Two books for the price of one this week, simply because I didn't finish either of them. This has happened several times recently, which I find rather exasperating. It seems to affect recently-written books rather than the old classics. The main problem is their length: the more of my precious time they take to read, the better they have to be before I slog on to the end. The two this week both showed initial promise which didn't last.
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Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco concerns an actual device of that name made to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth (the track of the pendulum gradually changes over time). In the 1988 novel, it has a symbolic significance (although not one which is at all obvious for much of the book).
The plot is a satire on ancient international occult conspiracy theories. The Knights Templar are in there, of course, as are the Rosicrucians, secret codes and the Holy Grail. The story focuses on three men who work for an Italian publishing house, which among other things churns out self-published books on such conspiracy theories. They decide they can do better and invent their own theory which links into the others, only to find that some people are taking that very seriously…
I was looking forward to reading this book and expected to enjoy it but I have to say that I found it very hard going. It is exceedingly long-winded and rambles about all over the place, packing in a vast number of references, most of which I failed to recognise. I struggled with it intermittently for a couple of weeks but kept finding that I'd lost the thread and was becoming increasingly reluctant to pick it up, so I eventually admitted defeat when about half-way through its 700 pages.
If you're interested to know more about this book you can read the Wiki entry
but be warned, it contains a comprehensive description of the plot with many spoilers.
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There are two problems with Coyote by Allen Steele (the book chosen for August's Modern Science Fiction discussion group), both of which are similar to those which afflicted another long book I failed to finish recently, Silverberg's The Alien Years. One is that the plot is over-familiar; in this case a colonisation attempt by a human starship on an apparently suitable world free of intelligent life, which turns out to have hidden dangers which pose problems for the colonists. The other is that the focus is very much on the people and their sometimes antagonistic relationships, in exhaustive detail. I am also reminded of another long book which I never finished because of this second characteristic, S.M.Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time.
Despite this, Coyote is acceptably well-written, often excitingly so. The early chapters in particular, dealing with the gradually-revealed plot by dissidents within a future fragmented America to hijack the starship, are full of page-turning tension. The familiarity sets in as the colonists arrive at their destination and begin to establish themselves, with all the usual problems and hardships. With only a few plot changes, this could be about the survivors of a vessel shipwrecked on a deserted island in the days of sail, or indeed any pioneers trying to establish a community in virgin territory. I felt that the SF element was very much in the background rather than central to the story.
It makes an instructive contrast with Cherryh's Foreigner, reviewed earlier in this blog. This also concerns human colonists trying to establish themselves on a new world after a one-way trip, but this planet turns out to be already occupied by an intelligent humanoid race. The focus of that story is on the relationship between the humans and the aliens and that held my attention throughout, despite the book's length and Cherryh's slow-paced writing.
I did manage to get more than halfway through Coyote, but then gave up due to steadily declining interest. However, if you like this kind of plot and approach to story-telling, you may well enjoy this book. There are also a couple of sequels.
Friday, 31 July 2009
The Carrington Event
If global warming plus the possibility of a major asteroid strike aren't enough to worry about, there's another threat to our civilisation reported in the New Scientist magazine of 23rd March 2009. No doubt some SF writers and film-makers are beavering away at disaster stories based on this already – or maybe this one is a bit too grim.
It concerns storms on the surface of the sun which throw out plasma balls, a process known as coronal mass ejection (CME). These fly through space at high velocity and occasionally connect with the Earth. They vary a lot in size and small ones are common, but if a giant one hits the Earth, we are in trouble deep. This is no idle threat; the outcome of such a major geomagnetic storm is described in a report funded by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in January 2009. Furthermore, such an event has already happened, in 1859, as reported by the British astronomer Richard Carrington. This caused stunning auroras even at equatorial latitudes and severely disrupted telegraph networks. The consequences of an event on a similar scale today would be far worse.
Our problem is that in the 150 years since the Carrington event we have become much more vulnerable to its effects. Satellite communication and navigation systems in the CME's path would be fried. Much worse, the long cable lines of our electricity grids would act as aerials, capturing the plasma and focusing it on the transformers which convert the high-voltage grid supply to lower voltage domestic supplies. The massive flow of DC current would overheat and melt the transformers' copper wiring, effectively destroying them. Power supplies in the area hit by the plasma ball would fail. A small-scale version of this happened in Quebec province in March 1989, and six million people were without electricity for nine hours. A strike the size of the Carrington event would be orders of magnitude worse.
