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tachyondecay
Haze reminds me of a Heinlein novel, with a receptive but clueless protagonist immersed in a society he doesn't understand only to have that society explained to him, usually on socioeconomic terms. The end result is polemical and usually dry, and this book is no exception.
There's actually two stories going on, both featuring Keir Roget as their protagonist. One is the main plot as advertised by the title; the other occurs a few years prior. Up until the end of the book, I found the latter more interesting than the former. Roget's mission to Haze turns out rather dull, since he spends most of his time just listening to an explanation of how parts of the society on Haze—Dubiety to its denizens. There's no real conflict in this part of the story, just exposition disguised as Roget's bewilderment that such a society could function under the nose of the Federation for so long. The mission in Roget's past, however, is more interesting because it holds more mystery and the promise of conflict. Roget is undercover in a small, close-knit religious community in the former United States of America. He's smoking out a conspiracy while posing as an environment and water monitor. When taken together, these two stories demonstrate the importance of conflict in any story, however well written it may be.
Maybe it's unfair of me to be so demanding. There just isn't much about Haze that excited me. Roget is a decent main character: he's capable and intelligent, able to think for himself instead of just blindly obeying and parroting the party line. Unfortunately, he's the only three-dimensional character in a universe populated by cardboard—on both sides. The only two people with whom he has much contact on Dubiety are flimsy, unquestioning mouthpieces for Dubiety philosophy. Likewise, Roget's superiors on the orbiting ship, including the colonel who orders the ill-fated attack on Dubiety, are one-dimensional puppets of a doomed dystopian society. They disbelieve Roget's data and his opinions not because he's unconvincing but because the plot requires them to disbelieve. So not only are they idiots, but they're plot-induced idiots.
Indeed, Roget doesn't have any sort of relationship in Haze. And I don't mean romance. A book can work fine without any romantic overtones, as long as the character forms some sort of relationship with the people around him. In the subplot set in rural America, Roget doesn't spend enough time undercover to do anything except take a woman he suspects of being a conspirator out to lunch (and even then, it's made clear she suspects he's an undercover agent). We don't see him get to know anyone in the town, form friendships or make enemies; all he does is buy an image of a dog painting and then go infiltrate suspicious buildings and shoot paralysis darts at people. On Haze, he forms a tentative friendship with Lyvia. We never learn how this turns out (the book hints that he meets someone else later on), and it's never more than the uneasy alliance of someone assigned as a guide to an essentially alien man.
This is a thin book. It has a credible main character, but from there the rest of the trappings are rather familiar and decorated in an unoriginal manner. There's the aptly-uninspiringly-named "Federation" that has dominion over all of human society, with the exception of this small splinter colony on Haze. The odd mention of "nanotech" and "trans-temporal entropic" technology reminds us that this is a science fiction novel and not some sort of alternative utopian fantasy dream or whatever, but that's pretty much their primary function. The Federation never feels like a threat to Dubiety, so we know before the book ends how the climax is going to play out, and it feels lifeless as a result.
And maybe it's just me, but Modesitt has a serious obsession with describing in detail every meal that his characters have. I'm noticing this in most of his books as I re-read them; he does this for Roget in this book, careful to emphasize that Roget likes lager. Good to know.
No praise for Haze.
There's actually two stories going on, both featuring Keir Roget as their protagonist. One is the main plot as advertised by the title; the other occurs a few years prior. Up until the end of the book, I found the latter more interesting than the former. Roget's mission to Haze turns out rather dull, since he spends most of his time just listening to an explanation of how parts of the society on Haze—Dubiety to its denizens. There's no real conflict in this part of the story, just exposition disguised as Roget's bewilderment that such a society could function under the nose of the Federation for so long. The mission in Roget's past, however, is more interesting because it holds more mystery and the promise of conflict. Roget is undercover in a small, close-knit religious community in the former United States of America. He's smoking out a conspiracy while posing as an environment and water monitor. When taken together, these two stories demonstrate the importance of conflict in any story, however well written it may be.
Maybe it's unfair of me to be so demanding. There just isn't much about Haze that excited me. Roget is a decent main character: he's capable and intelligent, able to think for himself instead of just blindly obeying and parroting the party line. Unfortunately, he's the only three-dimensional character in a universe populated by cardboard—on both sides. The only two people with whom he has much contact on Dubiety are flimsy, unquestioning mouthpieces for Dubiety philosophy. Likewise, Roget's superiors on the orbiting ship, including the colonel who orders the ill-fated attack on Dubiety, are one-dimensional puppets of a doomed dystopian society. They disbelieve Roget's data and his opinions not because he's unconvincing but because the plot requires them to disbelieve. So not only are they idiots, but they're plot-induced idiots.
Indeed, Roget doesn't have any sort of relationship in Haze. And I don't mean romance. A book can work fine without any romantic overtones, as long as the character forms some sort of relationship with the people around him. In the subplot set in rural America, Roget doesn't spend enough time undercover to do anything except take a woman he suspects of being a conspirator out to lunch (and even then, it's made clear she suspects he's an undercover agent). We don't see him get to know anyone in the town, form friendships or make enemies; all he does is buy an image of a dog painting and then go infiltrate suspicious buildings and shoot paralysis darts at people. On Haze, he forms a tentative friendship with Lyvia. We never learn how this turns out (the book hints that he meets someone else later on), and it's never more than the uneasy alliance of someone assigned as a guide to an essentially alien man.
This is a thin book. It has a credible main character, but from there the rest of the trappings are rather familiar and decorated in an unoriginal manner. There's the aptly-uninspiringly-named "Federation" that has dominion over all of human society, with the exception of this small splinter colony on Haze. The odd mention of "nanotech" and "trans-temporal entropic" technology reminds us that this is a science fiction novel and not some sort of alternative utopian fantasy dream or whatever, but that's pretty much their primary function. The Federation never feels like a threat to Dubiety, so we know before the book ends how the climax is going to play out, and it feels lifeless as a result.
And maybe it's just me, but Modesitt has a serious obsession with describing in detail every meal that his characters have. I'm noticing this in most of his books as I re-read them; he does this for Roget in this book, careful to emphasize that Roget likes lager. Good to know.
No praise for Haze.
While I haven't read a lot of serious scholarship about Shakespeare, my fascination with him has always been a little more than casual since first discovering his plays. In high school, I was part of a group of students, led by one fantastic English teacher, called the "Shakespeare Seven." We met at lunch and read King Lear, then the next year we read The Merchant of Venice on our own time outside of school. So when I found out that Bill Bryson, whose A Short History of Nearly Everything blew me away, had written a book about Shakespeare's life, there was really no question. I would read it.
Bryson brings his clear style to Shakespeare's life, although this book is drier than A Short History. This may be a result of the narrower subject matter—and as Bryson points out, we know much less about Shakespeare's life than most scholars are content to admit. Part of the allure of Shakespeare is as a cautionary tale for literary historians and critics, and a reminder to readers to always read with a critical eye—information is not credible just because an author insists it is so.
When it comes to what we do know about Shakespeare, it's fascinating to learn how we know it. Bryson takes us into the National Archive, the Folgers Shakespeare Library, and many other institutions, showing us exactly how we discovered Shakespeare's whereabouts and activities at certain points in his life. The sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries weren't known for their fastidious record-keeping, but the sheepskin they used for records is durable enough that what records they made have mostly survived, thankfully. Unfortunately, searching through box upon box of sheepskins filled with nearly-illegible Elizabethan handwriting is a daunting task.
Much about Shakespeare's life, or supposed life, is daunting, and so many scholars—and non-scholars—have tried to identify alternative authors for the works we attribute to the Bard. I'm firmly Stratfordian in my views, but it's always an interesting academic discussion. Bryson is outright dismissive of any question of authorship, going through some of the more popular alternative authors and explaining why they couldn't possibly have written Shakespeare's plays. For those for whom the authorship question is of great interest, this book won't satisfy.
There's more on offer here than just Shakespearean scholarship though. Bryson gives us a glimpse into the zeitgeist of Elizabethan/Jacobean England. It's easy to telegraph the details of Shakespeare's life while robbing them of context. Without Bryson's book, for instance, I wouldn't know that "the second-best bed was often the marital bed—the first being reserved for important visitors—and therefore replete with tender associations." This puts the oft-tantalizing anecdote that Shakespeare gave his wife his second-best bed, and not his first, into a slightly different context. Granted, Bryson warns us against drawing conclusions that amount to speculation—the truth is, we don't know what Shakespeare's state of mind was when he composed his will or his feelings toward his wife. Still, without Bryson's attention to detail, this biography would have been a very different book. He's careful to explain when a term or action would have a different significance in the sixteenth century than it does today, a distinction that's the difference between reading a Shakespeare play and actually comprehending at least parts of it.
For the serious budding Shakespeare scholar, I'm afraid that this book is too brief an introduction to the Bard—but then, it's meant to be. For fans of Bill Bryson, or indeed anyone looking for a brief biography of Shakespeare, this book provides a sketch of sixteenth century life with the myth and speculation stripped away. Neither adventurous nor overly-didactic, Shakespeare hits just the right note for a brief biography of the Bard.
