![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
May. 23rd, 2008
_Dust_, Elizabeth Bear
_The Edge of Reason_, Melinda Snodgrass
Has any generation ship in SF had a completely routine mission, with no disaster, unexpected course change, mutiny, rebellion, invasion, plague, or arrival just a little while after the FTL task force finishes setting up the banners that say "Welcome Home Second Cousins Three Hundred Times Removed"?
I suppose that when that happens, it tends to be background for the Galactic Empire story. Bear's not telling that one, anyway. The Jacob's Ladder is a huge generation ship -- from internal evidence, I'm guessing more than 40Km long -- and some time ago it had problems which killed an awful lot of the crew and forced an emergency pit stop at the next solar system. Even worse, they picked a binary system on the ragged edge of becoming a Type Ia supernova. That's the shotgun we see over the mantel in scene two.
That would all be bad enough, but the ship's AI has fragmented into a few dozen Angels having a nanotech battle for domination and control, mirrored by the impending war between the Engine clan and the Rule clan. As is repeatedly observed by characters in the book, "Primogeniture is a stupid way to run a starship". Good story-telling, although I never really understood why one of the main viewpoint characters fell in love with the other one.
Complete in one volume, although there will apparently be a sequel next year.
Snodgrass, on the other hand, sets us up for volume one in a never-ending speculative fiction series about the battle between Rational Scientific Thought (Good, led by Satan with his sidekick Homeless Hippie Jesus) and Religious Mysticism (Bad, led by every god you've ever heard of, with their sidekicks the Christian Evangelists). It turns out that the gods (or Old Ones) are energy-being aliens from other universes that eat emotional energy. The flavor that they find easiest to induce in humans is, of course, hatred and anger. It may be that love tastes better, but it's harder to farm, so they mostly don't. There is some confusion (or I was confused) about whether they feed on emotion or they are created by sufficiently strong emotions; you see, Jesus has a multiple persona disorder based on the idea that some people think of him as being all hippie-peacenik-revolutionary-lovey-dovey, and some people go on crusades and commit extraordinary renditions and burn books in his name, hallelujah.
Well. It was a good story, but about 50 pages from the end I became aware that this could not reasonably be wrapped up in the space alloted. Instead, there is a temporary ending, and a chapter which clearly establishes the premises for as many more novels as Ms. Snodgrass can sell in the same universe.
_The Edge of Reason_, Melinda Snodgrass
Has any generation ship in SF had a completely routine mission, with no disaster, unexpected course change, mutiny, rebellion, invasion, plague, or arrival just a little while after the FTL task force finishes setting up the banners that say "Welcome Home Second Cousins Three Hundred Times Removed"?
I suppose that when that happens, it tends to be background for the Galactic Empire story. Bear's not telling that one, anyway. The Jacob's Ladder is a huge generation ship -- from internal evidence, I'm guessing more than 40Km long -- and some time ago it had problems which killed an awful lot of the crew and forced an emergency pit stop at the next solar system. Even worse, they picked a binary system on the ragged edge of becoming a Type Ia supernova. That's the shotgun we see over the mantel in scene two.
That would all be bad enough, but the ship's AI has fragmented into a few dozen Angels having a nanotech battle for domination and control, mirrored by the impending war between the Engine clan and the Rule clan. As is repeatedly observed by characters in the book, "Primogeniture is a stupid way to run a starship". Good story-telling, although I never really understood why one of the main viewpoint characters fell in love with the other one.
Complete in one volume, although there will apparently be a sequel next year.
Snodgrass, on the other hand, sets us up for volume one in a never-ending speculative fiction series about the battle between Rational Scientific Thought (Good, led by Satan with his sidekick Homeless Hippie Jesus) and Religious Mysticism (Bad, led by every god you've ever heard of, with their sidekicks the Christian Evangelists). It turns out that the gods (or Old Ones) are energy-being aliens from other universes that eat emotional energy. The flavor that they find easiest to induce in humans is, of course, hatred and anger. It may be that love tastes better, but it's harder to farm, so they mostly don't. There is some confusion (or I was confused) about whether they feed on emotion or they are created by sufficiently strong emotions; you see, Jesus has a multiple persona disorder based on the idea that some people think of him as being all hippie-peacenik-revolutionary-lovey-dovey, and some people go on crusades and commit extraordinary renditions and burn books in his name, hallelujah.
Well. It was a good story, but about 50 pages from the end I became aware that this could not reasonably be wrapped up in the space alloted. Instead, there is a temporary ending, and a chapter which clearly establishes the premises for as many more novels as Ms. Snodgrass can sell in the same universe.
