Wes's comments (member since Dec 28, 2008)

Wes's comments from the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club group.

Use of Weapons seemed so trite with the Keyser Soze twist tacked on to the end.

I will see it in hopes that I might get some enjoyment out of this story. Perhaps it will translate better on film.

The tremendous popularity of the book is likely a result of the OBC phenomenon. I'm baffled as to how it won a pulitzer.

One of the reasons I so like the Culture series is that barring a few overarching ideas, none of the novels are remotely connected. Feel free to read them in any order.

I've gotten a fair ways into Excession but abandoned it for something else at the time. I recall it being as good as his other Culture novels.

Use of Weapons was probably the first Banks book with which I wasn't completely satisfied. I absolutely loved Consider Phlebas and The Algebraist and consider them to be the best of the best in science fiction.

Mosca, my thoughts are that if you quite dislike gratuitous violence, you and Banks may not get along. Some of my favorite passages in his books are his most violent. In fact, Matter, his latest science fiction work, ends incredibly depressingly and violently. Player of Games is also quite violent in parts. I would say that Consider Phlebas is a fair sampling (albeit fairly old) of his work.

Pham's taking control of the ship and of the situation was a logical extension of their physical descent toward the slow zone. His particular skills and personal history were best suited to handle the challenges they were facing. Also, I don't recall the riders really deferring to Pham until after harmonious repose, at which point he did not allow Blueshell to retain control of the ship.

I also completely disagree with the original poster. I just finished The Name of the Wind in one of the most satisfying late night reads I've had in years. At first, there were some eyeroll inducing moments, but I found myself coming around to like the young Kvothe and really dug into the story at the University. Can't wait for the second installment.

I didn't read those but The Host A Novel was disappointing to say the least.

Trying to imagine the ships waltzing an intricately timed engagement between jumps was simply impossible for me. However, my failure to conjure up these mental images did not detract from the idea of it all, which I found to be quite interesting. It definitely wasn't the edge-of-your-seat type of moment that the skroderider battle was. So I'm in alignment with Brad.

It gets much, much better. Give it time.

Under the circumstances, I think Ravna &c. acted with the best possible intelligence (that they were fed by Steel). We can't really fault them for wanting to help out poor Jefri.

I like that Steel was able to pull the wool over our heroes' eyes. There's definitely some double blind communication going on and the Tines are at a distinct advantage over our friends on the OOB.

Had Pham been in full control of his faculties, he probably would have seen through the deception. But his head was crammed with godshatter and he was distracted by the skroderiders.

It barely qualifies as science fiction. I doubt I'll revisit it as the first go-around was quite lackluster. But you're right. It is a very fast read.

Great points, Brad. I especially liked this part.

"More than six seems to simply be too much stimulation, too much input, too much sensation for a pack to handle; less than four seems to be the opposite: too little stimulation, too little input, too little sensation (which could be why the smaller packs become sexually active and ultra-violent -- an inherent desire to pump up stimulation). But something else is going on apart from external stimulation. There seems to be an emotional stability that comes from optimal numbers, which allows a pack to function well, and this emotional stability is instantly rocked by the death of a member."

Perhaps we'll get some insight into these questions. In fact, I'm quite curious about what fate holds for Flenser and the Steel fragment. Has Flenser purged Tyrathect from his psyche completely? Will he take unto himself part of Steel?

Those who really enjoyed the Tines World may take heart in knowing that Vinge plans for his next novel to be a sequel to AFUTD set 10 years after those events (accoring to his wikipedia page).

Takeshi Kovacs is my recent favorite from Altered Carbon: A Takeshi Kovacs Novel

Others that have not yet been mentioned:

John Uskglass of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Uther Doul, The Brucolac, and Silas Fennec of The Scar
The Weaver of Perdido Street Station
Pham Nuwen of A Deepness in the Sky
Felix of Armor
Bora Horza Gobuchul of Consider Phlebas
Manfred Macx of Accelerando
Duncan Idaho of many Dune novels.

I'll borrow an oft-used phrase from the book.

"They don't call it the Net of a Million Lies for nothing."

The problem of perception and truth is really displayed in the various Net feeds that we get to see the OOB receive throughout the novel. Some sentient species have gross misconceptions about the Blight and its "agents". Still others don't really understand what is even happening, as a result of meaning lost in translation. The Net in the Beyond seems comically similar to our internet, flamewars and all.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the concept of self consciousness as a function of how many members the Tines have in a pack.

