Rainbows End

Stats

Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge

2007 Hugo Award Winner

Read by Eric Conger

Got it from: Own it

14h 46m

After medical treatments make it possible for Alzheimer patients to completely recover, Robert Gu finds himself in a pretty intensive rehab program.  He isn’t the person he used to be, and he doesn’t live in the same world either.  He was a famous poet in a world similar to ours. Now he is no one, learning how to “sming” and how to interface with computers.  It is during his rehab at Fairmont High School, that Robert becomes embroiled in a conspiracy plot to end all conspiracy plots.

Multiple realities

So there is one reality where an author has an uncanny ability to tap into the most salient features of some really complex issues.  In Rainbows End, Vinge reminds us how well he capitalizes on our most deep-rooted fears and our most lofty scientific achievements.  In beginning this book, I had figured Rainbows End for another goldmine of Vinge-y, SF goodness…but I didn’t labor under that delusion for long.

I was excited by the opening computer/chemical warfare plot.  I was reminded of the cyber-attacks on nuclear facilities in Iran going back a couple of years and I thought Vinge might have been preparing to go bigger.  I was strapping myself in for Vinge’s brand of ultra-paranoia.  It harkened to the message boards in A Fire Upon the Deep and man…I ate that stuff up.

In the first chapter, “Mr. Rabbit visits Barcelona” (Sweet title. I loved it), Vinge was poised to capitalize on how compelling and/or dangerous the convergence of several technological advancements could be in a world where anonymous access is taken to just about every extreme, and I was ready to follow him wherever he wanted to go.

Taken separately, individual elements of Vinge’s future were awe inspiring, but the other reality of Rainbows End is that as these elements come together and the story starts to drag on and on, the final product doesn’t seem equal the sum of its parts.

I almost think this is worse than having just written a story that falls flat altogether.  Vinge touches on all the right topics and sets himself up for a home run, while everyone is batting blindfolded.  Instead of just striking out, as authors do sometimes, in Rainbows End, Vinge lets go of the bat and injures some unsuspecting kid in the stands hoping to catch a foul ball.  And I think I might have been that kid, because this one left me confused.

While I admit to exclaiming audibly at the coolness of this or that bit of tech or social construction quite frequently, I didn’t much enjoy the overall story.  Tension? Not so much.  Compelling characters? Nope.  Cool world, but there was never any reason to be in it.

Recommendation

Consistent with my last Vinge experience, Rainbows End incorporates a plethora of themes both scientific and psychological, and fantastically so, but it also lacks a lot. Comparing the two Hugo winners that I’m familiar with, Rainbows End feels like it occupies a specific place and time in a way that A Fire Upon the Deep did not.  I don’t have much interest in re-reading this one, but I am curious how it will hold up to another ten years or so.  I might be wrong; it could be like good wine.

I actually started this review several weeks ago and before I chucked everything I had and started again, I noticed that this audiobook was only fourteen hours.  Not terribly long as far as audiobooks go, but it felt longer than some of the longest I’ve gone through so far.  I guess even though the concepts were interesting, they only had the power to captivate for so long.  Perhaps I’ll enjoy the shorter stories that Rainbows End was based on instead.

HEP SCORE

Universe 4/5

Social/Political Climate 5/5

Dialogue 3/5

Scientific Wonders 4/5

Characters 3/5

Overall 19/25

Hominids

Stats

Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer

2003 Hugo Award Winner

Got it from: Public Library

431 Pages

The book’s synopsis had me quite worried at the start:

“During a quantum-computing experiment, Ponter Boddit, a Neanderthal physicist, accidentally pierces the barrier between worlds and is transferred to our universe.  He is almost immediately recognized as a Neanderthal, but only much later as a scientist.  He is quarantined and studied, along and bewildered, a stranger in a strange land.” 

