The Hugo Shortlist: Novels
Rich Horton
The deadline for Hugo Ballots is July 31 (and that's when they must be
received, so by snail mail they should go out earlier). And now that
I've read all the novels, here's a short look at the ballot, in the
order I'll list them. (Though I could readily shuffle those listed
second through fourth in any order.) I note in summary that I think
this is an excellent shortlist -- it's not exactly my list of the best
novels of the year, but it's pretty representative. Here are my
reviews, lightly revised.
1. Blindsight, Peter Watts
Blindsight is told by Siri Keeton, member of an expedition to
investigate an anomaly in the far Oort cloud. It seems that Earth was
-- attacked? surveilled? -- by what people call "Fireflies", a rain of
probes that appeared one night. Several waves of probes are sent from
Earth to investigate, and Siri's ship, the Theseus, is the first
manned investigator. Five members awake when nearing a brown dwarf
that is apparently orbited by possibly alien devices.
The team members are a linguist, Susan James, who has (on purpose)
multiple personalities; Isaac Szpindel, a cybernetically enhanced
instrumentation specialist; Amanda Bates, a military specialist; and
the leader, Jukka Sarasti, a vampire; as well as Keeton, who is an
observer or intermediary -- there to translate the findings of the
variously enhanced team members to terms "normal" humans can
understand, and transmit them to Earth.
Their mission is to figure out what the alien "invaders" are up to.
And they do so by investigating a "big dumb object" they encounter
orbiting a brown subdwarf in the Oort. But this investigation is not
easy. On the one hand the "aliens", whoever or whatever they are, seem
to communicate readily. But on the other hand they don't say much of
real substance, and what they say isn't very welcoming. And direct
investigation of the object is difficult: the environment is radiation
drenched and otherwise terribly inhospitable, even when they aren't
getting attacked. But they persist -- and what they eventually learn
is very scary indeed.
The story also is concerned with the various natures of the main
characters. A lot of time is devoted to Siri Keeton's backstory: he
was an epileptic cured by having half his brain removed; his beloved
father was often absent on important spook business, while his
less-beloved mother was messing up his life and eventually retreating
to "Heaven", a virtual space for uploaded consciousnesses. Siri
himself, essentially sort of autistic, also has a difficult
relationship with a childhood friend and with his only ever
girlfriend. The point of all this, as with the shorter expositions of
what makes the other expedition members tick, leads eventually to the
real heart of the novel: examination of the nature and utility of
consciousness. And that is what makes the novel ultimately fascinating
-- the speculation, the ideas. In other words, it's "real SF", if
"real SF" is supposed to be about ideas. The characters, indeed, are
all fairly unpleasant. The action is interesting but not really
rousing. The prose is fine but not by itself any reason to read the
book. It's certainly not uplifting. But it is fascinating and full of
sense of wonder.
2. Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge
Interestingly, it is set at UCSD, and the main character is a former
professor there -- though a poet, not a computer scientist. He is
Robert Gu, apparently the leading poet of our time (that would be
now). But as of about 20 years from now, he has been in a nursing home
for years, with Alzheimer's (or some other form of dementia), and
other maladies of old age. But he has been cured -- indeed he has hit
the jackpot in the "heavenly minefield" of 21st Century medicine.
Robert's son and daughter-in-law, it turns out, are highly placed
individuals on the U.S. side in the Great Powers' continuing war
against chaos -- against the possibility of various varieties of WOMD
being wielded against the whole world. One other key individual is
Alfred Vaz, an Indian intelligence head. He and two of his colleagues
from Europe and Japan have uncovered a plot to deliver a "YGBM" virus
in a clever fashion. YGBM means "You Gotta Believe Me": that is, mind
control. They recruit an helper, who they meet only in virtual space,
called the Rabbit, who will assist them in infiltrating the biolabs
near UCSD where they suspect the virus is under development. The
kicker is that the man behind this project is Vaz himself -- but he,
of course, will use this power only for good -- he sees it as the only
way to control the bad guys in the world. So he needs to play his
colleagues and the Rabbit very carefully. But the Rabbit's abilities
in the virtual world are quite remarkable.
