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San Francisco, 6:25 PM
Tue Nov 10
27 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/14/09
10/13/09
I can't wait for the next book club selection!
10/13/09
Thank you io9 fort organizing this. I look forward to the next one.
10/14/09
10/13/09
You have mentioned several times that you wanted the characters to be pushed around by forces greater than they were. Despite that, the characters (except maybe Macy Minnot who just wants to be left alone) tend to try to manipulate everyone around them. It's not just the usual people in power strong arming the people beneath them. Loc Ifrahim manipulates those much more powerful than he is on a regular basis. It can even be benign, like when Macy's boss on earth convinces her that the best thing for her is to go to Rainbow Bridge.
Are you trying to show that all these human machinations are pointless in the big picture? Or that despite the great events occuring, these people can have some small impacts on their own lives? Maybe both? And why is Macy the only character who doesn't play this game? To me, it made her seem somewhat weak and helpless when she had great skills and could have leveraged those skills to better her lot (or at least stay out of trouble) if she were willing to play politics just a little.
10/13/09
I'm a bit wary of going into too much detail about the motivation of characters and why they are or are not empowered in various ways - it always sounds like special pleading when the authors says something to the effect of 'Hang on, this is what I really meant.' Bbut I would like to elaborate on your analysis just a little if that's okay, and to try to answer your questions as best I can without being too prescriptive. The author isn't the only author of the book after all; the arguments the reader has with it are important too, and I don't want to close off those arguments by saying this is how it is, no other interpretations allowed. This is how it is to me.
Macy is something of a loner, yes. An orphan by choice. And cynical or naive (take your pick) about politics. But like or not, because of who she is and where she finds herself, she discovers over and again that wanting to be left alone simply isn't an option. As we so often do, when caught up in some big historical hinge point. So when she's courted by opposing cliques in the Outer community, she does choose a side, in the end. And she does her best to make the best of that. And she does some good, IMHO. If only by helping to make the ending less absolutely certain than the winning side would want.
So no, I don't think that personal efforts are always pointless. Quite the contrary. I think we're at our best when we make the correct moral choice even when the position seems hopeless. Maybe you can't stop some big political change that's coming down the tracks, but the choices you make before it could well affect what happens to you during and after that change, and could play out in interesting ways in the long term. Winning a war isn't always the same as being right, and victory isn't always permanent. Often isn't, in fact.
(I am, as you may have gathered, fairly suspicious of Mary Sue stories where the protagonist, because of her special skills, gets hold of the levers of power and tweaks them in just the right way to achieve a happy ending for everyone who deserves it. Happens a lot in SF; not so much in the real world (unfortunately).)
10/13/09
10/13/09
Absolutely agree about the problems of doing science; one of the big problems with big science is that most scientists are pretty bad at politicking, even when they know it's absolutely necessary. Partly because they quite rightly refuse to deal in absolutes, the common currency of political advancement. Macy and Sri are two sides of the same coin, maybe. But I hope Macy's travails are little bit more like my own experience than Sri's.
10/13/09
I did notice that Sri is very much the opposite of Macy. She feels it is necessary to play polotics so that she can do the science she wants This seemed to reflect more on the societies they find themselves in. Maybe they just gravitated to those situations because that's the kind of people they were. Macy would be eaten alive in the upper echelon of Greater Brazil.
10/13/09
I have read a few of the short stories set in the Quiet War universe, but I can not find a comprehensive list of these stories anywhere. Could you kindly list them so I can hunt all of them down? Thank you!
Why did you decide to also set short stories in this universe? Were you already planning the novels when you wrote the first short stories or did the idea for the novels come after the universe? Thanks!
10/14/09
I started out exploring the Outer System through short stories. They became a trial run for the novels, which modify the background history that was rather unevenly developed in the stories (I didn't have a plan, and made it up as I went along). Situations and characters from a few of the stories, very radically modified, have been incorporated into Gardens of the Sun.