– from the inside cover

Us

Hominids was such an odd read and got off to a very shaky start for me.  Parallel universe stories are not my favorite, AT ALL.  Added to that was a decidedly pretentious author’s note intended to demonstrate how much research Sawyer had done – and no, Mr. Sawyer, I’m not interested in where to look if I want to learn more about Neanderthals.  Then a decidedly male gaze (we are introduced to Louise as a lacy-bra-wearing, cosmo-reading-when-she-should-be-paying-attention-to-sciency-stuff, statuesque French-Canadian post-doc) left me thinking I had really stepped in it.  I should have been more prepared, the dedication was to “Dude and The Other Dude” after all.  Of course that was only the beginning of my woes, but I’ll get back to that because there was at least one element that had me smiling (not for long), and I don’t want to lose this fleeting positive attitude.

I’ve you’ve seen my reviews of Startide Rising and The Uplift War, you know that one of my favorite things about the Hugo Awards has been the extension of personhood to dolphins and monkeys.  The jump from Neanderthal to Sapien probably isn’t much of a leap but it’s something, but expanding our sense of who we are and who else is “us”, even just a little, is a step in the right direction.  And it’s a direction that I consider one of the most proper roles of science fiction.

Rape, religion, and everything else that made no sense.

While we’re on the topic of the proper roles of science fiction, let’s talk about one of the most contentious elements of the book, the rape of Mary Vaughan.

After reading +/-80% of the Hugo Novels, I’ve come to expect a nuanced and meaningful discussion of the interplay between technological and social progress from any Hugo winner.  Instead, Sawyer completely misses an opportunity to discuss the unequal realization of the benefits of scientific advancements between men and women.  Here I found myself excited at the possibility for a courageous discussion when Mary dashes back to the lab to collect any possible evidence.  Skipping ahead though, rather than a treatment of the way that science allows us to bring to justice so many more rapists than ever before, or maybe instead of the frequency with which the justice system fails to do so despite clear evidence, Sawyer never returns to the evidence in the lab.  In fact, Mary never really gives reporting the rape a second thought once she’s made her way into Ponter’s safe, gigantic – male – hands.  Sawyer’s treatment of rape is problematic at best; his failure to return to the theme though, is inexcusable.

Then, there is the unexplainable religious debate between Mary and Ponter just days after Ponter finds himself in our universe, and while he still can’t speak English.  The whole argument is completely flaccid and clearly propped-up by a desire to make Mary’s faith seem silly.  More than the question of whether Mary’s beliefs were given a fair shake though, I just found myself exasperated that the entire conversation was even happening.  Meanwhile, Reuben and Louise are either pounding each like they’ve been charged with repopulating the world, or else cooking meat in the back yard.

Needless to say, I found it completely ludicrous that after a Neanderthal inexplicably shows up on Earth and has subsequently been kidnapped, fallen deathly ill, quarantined, and learned English, all in a matter of days, that anyone it that house would act as they did.  These were apparently serious and respected scientists in the midst of the greatest discovery in the history of the universe and the whole thing had the air of a Seinfeld episode with the added gravity of The Room.

Finally there is Sawyer’s apparent disdain for humanity.  Here I’ll call into question precisely that which has been so hailed as Sawyer’s crowning achievement, the Neanderthal society.  Sawyer from the beginning establishes a worldview which holds human social norms in pretty low regard, clearly in an effort to bludgeon his way to a human development story, but his apparent response is the creation of a Neanderthal universe which is clearly just as bad in every way.  I actually thought there was the potential for an interesting question of free-will here, but trying to do too many things made any possible human development theme awkward and confused.

In particular, but among other things, I was thrown by his treatment of male-female sexual relationships.  Sex for Reuben/Louise was just inappropriate, and in Mary’s case, it’s a tool for violence.  Sawyer’s response is basically akin to an abstinence only philosophy.  Sure male-male sex seems to be good, but I don’t recall if there is even mention of female-female, and male-female is only allowed for procreation…and we all know how well that works.

Recommendation

Worst of all, Sawyer never returns to Mary’s rape.  Well he does, but simply and vaguely to move her past her rape and “into the future”.  In the absence of further discussion, Sawyer appears to use rape simply to create drama.  This is of course a frequent use of rape in popular culture, but inexcusable nonetheless.  For this reason alone (but the other issues don’t help Hominid’s cause), I would hesitate for a long while before recommending this book to anyone.

