Atrocity Archive (Stross) Questions [SPOILERS]
mar...@cox.net
Stross, who hangs around here much less lurkily than I do. (Will read
_Concrete Jungle_ tonight, before passing it on to friend who looks and
thinks a lot like Mr. Stross.) It's sort of a menage a trois between
Dilbert, Bond, and Lovecraft, but in a much better way than you've
probably just imagined.
However, I have some nits, and would appreciate it if anybody saw
anything interesting regarding them. BTW, this is SPOILERY, so you
have been warned.
S
P
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E
S
P
O
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D
O
So:
It seems odd to me that the Hand of Glory "thaumology" had as little
side effects on spook culture as is noted. They seem relatively easy
to make, established enough to have modified versions available in the
armory with standard id codes, the protagonist notes that they can be
made from animal limbs, and practical invisibility would make a large
mark on spycraft. Why aren't they standard equipment? Ditto the
bullet shield that was used in Californie. I'd have expected the
commandos to have such a useful gadget.
How did the critter get Mo to the SS bastion without serious damage?
It's noted to be about a half hour trip. (Assuming some dark art, not
mentioned? Possibly related to why the baddies can run around without
helmets as well?) Similar question regarding the naked male bodies
gutted to open the gate, with the added question of where did those
guys come from?
The Device is called a hydrogen bomb, and lithium duteride is mentioned
at least once, but the technical descriptions on pp 219 (Ace edition)
describe an A bomb (Explosive lens encased Plutonium in hollow sphere
configuration with pea sized metal alloy lump in the center), not an H
bomb.
Given that humans can hop realities, and some realities contain
strongly superhuman and malevolent beings, why don't said beings hop
realities themselves, rather than waiting on a nice invite? I'm
currently blaming anthrocentric narrator. Said beings are not so much
malevolent - wanting to harm humans - as likely to scratch the itch
caused by necromany aimed at them with fingernails the size of Ceres.
This is consistent with the Lovecraft theme, I think.
It seems that some of the stuff in the AArchive Bob found was very
modern, and he wasn't surprised to find a procedure for opening a gate
with 3 matchsticks and a half cc of mouse bl- strike that - with only a
few human sacrifices. This seems inconsistent with the Nazi "brute
force" necromancy mentioned earlier.
Hope this is interesting to someone.
Regards,
martinl
Randall Randall
> Just read, and greatly enjoyed, _The Atrocity Archive_, by Charles
> Stross, who hangs around here much less lurkily than I do. (Will read
> _Concrete Jungle_ tonight, before passing it on to friend who looks and
> thinks a lot like Mr. Stross.) It's sort of a menage a trois between
> Dilbert, Bond, and Lovecraft, but in a much better way than you've
> probably just imagined.
I liked it, too. Can't wait for _The Jennifer Morgue_.
> However, I have some nits, and would appreciate it if anybody saw
> anything interesting regarding them. BTW, this is SPOILERY, so you
> have been warned.
>
> S
> P
> O
> I
> L
>
> M
> E
>
> S
> P
> O
> I
> L
>
> M
> E
>
> D
> O
>
>
> So:
[snip]
> How did the critter get Mo to the SS bastion without serious damage?
> It's noted to be about a half hour trip. (Assuming some dark art, not
> mentioned?
I assumed so.
> Possibly related to why the baddies can run around without
> helmets as well?) Similar question regarding the naked male bodies
> gutted to open the gate, with the added question of where did those
> guys come from?
The currently moving baddies weren't alive any longer, I
would have thought, and the other guys probably date from
when this world got gutted, sometime in the last ~60 years.
> The Device is called a hydrogen bomb, and lithium duteride is mentioned
> at least once, but the technical descriptions on pp 219 (Ace edition)
> describe an A bomb (Explosive lens encased Plutonium in hollow sphere
> configuration with pea sized metal alloy lump in the center), not an H
> bomb.