The NAS report outlines the consequences if a Carrington event hit the USA. Within 90 seconds, 300 key transformers would be knocked out, cutting off power to 130 million people. All kinds of electronic communications would fail. Within a few hours, water taps would run dry as there would be no power to pump the supply. All electrically-powered transport would grind to a halt. So would petrol and diesel vehicles as their tanks ran dry, because there would be no power to pump fuel at the filling stations. With no transport, supplies of food in urban areas would rapidly run out; typically, cities only have about three days' supply of food (and much of that is in freezers or refrigerators, so would soon spoil). Even establishments with backup generators, such as hospitals, could only keep going for as long as their fuel lasted – probably three days. Medicines would soon begin to run out, as the factories would have no power to make them and the vehicles no fuel to transport them.
Worst of all, it would take a very long time to put matters right. The wrecked transformers would have to be replaced, a job which takes a skilled crew at least a week for each one – assuming they have a spare one handy. There are very few spare ones lying around; they are usually made to order, a process which can take a year. And the factories which can make them will probably have no power – or, if they are outside the affected zone, problems in transporting them to where they're needed. Even with the transformers repaired, there would be a kind of Catch-22 because almost all the natural gas and fuel pipelines which supply power stations require electricity to operate. No electricity = no fuel = no electricity. Coal fired power stations may have 30 days of fuel, but nuclear ones would automatically shut down when the grid fails.
Given the difficulties and delays in responding to and recovering from Hurricane Katrina, an event which affected only a very small percentage of the USA, it is easy to see that rescue and recovery services would be completely overwhelmed by a national disaster on such a scale. The net result of all this, according to the NAS report, is that the recovery time would be four to ten years – and the USA may never be the same again. The New Scientist article quotes an estimate of the death toll of "tens of millions of lives". The rest of the developed world is just as vulnerable to a major geomagnetic storm as the USA. Ironically, it is the poorest and most rural societies which would be least affected.
Can anything be done to guard against this? Precautions to protect the grid could be taken given enough warning, such as adjusting voltages and loads and restricting energy transfers. However, this process takes at least 15 minutes – which is about as long as it can take for a CME to reach Earth from the nearest existing solar satellite. Fortunately, a follow-up report in the 11th April issue of the New Scientist describes a new technique for predicting CMEs using NASA's STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) pair of spacecraft which follow the same orbit as the Earth. A check following a small CME event of 16 December 2008 discovered that STEREO spotted changes to the sun which presaged the event. Given some improvements to the software to speed up data analysis, up to 24 hours warning could be provided of a CME about to head our way.
Let's hope that someone is working on that software and setting up a system for automatic warnings to be sent to power grid organisations worldwide, and that those organisations are compelled to put in place and rehearse the precautionary procedures. This can be done quite easily and cheaply, and the consequences of failing to do so could be catastrophic.
It concerns storms on the surface of the sun which throw out plasma balls, a process known as coronal mass ejection (CME). These fly through space at high velocity and occasionally connect with the Earth. They vary a lot in size and small ones are common, but if a giant one hits the Earth, we are in trouble deep. This is no idle threat; the outcome of such a major geomagnetic storm is described in a report funded by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in January 2009. Furthermore, such an event has already happened, in 1859, as reported by the British astronomer Richard Carrington. This caused stunning auroras even at equatorial latitudes and severely disrupted telegraph networks. The consequences of an event on a similar scale today would be far worse.
Our problem is that in the 150 years since the Carrington event we have become much more vulnerable to its effects. Satellite communication and navigation systems in the CME's path would be fried. Much worse, the long cable lines of our electricity grids would act as aerials, capturing the plasma and focusing it on the transformers which convert the high-voltage grid supply to lower voltage domestic supplies. The massive flow of DC current would overheat and melt the transformers' copper wiring, effectively destroying them. Power supplies in the area hit by the plasma ball would fail. A small-scale version of this happened in Quebec province in March 1989, and six million people were without electricity for nine hours. A strike the size of the Carrington event would be orders of magnitude worse.