Bryson brings his clear style to Shakespeare's life, although this book is drier than A Short History. This may be a result of the narrower subject matter—and as Bryson points out, we know much less about Shakespeare's life than most scholars are content to admit. Part of the allure of Shakespeare is as a cautionary tale for literary historians and critics, and a reminder to readers to always read with a critical eye—information is not credible just because an author insists it is so.
When it comes to what we do know about Shakespeare, it's fascinating to learn how we know it. Bryson takes us into the National Archive, the Folgers Shakespeare Library, and many other institutions, showing us exactly how we discovered Shakespeare's whereabouts and activities at certain points in his life. The sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries weren't known for their fastidious record-keeping, but the sheepskin they used for records is durable enough that what records they made have mostly survived, thankfully. Unfortunately, searching through box upon box of sheepskins filled with nearly-illegible Elizabethan handwriting is a daunting task.
Much about Shakespeare's life, or supposed life, is daunting, and so many scholars—and non-scholars—have tried to identify alternative authors for the works we attribute to the Bard. I'm firmly Stratfordian in my views, but it's always an interesting academic discussion. Bryson is outright dismissive of any question of authorship, going through some of the more popular alternative authors and explaining why they couldn't possibly have written Shakespeare's plays. For those for whom the authorship question is of great interest, this book won't satisfy.
There's more on offer here than just Shakespearean scholarship though. Bryson gives us a glimpse into the zeitgeist of Elizabethan/Jacobean England. It's easy to telegraph the details of Shakespeare's life while robbing them of context. Without Bryson's book, for instance, I wouldn't know that "the second-best bed was often the marital bed—the first being reserved for important visitors—and therefore replete with tender associations." This puts the oft-tantalizing anecdote that Shakespeare gave his wife his second-best bed, and not his first, into a slightly different context. Granted, Bryson warns us against drawing conclusions that amount to speculation—the truth is, we don't know what Shakespeare's state of mind was when he composed his will or his feelings toward his wife. Still, without Bryson's attention to detail, this biography would have been a very different book. He's careful to explain when a term or action would have a different significance in the sixteenth century than it does today, a distinction that's the difference between reading a Shakespeare play and actually comprehending at least parts of it.
For the serious budding Shakespeare scholar, I'm afraid that this book is too brief an introduction to the Bard—but then, it's meant to be. For fans of Bill Bryson, or indeed anyone looking for a brief biography of Shakespeare, this book provides a sketch of sixteenth century life with the myth and speculation stripped away. Neither adventurous nor overly-didactic, Shakespeare hits just the right note for a brief biography of the Bard.
When something momentous, like a Neanderthal physicist from an alternate universe visiting our universe, happens once, it's a fluke. When it happens a second time—and when the portal that connects the two universes shows every sign of lasting indefinitely—it's a paradigm shift. Society will have to adjust to having Neanderthal neighbours like Ponter Boddit, who is not only redefining what we consider "human"; he's also holding up a mirror to "human" society, forcing us to reevaluate all the practices we consider normal and even sensible.
Robert J. Sawyer once again uses the Neanderthals as a foil for humanity's questionable environmental and ethical policies. That's not to say the Neanderthals are perfect. In Hominids, we see an example of misguided justice and misjudgement on the part of one Neanderthal. In Humans, the Neanderthals' High Gray Council, its world government, is slow to see the benefits of staying in communication with our universe. When Ponter is shot and its ambassador kills the shooter, the Council decides to cut ties with our universe, stopped only by a brash plan by the ambassador. In general, all the aspects of Neanderthal society that seem to make it peaceful and successful—the Companions, their cosmology, their approach to environmental management—have hindered their development in areas in which we are proud of our scientific achievements. We've been to the moon and the ocean floor; the Neanderthals have done neither. But much of our scientific advance comes at the price of, at the behest of, the need for weapons of war.
Even though it's clear that Neanderthal society is far from perfect or ideal, Sawyer's obviously using it critique our society. Sometimes this comes off heavy-handed, but mostly it works well. My favourite such scene occurs at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Ponter, overwhelmed by the sheer number of people killed in wars, says that Congress should have to declare war in view of the memorial. While I'm sure that politicians weigh the loss of past lives every time they decide to declare war, this scene is a potent reminder of how easy it is for us to lose sight of lessons learned in favour of ephemeral goals. Humans are passionate and ambitious, and while this has resulted in marvellous achievements, it's also a source of actions we later, as a society, tend to regret. Sawyer's "alien visitor to planet Earth" perspective does its job as it reminds us to always re-evaluate our principles, even if we do end up deciding they're correct.
In my review of Hominids, I criticized Sawyer's portrayal of physics. Quantum mechanics and portals don't come up much in Humans. Instead, the new scientific element is a geomagnetic reversal. I'm not as familiar with the science behind this, so I'm not going to discuss it at much length. Suffice it to say that Sawyer once again links his science to his exploration of what makes us conscious beings, and it's interesting, I'll give him that. Also, he presents it in such a way that it's a constant but unassuming part of the plot that readily takes a back seat to the character conflicts that dominate Humans.
Ponter and Mary are now trying to chisel out a "relationship" as best they can. It's difficult, since Neanderthals and Homo sapiens have radically different ideas with regards to mating, cohabitation, and marriage. Mary still perplexes me, and I don't find her a very satisfactory character. Sawyer just doesn't sell me on the motivations behind how she acts, and as a result, she seems to be acting a certain way because the plot requires that she does so. It's not that I'm incredulous that any scientist or any divorced person can still be a Catholic—rather, I'm incredulous of Mary after hearing her flabbergasted explanations to Ponter on how she reconciles the contradictory aspects of her personality. Sawyer is ascribing complex character traits to characters who are not, evidently, that complex at all, and the book creaks under the added stress.
Humans is much like Hominids. I found it a very average book. Typical of Sawyer's writing, it didn't take me long to read at all, and overall the book's enjoyable and interesting. It could be a lot better.
Robert J. Sawyer once again uses the Neanderthals as a foil for humanity's questionable environmental and ethical policies. That's not to say the Neanderthals are perfect. In Hominids, we see an example of misguided justice and misjudgement on the part of one Neanderthal. In Humans, the Neanderthals' High Gray Council, its world government, is slow to see the benefits of staying in communication with our universe. When Ponter is shot and its ambassador kills the shooter, the Council decides to cut ties with our universe, stopped only by a brash plan by the ambassador. In general, all the aspects of Neanderthal society that seem to make it peaceful and successful—the Companions, their cosmology, their approach to environmental management—have hindered their development in areas in which we are proud of our scientific achievements. We've been to the moon and the ocean floor; the Neanderthals have done neither. But much of our scientific advance comes at the price of, at the behest of, the need for weapons of war.
Even though it's clear that Neanderthal society is far from perfect or ideal, Sawyer's obviously using it critique our society. Sometimes this comes off heavy-handed, but mostly it works well. My favourite such scene occurs at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Ponter, overwhelmed by the sheer number of people killed in wars, says that Congress should have to declare war in view of the memorial. While I'm sure that politicians weigh the loss of past lives every time they decide to declare war, this scene is a potent reminder of how easy it is for us to lose sight of lessons learned in favour of ephemeral goals. Humans are passionate and ambitious, and while this has resulted in marvellous achievements, it's also a source of actions we later, as a society, tend to regret. Sawyer's "alien visitor to planet Earth" perspective does its job as it reminds us to always re-evaluate our principles, even if we do end up deciding they're correct.
In my review of Hominids, I criticized Sawyer's portrayal of physics. Quantum mechanics and portals don't come up much in Humans. Instead, the new scientific element is a geomagnetic reversal. I'm not as familiar with the science behind this, so I'm not going to discuss it at much length. Suffice it to say that Sawyer once again links his science to his exploration of what makes us conscious beings, and it's interesting, I'll give him that. Also, he presents it in such a way that it's a constant but unassuming part of the plot that readily takes a back seat to the character conflicts that dominate Humans.
Ponter and Mary are now trying to chisel out a "relationship" as best they can. It's difficult, since Neanderthals and Homo sapiens have radically different ideas with regards to mating, cohabitation, and marriage. Mary still perplexes me, and I don't find her a very satisfactory character. Sawyer just doesn't sell me on the motivations behind how she acts, and as a result, she seems to be acting a certain way because the plot requires that she does so. It's not that I'm incredulous that any scientist or any divorced person can still be a Catholic—rather, I'm incredulous of Mary after hearing her flabbergasted explanations to Ponter on how she reconciles the contradictory aspects of her personality. Sawyer is ascribing complex character traits to characters who are not, evidently, that complex at all, and the book creaks under the added stress.
Humans is much like Hominids. I found it a very average book. Typical of Sawyer's writing, it didn't take me long to read at all, and overall the book's enjoyable and interesting. It could be a lot better.
Didn't we just do this? I need to take a break from Robert J. Sawyer for a while now, since I just read Hominids, Humans, and now Hybrids. The complete trilogy! Do I get a set of steak knives?
If you're really interested in a critique, I advise you to read my reviews, neither of which are very spoilerific, of the first two books. All my criticism (and praise) of those books holds for Hybrids as well. It saves me typing and saves you bandwidth and valuable time you could otherwise use for, say, reading books.
Oh, and there are spoilers now. You started reading this review regardless of the automatic warning, though, so I assume you're OK with that.
