bookshelves: to-read
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Andrea
added a quote:
"The difference between stupid and intelligent people -- and this is true whether or not they are well-educated -- is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambigous or even contradictory situations -- in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward." — Neal Stephenson
"The difference between stupid and intelligent people -- and this is true whether or not they are well-educated -- is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambigous or even contradictory situations -- in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward." — Neal Stephenson
Andrea
added a quote:
"The full cosmos consists of the physical stuff and consciousness. Take away consciousness and it's only dust; add consciousness and you get things, ideas, and time." — Neal Stephenson
"The full cosmos consists of the physical stuff and consciousness. Take away consciousness and it's only dust; add consciousness and you get things, ideas, and time." — Neal Stephenson
Forward charges in with in a bold, self-reflexive move & proudly informs us less than one hundred pages (85-86) in of the nearly five-hundred, how exciting and well-written his story is going to be and just how it's all going to play out. We get the idea that we'll be looking at shiny vessels orbiting around monstrous planets, staffed with a highly intelligent crew, managing improbable escapes, floating around, eating free-range food while conducting world-changing research under the threat of being crashed, air locked, lost or otherwise killed during their one-way ticket to Rocheworld. On some of these accounts, Rocheworld delivers. Unfortunately, Forward manages to paint these grossly stereotypical characters, with asinine dialogue to cover the rest of the human drama. Couple this with the rampant racism, sexism, ageism and elitism apparent in the characters thoughts, actions and interactions and Forward makes finding interest in the actual hard science, a task at best.
Rocheworld smacks of 80's post cold-war tensions, scientific politics, and is rife with "commies," "yellow-skinned chinks," "honkeys," misogyny and white, Southern senators with drawls as thick and comical as Foghorn Leghorn. Frankly, it's more than anyone with a cross-cultural world-view and a scratch of humanity can stomach. To Forward's credit, however, he does turn a few good phrases; there are some beautifully descriptive sentences that blend machinery, motion, science & emotion in an educative way that's not too heavily buried in jargon or crap dialogue or distracting slurs and are technically well-expressed.
Forward could very well have titled this novel, "Floating, Rockhounding and Humping" if it weren't for the light-sail propulsion, the mention of Lagrange points, the inter-planetary tsunami and the playfully kooky, surfer-dude, rainbow jellyfish assortment of aliens. There is clearly some excellent science in motion here. As a first round in descriptions of that motion however, Forward succeeds when he keeps it simple, avoids the traps of sexist, racist, jargon-flooded technical dialogue and textures the scene with relative humanity, allowing the content not to come through obvious, cardboard character by forced propulsion, but for us as readers, to simply be moved.
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bookshelves: currently-reading
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bookshelves: to-read
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bookshelves: to-read
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bookshelves: to-read
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