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devrose's review
4.0
3.7. It's a beautiful story that would be made more beautiful if I were a musician. I'm not, so I had to imagine how my partner would feel reading it.
cathepsut's review
2.0
Review for Wind Will Rove by Sarah Pinsker
What can we learn from history? Do we need to learn from history? When do the lessons that we can learn stop mattering for our present lives? And how does life develop, when that history is lost forever and you loose touch with the past and your ancestors?
This felt too much like a mental excercise, a philosophy lesson. I didn‘t care about the characters, the musical evenings or the kids‘ essays.
I read 34 of 66 pages and skimmed the rest. Not my kind of story, it didn‘t work for me. Yes, all good questions about the importance of history, knowing it, learning from it and maybe also distancing yourself from it to create something new and unencumbered. I was bored.
Hugo Awards 2018 Novelette Nominee
Can be read for free here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/content.sitezoogle.com/u/394670/3373259a9d067de6e2a8aebbd44f676cd45ad007/original/windwillrove-pinsker.pdf?response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAJUKM2ICUMTYS6ISA%2F20201222%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20201222T141008Z&X-Amz-Expires=604800&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=50422de73e7263883a943529c188b65003c3cdf425002c47c50f70aafad6672c
What can we learn from history? Do we need to learn from history? When do the lessons that we can learn stop mattering for our present lives? And how does life develop, when that history is lost forever and you loose touch with the past and your ancestors?
This felt too much like a mental excercise, a philosophy lesson. I didn‘t care about the characters, the musical evenings or the kids‘ essays.
I read 34 of 66 pages and skimmed the rest. Not my kind of story, it didn‘t work for me. Yes, all good questions about the importance of history, knowing it, learning from it and maybe also distancing yourself from it to create something new and unencumbered. I was bored.
Hugo Awards 2018 Novelette Nominee
Can be read for free here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/content.sitezoogle.com/u/394670/3373259a9d067de6e2a8aebbd44f676cd45ad007/original/windwillrove-pinsker.pdf?response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAJUKM2ICUMTYS6ISA%2F20201222%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20201222T141008Z&X-Amz-Expires=604800&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=50422de73e7263883a943529c188b65003c3cdf425002c47c50f70aafad6672c
kitsana_d's review
5.0
This was awesome. My great-grandfather was a fiddler; I've been drawn to it for as long as I can remember. There is truth to how tunes evolve and change - listen to any bluegrass and you'll hear its Irish and Scottish roots. But it's not the same. It changes with time, and need, and inspiration.
Hopefully, we do too.
Hopefully, we do too.
remocpi's review
4.0
Finalista de los Hugo y Nébula 2018. Lo llamamos ciencia ficción porque transcurre en una nave espacial en la que generación tras generación se transmitirán los conocimientos necesarios para que, en muchos años, los tataradescendientes de los viajeros originales lleguen a otro planeta. . Toda la novela es un ensayo sobre la tradición, la innovación, la investigación y el olvido. Es una novela corta de ciencia ficción muy extraña,no por el desarrollo de la historia sino por lo poco de ciencia que tiene y lo bella que es la ficción. Es casi casi un ensayo sobre la belleza. Muy, muy interesante.
Spoiler
La narradora, de 55 años y nieta de los viajeros originales, nos cuenta cómo a las pocas decenas de años de "zarpar", un virus liberado por un programador enfadado destruyó tanto las comunicaciones con la Tierra como todas las bases de datos con todo el conocimiento que los viajeros habían llevado consigo. Desde ese momento todo el mundo a bordo comienza a hacer esfuerzosd para recordar y reproducir todo lo que pueda, para intentar conservar algo al menos de la cultura que con ellos llevaron. Pero hay niños de una generación nueva que consideran que la Historia, y en general todo aquello que no tenga aplicación práctica inmediata, debe ser dejado de lado por inútiltriscuit807's review
5.0
4.5 + stars. What is the purpose of history on a generation ship travelling from Earth to a new planet? We say learn history so that you don't repeat the negatives of the past. For a kid who has never and will never set foot on Earth is there really any point? Tasked with preserving the past our history teacher /fiddler realizes thru music (the song "The Wind Will Rove") that while remembering is important so is building on (and changing) history. I read this for my 2018 Reading Challenge and for the 2018 Hugo nominations for Best Novelette.
useriv's review
3.0
Read the story AN INCIDENT IN THE LITERARY LIFE OF NATHAN ARKWRIGHT. Part of the Arkwright series.
