Fire Upon the Deep and Way Station
Michael Kozlowski
In article <5v4h3s$k...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
<sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>
>Other unrecommended stuff:
>Classic Niven
>Magician series (Feist) (Well, the first two were Ok)
>Chronicles of Amber (only read the first 3)
>Fionvar Tapestry (only read 1st)
>Thomas Covenant series (only read 1st, but overwhelming concensus here
> said the rest were as bad as the first)
>
>I sampled the first few chapters of Bujold's Vorkosigan books and
>could't stomache it.
Just so you know, I like pretty much all of the above stuff (except
Covenant), so you may want to take my recommendation with a grain of
salt...
>interest. Thorough, well-built worlds are appealing to me.
>So, given my sentiments here, are there any books that you'd recommend
>that I check out?
... But if you're looking for excellent world-building, I will heartily
recommend Dave Duncan. His _Great Game_ series is downright excellent.
_Past Imperative_ is the first book; be forewarned that it does start
out rather slow. Stick with it, though, since _Present Tense_ and
_Future Indefinite_ are the best books he's written yet.
--
Michael Kozlowski m...@cs.wisc.edu
Recommended SF Reading at: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~mlk/sfbooks.html
"Ghost of Carl Sagan Warns Against Dangers of Superstition" -The Onion
sc...@scam.xcf.berkeley.edu
I'm slowly making my way through the Internet Top 100 books and these
two books have been rated highly on that list for some time now.
(URL is http://www.clark.net/pub/iz/Books/Top100/top100.html)
Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge:
--------------------------------
Wow, I feel like I've gained a couple IQ points after reading this
book. The first part of this book is jam-packed with a bunch of fresh
mind-bending ideas.
Ok, sure, if you've been around on the net for a while, much of what
Vinge does obviously comes from the fields of networking, neural
network science, and distributed processing. Nevertheless, he does a
really neat job of rendering these concepts into concrete examples.
This book is sort of like the Borg meets Childhood's End meets Sigmund
Freud.
Once the story really gets going, at about the middle, the novel takes
on sort of a Larry-Nivenish glib techno-adventure type character and in
my opinion it doesn't keep stretching your mind as much at that point.
Still, I am very impressed with this book. He could live off the world
he's created for the rest of his life, if he were that sort of writer
(which I don't think he is).
I was very impressed with the depth he went into in trying to work out
the wierd psychology of the Tines aliens. Much of their character and
social development seems very plausible and logical given their
physiology.
I'd rate this book about a 7 or 8 out of 10 in terms of overall quality.
But, I'd rate it at a 9 or 9.5 in terms of whether or not it's worth
reading (because the neat parts of this book are so cool).
So anyway, if you haven't read this book, you have to read it now. Stop
what you're doing and go get it. Come back and read the rest of this
posting later.
.
.
.
Eh? What did I tell you? Pretty cool book, huh?
Way Station, Clifford Simak:
---------------------------
Bland. I feel like I just ate a couple spoonfuls of whipped cream that
had no flavoring in it.
Why in the world is this book rated so highly on the top-100 list?
Well, I was disappointed. It was a Hugo winner and was copyrighted
in 1963. Maybe the ideas and writing here were good for SF in 1963
but to me, it's mostly just pith. Childhood's End was written quite
some time ago (50's?) and I found this book highly provacative, but
Way Station isn't anywhere in the same league, IMO. In this book,
problems and solutions pop out of thin air, there are no engaging
characters, and the climax was about as exciting and predictable as
a UPN sitcom.
This isn't the first time I've been very disappointed by the top-100
list. I read Anubis Gates when it was rated 6th, above Dune (!) and
I thought it was mostly random crap (IMHO, of course). Also, I read
the first of GGKay's Fionvar Tapestry and threw it away.
Furthermore, while I thought Ender's Game was good, it seems to me that
it's nowhere near the quality of Lord of the Rings (a masterpiece), yet
it is rated number 2 right after Tolkien's work and has been there for
as long as the list has existed.
Is the field of Sci-Fi novels really this bland and unengaging that
these books are the best there is? Or is the Internet Top 100
suffering from a group of fans that are just poorly read? (I am not
well read myself, and if I keep running into disapointments like this,
I may stay that way.)
The only SciFi that I'd recommend as being well worth reading are
the following:
Lord of the Rings/Silmarillion
Childhood's End
Fire Upon the Deep
Hitchhiker's Guide series.
These books were OK:
Ender's Game
Dune
Hobbit
These books have something of note in them:
Wheel of Time series
Starship Troopers
2001
Mote in God's Eye
Giants trilogy by Hogan
These might be Ok if you have nothing better to do:
Foundation (only read 1st)
Anubis Gates
Other unrecommended stuff:
Classic Niven
Magician series (Feist) (Well, the first two were Ok)
Chronicles of Amber (only read the first 3)
Fionvar Tapestry (only read 1st)
Thomas Covenant series (only read 1st, but overwhelming concensus here
said the rest were as bad as the first)
I sampled the first few chapters of Bujold's Vorkosigan books and
could't stomache it. The first of the Black Company series was also
unintriguing to me.
There are probably a dozen other books that I've read that I can't
remember because they weren't any good, IMO.
Anyway, I can't really catagorize my taste very well in general
terms... My background is science so hard SF would appeal to me. A
big turnoff to me is a lame understanding of science, but I often endure
occasional flaws like this if the rest of the book has something to
make up for it. (IE: Star Trek generally drives me nuts. As a matter
of fact, I can't figure out why I still watch it.) I prefer realism in
general. Profound thinking is usually something that grabs my
interest. Thorough, well-built worlds are appealing to me.
So, given my sentiments here, are there any books that you'd recommend
that I check out? Tigana, Hyperion, Speaker for the Dead are all on my
list already. Are there "obscure" works that you think are excellent
but are just not well-known enough to show up on the Internet Top-100
list?.
Thanks for your attention.
Scott
Patrick Down
sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU wrote in article
<5v4h3s$k...@agate.berkeley.edu>...
>.....
> Anyway, I can't really catagorize my taste very well in general
> terms... My background is science so hard SF would appeal to me. A
Have you looked at anything by Stephen Baxter or Robert Forward?
With Forward it's probably best to start with "Dragon's Egg" or
"Flight of the Dragonfly".
The Low Golden Willow
sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU () wrote:
/I prefer realism in
/general. Profound thinking is usually something that grabs my
/interest. Thorough, well-built worlds are appealing to me.
/So, given my sentiments here, are there any books that you'd recommend
/that I check out? Tigana, Hyperion, Speaker for the Dead are all on my
Hyperion didn't exactly rate high on my realism meter. Maybe it makes
up for that in other ways; I don't remember much. _Speaker_ is okay,
but be careful after that.
Well... an obvious choice would be... more Vernor Vinge! I think you'd
find most of his stuff interesting, although maybe you'd find some of it
like "Classic Niven" (I assume that was a higher rating than later
Niven, or something.) _Marooned in Realtime_ is his strongest other
work; if you can read the package _Across Realtime_ that'd be good. I
thought the short stories were neat, but good luck finding them.
Iain M. Banks' Culture novels are good, I think. The physics are
extravagant, but I feel that I can scale everything down to realistic
scale and not lose too much of the universe, although the stories
themselves would croak. You also get a peek at the universe in "A Few
Notes on the Culture" by Banks himself:
http://lucid.cba.uiuc.edu/~rkeogh/banks/text/cultnote.html
http://lucid.cba.uiuc.edu/~rkeogh/banks/ is the main site. "Culture
Shock". At least you should check out the ship names...
I went from _Player of Games_ to _Excession_ pretty well. _Consider
Phlebas_ was the first, and could also be introductory, although it's
been pointed out that merely knowing that it is "a Culture book" spoils
you. _Use of Weapons_ and _Excession_ are considerably more confusing
to the novice.
