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beaconatnight's reviews
247 reviews
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor
4.0
This is the story about Bob. How he dies, comes back to life as an artificial intelligence, is send to space, replicates himself into the eponymous legion of Bobs, and eventually ends up as a God-like entity. Developing its brilliant premise with much wit and humor, We are Legion (We are Bob) is easily among the best sci-fi publications of the last decade.
To be honest, from the way the book is marketed I expected an experience similar to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but the humor is much more subtle than that. It mainly stems from Bob's lighthearted nature and from his almost frivolous approach to tackling the serious issues at hand. He's funny, but he's smart enough to properly deal with them. His character really has all the traits that the book's core demographic will appreciate. Put bluntly, we really love Bob.
At the core of the story is the idea of von Neumann probes. This technology may explain how colonization of space is possible. Such artifacts are characterized by the ability to create exact copies of themselves without the help of human control. So, we may send out a probe to a planet where it starts to build the facilities necessary to reproduce itself. Given the appropriate circumstances, it may exploit the planet's resources, conduct geological surveys, or terraform the environment for possible future human settlement, and doing all this while the created other probes head off to repeat the process on different planets. This is exactly what Bob is doing.
Throughout the story, Bob reflects on many long-standing philosophical issues that for him gained increased urgency. For one thing, if we think of classics such as Frankenstein, traditionally the issue of artificial intelligence was the possibility of artificial life. While few will permit him membership to the fauna of the universe, can Bob still claim for himself the quality of life? Philosophers of science often admitted defeat when it comes to defining what the concept of life actually means. However, the case of an artificial intelligence may encourage us to reevaluate whether organic matter is essential to calling an entity alive.
For human beings, consciousness is an essential ingredient to their personhood. So, can Bob consider himself to be conscious? He ponders how self-awareness, doubt and thought in general connect to this issue, themes I found very stimulating as consciousness is among the most fascinating yet elusive natural phenomena. Connected to this issue, there is also the question of free will. Bob discovers that he's programmed to follow preset imperatives. What does this say about him, especially when considering that many consider agency among the necessary conditions for being a person?
First and foremost, there is the question whether personal identity between organic and non-organic being(s) is possible. Or, to put it more straightforwardly, the question whether he's still Bob. And what does being Bob (or "Bobhood", as he puts it) really mean when he's able to clone himself (himselves?) as the data that animates machines? Can you be a person if you are not unique? Looked at it from this angle, I thought the exploration of his psychological dimension (put to the forefront by making Bob the narrator) made for a very interesting character study.
The plot itself reads very much like commentary on an ongoing strategy game. Bob has to plan his every move, make assumptions of his enemies strengths and weaknesses, explore the terrain, open up new resources, build new instances of himself. As with many games, I felt that the opening phase dragged a bit, but once the different operations got started most threads lead to very interesting developments.
For me the most interesting plot thread was the one pursued by the original copy of Bob. In his explorations he comes across an intelligent species that is still in its infancy of cultural development. This encounter prompts the question whether he should follow the Prime Directive of non-interference with the evolution of alien species. Even his cautious intrusions lead to the development of such concepts as greed, caution, religion, or trade (with the possibility of being rich). Non-interference becomes a moral matter when his interventions may prevent the extinction of his protégés.
This first entry to the Bobiverse really was an immensely stimulating read. Now that Bob became the shepherd of humanity, I expect their journey to become the focus of the next novel(s) in the series. I have to say that so far I wasn't too excited about all the bickerings between the opposing factions that form the remnants of the human race., but I'm sure this aspect of the story will grow on me. I certainly wouldn't mind if this turned out to be all Battlestar Galactica in the end.
Rating: 4/5
To be honest, from the way the book is marketed I expected an experience similar to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but the humor is much more subtle than that. It mainly stems from Bob's lighthearted nature and from his almost frivolous approach to tackling the serious issues at hand. He's funny, but he's smart enough to properly deal with them. His character really has all the traits that the book's core demographic will appreciate. Put bluntly, we really love Bob.
At the core of the story is the idea of von Neumann probes. This technology may explain how colonization of space is possible. Such artifacts are characterized by the ability to create exact copies of themselves without the help of human control. So, we may send out a probe to a planet where it starts to build the facilities necessary to reproduce itself. Given the appropriate circumstances, it may exploit the planet's resources, conduct geological surveys, or terraform the environment for possible future human settlement, and doing all this while the created other probes head off to repeat the process on different planets. This is exactly what Bob is doing.
Throughout the story, Bob reflects on many long-standing philosophical issues that for him gained increased urgency. For one thing, if we think of classics such as Frankenstein, traditionally the issue of artificial intelligence was the possibility of artificial life. While few will permit him membership to the fauna of the universe, can Bob still claim for himself the quality of life? Philosophers of science often admitted defeat when it comes to defining what the concept of life actually means. However, the case of an artificial intelligence may encourage us to reevaluate whether organic matter is essential to calling an entity alive.
For human beings, consciousness is an essential ingredient to their personhood. So, can Bob consider himself to be conscious? He ponders how self-awareness, doubt and thought in general connect to this issue, themes I found very stimulating as consciousness is among the most fascinating yet elusive natural phenomena. Connected to this issue, there is also the question of free will. Bob discovers that he's programmed to follow preset imperatives. What does this say about him, especially when considering that many consider agency among the necessary conditions for being a person?
First and foremost, there is the question whether personal identity between organic and non-organic being(s) is possible. Or, to put it more straightforwardly, the question whether he's still Bob. And what does being Bob (or "Bobhood", as he puts it) really mean when he's able to clone himself (himselves?) as the data that animates machines? Can you be a person if you are not unique? Looked at it from this angle, I thought the exploration of his psychological dimension (put to the forefront by making Bob the narrator) made for a very interesting character study.
The plot itself reads very much like commentary on an ongoing strategy game. Bob has to plan his every move, make assumptions of his enemies strengths and weaknesses, explore the terrain, open up new resources, build new instances of himself. As with many games, I felt that the opening phase dragged a bit, but once the different operations got started most threads lead to very interesting developments.
For me the most interesting plot thread was the one pursued by the original copy of Bob. In his explorations he comes across an intelligent species that is still in its infancy of cultural development. This encounter prompts the question whether he should follow the Prime Directive of non-interference with the evolution of alien species. Even his cautious intrusions lead to the development of such concepts as greed, caution, religion, or trade (with the possibility of being rich). Non-interference becomes a moral matter when his interventions may prevent the extinction of his protégés.
This first entry to the Bobiverse really was an immensely stimulating read. Now that Bob became the shepherd of humanity, I expect their journey to become the focus of the next novel(s) in the series. I have to say that so far I wasn't too excited about all the bickerings between the opposing factions that form the remnants of the human race., but I'm sure this aspect of the story will grow on me. I certainly wouldn't mind if this turned out to be all Battlestar Galactica in the end.
Rating: 4/5
Der Goldene Kompass by Philip Pullman, Andrea Kann, Wolfram Ströle
5.0
I really didn't anticipate to love Northern Lights as much as I did. When it comes to adventure tales it really doesn't get much better than this. With parallel universes, bear warriors in armors, prophecy by interpreting symbols, grand adventure into the cold North and so many brilliant ideas that make the world the more lively it immediately established itself as a favorite of mine.
I love how the story introduces the fantasy elements into a Victorian steampunk world, so that we find dæmons, witches, and talking polar bears as well as zeppelins and guns. In this world, twelve-year-old Lyra Belacqua lives with her dæmon Pantalaimon in Jordan College, Oxford. One day she sneaks into the forbidden meeting room where she hides in a wardrobe when not only important scientists but also her uncle, Lord Asriel, come together for a very important talk. She overhears something about a mysterious "Dust" and how children are less attracting to these particles than adults are. She also gets to know about a parallel universe that can be seen through the Northern Lights.
Shortly thereafter, children start to disappear from the streets of Oxford. Rumor has it that a secret organization, the so-called Gobblers, are behind the abductions. Among the disappearing children is Roger, Lyra's best friend. Eventually she also learns that Lord Asriel is held prisoner in a fortress called Svalbard. She leaves Oxford when the impressive Mrs Coulter shows up and asks Lyra to join her. Of course, there is much more to Mrs Coulter that Lyra at first realizes and soon she is out on her own, set not only to find Roger but to save Lord Asriel from his imprisonment.
There are the big question marks that guide the story forward. What is this "Dust"? Why do they need the children? What is meant by children being only "half"? Lyra herself, and her role in the events to come, is another mystery. Her popularity allows her to form allegiances with many different people and parties. However, not all forces are sympathetic to her cause and it's not always clear who she can trust. Maybe the most heartwarming bond is with a outcast polar bear, the wonderful Iorek Byrnison. There are also some thrilling action sequences that vividly pass before your mental eyes. Finally, I just loved how some plot threads play out, like Lyra's brilliant move to trick the king of the bears to fight Iorek or the eventual reunion with her father.
Maybe the story's strongest feature is the relationship between humans and their dæmons. There is something beautiful about the idea of the human soul being manifested in an external being that symbolizes their human's personality and its stage of development. When coming of age, children have to figure out who they are and their character traits are still in flux, and so their dæmons too are able to transform. When they grow older, though, their traits settle and change (in personality as well as outer appearance of the dæmons) becomes much harder. So, human person and dæmon belong together like two representations of the same entity. Separation cannot occur but under great pain and sadness.
Considering the fact that the book is mainly marketed towards a younger audience, I was surprised to find how dark the story really is. Not only do the children guilelessly smoke and drink heavy alcohol, there are cropped off heads, a seal ripped to pieces, the details of what the word "castration" means. Artistically more interestingly, you are so drawn into the world that the reader physically shares the disgust when you get to know more about the experiments they are doing on children and you encounter their horrifying results.
From the very beginning there are twists that make it hard to interpret characters' motivations and intentions. Because of this, it becomes impossible to unambiguously locate them on the usual good/evil axis. This interesting approach is maintained to the very end of the book where some central characters go out with a bang. But not only in respect to the ambiguities and uncertainties the story offers qualities of what you may call high literature. It is told in this almost poetically rich language that takes its time to draw the details of the sceneries on your mental canvas while still while still maintaining its fluent elegancy.
Rating: 5/5
I love how the story introduces the fantasy elements into a Victorian steampunk world, so that we find dæmons, witches, and talking polar bears as well as zeppelins and guns. In this world, twelve-year-old Lyra Belacqua lives with her dæmon Pantalaimon in Jordan College, Oxford. One day she sneaks into the forbidden meeting room where she hides in a wardrobe when not only important scientists but also her uncle, Lord Asriel, come together for a very important talk. She overhears something about a mysterious "Dust" and how children are less attracting to these particles than adults are. She also gets to know about a parallel universe that can be seen through the Northern Lights.
Shortly thereafter, children start to disappear from the streets of Oxford. Rumor has it that a secret organization, the so-called Gobblers, are behind the abductions. Among the disappearing children is Roger, Lyra's best friend. Eventually she also learns that Lord Asriel is held prisoner in a fortress called Svalbard. She leaves Oxford when the impressive Mrs Coulter shows up and asks Lyra to join her. Of course, there is much more to Mrs Coulter that Lyra at first realizes and soon she is out on her own, set not only to find Roger but to save Lord Asriel from his imprisonment.
There are the big question marks that guide the story forward. What is this "Dust"? Why do they need the children? What is meant by children being only "half"? Lyra herself, and her role in the events to come, is another mystery. Her popularity allows her to form allegiances with many different people and parties. However, not all forces are sympathetic to her cause and it's not always clear who she can trust. Maybe the most heartwarming bond is with a outcast polar bear, the wonderful Iorek Byrnison. There are also some thrilling action sequences that vividly pass before your mental eyes. Finally, I just loved how some plot threads play out, like Lyra's brilliant move to trick the king of the bears to fight Iorek or the eventual reunion with her father.
Maybe the story's strongest feature is the relationship between humans and their dæmons. There is something beautiful about the idea of the human soul being manifested in an external being that symbolizes their human's personality and its stage of development. When coming of age, children have to figure out who they are and their character traits are still in flux, and so their dæmons too are able to transform. When they grow older, though, their traits settle and change (in personality as well as outer appearance of the dæmons) becomes much harder. So, human person and dæmon belong together like two representations of the same entity. Separation cannot occur but under great pain and sadness.
Considering the fact that the book is mainly marketed towards a younger audience, I was surprised to find how dark the story really is. Not only do the children guilelessly smoke and drink heavy alcohol, there are cropped off heads, a seal ripped to pieces, the details of what the word "castration" means. Artistically more interestingly, you are so drawn into the world that the reader physically shares the disgust when you get to know more about the experiments they are doing on children and you encounter their horrifying results.
