A while ago, I complained about books that reduce the multiverse to a subplot. And now comes Neil Gaiman's new book, which does nothing of the sort. Huzzah!
Interworld, actually coauthored by Gaiman and Michael Reaves, is a young adult novel about a young man who discovers his power to travel between parallel universes. This immediately sweeps him up into the power politics of two interdimensional empires; and of a resistance movement composed entirely of parallel versions of himself.
The cosmology is well-developed and interesting. The concept of an organization made up entirely of alternate selves is fun, but doesn't get as much development as it deserves.
(It's easy enough to see a parallel in close cases: "He's what I would be if I'd grown up in Georgia," for example. But what does it mean to say, "He's what I would be if the human race had evolved from birds"? Can that person be considered a parallel self, or just a person that coincidentally resembles you?)
The book is fun, and you can see bits of Gaimanesque thinking throughout it.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Startling Campaign News
My perennial dark-horse Republican candidate, Mike Huckabee, has just been endorsed by Chuck Norris.
We might as well just move him into the Oval Office right now.
We might as well just move him into the Oval Office right now.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Space... The Final Frontier...
From The Guardian:
'Second Earth' found, 20 light years away
Scientists have discovered a warm and rocky "second Earth" circling a star, a find they believe dramatically boosts the prospects that we are not alone.
The planet is the most Earth-like ever spotted and is thought to have perfect conditions for water, an essential ingredient for life. Researchers detected the planet orbiting one of Earth's nearest stars, a cool red dwarf called Gliese 581, 20 light years away in the constellation of Libra.
Measurements of the planet's celestial path suggest it is 1½ times the size of our home planet, and orbits close to its sun, with a year of just 13 days. The planet's orbit brings it 14 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun. But Gliese 581 burns at only 3,000C, half the temperature of our own sun, making conditions on the planet comfortable for life, with average ground temperatures estimated at 0 to 40C. Researchers claim the planet is likely to have an atmosphere. The discovery follows a three-year search for habitable planets by the European Southern Observatory at La Silla in Chile...
So how cool is that?
I vaguely remember Isaac Asimov, in his nonfiction book Extraterrestrial Civilizations, laying out some problems with a planet being close to even a cooler sun. I'll have to go look it up to be sure.
But even so, it's remarkable news.
'Second Earth' found, 20 light years away
Scientists have discovered a warm and rocky "second Earth" circling a star, a find they believe dramatically boosts the prospects that we are not alone.
The planet is the most Earth-like ever spotted and is thought to have perfect conditions for water, an essential ingredient for life. Researchers detected the planet orbiting one of Earth's nearest stars, a cool red dwarf called Gliese 581, 20 light years away in the constellation of Libra.
Measurements of the planet's celestial path suggest it is 1½ times the size of our home planet, and orbits close to its sun, with a year of just 13 days. The planet's orbit brings it 14 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun. But Gliese 581 burns at only 3,000C, half the temperature of our own sun, making conditions on the planet comfortable for life, with average ground temperatures estimated at 0 to 40C. Researchers claim the planet is likely to have an atmosphere. The discovery follows a three-year search for habitable planets by the European Southern Observatory at La Silla in Chile...
So how cool is that?
I vaguely remember Isaac Asimov, in his nonfiction book Extraterrestrial Civilizations, laying out some problems with a planet being close to even a cooler sun. I'll have to go look it up to be sure.
But even so, it's remarkable news.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
It's Atropecious!
(But not as much my pun.)
The Television Tropes & Idioms wiki has taken up most of my reading time today. I can't easily account for its fascination; something about the combination of amusement and recognition I get from reading all these entries?
The Television Tropes & Idioms wiki has taken up most of my reading time today. I can't easily account for its fascination; something about the combination of amusement and recognition I get from reading all these entries?
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
The Multiverse Isn't a Subplot!
Today's book of consideration is James P. Hogan's The Proteus Operation; there will be some minor spoilage, I'm afraid. (But only minor!)
The novel begins in an alternate history where the Axis had a very successful World War II. It's now 1975, and America and Australia are the only non-Axis nations left in the world; but it's only a matter of time for them.
So they develop time-travel, planning to go back to the early 1940s and change a few things; and make their world, in the process, very much like the one we live in today. But things are much more complicated than they first appear.
