertaining tales. Some are demonstrably SF while others are fantasy, and some are somewhere in-between.
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.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Theodore Sturgeon: "The Other Celia"
This is one of those quiet little stories that Ted Sturgeon does so well. The horror is understated and relates not to Celia, be she an alien or another sentient species in hiding on earth. The only too human Slim is the source of the horror in this story. Slim is the type of person who would tear off the wings of insects or birds. But, he wouldn't do it to cause pain or suffering; he would do it out of curiosity to see how a flying creature would react once it had lost its wings. In fact, if someone told Slim he was hurting those creatures, he would be surprised. That would never have occurred to him, and he would probably stop.
As you can see, Slim is not a very likable person. He is a snoop and insensitive to the feelings of others. At times his behavior crosses the line between normal and pathological curiosity. When he was a child, his mother had to appear several times in Children's Court to explain that he wasn't dishonest, that he was just "curious." While curiosity may be a good thing, it can be dangerous if not kept within reasonable limits. In this story we see a Slim whose curiosity leads him to meddle in another person's life and that meddling results in tragedy.
Slim lives in a boarding house. At present he is on medical leave from his job. He was attacked by a fellow employee who tried to bury a fourteen-inch crescent wrench in his skull. Sturgeon does not tell us why the employee tried to do this, but I suspect he was upset by Slim's snooping. Since most of the other tenants of the boarding house are at work, he finds this an excellent opportunity to engage in his favorite pastime--snooping.
"His current situation was therefore a near-paradise. Flimsy doors stood in rows, barely sustaining vacuum upon aching vacuum of knowledge; and one by one they imploded at that nudge of the curiosity. He touched nothing (or if he did, he replaced it carefully) and removed nothing, and within a week he knew Mrs. Koyper's roomers far better than she could, or cared to. Each secret visit to the rooms gave him a starting point; subsequent ones taught him more. He knew not only what these people had, but what they did, where, how much, for how much, and how often. In almost every case, he knew why as well.
Almost every case. Celia Sarton came."
He waited a few days to see what her schedule was. Were there times he could enter her room and feel safe she would not return? He found that she invariably would leave in the morning and return in the evening, just like the rest of the roomers. Therefore he entered her room, but unexpectedly it was two days after he decided it was safe. He kept forgetting about her.
He found nothing in the room to make her an individual--no photos of family or friends, no keepsakes, nothing that would make her stand out in his mind. Several times he found himself leaving the room without looking around for anything: it was as if it was an empty room waiting for someone to enter it.
It was by accident that he discovered that there was something in the room that made her unique. It appeared to be a second skin. Slim had never seen anything like this before, and his curiosity was aroused as it had never been before. So, he acted, not to harm her, but out of curiosity to see what she would do. Thus the tragedy.
A great short story
As you can see, Slim is not a very likable person. He is a snoop and insensitive to the feelings of others. At times his behavior crosses the line between normal and pathological curiosity. When he was a child, his mother had to appear several times in Children's Court to explain that he wasn't dishonest, that he was just "curious." While curiosity may be a good thing, it can be dangerous if not kept within reasonable limits. In this story we see a Slim whose curiosity leads him to meddle in another person's life and that meddling results in tragedy.
Slim lives in a boarding house. At present he is on medical leave from his job. He was attacked by a fellow employee who tried to bury a fourteen-inch crescent wrench in his skull. Sturgeon does not tell us why the employee tried to do this, but I suspect he was upset by Slim's snooping. Since most of the other tenants of the boarding house are at work, he finds this an excellent opportunity to engage in his favorite pastime--snooping.
"His current situation was therefore a near-paradise. Flimsy doors stood in rows, barely sustaining vacuum upon aching vacuum of knowledge; and one by one they imploded at that nudge of the curiosity. He touched nothing (or if he did, he replaced it carefully) and removed nothing, and within a week he knew Mrs. Koyper's roomers far better than she could, or cared to. Each secret visit to the rooms gave him a starting point; subsequent ones taught him more. He knew not only what these people had, but what they did, where, how much, for how much, and how often. In almost every case, he knew why as well.
Almost every case. Celia Sarton came."
He waited a few days to see what her schedule was. Were there times he could enter her room and feel safe she would not return? He found that she invariably would leave in the morning and return in the evening, just like the rest of the roomers. Therefore he entered her room, but unexpectedly it was two days after he decided it was safe. He kept forgetting about her.
He found nothing in the room to make her an individual--no photos of family or friends, no keepsakes, nothing that would make her stand out in his mind. Several times he found himself leaving the room without looking around for anything: it was as if it was an empty room waiting for someone to enter it.