From the very beginning there are twists that make it hard to interpret characters' motivations and intentions. Because of this, it becomes impossible to unambiguously locate them on the usual good/evil axis. This interesting approach is maintained to the very end of the book where some central characters go out with a bang. But not only in respect to the ambiguities and uncertainties the story offers qualities of what you may call high literature. It is told in this almost poetically rich language that takes its time to draw the details of the sceneries on your mental canvas while still while still maintaining its fluent elegancy.
Rating: 5/5
Last Orders by Brian W. Aldiss
3.0
(Continues this.)
The Expensive Delicate Ship (1973)
Two friends hike over a way that connects Denmark and Sweden. One of the two is telling a story and the narrator of story retells this story within his story. He is on the high sea. Suddenly another boat appears and the swell becomes very dangerous. He sees that the other arc (the "Doppelganger arc") carries many animals and even dinosaurs. Eventually, he reveals that this story is the product of his imagination and that for a man like him, making up such anecdotes is truly living (again a theme familiar from earlier stories).
The Coins in Clockwork Fountains (1975)
This again a collection of three stories. However, this time I wasn't able to see any connection between the stories collected under the header.
The first story (probably my least favorite in the entire collection) is narrated by the servant of a sick old woman. He tells about the numerous visits that the woman received and secretly lusts for some of her guests. Noticeably, the time scale seems different, as people live for much longer numbers of years and pregnancies take "longer". Possibly things in fact are different, but since it's a different planet the more plausible explanation is a different calendar and time scale. Eventually he reveals that he is the creator of the universe (maybe the initiator of time that the sect believes in?)..
The second story is epic fantasy. Moolab is a many-legged being that gives "blood water" to other creatures (whatever that means). But tonight he is destined for a higher purpose. A priest and a "swarm master" (of the swarm that Moolab is part of) ceremonially introduce him to his quest. He is about to set out and kill a Kimarsun and bring back its eye. These creatures are so completely immobile that their position is part of the collective memory of his swarm. After some struggle he is able to defeat the being.
The third story, well it's very short and I have no idea what it is about.
An Appearance of Life (1976)
This story, easily my favorite in the collection, is about the museum of Norma. The museum was built by an highly advanced alien species, the Korlevalulaw, a race that had since then disappeared from the face of the known universe (there are many theories as to what happened to them). The museum is a huge, encompassing the whole equator in an underground facility. The Korlevalulaw left it completely empty, but at least parts of it are now filled with human artifacts which span long time frames. Female androids maintain the museum, which is noteworthy because it is said that there are now ten women on every man.
The story is narrated by a "Erster Esenplastischer Sucher", which seems to be some sort of scientist who draws links between things for which many don't see a connection. In the cause of the visit to the museum, the Suchender sees space ships from the First Galactic era and later from the Second Galactic era. The Suchender also finds a wedding ring and is surprised by the type of relationship that used to by symbolically expressed by this sort of artifact (there are no longer love relations like this).
The climax of the story is reached when he (or she?) finds two so-called holocaps, first of a woman and later of a man, created 65 Thousand years earlier. The two encapsel two sides of a long dead relationship. The Sucher decides to reunite the two, who were talking about each other in the recording. At first, it looks as if they talk to each other, emphasizing that they always upheld their marriage even after the separation. Tragically, it soon becomes clear that their messages were preprogrammed and cannot escape the boundaries of what is to be said would they ever meet again.
The story ends on a contemplative note. Maybe this is the horizon of the human race as a whole, the Sucher hypothesize, created by the Korlevalulaw a long time ago. Maybe human beings too are just responding in programmed ways.
Wired for Sound (1974)
An alternative history set in the UK after the Fall or Europe. Great Britain has become a dystopian country that eavesdrops on its citizens at all times. Companies are partly socialized. The protagonist of the story tries to strike a secret deal with the sheik who visits him. While certainly nothing special, I enjoyed the way it's establishing a very complex setting for the cause of a story that is barely a couple of pages long.
Journey to the Heartland (1976)
This is the story of another dream researcher, Andrew Angsteed, and his favorite subject, Rose-Jean Depson. As in previous stories, his institute's main purpose is to classify the dreams of its experimentees. Angsteed forms a theory: he thinks that life is determined by the eternal return of the same (well, he doesn't quite put this in these Nietzschean terms, but this is the idea), that all people make the same kinds of experiences. This is comparable to what many psychoanalysts found in dreams, that dreams instantiate the same archetypes of the collective unconscious. Philosophically, this is a very intriguing idea. The fact that we share concepts such as friendship, accomplishment, etc. is probably the main reason why we understand each other's endeavors in the first place.
Angsteed is having a love affair with Rose-Jean, who is afraid that she is repeating the same mistakes as with her husband (from which she lives separated but occasionally still has sex with). In the end, Andrew may have found a way to live in the dreamscape. As Aldiss explains in a fictional interview attached to the story, in the sad non-sf ending, the imminent break-through is part of his schizophrenia. Exhaustion as well as the realization that he and Rose-Jean are not fit for each other lead to the eventual breakdown. According to the science-fiction interpretation, his ideas are true. He comes back, changed, now living within the dream time. He is determined to lead other people to this Heartland of dreams.
The Expensive Delicate Ship (1973)
Two friends hike over a way that connects Denmark and Sweden. One of the two is telling a story and the narrator of story retells this story within his story. He is on the high sea. Suddenly another boat appears and the swell becomes very dangerous. He sees that the other arc (the "Doppelganger arc") carries many animals and even dinosaurs. Eventually, he reveals that this story is the product of his imagination and that for a man like him, making up such anecdotes is truly living (again a theme familiar from earlier stories).
The Coins in Clockwork Fountains (1975)
This again a collection of three stories. However, this time I wasn't able to see any connection between the stories collected under the header.
The first story (probably my least favorite in the entire collection) is narrated by the servant of a sick old woman. He tells about the numerous visits that the woman received and secretly lusts for some of her guests. Noticeably, the time scale seems different, as people live for much longer numbers of years and pregnancies take "longer". Possibly things in fact are different, but since it's a different planet the more plausible explanation is a different calendar and time scale. Eventually he reveals that he is the creator of the universe (maybe the initiator of time that the sect believes in?)..
The second story is epic fantasy. Moolab is a many-legged being that gives "blood water" to other creatures (whatever that means). But tonight he is destined for a higher purpose. A priest and a "swarm master" (of the swarm that Moolab is part of) ceremonially introduce him to his quest. He is about to set out and kill a Kimarsun and bring back its eye. These creatures are so completely immobile that their position is part of the collective memory of his swarm. After some struggle he is able to defeat the being.
The third story, well it's very short and I have no idea what it is about.
An Appearance of Life (1976)
This story, easily my favorite in the collection, is about the museum of Norma. The museum was built by an highly advanced alien species, the Korlevalulaw, a race that had since then disappeared from the face of the known universe (there are many theories as to what happened to them). The museum is a huge, encompassing the whole equator in an underground facility. The Korlevalulaw left it completely empty, but at least parts of it are now filled with human artifacts which span long time frames. Female androids maintain the museum, which is noteworthy because it is said that there are now ten women on every man.
The story is narrated by a "Erster Esenplastischer Sucher", which seems to be some sort of scientist who draws links between things for which many don't see a connection. In the cause of the visit to the museum, the Suchender sees space ships from the First Galactic era and later from the Second Galactic era. The Suchender also finds a wedding ring and is surprised by the type of relationship that used to by symbolically expressed by this sort of artifact (there are no longer love relations like this).
The climax of the story is reached when he (or she?) finds two so-called holocaps, first of a woman and later of a man, created 65 Thousand years earlier. The two encapsel two sides of a long dead relationship. The Sucher decides to reunite the two, who were talking about each other in the recording. At first, it looks as if they talk to each other, emphasizing that they always upheld their marriage even after the separation. Tragically, it soon becomes clear that their messages were preprogrammed and cannot escape the boundaries of what is to be said would they ever meet again.
The story ends on a contemplative note. Maybe this is the horizon of the human race as a whole, the Sucher hypothesize, created by the Korlevalulaw a long time ago. Maybe human beings too are just responding in programmed ways.
Wired for Sound (1974)
An alternative history set in the UK after the Fall or Europe. Great Britain has become a dystopian country that eavesdrops on its citizens at all times. Companies are partly socialized. The protagonist of the story tries to strike a secret deal with the sheik who visits him. While certainly nothing special, I enjoyed the way it's establishing a very complex setting for the cause of a story that is barely a couple of pages long.
Journey to the Heartland (1976)
This is the story of another dream researcher, Andrew Angsteed, and his favorite subject, Rose-Jean Depson. As in previous stories, his institute's main purpose is to classify the dreams of its experimentees. Angsteed forms a theory: he thinks that life is determined by the eternal return of the same (well, he doesn't quite put this in these Nietzschean terms, but this is the idea), that all people make the same kinds of experiences. This is comparable to what many psychoanalysts found in dreams, that dreams instantiate the same archetypes of the collective unconscious. Philosophically, this is a very intriguing idea. The fact that we share concepts such as friendship, accomplishment, etc. is probably the main reason why we understand each other's endeavors in the first place.
Angsteed is having a love affair with Rose-Jean, who is afraid that she is repeating the same mistakes as with her husband (from which she lives separated but occasionally still has sex with). In the end, Andrew may have found a way to live in the dreamscape. As Aldiss explains in a fictional interview attached to the story, in the sad non-sf ending, the imminent break-through is part of his schizophrenia. Exhaustion as well as the realization that he and Rose-Jean are not fit for each other lead to the eventual breakdown. According to the science-fiction interpretation, his ideas are true. He comes back, changed, now living within the dream time. He is determined to lead other people to this Heartland of dreams.
Die letzte Runde by Brian W. Aldiss
3.0
The short-stories collected in Last Orders, And other Stories are difficult and, frankly, sometimes even exhausting. Throughout the book, I was hoping for some sort of revelation as to what this was all about and how the elements in the story really are connected. However, as I was approaching the final story there was no doubt left that I would be disappointed in that respect. The stories are mostly taken to stand for themselves, confusing as they may be.
There are recurring characters and themes, so that it seems safe to say that the events take place in the same universe (or at least some of them). The interconnections are not very tightly knit, though. It's more like you are getting very small glimpses at worlds you know other things about, but this knowledge is very limited and partly based on inferences that may not be fully warranted. So, maybe you could say that your access to this world is similar to our narratives in regard to prehistoric times, only that these times are far or even further into the future rather than the past.
The stories are full of dreams, fictional worlds, the nature of life, the nature of time (standstill as well as multiple times), schizophrenia, failure, and the opposition of living life and intellectualizing it. Stylistically, I often felt reminded of Milan Kundera in the way the stories were told, and in substance I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the stories sometime feel as if Jorge Luis Borges had written science-fiction (even though the ideas are not quite as sharply laid out).
While I'm not sure I can give a coherent picture of all these stories, I thought I give some comments on them individually.
Last Order (1976)
The world is dying. A policeman is driving around, looking for people who still weren't evacuated. In a pub he meets two people, and decides to have one last drink with them.
The story is a bit silly and you won't find any deep ideas in here. However, the setting of course is honest-to-God science-fiction and I love the sort of everyday stories you would find in Raymond Carver and others. So, why not make the end of the world the scenery of a very everyday encounter?
Creatures of Apogee (1977)
The four pages that make up this hybrid of fantasy/science-fiction story are quite obscure. It revolves around two peoples, the beings of Apogee and the beings of Perihelion and a mysterious Time of Change, with the latter taking over from the first. This reads like the lore you find summarized in an holy book, stimulating to the imagination, but with very little actual substance to it.
Year by Year the Evil Gains (1976)
This story is made up of three different stories which roughly revolve around the theme expressed in the story's title. The first and autobiographical story is about a girl who lived in the Kremlin between the wars and during WWII. She talks about how she gradually lost all her relatives. Her mother committed suicide, driven there by her father. Her father was an important figure in Russia and she hints at his descent into darkness. The story is again only hinting at events, but I really liked its atmosphere. There are also the girls "inventions", like her color-coding of emotions or how to experience things differently when looked at from different angles (at first literally, later in regard to historical events).
In the second story, men of a maritime research team go for a hunt of sea creatures, brutally killing them even though they regard them as intelligent and aware that this constitutes a violation of the Galactic Law. A so-called sector arbitrator arrives and rebukes the men for their ruthless actions. After research of the environment, the arbitrator suddenly feels the inexplicable desire to go for the hunt himself. You can totally see how this would make for an interesting development in a larger story.