H bombs require A bombs, so the description still works. Also, if
the device were merely hydrogen-enhanced, the A bomb description
would be even more apt.
> Given that humans can hop realities, and some realities contain
> strongly superhuman and malevolent beings, why don't said beings hop
> realities themselves, rather than waiting on a nice invite? I'm
> currently blaming anthrocentric narrator. Said beings are not so much
> malevolent - wanting to harm humans - as likely to scratch the itch
> caused by necromany aimed at them with fingernails the size of Ceres.
> This is consistent with the Lovecraft theme, I think.
More spoilery stuff below, for the Merchant Princes:
Another interesting point about hopping worlds is that it's
mentioned that it takes a lot of power or a lot of computation
to open a gate, but nothing is said about simply swapping
locations with the same place in another world, which humans
in the AArchive world may not yet know about. Human brains
do lots of computation incidentally, and so perhaps if you had
the right design, your brain could be tricked into doing that
sort of computation, while requiring very little power.
I was struck by how very easy it would be to set the AArchive
and MPrinces books in the same multiverse. One paragraph
of plausible handwaving, given the setups of both.
--
Randall Randall
serg271
mar...@cox.net wrote:
> Just read, and greatly enjoyed, _The Atrocity Archive_, by Charles
> Stross, who hangs around here much less lurkily than I do. (Will read
> _Concrete Jungle_ tonight, before passing it on to friend who looks and
> thinks a lot like Mr. Stross.) It's sort of a menage a trois between
> Dilbert, Bond, and Lovecraft, but in a much better way than you've
> probably just imagined.
>
> However, I have some nits, and would appreciate it if anybody saw
> anything interesting regarding them. BTW, this is SPOILERY, so you
> have been warned.
> Given that humans can hop realities, and some realities contain
> strongly superhuman and malevolent beings, why don't said beings hop
> realities themselves, rather than waiting on a nice invite?
Potential energy level or something. It downhill way from human
universe to their. However as gates established it's free.
There is another huge suspension of disbelief for me. This malevolent
entity - Ice Giant - gobbled all the universe, including the sun, and
couldn't reserve a tiny amount of energy (one H-bomb) to finish its
plan ? And it's defenitly capable of elaborate plans in the books. Ok,
even if suggest it was really dumb before taking over SS and accuring
human-level intellect, all the frozen earth remain, with remnants of
plants and frozen water - that is huge amount of energy - including
radioactive elements deep in the crust/mantle. All this could be
retconed (like it need high energy density) but in this case
someexplanation from auther is due.
Robert Shaw
> mar...@cox.net wrote:
>
> Potential energy level or something. It downhill way from human
> universe to their. However as gates established it's free.
>
> There is another huge suspension of disbelief for me. This malevolent
> entity - Ice Giant - gobbled all the universe, including the sun, and
> couldn't reserve a tiny amount of energy (one H-bomb) to finish its
> plan ?
Along those lines, why would the Ice Giant devour that universe so
quickly if its home universe took trillions of years to die, as is
suggested?
--
'It is a wise crow that knows which way the camel points' - Pratchett
Robert Shaw
Charlie Stross
as <ran...@randallsquared.com> declared:
>>
>> S
>> P
>> O
>> I
>> L
>>
>> M
>> E
>>
>> S
>> P
>> O
>> I
>> L
>>
>> M
>> E
>>
>> D
>> O
>>
>>
>> So:
>
> [snip]
>
>> How did the critter get Mo to the SS bastion without serious damage?
>> It's noted to be about a half hour trip. (Assuming some dark art, not
>> mentioned?
>
> I assumed so.
Half an hour -- for a bunch of soldiers wearing vacuum gear, proceeding
on foot. One suspects Lovecraftian horrors do not wear army boots.
>> Possibly related to why the baddies can run around without
>> helmets as well?) Similar question regarding the naked male bodies
>> gutted to open the gate, with the added question of where did those
>> guys come from?