The NAS report outlines the consequences if a Carrington event hit the USA. Within 90 seconds, 300 key transformers would be knocked out, cutting off power to 130 million people. All kinds of electronic communications would fail. Within a few hours, water taps would run dry as there would be no power to pump the supply. All electrically-powered transport would grind to a halt. So would petrol and diesel vehicles as their tanks ran dry, because there would be no power to pump fuel at the filling stations. With no transport, supplies of food in urban areas would rapidly run out; typically, cities only have about three days' supply of food (and much of that is in freezers or refrigerators, so would soon spoil). Even establishments with backup generators, such as hospitals, could only keep going for as long as their fuel lasted – probably three days. Medicines would soon begin to run out, as the factories would have no power to make them and the vehicles no fuel to transport them.
Worst of all, it would take a very long time to put matters right. The wrecked transformers would have to be replaced, a job which takes a skilled crew at least a week for each one – assuming they have a spare one handy. There are very few spare ones lying around; they are usually made to order, a process which can take a year. And the factories which can make them will probably have no power – or, if they are outside the affected zone, problems in transporting them to where they're needed. Even with the transformers repaired, there would be a kind of Catch-22 because almost all the natural gas and fuel pipelines which supply power stations require electricity to operate. No electricity = no fuel = no electricity. Coal fired power stations may have 30 days of fuel, but nuclear ones would automatically shut down when the grid fails.
Given the difficulties and delays in responding to and recovering from Hurricane Katrina, an event which affected only a very small percentage of the USA, it is easy to see that rescue and recovery services would be completely overwhelmed by a national disaster on such a scale. The net result of all this, according to the NAS report, is that the recovery time would be four to ten years – and the USA may never be the same again. The New Scientist article quotes an estimate of the death toll of "tens of millions of lives". The rest of the developed world is just as vulnerable to a major geomagnetic storm as the USA. Ironically, it is the poorest and most rural societies which would be least affected.
Can anything be done to guard against this? Precautions to protect the grid could be taken given enough warning, such as adjusting voltages and loads and restricting energy transfers. However, this process takes at least 15 minutes – which is about as long as it can take for a CME to reach Earth from the nearest existing solar satellite. Fortunately, a follow-up report in the 11th April issue of the New Scientist describes a new technique for predicting CMEs using NASA's STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) pair of spacecraft which follow the same orbit as the Earth. A check following a small CME event of 16 December 2008 discovered that STEREO spotted changes to the sun which presaged the event. Given some improvements to the software to speed up data analysis, up to 24 hours warning could be provided of a CME about to head our way.
Let's hope that someone is working on that software and setting up a system for automatic warnings to be sent to power grid organisations worldwide, and that those organisations are compelled to put in place and rehearse the precautionary procedures. This can be done quite easily and cheaply, and the consequences of failing to do so could be catastrophic.
Saturday, 25 July 2009
Interzone 223
A special issue this time, focusing on Dominic Green and featuring three of his stories as well as an interview. In addition, there are two other stories and the usual news and reviews of books and films, plus another interview – with Joe Abercrombie. The balance of the reviews seems to have shifted more towards films this time, with many DVDs covered as well as current cinema offerings such as the new Star Trek, Terminator and X-Men movies. A thought-provoking read, as usual. The surreal fantasy cover is by Adam Tredowski.
The Transmigration of Aishwarya Desai, by Eric Gregory, illustrated by Arthur Wang: an academic visits a planet for a debate with a rival over the reality of her claimed psychic contact with an uncommunicative alien race, only to have this resolved in an unexpectedly dramatic fashion.
Silence and Roses, by Suzanne Palmer, illustrated by LeMat: robot caretakers look after their human masters in a secluded retirement home, waiting patiently for their charges to self-repair as they fall silent, one by one. It takes an intruder to point out that they aren't going to speak, ever again. This was the most memorable of the stories in this issue, but partly for the wrong reason; surely once the first master died, the others would have explained to the robots what had happened, and what to do with the body?
Next to the three stories by Dominic Green, all of them illustrated by Daniel Bristowe-Bailey.
Butterfly Bomb: an old man lives in solitary splendour on a planet, except for a companion who is picked up by a passing slave ship. The old man follows in a rescue attempt – but who exactly is being rescued?
Coat of Many Colours: a genetic experiment produces a large reptilian animal with scales which shift in colour even after death. A potential goldmine, provided that the creature is not deemed to be intelligent – but how to determine this?