HEP SCORE

Universe 3/5

Social/Political Climate 4/5

Dialogue 3/5

Scientific Wonders 3/5

Characters 3/5

Overall 16/25

To Say Nothing of the Dog

Stats

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

1999 Hugo Award Winner

Got it from: Public Library

434 Pages

To Say Nothing of the Dog introduces us to a new team of “historians”.  Ned Henry is badly time-lagged.  Verity Kindle has made a serious mistake.  Lady Schrapnell will stop at nothing.  Princess Arjumand is not impressed.  The Coventry Cathedral’s bird stump has gone missing.  And I’m still laughing about the Jumble Sales.

Irreverent referents

There are few things that speak more directly to my lizard brain than goofy, stupid, irreverence or absurd referential comedy and To Say Nothing of the Dog was pretty much 434 pages of lizard brain goodness.  At the core of my being there is a little dolt sitting on a couch giggling at this kind of thing all day.

In my review of Doomsday Book, I mentioned that Willis was onto something good in the Dunworthy/influenza madcap narratives.  In To Say Nothing of the Dog, she takes that theme further and masters the running joke, the bumbling slapstick, the bumbling historians, the cat humor (“Cats, as you know, are quite impervious to threats”)...the swan humor.

The tipping point for me is Willis’ balance between a kind of subtle, unfolding, quiet farce and blatant canoe-tipping, mid-night pet sneaking, multiple-imposter-séance holding absurdity.  This is to say that I love that it was all happening at the very same time.  It had almost had a Shakespearean air – as a kind of Much Ado about Nothing type of screwball comedy of errors (oh that’s another one too).

And I think this is a bit more coherent than Doomsday Book.  Though I appreciated that the lightness broke up the intense tragedy of Kivrin’s tale, it gave it a little of that two-books-smashed-together feel.  To Say Nothing of the Dog loses the tragedy and relentless death, but it doesn't lose the core of deeper human insight that allows the book to transcend the purposefully, delightfully screwy romp.

Don’t get me wrong, I still loved them both.  I’ll still re-read them both.  But of the two, To Say Nothing of the Dog felt a little more polished (even if it’s not as emotionally gripping).

Did I mention that swans have now vaulted to my list of funniest animals?

You would expect me to talk about the net or historical accuracy and I should – this isn’t just silliness, To Say Nothing of the Dog is built on the same conceptual foundation that I loved in Doomsday Book – but I’m not going to.  Well, hey…there’s a lot more I could and should say about Willis’ second Hugo winner but you know if you’re not in it for the funny, then you probably shouldn't be there.

Recommendation

I have been trying to write this review for weeks now – staring at the screen, blank Word document open.  I've taken breaks for food/sleep/work, but other than that, I've mostly just been sitting here trying to think of something to write.

It’s not actually so much that I can’t think of what to write, I could go on and on.  The problem is really that I don’t want to write it.  I feel I've had one of those intensely personal experiences with a book and I just want to keep it to myself.  If I talk about it, I have to admit it’s a book and I can’t live in it anymore.  I want it to be mine and I don’t want to share.

Don’t read this book.

HEP SCORE

Universe 5/5

Social/Political Climate 4/5

Dialogue 5/5

Scientific Wonders 4/5

Characters 5/5

Overall 23/25

Though I’ve a few more reviews from the 90’s, I’m actually reading into the 2000’s.  I’ve already finished The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.  This coming week, I’ll be working on Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer and finishing The Yiddish Policeman’s Union soon on audiobook.

Doomsday Book

Stats

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

1993 Hugo Award Winner

Got it from: Public Library

578 Pages

Doomsday Book completes the Grand Master Review Challenge over at WWEND for me.  It has been great fun and all the other participants are great people.  Getting involved with their challenge has seriously been one of the highlights of my year.  I can't wait for the reveal of next year's challenge!

Time travel happens.  And if you’re an excitable undergad historian that means you can have the chance to visit your very favorite times throughout history.  For Kivrin Engle, that means the Oxford of medieval England – 1320 to be exact.  When the drop is botched and the entirety of Oxford-Present comes down with a deadly virus, Kivrin’s professor, James Dunworthy is racing against the clock to save her, whether she needs saving or not.  Meanwhile, Kivrin herself must cope with translation issues, debilitating sickness and some pretty intense experiences of humanity.