Oh, and actually the galactic diversity and cultural size in the Culture
universe is rather similar to the Beyond. _Fire_, the Culture, and the
Lensmen books lie near each other in universe-space, with Vinge and
Banks closer to each other.
For really hard fiction there's Robert Forward, plus Zebrowski and
Pellegrino's _The Killing Star_. How good the writing is I wouldn't
swear to.
If you think Douglas Adams belongs next to _Lord of the Rings_ you might
try Terry Pratchett. Pratchett is fantasy, and I note all of your books
were "real" science fiction. (Oh, except for Tolkien. And Dune, if
you're feeling nasty. And perhaps Hyperion) On the other hand, that
may be your problem. I find that I've gone off most of science fiction
-- Vinge and Banks are okay, but otherwise I'm tired of FTL and aliens
at our level of development unless very well done, like Vinge or Banks.
Or Cherryh, although my favorite of hers (also recommended) is _Cyteen_,
where such things impinge much less. Generally these days I prefer to
jump from _Science_ and _Nature_ directly to good fantasy or fairy
tales. Pratchett, Robin McKinley, Steven Brust. Julian May, maybe.
Merry part,
-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/vinge.html
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/brust.html
Anton Sherwood
Patrick Down <pd...@shout.net> writes
: With Forward it's probably best to start with "Dragon's Egg" or
: "Flight of the Dragonfly".
Has anyone read both "Dragonfly" and "Rocheworld"? Compare?
--
Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher at netcom point com
"How'd ya like to climb this high WITHOUT no mountain?" --Porky Pine 70.6.19
rsf...@uncg.edu
In article <01bcbd99$58821fa0$88b8...@pdown.shout.net>, "Patrick Down"
<pd...@shout.net> writes:
>sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU wrote in article
><5v4h3s$k...@agate.berkeley.edu>...
>>.....
>> Anyway, I can't really catagorize my taste very well in general
>> terms... My background is science so hard SF would appeal to me. A
>
>Have you looked at anything by Stephen Baxter or Robert Forward?
>
>With Forward it's probably best to start with "Dragon's Egg" or
>"Flight of the Dragonfly".
And stop around there, too. The sequel to _Dragon's Egg_ is so-so, and you
*definitely* want to stop long before you hit _Timemaster_. (Bad Guy shows up,
is defeated, Bad Guy shows up, is defeated. Bad Guy shows up, is defeated, Bad
Guy shows up, is defeated and killed. Meanwhile, the Good Guy sets out three
goals for his life, and succeeds at all three without significant opposition
from the Bad Guy. This is the plot. You can now avoid _Timemaster_.)
---
Rob Furr's .sig is at http://www.uncg.edu/~rsfurr/
gram
Anton Sherwood (das...@netcom.com) wrote:
:
: Has anyone read both "Dragonfly" and "Rocheworld"? Compare?
I read them both, but since it was several years apart, _Flight_ had
gone a bit vague and I have no idea what differences there are. Not
anything really major, I think.
--
Ward Griffiths
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within
the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." --Claire Wolfe
Brian Davis
In an article, sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU wrote:
> Anyway, I can't really catagorize my taste very well in general
> terms... My background is science so hard SF would appeal to me. A
> big turnoff to me is a lame understanding of science, but I often endure
> occasional flaws like this if the rest of the book has something to
> make up for it... Profound thinking is usually something that grabs my
> interest. Thorough, well-built worlds are appealing to me.
I've not looked at the list (I'll do that next), but if you like hard
science, I'd recommend Hal Clement. "Mission of Gravity" is a good start.
His science tends to be heavy on newtonian physics and chemistry, so
although the stories are old (1953), the science is still mostly current.
In worldbuilding, he's great (IMHO) - character development tends to be a
little weaker, and his aliens tend to think in very human patterns, but
overall, I enjoy him.
Hogan has some other good stuff, specificly "The Two Faces of
Tomorrow", that you might enjoy. And Vernor Vinge has a series of stories
("The Peace War" is the first, I think) that are pretty good.
Rec.arts.sf.science had a discussion of hard-science authors a while back,
try using DejaNews.
-Brian Davis
David Kennedy
In article <5v4h3s$k...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU () writes:
> Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge:
> --------------------------------
> Wow, I feel like I've gained a couple IQ points after reading this
> book. The first part of this book is jam-packed with a bunch of fresh
> mind-bending ideas.
*sigh* I remember the huge threads about this book at the time of
publication. I also remember my bitter disappointment at how
bad the book actually was IMO.
I don't want to rehash old threads (partially cos its been a while
since I read it too) - but I thought that this book was undeserving
of the praise lavished on it.
My main gripe was the Zones, why should the laws of physics suddenly
change? This had implications and was just ignored. The characters
were wooden, the tines not-that-interesting, the net analogue
was terrible and the whole central story too cliched
and burdened with an awful Boy & His Clever Dog tale.
Rating: 5/10, it has some decent features.
> This isn't the first time I've been very disappointed by the top-100
> list. I read Anubis Gates when it was rated 6th, above Dune (!) and
> I thought it was mostly random crap (IMHO, of course). Also, I read
> the first of GGKay's Fionvar Tapestry and threw it away.
Oh I dunno, I'm rereading The Annubis Gates right now and I have
to say that I like it a lot, its very subversive unusual fantasy
told in a great way.
I agree about GGK's FT though. Everything else he's written is
classic.
> Furthermore, while I thought Ender's Game was good, it seems to me that
> it's nowhere near the quality of Lord of the Rings (a masterpiece), yet
> it is rated number 2 right after Tolkien's work and has been there for
> as long as the list has existed.
Who said 'Popular = good'?
To my taste the story should have _stayed_ a short story.
> Or is the Internet Top 100
> suffering from a group of fans that are just poorly read?
Yes. Think about it though - did you vote?
I suspect that those who would produce a decent list don't vote
as often as those who have just read a half-decent book which
stunned them as they don't read that many or haven't develeoped
adequate taste filters yet. Nothing stops 10 year olds voting for the
first brash action adventure they read.
Besides, I read about, oh, 3-4 books a week (on holiday you can
make that about one a day). You think I'm going to vote
for them all and manage to get my opinion down to one number?
> The only SciFi that I'd recommend as being well worth reading are
> the following:
>
> Lord of the Rings/Silmarillion
Granted.
> Childhood's End
Mmm, not on my list.
> Fire Upon the Deep
See above. :-)
> Hitchhiker's Guide series.
Worth reading. Worthy reading? Dunno.
> These books were OK:
>
> Ender's Game
Short was better.
> Dune
Okay, so this _is_ on my list! :-)
> Hobbit
This book has a lot to answer for.
> These books have something of note in them:
>
> Wheel of Time series
Rapidly going off this 'B List' series.
> Starship Troopers
Read this last weekend, I'm glad I read it but I would
not exactly recommend.
> 2001
Most poeple, including myself, would put this a little higher.
> Mote in God's Eye
I dunno about this, I didn't like it that much.
> Giants trilogy by Hogan
I haven't read it.
> These might be Ok if you have nothing better to do:
>
> Foundation (only read 1st)
Keep on, they might grow on you.
> Anubis Gates
Unfair! :-) I'd push this up to 'pretty good' at least.
> Other unrecommended stuff:
> Classic Niven
> Magician series (Feist) (Well, the first two were Ok)
> Chronicles of Amber (only read the first 3)
> Fionvar Tapestry (only read 1st)
> Thomas Covenant series (only read 1st, but overwhelming concensus here
> said the rest were as bad as the first)
Nope, I don't agree here. This is another everlasting arguement,
but for some reason net opinion is VERY divided - people
either love or hate. Those who hate it seem to be a vocal moral
majority who object to the rape scene etc.