Inevitably, Robert Gu, his son and daughter-in-law, and his
granddaughter Miri, become enmeshed, without their knowledge, in all
this plotting. But the story is only partly about Alfred Vaz's
machinations. It's also about Robert coming to terms with his new
quasi-youth: his new abilities, such as an interest in electronics,
and his terrible losses, such as his ability to write poetry. But he
may have lost something else: it seems that in his prior life he was a
prime jerk, driving away his wife and all his colleagues with simple
nastiness. His son mostly hates him, certainly distrusts him. But has
he changed?
All this is SFnally fascinating, very scary. And indeed the novel is
interesting in the way that it's not quite clear who the heroes are --
well, no, it is clear: Robert Gu and Juan Orozco and Miri Gu are the
heroes. But they have been coopted to work for bad guys. Maybe. Or
sort of bad guys. And anyway lots of the story is not about that
plotty stuff, but rather about Robert dealing with his new "youth" and
his lost poetic talents, and Miri dealing with family issues, and Juan
dealing with his own relative poverty and poor education ... in the
end, the novel is quite satisfying as a look at pretty believable
characters in a somewhat believable alternate future (I can't help but
thinking that this future doesn't make sense starting from now, but
maybe from 20 years ago ...). And then behind it all lurks a very
scary, and only partly resolved, big story about a future balanced
between terrorist chaos and even scarier order imposed by mind
control. I think this is a surprisingly subtle triumph from one of the
field's best pure SF writers.
3. Glasshouse, Charles Stross
Glasshouse is set in the future of the future portrayed in Charles
Stross's Accelerando. It's actually a completely independent novel --
I suppose it was convenient to set it in the same future, but not
really necessary.
The book is set some decades after a war which fragmented the human
(untranscendent) civilization, which occupies numerous space habitats
in surrounding brown dwarfs and the like, linked by FTL T-gates and by
A-gates which allow bodies to be reassembled -- fixing health
problems, but also choosing different bodies types -- extra arms,
different sex, or even wholly alien bodies. (I was reminded of the fax
machines of Wil McCarthy's Queendom of Sol stories.) The war was
caused by an attempt to take over the minds of everyone by a virus
replicated through A-gates. The good guys won, but at the cost of a
united humanity -- it was necessary to isolate most polities in order
to cleanse the gates of the virus.
Robin is a man who had a prominent role in the war, and who as a
result seems to have decided to wipe his memory -- too much horror,
too much guilt. During his recovery, he meets a woman, Kay, and begins
to fall for her. And they both discover something they are interested
in doing -- a group of researchers have set up an experimental polity
based on Western civilization in the late 20th Century. They want
people who have undergone memory wipes to send some time there, trying
to live lives as people in England and the US in the 1950s (or so)
did.
Robin ends up in a woman's body, and as such trapped in a woman's role
in a fairly funny parody (with a mixture of sharp truths and funny
misconceptions) of the 50s (pretty much). She, now named Reeve, is
more or less randomly assigned to marry a man, Sam. Reeve tries to
figure out who Kay is in this situation, while she also realized that
they are in a rather scarier situation than they thought. The
experimental polity seems more and more like a prison, and one
dedicated to reinforcing some downright evil behavior, such as
lynching. And there is no way out. And, as Reeve/Robin's memories
begin to return, she realizes she has a mission -- possibly related to
a repurposed -- and scarily improved -- version of the virus that
caused the past war.
This is a fascinating and intellectually interesting novel -- and it's
full of neat action as well. But I didn't find it quite as intriguing
as Accelerando. I couldn't quite get a handle on the motivations of
the villains, nor indeed on the implications of all the tech -- and I
was left with the idea that too much that happened was by authorial
arrangement -- the bad guys were just a bit too incompetent -- as far
as I could tell, they really should have won. But maybe I just think
that because I didn't understand the setup well enough.
4. Eifelheim, Michael F. Flynn
This is a pretty strong novel set in two timelines. The bulk of the
novel is set in a village in the Black Forest in 1348. That date is
significant, of course: it is during the Black Plague. The protagonist
is a priest named Dietrich. Dietrich has a mysterious past apparently
involving a failed revolt against the feudal lords of the time. And he
also has a history as a promising student in Paris of the likes of
William of Ockham (of "Occam's Razor" fame). But for over a decade he
has hidden away in this tiny village, Oberhochwald. Then one day
something very strange happens, and soon he learns that strange
insect-like creatures from a distant land have arrived. The bulk of
the novel, then, concerns his relationship, and that of other
villagers, with the aliens (as all readers will recognizes them to
be). The aliens turn out to have a rigid social structure based on
their biology, which sets them at odds with human mores. But some of
them are converted to Christianity -- which brings Dietrich to the
unfortunate notice of the Ecclesiastical authorities. The aliens, with
human help, strive to fix their spaceship. While, feared by all, the
plague comes nearer.