One of the main plots in Hybrids centres around Ponter and Mary's budding relationship. They need to work out living arrangements, considering that Ponter spends twenty-five days of the month living with his man-mate, Adikor, and if bonded to Mary would only expect to see her four days a month. Mary has to get over her conditioned discomfort with Ponter and Adikor's intimate relationship, and she has to decide where she wants to live—her Earth, or his. Finally, Mary and Ponter want to have a child, and they need to decide if it will have a predisposition toward religious belief (like humans) or be an atheist (like Neanderthals).
This plot is the most interesting part of the book. Mary's ultimate decision to make their child a born atheist is no doubt controversial. I'm an atheist, and even I at first expressed some indignation—I thought Mary's decision was one that she couldn't make, that the child should have the choice. But belief isn't a choice, is it? I can't just choose to suddenly change my mind and believe in God . . . such convictions are deeper than conscious thought. So my initial position seems to be wrong; the idea that Mary and Ponter's child should be born with the potential for choosing religion or atheism because it's an "obstacle" to be overcome is just as bad as saying that the child should be born blind so it can "overcome" the obstacles associated with blindness. Religious people would no doubt disagree . . . but such a debate is outside the scope of this review. It's enough that Hybrids sparks the debate; science fiction should do that.
The other plot is Jock Krieger's genocidal attempt to infect all Neanderthals with an altered, selective strain of Ebola so as to wipe clean their pristine version of Earth and leave it ripe for human colonization. This plot isn't nearly as convincing nor as interesting as the other one. Firstly, Jock is just such a stereotypical villain—the "avaricious American"—that I cringed a great deal while reading his scenes. Secondly, Sawyer can't maintain the suspense required for the amount of travel his characters have to accomplish just to foil the bad guy.
With regards to Jock, I had a hard time believing someone could be both that nefarious and that blasé at the same time. (I'm sure some people in real life are, but fiction, unlike real life, has to make sense.) His character didn't sit well with me in Humans either; he seemed to fluctuate between earnest scientist who desired synergy and coldblooded game theorist who only wanted to exploited the Neanderthals. And as soon as Mary gives him the Neanderthal codon writer, the first thing he does is manufacture a virus that kills Neanderthals—and only Neanderthals. It wasn't a big deal to him though.
After reading [b:Flashforward|337132|Flashforward|Robert J. Sawyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173853613s/337132.jpg|327550] and these books, I've realized that Sawyer has a penchant for forcing his characters to traverse nearly impossible distances in very short lengths of time. In the case of Hybrids, he ups the ante: our characters have to go back and forth as their goals change toward the very end of the book, and I had a hard time keeping it all straight.
What most let me down about Hybrids, however, was the fizzle of the threat of Earth's geomagnetic reversal. In Humans, we learned that it was possible that the collapse of the Earth's magnetic field would cause human consciousness to "crash." Not only does Sawyer dismiss this threat in Hybrids, but he does it in an incredibly banal way, tacking it on after the climax where Mary and Ponter confront Jock. All of humanity goes on a great big magnetically-induced acid trip with themes ranging from religion to alien abduction? While this could be an important plot point in its own right, the way Sawyer included it at the end of the book turns it into an afterthought and undermines the intriguing ideas he advanced in Humans about the link between consciousness and Earth's magnetic field.
So what's new with Hybrids? Not much. Babies, genocide, a little uncomfortable dramatic irony. As far as concluding volumes go, Hybrids wraps up the plot nice and neatly, but it doesn't earn any points in the drama department. The story here is thin and not very satisfying.
If you're really interested in a critique, I advise you to read my reviews, neither of which are very spoilerific, of the first two books. All my criticism (and praise) of those books holds for Hybrids as well. It saves me typing and saves you bandwidth and valuable time you could otherwise use for, say, reading books.
Oh, and there are spoilers now. You started reading this review regardless of the automatic warning, though, so I assume you're OK with that.
One of the main plots in Hybrids centres around Ponter and Mary's budding relationship. They need to work out living arrangements, considering that Ponter spends twenty-five days of the month living with his man-mate, Adikor, and if bonded to Mary would only expect to see her four days a month. Mary has to get over her conditioned discomfort with Ponter and Adikor's intimate relationship, and she has to decide where she wants to live—her Earth, or his. Finally, Mary and Ponter want to have a child, and they need to decide if it will have a predisposition toward religious belief (like humans) or be an atheist (like Neanderthals).
This plot is the most interesting part of the book. Mary's ultimate decision to make their child a born atheist is no doubt controversial. I'm an atheist, and even I at first expressed some indignation—I thought Mary's decision was one that she couldn't make, that the child should have the choice. But belief isn't a choice, is it? I can't just choose to suddenly change my mind and believe in God . . . such convictions are deeper than conscious thought. So my initial position seems to be wrong; the idea that Mary and Ponter's child should be born with the potential for choosing religion or atheism because it's an "obstacle" to be overcome is just as bad as saying that the child should be born blind so it can "overcome" the obstacles associated with blindness. Religious people would no doubt disagree . . . but such a debate is outside the scope of this review. It's enough that Hybrids sparks the debate; science fiction should do that.
The other plot is Jock Krieger's genocidal attempt to infect all Neanderthals with an altered, selective strain of Ebola so as to wipe clean their pristine version of Earth and leave it ripe for human colonization. This plot isn't nearly as convincing nor as interesting as the other one. Firstly, Jock is just such a stereotypical villain—the "avaricious American"—that I cringed a great deal while reading his scenes. Secondly, Sawyer can't maintain the suspense required for the amount of travel his characters have to accomplish just to foil the bad guy.
With regards to Jock, I had a hard time believing someone could be both that nefarious and that blasé at the same time. (I'm sure some people in real life are, but fiction, unlike real life, has to make sense.) His character didn't sit well with me in Humans either; he seemed to fluctuate between earnest scientist who desired synergy and coldblooded game theorist who only wanted to exploited the Neanderthals. And as soon as Mary gives him the Neanderthal codon writer, the first thing he does is manufacture a virus that kills Neanderthals—and only Neanderthals. It wasn't a big deal to him though.
After reading [b:Flashforward|337132|Flashforward|Robert J. Sawyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173853613s/337132.jpg|327550] and these books, I've realized that Sawyer has a penchant for forcing his characters to traverse nearly impossible distances in very short lengths of time. In the case of Hybrids, he ups the ante: our characters have to go back and forth as their goals change toward the very end of the book, and I had a hard time keeping it all straight.
What most let me down about Hybrids, however, was the fizzle of the threat of Earth's geomagnetic reversal. In Humans, we learned that it was possible that the collapse of the Earth's magnetic field would cause human consciousness to "crash." Not only does Sawyer dismiss this threat in Hybrids, but he does it in an incredibly banal way, tacking it on after the climax where Mary and Ponter confront Jock. All of humanity goes on a great big magnetically-induced acid trip with themes ranging from religion to alien abduction? While this could be an important plot point in its own right, the way Sawyer included it at the end of the book turns it into an afterthought and undermines the intriguing ideas he advanced in Humans about the link between consciousness and Earth's magnetic field.
So what's new with Hybrids? Not much. Babies, genocide, a little uncomfortable dramatic irony. As far as concluding volumes go, Hybrids wraps up the plot nice and neatly, but it doesn't earn any points in the drama department. The story here is thin and not very satisfying.
Full disclosure: I was brought up Christian (Protestant), although my family wasn't particularly observant--we went to church, less frequently as I grew up, and my dad would read from the Bible each Christmas (the nativity story, naturally). As I approach the third decade of my life and am shocked to find myself becoming an adult, not just legally but intellectually, I slide further and further along the scale from agnostic to atheist. Although I was raised Christian, I don't think I was ever a theist, for the reasons elucidated by Dawkins in Chapter 9.
Even though my conviction of atheism has grown stronger in past years, I've avoided reading The God Delusion. Truthfully, Richard Dawkins rather scares me at times, by dint of his vociferous opposition to religion. However, reading this book turned out to be a good call. Firstly, I found that I do share most of Dawkins' opinions on these issues. Secondly, the book itself is pretty entertaining, and for the most part espouses logical arguments. Finally, it allowed me to do away with the spectre of Dawkins hanging over my inclinations to atheism.
Dawkins has set the bar high for himself in The God Delusion; first he attempts to justify atheism, then he tries to show that religion is harmful as well. He succeeds in the first count, and he makes some compelling arguments for the second count. Unfortunately, The God Delusion creaks and groans under the weight of hyperbole and overemphasis. Intelligent though he may be, succinct he is not!
The first four chapters establish Dawkins' topic (religion religion, as opposed to the reverential "Einsteinian" religion he believes many scientists practise), contemporary attitudes toward atheism in America and Britain, arguments for God's existence, and arguments against God's existence. The latter two chapters of this quartet are of particular interest; Dawkins adequately summarizes the major arguments for God's existence. His criticism of them is slightly less robust, owing mostly to an overuse of rhetorical questions and his incredulous tone, as if he can't actually believe people would use these arguments. Still, I appreciated his deconstruction of Pascal's Wager, where he exposes it as patently untenable: you can't fake belief.