In the last of the three stories we follow two events simultaneously. After centuries, a spaceship rediscovers the Sun. They realize that one planet is missing from the solar system (after "Last Order" more than certainly Earth). They find the missing planet as melded with another planet, presumably Jupiter (because of the Red Spot). On the surface they discover an unidentifiable artifact which has FORD written on it. We also follow Jackson Paramour, the son of Jack Paramour. He lived most of his life thinking of his father as a boring designer of costume jewelry (incidentally, it's possibly the same person as, or a relative of, the arbitrator of the previous story). He discovers a book written by his father, which leads him to an old farm where he and his mother had lived. Next to a Ford he finds the place where he was conceived. Very well written and the outcome is amusing enough.
Diagrams for three enigmatic Stories (1976)
The stories collected under this header are told in a very confusing way. They are introduced by an author (Aldiss?) and only parts of these stories are actually written, while they mostly are sketches explaining what would have ended up in there if they had ever been completed. The narrator in the stories seems to be the same as the narrator who is talking about the stories, explaining what he intended to include. He is a psychologist doing research on three types of dreams, all three being crucial elements in the stories to come.
The first is a love-story-to-be. The psychologist is telling about his relationship with a woman called Olga, who he met after she had a car accident. He is working on a theory of dreams, currently focusing on what he calls tau dreams. Olga often appears in his dreams. Later the two become lovers, before she finally dies in a car accident.
In the second story, said to be an adventure story, four men are part of what the narrator calls an immobility experiment. This experiment has three aspects, immobility, sameness of the environment and deconstruction of reality. The adventure part comes in when the subjects are attacked by "entities". Everything is very confusing. They are said to have sigma and ypsilon dreams (but no longer tau dreams) marked by the fact that "external psychic life" makes an appearance. I liked this almost Freddy Krueger-y atmosphere, but again I would have liked this to be developed further.
This time, the psychologist meets with a "foreigner", the boy Ben Avangle, who seems to be humanoid extraterrestrial being with blue skin. They talk about Robert Louis Stevenson. The boy tells him about numerous brilliant works (including musical pieces). Coincidentally, the title of these works, which are unknown to the narrator, can be created by certain permutations. He claims that he used these rules to acquire an hitherto unknown manuscript. After some experiments, the narrator is sure that the Foreigners are materializing objects when in states of upsilon dreams. This story I thought was really cool and its ending satisfactory for once.
Life? Our Computers Do that for Us (1974)
So-called destimeters allow predestination. A man from one of Earth's colonies is planning a visit to humanity's home planet in order to meet with his dying father. On Earth there are also his daughter and ex-wife. While there, he is also visited by his ex-lover, a woman called Anna Kavan. This event is noteworthy for two reasons. For once thing, she is thought to have died in an accident five years earlier. Moreover, it's the drug-addicted woman who was the girlfriend at the time when the man from the love story part within the last story meets the woman called Olga, and Anna is re-appearing in many of the stories to come. The conversations are interesting and I liked the central theme of: Does knowledge of the future turn humans into machines?
Monster of Ingratitude IV (1974)
On Ingratitude IV (another planet colonized by Earth) Hazelgard Neff coincidentally runs into an old acquaintance, Lurido Ponds. They decide to have an Afranosta in an afrobar (this seems to be some sort of drug to be taken in in the nose). The talk about the cult already mentioned in the previous story, Wombud, lead by a man called Mister Queen Elizabeth and who believe that their real life is as an embryo. Ponds tells him that he is co-founder of a psychological institute of accelerative psychosis. Neff is an artist who works on teleceptors, which seem to be a device for creating worlds of virtual reality. According to him this is the most important discovery of the century comparable with with neocortal evolution of an earlier time.
In the second half, the story takes a rather surrealist turn when Neff goes back to his family. He directs very harsh words of disappoint towards his son and a strangely psychedelic episode occurs when he meets is wife. In the end, they go to the Ponds-Karmon clinic, where Neff has another weird episode. Finally, it is revealed that he is treated for multiple personality disorder and that it is in fact him (or one of his personalities) who is the head of the cult (Mister Queen Elizabeth).
The Aperture Moment (1976)
This is again made up of three loosely connected stories. The first story is set some time after the previous story. Hazelgard Neff's son, Chin Ping, visits him. Before he arrives there, we get some hints to the organization's plans, but the detail of main importance is presumably the disagreement with Neff's right hand man. On his way to Aldo Karmin, who treads him for his schizophrenia, he meets his son. For some reason, they discuss the nature of time, and Hazelgard argues that time froze and that we are in fact dreaming. As the cult holds, we are before the beginning of the universe. In the conversation with Karmin, he emphasis that he is happy the way it is and that he wants to be diagnosed but not cured. Karmin uses his birds to predict Hazelgard's future, which looks very bad and he is about to be betrayed by his right-hand man.
In the beginning of the second (and best) story we get to know that Hazelgard Neff was obsessed with the fleeting so that he always wore a wire to record the events that were happening to him. The story itself begins with one of his recordings. A man (him, presumably, or a dream incarnation of his) visits a woman and her two daughters. He talks about an event that he experienced with Tiepo-Neff technology. Afterwards he is accomplished to his car by one of the daughters and they have sex in the garden. It is explained that the story isn't real and that his death prevented Neff from competing it.
In the cause of the story, we get to know quite a lot of the art or Neffpanimation and that he worked on animating a painting from the Victorian era (by Holman Hunt) and that the model for the woman in the incomplete story was participating in the creation of that story. The Victorian era (in which Hunt worked) is of interest because the paintings seem to force the future onto you.
The latter half of the story is a conversation that her daughter has with this woman, now old. In the cause of this conversation it is revealed that the woman really is the woman from that story and that the other person in the conversation is her daughter (the one who had sex in the garden). It is also revealed that she maybe killed Neff (even though he may have committed suicide, as the claims), as we know for sure that she killed her brother (which may or may not be Neff, who may or may not be her real brother as she regards him as a "brother"). (The next story suggests that he was literally her brother and that his is what drew her towards her.) After being publicly presented for the first time on an exhibition, Neff's art receives a very negative review. Her crime is motivated by the fact that she couldn't endure the idea of him being a failure.
The next story is about said exhibition of Neffpanimation. While the evening is somewhat happy (and features numerous characters to appear in other stories) the story ends with the disastrous review. It is explained that his art was created by feeding data to a computer computer which uses information about Hunt's life and work to generate surrounding scenes of painting in animation form (thereby completing the idea of a set future in the Victorian art). The reviewer calls this approach the end of art itself, comparing it to the way that photography killed the visual art. Afterwards, the mystery of Neff's death occurs (here it is suggested that it may have been suicide).
Backwater (1977)
This story focuses on James (Jimmy) Petersen, who lives together with Anna Cavan (the drug addict and ex-lover that appeared in earlier stories). Petersen is a writer who is very committed to his art and longs for success. Frank Krawstadt (who like Anna was present at the exhibition in the previous story) appears at their door step. Krafwstadt is working on his dissertation, a theory of how "reactives" such as art, politics, history, the economy etc. determine each other reciprocally. He asks Petersen for an interview.
Petersen naturally assumes that it's about his work as a writer and he starts telling Krawstadt about his new ideas. However, Krawstadt shows a surprising interest in his huge collection of vintage pinball machines. Suddenly, Anna appears and drunkly ridicules the two for their theoretical mind rather than just living life. Eventually, it is revealed that Krawstadt never actually heard about his novels but came for the pinball machines which he regards as influential reaktives. Confronted with failure Petersen falls into resignation.
The Eternal Theme of Exile (1973)
This collection comprises three stories which symbolize different aspects of exile and are interconnected in an amusing way. In the first story, the narrator tells that Anna K. (again) thinks that he following her around. To proof that he is not, he travels to the Outer Zodiac Planets. When he comes back, Anna will be much older than him. Yeah, I don't know.
The second story is about a man who wants to escape from Anna K.'s affection towards him and he travels to the Artificial Planets. There he discovers a grave of his ancestors which holds his grandmother. He revives her and seeks her affection. Tragically, his efforts are in vain and his affections for her not reciprocated.
Finally, the last story seems to be narrated by Anna. However, it's a bit confusing because in the story she loses one of Anna's diaries to which she refers in third person. In the beginning of the story, her "master" leaves (as explained in story 1) and she falls for another man. He acquired a new personality but eventually leaves without reciprocating Anna's affections (see story 2).
To be continued...
Rating: 3/5
There are recurring characters and themes, so that it seems safe to say that the events take place in the same universe (or at least some of them). The interconnections are not very tightly knit, though. It's more like you are getting very small glimpses at worlds you know other things about, but this knowledge is very limited and partly based on inferences that may not be fully warranted. So, maybe you could say that your access to this world is similar to our narratives in regard to prehistoric times, only that these times are far or even further into the future rather than the past.
The stories are full of dreams, fictional worlds, the nature of life, the nature of time (standstill as well as multiple times), schizophrenia, failure, and the opposition of living life and intellectualizing it. Stylistically, I often felt reminded of Milan Kundera in the way the stories were told, and in substance I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the stories sometime feel as if Jorge Luis Borges had written science-fiction (even though the ideas are not quite as sharply laid out).
While I'm not sure I can give a coherent picture of all these stories, I thought I give some comments on them individually.
Last Order (1976)
The world is dying. A policeman is driving around, looking for people who still weren't evacuated. In a pub he meets two people, and decides to have one last drink with them.
The story is a bit silly and you won't find any deep ideas in here. However, the setting of course is honest-to-God science-fiction and I love the sort of everyday stories you would find in Raymond Carver and others. So, why not make the end of the world the scenery of a very everyday encounter?
Creatures of Apogee (1977)
The four pages that make up this hybrid of fantasy/science-fiction story are quite obscure. It revolves around two peoples, the beings of Apogee and the beings of Perihelion and a mysterious Time of Change, with the latter taking over from the first. This reads like the lore you find summarized in an holy book, stimulating to the imagination, but with very little actual substance to it.
Year by Year the Evil Gains (1976)
This story is made up of three different stories which roughly revolve around the theme expressed in the story's title. The first and autobiographical story is about a girl who lived in the Kremlin between the wars and during WWII. She talks about how she gradually lost all her relatives. Her mother committed suicide, driven there by her father. Her father was an important figure in Russia and she hints at his descent into darkness. The story is again only hinting at events, but I really liked its atmosphere. There are also the girls "inventions", like her color-coding of emotions or how to experience things differently when looked at from different angles (at first literally, later in regard to historical events).
In the second story, men of a maritime research team go for a hunt of sea creatures, brutally killing them even though they regard them as intelligent and aware that this constitutes a violation of the Galactic Law. A so-called sector arbitrator arrives and rebukes the men for their ruthless actions. After research of the environment, the arbitrator suddenly feels the inexplicable desire to go for the hunt himself. You can totally see how this would make for an interesting development in a larger story.
In the last of the three stories we follow two events simultaneously. After centuries, a spaceship rediscovers the Sun. They realize that one planet is missing from the solar system (after "Last Order" more than certainly Earth). They find the missing planet as melded with another planet, presumably Jupiter (because of the Red Spot). On the surface they discover an unidentifiable artifact which has FORD written on it. We also follow Jackson Paramour, the son of Jack Paramour. He lived most of his life thinking of his father as a boring designer of costume jewelry (incidentally, it's possibly the same person as, or a relative of, the arbitrator of the previous story). He discovers a book written by his father, which leads him to an old farm where he and his mother had lived. Next to a Ford he finds the place where he was conceived. Very well written and the outcome is amusing enough.
Diagrams for three enigmatic Stories (1976)
The stories collected under this header are told in a very confusing way. They are introduced by an author (Aldiss?) and only parts of these stories are actually written, while they mostly are sketches explaining what would have ended up in there if they had ever been completed. The narrator in the stories seems to be the same as the narrator who is talking about the stories, explaining what he intended to include. He is a psychologist doing research on three types of dreams, all three being crucial elements in the stories to come.
The first is a love-story-to-be. The psychologist is telling about his relationship with a woman called Olga, who he met after she had a car accident. He is working on a theory of dreams, currently focusing on what he calls tau dreams. Olga often appears in his dreams. Later the two become lovers, before she finally dies in a car accident.
In the second story, said to be an adventure story, four men are part of what the narrator calls an immobility experiment. This experiment has three aspects, immobility, sameness of the environment and deconstruction of reality. The adventure part comes in when the subjects are attacked by "entities". Everything is very confusing. They are said to have sigma and ypsilon dreams (but no longer tau dreams) marked by the fact that "external psychic life" makes an appearance. I liked this almost Freddy Krueger-y atmosphere, but again I would have liked this to be developed further.