Glister: prospectors trapped on a strange and hazardous planet go looking for valuable minerals, but the source is mobile and success comes from an unexpected direction.
In the interview with Dominic Green, he explains his philosophy in writing SF and what motivates his varied stories. The revelation which most intrigued me is that the author has had no fewer than twenty stories published in Interzone over the last eleven years, one of which was nominated for a Hugo award, but none of his novels has been picked up by a publisher; he has a substantial collection of rejection slips. Judging by these stories, he is clearly a talented, original and entertaining author, but that is not proving to be enough. I have written before about the difficulties in getting published, but what it seems to boil down is that there are too many writers and not enough readers – or, at least, purchasers. Green has accordingly put four of his novels on his website for free.
It does make me wonder exactly where fiction publishing is heading. There seems to be an ever-narrowing range of opportunities for conventional publication, yet major problems with the alternatives. Regular followers of this blog will know that I self-published my two novels; The Foresight War and Scales. The first was an immediate commercial success and has recouped my investment more than twice over. The second was not, so I have offered it as a free download on my website rather than let all the effort in writing it go to waste. I have recently updated my web article on publishing SFF fiction here, and I advise all who have ambitions to be a novelist to read it carefully, along with the related article on marketing .
The Transmigration of Aishwarya Desai, by Eric Gregory, illustrated by Arthur Wang: an academic visits a planet for a debate with a rival over the reality of her claimed psychic contact with an uncommunicative alien race, only to have this resolved in an unexpectedly dramatic fashion.
Silence and Roses, by Suzanne Palmer, illustrated by LeMat: robot caretakers look after their human masters in a secluded retirement home, waiting patiently for their charges to self-repair as they fall silent, one by one. It takes an intruder to point out that they aren't going to speak, ever again. This was the most memorable of the stories in this issue, but partly for the wrong reason; surely once the first master died, the others would have explained to the robots what had happened, and what to do with the body?
Next to the three stories by Dominic Green, all of them illustrated by Daniel Bristowe-Bailey.
Butterfly Bomb: an old man lives in solitary splendour on a planet, except for a companion who is picked up by a passing slave ship. The old man follows in a rescue attempt – but who exactly is being rescued?
Coat of Many Colours: a genetic experiment produces a large reptilian animal with scales which shift in colour even after death. A potential goldmine, provided that the creature is not deemed to be intelligent – but how to determine this?
Glister: prospectors trapped on a strange and hazardous planet go looking for valuable minerals, but the source is mobile and success comes from an unexpected direction.
In the interview with Dominic Green, he explains his philosophy in writing SF and what motivates his varied stories. The revelation which most intrigued me is that the author has had no fewer than twenty stories published in Interzone over the last eleven years, one of which was nominated for a Hugo award, but none of his novels has been picked up by a publisher; he has a substantial collection of rejection slips. Judging by these stories, he is clearly a talented, original and entertaining author, but that is not proving to be enough. I have written before about the difficulties in getting published, but what it seems to boil down is that there are too many writers and not enough readers – or, at least, purchasers. Green has accordingly put four of his novels on his website for free.
It does make me wonder exactly where fiction publishing is heading. There seems to be an ever-narrowing range of opportunities for conventional publication, yet major problems with the alternatives. Regular followers of this blog will know that I self-published my two novels; The Foresight War and Scales. The first was an immediate commercial success and has recouped my investment more than twice over. The second was not, so I have offered it as a free download on my website rather than let all the effort in writing it go to waste. I have recently updated my web article on publishing SFF fiction here, and I advise all who have ambitions to be a novelist to read it carefully, along with the related article on marketing .
Saturday, 18 July 2009
Voyager in Night by C. J. Cherryh, plus a film catch-up
This 1984 book by Cherryh is uncharacteristic of most of her other work (at least, that with which I am familiar – I have by no means consumed all of her oeuvre). Three young prospectors are travelling in their makeshift spacecraft through a distant solar system when the fall into the path of a vast alien starship, which collects their craft before moving on. It transpires that the ship is ruled by a being normally referred to as "<>", but there is a motley collection of individuals on board who are far from in agreement with their leader, or each other. None of them appears in person, <> communicating via a virtual image of one of the prospectors. <> can also manufacture virtual copies of the prospectors, including their personalities and memories. The story follows the prospectors' struggle to understand what is going on and to resolve their own identities, against the background of a mutiny on board.