Chapter 5, "The Roots of Religion," is less remarkable. If one is truly interested in the origins of religion from an evolutionary perspective, there are probably better books available on the subject. Dawkins can't do it justice in a book crammed full of so many other discussions.
Chapters 6 and 7 challenge the assertion that religion is the only way to impose morality on society. In particular, I liked how Dawkins deprecates the Bible as a source of morality: a literal interpretation of the Bible would yield a moral system considered abhorrent by most people today, yet a symbolic interpretation requires some sort of external criterion by which to judge which parts are "symbolic" and what exactly they symbolize. Dawkins makes it clear that while religion may enforce--i.e., police--morality, it cannot provide the golden rule for morality ex nihilo.
My favourite chapters, however, were chapters 8 and 9. Finally Dawkins gets to his pet subject: the harm caused by religion. These are the most interesting and certainly the most controversial chapters of the book; if you try reading The God Delusion and find it hard to get past the first couple of chapters, skip ahead to chapter 8. It's worth slogging through just these two chapters, if none others. I agree with Dawkins' opinion that raising children in a particular faith is irresponsible--it's indoctrination. I don't begrudge raising children in religious communities or to practise religious rituals, so long as those children are educated to think critically about their faith and beliefs--and are not ostracized if they choose to reject religion. My only regret is that Dawkins makes a massive digression into the abortion debate that seems tangentially related to his main point at best....
The last chapter, chapter 10, is an adequate peroration but far from the inspiring exultation of science that Dawkins may have intended to shoehorn into the end of his book. It piqued my interest in re-reading [b:A Short History of Nearly Everything|21|A Short History of Nearly Everything|Bill Bryson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255682270s/21.jpg|2305997], which much better captures the sentiments Dawkins expresses here.
As much as I enjoyed The God Delusion, it should have been better. Too many rhetorical questions, too many "atheist prejudice horror stories," and Dawkins can't help but belabour every single point. Also, the tone of most of the book is just a little too smug--to be fair, Dawkins goes out of his way to express his respect for his intellectual opponents. Yet there's a distinct sense of incredulity that people actually believe some of the arguments he has set out to debunk. While I enjoy smug humour to a certain extent, The God Delusion often tried my patience.
Theist, deist, or atheist (or whatever other permutation you've decided to concoct), I do think The God Delusion is worth reading. If anything, it's the perfect storm for creating more debate--for "consciousness raising," as Dawkins puts it in his book--and that makes it commendable. Plus, it's dedicated to [a:Douglas Adams|4|Douglas Adams|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1189120061p2/4.jpg]. Like Dawkins, I miss Douglas.
Even though my conviction of atheism has grown stronger in past years, I've avoided reading The God Delusion. Truthfully, Richard Dawkins rather scares me at times, by dint of his vociferous opposition to religion. However, reading this book turned out to be a good call. Firstly, I found that I do share most of Dawkins' opinions on these issues. Secondly, the book itself is pretty entertaining, and for the most part espouses logical arguments. Finally, it allowed me to do away with the spectre of Dawkins hanging over my inclinations to atheism.
Dawkins has set the bar high for himself in The God Delusion; first he attempts to justify atheism, then he tries to show that religion is harmful as well. He succeeds in the first count, and he makes some compelling arguments for the second count. Unfortunately, The God Delusion creaks and groans under the weight of hyperbole and overemphasis. Intelligent though he may be, succinct he is not!
The first four chapters establish Dawkins' topic (religion religion, as opposed to the reverential "Einsteinian" religion he believes many scientists practise), contemporary attitudes toward atheism in America and Britain, arguments for God's existence, and arguments against God's existence. The latter two chapters of this quartet are of particular interest; Dawkins adequately summarizes the major arguments for God's existence. His criticism of them is slightly less robust, owing mostly to an overuse of rhetorical questions and his incredulous tone, as if he can't actually believe people would use these arguments. Still, I appreciated his deconstruction of Pascal's Wager, where he exposes it as patently untenable: you can't fake belief.
Chapter 5, "The Roots of Religion," is less remarkable. If one is truly interested in the origins of religion from an evolutionary perspective, there are probably better books available on the subject. Dawkins can't do it justice in a book crammed full of so many other discussions.
Chapters 6 and 7 challenge the assertion that religion is the only way to impose morality on society. In particular, I liked how Dawkins deprecates the Bible as a source of morality: a literal interpretation of the Bible would yield a moral system considered abhorrent by most people today, yet a symbolic interpretation requires some sort of external criterion by which to judge which parts are "symbolic" and what exactly they symbolize. Dawkins makes it clear that while religion may enforce--i.e., police--morality, it cannot provide the golden rule for morality ex nihilo.
My favourite chapters, however, were chapters 8 and 9. Finally Dawkins gets to his pet subject: the harm caused by religion. These are the most interesting and certainly the most controversial chapters of the book; if you try reading The God Delusion and find it hard to get past the first couple of chapters, skip ahead to chapter 8. It's worth slogging through just these two chapters, if none others. I agree with Dawkins' opinion that raising children in a particular faith is irresponsible--it's indoctrination. I don't begrudge raising children in religious communities or to practise religious rituals, so long as those children are educated to think critically about their faith and beliefs--and are not ostracized if they choose to reject religion. My only regret is that Dawkins makes a massive digression into the abortion debate that seems tangentially related to his main point at best....
The last chapter, chapter 10, is an adequate peroration but far from the inspiring exultation of science that Dawkins may have intended to shoehorn into the end of his book. It piqued my interest in re-reading [b:A Short History of Nearly Everything|21|A Short History of Nearly Everything|Bill Bryson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255682270s/21.jpg|2305997], which much better captures the sentiments Dawkins expresses here.
As much as I enjoyed The God Delusion, it should have been better. Too many rhetorical questions, too many "atheist prejudice horror stories," and Dawkins can't help but belabour every single point. Also, the tone of most of the book is just a little too smug--to be fair, Dawkins goes out of his way to express his respect for his intellectual opponents. Yet there's a distinct sense of incredulity that people actually believe some of the arguments he has set out to debunk. While I enjoy smug humour to a certain extent, The God Delusion often tried my patience.
Theist, deist, or atheist (or whatever other permutation you've decided to concoct), I do think The God Delusion is worth reading. If anything, it's the perfect storm for creating more debate--for "consciousness raising," as Dawkins puts it in his book--and that makes it commendable. Plus, it's dedicated to [a:Douglas Adams|4|Douglas Adams|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1189120061p2/4.jpg]. Like Dawkins, I miss Douglas.
When I first began reading To Your Scattered Bodies Go, I didn't give it enough credit. It has an amazing premise, and as a narrative it contains both the conflict and the thematic depth required to create a compelling science fiction story. And, I mean, it won the Hugo award—that can't be bad! So why was I so incredulous in the beginning? I'm not sure. It might have been the opening, which didn't draw me in like a book should. And it was difficult to connect to Burton as a character at first, although eventually I came to respect his adventurous, rebellious nature.
What first won me over was Burton's relentless rational approach to analyzing Riverworld. The majority of resurrected humans at first regarded their new life as a religious event (although obviously it didn't correspond to whatever religion they endorsed). Burton and many of his companions apply the scientific method to their observations, from the use of their grails and the operation of the grailstones to the way in which resurrection works. This approach to Riverworld is one reason Burton survives for so long and becomes a thorn in the side of Riverworld's operators (whoever They may be).
To Your Scattered Bodies Go is actually the combination of two stories: a look at what would happen to humanity if everyone was collectively resurrected in a massive river valley, and the story of one man's struggle to discover and thwart those who caused this resurrection.
The first story allows Farmer to ask the big questions. Are humans deserving of a second chance? Can they actually change their ways? Aren't we all curious about what really happened in past societies? Who wouldn't want a chance to see what Caesar was like or talk to Shakespeare? To his credit, however, Farmer sprinkles his story with famous personages and leaves it at that. He could easily have set up an all-star cast for little reason, but by limiting who we meet, he keeps the story focused and makes those people all the more interesting. By far, the famous person who gets the most pagetime is Hermann Göring. He starts out as the opportunistic conqueror he died as, but gradually he becomes a guilt-ridden madman and then the local leader of a post-Resurrection religion. Göring is Farmer's case study and a fascinating one.
The second story, however, provides the meat of the conflict. Burton discovers that whoever resurrected humanity has agents among them, watching them. Depending on who he asks, these entities either have an altruistic agenda or a sinister one. Either way, Burton plans to get to the bottom of the mystery by finding the source of the River. It's a common story: nearly powerless protagonist pitted against beings of immense power with his only weapon his will to survive and triumph. But set in the enchanting Riverworld, Burton's quest is part legendary—he rightly compares it to The Odyssey—and part necessary: he needs to rebel and explore, because he isn't content to stay home and help in the founding of a new civilization.
I would have liked to see Farmer develop some of the other characters in more interesting ways. Alice Hargreaves shows up, but her role is only as love interest and (sometime) warrior. Her relationship with Burton is superficial and tenuous at best. Farmer creates a small cast of characters, but then he leaves them behind as Burton begins venturing across Riverworld via "The Suicide Express" and we don't see them again until the end. I'm not satisfied with that . . . I would be more interested in learning what happened to them during the time Burton was away.
