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A review by ted_funsten
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
4.0
I enjoyed the characters, particularly Ayse Erkoc, Georgios Ferentinou and Can Durukan, and the atmosphere. The book gave a convincing picture of Istanbul, portraying a deep history, location between Europe and Asia, role as a melting pot for Turkey and the region. There are Muslim and Christian characters, and all seem well described.
The only thing that bothered me about the book were some of the elements of the plot that seemed makeshift. To examine them is to get into spoilers.
But the characters don't refer to, or even acknowledge, the question of how that information could be accessed quickly enough to be useful. A tiny, molecule-scale machine navigating over strands of DNA, does not sound like part of a storage device that could have anything close to the speed of a hard drive. There are other questions. How would the machines know where they could write the data without damaging DNA data the cells need. Where would information on location of data be stored. How would the information between cells. RAM and processor work.
There might be solutions - multiple nanomachines, the equivalent of RAM, systems that would figure out what data to fetch in advance, but there's no mention of any of that. I don't know details of comparative speed between a hard drive and nanomachines, if anf when ... But the whole thing seemed like an imaginary technology that wasn't credible.
One other element that wasn't credible. Ayse Erkoc is eventually arrested and the charges seem ridiculously excessive. In the U.S., the arrest would clearly be the result of entrapment. Sure, Turkish law would be different, but I still found it hard to believe the charges against her would have gone anywhere.
I listened to the audio version of the book read by Jonathan Davis, and enjoyed the reading. Davis conveyed a beauty in the sound and rhythm of the Turkish names. The different tones of voice he used for different characters was very effective.
The only thing that bothered me about the book were some of the elements of the plot that seemed makeshift. To examine them is to get into spoilers.
Spoiler
A key technological factor in one important subplot is a nanotech advance that suggests tiny machines capable of rewriting unused segments of DNA within individual cells of a body to store data. The characters suggest there would be enough room to store things like all the published books in the world in only a small part of the body, and to record all of a person's experiences, an entire life. From there, characters suggest you could have all the information needed for a profession, techniques, data like all the case law a lawyer could ever need, available in a usable form. So you could suddenly have the training to pursue a profession, or access the case law while working on a legal project.But the characters don't refer to, or even acknowledge, the question of how that information could be accessed quickly enough to be useful. A tiny, molecule-scale machine navigating over strands of DNA, does not sound like part of a storage device that could have anything close to the speed of a hard drive. There are other questions. How would the machines know where they could write the data without damaging DNA data the cells need. Where would information on location of data be stored. How would the information between cells. RAM and processor work.
There might be solutions - multiple nanomachines, the equivalent of RAM, systems that would figure out what data to fetch in advance, but there's no mention of any of that. I don't know details of comparative speed between a hard drive and nanomachines, if anf when ... But the whole thing seemed like an imaginary technology that wasn't credible.
One other element that wasn't credible. Ayse Erkoc is eventually arrested and the charges seem ridiculously excessive. In the U.S., the arrest would clearly be the result of entrapment. Sure, Turkish law would be different, but I still found it hard to believe the charges against her would have gone anywhere.
I listened to the audio version of the book read by Jonathan Davis, and enjoyed the reading. Davis conveyed a beauty in the sound and rhythm of the Turkish names. The different tones of voice he used for different characters was very effective.