(Here go my minor spoilers!)
The Americans actually stole time-travel from the Nazis; or rather, from the 21st-century renegades who decided they'd prefer a Nazi world to their original history. So ours isn't the first history, or the second, but the third; the original course of history is an idyllic world where Europe reached a better ending to WWI, and averted the bloody course of the late 20th century altogether.
So far, so good. I love time-travel stories. And while I'm skeptical of utopias (something I've been seeing a lot of in Hogan) the neatness of the history-behind-a-history-behind-a-history appealed to my juvenile sense of wonder.
But then things get annoying.
It turns out that changing history doesn't scale forward: the Utopia world and the Nazi world keep going on, regardless of what changes occur in 1940. That's a standard trope of time-travel stories, and it seems to resolve some paradoxes.
But these parallel worlds aren't related to the time-travel changes. They're borne of the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, in which every possible position of an electron manifests in an entirely different universe. So the time-travellers are never really interacting with their own history at all (I think. But, really, who can tell?)
I don't mind the Many-Worlds Hypothesis; it can certainly be the basis for some fascinating science fiction. But it makes a lousy subplot. It's too big; not just in size, but in implications. It affects everything. Any fair treatment of it will tend to overwhelm any other story the author's trying to tell.
Greg Egan's done some good work with the concept: particularly his brilliant Permutation City, which I hope to review someday soon. But he does this good work by acknowledging the way the multiverse has a radical impact on the basic ideas that we take for granted.
Proteus wasn't a bad novel; and I'm still a sucker for time travel. But this treatment removes the logical paradoxes that are the mainstay of time-travelling fun. With that taken away, it's more like a period piece.
The novel begins in an alternate history where the Axis had a very successful World War II. It's now 1975, and America and Australia are the only non-Axis nations left in the world; but it's only a matter of time for them.
So they develop time-travel, planning to go back to the early 1940s and change a few things; and make their world, in the process, very much like the one we live in today. But things are much more complicated than they first appear.
(Here go my minor spoilers!)
The Americans actually stole time-travel from the Nazis; or rather, from the 21st-century renegades who decided they'd prefer a Nazi world to their original history. So ours isn't the first history, or the second, but the third; the original course of history is an idyllic world where Europe reached a better ending to WWI, and averted the bloody course of the late 20th century altogether.
So far, so good. I love time-travel stories. And while I'm skeptical of utopias (something I've been seeing a lot of in Hogan) the neatness of the history-behind-a-history-behind-a-history appealed to my juvenile sense of wonder.
But then things get annoying.
It turns out that changing history doesn't scale forward: the Utopia world and the Nazi world keep going on, regardless of what changes occur in 1940. That's a standard trope of time-travel stories, and it seems to resolve some paradoxes.
But these parallel worlds aren't related to the time-travel changes. They're borne of the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, in which every possible position of an electron manifests in an entirely different universe. So the time-travellers are never really interacting with their own history at all (I think. But, really, who can tell?)
I don't mind the Many-Worlds Hypothesis; it can certainly be the basis for some fascinating science fiction. But it makes a lousy subplot. It's too big; not just in size, but in implications. It affects everything. Any fair treatment of it will tend to overwhelm any other story the author's trying to tell.
Greg Egan's done some good work with the concept: particularly his brilliant Permutation City, which I hope to review someday soon. But he does this good work by acknowledging the way the multiverse has a radical impact on the basic ideas that we take for granted.
Proteus wasn't a bad novel; and I'm still a sucker for time travel. But this treatment removes the logical paradoxes that are the mainstay of time-travelling fun. With that taken away, it's more like a period piece.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Tonight's Geek Pleasure
Fantasy Bedtime Hour, a public access show in which two nude women lie in bed discussing Stephen R. Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane. They're completely clueless, and it's hilarious watching them try to interpret Donaldson's overpurple prose.
They also have action sequences!
They also have action sequences!
I Have No Comment...
... About the report that Mitt Romney's favorite novel is Battlefield Earth.
Well, maybe just one.
BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Well, maybe just one.
BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!