This book pleasantly surprised me. It's somewhat slow at the beginning, but the mystery of who resurrected humanity and why quickly becomes engrossing. To Your Scattered Bodies Go is a good science fiction exemplar, something one can hold up and say, "See? This makes you think. And it's fun to read too!"
What first won me over was Burton's relentless rational approach to analyzing Riverworld. The majority of resurrected humans at first regarded their new life as a religious event (although obviously it didn't correspond to whatever religion they endorsed). Burton and many of his companions apply the scientific method to their observations, from the use of their grails and the operation of the grailstones to the way in which resurrection works. This approach to Riverworld is one reason Burton survives for so long and becomes a thorn in the side of Riverworld's operators (whoever They may be).
To Your Scattered Bodies Go is actually the combination of two stories: a look at what would happen to humanity if everyone was collectively resurrected in a massive river valley, and the story of one man's struggle to discover and thwart those who caused this resurrection.
The first story allows Farmer to ask the big questions. Are humans deserving of a second chance? Can they actually change their ways? Aren't we all curious about what really happened in past societies? Who wouldn't want a chance to see what Caesar was like or talk to Shakespeare? To his credit, however, Farmer sprinkles his story with famous personages and leaves it at that. He could easily have set up an all-star cast for little reason, but by limiting who we meet, he keeps the story focused and makes those people all the more interesting. By far, the famous person who gets the most pagetime is Hermann Göring. He starts out as the opportunistic conqueror he died as, but gradually he becomes a guilt-ridden madman and then the local leader of a post-Resurrection religion. Göring is Farmer's case study and a fascinating one.
The second story, however, provides the meat of the conflict. Burton discovers that whoever resurrected humanity has agents among them, watching them. Depending on who he asks, these entities either have an altruistic agenda or a sinister one. Either way, Burton plans to get to the bottom of the mystery by finding the source of the River. It's a common story: nearly powerless protagonist pitted against beings of immense power with his only weapon his will to survive and triumph. But set in the enchanting Riverworld, Burton's quest is part legendary—he rightly compares it to The Odyssey—and part necessary: he needs to rebel and explore, because he isn't content to stay home and help in the founding of a new civilization.
I would have liked to see Farmer develop some of the other characters in more interesting ways. Alice Hargreaves shows up, but her role is only as love interest and (sometime) warrior. Her relationship with Burton is superficial and tenuous at best. Farmer creates a small cast of characters, but then he leaves them behind as Burton begins venturing across Riverworld via "The Suicide Express" and we don't see them again until the end. I'm not satisfied with that . . . I would be more interested in learning what happened to them during the time Burton was away.
This book pleasantly surprised me. It's somewhat slow at the beginning, but the mystery of who resurrected humanity and why quickly becomes engrossing. To Your Scattered Bodies Go is a good science fiction exemplar, something one can hold up and say, "See? This makes you think. And it's fun to read too!"
This is my first book of the year, and it took me quite some time to get into it.
Few things annoy me more than when an author decides to ignore such a useful stylistic conventions as using quotation marks to offset dialogue! I like quotation marks. It makes the book easier to parse and gives me a clear idea of who is saying what. I discarded [b:Blindness|4307454|Blindness|José Saramago|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255970979s/4307454.jpg|3213039] for similar reasons. Had I not been more favourably disposed to M.G. Vassanji after reading [b:The Assassin's Song|1664732|The Assassin's Song|M.G. Vassanji|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1186558450s/1664732.jpg|1659597], I might have done the same thing.
I have an inkling as to why Vassanji chose this departure from the norm. By abandoning quotation marks—in effect, dialogue itself—everything everyone says comes to us via Vikram and is interpreted and filtered through Vikram. All of the characters speak in Vikram's voice, and his is the only voice in the book for that reason. Still, this was an annoying aspect of The In-Between World that did not encourage me to continue reading.
After about the first third of the book, the story picks up as Vikram moves into adulthood. It's painful. That can be a good thing—and I didn't expect a story of unmitigated happiness here. Vassanji is capturing the zeitgeist in the microcosm of an individual, and seldom is the zeitgeist a wholly good one. Vassanji is careful, however, to portray the bad and the good. It was a time of murder and corruption, but it was also a time of hope and inspiration.
As a depiction of Kenya in the late twentieth century, this book fails to yield the scope required for a detailed understanding of the political dynamics at work. However, the interactions between the characters, particularly between Vikram and his relations, give us an idea of the pressures the external world puts upon everyone in Nairobi. Nairobi is much like the main character: a nexus of European, particularly British worldviews with East African identity and cultures. And that portrayal of personal transformation, of a change of identity as Kenya comes of age and gains independence, is the most rewarding part of The In-Between World.
This book has a perfect title. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall describes precisely what it is about. Vikram is in-between everything and everyone. As an Indian born and raised in Kenya, he is neither an "African" nor an outsider. He is alien to his own country. Among his family, he can never seem to take sides in issues. And in Kenya at large, he becomes a power and money broker, not out of avarice but because he gets caught up in larger affairs.
It's this sense of "going with the flow" and powerlessness that prevents me from sympathizing with Vikram. He only takes responsibility for his actions at the end; that's why he's telling this story, I suppose. It's difficult to criticize this, since it's an intentional component of Vikram's characterization, yet it detracted from my enjoyment of the book. As much as the life of an Indian family in Kenya fascinated me, as much as I cringed at the tragedy of Deepa and Njoroge's love, Vikram's constant disavowal of responsibility looms over the narrative like an approaching storm cloud.
If I have to generalize (and you know I do), I'd say that this is a worthy book. My criticism is subjective, so I don't want to warn people away because I disliked the lack of quotation marks or the characterization of the narrator. There's something in this book that will appeal to everyone, even if few people will find everything about the book appealing. Am I so sure it was worth the Giller? No, but then again, it's probably a good thing that I don't have to decide these matters.
Few things annoy me more than when an author decides to ignore such a useful stylistic conventions as using quotation marks to offset dialogue! I like quotation marks. It makes the book easier to parse and gives me a clear idea of who is saying what. I discarded [b:Blindness|4307454|Blindness|José Saramago|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255970979s/4307454.jpg|3213039] for similar reasons. Had I not been more favourably disposed to M.G. Vassanji after reading [b:The Assassin's Song|1664732|The Assassin's Song|M.G. Vassanji|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1186558450s/1664732.jpg|1659597], I might have done the same thing.
I have an inkling as to why Vassanji chose this departure from the norm. By abandoning quotation marks—in effect, dialogue itself—everything everyone says comes to us via Vikram and is interpreted and filtered through Vikram. All of the characters speak in Vikram's voice, and his is the only voice in the book for that reason. Still, this was an annoying aspect of The In-Between World that did not encourage me to continue reading.
After about the first third of the book, the story picks up as Vikram moves into adulthood. It's painful. That can be a good thing—and I didn't expect a story of unmitigated happiness here. Vassanji is capturing the zeitgeist in the microcosm of an individual, and seldom is the zeitgeist a wholly good one. Vassanji is careful, however, to portray the bad and the good. It was a time of murder and corruption, but it was also a time of hope and inspiration.
As a depiction of Kenya in the late twentieth century, this book fails to yield the scope required for a detailed understanding of the political dynamics at work. However, the interactions between the characters, particularly between Vikram and his relations, give us an idea of the pressures the external world puts upon everyone in Nairobi. Nairobi is much like the main character: a nexus of European, particularly British worldviews with East African identity and cultures. And that portrayal of personal transformation, of a change of identity as Kenya comes of age and gains independence, is the most rewarding part of The In-Between World.
This book has a perfect title. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall describes precisely what it is about. Vikram is in-between everything and everyone. As an Indian born and raised in Kenya, he is neither an "African" nor an outsider. He is alien to his own country. Among his family, he can never seem to take sides in issues. And in Kenya at large, he becomes a power and money broker, not out of avarice but because he gets caught up in larger affairs.
It's this sense of "going with the flow" and powerlessness that prevents me from sympathizing with Vikram. He only takes responsibility for his actions at the end; that's why he's telling this story, I suppose. It's difficult to criticize this, since it's an intentional component of Vikram's characterization, yet it detracted from my enjoyment of the book. As much as the life of an Indian family in Kenya fascinated me, as much as I cringed at the tragedy of Deepa and Njoroge's love, Vikram's constant disavowal of responsibility looms over the narrative like an approaching storm cloud.
If I have to generalize (and you know I do), I'd say that this is a worthy book. My criticism is subjective, so I don't want to warn people away because I disliked the lack of quotation marks or the characterization of the narrator. There's something in this book that will appeal to everyone, even if few people will find everything about the book appealing. Am I so sure it was worth the Giller? No, but then again, it's probably a good thing that I don't have to decide these matters.
In writing this review, I'm faced with the fact that this is the 991st review of Anathem on Goodreads. It isn't the 991st detailed review, nor is it the 991st long review, but somewhere in those 990 other reviews, I'm sure other people have said anything I'm going to say, and probably better. (How Lorite of me.) Yes, the book is long, and yes, it's a dense philosophical exploration of our universe disguised as a philosophical exploration of an alternate universe. But how did it affect me?