>
> The currently moving baddies weren't alive any longer, I
> would have thought, and the other guys probably date from
> when this world got gutted, sometime in the last ~60 years.
>
>> The Device is called a hydrogen bomb, and lithium duteride is mentioned
>> at least once, but the technical descriptions on pp 219 (Ace edition)
>> describe an A bomb (Explosive lens encased Plutonium in hollow sphere
>> configuration with pea sized metal alloy lump in the center), not an H
>> bomb.
>
> H bombs require A bombs, so the description still works. Also, if
> the device were merely hydrogen-enhanced, the A bomb description
> would be even more apt.
I was going by published descriptions of Teller-Ulam mechanism H-bombs,
which do indeed require a compact A-bomb as a trigger.
>> Given that humans can hop realities, and some realities contain
>> strongly superhuman and malevolent beings, why don't said beings hop
>> realities themselves, rather than waiting on a nice invite? I'm
>> currently blaming anthrocentric narrator. Said beings are not so much
>> malevolent - wanting to harm humans - as likely to scratch the itch
>> caused by necromany aimed at them with fingernails the size of Ceres.
>> This is consistent with the Lovecraft theme, I think.
The entity in TAA isn't a real full-blown Great Old One -- it's just a
small scale idiot parasite scuttling around the wainscoting. Usually it
travels in company with entire hordes of much more powerful entities,
mopping up afterwards. (There'll be more on this in book 3, in a few
years' time.)
> More spoilery stuff below, for the Merchant Princes:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Another interesting point about hopping worlds is that it's
> mentioned that it takes a lot of power or a lot of computation
> to open a gate, but nothing is said about simply swapping
> locations with the same place in another world, which humans
> in the AArchive world may not yet know about. Human brains
> do lots of computation incidentally, and so perhaps if you had
> the right design, your brain could be tricked into doing that
> sort of computation, while requiring very little power.
>
> I was struck by how very easy it would be to set the AArchive
> and MPrinces books in the same multiverse. One paragraph
> of plausible handwaving, given the setups of both.
If I do that, please remind me to shoot myself.
The Laundry universe is not compatible with Merchant Princes (as should
be glaringly obvious by book 3 of the former and book 4 of the latter).
Any attempt to make them so should be taken as a sign that I've been
gotten to by the Brain Eater.
-- Charlie
Charlie Stross
> serg271 wrote:
>> mar...@cox.net wrote:
>>
>> Potential energy level or something. It downhill way from human
>> universe to their. However as gates established it's free.
>>
>> There is another huge suspension of disbelief for me. This malevolent
>> entity - Ice Giant - gobbled all the universe, including the sun, and
>> couldn't reserve a tiny amount of energy (one H-bomb) to finish its
>> plan ?
>
> Along those lines, why would the Ice Giant devour that universe so
> quickly if its home universe took trillions of years to die, as is
> suggested?
Because there's no competition ...
(Or the truth is even more sinister than you think, and there's an
unreliable narrator in the woodpile.)
-- Charlie
David Mitchell
> Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe as
> <Rob...@shavian.fsnet.co.uk> declared:
>
>> Along those lines, why would the Ice Giant devour that universe so
>> quickly if its home universe took trillions of years to die, as is
>> suggested?
>
> Because there's no competition ...
>
> (Or the truth is even more sinister than you think, and there's an
> unreliable narrator in the woodpile.)
C'mon Charlie; you can only play the unreliable narrator card /so/ many
times; before we begin to suspect that it's an unreliable author.
;-)
--
=======================================================================
= David --- No, not that one.
= Mitchell ---
=======================================================================
Paul Colquhoun
| serg271 wrote:
|> mar...@cox.net wrote:
|>
|> Potential energy level or something. It downhill way from human
|> universe to their. However as gates established it's free.
|>
|> There is another huge suspension of disbelief for me. This malevolent
|> entity - Ice Giant - gobbled all the universe, including the sun, and
|> couldn't reserve a tiny amount of energy (one H-bomb) to finish its
|> plan ?
|
| Along those lines, why would the Ice Giant devour that universe so
| quickly if its home universe took trillions of years to die, as is
| suggested?
