James P. Hogan's Code of the Lifemaker starts off very nicely. An ancient alien survey ship, designed to set up automated factories on uninhabited planets, ends up damaged on the moon Titan. There, the imperfect automatons undergo their own kind of evolutionary process, ending up with something very like organic life.
(This prologue is the best part of the novel, and it's excerpted here.)
The rest of the novel deals with a human expedition to Titan, which over the ages since the prologue has evolved its own machine ecosystems and even sentient machine life. The robots are at a roughly medieval/Renaessance level of development, and the humans take great advantage of this as they prepare to make Titan into an economic colony.
The writing is solid. The characters, with one exception, are shallow but tolerable. Hogan works hard to make his bizarre mechanical-organic world plausible, and it kind of works.
There are two problems. The first is that Hogan puts speeches into various characters' mouths- mostly, in this novel, about the advantages of the scientific method. This gets old quickly.
The second problem is something I've noted about Heinlein: the assumption that politics is chess writ large, a completely rational and controllable game that smart people can arrange to their liking. This is implausible enough with humans, especially with religion added in; with an unknown alien race, the idea breaks down completely.
I suppose I was expecting a very different ending to the humans' various machinations and deceptions. But on Titan, you really can fool all the people all the time.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
38 And Counting...
It's my birthday today!
37 was a good year; 38 is beginning to feel the chill shadow of looming 40. But there's two long years to get ready for that.
It's been a good day. I just wish there was cake to be had!
37 was a good year; 38 is beginning to feel the chill shadow of looming 40. But there's two long years to get ready for that.
It's been a good day. I just wish there was cake to be had!
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Happy Easter!
I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
-1 Corinthians 15:50-56
I hope you all have a very happy Easter.
"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
-1 Corinthians 15:50-56
I hope you all have a very happy Easter.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Returning to Land
We have come to port in the fine city of Limassol! As Wikipedia says, it is the second-largest city on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
I would like to say more, but I haven't actually seen it yet, as today is my duty day. Tomorrow will be interesting, however.
I would like to say more, but I haven't actually seen it yet, as today is my duty day. Tomorrow will be interesting, however.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
The World Without Us
Alan Weisman's The World Without Us is a thought experiment in which humanity suddenly disappears- from the Rapture, or space aliens who kidnap us, or whatever. The point is that humanity is gone. How long do traces of human civilization last, without anyone to maintain them?
Some things vanish very quickly: most modern architecture is not designed to last for centuries even with human maintenance. Bridges will fall, subway tunnels will fill with water, sidewalks and streets will be broken by weeds, shrubs, and eventually by trees.
Some time ago I posted an article about the recovery of wildlife in the abandoned areas around Chernobyl. Weisman studies the area in detail, since it's a sort of test case for his whole experiment. Wildlife, including large animals, may recover much faster than anyone would expect.
Human-related animals will have a harder time. Cats will do very well; dogs less so. Cockroaches, contrary to what I've always heard about nuclear war, will not do well without humans; they're tropical insects and need constant heat to survive.
The longest-lasting deliberate artifact of humanity may well be Mount Rushmore. The longest-lasting unintentional artifacts will be nuclear wastes, sand-sized particles of plastic, and tires- which, vulcanized into a single superlong molecule, will prove a daunting challenge to any ecological process that tries to break them down.
Some things vanish very quickly: most modern architecture is not designed to last for centuries even with human maintenance. Bridges will fall, subway tunnels will fill with water, sidewalks and streets will be broken by weeds, shrubs, and eventually by trees.
Some time ago I posted an article about the recovery of wildlife in the abandoned areas around Chernobyl. Weisman studies the area in detail, since it's a sort of test case for his whole experiment. Wildlife, including large animals, may recover much faster than anyone would expect.
Human-related animals will have a harder time. Cats will do very well; dogs less so. Cockroaches, contrary to what I've always heard about nuclear war, will not do well without humans; they're tropical insects and need constant heat to survive.
The longest-lasting deliberate artifact of humanity may well be Mount Rushmore. The longest-lasting unintentional artifacts will be nuclear wastes, sand-sized particles of plastic, and tires- which, vulcanized into a single superlong molecule, will prove a daunting challenge to any ecological process that tries to break them down.