It just worked out that I read Anathem while beginning two philosophy courses: Philosophy of Science Fiction and Philosophy of Science & Technology. The serendipity of this will be apparent to anyone who has read Anathem, for the book is very much a philosophy text, and much of its philosophy has to deal with science and how people should go about doing science. As a mathematician myself, I have to admit I sometimes wonder what it would be like if we had "mainstream" monasteries consisting of nothing but academics. On that level, Anathem is an interesting thought experiment.
Also, Anathem reminded me of the importance of keeping the notions of "science" and "technology" separate. There is an intriguing scene between Erasmas and Cord while they are travelling toward an Arctic sledge post in pursuit of Orolo:
There are two points here. The first is very relevant to our current society: many of us walk around with computers in our pocket that are more powerful than those that took us to the moon (looking at it from that perspective, the moon-landing becomes an even more impressive achievement, but I digress). Nevertheless, how many of us can take apart an electronic device and say, "Aha, this is so simple! I understand how this works!" I couldn't, and I'm a pretty smart guy. I'm not saying that such technology is bad, but as Erasmas and Cord discover, it leads to a dependence on the type of people who do understand it. And we, as a society, need to understand this dependence lest it lead to the sort of problems that Arbre experienced in its past.
The second point is relevant to all times: technology advances regardless of science. The scientists on Arbre are all sequestered in maths, but the extras keep developing new technology and new formats (the speelycaptor is a good example of this trend). The science remains nearly static, four thousand years stale . . . but the technology changes. While it's true that scientific and technological innovations can go hand in hand, that isn't always the case.
I went through three "stages" with regards to how I felt about the world of Arbre. In the first stage, I was fascinated but bored. I was interested in learning how the avout/Saecular dichotomy worked and figuring out more of the rules of Arbran society. Yet much of the description and exposition is tedious at times. In the second stage, which arrived much later in the book, I became disenchanted with Arbre because of the blatancy of the parallels between it and Earth, especially in the development of theorems in the mathic world. Finally, by the end of the book, I reached the third stage: acceptance. The parallel nature of Arbre is probably the cleverest way that Stephenson could have accomplished what he set out to do. It has flaws, but no narrative approach is perfect.
The world of Arbre is well-defined, but it was not immersive. The sheer amount of terminology Stephenson introduces is dazzling to the point of blinding. Part of the trouble is that I'm in that unhappy middle portion of the population of readers, where I recognize most of the concept's he is duplicating in Arbre, but I can't readily put an Earth philosopher/scientist name to the Arbran one. Anathem makes it evident that there is a point at which, if you introduce more terminology, you will start getting diminishing returns.
I'm not so certain Anathem is really a "philosophical primer" or even a "philosophical text" so much as it is an exercise in thinking philosophically. As the story opens, Fraa Erasmas is already a philosopher, but his way of thinking matures throughout the book. Each digression into a Dialog about some form of philosophy isn't as much a way to teach us the philosophy as it is an opportunity for the reader to stop and just think differently. Most books, even if they have moving, poignant themes, simply don't do this.
Although impressed by the deftness of Stephenson's world-building, I can't manage to feel very enthusiastic about the result. My feeling about Anathem, which is one reason this review took so long to write, is a distinctly apathetic, "So what?" Yes, it's philosophical. Yes, it's challenging at times. In the end, however, I don't feel like Anathem changed the way I think about anything, and I don't feel like the story itself moved me.
So this is where I talk about Anathem's length—or rather, its complexity. There's no question that the sheer physical presence of the book will scare away some people. Even I questioned my desire to read it now, at the beginning of a new school term, as my third book of a new year. Now I feel dreadfully behind! And at times, it is slow going. Yet I can only think of two alternatives: make the book shorter or turn it into a series, and neither seems appropriate in this case. Oh, I do think some parts could have been edited out, but removing some of Anathem's complexity runs the risk of destroying the fragile truce it has achieved with the amount of philosophy and physics Stephenson has packed into the text. On the other hand, I can only see Anathem as a standalone book. It is a self-contained narrative.
Hence, Anathem's complexity is inherent in the story Stephenson wants to tell. There is no way the book could work like it does without this complexity. Yet the same complexity that enables the book also seems to make it fall short of its goal. Anathem never captured my imagination so much as it held my imagination at gunpoint while it read a lengthy list of demands.
It just worked out that I read Anathem while beginning two philosophy courses: Philosophy of Science Fiction and Philosophy of Science & Technology. The serendipity of this will be apparent to anyone who has read Anathem, for the book is very much a philosophy text, and much of its philosophy has to deal with science and how people should go about doing science. As a mathematician myself, I have to admit I sometimes wonder what it would be like if we had "mainstream" monasteries consisting of nothing but academics. On that level, Anathem is an interesting thought experiment.
Also, Anathem reminded me of the importance of keeping the notions of "science" and "technology" separate. There is an intriguing scene between Erasmas and Cord while they are travelling toward an Arctic sledge post in pursuit of Orolo:
"I guess because I live in a place with almost zero praxis, it never occurs to me to think about such things," I said. "But at times like this, the absurdity hits me between the eyes. There's no reason to put up with junk like this. A stove with dangerous, unreliable chemical fuel. With orifices that clog. In four thousand years we could have made a better stove."
"Would I be able to take that stove apart and fix it?"
"You wouldn't have to, because it would never break."
"But I want to know if I could understand such a stove."
"You're the kind of person who could probably understand just about anything if you set your mind to it."
"Nice flattery, Raz, but you keep dodging the question."
"All right, I take your point. You're really asking if the average person could understand the workings of such a thing . . ."
There are two points here. The first is very relevant to our current society: many of us walk around with computers in our pocket that are more powerful than those that took us to the moon (looking at it from that perspective, the moon-landing becomes an even more impressive achievement, but I digress). Nevertheless, how many of us can take apart an electronic device and say, "Aha, this is so simple! I understand how this works!" I couldn't, and I'm a pretty smart guy. I'm not saying that such technology is bad, but as Erasmas and Cord discover, it leads to a dependence on the type of people who do understand it. And we, as a society, need to understand this dependence lest it lead to the sort of problems that Arbre experienced in its past.
The second point is relevant to all times: technology advances regardless of science. The scientists on Arbre are all sequestered in maths, but the extras keep developing new technology and new formats (the speelycaptor is a good example of this trend). The science remains nearly static, four thousand years stale . . . but the technology changes. While it's true that scientific and technological innovations can go hand in hand, that isn't always the case.
I went through three "stages" with regards to how I felt about the world of Arbre. In the first stage, I was fascinated but bored. I was interested in learning how the avout/Saecular dichotomy worked and figuring out more of the rules of Arbran society. Yet much of the description and exposition is tedious at times. In the second stage, which arrived much later in the book, I became disenchanted with Arbre because of the blatancy of the parallels between it and Earth, especially in the development of theorems in the mathic world. Finally, by the end of the book, I reached the third stage: acceptance. The parallel nature of Arbre is probably the cleverest way that Stephenson could have accomplished what he set out to do. It has flaws, but no narrative approach is perfect.
The world of Arbre is well-defined, but it was not immersive. The sheer amount of terminology Stephenson introduces is dazzling to the point of blinding. Part of the trouble is that I'm in that unhappy middle portion of the population of readers, where I recognize most of the concept's he is duplicating in Arbre, but I can't readily put an Earth philosopher/scientist name to the Arbran one. Anathem makes it evident that there is a point at which, if you introduce more terminology, you will start getting diminishing returns.
I'm not so certain Anathem is really a "philosophical primer" or even a "philosophical text" so much as it is an exercise in thinking philosophically. As the story opens, Fraa Erasmas is already a philosopher, but his way of thinking matures throughout the book. Each digression into a Dialog about some form of philosophy isn't as much a way to teach us the philosophy as it is an opportunity for the reader to stop and just think differently. Most books, even if they have moving, poignant themes, simply don't do this.
Although impressed by the deftness of Stephenson's world-building, I can't manage to feel very enthusiastic about the result. My feeling about Anathem, which is one reason this review took so long to write, is a distinctly apathetic, "So what?" Yes, it's philosophical. Yes, it's challenging at times. In the end, however, I don't feel like Anathem changed the way I think about anything, and I don't feel like the story itself moved me.
So this is where I talk about Anathem's length—or rather, its complexity. There's no question that the sheer physical presence of the book will scare away some people. Even I questioned my desire to read it now, at the beginning of a new school term, as my third book of a new year. Now I feel dreadfully behind! And at times, it is slow going. Yet I can only think of two alternatives: make the book shorter or turn it into a series, and neither seems appropriate in this case. Oh, I do think some parts could have been edited out, but removing some of Anathem's complexity runs the risk of destroying the fragile truce it has achieved with the amount of philosophy and physics Stephenson has packed into the text. On the other hand, I can only see Anathem as a standalone book. It is a self-contained narrative.
Hence, Anathem's complexity is inherent in the story Stephenson wants to tell. There is no way the book could work like it does without this complexity. Yet the same complexity that enables the book also seems to make it fall short of its goal. Anathem never captured my imagination so much as it held my imagination at gunpoint while it read a lengthy list of demands.
My grade 11 math teacher gave this to me, and I remember reading it and loving it. Here I am, three years later, returning to Zero for a second read. No longer the gullible high school student (now a gullible university student!), I'm apt to be more critical of Zero. Nevertheless, it stands up to a second reading and both inspires and informs.
