This is probably the most fascinating sci-fi book that I've read in a long, long time! This is Chinese Sci-Fi - and it is both similar and different than American/European sci-fi (which has become a kind of an unspoken standard, but we often forget it is just one way of doing things). There is no sex in this book. Not even flirting. No hot female characters (the main female character is in her late senior years). The male characters are late-middle aged; not sexy, not even particularly heroic. Did that turn you off? Wait, it is worth it!
This is my first Chinese science fiction, so I have to extrapolate (a code word for "stereotype") the entire local genre from it. There's a lot of science. And I mean - A LOT! This is one of the hardest science fiction novels I've read. And some of the science is not simple (although very well explained in popular terms). It takes some mental effort to follow. And some knowledge of physics, and quantum theory, and 11-dimensional space concepts. But wait, it's worth it!
The book starts with the horrors of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. After she sees her father humiliated and publicly murdered on a stage by being brutally whipped with the clasps of the belts of four red guard high school girls (while her mother goes mad and her sister joins the red guard), Ye Wenjie signs a lifetime contract to join the "Red Coast" secret government base, with a huge satellite dish on top of "Radar Peak" which eventually she finds out is the Chinese SETI program, looking for intelligent aliens.
Since Wenjie is a brilliant physicist, just like her red-guard-murdered father, she finds a way to use a layer within the Sun as a giant amplifier antenna and manages to attract the attention of the planet "Trisolaris" - the only planet in a system with three suns. Although a "pacifist" trisolarian warns Wenjie not to reply to the message, as otherwise the Trisolarian government will not be able to locate the signal, she replies immediately and thus gives the trisolarians the final parameter to precisely pinpoint Earth - distance. She hopes that the trisolarians will 'cleanse' the Earth and fix human society, but although trisolarians try to play into that initially, eventually they make clear that they intend to destroy the human race and claim all of Earth for themselves. They send a message to all humans: "you are bugs."
Trisolarians, who are much ahead of humans in fundamental science and have found a way to unwrap internal matter structure up to the 11th dimensions, send two super-computers as large as the surface of a planet but dimensionally wrapped into single protons - called "Sophons." These Sophons stop all research in fundamental science on Earth by sabotaging experiments and driving top scientists to suicide and thus basically locking the scientific progress of the human race, making it easy pray for the much more developed trisolarians. Human traitors organize themselves in Earth-Trisolaris Organization (ETO) and actively help trisolarians sabotage Earth science, rejoicing in the future destruction of humanity as a punishment for destroying Earth's environment. The ETO also constructs a VR game which simulates some of the environment on Trisolaris and asks the players to solve various historical trisolarian problems in order to advance in the game. ETO is divided into several factions, and one of them even created a religion from the Trisolarian lore, elevating the leader of the invading fleet (to reach earth in 450 years) as their "Lord."
The book has many more complicated aspects, Dr. Wang, a nano-materials scientist, being the main male character, and "Big" Shi Qiang, a hard-boiled policeman, maybe being the most sympathetic one, but it ends in a cliffhanger: Wang accepts that we are bugs and will be met with the fate of bugs, but Big Shi takes Wang and his colleague to a field overrun with locusts and tells them that maybe humans are bugs, but bugs have always fought back and refused to go extinct.
Friday, December 30, 2016
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
"Altered Carbon" by Robert Morgan
Robert Morgan might be an ESL teacher, but he's an amazing cyberpunk writer! And his lack of technical background (hard science background too) make his books even more readable and romantic. Takeshi Kovacs must be one of the best ambivalent heroes created in the last half century. He's not a bad guy, it's the circumstances. He has a good heart, and it is obvious in the end, when he could have made much more damage and not repair anything.