The Law of the Jungle
From The Jungle Book,
by Rudyard Kipling
Now this is the Law of the Jungle --
as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,
but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk
the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip;
drink deeply, but never too deep;
And remember the night is for hunting,
and forget not the day is for sleep.
The Jackal may follow the Tiger,
but, Cub, when thy whiskers are grown,
Remember the Wolf is a Hunter --
go forth and get food of thine own.
Keep peace withe Lords of the Jungle --
the Tiger, the Panther, and Bear.
And trouble not Hathi the Silent,
and mock not the Boar in his lair.
When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle,
and neither will go from the trail,
Lie down till the leaders have spoken --
it may be fair words shall prevail.
When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack,
ye must fight him alone and afar,
Lest others take part in the quarrel,
and the Pack be diminished by war.
The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge,
and where he has made him his home,
Not even the Head Wolf may enter,
not even the Council may come.
The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge,
but where he has digged it too plain,
The Council shall send him a message,
and so he shall change it again.
If ye kill before midnight, be silent,
and wake not the woods with your bay,
Lest ye frighten the deer from the crop,
and your brothers go empty away.
Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates,
and your cubs as they need, and ye can;
But kill not for pleasure of killing,
and seven times never kill Man!
If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker,
devour not all in thy pride;
Pack-Right is the right of the meanest;
so leave him the head and the hide.
The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack.
Ye must eat where it lies;
And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair,
or he dies.
The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf.
He may do what he will;
But, till he has given permission,
the Pack may not eat of that Kill.
Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling.
From all of his Pack he may claim
Full-gorge when the killer has eaten;
and none may refuse him the same.
Lair-Right is the right of the Mother.
From all of her year she may claim
One haunch of each kill for her litter,
and none may deny her the same.
Cave-Right is the right of the Father --
to hunt by himself for his own:
He is freed of all calls to the Pack;
he is judged by the Council alone.
Because of his age and his cunning,
because of his gripe and his paw,
In all that the Law leaveth open,
the word of your Head Wolf is Law.
Now these are the Laws of the Jungle,
and many and mighty are they;
But the head and the hoof of the Law
and the haunch and the hump is -- Obey!
by Rudyard Kipling
Now this is the Law of the Jungle --
as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,
but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk
the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip;
drink deeply, but never too deep;
And remember the night is for hunting,
and forget not the day is for sleep.
The Jackal may follow the Tiger,
but, Cub, when thy whiskers are grown,
Remember the Wolf is a Hunter --
go forth and get food of thine own.
Keep peace withe Lords of the Jungle --
the Tiger, the Panther, and Bear.
And trouble not Hathi the Silent,
and mock not the Boar in his lair.
When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle,
and neither will go from the trail,
Lie down till the leaders have spoken --
it may be fair words shall prevail.
When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack,
ye must fight him alone and afar,
Lest others take part in the quarrel,
and the Pack be diminished by war.
The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge,
and where he has made him his home,
Not even the Head Wolf may enter,
not even the Council may come.
The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge,
but where he has digged it too plain,
The Council shall send him a message,
and so he shall change it again.
If ye kill before midnight, be silent,
and wake not the woods with your bay,
Lest ye frighten the deer from the crop,
and your brothers go empty away.
Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates,
and your cubs as they need, and ye can;
But kill not for pleasure of killing,
and seven times never kill Man!
If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker,
devour not all in thy pride;
Pack-Right is the right of the meanest;
so leave him the head and the hide.
The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack.
Ye must eat where it lies;
And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair,
or he dies.
The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf.
He may do what he will;
But, till he has given permission,
the Pack may not eat of that Kill.
Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling.
From all of his Pack he may claim
Full-gorge when the killer has eaten;
and none may refuse him the same.
Lair-Right is the right of the Mother.
From all of her year she may claim
One haunch of each kill for her litter,
and none may deny her the same.
Cave-Right is the right of the Father --
to hunt by himself for his own:
He is freed of all calls to the Pack;
he is judged by the Council alone.
Because of his age and his cunning,
because of his gripe and his paw,
In all that the Law leaveth open,
the word of your Head Wolf is Law.
Now these are the Laws of the Jungle,
and many and mighty are they;
But the head and the hoof of the Law
and the haunch and the hump is -- Obey!
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