From the Bookshelf: The Children of the Sky
I've led off a number of posts here about science fiction books by talking about how I'm not keeping up with the written SF scene the way I used to; there are a whole bunch of reasons folded into that, from the large-scale and perhaps troubling (although recently noticing a piece of news about an anthology of "optimistic science fiction" does seem to have some positive bearing there) to the more personal and perhaps just reproachful. It just seems to add to all of that to admit that while I'd heard a while before how Vernor Vinge was working on another book connected to his A Fire Upon the Deep, I didn't actually know it had been finished until I happened on it being mentioned in a "TV Tropes" page. (It seems to tie up to at least the more personal reasons for not being as well-connected to written science fiction any more to say I don't delve into that site as deeply as everyone else seems to talk about, because I'm nervous about running into casual criticism of certain things I like...) The next time I did take a look at the science fiction shelf in a bookstore, I saw The Children of the Sky was already in mass-market paperback, and somehow that didn't compel me to buy it. When I was in the corner used book store and saw a hardcover of it high on the shelf for cheaper than the paperback would have been, though, I went straight ahead and bought it.
In dwelling on how it had taken me a while to get to that point, I should also acknowledge how I first happened on A Fire Upon the Deep in my then-newly local library close to a decade after it was first published. It had impressed me all the same, though; I was tempted to call it "hard space opera" (although the more widely used term seems to be to connect it to "new space opera"), science fiction that continued to stretch exciting tales across the scope of the galaxy itself but sought new ways to engage with the very familiar "we'll just sort of wink at the dictates of modern physics" toolkit of storytelling devices developed over the years and to some extent appropriated by mere visual SF. One more thing I was conscious of, though, was that I'd signed out another book Vernor Vinge had written set before A Fire Upon the Deep, featuring one character who would later make it all the way to the more expansive galaxy of his larger work, but for some reason I just hadn't been able to really get engaged by A Deepness in the Sky before I had to return it. I've wondered if its scope seemed too constricted by comparison, if its plot seemed slower to get to the point, and if its own aliens seemed "too human" under their exteriors, and later on I did notice someone suggesting both books were "overrated" specifically by making that point about all of their aliens... it did seem to be on a site devoted to a general "I'm dissatisfied with the entertainment I write about" perspective, though, and that might have made me draw back from it in the end. I suppose that while I can stick around with "visual" series for longer hauls than some people seem capable of, I'm conscious of a number of cases where my interest in sequels to science fiction novels has dropped off fast.
There seemed a reason or two to be hopeful, though. I knew from the conclusion of the first novel The Children of the Sky wouldn't have the same scope as A Fire Upon the Deep either, but I did know it would still feature the aliens of the first book, a species that only becomes intelligent in packs of around half a dozen. (While he stays clear of any early "info-dumps" on the topic, Vinge is very careful to establish the aliens don't link up through anything so overused as "telepathy"; they use high-frequency sound instead.) One of the packs even showed up on the cover, although the artist to me seemed to carry their apparent resemblance to "wolves" too far. As the story picked up, I was thinking a bit of other tales of "spacewrecked" people stretching their dwindling store of high technology; where one of the more amusing bits about the first novel (at least to people commenting about it online) was a recognisable galaxy-spanning analogue of Usenet, this book continues to deal with "computers" but doesn't have an analogue of "social media" on "ubiquitous smartphones."
A few characters from the first novel take some perhaps-troubling turns, reflecting certain problems developed from trying to reinterpret past events, while others stay much as they've been; when the main characters are cast out into the wider world, things seem to slow down for a while but eventually pick up again for the finale, in which a few things seem to be narrated after the fact. I suppose that while most people associate Vernor Vinge with hopes of "the Singularity," the hypothetical point where technology develops to such a point things would seem to trans-substantiate into the ether from the perspectives of those living before that point, I'm conscious he pushes unconstrained entrepreneurial capitalism and the concomitant withering away of the state as a path to contract-driven utopia instead of, say, oligarchical monopoly or "growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell"; he may do it with a lighter touch than certain other writers but he does it all the same. This convinced me early on a pack named "Tycoon," who manages to trade with the swarming, seemingly mindless masses of aliens in the "Tropics" mentioned in the first book, would wind up something other than a mere antagonist; in the process Vinge might have tried to make something that might be compared with "outsourcing" look more positive than the reactions of some.