It was by accident that he discovered that there was something in the room that made her unique. It appeared to be a second skin. Slim had never seen anything like this before, and his curiosity was aroused as it had never been before. So, he acted, not to harm her, but out of curiosity to see what she would do. Thus the tragedy.
A great short story
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Gregory Benford: Sailing Bright Eternity, Galactic Center Book 6
Warning: I will discuss important plot elements and the resolution of the conflict between the Naturals and the Mechs.
Greg Benford's Sailing Bright Eternity is the sixth and final book in his mind-bending "Galactic Center" series, which began during the late 1990s in our solar system out on the rim of the galaxy and ended over 35,000 years later on the edge of a massive black hole, the Eater, at the center of the galaxy. I consider this series to be one of the greatest multi-volume SF works ever written.
Greg Benford is a physicist and astronomer, and he makes superb use of his knowledge as he takes what he knows and expands on it and does not allow it to set limits on his imagination. He has also created one of the most engaging characters in SF--Nigel Walmsley, the Brit who joined NASA in the 1990s and somehow managed to be around some 35,000 years later, thus being present at the beginning of humanity's role in the conflict with the mechs and also in at the resolution.
The story picks up where it ended in the previous book, Furious Gulf, with Toby, who has become separated from his father and the rest of the Bishop family. He has encountered a crusty old man who occupies what appears to be some sort of galactic library and who claims to be from the mythical planet Earth. He is of the Brit family, he jokingly tells Toby. It is Nigel Walmsley, whom we haven't heard of since the second novel, who then, as any old timer who hasn't had anybody to talk to for awhile, proceeds to fill Toby in on his part in the war against the mechs, a period which covers roughly 35, 000 years. Fortunately, for Toby, and for the reader also, Walmsley spent most of the time in deep sleep, so it's really not that long. In addition, Benford has kindly provided a Timeline for the Galactic series at the end of the novel.
As Walmsley finishes his tale, the mechs, once again, appear and attack. Walmsley and Toby are separated and we follow Toby as he flees the mechs and searches the Wedge for his family and friends. The Wedge is an habitat created long ago as a refuge for Naturals fleeing the mechs; it has various "pockets," with varying environments. Naturals are those life forms in the galaxy who evolved in the Darwinian mode whereas the mechs were initially created by a Natural species as a weapon of war (Fred Saberhagen has a similar entity in his "Berserker" series.)
What Toby doesn't realize is that the mechs don't want him dead, just yet. They are looking for his grandfather, Abraham (a great name for the founder of a family/tribe) . The mechs have recently learned, as have some of the humans, that there is a secret weapon that could destroy the mechs if it ever could be constructed. The instructions for the weapon are encoded in human DNA, that part called "junk" DNA that doesn't seem to play any role in human development. To get the information, DNA from three closely related humans is required. In this case, the mechs have decided on getting the instructions from Abraham, Killeen, and Todd. Therefore, the mechs keep prodding Todd on in hopes that he will meet up with his grandfather, whom everybody mistakenly had thought had died long ago.
At one point during his wanderings, Toby fashions a raft, deciding that that it would be easier to float down a large river than to try to make his way by foot along the bank. He eventually comes to a town built on the the river that seems quite strange. The prosperity of the town depends on the river and the mighty boats that move up and down that river carrying passengers and cargo. The inhabitants seem to have created a way of living possibly based on some historical setting.
Toby eventually gets a job on one of these boats, the Natchez, because of his recent experience coming down the river. At one point, Toby begins to have some thoughts about the river that seemed somewhat familiar to me.
"Under Mr. Preston he [Toby] was coming to see that the face of the wedded water and metal was a wondrous book, one in a dead language to him before but now speaking cherished secrets. Every fresh point they rounded told a new tale. Not one page was empty. A passenger might be charmed by a churning dimple on its skin, but to a true riverman that was an italicized shout, announcing a wreak or reef of wrenching space-time Vortex about to break through from the undercrust of timestone.
Passengers went oooh and aahhh at the pretty pictures the silver river painted for them without reading a single word of the dark text it truly was."
What's interesting is to compare this with a passage from Mark Twain's From Old Times on the Mississippi:
"It turned out to be true. The face of the water in time became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was devoid of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you could want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. . . The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a peculiar sort of faint dimple on it surface . . . but to the pilot that was an italicized passage; indeed it was more than that, it was a legend of the largest capitals with a strong of shouting exclamation-point at the end of it, for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there that could tear the life out of the strongest vessel that every floated. . . In truth the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading matter."