Maybe it's 'home' universe and the eaten one differ somewhat in basic
laws, and it has a much bigger effect on the eaten one. It may even be
fairly harmless when at home (at least by comparison...).
--
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC. http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
Asking for technical help in newsgroups? Read this first:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro
Charlie Stross
> On Wed, 05 Jul 2006 08:16:04 +0000, Charlie Stross wrote:
>
>> Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe as
>> <Rob...@shavian.fsnet.co.uk> declared:
>>
>>> Along those lines, why would the Ice Giant devour that universe so
>>> quickly if its home universe took trillions of years to die, as is
>>> suggested?
>>
>> Because there's no competition ...
>>
>> (Or the truth is even more sinister than you think, and there's an
>> unreliable narrator in the woodpile.)
>
> C'mon Charlie; you can only play the unreliable narrator card /so/ many
> times; before we begin to suspect that it's an unreliable author.
>
> ;-)
Indeed. Unreliable? Moi? (Whistles past the graveyard.)
More seriously ...
SPOILER SPACE
The second Laundry novel, THE JENNIFER MORGUE, is in, and there are
plans for several more (although the third almost certainly won't appear
in print until 2008/09 -- thereafter I hope to pick up speed). But THE
ATROCITY ARCHIVES was really written as a stand-alone, so some reconning
is necessary in order to turn the universe into a series. However, I'll
try to maintain overall consistency. You should therefore expect some
surprises, as stuff that looked to have perfectly reasonable explanations
in the first book turns out to be a lot more complex later on ...
-- Charlie
David Mitchell
> Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe as
> <da...@edenroad.demon.co.uk> declared:
>
>> On Wed, 05 Jul 2006 08:16:04 +0000, Charlie Stross wrote:
>>
>>> Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe as
>>> <Rob...@shavian.fsnet.co.uk> declared:
>>>
> The second Laundry novel, THE JENNIFER MORGUE, is in, and there are plans
> for several more (although the third almost certainly won't appear in
> print until 2008/09 --
Good, I'm looking forward to it, I really enjoyed TAA.
bm2...@eve.albany.edu
Charlie Stross wrote:
>
> >> Given that humans can hop realities, and some realities contain
> >> strongly superhuman and malevolent beings, why don't said beings hop
> >> realities themselves, rather than waiting on a nice invite? I'm
> >> currently blaming anthrocentric narrator. Said beings are not so much
> >> malevolent - wanting to harm humans - as likely to scratch the itch
> >> caused by necromany aimed at them with fingernails the size of Ceres.
> >> This is consistent with the Lovecraft theme, I think.
>
> The entity in TAA isn't a real full-blown Great Old One -- it's just a
> small scale idiot parasite scuttling around the wainscoting. Usually it
> travels in company with entire hordes of much more powerful entities,
> mopping up afterwards.
Ok...it sucks an _entire universe_ (100 billion galaxies, say 200
billion stars a piece, and that's even if we put aside some of the
recent cosmological speculations on "the universe is rather bigger than
we think it is") dry of energy, and it's only a minor parasite compared
to the real Great Old Ones? Truly a vision beyond even EE "Doc" Smith
in it's gradiosity...
Best,
Bruce
Andrew Plotkin
Wasn't there some implication that it didn't really eat the whole
universe? At least, not the one visited in _AA_. I thought it ate the
*solar system*, and accidentally did it in such a way that it trapped
itself -- everything else was redshifted away to infinity, or some
such gab. From the viewpoint of anyone near the Sun.
Or maybe I'm making this up.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't subjected you to searches without a
warrant, it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because of
the Fourth Amendment.
