Recently read: "Usurper of the Sun" by Housuke Nojiri
Howard C
Another Japanese novel published here in the US by Haikasoru, which
has become one of my favorite publishers in a very short time.
Aki Shiraishi is a high school student in an astronomy club viewing a
solar transit of Mercury, when she sees a tower that is being built on
Mercury. Using nano technology, it appears that an alien race (dubbed
"Builders") are constructing a ring around the sun. The ring
eventually threatens Earth's ecology due to it's shadow. Aki pursues
a career in the sciences, and travels to the Ring and eventually must
confront the Builders as their starship enters the Solar System.
This is truly a hard SF novel. There's very little unrealistic
technology development here. Nojiri has thought about alien
intelligence, and come up with a clever twist. It somewhat reminds me
of Peter Watts' "Blindsight", though not quite as depressing.
It also reads very easily, so I guess that's a tribute to the
translator?
Wayne Throop
: it appears that an alien race (dubbed "Builders") are constructing a
: ring around the sun. The ring eventually threatens Earth's ecology
: This is truly a hard SF novel. There's very little unrealistic
: technology development here.
Building a ring around the sun wide enough to affect earth's
ecology with its shadow seems a mite implausible. In terms of,
where does the material to do it come from.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Sean O'Hara
>
> : Howard C <howard....@gmail.com>
> : it appears that an alien race (dubbed "Builders") are constructing a
> : ring around the sun. The ring eventually threatens Earth's ecology
> : due to it's shadow. [...]
> : This is truly a hard SF novel. There's very little unrealistic
> : technology development here.
>
> Building a ring around the sun wide enough to affect earth's
> ecology with its shadow seems a mite implausible. In terms of,
> where does the material to do it come from.
>
The aliens demolish Mercury to do it -- the ring itself isn't very
thick, being an energy capture device and not a living habitat like
Ringworld.
The ring doesn't entirely block the sun except a couple months each
year, but it does significantly reduce the amount of light reaching
Earth.
--
Sean O'Hara <http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com>
The House Divided <http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004DZNUBE>
Lovecraft's House of Horror <http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004CYF8PC>
Stephen Graham
> This is truly a hard SF novel. There's very little unrealistic
> technology development here. Nojiri has thought about alien
> intelligence, and come up with a clever twist. It somewhat reminds me
> of Peter Watts' "Blindsight", though not quite as depressing.
It struck me that Nojiri had read about a theory of mind and had decided
to write a novel around it. There's a rather ugly and poorly-motivated
expository lump when the theory is introduced that leaves you wondering
why this has suddenly appeared in the storyline.
Why the energy collection device is a ring doesn't make sense. If
nothing else, it introduces significant lag time from the furthest
portions of the ring as compared to a disk with the same surface area
aligned in the appropriate direction.
It struck me as a perfectly serviceable science fiction novel, somewhat
akin to Ben Bova on his better days.
> It also reads very easily, so I guess that's a tribute to the
> translator?
The language was rather stilted. I'm not sure if that was an artifact of
the translation or if it reflected Nojiri's original writing style. The
afterword was notably smoother than the main body of the novel. There
were also some odd word choices. Do the other books from Haikasoru have
similar translations or is this a one-off?
James Nicoll
I've read ROCKET GIRLS and ROCKET GIRLS: THE LAST PLANET and I didn't
think the language was stilted but I have not come across USURPER OF
THE SUN yet so cannot really compare.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
Sean O'Hara
declared:
>
> On 2/1/2011 7:09 AM, Howard C wrote:
>
> > This is truly a hard SF novel. There's very little unrealistic
> > technology development here. Nojiri has thought about alien
> > intelligence, and come up with a clever twist. It somewhat reminds me
> > of Peter Watts' "Blindsight", though not quite as depressing.
>
> It struck me that Nojiri had read about a theory of mind and had decided
> to write a novel around it.