Again the mechs attack, and again Toby is forced to flee. After various adventures he does meet up with Killeen and Abraham. The Mantis, a mech who has long been the major foe of the Bishops, appears and is able to get the all-important DNA samples. The mechs now can decipher the DNA and study the weapon to determine just how dangerous it really is.
Yet, something is still missing, for there are gaps in the coding. Upon the threat of torture, Abraham reveals the code, which had been handed down through numerous generations in the Bishop family. He sings the code, which is actually a song, "a passage from the most hallowed of the musics the Bishops carried in their sensorium store. They had played it on the long marches together, knew its lines by heart. . . The highest of arts, the Mose Art."
The Mantis says, "I see the connection. The unused sites in the Bishop DNA--that is the key. The notes of this piece, arrayed in harmonics, yield the solution. I relay this to the Exalteds now."
Now the long search has ended: the Exalteds (higher-order mechs) had the information and could now begin to develop a defense against this weapon, whatever it was.
However, as smart as the mechs are, they can't come close to the deviousness of the Natural species. The humans are, in realty, bait. They never were expected to build this "weapon" and use it against the mechs. This is all part of the ruse designed to fool the mechs. The coding in the DNA and the aria is not a set of instructions for a super-weapon or even a revelation of some serious weakness in the mechs--it itself is the weapon. It is a virus, much like a computer virus, that attacks and ultimately destroys the memory and logic sections of the mechs. As a further example of the Natural's deviousness, the virus includes a directive that impels any mech infested with the virus to transmit the virus to any mech within reach.
The long war is over.
Now comes the hard part--persuading the few surviving mechs to join with the Naturals, for the universe will come to an end in a few billion years. The mechs must be convinced that they and the Naturals have a common goal here--to find out how to prevent this from happening or at least learn how to survive, until the next universe forms. Cooperation between them would seem to be absolutely necessary at this point.
I have already mentioned Benford's incorporation of some material from Mark Twain into his narrative. This isn't the only example for he skillfully and seamlessly interweaves some of the most common SF themes and plot devices into a coherent narrative structure frequently without the reader realizing what Benford has accomplished.
In the first novel, Benford confronts us with a situation that has already been found in numerous novels and films: a large asteroid is headed for earth and Walmsley is one of the two astronauts selected to destroy it. Yet, even in this situation that has almost become a cliche, Benford adds a twist that makes it a new and highly significant event. In the second novel, Across the Sea of Stars, the mechs' first attack on Earth reminds me of similar tactics used by the aliens in John Wyndham's Out of the Deeps (aka The Kraken Wakes).
Other situations and events in the Galactic Center series bring to mind Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and also his landmark short story, "The Sentinel." And, along with the incoming asteroid, Benford somehow manages to insert Bigfoot (aka Yeti) into the narrative as well as a religious cult that has gained sufficient political power to prohibit certain types of research and prevent the publication of research results that conflict with their religious beliefs (must be fiction, couldn't happen here in the USA).
The overarching plot structure of Benford's Galactic Center series is reminiscent of EE (Doc) Smith's Lensmen novels, which, like Benford's, consists of six works. In both works, the humans, although in the forefront of the fighting, are really weapons wielded by a superior race--Smith's Arisians and Benford's Higher-ups. And, the enemy forces also are controlled by superior beings--Smith's Eddorians and Benford's Exalteds. The identity of the leaders of the opposing forces aren't known to the humans at the beginning of the conflict. It's only as the conflict gains in intensity do hints and clues emerge which tell the humans that there are others involved in the struggle. Again, it's only in the final volume of both works that the ultimate leaders of both sides come out of hiding and reveal themselves. This is especially true of the first publication of Smith's series for he later revised the first volume to give the readers complete knowledge and novels' characters some knowledge of the Arisians and Eddorians and their struggle for control of the universe.
As I said earlier, I consider this to be one of the greatest SF series ever written, and I hope that I've been able to provide some convincing reasons why I believe this. Perhaps some time, someone reading this might be inspired to at least take a look at the first novel in the series.
The first novel in the Galactic Center series is In the Ocean of Night, in which we are introduced to Nigel Walmsley, who spends almost as much time and energy fighting NASA bureaucrats as he does the mechs. It is, therefore, fitting that these should be the last words of Sailing Bright Eternity, the final volume of this magnificent series:
"All was now quite modern and different around there and most of the ancient names on the graves mean nothing to anybody. There are Cards aplenty and Bishops and even a few Dodgers.