This time, the psychologist meets with a "foreigner", the boy Ben Avangle, who seems to be humanoid extraterrestrial being with blue skin. They talk about Robert Louis Stevenson. The boy tells him about numerous brilliant works (including musical pieces). Coincidentally, the title of these works, which are unknown to the narrator, can be created by certain permutations. He claims that he used these rules to acquire an hitherto unknown manuscript. After some experiments, the narrator is sure that the Foreigners are materializing objects when in states of upsilon dreams. This story I thought was really cool and its ending satisfactory for once.
Life? Our Computers Do that for Us (1974)
So-called destimeters allow predestination. A man from one of Earth's colonies is planning a visit to humanity's home planet in order to meet with his dying father. On Earth there are also his daughter and ex-wife. While there, he is also visited by his ex-lover, a woman called Anna Kavan. This event is noteworthy for two reasons. For once thing, she is thought to have died in an accident five years earlier. Moreover, it's the drug-addicted woman who was the girlfriend at the time when the man from the love story part within the last story meets the woman called Olga, and Anna is re-appearing in many of the stories to come. The conversations are interesting and I liked the central theme of: Does knowledge of the future turn humans into machines?
Monster of Ingratitude IV (1974)
On Ingratitude IV (another planet colonized by Earth) Hazelgard Neff coincidentally runs into an old acquaintance, Lurido Ponds. They decide to have an Afranosta in an afrobar (this seems to be some sort of drug to be taken in in the nose). The talk about the cult already mentioned in the previous story, Wombud, lead by a man called Mister Queen Elizabeth and who believe that their real life is as an embryo. Ponds tells him that he is co-founder of a psychological institute of accelerative psychosis. Neff is an artist who works on teleceptors, which seem to be a device for creating worlds of virtual reality. According to him this is the most important discovery of the century comparable with with neocortal evolution of an earlier time.
In the second half, the story takes a rather surrealist turn when Neff goes back to his family. He directs very harsh words of disappoint towards his son and a strangely psychedelic episode occurs when he meets is wife. In the end, they go to the Ponds-Karmon clinic, where Neff has another weird episode. Finally, it is revealed that he is treated for multiple personality disorder and that it is in fact him (or one of his personalities) who is the head of the cult (Mister Queen Elizabeth).
The Aperture Moment (1976)
This is again made up of three loosely connected stories. The first story is set some time after the previous story. Hazelgard Neff's son, Chin Ping, visits him. Before he arrives there, we get some hints to the organization's plans, but the detail of main importance is presumably the disagreement with Neff's right hand man. On his way to Aldo Karmin, who treads him for his schizophrenia, he meets his son. For some reason, they discuss the nature of time, and Hazelgard argues that time froze and that we are in fact dreaming. As the cult holds, we are before the beginning of the universe. In the conversation with Karmin, he emphasis that he is happy the way it is and that he wants to be diagnosed but not cured. Karmin uses his birds to predict Hazelgard's future, which looks very bad and he is about to be betrayed by his right-hand man.
In the beginning of the second (and best) story we get to know that Hazelgard Neff was obsessed with the fleeting so that he always wore a wire to record the events that were happening to him. The story itself begins with one of his recordings. A man (him, presumably, or a dream incarnation of his) visits a woman and her two daughters. He talks about an event that he experienced with Tiepo-Neff technology. Afterwards he is accomplished to his car by one of the daughters and they have sex in the garden. It is explained that the story isn't real and that his death prevented Neff from competing it.
In the cause of the story, we get to know quite a lot of the art or Neffpanimation and that he worked on animating a painting from the Victorian era (by Holman Hunt) and that the model for the woman in the incomplete story was participating in the creation of that story. The Victorian era (in which Hunt worked) is of interest because the paintings seem to force the future onto you.
The latter half of the story is a conversation that her daughter has with this woman, now old. In the cause of this conversation it is revealed that the woman really is the woman from that story and that the other person in the conversation is her daughter (the one who had sex in the garden). It is also revealed that she maybe killed Neff (even though he may have committed suicide, as the claims), as we know for sure that she killed her brother (which may or may not be Neff, who may or may not be her real brother as she regards him as a "brother"). (The next story suggests that he was literally her brother and that his is what drew her towards her.) After being publicly presented for the first time on an exhibition, Neff's art receives a very negative review. Her crime is motivated by the fact that she couldn't endure the idea of him being a failure.
The next story is about said exhibition of Neffpanimation. While the evening is somewhat happy (and features numerous characters to appear in other stories) the story ends with the disastrous review. It is explained that his art was created by feeding data to a computer computer which uses information about Hunt's life and work to generate surrounding scenes of painting in animation form (thereby completing the idea of a set future in the Victorian art). The reviewer calls this approach the end of art itself, comparing it to the way that photography killed the visual art. Afterwards, the mystery of Neff's death occurs (here it is suggested that it may have been suicide).
Backwater (1977)
This story focuses on James (Jimmy) Petersen, who lives together with Anna Cavan (the drug addict and ex-lover that appeared in earlier stories). Petersen is a writer who is very committed to his art and longs for success. Frank Krawstadt (who like Anna was present at the exhibition in the previous story) appears at their door step. Krafwstadt is working on his dissertation, a theory of how "reactives" such as art, politics, history, the economy etc. determine each other reciprocally. He asks Petersen for an interview.
Petersen naturally assumes that it's about his work as a writer and he starts telling Krawstadt about his new ideas. However, Krawstadt shows a surprising interest in his huge collection of vintage pinball machines. Suddenly, Anna appears and drunkly ridicules the two for their theoretical mind rather than just living life. Eventually, it is revealed that Krawstadt never actually heard about his novels but came for the pinball machines which he regards as influential reaktives. Confronted with failure Petersen falls into resignation.
The Eternal Theme of Exile (1973)
This collection comprises three stories which symbolize different aspects of exile and are interconnected in an amusing way. In the first story, the narrator tells that Anna K. (again) thinks that he following her around. To proof that he is not, he travels to the Outer Zodiac Planets. When he comes back, Anna will be much older than him. Yeah, I don't know.
The second story is about a man who wants to escape from Anna K.'s affection towards him and he travels to the Artificial Planets. There he discovers a grave of his ancestors which holds his grandmother. He revives her and seeks her affection. Tragically, his efforts are in vain and his affections for her not reciprocated.
Finally, the last story seems to be narrated by Anna. However, it's a bit confusing because in the story she loses one of Anna's diaries to which she refers in third person. In the beginning of the story, her "master" leaves (as explained in story 1) and she falls for another man. He acquired a new personality but eventually leaves without reciprocating Anna's affections (see story 2).
To be continued...
Rating: 3/5
Catch a Falling Star by John Brunner
3.0
This was some strangely surreal book. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it turned out to be a much more unique experience than I anticipated. Like the science-fiction take on The Wizard of Oz, and also deeply allegorical in nature.
In the distant future, a man discovers that in about 300 years a star will pass by Earth in such close proximity that it will be left a dead and barren place. Given the fact that they will be long dead by then, the people around him are completely indifferent towards this fateful collision. Appalled by their attitude, the man sets out on a journey to find others who like him mourn the seemingly inevitable fate of their home planet. Others join him in his journey and soon they are set for the much more ambitions aim, to actually find a way to save the Earth.
The world in which Catch a Falling Star is set is truly fascinating. For one thing, it depicts in many ways bizarre caricatures of fantasy tropes. On their journey, our heroes meet dwarfs that are determined to conquer the cities of the taller people (if only they could find any). There is a people of scholars, who in their passive stance and ingenuity resemble many wizardry orders; and there is a people of engineers, who isolated as they are rediscover technologies such as airships and telescopes (generating an almost steampunk-y atmosphere). They come upon desolate cities and are attacked by hairy forest dwellers.
More importantly, it is a world that is in many ways all too familiar. The people live comfortably in houses that fully realized the dreams of smart home technology. Even though a sense of curiosity is not entirely dead, few find the courage to leave their comfort zone (or even the closest surroundings of their homes). In fact, the scenario is very similar to what the Time Traveller finds in The Time Machine. Even though they make everyday use of futuristic technology and live in affluency for which they do not need to provide anything, rarely people stop and think about where all this is coming from and their ingeniosity has long been exhausted. Their only interest is in the old world, something they may vividly experience in the houses of history and that they seek out like drugs.
From the moment the man leaves his home town, the story is very episodic. From early on he is joined by a nature-dwelling young woman and together they set out to find an old man of which they know that in his youth he had traveled the world. They meet a girl who is waiting for the return of her lover, but what they find is rather bestial. They meet shepherds who's flock brings a disturbing fact to light. They meet the already mentioned dwarfs and discover how much theirs is a world of ruins. They travel the sea and meet the people of scholars and also the people of hope-giving engineers. When they encounter earless humanoid monsters, knowledge of past tinkering with the human genotypes scarily come to mind. Finally, their journey leads them to a location that is almost like the holy mountain, where the story finds what I think is a satisfying conclusion.
Only rather diffuse motivations form the arc that holds these episodes together. Throughout the story, the characters express only a very vague understanding for what they are actually looking for. At another point, it is revealed that it was actually fear - fear that he may die before he even scratched the surface of the world's secrets and fear that she may die before making her mark on the world - that made the two main travelers set out. Other characters have much more mundane reasons. I'm sure this sense of disorientation is one of reasons why the story has such a powerful symbolic dimension.
As as story, though, I think this would have worked much better if it had been more character-driven. Different people join and leave the party throughout, and at least in theory their roles they are interesting. However, there is very little personality and almost no personal stakes. So, even though I had no problems to write down the above-given recap of the events in the book, I wouldn't be able to say what really happened to them. To be honest, I don't even remember any of their names (and I just finished the book two hours ago).
So, this is the kind of book where I really loved the setting and I thought these themes of dwelling in the past, and learning from the past to prevent a future catastrophe, were amazingly powerful. I'm also a huge fan of fantasy worlds grounded in science-fiction. If only it had stronger characters, this really could have been a great novel.
Rating: 3.5/5
In the distant future, a man discovers that in about 300 years a star will pass by Earth in such close proximity that it will be left a dead and barren place. Given the fact that they will be long dead by then, the people around him are completely indifferent towards this fateful collision. Appalled by their attitude, the man sets out on a journey to find others who like him mourn the seemingly inevitable fate of their home planet. Others join him in his journey and soon they are set for the much more ambitions aim, to actually find a way to save the Earth.
The world in which Catch a Falling Star is set is truly fascinating. For one thing, it depicts in many ways bizarre caricatures of fantasy tropes. On their journey, our heroes meet dwarfs that are determined to conquer the cities of the taller people (if only they could find any). There is a people of scholars, who in their passive stance and ingenuity resemble many wizardry orders; and there is a people of engineers, who isolated as they are rediscover technologies such as airships and telescopes (generating an almost steampunk-y atmosphere). They come upon desolate cities and are attacked by hairy forest dwellers.
More importantly, it is a world that is in many ways all too familiar. The people live comfortably in houses that fully realized the dreams of smart home technology. Even though a sense of curiosity is not entirely dead, few find the courage to leave their comfort zone (or even the closest surroundings of their homes). In fact, the scenario is very similar to what the Time Traveller finds in The Time Machine. Even though they make everyday use of futuristic technology and live in affluency for which they do not need to provide anything, rarely people stop and think about where all this is coming from and their ingeniosity has long been exhausted. Their only interest is in the old world, something they may vividly experience in the houses of history and that they seek out like drugs.
From the moment the man leaves his home town, the story is very episodic. From early on he is joined by a nature-dwelling young woman and together they set out to find an old man of which they know that in his youth he had traveled the world. They meet a girl who is waiting for the return of her lover, but what they find is rather bestial. They meet shepherds who's flock brings a disturbing fact to light. They meet the already mentioned dwarfs and discover how much theirs is a world of ruins. They travel the sea and meet the people of scholars and also the people of hope-giving engineers. When they encounter earless humanoid monsters, knowledge of past tinkering with the human genotypes scarily come to mind. Finally, their journey leads them to a location that is almost like the holy mountain, where the story finds what I think is a satisfying conclusion.
Only rather diffuse motivations form the arc that holds these episodes together. Throughout the story, the characters express only a very vague understanding for what they are actually looking for. At another point, it is revealed that it was actually fear - fear that he may die before he even scratched the surface of the world's secrets and fear that she may die before making her mark on the world - that made the two main travelers set out. Other characters have much more mundane reasons. I'm sure this sense of disorientation is one of reasons why the story has such a powerful symbolic dimension.