This seems to be a common theme in the Haikasoru novels -- the first
story in The Ouroboros Wave deals with a computer coming to the
realization that the virtual objects it deals with have another
existence that can't be affected by software, and the big theme of
Harmony is the nature of consciousness.
> There's a rather ugly and poorly-motivated
> expository lump when the theory is introduced that leaves you wondering
> why this has suddenly appeared in the storyline.
>
If you look at the copyright information, the book turns out to be a
fix-up, so the Theory of Mind stuff pops up in the second part because
that's the story Nojiri wrote about the Theory of Mind. I didn't find
the infodump any worse than what you get in Alatair Reynolds or Robert
Charles Wilson.
> > It also reads very easily, so I guess that's a tribute to the
> > translator?
>
> The language was rather stilted. I'm not sure if that was an artifact of
> the translation or if it reflected Nojiri's original writing style. The
> afterword was notably smoother than the main body of the novel. There
> were also some odd word choices. Do the other books from Haikasoru have
> similar translations or is this a one-off?
In the ones I've read, it takes three or four pages to get the flow of
the language, so I'm guessing it's an artifact of Japanese->English,
though I don't find it stilted so much as idiosyncratic. Keep in mind,
many of the Haikasoru books are light novels, which as I understand it
is a form of YA aimed at improving kanji literacy.
The only problem that really leaped out at me was was the repeated use
of "drab olive" instead of "olive drab" to describe the color of
military equipment in Harmony.
Howard C
> In the Year of the Rabbit, the Great and Powerful Stephen Graham
> declared:
>
> > to write a novel around it.
>
> This seems to be a common theme in the Haikasoru novels -- the first
> story in The Ouroboros Wave deals with a computer coming to the
> realization that the virtual objects it deals with have another
> existence that can't be affected by software, and the big theme of
> Harmony is the nature of consciousness.
>
> > There's a rather ugly and poorly-motivated
> > expository lump when the theory is introduced that leaves you wondering
> > why this has suddenly appeared in the storyline.
>
> If you look at the copyright information, the book turns out to be a
> fix-up, so the Theory of Mind stuff pops up in the second part because
> that's the story Nojiri wrote about the Theory of Mind. I didn't find
> the infodump any worse than what you get in Alatair Reynolds or Robert
> Charles Wilson.
>
>
> > the translation or if it reflected Nojiri's original writing style. The
> > afterword was notably smoother than the main body of the novel. There
> > were also some odd word choices. Do the other books from Haikasoru have
> > similar translations or is this a one-off?
>
> In the ones I've read, it takes three or four pages to get the flow of
> the language, so I'm guessing it's an artifact of Japanese->English,
> though I don't find it stilted so much as idiosyncratic. Keep in mind,
> many of the Haikasoru books are light novels, which as I understand it
> is a form of YA aimed at improving kanji literacy.
>
> The only problem that really leaped out at me was was the repeated use
> of "drab olive" instead of "olive drab" to describe the color of
> military equipment in Harmony.
>
I agree that the info dumps didn't seem bad to me. I'm use to some of
that for sure (I really like Alstair Reynolds).
As for the language, I thought it read faily smoothly compared to "The
Ouroboros Wave", which I liked but not near as much.
Stephen Graham
> In the Year of the Rabbit, the Great and Powerful Stephen Graham
> declared:
>> It struck me that Nojiri had read about a theory of mind and had decided
>> to write a novel around it.
>
> This seems to be a common theme in the Haikasoru novels -- the first
> story in The Ouroboros Wave deals with a computer coming to the
> realization that the virtual objects it deals with have another
> existence that can't be affected by software, and the big theme of
> Harmony is the nature of consciousness.
It's a popular theme - look at how many and how long the arguments about
the topic are in here. Still, it may influence which Haikasoru novels I
pick up to read. Too much of it or a poor presentation can make it
annoying.
>> There's a rather ugly and poorly-motivated
>> expository lump when the theory is introduced that leaves you wondering
>> why this has suddenly appeared in the storyline.