I realised as I got to the final pages of this novel a further volume (at least) seemed much more implied than the end of A Fire Upon the Deep; one development midway through the main characters weren't around to witness seemed to suggest things might get more complicated sooner than expected. How long this further volume might take to show up, I don't know. It may be, though, that I'll be that much more interested in reading it when it does show up.
This entry was originally posted at http://krpalmer.dreamwidth.org/219983.html. Comment here or there (using OpenID) as you please.
In dwelling on how it had taken me a while to get to that point, I should also acknowledge how I first happened on A Fire Upon the Deep in my then-newly local library close to a decade after it was first published. It had impressed me all the same, though; I was tempted to call it "hard space opera" (although the more widely used term seems to be to connect it to "new space opera"), science fiction that continued to stretch exciting tales across the scope of the galaxy itself but sought new ways to engage with the very familiar "we'll just sort of wink at the dictates of modern physics" toolkit of storytelling devices developed over the years and to some extent appropriated by mere visual SF. One more thing I was conscious of, though, was that I'd signed out another book Vernor Vinge had written set before A Fire Upon the Deep, featuring one character who would later make it all the way to the more expansive galaxy of his larger work, but for some reason I just hadn't been able to really get engaged by A Deepness in the Sky before I had to return it. I've wondered if its scope seemed too constricted by comparison, if its plot seemed slower to get to the point, and if its own aliens seemed "too human" under their exteriors, and later on I did notice someone suggesting both books were "overrated" specifically by making that point about all of their aliens... it did seem to be on a site devoted to a general "I'm dissatisfied with the entertainment I write about" perspective, though, and that might have made me draw back from it in the end. I suppose that while I can stick around with "visual" series for longer hauls than some people seem capable of, I'm conscious of a number of cases where my interest in sequels to science fiction novels has dropped off fast.
There seemed a reason or two to be hopeful, though. I knew from the conclusion of the first novel The Children of the Sky wouldn't have the same scope as A Fire Upon the Deep either, but I did know it would still feature the aliens of the first book, a species that only becomes intelligent in packs of around half a dozen. (While he stays clear of any early "info-dumps" on the topic, Vinge is very careful to establish the aliens don't link up through anything so overused as "telepathy"; they use high-frequency sound instead.) One of the packs even showed up on the cover, although the artist to me seemed to carry their apparent resemblance to "wolves" too far. As the story picked up, I was thinking a bit of other tales of "spacewrecked" people stretching their dwindling store of high technology; where one of the more amusing bits about the first novel (at least to people commenting about it online) was a recognisable galaxy-spanning analogue of Usenet, this book continues to deal with "computers" but doesn't have an analogue of "social media" on "ubiquitous smartphones."
A few characters from the first novel take some perhaps-troubling turns, reflecting certain problems developed from trying to reinterpret past events, while others stay much as they've been; when the main characters are cast out into the wider world, things seem to slow down for a while but eventually pick up again for the finale, in which a few things seem to be narrated after the fact. I suppose that while most people associate Vernor Vinge with hopes of "the Singularity," the hypothetical point where technology develops to such a point things would seem to trans-substantiate into the ether from the perspectives of those living before that point, I'm conscious he pushes unconstrained entrepreneurial capitalism and the concomitant withering away of the state as a path to contract-driven utopia instead of, say, oligarchical monopoly or "growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell"; he may do it with a lighter touch than certain other writers but he does it all the same. This convinced me early on a pack named "Tycoon," who manages to trade with the swarming, seemingly mindless masses of aliens in the "Tropics" mentioned in the first book, would wind up something other than a mere antagonist; in the process Vinge might have tried to make something that might be compared with "outsourcing" look more positive than the reactions of some.
I realised as I got to the final pages of this novel a further volume (at least) seemed much more implied than the end of A Fire Upon the Deep; one development midway through the main characters weren't around to witness seemed to suggest things might get more complicated sooner than expected. How long this further volume might take to show up, I don't know. It may be, though, that I'll be that much more interested in reading it when it does show up.
This entry was originally posted at http://krpalmer.dreamwidth.org/219983.html. Comment here or there (using OpenID) as you please.