I personally think that its a very fine series, some flaws,
but a bigger braver and more worthy book than 99% of anything
in the field. Its worth finishing. Sure its not a happy read,
but then books don't have to make you happy to entertain.
Its dark, nasty and repellant at times. Fine, its _meant_ to
be. Doesn't mean that its a bad book.
Give it a while and then come back to it, you mightfind yourself
surprised.
> I sampled the first few chapters of Bujold's Vorkosigan books and
> could't stomache it. The first of the Black Company series was also
> unintriguing to me.
Bujold I like (guilty pleasure it may be, but I like her books), however
I had heard a lot from usenet about the BC books. I read the first one
and found it to be tripe. :-)
> So, given my sentiments here, are there any books that you'd recommend
> that I check out? Tigana, Hyperion, Speaker for the Dead are all on my
> list already. Are there "obscure" works that you think are excellent
> but are just not well-known enough to show up on the Internet Top-100
> list?.
Well, I'm a small timer by the standards of the group, with
only several hundred books on my shelves, but I could
recommend books all day. Try www.alexlit.com as well, its
an AI which matches your taste to others.
I'm not going to try after being so critical!
Certainly Tigana and Hyperion should be one your list, I think
you'll like them based on what you say above. Ditch speaker
though, trust me, its awful.
--
David Kennedy, Dept. of Pure & Applied Physics, Queen's University of Belfast
Email: D.Ke...@Queens-Belfast.ac.uk | URL: http://star.pst.qub.ac.uk/~dcjk/
Please make sure that your signature starts with "-- ", like it should do!
David Kennedy
> terms... My background is science so hard SF would appeal to me. A
> big turnoff to me is a lame understanding of science, but I often endure
> occasional flaws like this if the rest of the book has something to
> interest. Thorough, well-built worlds are appealing to me.
With that in mind try Stephen Baxter, 'Voyage' is a wonderful alternate history
of NASA going to Mars. Or Greg Egan, who is one of the best new
science/big-thinking SF writers about at the moment, he writes a lot
of short fiction. Try looking for 'Inifinty Plus' on the web (or
off my web page), there might be a story there.
If you like fantasy try someone a little less well know like Barry Hughart
, whose books blew me away after all the tripe on the shelves.
"Book Three of the Swords of Magic Series!" - bleurgh.
Another light fantasy author (well, he looks lightweight) is
Dave Duncan, highly recommended.
Also try any Dan Simmon's, not just Hyperion, try Phases of Gravity
for example.
(I'm trying to remember what else I read lately, I wish I was near my
shelves!)
Oh! Iain M. Banks of course, just pick a random book and dive in.
(I know that there _is_ a sort of suggested order, but this method
worked for me and its not so crucial)
Jeff Suzuki
Anton Sherwood (das...@netcom.com) wrote:
: Has anyone read both "Dragonfly" and "Rocheworld"? Compare?
Yes, but not very close together in time, and (IIRC), Forward played a van
Vogt game, publishing "Rocheworld" in Analog first, adding to it later and
publishing it was _Flight of the Dragonfly_, then adding more later and
republishing it as _Rocheworld_. IMSC, the original (Rocheworld) was a fairly
nice, compact, sensible novel; the latest redux is a little longwinded, which
is something that Forward cannot afford to be.
Anyway, his best novel was probably _Dragon's Egg_. (_Starquake_ was pretty
so-so: what made Dragon's Egg interesting is the scientific extrapolation,
whereas Starquake didn't really add anything new)
Jeffs
sc...@scam.xcf.berkeley.edu
:> Wow, I feel like I've gained a couple IQ points after reading this
:> book. The first part of this book is jam-packed with a bunch of fresh
:> mind-bending ideas.
:My main gripe was the Zones, why should the laws of physics suddenly
:change? This had implications and was just ignored.
Yeah, the zone concept was a bit shakey, yet a necessary means of
motivating a number of key ideas. This is one of those tech flaws I
was willing to eat since the book had a number of other strengths that
more than carried the quality of the creation.
BTW, the idea of "physics suddenly changing" is not something we
arogant humans can assume is not going to happen. Our means of guaging
the behavior of the universe is based on only a few photons plus some
amount of detailed analysis here on Earth where conditions are rather
tame. Over the last century, our understanding of "physics" has been
turned on it's head several times. It is far from implausible that we
_still_ are missing out on understanding some very fundamental yet
radically surprising phenomena even now.
So, when an author creates a seemingly wild physics in order to
construct a story around it, it is not necessarily an unscientific
thing. However, I would agree with many here that the rest of the book
better be damn good if they're going to take radical license on the
scale that Vinge does.
:The characters were wooden,
Agreed. (hence, my Larry-Nivenish comment)
:the tines not-that-interesting,
Oy! These were the most unique, best thought out aliens I have ever
seen in a fictional work. I have said that I am not well read, but I
would be very (pleasantly) surprised to find critters in other works
done with more skill.
Were the aliens "not-that-interesting"? No way. Were they caught up
in a story that didn't do them justice? Maybe this is really what you
are disappointed about...
:the net analogue
:was terrible
Terrible is really not the word. The sheer expanse of his vision is
awesome, IMO. Not many people think this big and manage to pull it off
in a single novel. Still, I did think that the glib internet tone of
the net postings in his book was silly, though a tad comical. I
suspect he may have been poking fun at the way netizens handle the most
grave subjects with hand-waving street slang like they were talking
about the latest 90210 episode. Yeah, he could have done a lot better
job demonstrating the use of the net in a galactic context, but I
deflate this criticism somewhat by acknowledging that it is hindsight.
One irony that he tried very hard to drive home, and one which I
appreciate, is: Despite super advances in communications technology,
communication will be as muddy as ever. Our great conventient
technical advances will largly serve to magnify the sheer bulk of all
the BS out there. As more and more people with radically differing
opinions and lifestyles become "conveniently" interconnected, we
_don't_ become instantly united as a civilization. Rather, we become
much more capable of clashing our differences against one another.
Propaganda, disinformation, and outright maliciousness will tend to
drown out much of the good information being exchanged between needy
parties. Making good use of this high-tech mode of interaction will
require great effort and and in fact will be a major source of
inconviencence in the future.
I think this is a great tragic, yet comic critique of humanity and our
technology. Not that many people in the world realize that technology
is so easily corrupted by faults in our social nature. Technology is
not the panacea to all our problems, the way so many people like to
think it is. Because our social development rarely keeps pace with our
technological changes, technology is often a greater source of
complication and more horrible problems than than it is a source of
healing and convenience.
So, the net is a great conduit of muddle, misdirection, and conflict at
least as much as it is a gateway to unity and civilization-wide sharing
of knowledge and understanding. It takes more than a small amount of
skill, effort, and cynicism to make good use of the internet as a tool.
IMO, that goes down as a profound thought and is a major point in favor
of Fire Upon the Deep.
:whole central story too cliched
The other part of my Larry-Nivenish comment.
(However, to avoid being too unfair to Larry Niven... He did have a lot
of very creative ideas. But his storytelling was just too shallow for me,
hence my vague disdain.)
:and burdened with an awful Boy & His Clever Dog tale.
The "boy and his dog" part weren't so aweful, IMO. This was a major
component of his masterful creation of the Tines. The point was to
contrast the strengths and weaknesses of the Tines with those of humans
and to demonstrate how the two races would become much stronger by
working more closely together. There was some annoying whineyness in
there, but eh, I'm willing to tollerate that because the aliens and
Vinge's insight into them were so cool.
Anyway, thanks for the comments.
Scott
Matt McIrvin
<sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
> Way Station, Clifford Simak:
> ---------------------------
> Bland. I feel like I just ate a couple spoonfuls of whipped cream that
> had no flavoring in it.