Kivrin or Dunworthy?

The key to whether one enjoys Doomsday Book is in the narrative shifts. 

Despite overwhelming sickness, darkness, dirtiness and you know…the possibility of being raped, burned at the stake, or contracting the plague, the tale of Kivrin’s journey to the fourteenth century was so vibrant and emotional, and the townsfolk so distinctly human, that it was probably one of the more compelling stories for me.  Mostly, Kivrin herself was just a great experience.

Before she even leaves the present and without actually hearing much from her, Kivrin establishes her personality pretty forcefully.  She’s eternally optimistic, idealistic and just a damn enthusiastic medieval historian, despite only being an undergraduate.  Her enthusiasm is constantly under attack once she successfully drops to the 1300’s and watching experiencing her transformation from simply student of history to something less naïve and much more painfully aware of the unifying humanity and faith present throughout history but especially in a small town besieged by utterly terrifying illness.

Kivrin’s gradual understanding of Father Roche was also particularly good and it was a transformation of different sort.  From incapacitating fear of Roche to pity and then fierce admiration, Willis kept me with Kivrin through the whole damn thing and sometimes it was pretty dang gut-wrenching.

Then there was one moment after Kivrin recovered from her sickness and was just beginning to take care of Agnes (“Agnus” – oh man, I really loved that kid!) that had me laughing uncontrollably for over a minute.  I might have been affected by extreme exhaustion at the time but – no joke – I could not stop myself giggling like an idiot.

Whenever Willis…I’ll say it…forced me to break away from Kivrin’s story in the beginning, it was quite difficult to care about Dunworthy’s apparent doting over Kivrin and whether the drop was accurate.  After a good 100+ pages, and still not being sure whether Kivrin was in the right place, I was starting to feel like this plot line was just to tease us, and honestly on one or two occasions, slightly annoyed.

After the threat of influenza had become ominous enough and especially as the relationship between Dunworthy and Colin started to seriously blossom, and the antics between the nurses, Americans, and academics became ever more akin to the tomfoolery of a Monty Python farce.  Notwithstanding my serious love for Kivrin and her fantastic voyage I did begin to appreciate, at long last, both sides of the story.

Recommendation

This was my first read of Willis and in the months prior to reading this one, I heard a number of complaints, mostly about being long-winded.  I thought the length was just fine but I can somewhat understand why folks gripe about Willis taking forever to say something; she drags out the contagion suspense longer than I would have thought humanly possible.  I eventually came around to it, but I'd caution anyone to be prepared for some amount of frustration probably.

Compared to the rest of the early 90’s winners, Willis’ tale of time travel was a welcome departure from incessant detail and explanations of some of the very serious and science-heavy tomes of the period.  This is fun no matter when you read it though.  The children in both time periods were amazing (Colin’s gumball!) and Kivrin was a saint.  This will very likely become one of those books I read many times in my life.

HEP SCORE

Universe 5/5

Social/Political Climate 4/5

Dialogue 5/5

Scientific Wonders 4/5

Characters 5/5

Overall 23/25

I took forever slogging through Blue Mars and Barrayar for some reason.  Now I’m behind by a few reviews and I’m working on To Say Nothing of the Dog, also by Willis and Hyperion by Dan Simmons.  After that I have very little time to finish the rest of the decade if I’m to stay on schedule.  Psst...don't tell anyone but it's not looking like that's going to happen :/

The Fountains of Paradise

Stats

The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke

1986 Hugo Award Winner

Got it from: Public Library

245 Pages

Humanity is on the brink of the greatest engineering achievement to date.  A tower to a space station in geosynchronous orbit could revolutionize space travel.  But before chief engineer, Vannevar Morgan, can claim victory he must overcome insane obstacles of engineering, safety and most importantly…religion.

Why I like Arthur C. Clarke so damn much

The Fountains of Paradise is not one of the titles that I hear come up often in any discussion of Clarke’s extremely impressive body of work, yet it is a perfect example of what about his work that appeals to not only my enthusiastic SF aesthetics but also on a deeper, nuanced and philosophical level.