Nearby, old markers relate the names in a language now dispersed or dead. Killeen Bishop. Nearby, slightly less worn, Toby Bishop. These graves are unusually large, suggesting to archeologists that these were from the Hunker Down Era.
Always slightly distanced, alone and apart, Nigel Walmsley is buried on a separate knoll, in full view of the ocean of night."
Greg Benford's Sailing Bright Eternity is the sixth and final book in his mind-bending "Galactic Center" series, which began during the late 1990s in our solar system out on the rim of the galaxy and ended over 35,000 years later on the edge of a massive black hole, the Eater, at the center of the galaxy. I consider this series to be one of the greatest multi-volume SF works ever written.
Greg Benford is a physicist and astronomer, and he makes superb use of his knowledge as he takes what he knows and expands on it and does not allow it to set limits on his imagination. He has also created one of the most engaging characters in SF--Nigel Walmsley, the Brit who joined NASA in the 1990s and somehow managed to be around some 35,000 years later, thus being present at the beginning of humanity's role in the conflict with the mechs and also in at the resolution.
The story picks up where it ended in the previous book, Furious Gulf, with Toby, who has become separated from his father and the rest of the Bishop family. He has encountered a crusty old man who occupies what appears to be some sort of galactic library and who claims to be from the mythical planet Earth. He is of the Brit family, he jokingly tells Toby. It is Nigel Walmsley, whom we haven't heard of since the second novel, who then, as any old timer who hasn't had anybody to talk to for awhile, proceeds to fill Toby in on his part in the war against the mechs, a period which covers roughly 35, 000 years. Fortunately, for Toby, and for the reader also, Walmsley spent most of the time in deep sleep, so it's really not that long. In addition, Benford has kindly provided a Timeline for the Galactic series at the end of the novel.
As Walmsley finishes his tale, the mechs, once again, appear and attack. Walmsley and Toby are separated and we follow Toby as he flees the mechs and searches the Wedge for his family and friends. The Wedge is an habitat created long ago as a refuge for Naturals fleeing the mechs; it has various "pockets," with varying environments. Naturals are those life forms in the galaxy who evolved in the Darwinian mode whereas the mechs were initially created by a Natural species as a weapon of war (Fred Saberhagen has a similar entity in his "Berserker" series.)
What Toby doesn't realize is that the mechs don't want him dead, just yet. They are looking for his grandfather, Abraham (a great name for the founder of a family/tribe) . The mechs have recently learned, as have some of the humans, that there is a secret weapon that could destroy the mechs if it ever could be constructed. The instructions for the weapon are encoded in human DNA, that part called "junk" DNA that doesn't seem to play any role in human development. To get the information, DNA from three closely related humans is required. In this case, the mechs have decided on getting the instructions from Abraham, Killeen, and Todd. Therefore, the mechs keep prodding Todd on in hopes that he will meet up with his grandfather, whom everybody mistakenly had thought had died long ago.
At one point during his wanderings, Toby fashions a raft, deciding that that it would be easier to float down a large river than to try to make his way by foot along the bank. He eventually comes to a town built on the the river that seems quite strange. The prosperity of the town depends on the river and the mighty boats that move up and down that river carrying passengers and cargo. The inhabitants seem to have created a way of living possibly based on some historical setting.
Toby eventually gets a job on one of these boats, the Natchez, because of his recent experience coming down the river. At one point, Toby begins to have some thoughts about the river that seemed somewhat familiar to me.
"Under Mr. Preston he [Toby] was coming to see that the face of the wedded water and metal was a wondrous book, one in a dead language to him before but now speaking cherished secrets. Every fresh point they rounded told a new tale. Not one page was empty. A passenger might be charmed by a churning dimple on its skin, but to a true riverman that was an italicized shout, announcing a wreak or reef of wrenching space-time Vortex about to break through from the undercrust of timestone.
Passengers went oooh and aahhh at the pretty pictures the silver river painted for them without reading a single word of the dark text it truly was."
What's interesting is to compare this with a passage from Mark Twain's From Old Times on the Mississippi:
"It turned out to be true. The face of the water in time became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was devoid of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you could want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. . . The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a peculiar sort of faint dimple on it surface . . . but to the pilot that was an italicized passage; indeed it was more than that, it was a legend of the largest capitals with a strong of shouting exclamation-point at the end of it, for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there that could tear the life out of the strongest vessel that every floated. . . In truth the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading matter."
Again the mechs attack, and again Toby is forced to flee. After various adventures he does meet up with Killeen and Abraham. The Mantis, a mech who has long been the major foe of the Bishops, appears and is able to get the all-important DNA samples. The mechs now can decipher the DNA and study the weapon to determine just how dangerous it really is.