>
> Why in the world is this book rated so highly on the top-100 list?
Hmm... Well, I recently read _Way Station_ myself, while riding Amtrak
from Boston to DC, and I liked it, though in a different way than I
liked _A Fire Upon the Deep_. I wouldn't call it one of the greatest 100
SF books of all time, but something about Simak's
weird-but-basically-friendly alien folks appealed to me, more as
emotional comfort food than as intellectual nutrition. Vinge's
Skroderiders-- at least as they appeared initially-- would have fit
right in. I agree that Vinge is more interesting, and I found _AFUtD_
more impressive.
Actually, come to think of it, these two books would have been
interesting to read together. They have a lot in common: the galactic
society filled with a zillion cultures, the super-technological McGuffin
that ends up on a not-very-developed planet, the apparently backward guy
who actually has a line to powerful extraterrestrials.
I suppose that the main difference is that to Simak, mean and nasty
things are the intruders in an essentially benign galaxy full of nice
folks, whereas with Vinge one gets a more subversive sense of deep evil,
or at least terrifying power, underlying the most apparently benign
elements of his world. Furthermore, unlike Vinge, Simak doesn't even
*try* to put his world on any sort of logical footing; the story and the
impact that he's going for are basically emotional.
> Is the field of Sci-Fi novels really this bland and unengaging that
> these books are the best there is? Or is the Internet Top 100
> suffering from a group of fans that are just poorly read? (I am not
> well read myself, and if I keep running into disapointments like this,
> I may stay that way.)
I don't know. I've never voted for them myself, and haven't looked at
the list in a long time.
> The only SciFi that I'd recommend as being well worth reading are
> the following:
>
> Lord of the Rings/Silmarillion
> Childhood's End
> Fire Upon the Deep
> Hitchhiker's Guide series.
[...]
Oh, boy. I predict that you've got a lot of nice surprises ahead of
you, if you can stomach the occasional disappointment. You seem to
have pretty good taste overall; I agree with nearly all of your
classifications.
I second the recommendation of Greg Egan; you'd probably get a kick out
of _Permutation City_. IMHO, this is the most interesting SF novel of
the 1990s thus far (_A Fire Upon the Deep_ is in second place). It
introduces some ideas which, if not completely new, are at least
little-used in SF thus far, and it develops them with mind-twisting
rigor, at least until the last few chapters, when it softens up a bit.
(The three-page chapter entitled "Can't you time trip?" is a masterpiece
in itself, at once tragic and thought-provoking.)
If you're into world-building, check out Ursula Le Guin's _The Left Hand
of Darkness_ and _The Dispossessed_. Ignore the fundamentally absurd
biological premise of her universe (humans descended from aliens
*again*?!) and concentrate on the amazing things she's done with it.
Some Heinlein might be to your taste. Avoid anything post-1960
except for _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_.
Greg Bear is an uneven writer whose work gets wildly varying reactions.
I'd say that _Eon_ and _Queen of Angels_ are at least worth looking
into; they impressed me when I read them.
I dig Rudy Rucker, though he is perhaps a specialized taste. You might
particularly like _The Hacker and the Ants_.
Also, I'm a huge fan of Stanislaw Lem; for my reviews of his books,
check out http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/vitrifax.html . I suspect
that you'd like many of them. I hook Douglas Adams fans by throwing
_The Cyberiad_ at them.
I'm also a huge fan of Philip K. Dick, though he may not be to your
taste.
--
Font-o-Meter! Proportional Monospaced
^
Physics, humor, Stanislaw Lem reviews: http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/
Matt McIrvin
<sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
> BTW, the idea of "physics suddenly changing" is not something we
> arogant humans can assume is not going to happen. Our means of guaging
> the behavior of the universe is based on only a few photons plus some
> amount of detailed analysis here on Earth where conditions are rather
> tame. Over the last century, our understanding of "physics" has been
> turned on it's head several times. It is far from implausible that we
> _still_ are missing out on understanding some very fundamental yet
> radically surprising phenomena even now.
Keep in mind that in AFUtD, it's implied that the laws of physics
*already are* somehow different in different sectors of the galaxy, even
today-- since the Zones have clearly been around for longer than the
human species has existed.
Some people have read the description of the Zones as implying that the
speed of light is actually different in the different Zones. Vinge was
knowledgeable enough not to write it that way-- obviously, if the speed
of light were different outside of our section of the galaxy, it would
have easily visible astronomical consequences (such as refraction at
the zone boundary!) that are not seen.
Indeed, when read carefully, it becomes clear that the nature of the
Zones seems to have more to do with the reliability and speed of
computational processes; in particular, the FTL ultradrive apparently
requires some sort of calculational ability that is not possible in the
Slow Zone. But why there should be modifications to physics that affect
such things (to the extent of making human brain operation impossible in
the Unthinking Depths), but not, say, the spectra of atoms and molecules
(which are visibly the same in other parts of the universe) is not made
clear. It's something one basically has to grant Vinge as a free
assumption.
Uncle Rhino
In article <5v67ml$j0$1...@news.qub.ac.uk> D.Ke...@qub.ac.uk writes:
>
>I don't want to rehash old threads (partially cos its been a while
>since I read it too) - but I thought that this book was undeserving
>of the praise lavished on it.
>
>My main gripe was the Zones, why should the laws of physics suddenly
>change? This had implications and was just ignored.
I don't think they were ignored - I think Vinge intentionally
left it a little hazy. This makes the beginning of the book
terribly confusing, but makes the discovery process as you
read quite wonderful. The same goes for the 'Tines' - they
seemed totally incomprehensible at first.
In books like this, like books about magic, I don't want an
*exact* logic - because the more precise the logic gets, the
easier it is to find holes in it. Look how un-scary Anne Rice
managed to make vampires by telling us too much. I'd rather
see a really great framework of a concept - so long as the
author remains consistent with this internal logic, I can
mentally explore the concept myself. That's far more interesting
to *me* than a textbook in mythical science would be.
> The characters
>were wooden,
Yeah, I'll give you that. Vinge's strength isn't in characters.
> the tines not-that-interesting,
I'll have to disagree with you there. They're the best, most
original aliens I can think of.
> the net analogue
>was terrible
No, it was just different. I'm a networking person by profession,
and I found it to make perfect sense as a distant-future evolution
of today's technology.
>> This isn't the first time I've been very disappointed by the top-100
>> list. I read Anubis Gates when it was rated 6th, above Dune (!) and
>> I thought it was mostly random crap (IMHO, of course). Also, I read
>> the first of GGKay's Fionvar Tapestry and threw it away.
>
>Oh I dunno, I'm rereading The Annubis Gates right now and I have
>to say that I like it a lot, its very subversive unusual fantasy
>told in a great way.
Tim Powers is a truly brilliant writer, but he's got a rather
specialized style. You have to dig what he's doing to appreciate
him. I know a few people who don't, but it's a stylistic complaint,
rather than a valid critique of his technical work.
>I agree about GGK's FT though. Everything else he's written is
>classic.
_Fionavar_ is a special work, and has to be judged as such.
It's really a literary experiment. Kay set out to play with
fantasy archetypes, not to write an original story. So you
have to measure it on the scale of intent. No, it's not the
literary triumph the rest of his books are - but it's damned well
done, for what it is.
>> The only SciFi that I'd recommend as being well worth reading are
>> the following:
>>
[snip]
>> Hitchhiker's Guide series.
> Worth reading. Worthy reading? Dunno.
Hitchhiker's Guide is a brilliant piece of comedy writing - not
for the story (The story gets in the way) but for the digressions.
It's a book every sci-fi reader should own, but it's only barely
'fiction'.
[more snip]
>> Dune
>
>Okay, so this _is_ on my list! :-)
Great book. Should never have had any sequels.