Sean Eric Fagan
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>Here, bm2...@eve.albany.edu wrote:
>> Ok...it sucks an _entire universe_ (100 billion galaxies, say 200
>> billion stars a piece, and that's even if we put aside some of the
>> recent cosmological speculations on "the universe is rather bigger than
>> we think it is") dry of energy, and it's only a minor parasite compared
>> to the real Great Old Ones?
>Wasn't there some implication that it didn't really eat the whole
>universe? At least, not the one visited in _AA_. I thought it ate the
>*solar system*, and accidentally did it in such a way that it trapped
>itself -- everything else was redshifted away to infinity, or some
>such gab. From the viewpoint of anyone near the Sun.
The two are not incompatible: it's a minor parasite, the real Great Old Ones
sent the solar system flying away so they wouldn't have to get a flea bath for
their pets in a few aeons.
So the rGOO can fling an entire solar system away at near-light speed, just to
rid themselves of a minor parasite.
Robert Hutchinson
> The Laundry universe is not compatible with Merchant Princes (as should
> be glaringly obvious by book 3 of the former and book 4 of the latter).
> Any attempt to make them so should be taken as a sign that I've been
> gotten to by the Brain Eater.
In the Laundry universe, how would we spot it in the crowd?
--
Robert Hutchinson | "Audiences won't soon forget when the
| thing-we-didn't-know-what-it-was was put into
| the helicopter by the guy we didn't know."
| -- Servo, MST3K, 810, Giant Spider Invasion
bm2...@eve.albany.edu
> Here, bm2...@eve.albany.edu wrote:
> >
> > Charlie Stross wrote:
> > >
> > > The entity in TAA isn't a real full-blown Great Old One -- it's just a
> > > small scale idiot parasite scuttling around the wainscoting. Usually it
> > > travels in company with entire hordes of much more powerful entities,
> > > mopping up afterwards.
> >
> > Ok...it sucks an _entire universe_ (100 billion galaxies, say 200
> > billion stars a piece, and that's even if we put aside some of the
> > recent cosmological speculations on "the universe is rather bigger than
> > we think it is") dry of energy, and it's only a minor parasite compared
> > to the real Great Old Ones?
>
> Wasn't there some implication that it didn't really eat the whole
> universe? At least, not the one visited in _AA_. I thought it ate the
> *solar system*, and accidentally did it in such a way that it trapped
> itself -- everything else was redshifted away to infinity, or some
> such gab. From the viewpoint of anyone near the Sun.
>
> Or maybe I'm making this up.
>
http://groups.google.ca/group/rec.arts.sf.written/browse_frm/thread/9f6f412225c36ffb/9b0cc7a21c5ff0a5?q=stross+bruce+universe&rnum=1#9b0cc7a21c5ff0a5
earlier thread, you said
"Sudden thought: perhaps these are both explained by saying that it
*didn't* suck out the whole universe. Just the solar system. Local
spacetime is falling into a sinkhole, causally disconnected from the
rest of the universe -- everything else just looks like it's receding
to infinity. The Frost Giant can't get to nearby stars; probably it
couldn't even before it started the entropy sinkhole."
And here's Charlie's response to my question in the same thread:
"> 2.) A bit careless of it to absorb the energies of
> _an_entire_universe_ and not manage to put aside enough for a rainy
> day to do what can be accomplished with a regular nuclear weapon...
Note that the incident in Amsterdam is at least its' second attempt to
get out ... but yes, it's not a very smart entity, is it?
> 3.) The universe is "contracting at near the speed of light" and
> "isn't much bigger than the solar system?" Was it contacting much
> faster earlier?
Yes. (Think cosmological expansion. In reverse.)"
Which reply is hardly an endorsement of the
didn't-eat-the-whole-universe theory. But, hey, he's suggested in the
current thread that perhaps the author is not to be trusted...
best,
Bruce
mar...@cox.net
If it ran six times as fast, it would still take around five minutes,
which is enough time for a panicked person to aphyxiate. The
descriptions of the critters do not mention superhuman quickness. Even
if they ran 90mph, I got the impression simply cycling the airlock
would take around a minute, which should cause damage visible on a
naked person.