Here's the list of stories (and you can find one of them here):
Second Skin' Asimov's Science Fiction, 1997
'Sea Change, With Monsters' Asimov's Science Fiction, 1998
'The Gardens of Saturn' Interzone, 1998
'Reef' Sky Life, edited by Gregory Benford and George Zebrowski, Harcourt
Brace, 2000
'Making History', PS Publishing, 2000
'The Passenger' Asimov's Science Fiction, 2002
'The Assassination of Faustino Malarte' Asimov's Science Fiction, 2002
‘Dead Men Walking’ Asimov’s Science Fiction, 2006
‘Incomers’ The Starry Rift, edited by Jonathan Strahan, Viking, 2008
10/13/09
While I am, unfortunately, one of the people who did not like the book, it still left me with a couple questions I would like to ask about some of the choices and decisions you made in writing the book.
1 - One of the reasons I had such a problem with the work was what I perceived as a psychology of victimization among most of the main characters. All of them were victimized and exploited by the powers-that-be, both political and social, and most were relatively powerless throughout their time time on stage. My question is if this was an intentional decision to help underline the feeling of being caught up in events greater than one's self, and was this powerlessness, or the ineffectiveness of most character's actions inherent in the theme of the book?
2 - This ties into question 1. In the book, we encounter 2 major power structures, Greater Brazil and the Outer Open society. In both cases, we are shown time and again that each power structure has created it's own, slightly different, hypocritical society of exploitation, victimization, and coercion. We see this through multiple viewpoints on both sides, and before the book is done pretty much every character has been abused by one or both authorities. My question is was this intended as a critique of society and government in general and the tendency for power to corrupt, or meant as a commentary on the ways that these particular societies had brought themselves to this point?
3 - Alternate war scenarios
While reading the book, I often found myself thinking of alternate actions and scenarios that many characters, governments, or other actors could have taken that would have been more effective in achieving their goals. For example, having Avernus weaponize (or claim to weaponize) vacuum organisms to make WMDs like giant 1-shot lasers or solar-sailing earth-impacting asteroids out of various solar system objects would have fit the technology, but would have stopped the war cold. However, since the major thrust of the plot was to get the war to the state we see at the end of the book, my question is did you have to discard any ideas that would have changed the game too much?
Again, thank you for your time.
10/13/09
Not an uncommon situation in human history, or indeed the present.
The Outers could most certainly have attempted to develop weaponry, and take the war to Greater Brazil and her allies. But their society is based on strong principles of communitarianism and nonviolence and by turning to violent means to solve the conflict they would destroy everything they are trying to protect. And maybe they also remember what happened to the Martian settlements when they aimed an asteroid at Earth. It's certainly interesting to think about the devastating consequences for Outer society if they'd won the war, but that wasn't the kind of book I wanted to write.
10/13/09
10/12/09
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10/12/09
I thought it strange that all of the Outers were so homogeneous politically. Being so spread out and had so many colonies/ habitats to me would mean each colony/city/habitat would rule differently. Even though it might have been an illusion Democracy and Freedom wouldn't seem likely when you're living in environments that have to be structured and stable and are so physically fragile.
East of Eden seemed like a contraction onto itself. Greek ideals of Art, politics and polemic but Calvinistic like prudishness.
10/12/09
10/13/09
10/12/09
Though the majority of the characters did seem static, I thought that it was an interesting narrative choice. The main characters are all from Earth, except for Dave #8, and Dave #8 is definitely the character who experiences the most profound change in the course of the story. Was this intentional, as Dave #8 more or less chooses to become and Outer? I was just wondering if there was some connection between character development and the individuals' identities.
Thanks for writing such an amazing book, can't wait to read the next one!
10/13/09
Dave #8 is perhaps the most conventional character in SF terms, don't you think? The magic kid who's cast out into the world with only a limited understanding of it. He's forced to change and develop because he wasn't fully developed to begin with (and he realises that.)
10/12/09
10/12/09
10/13/09
This is probably a good place to admit that I developed the vacuum organisms from a kernel or seed lodged in Michael Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers.
10/12/09
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10/13/09
Is it possible to do too much research? I certainly cut out a lot of infodumping from the first couple of drafts, and my editor rightly pointed out places that needed to be fettled down further (and there's probably still too much infodumping for some). But I do find that fun, poking around in areas of science I know little about and then speculating wildly. A lot of the stuff I didn't use was probably useful as deep background, or as mulch for growing ideas that did have some use, somewhere in the book.
10/12/09
10/13/09