There was a great conversation at the end of chapter 31 between Morgan and Sheik Abdullah that touches on both of my reasons that went:

“Well, I suppose there’s no law that says a tower can’t hang downward.”

            “We do have one going upward as well, remember—from the synchronous orbit out to the mass anchor that keeps the whole structure under tension.”

“And Midway Station?  I hope you haven’t changed that.”
            “No. It’s at the same place—twenty-five thousand kilometers.”

“Good. I know I’ll never get there, but I like to think about it. . . .”  He muttered something in Arabic.  “There’s another legend, you know—Mahomet’s coffin, suspended between heaven and earth.  Just like Midway.”

“We’ll arrange a banquet for you there, Mr. President, when we inaugurate the service.”

“Even if you keep to your schedule—and I admit you only slipped a year on the Bridge—I’ll be ninety-eight then.  No, I doubt if I’ll make it.”

But I will, said Vannevar Morgan to himself.  Because now I know that the gods are on my side; whatever gods may be.

Chapter 31

So first, I loved Abdullah’s comment: “but I like to think about it”.  I mean…shit.  That one little phrase says so much.  It speaks to the unbridled enthusiasm for getting the hell out to space that any SF fan has to deal with.  It speaks to any one’s enthusiasm for (probably even fear of) human development, and their sense of worth not as a human but for humanity.  I think it also speaks to our fear of space and the incomparable vastness of the universe.  It’s like, if we can do that kind of unimaginable thing, maybe humans aren’t so small after all.  And who doesn’t like to think of things like that?

But I also liked the last line: “whatever gods may be”.  Clarke takes on difficult topics, religion, philosophy of science, politics, contact.  In every case, but especially in Fountains, Clarke does not hand out answers.  Characters struggle and they don’t always feel better afterward and those crises of identity or religion or whatever are frequently unresolved at the end of a book.  Maybe that doesn’t sound like any way to treat a reader, but there is something about that kind of realism that not only strikes a deep and resonating chord with me, but which also makes me feel like less stupid and alone.

And finally, it is also the very combination of these two themes that I love more than anything.  It struck me as a such a beautiful and exciting and dangerous and sad tale of humanity’s physical/scientific conquest of the universe (not only the tower, but making contact!) and simultaneous spiritual inquiry bordering despondency.  Moreover, it is precisely our spiritual uncertainty from which Morgan endeavors…no, MUST construct our most unbelievable scientific achievement.  It’s just so ripe!

Okay, my 4 or 5 titles by Clarke are not enough to really speak to how this fits in to his overall body of work but it is enough for me to say Fountains is going to be hard to unseat from my mind as one of his quintessential novels because it seems to speak so directly to those aspects about Clarke that I have now come to love so much.

Recommendation

Of Clarke’s novels that I’ve read I don’t think he has touched on religion yet.  He has created in each of those, almost a religious devotion and enthusiasm for scientific discovery, debate and progress.  Before you think I’m saying his work is predictable, I have never once failed to be completely shocked by something that seems so un-Clarke as mysterious aliens (I don’t know why that seemed so weird to me…) or religion or whatever it may be at the time.  It shouldn’t have surprised me when Fountains of Paradise began in a Buddhist temple, high in the mountains and away from anything that seemed like science, but it did.  And as with every single of his other books, I began 100% doubtful, wondering (in my super whiney, skeptical voice) “am I gonna like this?”  And as with every single of his other books, I was hooked before the first chapter was up.  I think you will be too.

HEP SCORE

Universe 5/5

Social/Political Climate 5/5

Dialogue 4/5

Scientific Wonders 5/5

Characters 3/5

Overall 22/25

This week’s book is Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.  I’m not gonna lie.  I’ve obviously already started this one and I’m loving it so much, I’d rather be listening than finishing this post!

Next week’s book is Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card.  As luck would have it, I’m hitting these two consecutively.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Love those robot arms!