>> Hobbit
>
>This book has a lot to answer for.
Young adult fiction, and a first novel. It measures fairly well
on that scale, but it's really only a prologue to the real story,
LOTR, and I don't judge it separately.
>> These books have something of note in them:
>>
>> Wheel of Time series
Feh. Bad soap opera. I'm embarrassed that I buy them. can't stop,
though. =B^)
-Karl
--
"Confrontation is the rhythm of life. In nature, violence is pure and
purposeful, one species against another in an act of survival"
-Carl Hiaasen, 'Double Whammy'
Anton Sherwood
David Kennedy <D.Ke...@qub.ac.uk> writes
: My main gripe was the Zones, why should the laws of physics
: suddenly change? [...]
The Zones are an artifact, put in place by Powers (or
super-Powers) to make incubation of new Powers possible.
The real reason for the Zones is to let Vinge
sidestep the Singularity by turning it sideways.
Anton Sherwood
Matt McIrvin <mmci...@world.std.com> writes
: I second the recommendation of Greg Egan; you'd probably get a kick out
: of _Permutation City_. IMHO, this is the most interesting SF novel of
: the 1990s thus far (_A Fire Upon the Deep_ is in second place). It
: introduces some ideas which, if not completely new, are at least
: little-used in SF thus far, and it develops them with mind-twisting
: rigor, at least until the last few chapters, when it softens up a bit.
_Permutation City_ is very good indeed, but rigor? The whole thing
depends on the notion that a simulation can be run in arbitrary order--
which is logically equivalent to the proposition that we can know the
future just by wishing. I got to that point and put on my heavy-duty
disbelief-suspenders.
The stories in _Axiomatic_ are excellent. Most of them concern the
nature of the Self.
Andrew Plotkin
Anton Sherwood (das...@netcom.com) wrote:
> Matt McIrvin <mmci...@world.std.com> writes
> : I second the recommendation of Greg Egan; you'd probably get a kick out
> : of _Permutation City_. IMHO, this is the most interesting SF novel of
> : the 1990s thus far (_A Fire Upon the Deep_ is in second place). It
> : introduces some ideas which, if not completely new, are at least
> : little-used in SF thus far, and it develops them with mind-twisting
> : rigor, at least until the last few chapters, when it softens up a bit.
> _Permutation City_ is very good indeed, but rigor? The whole thing
> depends on the notion that a simulation can be run in arbitrary order--
> which is logically equivalent to the proposition that we can know the
> future just by wishing. I got to that point and put on my heavy-duty
> disbelief-suspenders.
I agree that that point is silly, but I don't think the overall gimmick
depends on it. It's kind of a tangent, actually. You can skip straight
from "run the simulation slower" to "don't run it at all, leave it on
tape," and the reasoning continues from there.
If you really want a replacement step, cut up the tape and rearrange the
frames in a different order, according to some deterministic scheme.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Randal Morris
sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU wrote:
>
> I'm slowly making my way through the Internet Top 100 books and these
> two books have been rated highly on that list for some time now.
>
> (URL is http://www.clark.net/pub/iz/Books/Top100/top100.html)
>
I have been doing the same thing - working through the Top 100 list, and
using this newsgroup as a guide. I have been a somewhat avid sf reader
since childhood, but I seemed to have missed many great works; now it is
catch-up time.
(snip)
> I prefer realism in general. Profound thinking is usually something that grabs my interest. Thorough, well-built worlds are appealing to me.
> So, given my sentiments here, are there any books that you'd recommend
> that I check out? Tigana, Hyperion, Speaker for the Dead are all on > my list already.
Before I list a few books from the list that I liked, bear in mind that
I enjoyed many of the ones you do not recommend.
Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion are great - nicely built world
The Postman by David Brin
Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - classic Heinlein
Clockwork Orange by Burgess - quite profound
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Miller
> Are there "obscure" works that you think are excellent but are just > not well-known enough to show up on the Internet Top-100 list?.
Well, you might try Carl Sagan's only fictional work, Contact. Also,
P.K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Both excellent, and
fairly well known, but not on the list.
Cheers,
Ranman
Russell Schulz
[ why are most of the posts in that thread about _neither_ aFUtD nor WS? ]
D.Ke...@qub.ac.uk (David Kennedy) writes:
> My main gripe was the Zones, why should the laws of physics suddenly
> change?
I recall them NOT changing suddenly.
one of my favorite lines occurred when they were a little further into
the Slow Zone, and the computers could `no longer' understand sarcasm.
--
Russell...@locutus.ofB.ORG Shad 86c
Matt McIrvin
Anton Sherwood <das...@netcom.com> wrote:
> _Permutation City_ is very good indeed, but rigor? The whole thing
> depends on the notion that a simulation can be run in arbitrary order--
> which is logically equivalent to the proposition that we can know the
> future just by wishing. I got to that point and put on my heavy-duty
> disbelief-suspenders.
Well, there are vague real-world analogues. I've heard of fast
algorithms for running cellular automata that don't necessarily involve
a full representation of the whole CA's state in memory at any given
time; you can calculate various "active regions" at different rates if
you like, then have all the calculations rendezvous for a full
representation of the system. You could then go back and instead
calculate the full earlier state of the automaton, which might in some
sense count as running the simulation in arbitrary order. Of course, one
could argue that the full representation is somehow *implicit* in any
intermediate extrapolatory processes, but in a sense that identification
makes Paul Durham's point almost as well as the running-out-of-order
would in the first place. (Note also that Durham never insists that
his arguments are anything other than intuitive evocations.)
Egan seems to imply that there's some sort of analytic extrapolation
going on between "key frames," which is a bit more far-fetched IMHO, and
I do think it's intentional that he doesn't have Durham meditate much on
the implications of the extrapolatory process. I think of Egan as being
a lot like a magician; there are points in his books where he has to
pull some sleight-of-hand for the sake of the story, and he does this
with some misdirection. Once he's got his free assumptions established,
he tries as best he can to develop things in a logical manner.
And I promise not to argue about this any more because the regular
readers are sick of it already.
Jo Walton
In article <batmanE...@netcom.com> bat...@netcom.com "Uncle Rhino" writes:
[The Hobbit]
> Young adult fiction, and a first novel. It measures fairly well
> on that scale, but it's really only a prologue to the real story,
> LOTR, and I don't judge it separately.
Does "young adult fiction" mean "children's book" now? If it means
anything at all it presumably means a book intended for young adults,
rather than one intended for kids. If it is worth making that distinction,
:The Hobbit: is definitely one intended for children.
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Blue Jo Web Page - Blood of Kings Poetry, Reviews, Interstichia
20 poems by me, 11 poems by Graydon, Momentum Guidelines,
storytelling card games... all at http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk
Alex
Oh! Just thought of another, James A. Michener's 'Space', it's
been awhile, but I thought it was excellent at the time.
--
Regards,
Alex
Spam-Alert: please remove the 'X' if replying to me.
sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU wrote in article
<5v4h3s$k...@agate.berkeley.edu>...
> I'm slowly making my way through the Internet Top 100 books and these
> two books have been rated highly on that list for some time now.
>
[snip]
Alex
I read 'Fire Upon the Deep' recently, mainly because I really
enjoyed Vinge's earlier books; 'Morooned in Realtime' and
'The Peace War'. I must admit though that I didn't enjoy this
newer work as much, mainly because I was hoping for more of the
same. Still, he introduced some unusual and original concepts.
If you want hard SF try Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy,
ie. Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. A little long at times
but well worth reading.
I'd also suggest Robert Forward's works, though I can't think
of any titles at the moment. Orson Scott Card also has some
very interesting short story collections.
For something very different try 'An Exhaltation of Larks' by...
damn, I can't remember (something Roberts maybe?). Not hard SF but
quite different.