The universe of Altered Carbon is fascinating. No faster than light travel. Colony ships that take centuries to reach their destination. But there's 'needlecasting' - similar to the 'ansible' device in other universes, notably Hyperion. However needlecasting apparently can transfer enormous amounts of data, unlike the ansibles that are limited to typed text. Humans get 'downloaded' from their brains and 'needlecast' to anywhere in the Universe, where they are 'uploaded' in a 'sleeve' - a human body without a 'tenant.' Pretty naive, but effective. From scientific point of view there are so many problems with this kind of concept, it doesn't even start to approach reality (i.e. if humans can be downloaded on a 'spinning disk' [oh, Morgan, you should have read some basic Computer Science book, at the least] then the data is 'quantified' and as such it can be 'list'-ed and different lines of code erased or added. Where does the 'human' end then?).
Takeshi is an "Envoy" - special corps of psychologically conditioned murderers that do the dirty jobs for the UN Protectorate which rules Earth, and largely the Universe. Envoys can enter multiple bodies ("sleeving") and still keep their sanity and adapt rapidly. Takeshi is hired by a 'meth' (Methusalah) on Earth who has lived more than 3 centuries in various sleeves. Then there's the sexy future-cop Ortega, with her long limbs and psychological stuck ups. But the book is too complex to be summarized in a few paragraphs.
Suffice to say it is one hell of a rollercoaster ride.
The universe of Altered Carbon is fascinating. No faster than light travel. Colony ships that take centuries to reach their destination. But there's 'needlecasting' - similar to the 'ansible' device in other universes, notably Hyperion. However needlecasting apparently can transfer enormous amounts of data, unlike the ansibles that are limited to typed text. Humans get 'downloaded' from their brains and 'needlecast' to anywhere in the Universe, where they are 'uploaded' in a 'sleeve' - a human body without a 'tenant.' Pretty naive, but effective. From scientific point of view there are so many problems with this kind of concept, it doesn't even start to approach reality (i.e. if humans can be downloaded on a 'spinning disk' [oh, Morgan, you should have read some basic Computer Science book, at the least] then the data is 'quantified' and as such it can be 'list'-ed and different lines of code erased or added. Where does the 'human' end then?).
Takeshi is an "Envoy" - special corps of psychologically conditioned murderers that do the dirty jobs for the UN Protectorate which rules Earth, and largely the Universe. Envoys can enter multiple bodies ("sleeving") and still keep their sanity and adapt rapidly. Takeshi is hired by a 'meth' (Methusalah) on Earth who has lived more than 3 centuries in various sleeves. Then there's the sexy future-cop Ortega, with her long limbs and psychological stuck ups. But the book is too complex to be summarized in a few paragraphs.
Suffice to say it is one hell of a rollercoaster ride.
Thursday, December 15, 2016
"The Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham
This is an all-time classic Sci-Fi or Speculative Fiction, to be more exact. Written in the 50s, it describes taking over the world by a species of intelligent, mobile, carnivorous plants, called "Triffids" and probably developed through genetic experiments by the Soviets, in order to grow them for their precious oil they produce. However, after one night of apparent meteor showers, the entire population of Earth, humans and animals, become blind and also infected by a sort of plague. This causes much of the planet's population, over 99%, to die in the first couple of weeks after the meteor shower, which might have been caused by the intelligent Triffid overmind in order to eliminate the main evolutionary advantage humans have over intelligent plants.
The Triffids hunt the remaining humans, killing them with their sting and poison, and then feeding off their decomposing bodies, using the nutrients to grow and propagate. However, many of the surviving human groups are busy fighting each other, and being animals to each other, rather than deal with the common threat in the beginning.
Bill Mason, the protagonist of the novel, a biologist specializing in Triffids, survives with his sight intact because he is in a hospital, after a Triffid atack, with his eyes bound, when the 'meteor' shower occurs. He walks around post-apocaliptic London, trying to figure out what to do, while alternately attracted, rejected or imprisoned by various roaming groups, each of which thinks they have the solution to survival.
Eventually the survivors retreat to the Isle of Wigh, where Triffids are kept at bay by constant culling and destruction of seeds. A gem, and originator, of the post-end-of-the-world genre which has become extremely popular lately. Many movies, comics, graphic novels etc. were made after this book, but reading it is still a singular experience, especially since it was written before the travesties of reality television and social media and is thus slow and even paced.