>
> If you look at the copyright information, the book turns out to be a
> fix-up, so the Theory of Mind stuff pops up in the second part because
> that's the story Nojiri wrote about the Theory of Mind.
I'd noticed that it was a fix-up from reading the copyright page - I was
interested in how long the lag time was between the original composition
and the English-language publication.
> I didn't find
> the infodump any worse than what you get in Alatair Reynolds or Robert
> Charles Wilson.
Well, yeah, but such are still annoying.
>> The language was rather stilted. I'm not sure if that was an artifact of
>> the translation or if it reflected Nojiri's original writing style. The
>> afterword was notably smoother than the main body of the novel. There
>> were also some odd word choices. Do the other books from Haikasoru have
>> similar translations or is this a one-off?
>
> In the ones I've read, it takes three or four pages to get the flow of
> the language, so I'm guessing it's an artifact of Japanese->English,
> though I don't find it stilted so much as idiosyncratic. Keep in mind,
> many of the Haikasoru books are light novels, which as I understand it
> is a form of YA aimed at improving kanji literacy.
Hmm, I knew it was essentially a YA novel but I may have to ask the
Japanese-literate in my social circle if they've read Nojiri. I've seen
other translations where I could read the original language well enough
to see that there was a deliberate attempt by the translator to convey
the author's style.
DouhetSukd
> In the Year of the Rabbit, the Great and Powerful Stephen Graham
> declared:
>
>
>
> > On 2/1/2011 7:09 AM, Howard C wrote:
>
> > > This is truly a hard SF novel. There's very little unrealistic
> > > technology development here. Nojiri has thought about alien
> > > intelligence, and come up with a clever twist. It somewhat reminds me
> > > of Peter Watts' "Blindsight", though not quite as depressing.
>
> > It struck me that Nojiri had read about a theory of mind and had decided
> > to write a novel around it.
>
> This seems to be a common theme in the Haikasoru novels -- the first
> story in The Ouroboros Wave deals with a computer coming to the
> realization that the virtual objects it deals with have another
> existence that can't be affected by software, and the big theme of
> Harmony is the nature of consciousness.
>
> > There's a rather ugly and poorly-motivated
> > expository lump when the theory is introduced that leaves you wondering
> > why this has suddenly appeared in the storyline.
>
> If you look at the copyright information, the book turns out to be a
> fix-up, so the Theory of Mind stuff pops up in the second part because
> that's the story Nojiri wrote about the Theory of Mind. I didn't find
> the infodump any worse than what you get in Alatair Reynolds or Robert
> Charles Wilson.
>
Agree with the Blindsight comparison, very similar. But I thought
Blindsight's alien intelligence theory was better put forward.
Ultimately, despite loving both books, I didn't really get into the
setup about the nature of the Usurpers' intelligence.
Watts slowly introduces you to his theory and mostly leaves you
wondering why exactly self-awareness would be necessary for
intelligence. I am not sure why his argument feels off, but there is
little to hang my disagreement on, seems more of a gut feeling, hardly
very scientific on my part.
Nojiri's explanation comes in 2 parts, the well-done Natalia episode
early on and the dialog with the alien near the end, which I found
unconvincing and short.
For one, comparing an alien's perception of us to ours of ants is
specious. We spend lots of time analyzing how ants communicate, not
least in AI theory.
Second, ants do not communicate intellectual concepts, even shallow
ones. No animals do. If we found dolphins had "ideas", we'd be all
over that.
Third, a species ignoring the universe and other species' activities
in it is not exactly optimizing for survival. Paying more of
attention to germs has paid off handsomely for humans. The aliens are
powerful, yes, but they are twice put at risk by their inattention.
Finally, the bits about the restoration of individual-level awareness
and the adaptive/non-adaptive barrier make no sense.
Perhaps this chapter was just too hard to translate effectively in
English?
I do recommend the book highly though.