I also really enjoyed Joe Haldeman's 'Worlds Enough and Time' (damn
that's not quite right either.) And I personally like most of
Niven's (and Pournelle's) stuff. Niven's short story collection
on the fantasy genre is a real favourite. Other's are the Ringworld
series, Protector (very good) & World of Ptavvs.
Asimov's 'The God's Themselves' is also very enjoyable. And the later
Foundation books are pretty good to. How could I forget, his many
'Robot' series of books are also classic's and are must reads. He also
ties the foundation series in with these earlier works towards the end.
Food for thought anyway.
--
Regards,
Alex
Spam-Alert: please remove the 'X' if replying to me.
sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU wrote in article
<5v4h3s$k...@agate.berkeley.edu>...
> I'm slowly making my way through the Internet Top 100 books and these
> two books have been rated highly on that list for some time now.
>
> (URL is http://www.clark.net/pub/iz/Books/Top100/top100.html)
>
> Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge:
> --------------------------------
> Wow, I feel like I've gained a couple IQ points after reading this
[snip]
Uncle Rhino
In article <874003...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk writes:
>In article <batmanE...@netcom.com> bat...@netcom.com "Uncle Rhino" writes:
>
>[The Hobbit]
>> Young adult fiction, and a first novel. It measures fairly well
>> on that scale, but it's really only a prologue to the real story,
>> LOTR, and I don't judge it separately.
>
>Does "young adult fiction" mean "children's book" now?
Nope. 'Children's' means younger readers - I'm guessing
at these age groups, but say, beginner to 8 or 10 or something,
and 'Young Adult' is the next slot - fiction for kids between
tha younger group and full-scale adult reading.
These terms are old - they were used in american libraries
when I was a kid (the mid 60's). John Christopher is a
classic 'Young Adult' author - The 'Hardy Boys' and 'Nancy
Drew' are also in this class. There are huge numbers of books
in this age range (And some really, really good ones).
It's a vague classification system, because some kids are
ready for it really early, and some ten-year-old are reading
adult fiction. But it lets libraries and book stores group
books by age, which is useful for kids books.
> If it means
>anything at all it presumably means a book intended for young adults,
>rather than one intended for kids. If it is worth making that distinction,
>:The Hobbit: is definitely one intended for children.
Yeah, but I would not hand it to my three year old, even though
she is pretty smart for her age. =B^)
You can't lump children's books together in a mass - they're
broken up by ages. _The Hobbit_ requires near-adult attention
span (It's not short), and near-adult vocabulary. So you can't set
it next to 'Little Bear' or 'Harrold and the Purple Crayon' and
say "Children's books". Yeah, you can find kids as young as 6
or 6 (Or even younger =B^)) who *could* read it, but this is
based on average ages.
Erich Schneider
Russell Schulz <Russell...@locutus.ofB.ORG> writes:
> > My main gripe was the Zones, why should the laws of physics suddenly
> > change?
>
> I recall them NOT changing suddenly.
Indeed ... things that work well in the "High Beyond" (Straum) don't
work well in the "Low Beyond" (Tines World). One might speculate
that effectively one parameter is varying and the four big
divisions are the results of hitting critical thresholds.
--
Erich Schneider er...@csdl.tamu.edu http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/~erich
Nancy Lebovitz
In article <batmanE...@netcom.com>, Uncle Rhino <bat...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>In article <5v67ml$j0$1...@news.qub.ac.uk> D.Ke...@qub.ac.uk writes:
>>
>>since I read it too) - but I thought that this book was undeserving
>>of the praise lavished on it.
>>
>>My main gripe was the Zones, why should the laws of physics suddenly
>>change? This had implications and was just ignored.
>
(....)
>> the net analogue
>>was terrible
>
> No, it was just different. I'm a networking person by profession,
> and I found it to make perfect sense as a distant-future evolution
> of today's technology.
>
I suspect that a net which was very expensive to use (wasn't it in
aFutD?) would be very different from the cheap-for-users net we're
used to. And I *still* don't believe it would be possible to build
up a multi-species lynch mob on a net.
--
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
October '96 calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
Nancy Lebovitz
In article <5v4h3s$k...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
<sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>
>I'm slowly making my way through the Internet Top 100 books and these
>two books have been rated highly on that list for some time now.
>
>(URL is http://www.clark.net/pub/iz/Books/Top100/top100.html)
>
>Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge:
>--------------------------------
>Wow, I feel like I've gained a couple IQ points after reading this
>book. The first part of this book is jam-packed with a bunch of fresh
>mind-bending ideas.
>
If you like books with that sort of sparkle, I strongly recommend
Egan's _Distress_, though as with aFutD, the idea density is higher
in the first half.
Matt McIrvin
Nancy Lebovitz <nan...@universe.digex.net> wrote:
> I suspect that a net which was very expensive to use (wasn't it in
> aFutD?) would be very different from the cheap-for-users net we're
> used to.
Well, the cheap-for-users net we're used to is now dominated by the
World Wide Web, whereas the Known Net is essentially Usenet. Usenet was
in fact invented at a time (1979) when bandwidth was relatively scarce
and delay times could be very long; the underlying networks back then--
mostly UUCP over ordinary phone calls in the middle of the night-- were
more like the Known Net than like today's Internet.
Of course, on the Known Net bandwidth is far more expensive, which is
why there seem to be indications of whole civilizations acting as
individual posters.
James Nicoll
In article <01bcbeca$f6d90420$35288297@goliath>,
Alex <ya...@iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
>I read 'Fire Upon the Deep' recently, mainly because I really
>enjoyed Vinge's earlier books; 'Morooned in Realtime' and
>'The Peace War'. I must admit though that I didn't enjoy this
>newer work as much, mainly because I was hoping for more of the
>same. Still, he introduced some unusual and original concepts.
>
>If you want hard SF try Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy,
>ie. Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. A little long at times
>but well worth reading.
Hmmph. A lot of the science in the Mars series is wrong.
The protagonists contain a large fraction of whiners who apparently
do no useful work to support themselves while undermining the position
of the companies that create Mars' economy and new ecosystem. There
are some nice descriptive passages. Somewhere in the Mars trilogy is
a fine novella trying to get out.
I would recommend the incredibly large text on Mars published
in, um, 1992. Actually, I'd recommend the entire series to which it
belongs. Pity I can't recall the editor...
Some of Poul Anderson's stuff from the 1950s and 1960s (before
the brain-eater got him) stands up fairly well. _Tau Zero_ is a classic,
although it has at least two deliberate physics errors.
--
About this time, I started getting depressed. Probably the late hour and
the silence. I decided some music would cheer me up.
Boy, that Billie Holliday can sing.
_Why I Hate Saturn_, Kyle Baker
Alex
David Kennedy <D.Ke...@qub.ac.uk> wrote in article
<5v67ml$j0$1...@news.qub.ac.uk>...
> In article <5v4h3s$k...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
> sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU () writes:
> > Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge:
> > --------------------------------
> > Wow, I feel like I've gained a couple IQ points after reading this
>
> Certainly Tigana and Hyperion should be one your list, I think
> you'll like them based on what you say above. Ditch speaker
> though, trust me, its awful.
Aaaggghh! Awful? I was really moved by 'Speaker for the Dead' and
have since read many other Orson Scott Card works. I still haven't
read 'Ender's Game' however (can't find it).
He has many good short stories, 'Unaccompanied Sonata' was one I
found while reading to be a little silly, but upon reflection I have
grown quite fond of it.
Bill MacArthur
"Alex" <ya...@iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
><snip> I was really moved by 'Speaker for the Dead' and
>have since read many other Orson Scott Card works. I still haven't
>read 'Ender's Game' however (can't find it).
