Karl Gallagher ([info]selenite) wrote,
@ 2009-08-05 00:27:00
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Current mood: thoughtful
Entry tags:books, science fiction

More Recent Reading
The Moon Goddess and the Son
You'd expect a novel focused on the nuclear standoff between the USA and USSR to age poorly. This one has been improving over the past twenty years. The discussions of the continuity among the Mongol, Czarist, and Soviet governments of Russia are useful guides to Putin's regime. The comments on American culture ("Don't try to sell them parachutes, just have the splints ready") also hold true. The space development story line holds up, more because the lack of progress we've made than any prescience on Kingsbury's part. The best reason for rereading is the characters--they're real, and I like them, even when they're being idiots (a small portion of the time).


Rainbows End
Professor Vinge wanted to write a monograph on user interface design given the technology of 2025, but didn't think anyone would read it. So he gave us this novel instead. It'll probably look bad ten years from now but it's a good extrapolation from now. On first read I was put off by the very unsympathetic protagonist. He's another variation of the SF trope of the guy from the present brought to the future so all the characters have an excuse to explain the things they're used to. Instead of freezing him or throwing him through time, Vinge rescues Robert Gu from Alzheimer's-induced senility. He becomes our guide to a very strange--but believable--world. Telepresence, virtual reality, and data overlays over our view of the real world are constant. A big political event is the equivalent of Warcraft and Pokemon fans clashing over whose imagery will be used to decorate a library. Terrorists are empowered even more by the new technology, while the good guys scramble to stay a step ahead of them. The book's biggest danger comes from someone seeking to control us all for our own good.

Highly recommended to everyone planning on living another fifteen years or more.


Watchmen (the comic)
I read Watchmen after the movie came out. Ugh. Comics fans are more nihilistic than I'd feared if this is one of their revered classics. It's an example of Lois Bujold's comment on Ser Galen: "the anguish of making the hard choices always appealed to the romance in his soul." Given Dr. Manhattan's powers there's multiple ways to avert nuclear war if anyone can convince him to bother. Ozy was in a perfect position to convince him, but wanted to reserve playing god to himself. Moore would rather write about horrid situations requiring brutal choices than make the effort to find a solution that doesn't need millions of innocents killed.

Edit: There will be no further discussion of Watchmen here, because it's unpleasant and I've already spent more time thinking about it than I want to.


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[info]bdunbar
2009-08-05 05:44 am UTC (link)
The Moon Goddess and the Son

To this day I can't hear 'LA Woman' without also thinking about the chapter that opened with that song. And ships boosting for Leoport from the Pacific.

And theme restaurants in orbit.

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[info]ernunnos
2009-08-05 05:47 am UTC (link)
Actually, I think that's the point. That Ozymandias is evil because he has so little imagination. If you're the smartest man in the world, and your best plan involves killing millions of people... you're not really all that smart, are you? And the ending is specifically designed to demonstrate that. Despite his best effort, despite "winning", "Life... finds a way."

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[info]notthebuddha
2009-08-06 05:13 am UTC (link)
If you're the smartest man in the world, and your best plan involves killing millions of people... you're not really all that smart, are you?

Unless 1) you expected the millions of people to otherwise die in the next few months anyway and/or 2) you are counting on the bluntness of the plot to be seen as out of character for you and therefore have more deniability.

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[info]ernunnos
2009-08-06 05:43 am UTC (link)
It doesn't matter what you expect to happen without your intervention. I truly clever individual could come up with a solution that is actually good, as opposed to merely less bad. And of course, if you come up with a good solution, then there's no need for deniability. You can take full credit and bask in the adoration of the world. If you need to deny it, that's a pretty good sign that you should go back to the drawing board.

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[info]notthebuddha
2009-08-06 06:15 am UTC (link)
I think you are holding the gritty Watchmen to the more lofty four-color standards of morality and achievement, and that kind of expectation is doomed to disappointment.

Meanwhile, Ozy already basks in the adoration of the world, and he did take credit for his plot to his peers, no doubt planning on word eventually getting and establishing his fame/notoriety for the ages.

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[info]ernunnos
2009-08-06 06:24 am UTC (link)
Actually, I'm holding it to my normal standard of morality, in which killing millions of people is generally regarded as a bad thing, and in which solutions that involve killing millions of people are regarded as sub-optimal. That's a fairly low bar to set. You don't have to have a letter on your chest to accept these as basic principles.

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[info]notthebuddha
2009-08-06 10:45 am UTC (link)
The last two visible times the world needed saving in RL, the solutions involved people with normal standards of morality having to kill millions of people as well.

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[info]pokeyburro
2009-08-06 05:26 pm UTC (link)
This subthread demonstrates why I like The Watchmen so much, actually, and I'm far from nihilist. I thought Moore did an extraordinary job of sketching seven main characters whose viewpoints range from hard right to moderate to hard left, and from all powerful to almost powerless, giving them a host of morally ambiguous scenarios, and letting them drive the story. And that's just the main characters.