As as story, though, I think this would have worked much better if it had been more character-driven. Different people join and leave the party throughout, and at least in theory their roles they are interesting. However, there is very little personality and almost no personal stakes. So, even though I had no problems to write down the above-given recap of the events in the book, I wouldn't be able to say what really happened to them. To be honest, I don't even remember any of their names (and I just finished the book two hours ago).
So, this is the kind of book where I really loved the setting and I thought these themes of dwelling in the past, and learning from the past to prevent a future catastrophe, were amazingly powerful. I'm also a huge fan of fantasy worlds grounded in science-fiction. If only it had stronger characters, this really could have been a great novel.
Rating: 3.5/5
Wine of the Dreamers by John D. MacDonald
3.0
There is a very puzzling fact about human nature. Often they commit the most unbelievable or hideous crimes without having reasons or an external motive for doing so. Not money or some other form of personal gain, not hate or revenge or jealousy or envy, not for love or friendship or fear, or any other motive you could possibly think of. They are possessed by the devil, so to say. Wine of the Dreamers creates a world of science-fiction within which these acts become explainable.
Humankind is working on technology which would much advance the colonization of the solar system. With the development of the Beatty Drive, which allows the travel in hyperspace, a literal quantum leap is imminent. There had been a recent setback, though, when an apparently mentally confused collaborator destroyed research facilities that are crucial to the success of the project. Alarmingly, past projects had failed because of similar forms of sabotage.
Meanwhile, the reader is introduced to another humanoid race, the Dreamers. Theirs is a strange world of sparsely populated levels surrounded by lead walls. Their existence revolves around the use of machines that allow them to visit other worlds (one of three, specifically). In those worlds, which the Dreamers experience disembodied (a state they call "dreaming"), they may take possession of other human beings. Among the Dreamers, we follow Raul Kinson, who has a much more inquisitive mind than his compatriots, trying to determine the nature of their world, their history and the purpose of their existence.
The Dreaming is certainly the most exciting aspect of the book. When the Dreamers take possession of a body, the possessed individuals remain conscious of themselves, at least to a certain degree. The possessing Dreamer is conscious of his or her own as well as of his host's thoughts. Interestingly, the Dreamer also acquires concepts for things nonexistent in their own impoverished world, thick concepts such as Home, Wife, Money. In this way, Raul is able to significantly broaden his horizon, after the lurking around his own world gave him ideas so basic as Window, Building, Outside, Day and Night, or Writing and Stories. The dreams last for ten hours, before the subjects are awakened by the dream machines.
After doing this for thousands of years, most Dreamers use the dream machines only for simple pleasures and mischief. More importantly, they generally share the strong conviction that the worlds and the dream creatures are not in fact real. There is one imperative, though. Should they ever encounter civilizations that build machines that would allow them to travel between worlds, the Law demands of them to destroy these machines. This is what makes them the Keepers, a name they still use for ceremonial occasions.
This forms the predicament that sets the main structure of the story. Within this structure, there is a certain degree of personal drama. To be honest, while the science-fiction elements successfully grabbed me and made me want to unravel the mystery, the characters, relationships, and motivations of this 1951 release seem a bit dated for modern readers. The science, however, does have some importance, something I didn't expect from a novel of that time. For instance, I did quite enjoy the lengthy (and admittedly slightly bonkers) explanations of the physics behind travel in hyperspace (a technology probably widely popularized with Star Wars). The talk of the conundrums of psychology, with which the story opens, were also wonderfully written and made clear that you can expect more than just simple-minded pulp.
The biggest issue is that the stakes really are not high enough to generate any sort of tension. We are not a space-faring race, so being deprived of this opportunity to explore the universe would be disappointing, but not much else. Furthermore, we know about the inexplicable crimes that human beings commit and we are used to think of them as inevitable tragedies, so from our perspective Raul's endeavors become a road to utopia. Finally, while the Dreamers admittedly are a sad race, and eventually the reader does get to know the reason behind their initial interests in their three dream worlds, the motivations for which Raul and his sister eventually take huge risks to go on with their questions - falling in love with a man and a woman from Earth - are just terribly unimaginative and dated.
Rating: 3/5
Humankind is working on technology which would much advance the colonization of the solar system. With the development of the Beatty Drive, which allows the travel in hyperspace, a literal quantum leap is imminent. There had been a recent setback, though, when an apparently mentally confused collaborator destroyed research facilities that are crucial to the success of the project. Alarmingly, past projects had failed because of similar forms of sabotage.
Meanwhile, the reader is introduced to another humanoid race, the Dreamers. Theirs is a strange world of sparsely populated levels surrounded by lead walls. Their existence revolves around the use of machines that allow them to visit other worlds (one of three, specifically). In those worlds, which the Dreamers experience disembodied (a state they call "dreaming"), they may take possession of other human beings. Among the Dreamers, we follow Raul Kinson, who has a much more inquisitive mind than his compatriots, trying to determine the nature of their world, their history and the purpose of their existence.
The Dreaming is certainly the most exciting aspect of the book. When the Dreamers take possession of a body, the possessed individuals remain conscious of themselves, at least to a certain degree. The possessing Dreamer is conscious of his or her own as well as of his host's thoughts. Interestingly, the Dreamer also acquires concepts for things nonexistent in their own impoverished world, thick concepts such as Home, Wife, Money. In this way, Raul is able to significantly broaden his horizon, after the lurking around his own world gave him ideas so basic as Window, Building, Outside, Day and Night, or Writing and Stories. The dreams last for ten hours, before the subjects are awakened by the dream machines.
After doing this for thousands of years, most Dreamers use the dream machines only for simple pleasures and mischief. More importantly, they generally share the strong conviction that the worlds and the dream creatures are not in fact real. There is one imperative, though. Should they ever encounter civilizations that build machines that would allow them to travel between worlds, the Law demands of them to destroy these machines. This is what makes them the Keepers, a name they still use for ceremonial occasions.
This forms the predicament that sets the main structure of the story. Within this structure, there is a certain degree of personal drama. To be honest, while the science-fiction elements successfully grabbed me and made me want to unravel the mystery, the characters, relationships, and motivations of this 1951 release seem a bit dated for modern readers. The science, however, does have some importance, something I didn't expect from a novel of that time. For instance, I did quite enjoy the lengthy (and admittedly slightly bonkers) explanations of the physics behind travel in hyperspace (a technology probably widely popularized with Star Wars). The talk of the conundrums of psychology, with which the story opens, were also wonderfully written and made clear that you can expect more than just simple-minded pulp.
The biggest issue is that the stakes really are not high enough to generate any sort of tension. We are not a space-faring race, so being deprived of this opportunity to explore the universe would be disappointing, but not much else. Furthermore, we know about the inexplicable crimes that human beings commit and we are used to think of them as inevitable tragedies, so from our perspective Raul's endeavors become a road to utopia. Finally, while the Dreamers admittedly are a sad race, and eventually the reader does get to know the reason behind their initial interests in their three dream worlds, the motivations for which Raul and his sister eventually take huge risks to go on with their questions - falling in love with a man and a woman from Earth - are just terribly unimaginative and dated.
Rating: 3/5
Learn Python 3 the Hard Way: A Very Simple Introduction to the Terrifyingly Beautiful World of Computers and Code by Shaw Zed A., Shaw Zed A.
4.0
Shaw describes the goal of his book thus: "When you're done, you'll be a reasonably competent Python beginner. You'll still need to go through a few more books and write a couple more projects, but you’ll have the skills to complete them. The only thing in your way will be time, motivation, and resources."
A Beginner's Guide to Python Programming
Learn Python the Hard Way is a great textbook for absolute beginners. Ironically, until far into the book the exercises are quite easy when compared to similar books. In his Learn C the Hard Way, what made learning so hard was the aspiration to write software that satisfies strict standards of security, and that certainly is no easy task. There is nothing comparable in this book.
Finishing the book actually is not as big a deal as for many other textbooks in software development. Personally, it took me about three or four weeks. Granted, I already knew most concepts, but I think even complete beginners can work their way through in a couple of weeks tops.
What I liked was that it doesn't bore the reader with tedious information you will pick up along the way anyway. For instance, stuff like "what variable names are permissible" is reduced to the bare minimum, rather than having lengthy exercises on that issue (like you actually find in other introductions).
But still the Hard Way?
I think Shaw considers his approach to learning to be "The Hard Way", because he simulates the programmer's everyday life - an experience that can be quite frustrating.
For one thing, he over and over emphasizes the importance of typing in code by hand (rather than copying it). This obviously can get tedious, especially with the significantly longer examples towards the end of the book. I've found it surprising how much you learn from this, if you can keep to the point while doing so. It may also be a good occasion to gain familiarity with Vim or another tool of choice.
Often he lets you type in certain constructions without telling you what they do (like for if instructions or the loops). Once you see the output, their functionality becomes obvious. A full-fetched explanation may have been daunting or even intimidating, now it's easy and no big deal. And there really aren't too many constructions you have to learn. So, the hard way may turn out to be the easier way.
As exercises, you are made to look up many concepts yourself. For instance, you are asked to look for methods you can invoke on lists. At a later chapter, there is an exercise in which you have to read up on what object-oriented programming is, including the ideas of objects and classes. In this case, I liked the approach. When you are given an idea of what there is, you can find much information on the concepts. While reading online documentations can be frustrating for beginners, you should give it a good go. It will give you a sense of achievement when you found something yourself and afterwards you know much more than you did before.
At one point, it gets really quite silly, though. Chapter 37 gives a list of all Python keywords and asks of the reader to go on only when she/he knows what it does. It doesn't explain the keywords at all; it only mentions them, so that you can look them up online. I suppose the idea is to convey a real feeling of being a programmer, where you constantly come upon things you don't understand and you then have to look for them with the help of a search engine. Still, the idea of reading a textbook is to be ahead of that, at least in regard to the basic stuff.
Towards the end, probably around chapter 40 (of 52), the exercises get significantly tougher. At first, writing tests is quite simple (to get an idea of what it means to write such tests), but getting the website to run as it it's supposed to do (not to mention the final exam), that's quite challenging! I think the idea that it doesn't take you by the hand to go through is one reason why you really feel the hard way here.
Unfortunately, I feel like you still won't get much practice from finishing this book. Every chapter is called an "Exercise" and you do type in code, but the Study Drills are usually quite short and simple. I've found more complex and independent exercises in other books more helpful. So, you should begin to write little projects to check whether you are really able to apply the concepts introduced in each exercise.
Pep Talk from an otherwise demanding Tutor
The book is written in a style that mirrors natural conversation. The tone is friendly but demanding. Expect drill ("Shut up and type all this in") as well as rebuke ("I've already told you, keep up!"). But there is also advice to take a closer look ("There’s actually quite a lot of information in this little function, so it would be good for you to study it") or even to take it slow sometimes ("Take a break right now and try playing with these two concepts before continuing").
Shawn also eliminates false assumptions the reader may have, as when pointing out that programmers are no math geniuses (even if some pretend they were), that programmers make a lot of mistakes and that even experienced programmers get intimidated by beginning complex projects. I find it refreshing to be reminded of these things from time to time.
Learn to Speak like a Programmer
What I loved about the book was how it teaches you to speak properly. This may sound silly, as programming languages obviously are not spoken, at least not like natural languages. However, You do talk about code.
Did you ever feel that math is full of odd phrasing, like "Let f be the function...", "f takes the value y for argument x" or "universe of discourse" (to only mention two of many examples)? I think programming is similar in this respect. The language used in tutorials or personal conversation in this area can be quite esoteric and daunting to the newbie. To a certain degree Shaw tries to prepare you for that.
For instance, in one exercise he makes you create a list of all commonly encountered symbols, name them, and memorize them. It's a boring task, but learning vocabulary like this obviously will be necessary to verbally talk about your code. He also introduces more technical computer-science notions, occasionally sugar-coated in a mockery of jargon. As when he writes: "That concept is called 'instantiate,' which is just a fancy, obnoxious, overly smart way to say 'create.'"
Moreover, it's necessary to pick up a certain stock of concepts used to describe and analyze programming languages. This is also very similar to math, where formal expressions represent a world of mathematical objects. I loved the no bullsh*t approach that the book takes here.
For instance, in Chapter 41 you get a simple, no-jargon definition of all the ideas you need to read and write code in accordance with the object-oriented paradigm. Like "is-a—A phrase to say that something inherits from another, as in a “salmon” is-a “fish.” or "class—Tell Python to make a new kind of thing", to mention only two examples. There are also attempts to translate code into English: "You have to be able to say the sentence exactly the same every time whenever you see that form. Not sort of the same, but exactly the same."