If the beings who inhabit the starship are bizarre creations so is the ship itself, appearing to be more organic than metallic. This is a relatively brief tale (only 220 pages in my paperback) without the long introspective passages which normally fill her work. Rather dark and grim, it is a work which is more intriguing than enjoyable.
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I felt like some mindless entertainment (my brain cells go on strike with increasing frequency) so I watched My Super Ex-Girlfriend, the 2006 Uma Thurman film. It's about a guy who discovers that his new girlfriend is a super-heroine - and subsequently finds that there can be hazards in dumping such a being. A good popcorn movie, pleasantly entertaining and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. I particularly enjoyed the scene with the shark...
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Sadly, I was less impressed by the DVD of Hogfather, based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld comic fantasy novels. It was just about watchable but dragged very slowly, and when it ended after 1½ hours and I discovered that that was only Part 1 – there was a Part 2 on the disk – I gave up.
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Back on course again with the latest Star Trek movie, the prequel to the original series. Entertaining and with some good CGI, it even got a round of applause from the cinema audience! I do wonder why Hollywood finds it so hard to make such a movie without inconsistencies in the plot, though….and I found the film rather forgettable (I'm already struggling to recall the story).
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The Spiderwick Chronicles is a neat piece of storytelling. A mother and her children move into a house left to them by a distant relative, only to discover that they're not alone. Their relative had been investigating the world of magical creatures and had accumulated a precious store of knowledge in a book, which a particularly nasty denizen of that world was determined to get hold of as soon as he could break the magic circle protecting the house. An intriguing adventure, with the children a lot less annoying than they usually are in Hollywood films.
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Wanted puts us back into superhero territory. This 2008 film is apparently based on a comic book figure, although as I don't read comics I wasn't aware of that when I saw it. With a cast including Morgan Freeman, James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie it obviously had a big budget. It concerns the existence of an old-established group of assassins with superhuman powers, including the ability to speed themselves up and to bend the path of their bullets. A young man (McAvoy) is hauled out of a humdrum life by this group, as he is the son of one of their members who died in a series of attacks by a renegade assassin. McAvoy is trained up and despatched on the trail of the renegade. All is not as it seems and there are various twists and turns before the usual cataclysmic conclusion. Not a bad effort, with some exciting scenes. Jolie fans will love it…
If the beings who inhabit the starship are bizarre creations so is the ship itself, appearing to be more organic than metallic. This is a relatively brief tale (only 220 pages in my paperback) without the long introspective passages which normally fill her work. Rather dark and grim, it is a work which is more intriguing than enjoyable.
------------------------------------------
I felt like some mindless entertainment (my brain cells go on strike with increasing frequency) so I watched My Super Ex-Girlfriend, the 2006 Uma Thurman film. It's about a guy who discovers that his new girlfriend is a super-heroine - and subsequently finds that there can be hazards in dumping such a being. A good popcorn movie, pleasantly entertaining and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. I particularly enjoyed the scene with the shark...
-----------------------------------------
Sadly, I was less impressed by the DVD of Hogfather, based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld comic fantasy novels. It was just about watchable but dragged very slowly, and when it ended after 1½ hours and I discovered that that was only Part 1 – there was a Part 2 on the disk – I gave up.
-----------------------------------------
Back on course again with the latest Star Trek movie, the prequel to the original series. Entertaining and with some good CGI, it even got a round of applause from the cinema audience! I do wonder why Hollywood finds it so hard to make such a movie without inconsistencies in the plot, though….and I found the film rather forgettable (I'm already struggling to recall the story).
----------------------------------------
The Spiderwick Chronicles is a neat piece of storytelling. A mother and her children move into a house left to them by a distant relative, only to discover that they're not alone. Their relative had been investigating the world of magical creatures and had accumulated a precious store of knowledge in a book, which a particularly nasty denizen of that world was determined to get hold of as soon as he could break the magic circle protecting the house. An intriguing adventure, with the children a lot less annoying than they usually are in Hollywood films.