The Triffids hunt the remaining humans, killing them with their sting and poison, and then feeding off their decomposing bodies, using the nutrients to grow and propagate. However, many of the surviving human groups are busy fighting each other, and being animals to each other, rather than deal with the common threat in the beginning.
Bill Mason, the protagonist of the novel, a biologist specializing in Triffids, survives with his sight intact because he is in a hospital, after a Triffid atack, with his eyes bound, when the 'meteor' shower occurs. He walks around post-apocaliptic London, trying to figure out what to do, while alternately attracted, rejected or imprisoned by various roaming groups, each of which thinks they have the solution to survival.
Eventually the survivors retreat to the Isle of Wigh, where Triffids are kept at bay by constant culling and destruction of seeds. A gem, and originator, of the post-end-of-the-world genre which has become extremely popular lately. Many movies, comics, graphic novels etc. were made after this book, but reading it is still a singular experience, especially since it was written before the travesties of reality television and social media and is thus slow and even paced.
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
"Footfall" by Niven/Pournelle
This book is touted as the best 'alien invasion' book ever written (apparently NYT says so), and is also one of the best books the dynamic duo Niven/Pournelle have written. That doesn't make it an amazing book. It is a good book, but not amazing. "Contact" is amazing, "Footfall" is merely good.
The book is definitely too big. I dabble in writing myself and was caught off guard when one publisher stated that he would not publish a novel under 60,000 words. Another said 100,000 words is the minimum. Why? Why pad the book with 'words' and 'pages' if it doesn't make sense for the story. If a story can be told in 40,000 words, why add more as a filler just to satisfy some imaginary (and unfounded) artificial 'lower limits'. ? For "Footfall", the first 100 pages can be comfortable skipped - they add nothing to the story. Further, most of the chapter where there's no Fithp can be skipped without missing anything of the main story. All those pages (dozens and dozens) where the authors tried to be 'modern' by exploring adulteries, cheating, sex thoughts and motivations are completely useless for the main story. I got this book to see baby elephant aliens and that's all I want!
So, yes, the Fithp are baby elephant-looking aliens from Alpha Centauri, who used to be pets to an older race, the "Predecessors", who destroyed themselves and most of the environment aeons ago. Since, the Fithp have discovered 'knowledge cubes' which taught them science, from basic fire and tools, to Bussard Ramjets and orbital transport spaceships. The Fithp are always at war on their home planet, so the "Traveller Herd" left for our Solar System, to conquer it and settle there, calling it "Winterhome".
In the beginning the Fithp are winning because of their advanced technology. They bomb most of the developed nations, especially the USA and the Soviet Union, and later drop an asteroid, "The Foot", into the Indian Ocean and kill all of India and most of the coastal cities around. However the Fithp are herd animals, and cannot understand individualism, which they consider 'roguishness' to be cleansed out of the DNA pool.
Eventually, the humans get viscious and inventive and nuke or otherwise destroy all Fithp installations on Earth and go after the Fithp mother ship "The Message Bearer" almost destroying it before the Fithp offer complete surrender to the humans and seal their fate as the dominant race. The book is well done, especially the habits of the herd-bound Fithp and the resulting psychology, but the length is really a problem. The most interesting part of the book are the last 30 pages.
The book is definitely too big. I dabble in writing myself and was caught off guard when one publisher stated that he would not publish a novel under 60,000 words. Another said 100,000 words is the minimum. Why? Why pad the book with 'words' and 'pages' if it doesn't make sense for the story. If a story can be told in 40,000 words, why add more as a filler just to satisfy some imaginary (and unfounded) artificial 'lower limits'. ? For "Footfall", the first 100 pages can be comfortable skipped - they add nothing to the story. Further, most of the chapter where there's no Fithp can be skipped without missing anything of the main story. All those pages (dozens and dozens) where the authors tried to be 'modern' by exploring adulteries, cheating, sex thoughts and motivations are completely useless for the main story. I got this book to see baby elephant aliens and that's all I want!