Chesterton on Loyalty
From his greatest work, Orthodoxy:
... a man criticises this world as if he were house-hunting, as if he were being shown over a new suite of apartments. If a man came to this world from some other world in full possession of his powers he might discuss whether the advantage of midsummer woods made up for the disadvantage of mad dogs, just as a man looking for lodgings might balance the presence of a telephone against the absence of a sea view. But no man is in that position. A man belongs to this world before he begins to ask if it is nice to belong to it. He has fought for the flag, and often won heroic victories for the flag long before he has ever enlisted. To put shortly what seems the essential matter, he has a loyalty long before he has any admiration.
One of the many appeals of Chesterton is that he makes cheerful, reasonable arguments for things that I never hear anywhere else. When was the last time someone made a justification for blind, uncritical loyalty?
Of course, the loyalty in question is a very primal thing, which seems to be Chesterton's point. We cannot critically evaluate primal questions like "Is life good?" We can only decide.
Shortly later, he discusses the notorious slum of Pimlico:
Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing -- say Pimlico. If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne or the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico: to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles; Pimlico would attire herself as a woman does when she is loved. For decoration is not given to hide horrible things: but to decorate things already adorable. A mother does not give her child a blue bow because he is so ugly without it. A lover does not give a girl a necklace to hide her neck. If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence.
Some readers will say that this is a mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great. Go back to the darkest roots of civilization and you will find them knotted round some sacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.
... a man criticises this world as if he were house-hunting, as if he were being shown over a new suite of apartments. If a man came to this world from some other world in full possession of his powers he might discuss whether the advantage of midsummer woods made up for the disadvantage of mad dogs, just as a man looking for lodgings might balance the presence of a telephone against the absence of a sea view. But no man is in that position. A man belongs to this world before he begins to ask if it is nice to belong to it. He has fought for the flag, and often won heroic victories for the flag long before he has ever enlisted. To put shortly what seems the essential matter, he has a loyalty long before he has any admiration.
One of the many appeals of Chesterton is that he makes cheerful, reasonable arguments for things that I never hear anywhere else. When was the last time someone made a justification for blind, uncritical loyalty?
Of course, the loyalty in question is a very primal thing, which seems to be Chesterton's point. We cannot critically evaluate primal questions like "Is life good?" We can only decide.
Shortly later, he discusses the notorious slum of Pimlico:
Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing -- say Pimlico. If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne or the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico: to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles; Pimlico would attire herself as a woman does when she is loved. For decoration is not given to hide horrible things: but to decorate things already adorable. A mother does not give her child a blue bow because he is so ugly without it. A lover does not give a girl a necklace to hide her neck. If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence.
Some readers will say that this is a mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great. Go back to the darkest roots of civilization and you will find them knotted round some sacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Helliconia Winter
Brrr!
This one was seasonally appropriate; I mostly read it while curled up in my blankets at home, wishing that it were summer already. But circumstances interrupted, and I wasn't able to finish it until recently, out here.
Brian Aldiss' Helliconia is a planet whose seasons last for several centuries. In that sense, it's conceptually similar to George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series. But the resemblance pretty much ends there: in Martin's series, the extended seasons are a background detail which may or may not ever come up again; in Helliconia Winter, the change of seasons is the whole thrust of the plot.
The tone is dry and somewhat anthropological; there are several interesting characters, but the real appeal of the novel is seeing how society adapts to a seasonal change that they don't even have the records to remember; and then noting the hints that all of these changes are part of an ecological balancing act. Helliconia's humans seem to be "wired into" their planet's ecology in a much more direct way than Earth humans.
There are apparently two more novels: as you might expect, they're named "Helliconia Spring" and "Helliconia Winter." When I get home, I'll probably have to look them up.
This one was seasonally appropriate; I mostly read it while curled up in my blankets at home, wishing that it were summer already. But circumstances interrupted, and I wasn't able to finish it until recently, out here.
Brian Aldiss' Helliconia is a planet whose seasons last for several centuries. In that sense, it's conceptually similar to George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series. But the resemblance pretty much ends there: in Martin's series, the extended seasons are a background detail which may or may not ever come up again; in Helliconia Winter, the change of seasons is the whole thrust of the plot.
The tone is dry and somewhat anthropological; there are several interesting characters, but the real appeal of the novel is seeing how society adapts to a seasonal change that they don't even have the records to remember; and then noting the hints that all of these changes are part of an ecological balancing act. Helliconia's humans seem to be "wired into" their planet's ecology in a much more direct way than Earth humans.
There are apparently two more novels: as you might expect, they're named "Helliconia Spring" and "Helliconia Winter." When I get home, I'll probably have to look them up.
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