Object-Oriented Programming
Talking of object-oriented programming, the paradigm takes a rather central place in the book (as is common for Python), though Shaw's stance seems to be rather critical.
To be honest, I didn't really like how the book approaches the issue. Shaw introduces objects, classes, and instantiation by comparison to dictionaries and modules. In all those cases you have some thing out of which you get another thing. However, the things you get out are different; the way you get things out are different; and the things from which you get things out are not very similar, either. You get a thing (data of any type) out of a dictionary by specifying a key; you get a thing (function or variable) out of a module by dot notation; and you get things out of classes by instantiating them and then refer to the properties and methods of objects by dot notation.
Maybe it's because of my background in philosophy, but I feel like introducing the concepts just in the way they were intended is much less confusing. There are things (circles, human beings, cars, whatever); things can be of different types, and the types (or classes) are defined by specifying characteristic properties and activities (or methods). When you create an object, you mentions its type. That's it. I think that is more straight-forward then thinking about the similarities and differences to the other concepts, familiar as they may be at that point.
To be honest, I don't really see where Shaw's hostility towards OOP comes from. You find passages like: "Search online for 'object-oriented programming' and try to overflow your brain with what you read. Don’t worry if it makes absolutely no sense to you. Half of that stuff makes no sense to me either." He may be right, so I'm genuinely interested in his arguments.
In any way, generally it's a very good introduction to Python that takes an approach quite different from what you would find in other textbooks. For the most part, the approach worked for me.
Rating: 4/5
A Beginner's Guide to Python Programming
Learn Python the Hard Way is a great textbook for absolute beginners. Ironically, until far into the book the exercises are quite easy when compared to similar books. In his Learn C the Hard Way, what made learning so hard was the aspiration to write software that satisfies strict standards of security, and that certainly is no easy task. There is nothing comparable in this book.
Finishing the book actually is not as big a deal as for many other textbooks in software development. Personally, it took me about three or four weeks. Granted, I already knew most concepts, but I think even complete beginners can work their way through in a couple of weeks tops.
What I liked was that it doesn't bore the reader with tedious information you will pick up along the way anyway. For instance, stuff like "what variable names are permissible" is reduced to the bare minimum, rather than having lengthy exercises on that issue (like you actually find in other introductions).
But still the Hard Way?
I think Shaw considers his approach to learning to be "The Hard Way", because he simulates the programmer's everyday life - an experience that can be quite frustrating.
For one thing, he over and over emphasizes the importance of typing in code by hand (rather than copying it). This obviously can get tedious, especially with the significantly longer examples towards the end of the book. I've found it surprising how much you learn from this, if you can keep to the point while doing so. It may also be a good occasion to gain familiarity with Vim or another tool of choice.
Often he lets you type in certain constructions without telling you what they do (like for if instructions or the loops). Once you see the output, their functionality becomes obvious. A full-fetched explanation may have been daunting or even intimidating, now it's easy and no big deal. And there really aren't too many constructions you have to learn. So, the hard way may turn out to be the easier way.
As exercises, you are made to look up many concepts yourself. For instance, you are asked to look for methods you can invoke on lists. At a later chapter, there is an exercise in which you have to read up on what object-oriented programming is, including the ideas of objects and classes. In this case, I liked the approach. When you are given an idea of what there is, you can find much information on the concepts. While reading online documentations can be frustrating for beginners, you should give it a good go. It will give you a sense of achievement when you found something yourself and afterwards you know much more than you did before.
At one point, it gets really quite silly, though. Chapter 37 gives a list of all Python keywords and asks of the reader to go on only when she/he knows what it does. It doesn't explain the keywords at all; it only mentions them, so that you can look them up online. I suppose the idea is to convey a real feeling of being a programmer, where you constantly come upon things you don't understand and you then have to look for them with the help of a search engine. Still, the idea of reading a textbook is to be ahead of that, at least in regard to the basic stuff.
Towards the end, probably around chapter 40 (of 52), the exercises get significantly tougher. At first, writing tests is quite simple (to get an idea of what it means to write such tests), but getting the website to run as it it's supposed to do (not to mention the final exam), that's quite challenging! I think the idea that it doesn't take you by the hand to go through is one reason why you really feel the hard way here.
Unfortunately, I feel like you still won't get much practice from finishing this book. Every chapter is called an "Exercise" and you do type in code, but the Study Drills are usually quite short and simple. I've found more complex and independent exercises in other books more helpful. So, you should begin to write little projects to check whether you are really able to apply the concepts introduced in each exercise.
Pep Talk from an otherwise demanding Tutor
The book is written in a style that mirrors natural conversation. The tone is friendly but demanding. Expect drill ("Shut up and type all this in") as well as rebuke ("I've already told you, keep up!"). But there is also advice to take a closer look ("There’s actually quite a lot of information in this little function, so it would be good for you to study it") or even to take it slow sometimes ("Take a break right now and try playing with these two concepts before continuing").
Shawn also eliminates false assumptions the reader may have, as when pointing out that programmers are no math geniuses (even if some pretend they were), that programmers make a lot of mistakes and that even experienced programmers get intimidated by beginning complex projects. I find it refreshing to be reminded of these things from time to time.
Learn to Speak like a Programmer
What I loved about the book was how it teaches you to speak properly. This may sound silly, as programming languages obviously are not spoken, at least not like natural languages. However, You do talk about code.
Did you ever feel that math is full of odd phrasing, like "Let f be the function...", "f takes the value y for argument x" or "universe of discourse" (to only mention two of many examples)? I think programming is similar in this respect. The language used in tutorials or personal conversation in this area can be quite esoteric and daunting to the newbie. To a certain degree Shaw tries to prepare you for that.
For instance, in one exercise he makes you create a list of all commonly encountered symbols, name them, and memorize them. It's a boring task, but learning vocabulary like this obviously will be necessary to verbally talk about your code. He also introduces more technical computer-science notions, occasionally sugar-coated in a mockery of jargon. As when he writes: "That concept is called 'instantiate,' which is just a fancy, obnoxious, overly smart way to say 'create.'"
Moreover, it's necessary to pick up a certain stock of concepts used to describe and analyze programming languages. This is also very similar to math, where formal expressions represent a world of mathematical objects. I loved the no bullsh*t approach that the book takes here.
For instance, in Chapter 41 you get a simple, no-jargon definition of all the ideas you need to read and write code in accordance with the object-oriented paradigm. Like "is-a—A phrase to say that something inherits from another, as in a “salmon” is-a “fish.” or "class—Tell Python to make a new kind of thing", to mention only two examples. There are also attempts to translate code into English: "You have to be able to say the sentence exactly the same every time whenever you see that form. Not sort of the same, but exactly the same."
Object-Oriented Programming
Talking of object-oriented programming, the paradigm takes a rather central place in the book (as is common for Python), though Shaw's stance seems to be rather critical.
To be honest, I didn't really like how the book approaches the issue. Shaw introduces objects, classes, and instantiation by comparison to dictionaries and modules. In all those cases you have some thing out of which you get another thing. However, the things you get out are different; the way you get things out are different; and the things from which you get things out are not very similar, either. You get a thing (data of any type) out of a dictionary by specifying a key; you get a thing (function or variable) out of a module by dot notation; and you get things out of classes by instantiating them and then refer to the properties and methods of objects by dot notation.
Maybe it's because of my background in philosophy, but I feel like introducing the concepts just in the way they were intended is much less confusing. There are things (circles, human beings, cars, whatever); things can be of different types, and the types (or classes) are defined by specifying characteristic properties and activities (or methods). When you create an object, you mentions its type. That's it. I think that is more straight-forward then thinking about the similarities and differences to the other concepts, familiar as they may be at that point.
To be honest, I don't really see where Shaw's hostility towards OOP comes from. You find passages like: "Search online for 'object-oriented programming' and try to overflow your brain with what you read. Don’t worry if it makes absolutely no sense to you. Half of that stuff makes no sense to me either." He may be right, so I'm genuinely interested in his arguments.
In any way, generally it's a very good introduction to Python that takes an approach quite different from what you would find in other textbooks. For the most part, the approach worked for me.
Rating: 4/5
City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams
"Everywhere I go for information, I get a song and dance and a lot of mystery."
In terms of genre fiction, Otherland has it all. In a world where cyberspaces became almost indistinguishable from what is real, a virtual reality researcher stumbles upon a global conspiracy as she tries to find out why her brother wouldn't wake up anymore. The novel seamlessly integrates sword & sorcery fantasy as well as children's book elements into the science-fiction framing. In times it even reads like a bona fide thriller set in a dystopian near-future, when people in the real world are murdered and buildings blow up.
It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a cast of characters as thoroughly as I did here. Their traits are wonderfully spelled out, all with their unique strengths and weaknesses, ambitions and faults. If the story had a main protagonist it would probably be Renie (or Irene) Sulaweyo. She is working as a teacher and researcher at a university in Nigeria. Always smoking and occasionally snappy, she has some traits of the badass stereotype. However, while there is no doubt that she can hold her own, she struggles with the mentally and physically exhausting task of saving her brother. For this reason, it's great that the has !Xabbu at her side.
!Xabbu is a student of Renie. Because he grew up in the Kalahari desert, he is fully inexperienced with the virtual realities. In the beginning, I was a bit annoyed by his submissive attitude. It felt wrong to represent the Bushmen as inferior to the people from the city. However, appearances are deceitful. He may be referred to as "the small man", but he turns out to be a very fast learner and is able to remain level-headed when others are struck by panic.
On many occasions, !Xabbu recites myths and legends of his people. As the Author's Note suggests, the tales are presumably more accurate in spirit than in word, but I still liked the non-Western elements. !Xabbu expresses his opinion that his stories are similar to science and philosophy, in that they give structure to the universe. Personally, I share the attitude that philosophy and even science aren't so much about truth than about guidance and utility. According to their cosmology, the universe is dreamed, and I wouldn't be surprised if this will play a larger role. The stories themselves are allegorical, though subtle enough not to come across to preachy or on the nose.
Another fantastic character is Orlando Gardiner. He is the man behind the famous Thargor, a broadsword-wielding warrior in the MMORPG called Middle Country. It doesn't come as a big surprise that he is actually a 13-year old boy. The character immensely grew on me when it was revealed that he is suffering from progeria, a genetic disorder that makes him age significantly faster and more susceptible to other diseases. Orlando is best friends with a guy he just calls "Fredericks" and whom he never met in real-life. I chuckled quite a bit about the sense of betrayal when it turns out that Fredericks is actually a girl. Reminded me of the importance the topic had in days of World of Warcraft.
That is not even all. Renie's farther became bitter and hard to bear with after he lost his wife. Although their disagreements can get quite heated, there is evidence that he is meaning well (maybe). To be honest, his characteristically asshole comments are quite funny sometimes. I also liked the butler with an attitude, though I think he will remain a minor character in what is to come. Among the somewhat more central characters the only one I didn't very much care for was Christabel, a young girl who is doing favors for an old man. The old man, Mr. Sellars, cannot leave an army base, but it turns out that he is pulling some strings.
On the villain side, the personnel is mostly run-of-the-mill. You have a bunch of conspirators of which I don't think we get to know much, a power-hungry leader, and the defiant assassin. However, they give themselves a mysterious aura by hiding behind Egyptian mythology to veil their true identities. They call themselves the Brotherhood of the Grail and the Grail it seems to be what they are after. The motives behind the conspiracy become somewhat more transparent as we get to know more about Otherland, a vastly more ambitious and life-like virtual reality.
The way the novel explores consequences of technology was interesting enough. There was once chapter I particularly liked. At one point they meet a man who rules over a territory of Otherland modeled on Southern America. He is obsessed with the idea what his native country would be like had it not been conquered. With his creation he explores an alternative reality in which the American empires were able to drive off the European invaders. He looks upon history as if he was a God, witnessing events from the very beginning until the present point of the simulation in fast progression. That would truly give new meaning to the word "simulation" as used in the news.
There are also ontological implications for the creation of Otherland. In the very beginning, when !Xabbu first enters the net, they wonder what reality would mean when the simulation even resembled sensual experiences. This is exactly what Otherland accomplished. The developments are obviously approaching what we find portrayed in The Matrix and numerous other works of science-fiction, and who is to say that the real world from which they enter wasn't already part of the simulation?
There is a central plot thread I haven't even talked about, yet. From the very beginning we follow a man called Paul Jones. In the Prelude it is suggested that he is a soldier fighting in the trenches of World War I, though at this point already it becomes clear that there was something wrong with the picture presented. From that point on he passes through one strange realm after the other, including a Through the Looking-Glass inspired game as well as a steampunk-y take on what it's like on Mars. It's clear that he is trapped in the Otherland simulation without knowledge of his own identity, but just why the Brotherhood put him there remains unclear. And shouldn't he have something to do with Renie's brother?