So, yes, the Fithp are baby elephant-looking aliens from Alpha Centauri, who used to be pets to an older race, the "Predecessors", who destroyed themselves and most of the environment aeons ago. Since, the Fithp have discovered 'knowledge cubes' which taught them science, from basic fire and tools, to Bussard Ramjets and orbital transport spaceships. The Fithp are always at war on their home planet, so the "Traveller Herd" left for our Solar System, to conquer it and settle there, calling it "Winterhome".
In the beginning the Fithp are winning because of their advanced technology. They bomb most of the developed nations, especially the USA and the Soviet Union, and later drop an asteroid, "The Foot", into the Indian Ocean and kill all of India and most of the coastal cities around. However the Fithp are herd animals, and cannot understand individualism, which they consider 'roguishness' to be cleansed out of the DNA pool.
Eventually, the humans get viscious and inventive and nuke or otherwise destroy all Fithp installations on Earth and go after the Fithp mother ship "The Message Bearer" almost destroying it before the Fithp offer complete surrender to the humans and seal their fate as the dominant race. The book is well done, especially the habits of the herd-bound Fithp and the resulting psychology, but the length is really a problem. The most interesting part of the book are the last 30 pages.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
"The Gripping Hand" by Niven/Pournelle
Since I feel obliged to read at least the next-following sequel of books I read (same with Ringworld and Gateway) and usually don't go further than the next sequel, as it is disappointing enough not to want to read the next-next one, I went on to "The Gripping Hand" although it was not in my original read list for this year. The sequel is written in the early 90s (first book was in early 70s), and the two decades added some technical detail to flesh out the 2 decades of technology development, so it sounds a bit more convincing. The emphasis is not on technology though, which was extensively explained in the first tome, but on interactions with the moties and the developments in the Motie system that happened in 3 decades (things with moties change very fast).
Although an overall weaker book than the first tome, it does get into the action with Moties much quicker. I am not sure what's the purpose of the New Utah plot in the beginning. Renner gets roughed up a bit, but nothing serious. Then he just 'forgives' the perps and is off to Sparta with Bury. Really? The mormons of the True Church (all of them claim to be 'true' :) kidnap a Navy Intelligence Captain and nothing happens to them? Not even court marshal? Wow. Weak.
Anyway, the second Alderson point opens and Kevin and Horace scramble a few ships and are off to guard it, but too late. Seven Motie ships enter and scatter, only 3 captured. The fleet goes into the Mote system and learns that the Mote Prime has been destroyed by its inhabitants and whomever survived was back to stone age technology. The real Moties are now the asteroid and moon (and Oort cloud) 'civilizations' or better 'families.' The one that made contact with Renner and Bury is called the "Medina Trading Company" and most of the space moties take Arabic names in respect of Bury, as his Fyunch(click) has gone rogue and started selling her services to the highest bidder (making Bury proud).
Follow lots of flash-made and flash-broken space alliances, double-playing and even a threat of complete annihilation by the "Khanate" family, which are eventually defeated by the nuclear weapons Bury brought and the timely arrival of the cavalry (Imperial Space Navy). Much more sex in this book, though it's all PG-13. Good follow up read, but I won't be reading further into this series.
Although an overall weaker book than the first tome, it does get into the action with Moties much quicker. I am not sure what's the purpose of the New Utah plot in the beginning. Renner gets roughed up a bit, but nothing serious. Then he just 'forgives' the perps and is off to Sparta with Bury. Really? The mormons of the True Church (all of them claim to be 'true' :) kidnap a Navy Intelligence Captain and nothing happens to them? Not even court marshal? Wow. Weak.
Anyway, the second Alderson point opens and Kevin and Horace scramble a few ships and are off to guard it, but too late. Seven Motie ships enter and scatter, only 3 captured. The fleet goes into the Mote system and learns that the Mote Prime has been destroyed by its inhabitants and whomever survived was back to stone age technology. The real Moties are now the asteroid and moon (and Oort cloud) 'civilizations' or better 'families.' The one that made contact with Renner and Bury is called the "Medina Trading Company" and most of the space moties take Arabic names in respect of Bury, as his Fyunch(click) has gone rogue and started selling her services to the highest bidder (making Bury proud).