>
Try the library. Most libraries still have it floating around and I
imagine that Interlibrary Loan is very popular in your neck of the woods.
Steve Henderson
Guy Gordon wrote:
>
> "Alex" <ya...@iinet.net.au> wrote:
> >Aaaggghh! Awful? I was really moved by 'Speaker for the Dead' and
> >have since read many other Orson Scott Card works. I still haven't
> >read 'Ender's Game' however (can't find it).
> >
> >found while reading to be a little silly, but upon reflection I have
> >grown quite fond of it.
>
> stories I have ever read.
>
> Let me see if I've got this straight: The purpose of the system of
> social justice in the story is to produce great music. Such music
> is produced by musical genius with *no training*. Training musicians
> seems to be illegal.
>
> The "hero", (strike that), victim of the story hears Bach. This is a
> great crime (someone actually SHARED some good music with him!) He
> hides this crime, but the thought police discover it because
> everything "bach-like" disappears from his music. (How do you spell
> "stupid"?)
>
> He is now "polluted" and must be dismembered so that he cannot produce
> Bach-like sonatas. With each attempt to produce more music, he is
> dismembered further, until he is deaf, mute, etc. He is then made a
> member of the enforcement. (huh!) And he agrees with it!
>
> So, by the lights of this story, this is ethical treatment because it
> is necessary to produce great art. But we see no art produced, only
> destroyed.
>
> WHERE does Card get this incredibly ridiculous idea that musicians
> don't need training? Sure, Mozart was a genius. But he was TRAINED
> by his father from an early age.
>
> And who was to be the beneficiary of this art? Who DID get to listen
> to the music, if not musicians?
>
> I should add that there is no evidence within the story that this is a
> distopia that Card is against, or that it is some sort of allegory for
> our society.
>
> Am I missing something here, or is this the most stupid AND the most
> immoral short story written?
Haven't read the story, but frankly, the same kind of stupidity was
used in Endor's Game. Great military tacticians, like great musicians,
must be trained. Indeed, the whole concept that true originality only
comes through ignorance strikes me as outstandingly stupid and ignorant.
Guy Gordon
mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.delete-this-part
On 18 Sep 1997 10:16:48 GMT, pet...@ZZZdcs.shef.ac.uk (Peter Rodgers)
wrote:
>
>The whole point about Enders' Game is spotting milatary talent and then
>training it up from an extremley early age in the art of miltary tactics.
I think that one of the other points is that it's not necessarily
axiomatic that 'you can only learn when you're taught.' The Battle
School seemed to operate primarily on the concept that 'you put the
kids into situation where they _can_ learn, and the ones who are
really smart _will_ learn.'
Mike Powers
William Clifford
Steve Henderson <ash...@ccnet.com.nospam> wrote:
>Guy Gordon wrote:
>> WHERE does Card get this incredibly ridiculous idea that musicians
>> don't need training? Sure, Mozart was a genius. But he was TRAINED
>> by his father from an early age.
>> And who was to be the beneficiary of this art? Who DID get to listen
>> to the music, if not musicians?
>> I should add that there is no evidence within the story that this is a
>> distopia that Card is against, or that it is some sort of allegory for
>> our society.
>> Am I missing something here, or is this the most stupid AND the most
>> immoral short story written?
> Haven't read the story, but frankly, the same kind of stupidity was
>used in Endor's Game. Great military tacticians, like great musicians,
>must be trained. Indeed, the whole concept that true originality only
>comes through ignorance strikes me as outstandingly stupid and ignorant.
If "Unaccompanied Sonata" was about Jazz musicians this concept might
make sense. But I haven't read "Unaccompanied Sonata" so I can't
comment on it. However, I have read _Ender's Game_ and I can tell you
that the premise was not that "true originality" comes from ignorance
The idea was that children are natural game players. Games are a
natural means to teach tactics and strategy. By creating a game or a
set of games with essentially the same rules of war you can create out
a child a great general. The Mozart analogy fits here. What Card did
was propose that as long as the child-general still thought that it
was a game he would be better than any other (child or not) general
because he would be more ruthless with his resources not knowing their
true value. After all, it's just a game. The way _Ender's Game_
unfolds makes this premise seem shaky at best . In the end no one
seems to believe it because Ender fights off the buggers knowing what
the stakes were. But the house of cards still stands.
-William Clifford
from feilds foiled! (you figure it out)
Alex
> >Guy Gordon wrote:
> >> WHERE does Card get this incredibly ridiculous idea that musicians
> >> don't need training? Sure, Mozart was a genius. But he was TRAINED
> >> by his father from an early age.
> >> And who was to be the beneficiary of this art? Who DID get to listen
> >> to the music, if not musicians?
> >> I should add that there is no evidence within the story that this is a
> >> distopia that Card is against, or that it is some sort of allegory for
> >> our society.
> >> Am I missing something here, or is this the most stupid AND the most
> >> immoral short story written?
Ummm, I assume this is in response to my post :)
I had similar thoughts immediately after reading the story, but as
I stated previously, upon reflection I believe I grasped his point.
Much of what we, as individuals, do has been done before, or we derive
what we do from others. True originality is very difficult to achieve,
and easily corrupted either intentionally or subconsciously.
Imagine trying to write an original story not borrowing anything from
any other stories you have read. Almost impossible I would say. Card
took this to it's extreme to illustrate his point. Admittedly he
could have been a little more subtle.
BTW, some of his other short stories also have this macabre element
to them, can't recall titles at the moment however.
Nancy Lebovitz
In article <5vriq1$ft6$1...@news.cns.net>,
William Clifford <wi...@gr.cns.foiled.net> wrote:
>
>Steve Henderson <ash...@ccnet.com.nospam> wrote:
>>Guy Gordon wrote:
>>> WHERE does Card get this incredibly ridiculous idea that musicians
>>> don't need training? Sure, Mozart was a genius. But he was TRAINED
>>> by his father from an early age.
>>> And who was to be the beneficiary of this art? Who DID get to listen
>>> to the music, if not musicians?
There was a category of listeners. I'm not making this up.
>>> I should add that there is no evidence within the story that this is a
>>> distopia that Card is against, or that it is some sort of allegory for
>>> our society.
>>> Am I missing something here, or is this the most stupid AND the most
>>> immoral short story written?
>
I *think* the point was that happiness is an unsatisfactory standard
(iirc, the whole grotesque set-up was supposed to make people happy),
but this is only a guess.
>> Haven't read the story, but frankly, the same kind of stupidity was
>>used in Endor's Game. Great military tacticians, like great musicians,
>>must be trained. Indeed, the whole concept that true originality only
>>comes through ignorance strikes me as outstandingly stupid and ignorant.
Good point.
>
>If "Unaccompanied Sonata" was about Jazz musicians this concept might
>make sense. But I haven't read "Unaccompanied Sonata" so I can't
>comment on it. However, I have read _Ender's Game_ and I can tell you
>that the premise was not that "true originality" comes from ignorance
Jazz musicians aren't formally trained (or at least they didn't used to be),
but they listen to a lot of jazz. They don't create their music in isolation.
>
>The idea was that children are natural game players. Games are a
>natural means to teach tactics and strategy. By creating a game or a
>set of games with essentially the same rules of war you can create out
>a child a great general. The Mozart analogy fits here. What Card did
>was propose that as long as the child-general still thought that it
>was a game he would be better than any other (child or not) general
>because he would be more ruthless with his resources not knowing their
>true value. After all, it's just a game. The way _Ender's Game_
>unfolds makes this premise seem shaky at best . In the end no one
>seems to believe it because Ender fights off the buggers knowing what
>the stakes were. But the house of cards still stands.