_Dust_, Elizabeth Bear
_The Edge of Reason_, Melinda Snodgrass
Has any generation ship in SF had a completely routine mission, with no disaster, unexpected course change, mutiny, rebellion, invasion, plague, or arrival just a little while after the FTL task force finishes setting up the banners that say "Welcome Home Second Cousins Three Hundred Times Removed"?
I suppose that when that happens, it tends to be background for the Galactic Empire story. Bear's not telling that one, anyway. The Jacob's Ladder is a huge generation ship -- from internal evidence, I'm guessing more than 40Km long -- and some time ago it had problems which killed an awful lot of the crew and forced an emergency pit stop at the next solar system. Even worse, they picked a binary system on the ragged edge of becoming a Type Ia supernova. That's the shotgun we see over the mantel in scene two.
That would all be bad enough, but the ship's AI has fragmented into a few dozen Angels having a nanotech battle for domination and control, mirrored by the impending war between the Engine clan and the Rule clan. As is repeatedly observed by characters in the book, "Primogeniture is a stupid way to run a starship". Good story-telling, although I never really understood why one of the main viewpoint characters fell in love with the other one.
Complete in one volume, although there will apparently be a sequel next year.
Snodgrass, on the other hand, sets us up for volume one in a never-ending speculative fiction series about the battle between Rational Scientific Thought (Good, led by Satan with his sidekick Homeless Hippie Jesus) and Religious Mysticism (Bad, led by every god you've ever heard of, with their sidekicks the Christian Evangelists). It turns out that the gods (or Old Ones) are energy-being aliens from other universes that eat emotional energy. The flavor that they find easiest to induce in humans is, of course, hatred and anger. It may be that love tastes better, but it's harder to farm, so they mostly don't. There is some confusion (or I was confused) about whether they feed on emotion or they are created by sufficiently strong emotions; you see, Jesus has a multiple persona disorder based on the idea that some people think of him as being all hippie-peacenik-revolutionary-lovey-dovey, and some people go on crusades and commit extraordinary renditions and burn books in his name, hallelujah.
Well. It was a good story, but about 50 pages from the end I became aware that this could not reasonably be wrapped up in the space alloted. Instead, there is a temporary ending, and a chapter which clearly establishes the premises for as many more novels as Ms. Snodgrass can sell in the same universe.
_The Edge of Reason_, Melinda Snodgrass
Has any generation ship in SF had a completely routine mission, with no disaster, unexpected course change, mutiny, rebellion, invasion, plague, or arrival just a little while after the FTL task force finishes setting up the banners that say "Welcome Home Second Cousins Three Hundred Times Removed"?
I suppose that when that happens, it tends to be background for the Galactic Empire story. Bear's not telling that one, anyway. The Jacob's Ladder is a huge generation ship -- from internal evidence, I'm guessing more than 40Km long -- and some time ago it had problems which killed an awful lot of the crew and forced an emergency pit stop at the next solar system. Even worse, they picked a binary system on the ragged edge of becoming a Type Ia supernova. That's the shotgun we see over the mantel in scene two.
That would all be bad enough, but the ship's AI has fragmented into a few dozen Angels having a nanotech battle for domination and control, mirrored by the impending war between the Engine clan and the Rule clan. As is repeatedly observed by characters in the book, "Primogeniture is a stupid way to run a starship". Good story-telling, although I never really understood why one of the main viewpoint characters fell in love with the other one.
Complete in one volume, although there will apparently be a sequel next year.
Snodgrass, on the other hand, sets us up for volume one in a never-ending speculative fiction series about the battle between Rational Scientific Thought (Good, led by Satan with his sidekick Homeless Hippie Jesus) and Religious Mysticism (Bad, led by every god you've ever heard of, with their sidekicks the Christian Evangelists). It turns out that the gods (or Old Ones) are energy-being aliens from other universes that eat emotional energy. The flavor that they find easiest to induce in humans is, of course, hatred and anger. It may be that love tastes better, but it's harder to farm, so they mostly don't. There is some confusion (or I was confused) about whether they feed on emotion or they are created by sufficiently strong emotions; you see, Jesus has a multiple persona disorder based on the idea that some people think of him as being all hippie-peacenik-revolutionary-lovey-dovey, and some people go on crusades and commit extraordinary renditions and burn books in his name, hallelujah.
Well. It was a good story, but about 50 pages from the end I became aware that this could not reasonably be wrapped up in the space alloted. Instead, there is a temporary ending, and a chapter which clearly establishes the premises for as many more novels as Ms. Snodgrass can sell in the same universe.