The other strand, much thinner, concerns a contemporary couple, a
physicist (Sharon) and a historian (Tom). Tom is fascinated by the
unexplainable fact that the village of Eifelheim (which he learns is a
renaming of Oberhochwald) has apparently been uninhabited since the
Black Death -- something quite at variance with his "cliometric"
theories. His lover Sharon is on the cusp of a major disovery. As Tom
slowly begins to unpick the puzzle of Eifelheim, with a librarian
assistant who incites Sharon's jealousy, Sharon very slowly realizes
that what Tom is learning might actually impact her research.
I was never quite convinced by the present day (or near future) thread
-- too many leaps of faith on limited information were made (though
Flynn is rather cagy here, and Tom does come to some quite wrong
conclusions that will probably never be falsified). The historical
segment is pretty fine however -- it will certainly be compared to
Willis's Doomsday Book, with good reason. I did get a feeling at times
that Flynn was showing off his historical research a bit too eagerly
-- and he insisted on naming alien technology in cutesy ways that
directly reflect current names for similar devices -- this grated
after a time, and was profoundly unconvincing. (But that's also a very
minor nitpick.) On the whole it's a good novel, a decent Hugo nominee.
But I will have it fourth on a pretty strong shortlist.
5. His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik
Naomi Novik's first novel begins a series of novels, of which the
first three have actually already been published, in quick succession.
His Majesty's Dragon and its sequels concern the adventures of Captain
Will Laurence and the dragon Temeraire during the Napoleonic Wars in a
fantastical alternate history. So they immediately invite comparison
to such historical fiction as the Hornblower books by C. S. Forester
and the Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian, as well as to such
science fictional versions of the Napoleonic Wars as David Weber's
Honor Harrington books or David Drake's Lt. Leary books.And, to cap
this sequence of comparisons, perhaps one might also think of another
fantastical alternate history set during the Napoleonic Wars: Susannah
Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. In the end such comparisons, I
think, simply point out that this is a rich historical period to mine
for adventure stories -- Novik's novel stands well on its own, a very
enjoyable story.
The novel opens with Captain Laurence, of the British Navy, capturing
a French ship. On the captured ship they find a dragon's egg. Dragons
are very valuable creatures, it turns out, and are used as a sort of
Air Force by both sides. Dragons are intelligent, and are able to talk
from the time they hatch, but they will typically bond with just one
person, usually one of the first people they see upon hatching. This
egg is about to hatch, and it is necessary for one of Laurence's
officers to agree to bond with the dragon: which is a problem, because
that will mean leaving the Navy, and for that matter will put great
stress on any possible normal human relationships such as marriage.
The Aerial Corps, it seems, is a somewhat raffish and also secretive
group. And when the new dragon hatches, he chooses Captain Laurence
himself. Laurence names the dragon Temeraire.
This is particularly hard on Captain Laurence. He was a much admired
and fast-rising naval Captain. He had intended to marry a young woman,
a neighbour of his, but that seems impossible now. And he already has
a stressful relationship with his father, who was opposed to his
joining the Navy and will be far more opposed to his transfer to the
Aerial Corps. But Laurence does his duty by England. He quickly learns
that there are great compensations: Temeraire is extremely intelligent
(more intelligent than Laurence), and very loyal. The two quickly
become great friends. And, of course, it turns out that Temeraire is a
very special kind of dragon.
The rest of the novel concerns mostly the early training of both
Laurence and Temeraire. The War is not going very well, so it is
necessary for them to train rapidly. This is complicated by the
resentment of many in the Aerial Corps to Laurence, a Navy man, who
has managed by happenstance to grab a very special assignment: Captain
in charge of a unique dragon. Typically members of the Aerial Corps
wait years for such a plum assignment. Laurence must also learn to
deal with the rougher manners of his new comrades. Here Novik does a
nice bit of characterization: her sympathetic main character is
presented as having some rather stiff attitudes, quite appropriate for
a gentleman of his era, but at variance with our contemporary mores.