One of the most interesting details of the Tines species was their group mind. It seems like their consciousness is almost a signal that increases with constructive interference caused by the tympana they use to "think". But less than three members almost always results in a less-than-whole "person". And more than 6 or 7 usually reverts to madness or disbandment (except in the case of Amdi). Maybe there is a local maximum for the interference?

Another interesting component of the Tines World was that there existed an entire sociopolitical movement fueled by eugenics. Applying our coat of morals, Flenser was most certainly a monster in that regard. Even though Woodcarver is portrayed as the counterbalance to Flenser, she has practiced inbreeding--still a directed breeding program--for generations.

Indeed, we are shown that packs essentially treat singletons and duos as organs that may be used or discarded. But they are not just organs, enhancing biological function. They act to mold the actual character of the pack being. I would imagine this to be a terribly tough concept for a Human to wrap their mind around, and Vinge dutifully portrays this through Johanna's reluctance to grasp that Scarbutt was not individually responsible for her father's death.

Whitaker wrote: "Then we got into the nature of the pack-mind, and further on into the Beyond with some truly alien aliens, and it's starting to turn far more interesting, more like Iain Banks and his Culture series."

I agree wholeheartedly. I had not read any of Banks' work the last time I tackled this book so the comparison was not available for me to make. After finishing AFUTD again, I must say Banks handles the AI much more effectively than Vinge. I'm also more attracted to Banks' frequent zero sum (with respect to the Humanoids. The Minds always profit) endings.

I have not read all of Banks' work but I find the one most similar in style to AFUTD is Matter. The description of the shell world and its inhabitants is as good as anything Vinge has written. Vinge has such great detail with his aliens, though. The Tines and the Spiders ( in A Deepness in the Sky) are so convincingly real. What do you think?

Through my current reading (chapter 32) there has been only one significant passage attempting to explain how the Blight is considered evil. It comes from the perspective of Ravna.

There were some smug posters on the Net who argued that something as vast as the Blight was simply a tragic disaster, and not an evil. Evil, they argued, could only have meaning on smaller scales, in the hurt that one sophont does to another. Before RIP, the argument had seemed a frivolous playing with words. Now she saw that it was meaningful--and dead wrong. The Blight had created the Riders, a mervelous and peaceful race. Their presence on a billion worlds had been a good. And behind it all was a potential for converting the sovereign minds of friends into monsters. When she thought of Blueshell and Greenstalk, and the fear welled up and she knew the poison that was there--even though they were good people--then she knew she'd glimpsed evil on the Transcendent scale. - Page 406

Unfortunately, this is a less than convincing argument, mired in emotion and lacking in logic. My hope is that Vinge does this to point out the all too common human fallacy in ascribing good and evil to other humans (and in this case other beings vastly more intelligent and complex than themselves).

In effect, the Blight may be sadistic by its self replicating nature, and need for symbiotes/teleo-remotes to do its bidding, but that does not imply evil, rather it is the path to its existence/stasis.

We can more easily fit the coat of morals upon the Tines and Humans as they are clearly identifiable as Human or nearly so. Yet I still err on the side of Spinoza. After all, there is no absolute scale for good and evil. In the end, they are almost certainly abstractions. With increasingly complex lifeforms it becomes increasingly difficult to apply that scale that is based on Human nature and Human morals.

*Possible spoilers*



This is my third time around on this particular novel, but it has been at least 6 years since my last reading.

The prologue was interesting in that it provided insight into the Straumli Perversion. I imagine it would be tough to write something that would sound convincingly like it came from its point of view, and I think here Vinge is only partially successful. Still, it is the only peek into the Power's mind at page 100. I don't recall if there is further exposition from the Perversion, but I am awaiting a future interlude.

My fascination of this novel was, and still remains, the Tines World inhabitants. Vinge has a real talent for creating bizarre yet strangely familiar alien life. The first few chapters with Peregrine place us in a confusing setting. Rather than clumsily explaining the Tines, we're thrown into the world, forced to make sense of these beings. I absolutely love it.

I'm just now reaching some background information on Pham Nuwen and the Skroderiders and I can't wait to re-discover how they fit into the story.

One thing I've noticed this time around that I hadn't before is that so many of the names and languages sound Norwegian or Scandinavian. Vinge mentions before the prologue that a trip to Norway helped shape the writing in AFUTD. I'll be keeping an eye out for signs of that influence.

This has been a New Crobuzon December.

Perdido Street Station
The Scar
Iron Council