The arc gives no clear answers as to what they should have done. The world might have backed down from nuclear war, had Ozymandias not acted; it might still run into nuclear war despite his act. All of the characters could have made a different choice here and there, and the story is constructed so that those choices might not matter in the grand scheme, even while posing arguments that those choices might be important nevertheless.

Overall, the story gives people fodder for a lot of debate and discussion, and I like that. Add in some of the sci-fi and literary niftyness, and I can truly understand why many regard it as classic.

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[info]selenite
2009-08-06 05:50 pm UTC (link)
There's a noticable moral difference between attacking another country taking agressive action and blowing up innocent citizens in your own country by the millions.

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[info]pokeyburro
2009-08-06 06:11 pm UTC (link)
It's important to remember why, however. One option can look so much better than the other in terms of short-term outcome that it's easy to persuade yourself that this "rule of thumb" is bunk.

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[info]selenite
2009-08-07 12:28 am UTC (link)
Which is why we make the rules about killing innocents into "laws" and "commandments" instead of "rules of thumb."

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[info]notthebuddha
2009-08-07 01:08 am UTC (link)
Is that greater or lesser than the moral difference between preventing needless deaths or consenting to let them happen?

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[info]selenite
2009-08-07 05:47 am UTC (link)
Greater, give that "preventing" is hypothetical and uncertain.

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Who Swatches® the Swatchmen®?
[info]bitpig
2009-08-05 08:48 am UTC (link)
I don't understand the appeal of Vernor Vinge. Who in the hell wants to live in a world where the damned Internet is around you all the time and you can't turn it off? For me, the idea of being trapped in Second Life or Habbo Hotel for all eternity somehow lacks appeal.

And I don't see the market for godlike AIs that instantly render humanity obsolete. What kid of ROI could such a development project offer? "The good news is that we can pull it off, Mr. Investor. The bad news is that you, your fellow investors, and all mankind will become extinct." Yeah, I'm signing a check for THAT project.

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Re: Who Swatches® the Swatchmen®?
[info]selenite
2009-08-05 05:49 pm UTC (link)
I'd pay real money for a gadget that'll tell me who the guy shaking my hand is, if I've actually met him before, and if there's any outstanding warrants or other stuff I should know about him. There's a lot of room to augment humans.

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Re: Who Swatches® the Swatchmen®?
[info]tygerr
2009-08-06 12:58 am UTC (link)
The first few just render that company's labor expenses force obsolete, thus enabling massive increases in profits.

Any BoD that tried to nix such a purchase would be sued, successfully, for breach of fiduciary responsibility.

It's only when there's some critical number of them that all of humanity becomes obsolete. And it wouldn't be any particular person or corporation's "fault", even if one could make the legally-dubious claim that a corporation had some obligation to humanity as a whole that overrode its obligation to its investors/shareholders.

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Re: Who Swatches® the Swatchmen®?
[info]bitpig
2009-08-06 03:23 am UTC (link)
I'd rather be dead than live in such a world.

And will be, probably.

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Re: Who Swatches® the Swatchmen®?
[info]bonafidelis
2009-08-06 05:06 am UTC (link)
which is why it should become law that all AI be programmed with Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics

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Re: Who Swatches® the Swatchmen®?
[info]notthebuddha
2009-08-06 05:10 am UTC (link)
Er, that wouldn't necessarily work out that well.

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Re: Who Swatches® the Swatchmen®?
[info]bonafidelis
2009-08-06 05:20 am UTC (link)
very true because then we would just be put into a system like The Matrix for our own good.

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Re: Who Swatches® the Swatchmen®?
[info]selenite
2009-08-06 05:48 pm UTC (link)
Given that the book I posted about has no super-human AIs, maybe read the book instead of posting about irrelevant stuff?

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Re: Who Swatches® the Swatchmen®?
[info]notthebuddha
2009-08-06 11:47 am UTC (link)
Who in the hell wants to live in a world where the damned Internet is around you all the time and you can't turn it off?

Unlike all other forms of communication one can opt out of with little or no consequences?

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[info]notthebuddha
2009-08-06 05:09 am UTC (link)
Given Dr. Manhattan's powers there's multiple ways to avert nuclear war if anyone can convince him to bother.

He hides his true capabilities because he needs the word to think he can't stop the nuclear exchange so that the leaders won't risk an escalation.

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[info]selenite
2009-08-06 05:47 pm UTC (link)
If he stacks all the warheads on Mars, who cares if they escalate?

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[info]notthebuddha
2009-08-07 12:58 am UTC (link)
If he stacks all the warheads on Mars, who cares if they escalate?

The hundreds of millions of probably casualties from a conventional World War III, and up to a billion of their dependents?

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[info]selenite
2009-08-07 05:48 am UTC (link)
History says otherwise.

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