The reader is torn between cheering on the viewpoint character, and
approving the freer habits of the Aerial Corps. And, really, both are
partly correct. Finally, Laurence has to adjust to a variety of
unexpected sorts of people in the Aerial Corps -- including, to his
surprise, women in combat roles. As well as another gentleman who is
not what he expects, and a French aristocrat who has come over to the
British side.
The plot is not surprisingly resolved with a rousing battle. This is
something of a disappointment -- there is a sense of unfairness in the
rabbit Novik pulls out of her hat to save the day. In the final
analysis the book turns on the very appealing character of the dragon
Temeraire. He is both young and surprisingly mature, very independent
but very loyal, intelligent but naïve. He is, really, delightful. On
the whole His Majesty's Dragon is a great deal of fun to read, and
I'll be eagerly gobbling up the subsequent books in the series. But
for all that it is fairly clearly fifth on the Hugo shortlist.
Daniel Damouth
news:e8ll93tds0c47eu1v...@4ax.com:
> The Hugo Shortlist, 2007: Novels
I tend to read novels more than a year they come out. This year I've
read only _Glasshouse_.
> 3. Glasshouse, Charles Stross
I was not as entertained by the "20th century" parts as you were; I
found them generally slow and I often wasn't sure of the point. And
since it was a large part of the story I think of the whole book that
way, even though (as you note) the story's embedded in an interesting
universe of interacting technologies, polities, and wars. I enjoyed
it, but I preferred Acclerando.
I do love the way Stross's characters (in these two books) proceed
seamlessly when copied and regard fearlessly the prospect of merging
with other copies who've had different character-changing
experiences. There is no hint of the concept of a soul, but more than
that, there's not even any particular valuation of the individual for
his own copy. Intellectually, I find this characteristic plausible
for Darwinistic reasons -- people with hangups about copying,
altering, and merging with themselves are probably at a survival
disadvantage in a computational universe -- but I still cringe from
the idea. My mind returns to the kittens in "Lobsters". Their
lifeless bodies dropped outside Manfred's door.
-Dan Damouth
Charlie Stross
as <rrho...@prodigy.net> declared:
> The Hugo Shortlist, 2007: Novels
>
> 3. Glasshouse, Charles Stross
....
> This is a fascinating and intellectually interesting novel -- and it's
> full of neat action as well. But I didn't find it quite as intriguing
> as Accelerando. I couldn't quite get a handle on the motivations of
> the villains, nor indeed on the implications of all the tech -- and I
> was left with the idea that too much that happened was by authorial
> arrangement -- the bad guys were just a bit too incompetent -- as far
> as I could tell, they really should have won. But maybe I just think
> that because I didn't understand the setup well enough.
SPOILER FOLLOWS ...
You're not interrogating the situation deeply enough. Let's look at the
various salient aspects of the set-up and see if it makes more sense
when we lay them end to end:
Item: we're looking at a future where people are functionally immortal,
although they may undergo such radical personality drift (either
naturally, over centuries, or artificially, through memory editing) as
to effectively become different people.
Item: we're looking at the aftermath of a vicious civil war in which
both sides committed major atrocities.
Item: the Glasshouse is a prison/rehabilitation center/flytrap for war
criminals, designed to essentially change them into someone else..
Item: Robin/Reeve is an unreliable narrator. (The fact that the novel is
told as a first person/present tense narrative *and the narrator is
killed part-way through* ought to be a red flag here ...)
Item: there are some very nasty bad guys in it, seemingly in charge --
Hanta, Fiore, Yourdon.
Item: Robin/Reeve is fairly clearly guilty of rape, torture, murder, and
complicity in mass murder. (Or at least thinks she/he is. See
"unreliable narrator" above.) He/she is no better than anyone else in
this picture, once you look beyond the sense of identification fostered
by the first person narrative.
Item: the story ends with YFH-polity, now full up, severing its
connection with the rest of human civilization for a couple of centuries
while its population come to terms with their own personal demons and
try to build a new life for themselves.
Now, do I need to sketch in the rest of the picture? Let's just say, it
relies on a model of justice that's a good bit more nuanced than "an eye
for an eye" ...
-- Charlie
Will in New Haven
> Rich Horton <rrhor...@prodigy.net> wrote innews:e8ll93tds0c47eu1v...@4ax.com:
If I finish <Accelerando> which is iffy, I may give this book a look.