Imagining a world without zero is probably difficult for most people. It was especially difficult for me, as a mathematician who grew up learning calculus and understanding that zero is just another number. Even with Charles Seife leading the way in the first chapter, I still have trouble comprehending this idea that entire civilizations rose and fell—and achieved great things in between—without the concept of a mathematical zero.
In that respect, Zero acts as a history of the development of an idea, one that began in Babylonia and spread, via Alexander the Great, to India, where it flourished. Seife's history is necessarily balanced between East and West in this case, as it's impossible to discuss mathematics without discussing India. That being said, I would have liked to learn about how China regarded zero, even if Chinese mathematicians contributed no new developments to the number's importance as their absence from this book seems to imply. This one oversight overlooked, Zero is not your typical history book that starts in ancient Egypt or Greece and insists everything we know flows from there.
What's admirable about Zero is Seife's ability to focus on zero. The story intersects with the lives of many famous mathematicians, but the obvious slimness of this book testifies that Seife managed to distill only what was necessary about their lives in his quest to explain the mystery of zero. I'm not trying to imply, "Short books are easier for non-mathematical people to understand," but that's part of the attraction. Although it's heavier on the equations than I remembered, I would still feel comfortable recommending Zero to my non-mathematically-inclined friends. Firstly, Seife's writing is accessible, even when loaded with equations. As long as you have some basic arithmetic left over from high school, you can follow along. And I'd definitely recommend this book to high school students, like I was when I first read it: it's one of those books that opens the mind. Secondly, the narrow focus acts like a window into the history of mathematics. I have [b:A History of Mathematics|326148|A History of Mathematics|Carl B. Boyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173768473s/326148.jpg|316791] sitting next to Zero on my desk, and while the former is more complete, I somehow suspect the latter is more appropriate for a general audience. In other words, Zero is a good gateway drug.
Where Zero starts to show its seams is in Seife's rhetorical ability, which stretches itself thin even over so thin a volume. He's too dramatic for my taste, especially as he recounted the attitudes and fate of the Pythagoreans. And he's always eager to remind us of how "powerful" zero is. While I agree that zero is a pretty cool number, the constant refrain felt somewhat forced after a while, pulling me out of the book instead of keeping me comfortably ensconced in this little tutorial. Seife devotes only cursory glances at the philosophical arguments offered for or against the acceptance of zero; he tells us about Aristotle's rejection of zero but goes into little detail. While I'm sure he wanted to avoid turning the book into a text on Aristotelian philosophy, I feel like there are gaps here that, if not filled, could have been covered with a more attractive carpet.
Not perfect, not as mind-blowing as some mathematical literature I've read, Zero makes it mark because it's adequate at explanation without going overboard. I'm not sure what else to say: if you're interested in the subject, this is a good place to start. And even if you're not, hey, it's only 250 pages. What have you got to lose? Nothing. Zero!
Imagining a world without zero is probably difficult for most people. It was especially difficult for me, as a mathematician who grew up learning calculus and understanding that zero is just another number. Even with Charles Seife leading the way in the first chapter, I still have trouble comprehending this idea that entire civilizations rose and fell—and achieved great things in between—without the concept of a mathematical zero.
In that respect, Zero acts as a history of the development of an idea, one that began in Babylonia and spread, via Alexander the Great, to India, where it flourished. Seife's history is necessarily balanced between East and West in this case, as it's impossible to discuss mathematics without discussing India. That being said, I would have liked to learn about how China regarded zero, even if Chinese mathematicians contributed no new developments to the number's importance as their absence from this book seems to imply. This one oversight overlooked, Zero is not your typical history book that starts in ancient Egypt or Greece and insists everything we know flows from there.
What's admirable about Zero is Seife's ability to focus on zero. The story intersects with the lives of many famous mathematicians, but the obvious slimness of this book testifies that Seife managed to distill only what was necessary about their lives in his quest to explain the mystery of zero. I'm not trying to imply, "Short books are easier for non-mathematical people to understand," but that's part of the attraction. Although it's heavier on the equations than I remembered, I would still feel comfortable recommending Zero to my non-mathematically-inclined friends. Firstly, Seife's writing is accessible, even when loaded with equations. As long as you have some basic arithmetic left over from high school, you can follow along. And I'd definitely recommend this book to high school students, like I was when I first read it: it's one of those books that opens the mind. Secondly, the narrow focus acts like a window into the history of mathematics. I have [b:A History of Mathematics|326148|A History of Mathematics|Carl B. Boyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173768473s/326148.jpg|316791] sitting next to Zero on my desk, and while the former is more complete, I somehow suspect the latter is more appropriate for a general audience. In other words, Zero is a good gateway drug.
Where Zero starts to show its seams is in Seife's rhetorical ability, which stretches itself thin even over so thin a volume. He's too dramatic for my taste, especially as he recounted the attitudes and fate of the Pythagoreans. And he's always eager to remind us of how "powerful" zero is. While I agree that zero is a pretty cool number, the constant refrain felt somewhat forced after a while, pulling me out of the book instead of keeping me comfortably ensconced in this little tutorial. Seife devotes only cursory glances at the philosophical arguments offered for or against the acceptance of zero; he tells us about Aristotle's rejection of zero but goes into little detail. While I'm sure he wanted to avoid turning the book into a text on Aristotelian philosophy, I feel like there are gaps here that, if not filled, could have been covered with a more attractive carpet.
Not perfect, not as mind-blowing as some mathematical literature I've read, Zero makes it mark because it's adequate at explanation without going overboard. I'm not sure what else to say: if you're interested in the subject, this is a good place to start. And even if you're not, hey, it's only 250 pages. What have you got to lose? Nothing. Zero!
This is one of those times where borrowing the omnibus edition from the library because it's easier to get all three books that way is a bad idea. I felt compelled to read the entire trilogy as a result, when I knew I should just stop after the first book. The Summer Tree was painful; The Wandering Fire was brutal; I blacked out sometime near the beginning of The Darkest Road, so I can only assume that it was slightly better than the first two but not enough to redeem the trilogy.
In case you haven't figured it out, I did not like The Fionavar Tapestry. Fate dictates that I now compare it unfavourably to The Lord of the Rings, call it clichéd, and consign it to the dustheap of subjectivity. There are two problems with this tactic. Firstly, I have only read The Lord of the Rings once, almost nine years ago. My memory of the actual book, and not the mythical status it inhabits, is hazy, and I was very impressionable in grade six. Secondly, even if I had just finished an exhaustive degree in LOTRology and re-read that trilogy prior to reading this one, I would be in no better position. As fans of The Fionavar Tapestry rightly point out, clichéd fantasy is not necessarily bad fantasy. It's difficult, and not always desirable, to be original in fantasy no less than in any genre. And there are many heavily clichéd fantasy series that I do like, so to take this tactic would be hypocritical. No, I must do something infinitely harsher.
I shall compare The Fionavar Tapestry unfavourably with [b:The Briar King|490358|The Briar King (Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, #1)|Greg Keyes|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175190948s/490358.jpg|2393607], a book which I called, "formulaic fantasy at its most derivative." Nevertheless, there were tiny, inscrutable angels-on-the-heads-of-pins moments in The Briar King where I thought the book might improve.
Not so with The Summer Tree. The characters here are flat. They change, but not in any realistic sense of the word—instead, the book takes them and forces them into new moulds as the plot requires. Upon arriving in Fionavar, the five protagonists from our world quickly assimilate into the bizarre medieval fantasy land that is somehow the "true world" of which all other worlds are a reflection. Kim just decides that, yeah, she's going to be a Seer. Kevin hangs out with the Prince and his boys. Paul is depressed and so naturally goes to hang himself on a tree but then gets resurrected and becomes a moody not-quite-powerful person. Dave's mad basketball skillz automatically translate into mad axe-wielding skillz. Jennifer gets raped by the Dark Lord and his Dwarf minion because the Dark Lord is horny after spending 1000 years beneath a mountain, even though he knows that if he has a son it will be his undoing (apparently the "true world" has no contraceptives). But it's OK, because Jennifer is actually Guinevere and will spend the next two books randomly having flashes of insight that tell her exactly what to do to get out of trouble. Oh wait, that happens to all the characters.
I levelled this charge against The Briar King, and it resurfaces in The Fionavar Tapestry to much more debilitating an effect:
Few things annoy me more than when a book puts its protagonists in mortal danger only for a god to suddenly come along and save them, or for one of the protagonists to realize how to use his or her untapped power, or for one of them to simply stand up and say, "Dude, no. I'm, like, Lord of the Summer Tree, so you, like, can't do that to me." Once or twice is fine, because this is fantasy after all. But these deus ex machina rescues are routine in Fionavar, even though the gods aren't supposed to interfere and love to say, "Oh, I'm going to pay the price for this."
Related to this problem is the mutability of the main characters' powers/responsibilities/identities. I picked on Paul, Lord of theDanceSummer Tree, above for a reason: he is the paradigm case. Out of all of them, his powers are the least well-defined and hence the most subject to authorial abuse (or "licence" if we want to be generous here). It's not that I oppose to taking the reader on a journey with the character as he comes into his power; I just oppose introducing a serious threat only to have a new power appear to beat it back. That doesn't even count the random threats the manifest from time to time, such as Fordaetha of Rük, "Ice Queen of the Barrens," who shows up in a tavern for one scene so that Paul can banish her. There are so many extraneous mythological elements to Fionavar that it makes my head spin.