Came back in June 2020 for the story "Grand Theft Spacecraft" by R. Garcia y Robertson part of the family series, and my project of reading all stories in Asimov's 2020.
Came back in June 2020 for the story "Grand Theft Spacecraft" by R. Garcia y Robertson part of the family series, and my project of reading all stories in Asimov's 2020.
spacenoirdetective's review
3.0
I like fiddle music as much as the next guy. But I found this one rather tedious. A generation starship had its database about anything cultural scrapped by a bitter hacker a few years after leaving Earth. But this doesn't make any sense to me. You're telling me a hundred years in the future no one can back up their data? They don't have any kind of flash drives, much better ones, a hundred years from now?
It works maybe if you picture this written in the 70s and parts of it reminded me of The Starlost (only remotely) but it does have an interesting classroom conflict as a student rebels against the idea of learning or remembering a past on Earth he doesn't remember. I thought that part was psychologically fun to pick apart in terms of their personalities. But most of this just came across as boring. I kind of wanted to hear more about the new arts they were trying to create, or find out more about their duties with farming, etc. The entire thing is anthropological science fiction and delves into generation gaps when it comes to value systems and passing along knowledge orally. I get where she was going with this piece but it doesn't feel like everything entirely added up quite enough to convince me of the reality of the world she established. There could have been such a better amount of conflict if we found out WHY the hacker did what he did 50 years before. I think that would have been a lot more satisfying, to go into his reasoning and psyche. Or to follow the people her mother joined up with, a cult on a starship that wanted to create only art from their own experience. The idea of synthesizing old knowledge with new spin is a good one, but it isn't really emphasized as much as the protagonists' defense of this subject, defending the past as something necessary to learn from.
3 stars for effort but it didn't quite get to the level I'd hoped it would.
It works maybe if you picture this written in the 70s and parts of it reminded me of The Starlost (only remotely) but it does have an interesting classroom conflict as a student rebels against the idea of learning or remembering a past on Earth he doesn't remember. I thought that part was psychologically fun to pick apart in terms of their personalities. But most of this just came across as boring. I kind of wanted to hear more about the new arts they were trying to create, or find out more about their duties with farming, etc. The entire thing is anthropological science fiction and delves into generation gaps when it comes to value systems and passing along knowledge orally. I get where she was going with this piece but it doesn't feel like everything entirely added up quite enough to convince me of the reality of the world she established. There could have been such a better amount of conflict if we found out WHY the hacker did what he did 50 years before. I think that would have been a lot more satisfying, to go into his reasoning and psyche. Or to follow the people her mother joined up with, a cult on a starship that wanted to create only art from their own experience. The idea of synthesizing old knowledge with new spin is a good one, but it isn't really emphasized as much as the protagonists' defense of this subject, defending the past as something necessary to learn from.
3 stars for effort but it didn't quite get to the level I'd hoped it would.
expendablemudge's review
5.0
Real Rating: 4.5* of five
A meditation on memory, an examination of societal disasters, a paean to performing as art and as science. Fourteen thousand six hundred words about what loss does to people's lives, to their innermost structural members. And not a subtle reminder that any outside storage medium for our vitally necessary stories cannot be solely and eternally relied upon to do our work for us.
We are human and, in no small part, that requires us to be creators of worlds and ideas and realities for ourselves, each other, and the future. We fail at being fully human when we don't do our work of creation, synthesis, and transmission of our unique vision.
Go listen to this tune before reading the free online PDF of this tale that Author Pinsker uploaded so her novelette could be widely read before the Hugos next month.
A meditation on memory, an examination of societal disasters, a paean to performing as art and as science. Fourteen thousand six hundred words about what loss does to people's lives, to their innermost structural members. And not a subtle reminder that any outside storage medium for our vitally necessary stories cannot be solely and eternally relied upon to do our work for us.
We are human and, in no small part, that requires us to be creators of worlds and ideas and realities for ourselves, each other, and the future. We fail at being fully human when we don't do our work of creation, synthesis, and transmission of our unique vision.