On the other hand, I think people who don't value their individual
identities, whether it is because of superstition or simply a healthy
ego, will have no real survival advantage under those circumstances.
They will simply dissapear in the maelstrom. Those who do value their
identities will either fail to enter the mileu completely or impose
their identity strongly on some small part of it and thus have more of
an influence on whatever happens next.
I see Charlie Stross has posted on this topic. While I always like to
read his posts on other topics and his books genrally, I don't like to
see authors commenting on or explaining their work. It's a bad habit.
Still, I will probably read his comments.
Will in New Haven
--
Charlie Stross
> I see Charlie Stross has posted on this topic. While I always like to
> read his posts on other topics and his books genrally, I don't like to
> see authors commenting on or explaining their work. It's a bad habit.
> Still, I will probably read his comments.
I suggest you don't; it's a spoiler for GLASSHOUSE (and gives the ending
away).
-- Charlie
Will in New Haven
> Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
>
> > I see Charlie Stross has posted on this topic. While I always like to
> > read his posts on other topics and his books genrally, I don't like to
> > see authors commenting on or explaining their work. It's a bad habit.
> > Still, I will probably read his comments.
>
> I suggest you don't; it's a spoiler for GLASSHOUSE (and gives the ending
> away).
As I have gotten older, I have developed a spoiler defense. It is
called not reading the book until I have forgotten the spoiler. That
gets easier and easier as I get older. :-,) or maybe :-.( because it
is only partly in fun.
I will take the warning under advisement.
Will in New Haven
--
> -- Charlie
Dumarest
i found the 'village' bits a lot of fun Charlie
Barb
"Charlie Stross" <cha...@antipope.org> wrote in message
news:9b9sm4-...@antipope.org...
Just to say I loved the book, Charlie. Different, original,
though-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable - which is why we read SF!
Thanks.
Barb UK
Will in New Haven
> "Charlie Stross" <char...@antipope.org> wrote in message
>
> news:9b9sm4-...@antipope.org...
>
> > Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
>
> >> I see Charlie Stross has posted on this topic. While I always like to
> >> read his posts on other topics and his books genrally, I don't like to
> >> see authors commenting on or explaining their work. It's a bad habit.
> >> Still, I will probably read his comments.
>
> > I suggest you don't; it's a spoiler for GLASSHOUSE (and gives the ending
> > away).
>
> > -- Charlie
>
> Just to say I loved the book, Charlie. Different, original,
> though-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable - which is why we read SF!
> Thanks.
>
> Barb UK
I am going to have to save his comment until after I read the book.
That isn't at all difficult but I will have to avoid reading it while
I do it.
Robert Massey
>SPOILER FOLLOWS ...
>
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>
>Now, do I need to sketch in the rest of the picture? Let's just say, it
>relies on a model of justice that's a good bit more nuanced than "an eye
>for an eye" ...
I enjoyed the book, but it seemed that there were some amazing coincidences.
Reeve gets a job at the one place where the A Gate is. Reeve's librarian boss
turns out to be her commander from her previous life. Reeve discovers that her
husband is the girl she met before entering the Glasshouse.
Robert
--
"The wretched birth, miserable childhood, agonizingly painful
adolescence, and appallingly vile and degrading death of Miles
Cowperthwaite."
"Chaper Two: 'I Am Nailed to the Hull'"
Andrew Plotkin
>
> SPOILER FOLLOWS ...
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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> ^L
>
> You're not interrogating the situation deeply enough. Let's look at the
> various salient aspects of the set-up and see if it makes more sense
> when we lay them end to end:
I'm actually still not making sense of this, but it's been a year
since I read _Glasshouse_. All the parts I didn't make sense of at the
time have gotten fuzzy.
However, my conclusion -- from this and from your comments on
_Accelerando_ -- is that I'm not in your audience, when you're in
full-on unreliable-narrator mode. The books' points (if I'm in a
critical mood, the points you claim your books have) blow right on by
me, and I don't even notice my hair ruffling.
I'm not sure what the disjunction is. I like indirection and
storytelling-by-implication. I've read Dunnett; I've read
John M. Ford. I think it's something about how the empty spaces are
stressed -- if the narrative doesn't point at them in the right way, I
don't start looking for what fits.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
9/11 did change everything. Since 9/12, the biggest threat to American
society has been the American president. I'd call that a change.