As you would expect from a novel of this length, it's not all gold. For instance, and talking of gold, the big reveal as to the true nature of the titular City of Golden Shadow was quite underwhelming. It's a MacGuffin that serves no other purpose than bringing the different characters together to form the fellowship that will probably be the party we follow in the next book. I'm intrigued about what the story will have in store for them, but as the climax for the first entry to the series I wasn't immensely impressed.
Overall, City of Golden Shadow is a truly awesome opener to what I hope will be a great series. The mix of genres worked exceptionally well and at no point did I feel the different threads would be too unconnected. Most importantly, there was a true sense of adventure, and the finale suggests that this will even be more prominent in River of Blue Fire. I cannot wait to pick it up!
Rating: 4/5
4.0
In terms of genre fiction, Otherland has it all. In a world where cyberspaces became almost indistinguishable from what is real, a virtual reality researcher stumbles upon a global conspiracy as she tries to find out why her brother wouldn't wake up anymore. The novel seamlessly integrates sword & sorcery fantasy as well as children's book elements into the science-fiction framing. In times it even reads like a bona fide thriller set in a dystopian near-future, when people in the real world are murdered and buildings blow up.
It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a cast of characters as thoroughly as I did here. Their traits are wonderfully spelled out, all with their unique strengths and weaknesses, ambitions and faults. If the story had a main protagonist it would probably be Renie (or Irene) Sulaweyo. She is working as a teacher and researcher at a university in Nigeria. Always smoking and occasionally snappy, she has some traits of the badass stereotype. However, while there is no doubt that she can hold her own, she struggles with the mentally and physically exhausting task of saving her brother. For this reason, it's great that the has !Xabbu at her side.
!Xabbu is a student of Renie. Because he grew up in the Kalahari desert, he is fully inexperienced with the virtual realities. In the beginning, I was a bit annoyed by his submissive attitude. It felt wrong to represent the Bushmen as inferior to the people from the city. However, appearances are deceitful. He may be referred to as "the small man", but he turns out to be a very fast learner and is able to remain level-headed when others are struck by panic.
On many occasions, !Xabbu recites myths and legends of his people. As the Author's Note suggests, the tales are presumably more accurate in spirit than in word, but I still liked the non-Western elements. !Xabbu expresses his opinion that his stories are similar to science and philosophy, in that they give structure to the universe. Personally, I share the attitude that philosophy and even science aren't so much about truth than about guidance and utility. According to their cosmology, the universe is dreamed, and I wouldn't be surprised if this will play a larger role. The stories themselves are allegorical, though subtle enough not to come across to preachy or on the nose.
Another fantastic character is Orlando Gardiner. He is the man behind the famous Thargor, a broadsword-wielding warrior in the MMORPG called Middle Country. It doesn't come as a big surprise that he is actually a 13-year old boy. The character immensely grew on me when it was revealed that he is suffering from progeria, a genetic disorder that makes him age significantly faster and more susceptible to other diseases. Orlando is best friends with a guy he just calls "Fredericks" and whom he never met in real-life. I chuckled quite a bit about the sense of betrayal when it turns out that Fredericks is actually a girl. Reminded me of the importance the topic had in days of World of Warcraft.
That is not even all. Renie's farther became bitter and hard to bear with after he lost his wife. Although their disagreements can get quite heated, there is evidence that he is meaning well (maybe). To be honest, his characteristically asshole comments are quite funny sometimes. I also liked the butler with an attitude, though I think he will remain a minor character in what is to come. Among the somewhat more central characters the only one I didn't very much care for was Christabel, a young girl who is doing favors for an old man. The old man, Mr. Sellars, cannot leave an army base, but it turns out that he is pulling some strings.
On the villain side, the personnel is mostly run-of-the-mill. You have a bunch of conspirators of which I don't think we get to know much, a power-hungry leader, and the defiant assassin. However, they give themselves a mysterious aura by hiding behind Egyptian mythology to veil their true identities. They call themselves the Brotherhood of the Grail and the Grail it seems to be what they are after. The motives behind the conspiracy become somewhat more transparent as we get to know more about Otherland, a vastly more ambitious and life-like virtual reality.
The way the novel explores consequences of technology was interesting enough. There was once chapter I particularly liked. At one point they meet a man who rules over a territory of Otherland modeled on Southern America. He is obsessed with the idea what his native country would be like had it not been conquered. With his creation he explores an alternative reality in which the American empires were able to drive off the European invaders. He looks upon history as if he was a God, witnessing events from the very beginning until the present point of the simulation in fast progression. That would truly give new meaning to the word "simulation" as used in the news.
There are also ontological implications for the creation of Otherland. In the very beginning, when !Xabbu first enters the net, they wonder what reality would mean when the simulation even resembled sensual experiences. This is exactly what Otherland accomplished. The developments are obviously approaching what we find portrayed in The Matrix and numerous other works of science-fiction, and who is to say that the real world from which they enter wasn't already part of the simulation?
There is a central plot thread I haven't even talked about, yet. From the very beginning we follow a man called Paul Jones. In the Prelude it is suggested that he is a soldier fighting in the trenches of World War I, though at this point already it becomes clear that there was something wrong with the picture presented. From that point on he passes through one strange realm after the other, including a Through the Looking-Glass inspired game as well as a steampunk-y take on what it's like on Mars. It's clear that he is trapped in the Otherland simulation without knowledge of his own identity, but just why the Brotherhood put him there remains unclear. And shouldn't he have something to do with Renie's brother?
As you would expect from a novel of this length, it's not all gold. For instance, and talking of gold, the big reveal as to the true nature of the titular City of Golden Shadow was quite underwhelming. It's a MacGuffin that serves no other purpose than bringing the different characters together to form the fellowship that will probably be the party we follow in the next book. I'm intrigued about what the story will have in store for them, but as the climax for the first entry to the series I wasn't immensely impressed.
Overall, City of Golden Shadow is a truly awesome opener to what I hope will be a great series. The mix of genres worked exceptionally well and at no point did I feel the different threads would be too unconnected. Most importantly, there was a true sense of adventure, and the finale suggests that this will even be more prominent in River of Blue Fire. I cannot wait to pick it up!
Rating: 4/5
Andromeda by Michael Crichton
3.0
Andromeda Strain is usually described as a techno-thriller novel, but essentially it's a form of science-fiction that takes the science aspect very seriously. For much of the story, meticulous medical and scientific reasoning takes the place of outer action. If you are like me and your knowledge of these things is limited, I think you'll be missing out on connections the story weaves beneath the surface. Still, I'm an admirer for what is to me scientific gibberish, similar to how other people appreciate to hear certain languages whose meaning they cannot understand.
The novel opens with a satellite returning to Earth. It landed some distance from its estimated landing destination, but the military has available equipment to locate its position near Piedmont, Arizona. With the help of a surveillance aircraft it is discovered that apparently all people of that town are dead, including the two technicians that had been sent to recover the satellite, as it turns out. In fact, the government is prepared for an eventuality like this.
Well aware that space missions always hold the danger of bringing back extraterrestrial lifeforms harmful to men (like we may contaminate other planets), some years earlier a team of five specialists was assembled to be called to action should there ever be any evidence that a spacecraft came back with a potentially harmful biological entity. In the current situation, the established Wilfire protocol is initiated, which demands that the scientists (or the four that are able to) immediately come down to the technically highly advanced research facility in Nevada in order to find ways to neutralize the threat and to prevent biological catastrophe.
The novel was written at the end of the 1960s, so it's not surprising that nuclear threat plays a crucial part. The President has to decide whether to nuke the area, should the team fail. In case of a containment breach, the scientists are authorized to fire a nuclear bomb to destroy the facility. This well upped the ante and gave occasion to introduce some political elements into the story. There was more: If I understood that correctly, the Scoop satellites were made to orbit Earth with the conscious intention to come back with contaminations that could be developed into biological weapons. It doesn't make for the most interesting plot developments (more on that below), but as a setup it was scarily intriguing.
At first I loved how they introduce the facility and everything about it as this high-security top-secret compound equipped with so many intricate mechanisms and technologies to maximize safety. There are four levels of increasing sterilization, with the research on the bacteria being conducted on the lowest level. Some aspects probably became sci-fi tropes since, like the handprint scanners. There are also fail-safes in case something goes wrong. Unfortunately, when convenient for the plot, the most glaring security gaps become evident. Of course, mistakes happen, but I think the ones discovered here are way too obvious to be reconciled with the realism the book otherwise maintains.
In its portrayal of futuristic technology, it didn't age too well, either. It may be similar to nowadays when people are convinced to use technology that is build to accomplish the same goals than older technology, but even though it does it worse than older technology, it feels new and modern (like it was the case with earlier touchscreen technology). But in an environment where the utmost responsiveness is fully indispensable it seems reckless to trust on technology that is barely market-ready.
The scientist have to interact with a virtual assistant to do the most basic tasks, like enter some personal information. It should have given cause for concern when you realize that the device more than once fails to recognize the verbal inputs of crucial information (like received vaccinations or allergies). Moreover, the bit of computers conducting medical diagnosis is fascinating at the point where we are now, but for the story and the technology they had in the 1960s it's not really relevant. I did like, though, that it serves as a reminder of how our attitude towards computers completely changed. Back then computation capacity was incredibly precious and it's an interesting idea that many people were made to work at the same machine to use it most efficiently (since the programming is slow and the calculations are fast).
At about halfway in, many chapters focus on just one experiment the individual scientists are conducting. Their overarching goals are detection, characterization, and eventual control of the lethal agent. So, one team begins to meticulously scan the satellite. If I remember correctly, it was hit by a meteor, and the remnants of that in particular demands their attention. Another scientist is doing animal experiments in order to ascertain the means of transmission, whether dead animals are still infectious, or what may be ways to stop the killing (for instance, by stopping the blood from clotting). Finally, the fourth scientist has the task of finding out what two survivors have in common.
For the most part, the book works as a thriller (rather than just fascinating with more or less pure science). The annihilation of the population of an entire town, the fact that their blood clotting leads to death in a matter of seconds, the spreading madness and suicides, the discovery of survivors, the question of what it is about such unlike individuals - a screaming baby and a sleeping old man - that makes them different from the victims, the fighter pilot who went mad - there is more than enough to keep you interested.
Crichton doesn't explain every technical term, but he explains enough so that you feel you acquire new concepts, like a better understand of bacteria and certain technologies and medical conditions. As in good textbooks, you immediately need to apply them to follow nuances of the story. This keeps you engaged, even when there isn't happening much in the narrower sense of the word.
I loved when at times the book conveys the pretense of you reading scientific reports. For instance, there is the famous Odd-Man Hypothesis, according to which unmarried men are better suited to make hard decisions. I liked how they presented the results of psychological experiments to spell out and ground the hypothesis. I knew that there are beneficial bacteria (especially in the gut), but I've never really thought about how organisms and bacteria came to adjust to each other over incredibly long periods of times, so that now only few bacteria lead to diseases in human beings. That bit was interesting. Not particularly important for the plot, but I also liked how it explains that in regard to different research questions different animals are to be considered most alike to humans. The impenetrably bureaucratic governmental files also added to the realism.
Unfortunately, the ending is a bit of a letdown. There are hints at fatal mistakes all over the story. In the light of potential nuclear catastrophe it makes the whole operation appear as if hanging by a thread. There is also speculation about different forms of life on other planets (may the smallest entities be the most intelligent, is there non-protein based life, what is the meaning of the decompositional crystalline structures etc.). But when it comes to the resolution, everything felt rather underwhelming.
Eventually, they do discover the key information that the bacteria are only able to reproduce in a specific pH range (7.39–7.43, according to Wikipedia), and that both the child and the old man unwittingly brought themselves out of this range (the old man because of his consumption of Sterno and aspirin, the baby because of its constant screaming). But at that point, the virus mutated anyway, so their actions don't really matter all that much anymore. They may in the future, but that's outside the scope of the book's story.
What is more, the inevitable countdown to detonation at the end felt gimmicky and its prevention way too easy. Because of the mutation, the bacteria are able to break free to the surface. I see how that is a terrifying thought, that there is always the element we won't be able to plan for, so it makes total sense that the computer decides to initiate the detonation. But what comes next, the action on the next couple of pages, with the darts and the climbing, it's just too silly and really doesn't do justice to the rest of the book. It's almost as if hard science-fiction suddenly turned into mediocre sci-fi blockbuster action from the 80s. Well, maybe the book proved foresight in this respect, too.