Go listen to this tune before reading the free online PDF of this tale that Author Pinsker uploaded so her novelette could be widely read before the Hugos next month.
alexanderp's review
5.0
What a beautiful story about a generation ship in transit. While it could have gone through the normal beats, it chose to stay intimate and personal and contains a whole menagerie of ideas, frustrations, and conflicts.
Rosie is a history teacher and musician on a generation ship that is many decades from its destination. Things proceed as normal until a troublesome student begins to subvert the class and question the point of "history" when all they have is the tin can they are traveling in. This begins Rosie's journey as she tries to identify why history is important and how critical memories are to being human.
Rosie is a history teacher and musician on a generation ship that is many decades from its destination. Things proceed as normal until a troublesome student begins to subvert the class and question the point of "history" when all they have is the tin can they are traveling in. This begins Rosie's journey as she tries to identify why history is important and how critical memories are to being human.
hisham's review
5.0
Nominated for the Hugo Award in the Novelette category, I thought Wind Will Rove was about about music and generation ships on the long voyage between Earth and a new Star. Being tone deaf and having a very limited appreciation for music, I figured I wouldn't love this story.
I was so incredibly wrong! Wrong not just about the subject of the story. (Ok, it is about music and a generation ship on the surface - but so much more.) But wrong because I loved this story!
Wind Will Rove is titled after a piece of music. A piece of music played by musicians onboard the generational ship where the story is set.
On this ship years after it set off from Earth there was an incident that the people on the ship refer to as The Blackout. Everything stored on the ships cultural and entertainment databases was wiped. Permanently.
Ever since then there is an understandable obsession with the people of the ship to try and preserve by, and recreate all of the Films, Plays, Music and cultural art and history.
As more generations are born and grow up, this is causing a cultural schism between generations who struggle more and more to understand why so much attention and energy should be squandered on recreating the old. Especially when new art and culture can develop.
By the time we meet our main character (A teacher and musician) the leanings of some of the latest generation has progressed i
to the point that some students actively rebelling from the idea of having to learn any of the histories or cultural output from an Earth they have never seen. Our main character struggles to make her History subjects accessible whilst also remembering her own struggle when she was young to appreciate her cultural background.
This story is all about the importance of studying and remembering history. Not just of events and people, but art and culture.
It is about the danger of thinking that we know better than those that came before us - as a warning against presuming that we know everything that those eho are yet to come will want or need.
It is about learning from the past to avoid repeating the same mistakes. It is about accepting the art and teachings of our past and present - but always allowing others to build upon, to twist and tinker with it and create something new. But to never forget.
But yes, It's also about music and a generation ship. It's an engrossing and wonderful story.
I was so incredibly wrong! Wrong not just about the subject of the story. (Ok, it is about music and a generation ship on the surface - but so much more.) But wrong because I loved this story!
Wind Will Rove is titled after a piece of music. A piece of music played by musicians onboard the generational ship where the story is set.
On this ship years after it set off from Earth there was an incident that the people on the ship refer to as The Blackout. Everything stored on the ships cultural and entertainment databases was wiped. Permanently.
Ever since then there is an understandable obsession with the people of the ship to try and preserve by, and recreate all of the Films, Plays, Music and cultural art and history.
As more generations are born and grow up, this is causing a cultural schism between generations who struggle more and more to understand why so much attention and energy should be squandered on recreating the old. Especially when new art and culture can develop.
By the time we meet our main character (A teacher and musician) the leanings of some of the latest generation has progressed i
to the point that some students actively rebelling from the idea of having to learn any of the histories or cultural output from an Earth they have never seen. Our main character struggles to make her History subjects accessible whilst also remembering her own struggle when she was young to appreciate her cultural background.
This story is all about the importance of studying and remembering history. Not just of events and people, but art and culture.
It is about the danger of thinking that we know better than those that came before us - as a warning against presuming that we know everything that those eho are yet to come will want or need.
It is about learning from the past to avoid repeating the same mistakes. It is about accepting the art and teachings of our past and present - but always allowing others to build upon, to twist and tinker with it and create something new. But to never forget.
But yes, It's also about music and a generation ship. It's an engrossing and wonderful story.