David T. Bilek
<erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>Here, Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>>
>> SPOILER FOLLOWS ...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ^L
>>
>> You're not interrogating the situation deeply enough. Let's look at the
>> various salient aspects of the set-up and see if it makes more sense
>> when we lay them end to end:
>
>I'm actually still not making sense of this, but it's been a year
>since I read _Glasshouse_. All the parts I didn't make sense of at the
>time have gotten fuzzy.
>
>However, my conclusion -- from this and from your comments on
>_Accelerando_ -- is that I'm not in your audience, when you're in
>full-on unreliable-narrator mode. The books' points (if I'm in a
>critical mood, the points you claim your books have) blow right on by
>me, and I don't even notice my hair ruffling.
>
>I'm not sure what the disjunction is. I like indirection and
>storytelling-by-implication. I've read Dunnett; I've read
>John M. Ford. I think it's something about how the empty spaces are
>stressed -- if the narrative doesn't point at them in the right way, I
>don't start looking for what fits.
>
I think I agree with you. Until Charlie posted in this thread I had
no idea there was anything more to _Glasshouse_ (which I loved) than
what was right on the page. In fact, I still don't understand what it
is I missed except that I clearly missed something. Were the bad guys
not bad guys? Were they a put-up by the outside world to quarantine
the now-unneeded warriors? Were they actually smurfs? I just don't
know.
-David
Charlie Stross
> On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:10:52 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Plotkin
><erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>>Here, Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> SPOILER FOLLOWS ...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
^L
>
> I think I agree with you. Until Charlie posted in this thread I had
> no idea there was anything more to _Glasshouse_ (which I loved) than
> what was right on the page. In fact, I still don't understand what it
> is I missed except that I clearly missed something. Were the bad guys
> not bad guys? Were they a put-up by the outside world to quarantine
> the now-unneeded warriors? Were they actually smurfs? I just don't
> know.
You're thinking in terms of good guys and bad guys -- not bad guys and
worse bad guys.
Robin/Reeve is by no stretch of the imagination a good guy; he's been
permanently damaged by what happened to him, he participated in
atrocities during the war, and he's proven himself capable of brutal
acts of torture/murder in the Glasshouse itself.
The question in the book is, if you're fighting something really nasty,
what do you do with your damaged, immortal warriors after the war's
over? In terms of their capabilities they're not necessarily any less
dangerous than the war criminals on the other side. Quarantine and rehab
come into the picture ... and so does behavioural conditioning.
Maybe I'm giving too much away here, but my background reading for the
book included a biography of Stanley Milgram and some works on military
psychology that covered the Stanford Prison Study in detail. (In fact,
the original germ of the idea for "Glasshouse" was: I was annoyed
because John Varley had emitted "Red Thunder" when I was really looking
forward to "Steeltown Blues", and I thought, "dammit, why don't I try
and roll my own equivalent of an Eight Worlds novel?" Then I was in a
pub chatting with a friend about something or other and a light bulb
went on over my head: "why not apply the Stanford Prison Study protocol
to gender roles, in a situation not unlike the Eight Worlds universe?"
Then other stuff began accreting around that, and you've seen the
result. Basically, "Glasshouse" was my first attempt at writing a John
Varley novel. I'm not sure there's ever going to be a second attempt,
but I've got no plans in that direction right now.)
-- Charlie
Mark Atwood
>
> Item: Robin/Reeve is fairly clearly guilty of rape, torture, murder, and
> complicity in mass murder. (Or at least thinks she/he is. See
> "unreliable narrator" above.) He/she is no better than anyone else in
> this picture, once you look beyond the sense of identification fostered
> by the first person narrative.
The side hie was on in that civil war, and hir motivation for getting
involved, gives me a Lot of sympathy, and a clear sense that hie was,
in fact, better than some of the others in the picture.
If you really want to hold to that "is no better than", I would *love*
to read some stories from the point of view of some of the people who
were willfully and intentionally on the side of the Censorship,
and how they justified their position...
--
Mark Atwood When you do things right, people won't be sure
m...@mark.atwood.name you've done anything at all.
http://mark.atwood.name/ http://fallenpegasus.livejournal.com/
Steve Greenland
> If I finish <Accelerando> which is iffy, I may give this book a look.
FWIW, I thought _Accelerando_ peaked with "Halo" and sort of trailed
off. I thought _Glasshouse_ was quite good, and a lot more interesting
than the last 3 or so sections of _Accelerando_.