Follow lots of flash-made and flash-broken space alliances, double-playing and even a threat of complete annihilation by the "Khanate" family, which are eventually defeated by the nuclear weapons Bury brought and the timely arrival of the cavalry (Imperial Space Navy). Much more sex in this book, though it's all PG-13. Good follow up read, but I won't be reading further into this series.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
"The Mote in God's Eye" by Niven/Pournelle
This is a good book. A cornerstone Sci Fi classic. However the first 2/3ds are reaaaaly stretched out and borderline boring. Yes, I get it. The CoDominium future history that Pournelle worked so hard to create had to be properly explained and put in context, however I got this book for the Moties! Get to the Moties already!
Niven is notorious for inventing interesting aliens (although they are not very science-based, apart from a few broad strokes) and the Moties do not disappoint. The physical caste adaptations are a bit much when looking from a perspective of a human culture, but not that out there when comparing them to ant culture. The 'secret' revealed by the Moties at the end of the book was obvious already in the first dozen pages after encountering Mote Prime, but it is still entertaining to read.
The Motie characters are very well presented (maybe because there's nothing to compare them with?), but the human characters are just paper figures. Except Sally/Sandra, who is the only female character in the entire book, and does not get that much screen time, all the other characters sound and talk like they are the same character. Very little differentiation. Everyone walks around speaking their thoughts, which in themselves are very similar.
There have been some complaints online that Pournelle made his CoDominium very sexist and misogynistic, but, ultimately, it is his prerogative. In a nutshell: human of the Second Empire in the early 3000s discover the first non-human intelligent species, bottled up in an isolated star system and organize an expedition to meet the Moties. And get more than they've bargained for. Better than 99% of the shows on SyFy.
Niven is notorious for inventing interesting aliens (although they are not very science-based, apart from a few broad strokes) and the Moties do not disappoint. The physical caste adaptations are a bit much when looking from a perspective of a human culture, but not that out there when comparing them to ant culture. The 'secret' revealed by the Moties at the end of the book was obvious already in the first dozen pages after encountering Mote Prime, but it is still entertaining to read.
The Motie characters are very well presented (maybe because there's nothing to compare them with?), but the human characters are just paper figures. Except Sally/Sandra, who is the only female character in the entire book, and does not get that much screen time, all the other characters sound and talk like they are the same character. Very little differentiation. Everyone walks around speaking their thoughts, which in themselves are very similar.
There have been some complaints online that Pournelle made his CoDominium very sexist and misogynistic, but, ultimately, it is his prerogative. In a nutshell: human of the Second Empire in the early 3000s discover the first non-human intelligent species, bottled up in an isolated star system and organize an expedition to meet the Moties. And get more than they've bargained for. Better than 99% of the shows on SyFy.
Friday, October 21, 2016
"The Gods Themselves" by Isaac Asimov
Asimov doesn't usually write about aliens. Also, Asimov doesn't usually write about sex. Well, this book, Asimov's favorite and Hugo and Nebula winner for 1972 is mostly about aliens with quite a bit of sex thrown into. It is mostly the aliens that have sex, though. Humans have a go at it, in the last line of the novel, but we're left out of the details.
The novel consist of three parts; part 1 happening on Earth, part 2 in the ParaWorld, and part 3 on the Moon. In Part 1 a mediocre scientist, Hallan, discovers that a certain material in his lab is getting exchanged with a radioactive isotope that cannot exist in our universe, with its strong and weak nuclear forces as they are. He soon discovers that aliens from a parallel universe (ParaWorld) are exchanging the materials, each of which becomes radioactive in the other universe and emits free energy until it stabilizes. This is used by Earth people to construct "Electron Pump" stations which provide free, clean, unlimited energy, obfuscating all other sources of energy. Hallan becomes the most famous scientist on Earth and grows into vindictive, vicious fellow who destroys anyone who questions his authority, as is the case with a scientist historian who claims that it was actually the ParaMen who invented the pump, and Hallan has only been their puppet. The historian also claims that the pump can destroy our universe (or at least our part of the Galaxy) because it is subtly changing the natural laws.