-----------------------------------------
Wanted puts us back into superhero territory. This 2008 film is apparently based on a comic book figure, although as I don't read comics I wasn't aware of that when I saw it. With a cast including Morgan Freeman, James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie it obviously had a big budget. It concerns the existence of an old-established group of assassins with superhuman powers, including the ability to speed themselves up and to bend the path of their bullets. A young man (McAvoy) is hauled out of a humdrum life by this group, as he is the son of one of their members who died in a series of attacks by a renegade assassin. McAvoy is trained up and despatched on the trail of the renegade. All is not as it seems and there are various twists and turns before the usual cataclysmic conclusion. Not a bad effort, with some exciting scenes. Jolie fans will love it…
Friday, 10 July 2009
The Alien Years by Robert Silverberg
This book was first published in 1998 but I started to read it only recently, because it was chosen for the Modern Science Fiction discussion group. Silverberg is one of a number of authors whose works I absorbed in quantity in the 1960s and 70s, but I was not a particular fan and haven't kept any of them for re-reading.
The first impression I had on reading The Alien Years was a strong sense of déjà vu, since it starts in more or less the present day with the sudden arrival of aliens in major cities across the world. I don't know how many alien invasion stories I've read over the decades, but it must be dozens at least, so yet another one has to be really special to grab my attention. At first, the aliens seem to be mainly curious and take no offensive action, but this changes once they are attacked; their initial response is to black out all electrical apparatus (including battery powered) across the globe for a fortnight, with longer blackouts following later. They then use their telepathic powers to begin to exploit humanity as their work force.
Silverberg's story gives us no insight into the alien' motivations (at least for the first 200 pages) but focuses primarily on an extended Californian family and their responses to the invasion, with a secondary plot thread concerning some residents of Salisbury in England. Tension develops between those who wish to use force in resisting the aliens, those who regard this as futile and want to bide their time until there seems to be some chance of success, and those who accept that the aliens are here to stay and collaborate with them.
I mentioned the first 200 pages because, after I had got that far, I stopped and asked myself three key questions: was I enjoying the story; did I want to see how it ended; and did I care what happened to the characters? My answers were "no", "not particularly" and "no" respectively. So I stopped reading, at not quite half-way through; I have too many other books in my to-read pile to spend more time on this one.
What didn't I like about it? First, I found the writing style rather turgid with long info-dumps often dressed up as the internal thoughts of the characters. Secondly, the story was very slow-moving and failed to engage me; it wasn't sufficiently original or exciting. Third, the plot was rather depressing – I don't like dystopian settings, and I've read too many with this kind of plot already. But most of all, my problem was with the characters; not due to lack of characterisation, but because I found it difficult to relate to any of them and simply didn't like them. The only one who seemed quite promising featured initially as the main character but was killed off early in the story.
One other observation: the disruption causing by shutting down all electrical equipment is considerably understated in the book; the most serious problem described was a breakdown in law and order. In reality, it would be a colossal catastrophe throughout the developed world (the third world would be much less affected). Piped water would quickly dry up (no pumps). All powered transport would shut down, apart from steam engines (and primitive diesels with manual starting handles – until immediately available fuel ran out). Our just-in-time society absolutely depends on a constant flow of transport, especially for food supply; cities typically hold stocks of food for only about three days, and frozen and chilled food would rapidly spoil. In reality, there would be a huge exodus of people from urban areas, searching for water and food in the countryside. Almost all forms of employment would collapse, and all except the most basic medical facilities would break down. I'll be dealing with these issues in more detail in a future post concerning the Carrington Event.
The first impression I had on reading The Alien Years was a strong sense of déjà vu, since it starts in more or less the present day with the sudden arrival of aliens in major cities across the world. I don't know how many alien invasion stories I've read over the decades, but it must be dozens at least, so yet another one has to be really special to grab my attention. At first, the aliens seem to be mainly curious and take no offensive action, but this changes once they are attacked; their initial response is to black out all electrical apparatus (including battery powered) across the globe for a fortnight, with longer blackouts following later. They then use their telepathic powers to begin to exploit humanity as their work force.
Silverberg's story gives us no insight into the alien' motivations (at least for the first 200 pages) but focuses primarily on an extended Californian family and their responses to the invasion, with a secondary plot thread concerning some residents of Salisbury in England. Tension develops between those who wish to use force in resisting the aliens, those who regard this as futile and want to bide their time until there seems to be some chance of success, and those who accept that the aliens are here to stay and collaborate with them.