The trouble is, I don't know who any of these people are. I never do find that out. Even as some of them, like Jennifer, discover past identities or, like Kevin, destinies involving sacrifice, the only sense of difference they manifest is that they suddenly "know" what to do and tend to speak in highly stilted, formal language. Jennifer in particular tends to inhabit the Guinevere persona infrequently, and when she does, her diction suddenly switches gears. Yet it's the former phenomenon, this sense of "knowing" that Paul has when he sees Fordaetha or Kim when she decides to help Aileron, that undermines the entire story. If the characters just "know" what to do, because it's part of their destiny or because they're fighting their destiny, the book becomes boring. Crystal dragon? Psshaw! Kim "knows" what to do about it. Spawn of the Dark Lord might go over to his father? No problem! Jennifer knows what to do. Kevin feeling out of place because he's not getting horny on Maidalan, the orgiastic festival of the Priestesses of Dana? Don't worry, Kevin "knows" how to find a sacred grove and "knows" he must sacrifice himself to the goddess there. It's a good thing he did, because I didn't "know" this. Foreshadowing should be used sparingly, but it should be used.
Speaking of Maidalan, the women in this book are Promiscuous with a capital P. I'm not a prude (lowercase P) nor a Puritan (uppercase this time). I just noticed that a large percentage of the unmarried female characters in this book sleep around, and that in general the various societies of Fionavar seem to condone this. After a hunt in the camp of a band of the Dalrei, Dave willingly entertains the many women who visit him over the night! And, of course, the religion over which female priests of Dana preside requires an orgy festival called Maidalan, where men get irresistibly aroused and some of the priestesses emerge from the temple. That is more than clichéd; that is just stereotypical.
It doesn't help, either, that Kay insists on referring to such acts as "making love" and "lovemaking." Though a handy euphemism, it also connotes feelings that aren't really present on the part of most of the parties involved in these acts in The Fionavar Tapestry. This is a symptom of the stilted language that pervades all three books. Remaining ever so true to the high fantasy form, Kay ensures that his language, both in description and dialogue, is formal and poetic in diction and tone. This can, and did, get annoying after a while, but I suppose it's a valid stylistic choice. However, all of the characters, even the main characters, who began the story living in Toronto, talk like this. And that is a problem, because it means that the individual characters lack their own voices, further hindering my futile attempts to connect and empathize to any of them. The Fionavar Tapestry is 774 pages of the same person talking, albeit through different mouthpieces.
When there are flaws in a tapestry, do you blame the thread or the loom? Neither, of course: you blame the weaver. It matters not which clichés one uses but how one weaves them. Despair not, gentle reader! I do have one compliment to pay The Fionavar Tapestry: it would make a very good 774-page public service announcement about why you shouldn't take up a mage on his offer to transport you and four of your friends to another world simply so you can be "guests" at a festival. This will inevitably (a) not be the whole truth of the matter, and in fact pitch you into the middle of the resurgence of a millennium-old struggle between good and evil, and (b) void the warranty on your smartphone.
In case you haven't figured it out, I did not like The Fionavar Tapestry. Fate dictates that I now compare it unfavourably to The Lord of the Rings, call it clichéd, and consign it to the dustheap of subjectivity. There are two problems with this tactic. Firstly, I have only read The Lord of the Rings once, almost nine years ago. My memory of the actual book, and not the mythical status it inhabits, is hazy, and I was very impressionable in grade six. Secondly, even if I had just finished an exhaustive degree in LOTRology and re-read that trilogy prior to reading this one, I would be in no better position. As fans of The Fionavar Tapestry rightly point out, clichéd fantasy is not necessarily bad fantasy. It's difficult, and not always desirable, to be original in fantasy no less than in any genre. And there are many heavily clichéd fantasy series that I do like, so to take this tactic would be hypocritical. No, I must do something infinitely harsher.
I shall compare The Fionavar Tapestry unfavourably with [b:The Briar King|490358|The Briar King (Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, #1)|Greg Keyes|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175190948s/490358.jpg|2393607], a book which I called, "formulaic fantasy at its most derivative." Nevertheless, there were tiny, inscrutable angels-on-the-heads-of-pins moments in The Briar King where I thought the book might improve.
Not so with The Summer Tree. The characters here are flat. They change, but not in any realistic sense of the word—instead, the book takes them and forces them into new moulds as the plot requires. Upon arriving in Fionavar, the five protagonists from our world quickly assimilate into the bizarre medieval fantasy land that is somehow the "true world" of which all other worlds are a reflection. Kim just decides that, yeah, she's going to be a Seer. Kevin hangs out with the Prince and his boys. Paul is depressed and so naturally goes to hang himself on a tree but then gets resurrected and becomes a moody not-quite-powerful person. Dave's mad basketball skillz automatically translate into mad axe-wielding skillz. Jennifer gets raped by the Dark Lord and his Dwarf minion because the Dark Lord is horny after spending 1000 years beneath a mountain, even though he knows that if he has a son it will be his undoing (apparently the "true world" has no contraceptives). But it's OK, because Jennifer is actually Guinevere and will spend the next two books randomly having flashes of insight that tell her exactly what to do to get out of trouble. Oh wait, that happens to all the characters.
I levelled this charge against The Briar King, and it resurfaces in The Fionavar Tapestry to much more debilitating an effect:
Whenever one of the protagonists gets in a tight enough spot that they might not make it, something inexplicable happens to save them. . . . None of the conflicts faced by the main characters feel compelling because none feel dangerous.
Few things annoy me more than when a book puts its protagonists in mortal danger only for a god to suddenly come along and save them, or for one of the protagonists to realize how to use his or her untapped power, or for one of them to simply stand up and say, "Dude, no. I'm, like, Lord of the Summer Tree, so you, like, can't do that to me." Once or twice is fine, because this is fantasy after all. But these deus ex machina rescues are routine in Fionavar, even though the gods aren't supposed to interfere and love to say, "Oh, I'm going to pay the price for this."
Related to this problem is the mutability of the main characters' powers/responsibilities/identities. I picked on Paul, Lord of the
The trouble is, I don't know who any of these people are. I never do find that out. Even as some of them, like Jennifer, discover past identities or, like Kevin, destinies involving sacrifice, the only sense of difference they manifest is that they suddenly "know" what to do and tend to speak in highly stilted, formal language. Jennifer in particular tends to inhabit the Guinevere persona infrequently, and when she does, her diction suddenly switches gears. Yet it's the former phenomenon, this sense of "knowing" that Paul has when he sees Fordaetha or Kim when she decides to help Aileron, that undermines the entire story. If the characters just "know" what to do, because it's part of their destiny or because they're fighting their destiny, the book becomes boring. Crystal dragon? Psshaw! Kim "knows" what to do about it. Spawn of the Dark Lord might go over to his father? No problem! Jennifer knows what to do. Kevin feeling out of place because he's not getting horny on Maidalan, the orgiastic festival of the Priestesses of Dana? Don't worry, Kevin "knows" how to find a sacred grove and "knows" he must sacrifice himself to the goddess there. It's a good thing he did, because I didn't "know" this. Foreshadowing should be used sparingly, but it should be used.
Speaking of Maidalan, the women in this book are Promiscuous with a capital P. I'm not a prude (lowercase P) nor a Puritan (uppercase this time). I just noticed that a large percentage of the unmarried female characters in this book sleep around, and that in general the various societies of Fionavar seem to condone this. After a hunt in the camp of a band of the Dalrei, Dave willingly entertains the many women who visit him over the night! And, of course, the religion over which female priests of Dana preside requires an orgy festival called Maidalan, where men get irresistibly aroused and some of the priestesses emerge from the temple. That is more than clichéd; that is just stereotypical.
It doesn't help, either, that Kay insists on referring to such acts as "making love" and "lovemaking." Though a handy euphemism, it also connotes feelings that aren't really present on the part of most of the parties involved in these acts in The Fionavar Tapestry. This is a symptom of the stilted language that pervades all three books. Remaining ever so true to the high fantasy form, Kay ensures that his language, both in description and dialogue, is formal and poetic in diction and tone. This can, and did, get annoying after a while, but I suppose it's a valid stylistic choice. However, all of the characters, even the main characters, who began the story living in Toronto, talk like this. And that is a problem, because it means that the individual characters lack their own voices, further hindering my futile attempts to connect and empathize to any of them. The Fionavar Tapestry is 774 pages of the same person talking, albeit through different mouthpieces.
When there are flaws in a tapestry, do you blame the thread or the loom? Neither, of course: you blame the weaver. It matters not which clichés one uses but how one weaves them. Despair not, gentle reader! I do have one compliment to pay The Fionavar Tapestry: it would make a very good 774-page public service announcement about why you shouldn't take up a mage on his offer to transport you and four of your friends to another world simply so you can be "guests" at a festival. This will inevitably (a) not be the whole truth of the matter, and in fact pitch you into the middle of the resurgence of a millennium-old struggle between good and evil, and (b) void the warranty on your smartphone.