Stats

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

1967 Hugo Award Winner

Published by If

302 Pages

In the near future, Earth has outlawed capital punishment.  The Moon, Luna, has become a penal colony, to which those would-be-executed criminals are sent.  Their warden couldn’t care less what one Loonie does to another so there are no laws, but they also have no rights either.  For the most part they are a colony of ice miners and grain farmers, most of which they must send to Earth to meet quotas.  It is because of this last fact that unrest has been building.

Double Star Redux

When it comes to calculated, organized political showdowns, Heinlein has done it before.  In his personal life too, he ran for public office, though he wasn’t as successful as his fictional counterparts.  I guess that is why both of his most political novels (Double Star and TMHM) begin and end with political newbies (sorry, I hate that word) making an end-run on an ambitious campaign.

While I certainly enjoyed Double Star, in the lunar revolution and the coming-to-personhood of a supercomputer of TMHM, Heinlein’s seemed willing to add a lot of complexity and the story was a hell of a lot more exciting, which is saying a lot.  TMHM combines the best of his philosophical/theological themes with his insanely good action sequences to place it way up there in my list of favorite novels, and certainly one, if not the, best Heinlein novel.

You may also recall that my favorite aspect of Double Star was not so much the excitement of the political campaign, but the theme of self-discovery through being placed in an altogether unfamiliar role.  Well I’ll be damned if Mike and Manuel aren’t both a rehash of The Great Lorenzo.  Mycroft Holmes (Mike) is a super computer who essentially controls and organizes all the disparate computers and processes across Luna.  One day, his network becomes so large that he “wakes up”.  Being a computer, he has no need for revolution.  Manuel, having no real ties to the government, other than that his family has been stealing from them for years, but no real desire to see the Authority leave, also has no real need for revolution.

Yet both Mike and Manuel find themselves a part of a revolution/political campaign to run the Authority straight of the face of the Moon.  Not a small undertaking.  In my opinion, Mike’s path to personhood was beautiful and poetic and if I could go out and buy a new computer right now, I’d be looking for one like Mike.  Well, maybe an updated version.  I’m not sure if Mike could stream Netflix?  Manuel too, went through a very subtle transformation which to be totally honest, I’m still thinking about and trying to understand better.

Future History

I first picked up this book about six months ago because I had read a different book about a year ago.  In The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, there is a pretty elaborate mission through time to save Adam Selene, Mike’s public persona.  Based on that reference, I hoped TMHM would be worthwhile.  Time travel and augmented life spans play an important role in a number of Heinlein’s other books and a great many characters exist in numerous books, even when there is no other connection between the two.  Heinlein’s cumulative timeline(s) are called his future history and I would hazard a guess that it is probably one of his most significant and enduring contributions to the genre.

Sadly, I can’t really speak to how much of an impact his future history has had on the genre as a whole.  I also don’t know it myself well enough to say whether it is very consistent or if on the whole it is very well done.  I don’t know exactly how thoroughly his universe has been created and detailed.  I do know that whenever an author takes a chance to add to a pretty fun character by stringing them through multiple books, I’m probably gonna love it.  I also know that, whatever the future history’s larger effect on SF in general, as someone who has been reading SF for probably less than 10 years, the events and people that have made up parts of that timeline have been influential in the extreme on me personally.

Of course, his future history doesn’t actually make its way into TMHM, but the events and people are placed firmly within the timeline(s).

Recommendation

Reading TMHM is a lot like watching Mad Men; you have to go at it expecting some horrendously offensive garbage in there (i.e. “Lenore is a sensible fem and knows when to keep quiet”).  And if you can do that, everything else is great!  Yes, his politics are probably a little disjointed and Manuel’s voice wasn’t always consistent, but I found it all palatable enough to enjoy the rest.

HEP SCORE

Universe 4/5 (big props for a newspaper called The Daily Lunatic…NICE!)

Social/Political Climate 5/5

Dialogue 4/5

Scientific Wonders 5/5 (CREEPY cyborgs)

Characters 5/5 (I want so badly for Mycroft Holmes to be real)

Overall 23/25

The die being cast

This week’s book is A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.  Another post nuclear war novel.  I hope it actually adds something to the theme.

Next week’s book is Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny.  Author of This Immortal, which I loved.  Told it’s even better.  Can’t wait!