Rating: 3.5/5
The novel opens with a satellite returning to Earth. It landed some distance from its estimated landing destination, but the military has available equipment to locate its position near Piedmont, Arizona. With the help of a surveillance aircraft it is discovered that apparently all people of that town are dead, including the two technicians that had been sent to recover the satellite, as it turns out. In fact, the government is prepared for an eventuality like this.
Well aware that space missions always hold the danger of bringing back extraterrestrial lifeforms harmful to men (like we may contaminate other planets), some years earlier a team of five specialists was assembled to be called to action should there ever be any evidence that a spacecraft came back with a potentially harmful biological entity. In the current situation, the established Wilfire protocol is initiated, which demands that the scientists (or the four that are able to) immediately come down to the technically highly advanced research facility in Nevada in order to find ways to neutralize the threat and to prevent biological catastrophe.
The novel was written at the end of the 1960s, so it's not surprising that nuclear threat plays a crucial part. The President has to decide whether to nuke the area, should the team fail. In case of a containment breach, the scientists are authorized to fire a nuclear bomb to destroy the facility. This well upped the ante and gave occasion to introduce some political elements into the story. There was more: If I understood that correctly, the Scoop satellites were made to orbit Earth with the conscious intention to come back with contaminations that could be developed into biological weapons. It doesn't make for the most interesting plot developments (more on that below), but as a setup it was scarily intriguing.
At first I loved how they introduce the facility and everything about it as this high-security top-secret compound equipped with so many intricate mechanisms and technologies to maximize safety. There are four levels of increasing sterilization, with the research on the bacteria being conducted on the lowest level. Some aspects probably became sci-fi tropes since, like the handprint scanners. There are also fail-safes in case something goes wrong. Unfortunately, when convenient for the plot, the most glaring security gaps become evident. Of course, mistakes happen, but I think the ones discovered here are way too obvious to be reconciled with the realism the book otherwise maintains.
In its portrayal of futuristic technology, it didn't age too well, either. It may be similar to nowadays when people are convinced to use technology that is build to accomplish the same goals than older technology, but even though it does it worse than older technology, it feels new and modern (like it was the case with earlier touchscreen technology). But in an environment where the utmost responsiveness is fully indispensable it seems reckless to trust on technology that is barely market-ready.
The scientist have to interact with a virtual assistant to do the most basic tasks, like enter some personal information. It should have given cause for concern when you realize that the device more than once fails to recognize the verbal inputs of crucial information (like received vaccinations or allergies). Moreover, the bit of computers conducting medical diagnosis is fascinating at the point where we are now, but for the story and the technology they had in the 1960s it's not really relevant. I did like, though, that it serves as a reminder of how our attitude towards computers completely changed. Back then computation capacity was incredibly precious and it's an interesting idea that many people were made to work at the same machine to use it most efficiently (since the programming is slow and the calculations are fast).
At about halfway in, many chapters focus on just one experiment the individual scientists are conducting. Their overarching goals are detection, characterization, and eventual control of the lethal agent. So, one team begins to meticulously scan the satellite. If I remember correctly, it was hit by a meteor, and the remnants of that in particular demands their attention. Another scientist is doing animal experiments in order to ascertain the means of transmission, whether dead animals are still infectious, or what may be ways to stop the killing (for instance, by stopping the blood from clotting). Finally, the fourth scientist has the task of finding out what two survivors have in common.
For the most part, the book works as a thriller (rather than just fascinating with more or less pure science). The annihilation of the population of an entire town, the fact that their blood clotting leads to death in a matter of seconds, the spreading madness and suicides, the discovery of survivors, the question of what it is about such unlike individuals - a screaming baby and a sleeping old man - that makes them different from the victims, the fighter pilot who went mad - there is more than enough to keep you interested.
Crichton doesn't explain every technical term, but he explains enough so that you feel you acquire new concepts, like a better understand of bacteria and certain technologies and medical conditions. As in good textbooks, you immediately need to apply them to follow nuances of the story. This keeps you engaged, even when there isn't happening much in the narrower sense of the word.
I loved when at times the book conveys the pretense of you reading scientific reports. For instance, there is the famous Odd-Man Hypothesis, according to which unmarried men are better suited to make hard decisions. I liked how they presented the results of psychological experiments to spell out and ground the hypothesis. I knew that there are beneficial bacteria (especially in the gut), but I've never really thought about how organisms and bacteria came to adjust to each other over incredibly long periods of times, so that now only few bacteria lead to diseases in human beings. That bit was interesting. Not particularly important for the plot, but I also liked how it explains that in regard to different research questions different animals are to be considered most alike to humans. The impenetrably bureaucratic governmental files also added to the realism.
Unfortunately, the ending is a bit of a letdown. There are hints at fatal mistakes all over the story. In the light of potential nuclear catastrophe it makes the whole operation appear as if hanging by a thread. There is also speculation about different forms of life on other planets (may the smallest entities be the most intelligent, is there non-protein based life, what is the meaning of the decompositional crystalline structures etc.). But when it comes to the resolution, everything felt rather underwhelming.
Eventually, they do discover the key information that the bacteria are only able to reproduce in a specific pH range (7.39–7.43, according to Wikipedia), and that both the child and the old man unwittingly brought themselves out of this range (the old man because of his consumption of Sterno and aspirin, the baby because of its constant screaming). But at that point, the virus mutated anyway, so their actions don't really matter all that much anymore. They may in the future, but that's outside the scope of the book's story.
What is more, the inevitable countdown to detonation at the end felt gimmicky and its prevention way too easy. Because of the mutation, the bacteria are able to break free to the surface. I see how that is a terrifying thought, that there is always the element we won't be able to plan for, so it makes total sense that the computer decides to initiate the detonation. But what comes next, the action on the next couple of pages, with the darts and the climbing, it's just too silly and really doesn't do justice to the rest of the book. It's almost as if hard science-fiction suddenly turned into mediocre sci-fi blockbuster action from the 80s. Well, maybe the book proved foresight in this respect, too.
Rating: 3.5/5
Eden. Roman einer außerirdischen Zivilisation by Stanisław Lem
4.0
Eden is about the exploration of a foreign world. Interestingly, the contact with the planet's intelligent residents is mostly indirect, an aspect of the plot that preserves the species's alienness throughout the story. With signs of death all over Eden, there is something truly unsettling about the planet. The sense of agitation is still increased by the scientists' realization that they won't be able to understand what they perceive on Eden if they won't go beyond the categories and concepts acquired back in the terrestrial environments. It's especially in dealing with the latter theme that the novel piqued my interest.
A crew of six - consisting of the Captain (or "Coordinator", as he is called), Doctor, Engineer, Chemist, Physicist and cyberneticist - crash-lands on the planet Eden. After initial troubles to even leave their spaceship, they begin to explore their surroundings. They soon come across the remnants of civilization, though their facilities present them with mysteries. Wherever they go, they stumble upon death. They soon find doublers (as they call the members of the foreign race) flying in disc-like vehicles. Strangely, however, there are no attempts to make contact. On the contrary, they appear to be totally unmoved by the scientists presence.
I was immediately impressed by the rich and descriptive language with which Lem tells the story. He deploys scientific terminology and doesn't shy away from describing in detail the elaborate operations required for the scientists to further their causes. It's picturesque in its depiction of the planet's surface. So, the novel is more demanding than more lightweight works of science-fiction (including many of Lem's own novels). To be honest, maybe it's because I listened to parts as an audio book, but I had to go through the book twice to grasp some of its details.
As in similar novels, the scientists explicitly raise questions whose answering provides the story's directions. What is the factory's purpose? What does it produce? What is the nature of the "doublers"? Why don't they show more evident signs of intelligence? What is the relation of their bodily parts? What is that object that the Doctor found in one individual's lungs? What is the meaning of the graves (if that is what they are)? How did they die (were they murdered)? Why did they approach the spaceship without really doing anything? Why did they (later) put a fence around them?
They form various hypotheses about these issues. Most interestingly, they put them in terms of concepts brought with them from Earth. So, they constantly have to reassess earlier assumptions in the light of new evidence (or transitory interpretations of observations). The scientific method is a core theme in many of Lem's works, and Eden sure is a fascinating test case to sharpen our understanding of that method.
As I've said, Eden's civilization remains a mystery for most of the story. Towards the end, they discover many fascinating facets, though. They come across a doubler individual that is significantly more intelligent than specimen previously encountered. Through him, they gain insight into the internals of their society and history. Their science is far advanced and they use very different media to store information (making use of electricity to write). Easily the most exciting aspect (at least for me) were the ideas of how to control its people by controlling the flow of information, a branch of information science the computer interpreter calls "procrustics" (for lack of a better word).
For one thing, their leaders remain anonymous, in this way evading to become the target of mass criticism. In a part that is difficult to fully understand, they gather that these mechanisms are used to maintain a prison system in which the inmates function as their own guards. In recent history, they experimented with genetic engineering. They tried to effect genetic mutations in their offspring in order to enhance them, even though the scientists were unable to determine their exact ambitions. The plan failed, however, and what they did create were mutilated deformed mutants (which explains why they met so many simpletons). In today's society, they conceal that this ever happened and it's prohibited to talk about it. It's easy to read this as political allegory.
Unlike other books of his, "its characters tend to be schematic", as Lem himself puts it. There is some personality to the Doctor (who strangely is more eager to understand the world than the scientists are) and their conversations are occasionally funny, but for the most part, I would be hard-pressed to describe any of them in a way that wouldn't equally apply to the rest. Because of this lack in personality, I felt a certain distance not only to the main protagonists, but to the explorations in general.
Rating: 3.5/5
A crew of six - consisting of the Captain (or "Coordinator", as he is called), Doctor, Engineer, Chemist, Physicist and cyberneticist - crash-lands on the planet Eden. After initial troubles to even leave their spaceship, they begin to explore their surroundings. They soon come across the remnants of civilization, though their facilities present them with mysteries. Wherever they go, they stumble upon death. They soon find doublers (as they call the members of the foreign race) flying in disc-like vehicles. Strangely, however, there are no attempts to make contact. On the contrary, they appear to be totally unmoved by the scientists presence.
I was immediately impressed by the rich and descriptive language with which Lem tells the story. He deploys scientific terminology and doesn't shy away from describing in detail the elaborate operations required for the scientists to further their causes. It's picturesque in its depiction of the planet's surface. So, the novel is more demanding than more lightweight works of science-fiction (including many of Lem's own novels). To be honest, maybe it's because I listened to parts as an audio book, but I had to go through the book twice to grasp some of its details.
As in similar novels, the scientists explicitly raise questions whose answering provides the story's directions. What is the factory's purpose? What does it produce? What is the nature of the "doublers"? Why don't they show more evident signs of intelligence? What is the relation of their bodily parts? What is that object that the Doctor found in one individual's lungs? What is the meaning of the graves (if that is what they are)? How did they die (were they murdered)? Why did they approach the spaceship without really doing anything? Why did they (later) put a fence around them?
They form various hypotheses about these issues. Most interestingly, they put them in terms of concepts brought with them from Earth. So, they constantly have to reassess earlier assumptions in the light of new evidence (or transitory interpretations of observations). The scientific method is a core theme in many of Lem's works, and Eden sure is a fascinating test case to sharpen our understanding of that method.
As I've said, Eden's civilization remains a mystery for most of the story. Towards the end, they discover many fascinating facets, though. They come across a doubler individual that is significantly more intelligent than specimen previously encountered. Through him, they gain insight into the internals of their society and history. Their science is far advanced and they use very different media to store information (making use of electricity to write). Easily the most exciting aspect (at least for me) were the ideas of how to control its people by controlling the flow of information, a branch of information science the computer interpreter calls "procrustics" (for lack of a better word).
For one thing, their leaders remain anonymous, in this way evading to become the target of mass criticism. In a part that is difficult to fully understand, they gather that these mechanisms are used to maintain a prison system in which the inmates function as their own guards. In recent history, they experimented with genetic engineering. They tried to effect genetic mutations in their offspring in order to enhance them, even though the scientists were unable to determine their exact ambitions. The plan failed, however, and what they did create were mutilated deformed mutants (which explains why they met so many simpletons). In today's society, they conceal that this ever happened and it's prohibited to talk about it. It's easy to read this as political allegory.
Unlike other books of his, "its characters tend to be schematic", as Lem himself puts it. There is some personality to the Doctor (who strangely is more eager to understand the world than the scientists are) and their conversations are occasionally funny, but for the most part, I would be hard-pressed to describe any of them in a way that wouldn't equally apply to the rest. Because of this lack in personality, I felt a certain distance not only to the main protagonists, but to the explorations in general.
Rating: 3.5/5