In the second part we learn about the ParaMen who exist in a universe where matter is not as tightly woven together and the creatures on the ParaWorld can 'meld' with each other, which is how they propagate, and some can also 'meld' into solid rock, being able to turn themselves into almost a mist. The ParaMen have three sexes, left, right and middle, and a child can only be produced if all three sexes meld. The ParaMen are worried because the sources of energy in their universe are disapearing, since all their suns are getting smaller, which is why they invented the "Positron Pump", but some of them have actually discovered the dangers of changing the natural laws, and the destruction that could follow. One 'Middle' alien, Dua, tries to communicate the danger to the humans in the other universe, and even manages to spell FEER (fear) figuring out the language of the humans.
The third part is the weakest. Happens on the moon, where Loonies and Immis live, and dislike the Earthies from the home planet. Halans assistant from the original discovery moves to the moon to experiment on his theories that the Pump can destroy the universe, but doesn't have to, if he can construct a 'safety valve' of sorts. The assistant meets a Loonie tour guide, who is actually an "Intuitionist" (coined by Asimov, intuitive scientist) who joins him in his research, despite being a member of an underground Loonie movement that seeks to remove the Moon from the Earth's orbit and leave the Solar system. Eventually the experiment is successful, the universe is saved, Hallan's reputation destroyed, and the assistant and the tour guide are just about to have sex when the book ends.
Like most Asimov's books, it can be read as a scientific treatise and the science insights are stunning, however the characters and plot are paper-thin, and only serve to explain the amazing scientific conjectures.
The novel consist of three parts; part 1 happening on Earth, part 2 in the ParaWorld, and part 3 on the Moon. In Part 1 a mediocre scientist, Hallan, discovers that a certain material in his lab is getting exchanged with a radioactive isotope that cannot exist in our universe, with its strong and weak nuclear forces as they are. He soon discovers that aliens from a parallel universe (ParaWorld) are exchanging the materials, each of which becomes radioactive in the other universe and emits free energy until it stabilizes. This is used by Earth people to construct "Electron Pump" stations which provide free, clean, unlimited energy, obfuscating all other sources of energy. Hallan becomes the most famous scientist on Earth and grows into vindictive, vicious fellow who destroys anyone who questions his authority, as is the case with a scientist historian who claims that it was actually the ParaMen who invented the pump, and Hallan has only been their puppet. The historian also claims that the pump can destroy our universe (or at least our part of the Galaxy) because it is subtly changing the natural laws.
In the second part we learn about the ParaMen who exist in a universe where matter is not as tightly woven together and the creatures on the ParaWorld can 'meld' with each other, which is how they propagate, and some can also 'meld' into solid rock, being able to turn themselves into almost a mist. The ParaMen have three sexes, left, right and middle, and a child can only be produced if all three sexes meld. The ParaMen are worried because the sources of energy in their universe are disapearing, since all their suns are getting smaller, which is why they invented the "Positron Pump", but some of them have actually discovered the dangers of changing the natural laws, and the destruction that could follow. One 'Middle' alien, Dua, tries to communicate the danger to the humans in the other universe, and even manages to spell FEER (fear) figuring out the language of the humans.
The third part is the weakest. Happens on the moon, where Loonies and Immis live, and dislike the Earthies from the home planet. Halans assistant from the original discovery moves to the moon to experiment on his theories that the Pump can destroy the universe, but doesn't have to, if he can construct a 'safety valve' of sorts. The assistant meets a Loonie tour guide, who is actually an "Intuitionist" (coined by Asimov, intuitive scientist) who joins him in his research, despite being a member of an underground Loonie movement that seeks to remove the Moon from the Earth's orbit and leave the Solar system. Eventually the experiment is successful, the universe is saved, Hallan's reputation destroyed, and the assistant and the tour guide are just about to have sex when the book ends.
Like most Asimov's books, it can be read as a scientific treatise and the science insights are stunning, however the characters and plot are paper-thin, and only serve to explain the amazing scientific conjectures.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)