>
I don't think so--Ender had to bully them to get some chunk of essential
information--I don't think that the great weakness of generalship
tends to be insufficient ruthlessness. It's probably been a problem
some of the time, but I bet that insufficient imagination and/or information
are the big limits.
Guy Gordon
Alex,
As you seem to be defining "True originality", only GOD would
qualify. Originality or creativity is not creating something out of
nothing.
Man is a social animal. Just as our material creations must use what
nature provides as starting materials, our cultural creations start
with the culture we inherit.
If one *could* write a story that owed nothing to the culture you were
raised in, how could you possibly understand it? Would you expect
music from another galaxy to sound like more Beethoven or noise?
No, I don't think that was Card's point. He was probably trying to
say something about the hardships of being a creative member of
society. What's *wrong* with the story, is that he *justifies* what
is done to the poor guy.
"Alex" <ya...@iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
>> >Guy Gordon wrote:
>> >> WHERE does Card get this incredibly ridiculous idea that musicians
>> >> don't need training? Sure, Mozart was a genius. But he was TRAINED
>> >> by his father from an early age.
>> >> And who was to be the beneficiary of this art? Who DID get to listen
>> >> to the music, if not musicians?
>> >> I should add that there is no evidence within the story that this is a
>> >> distopia that Card is against, or that it is some sort of allegory for
>> >> our society.
>> >> Am I missing something here, or is this the most stupid AND the most
>> >> immoral short story written?
>
>Ummm, I assume this is in response to my post :)
>
>I had similar thoughts immediately after reading the story, but as
>I stated previously, upon reflection I believe I grasped his point.
>
>Much of what we, as individuals, do has been done before, or we derive
>what we do from others. True originality is very difficult to achieve,
>and easily corrupted either intentionally or subconsciously.
>
>Imagine trying to write an original story not borrowing anything from
>any other stories you have read. Almost impossible I would say. Card
>took this to it's extreme to illustrate his point. Admittedly he
>could have been a little more subtle.
>
>BTW, some of his other short stories also have this macabre element
>to them, can't recall titles at the moment however.
Try "Kings Meat" or something like that.
Stig Hemmer
gor...@atlanta.com (Guy Gordon) writes:
> I should add that there is no evidence within the story that this is a
> distopia that Card is against, or that it is some sort of allegory for
> our society.
>
> Am I missing something here, or is this the most stupid AND the most
> immoral short story written?
Well, try reading it as a dystopia. Reading it as anything else makes
absolutely no sense to me.
This short story is one of the more scary dystopias I have ever read.
Stig Hemmer.
Dave Conrad
Alex wrote:
>
> BTW, some of his other short stories also have this macabre element
> to them, can't recall titles at the moment however.
>
In the intro to one of his stories in _Maps In A Mirror_ (Don't
remember which one) Card wrote "It is meant to sound like a fairy tale -
not the Disney kind of fairy tale where cuteness swallows up anything
real that might be in the story, but the kind of fairy tale where people
change and hurt each other and die". So yes, I'd have to agree about
the macabre thing.
--
Dave C.
iN*T*x
"To break the rules is to break the spell" - C. Lasch
Scott Kelly
IHMO it is sad someone has to tell someone else how to read something.
For me it tends to mean it wasn't well written. This story is IMHO
what Joseph Campbell refered to as the suffering of being alive. This
"ideal" world, wasn't ideal to everyone and to keep "happiness" at a
premimum, violators suffered. The teenagers at the end just knew
Sugar was speaking to their souls, that suffering is a part of life.
That's a tough concept to accept: to grow out of childhood, the loss
of innocence beleiving everything can fixed by parent or by someone.
You find out not everyone plays by the same rules. Some teens and
college kids spend years lost and bemoaning that inherent fact of life
and thus the "let's overthrow society" is one popular answer. Others
adjust. That doesn't mean they like suffering, be they do what can
and don't condem every one and everything.
"Unaccompanied Sonota" is a beautiful sad story of what it is to be
human and a sample of what can happen when there is a unilateral, all
encompassing decsion on what constitutes happiness for everyone.
Thus it is a warning of utopias. And it also says let people be sad
and grieve and not be prefectly happy, for sadness and greif are
necessary to be human. (Remember your parents telling you not to
cry-- it was just a dog/cat/fish, etc?)
LK
I recomend "Unaccompanied Sonota" over "Altas Shrugged" as required
high school reading. It is a much better, more subtle examination of
"utopia."
Alex
Guy Gordon <gor...@atlanta.com> wrote in article
<3427f489....@news.iccusa.com>...
> Alex,
> As you seem to be defining "True originality", only GOD would
> qualify. Originality or creativity is not creating something out of
> nothing.
>
GOD? What God?
Oh, you mean that big dude in that bible thingy (great story, pity
I fell asleep reading it), didn't he create man in his own image?
Original? (he says running for cover...)
Alex
On a seriouser note:
Guy Gordon <gor...@atlanta.com> wrote in article
<3427f489....@news.iccusa.com>...
> Alex,
> As you seem to be defining "True originality", only GOD would
> qualify. Originality or creativity is not creating something out of
> nothing.
>
(see other post)
> Man is a social animal. Just as our material creations must use what
> nature provides as starting materials, our cultural creations start
> with the culture we inherit.
>
> If one *could* write a story that owed nothing to the culture you were
> raised in, how could you possibly understand it? Would you expect
> music from another galaxy to sound like more Beethoven or noise?
>
> No, I don't think that was Card's point. He was probably trying to
> say something about the hardships of being a creative member of
> society. What's *wrong* with the story, is that he *justifies* what
> is done to the poor guy.
>
Hmmm, I'd say most music today sounds like noise. Anyway, your argument
depends on how broad your definition of culture is. I can quite easily
read a story written by someone in Russia (after suitable translation,
of course) and comprehend it to some extent. I'd even dare to say this
would be possible even with an alien text, assuming it was translatable.
The 'poor guy' wasn't totally closed of from outside influence, he had
limited contact with others, was given shelter, food, clothing and some
creature comforts. The organ he played, in itself defined to some extent
what he could play... wait a second, I'm defeating myself here.
Me shutup now, me no read bad stories, me be good boy, read only good
stories.
Robert Pearlman
D.Ke...@qub.ac.uk (David Kennedy) wrote:
>In article <5v4h3s$k...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
> sc...@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU () writes:
>> Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge:
>> --------------------------------
>> Wow, I feel like I've gained a couple IQ points after reading this
>> book. The first part of this book is jam-packed with a bunch of fresh
>> mind-bending ideas.
>*sigh* I remember the huge threads about this book at the time of
>publication. I also remember my bitter disappointment at how
>bad the book actually was IMO.
>I don't want to rehash old threads (partially cos its been a while
>since I read it too) - but I thought that this book was undeserving
>of the praise lavished on it.
>My main gripe was the Zones, why should the laws of physics suddenly
>change? This had implications and was just ignored. The characters
>were wooden, the tines not-that-interesting, the net analogue
>was terrible and the whole central story too cliched
>and burdened with an awful Boy & His Clever Dog tale.
I thought the Zone concept a really fine invention -- and totally
consistent with the laws of physics. They are derived from
terrestrial observation and their extension to other places is mostly
an act of faith, though backed up by the consistency which the Unverse
reveals when examined that way. To suppose that things change a lot
when you're close to the Galactic Snark (or Boojum) is not yet
necessary to do physics, but I can't see why it should be forbidden in
PhysicsFiction.
Oh, BTW, there have been serious proposals that physics does vary on a
Galactic scale, ranging from Dirac's proposal that the constant of
gravitation decreases with time, through other proposals that photons
lose energy on their longer journeys (the Hubble red-shift therefore
is less than meets the eye) and onward to a few months ago when it was
proposed that there's a fundamental anisotropy (i.e., some directions
have special properties.)
Regards,
Robert Pearlman