There was no vacuum damage mentioned on Mo. She was naked. [1]
Something is going on, and/or I missed something important, and/or Mr.
Stross is messing wit me por libble mind.
> >> Possibly related to why the baddies can run around without
> >> helmets as well?) Similar question regarding the naked male bodies
> >> gutted to open the gate, with the added question of where did those
> >> guys come from?
> >
> > The currently moving baddies weren't alive any longer, I
> > would have thought, and the other guys probably date from
> > when this world got gutted, sometime in the last ~60 years.
The bodies would have been freeze dried then. I got the impression
they were specifically sacrificed to open the gate.
> >> The Device is called a hydrogen bomb, and lithium duteride is mentioned
> >> at least once, but the technical descriptions on pp 219 (Ace edition)
> >> describe an A bomb (Explosive lens encased Plutonium in hollow sphere
> >> configuration with pea sized metal alloy lump in the center), not an H
> >> bomb.
> >
> > H bombs require A bombs, so the description still works. Also, if
> > the device were merely hydrogen-enhanced, the A bomb description
> > would be even more apt.
>
> I was going by published descriptions of Teller-Ulam mechanism H-bombs,
> which do indeed require a compact A-bomb as a trigger.
This one is my fault - my physics texts turned out to be woefully
misleading on the proper way to make an H-bomb. Inexcusable really,
since the data was published in '78. As is increasingly the case, I
should have checked Wikipedia before asking.
That said, I have to agree with Oppenheimer that Teller-Ulam mechanisms
are "technically sweet." Not an elegant solution to the problem, but
impressive sideways thinking, both literally and figuratively.
> >> Given that humans can hop realities, and some realities contain
> >> strongly superhuman and malevolent beings, why don't said beings hop
> >> realities themselves, rather than waiting on a nice invite? I'm
> >> currently blaming anthrocentric narrator. Said beings are not so much
> >> malevolent - wanting to harm humans - as likely to scratch the itch
> >> caused by necromany aimed at them with fingernails the size of Ceres.
> >> This is consistent with the Lovecraft theme, I think.
>
> The entity in TAA isn't a real full-blown Great Old One -- it's just a
> small scale idiot parasite scuttling around the wainscoting. Usually it
> travels in company with entire hordes of much more powerful entities,
> mopping up afterwards. (There'll be more on this in book 3, in a few
> years' time.)
Roight. But the GOOs explicitly exist (off stage) in TAA, and
explicitly need to be invited. If they are indeed strongly superhuman
I suspect this is, at best, couching it in anthrocentirc terms.
An intelligent roach may try to avoid attracting human notice, and be
deucedly tough to track down, but if I want to take it down, I can.
It's just that a smart roach would stay beneath my radar, and even if
seen could make rooting it out painful and expensive.
> > I was struck by how very easy it would be to set the AArchive
> > and MPrinces books in the same multiverse. One paragraph
> > of plausible handwaving, given the setups of both.
>
> If I do that, please remind me to shoot myself.
I really hope you avoid ASE myself, since I like your stuff.
Regards,
martinl
[1] Good job at making that as unerotic as it should have been, BTW.
Pretty, smart, redhead, nude, too much scary shit going down to care.
Both for VP character and reader - or at least for me. Good writing.
Andrew Plotkin
> >
> > Or maybe I'm making this up.
> >
> Possibly. In this
> http://groups.google.ca/group/rec.arts.sf.written/browse_frm/thread/9f6f412225c36ffb/9b0cc7a21c5ff0a5?q=stross+bruce+universe&rnum=1#9b0cc7a21c5ff0a5
>
> earlier thread, you said
I *am* clever.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
Bush's biggest lie is his claim that it's okay to disagree with him. As soon as
you *actually* disagree with him, he sadly explains that you're undermining
America, that you're giving comfort to the enemy. That you need to be silent.