Yet, something is still missing, for there are gaps in the coding. Upon the threat of torture, Abraham reveals the code, which had been handed down through numerous generations in the Bishop family. He sings the code, which is actually a song, "a passage from the most hallowed of the musics the Bishops carried in their sensorium store. They had played it on the long marches together, knew its lines by heart. . . The highest of arts, the Mose Art."
The Mantis says, "I see the connection. The unused sites in the Bishop DNA--that is the key. The notes of this piece, arrayed in harmonics, yield the solution. I relay this to the Exalteds now."
Now the long search has ended: the Exalteds (higher-order mechs) had the information and could now begin to develop a defense against this weapon, whatever it was.
However, as smart as the mechs are, they can't come close to the deviousness of the Natural species. The humans are, in realty, bait. They never were expected to build this "weapon" and use it against the mechs. This is all part of the ruse designed to fool the mechs. The coding in the DNA and the aria is not a set of instructions for a super-weapon or even a revelation of some serious weakness in the mechs--it itself is the weapon. It is a virus, much like a computer virus, that attacks and ultimately destroys the memory and logic sections of the mechs. As a further example of the Natural's deviousness, the virus includes a directive that impels any mech infested with the virus to transmit the virus to any mech within reach.
The long war is over.
Now comes the hard part--persuading the few surviving mechs to join with the Naturals, for the universe will come to an end in a few billion years. The mechs must be convinced that they and the Naturals have a common goal here--to find out how to prevent this from happening or at least learn how to survive, until the next universe forms. Cooperation between them would seem to be absolutely necessary at this point.
I have already mentioned Benford's incorporation of some material from Mark Twain into his narrative. This isn't the only example for he skillfully and seamlessly interweaves some of the most common SF themes and plot devices into a coherent narrative structure frequently without the reader realizing what Benford has accomplished.
In the first novel, Benford confronts us with a situation that has already been found in numerous novels and films: a large asteroid is headed for earth and Walmsley is one of the two astronauts selected to destroy it. Yet, even in this situation that has almost become a cliche, Benford adds a twist that makes it a new and highly significant event. In the second novel, Across the Sea of Stars, the mechs' first attack on Earth reminds me of similar tactics used by the aliens in John Wyndham's Out of the Deeps (aka The Kraken Wakes).
Other situations and events in the Galactic Center series bring to mind Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and also his landmark short story, "The Sentinel." And, along with the incoming asteroid, Benford somehow manages to insert Bigfoot (aka Yeti) into the narrative as well as a religious cult that has gained sufficient political power to prohibit certain types of research and prevent the publication of research results that conflict with their religious beliefs (must be fiction, couldn't happen here in the USA).
The overarching plot structure of Benford's Galactic Center series is reminiscent of EE (Doc) Smith's Lensmen novels, which, like Benford's, consists of six works. In both works, the humans, although in the forefront of the fighting, are really weapons wielded by a superior race--Smith's Arisians and Benford's Higher-ups. And, the enemy forces also are controlled by superior beings--Smith's Eddorians and Benford's Exalteds. The identity of the leaders of the opposing forces aren't known to the humans at the beginning of the conflict. It's only as the conflict gains in intensity do hints and clues emerge which tell the humans that there are others involved in the struggle. Again, it's only in the final volume of both works that the ultimate leaders of both sides come out of hiding and reveal themselves. This is especially true of the first publication of Smith's series for he later revised the first volume to give the readers complete knowledge and novels' characters some knowledge of the Arisians and Eddorians and their struggle for control of the universe.
As I said earlier, I consider this to be one of the greatest SF series ever written, and I hope that I've been able to provide some convincing reasons why I believe this. Perhaps some time, someone reading this might be inspired to at least take a look at the first novel in the series.
The first novel in the Galactic Center series is In the Ocean of Night, in which we are introduced to Nigel Walmsley, who spends almost as much time and energy fighting NASA bureaucrats as he does the mechs. It is, therefore, fitting that these should be the last words of Sailing Bright Eternity, the final volume of this magnificent series:
"All was now quite modern and different around there and most of the ancient names on the graves mean nothing to anybody. There are Cards aplenty and Bishops and even a few Dodgers.
Nearby, old markers relate the names in a language now dispersed or dead. Killeen Bishop. Nearby, slightly less worn, Toby Bishop. These graves are unusually large, suggesting to archeologists that these were from the Hunker Down Era.
Always slightly distanced, alone and apart, Nigel Walmsley is buried on a separate knoll, in full view of the ocean of night."
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