Steve
--
Steve Greenland
The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the
world. -- seen on the net
Steve Greenland
>
> I was annoyed because John Varley had emitted "Red Thunder" when I was
> really looking forward to "Steeltown Blues",
So that's two of us. Is that enough to convince Mr. Varley?
I think I need to re-read _Glasshouse_.
Joyce Reynolds-Ward
<erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>Here, Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
>>
>> SPOILER FOLLOWS ...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ^L
>>
>> You're not interrogating the situation deeply enough. Let's look at the
>> various salient aspects of the set-up and see if it makes more sense
>> when we lay them end to end:
>
>I'm actually still not making sense of this, but it's been a year
>since I read _Glasshouse_. All the parts I didn't make sense of at the
>time have gotten fuzzy.
>
>However, my conclusion -- from this and from your comments on
>_Accelerando_ -- is that I'm not in your audience, when you're in
>full-on unreliable-narrator mode. The books' points (if I'm in a
>critical mood, the points you claim your books have) blow right on by
>me, and I don't even notice my hair ruffling.
Whereas I seem to enjoy Charlie in an unreliable-narrator mode. More
so than most with unreliable-narrators....
jrw
Joyce Reynolds-Ward
See, I figured this out reasonably quickly, and I enjoyed
"Glasshouse." Robin was running away from some nasty shit in himself,
clearly, and working on that stuff ended up being a bit of a challenge
in that setting.
So if you write more in this vein, Charlie, you've got at least one
fan on board...
jrw
Charlie Stross
> If you really want to hold to that "is no better than", I would *love*
> to read some stories from the point of view of some of the people who
> were willfully and intentionally on the side of the Censorship,
> and how they justified their position...
Okay. "No better than" probably isn't nuanced enough; the point is,
Robin/Reeve has been badly damaged, and has done terrible things,
however worthy the cause, and is still capable of doing terrible things.
No black/white dichotomy here, just shades of grey (although I'll
happily paint the Y-F-H cabal as *very dark* grey -- indeed, fuliginous).
-- Charlie
David T. Bilek
Isn't trying to get rid of (or change) all the people who can do
terrible things just asking for trouble? What happens next time a
similarly dire threat emerges and you've therapied out any ability to
react effectively?
-David
Jo'Asia
> Isn't trying to get rid of (or change) all the people who can do
> terrible things just asking for trouble? What happens next time a
> similarly dire threat emerges and you've therapied out any ability to
> react effectively?
As usual - use communication lasers!
Jo'Asia
--
__.-=-. -< Joanna Slupek >----------------------< http://esensja.pl/ >-
--<()> -< joasia @ hell . pl >------< http://bujold.fantastyka.net/ >-
.__.'| -< "I believe a medical attack could be successful."
"Surgical attack, Teal'c" {Stargate SG-1, Teal'c & Jack } >-
Joe Bednorz
<1u20fqtde340e$.d...@dustpuppy.sloth.hell.pl>:
>David T. Bilek wrote:
>
>> Isn't trying to get rid of (or change) all the people who can do
>> terrible things just asking for trouble? What happens next time a
>> similarly dire threat emerges and you've therapied out any ability to
>> react effectively?
>
>As usual - use communication lasers!
>
Reaction drives, too!
--
Links to GB of free SF: <http://www.mindspring.com/~jbednorz/Free/>
"Looks like someone tried to kill me on Wikipedia." - John Scalzi
<http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/2007/07/04/lolathena.html>
All the Best, Joe Bednorz
Jasper Janssen
wrote:
Change 'em back. Presumably, also, the potential for reprogramming young
kids into killing machines will remain with humanity even after the ones
that have actually done it are gone.
Most of the Vietnam vets are gone from the current day military,
frinstance.
Jasper
William December Starr
Jasper Janssen <jas...@jjanssen.org> said:
> David T. Bilek <dtb...@ca.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> Isn't trying to get rid of (or change) all the people who can do
>> terrible things just asking for trouble? What happens next time
>> a similarly dire threat emerges and you've therapied out any
>> ability to react effectively?
>
> Change 'em back.
In this context[1], why not just restore their earlier, untherapied
selves from long-term backup storage?
*1 He said, re a book that he hasn't actually, um, you know,
_read_ yet...
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>