I mentioned the first 200 pages because, after I had got that far, I stopped and asked myself three key questions: was I enjoying the story; did I want to see how it ended; and did I care what happened to the characters? My answers were "no", "not particularly" and "no" respectively. So I stopped reading, at not quite half-way through; I have too many other books in my to-read pile to spend more time on this one.
What didn't I like about it? First, I found the writing style rather turgid with long info-dumps often dressed up as the internal thoughts of the characters. Secondly, the story was very slow-moving and failed to engage me; it wasn't sufficiently original or exciting. Third, the plot was rather depressing – I don't like dystopian settings, and I've read too many with this kind of plot already. But most of all, my problem was with the characters; not due to lack of characterisation, but because I found it difficult to relate to any of them and simply didn't like them. The only one who seemed quite promising featured initially as the main character but was killed off early in the story.
One other observation: the disruption causing by shutting down all electrical equipment is considerably understated in the book; the most serious problem described was a breakdown in law and order. In reality, it would be a colossal catastrophe throughout the developed world (the third world would be much less affected). Piped water would quickly dry up (no pumps). All powered transport would shut down, apart from steam engines (and primitive diesels with manual starting handles – until immediately available fuel ran out). Our just-in-time society absolutely depends on a constant flow of transport, especially for food supply; cities typically hold stocks of food for only about three days, and frozen and chilled food would rapidly spoil. In reality, there would be a huge exodus of people from urban areas, searching for water and food in the countryside. Almost all forms of employment would collapse, and all except the most basic medical facilities would break down. I'll be dealing with these issues in more detail in a future post concerning the Carrington Event.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
The Mercury Annual by Michael Wyndham Thomas
The Mercury Annual is one of the strangest stories I have read in a long while. It commences with a lengthy Prologue which describes the world of Razalia and its neighbouring planets, together with their peoples. To say that this system is bizarre would be an understatement; it is the purest fantasy of the most unrealistic kind, in that no account is taken of any laws of science. The system's sun wanders among its planets, the inhabitants of one planet likes to visit others by means of giant catapults, Razalia is covered with barriers of pure white, like cracks in reality, into which people vanish never to return, and its humanoid people have a rather flexible anatomy, immediately growing organs as and when they need them. Each town is ruled by a Tharle, who acquires other peculiar abilities.
This is not the easiest story to get into and I was beginning to feel dubious about continuing until I reached the first chapter, which is dramatically different. This and much of the rest of the novel are set on present-day Earth and focus on the entirely mundane lives of Keith, whose main passion in life is his massive collection of classic comics, his dominating and aggressive wife Donna, their daughter Imogen and Keith's strange friend George, who shares his enthusiasm for the odd collectables of life. Donna is determined to convert their attic into something useful and plots to clear the space by manipulating her husband into selling the comic collection which covers the floor (the book's title refers to one of these). There is much loving description of the stories in the comics as Keith sorts through them, trying to decide what to do. The characters are well-drawn, the scenario and relationships entirely convincing. Only at the end of this part of the book is there any hint of a connection between Earth and Razalia.
The final part of the story returns to Razalia and describes the efforts of the Tharles to discover why the white barriers have begun to expand. One of their number has invented a peculiar device which he claims enables him to see and hear the legendary Maker of Razalia, who lives in a world which sounds increasingly familiar.
This short novel (under 160 pages) is only Part 1 of Valiant Razalia, and the various story threads are all left hanging in the air at the end of it. I am still trying to make up my mind about this book. It isn't the stuff of best-sellers, and the series could either vanish without trace or attract a cult following. However, it managed to hook me to the extent that I will be looking to get hold of Part 2 when it comes out.
-----------------------------------
I've just noticed that BBC Radio has been broadcasting some work by Charles Chilton. See: This link for details.
I remember the original versions of these stories, when Journey into Space was broadcast in the 1950s - it helped to get me interested in SF. I've still got one of his books from 1960 - The World in Peril. I must re-read it sometime!
This is not the easiest story to get into and I was beginning to feel dubious about continuing until I reached the first chapter, which is dramatically different. This and much of the rest of the novel are set on present-day Earth and focus on the entirely mundane lives of Keith, whose main passion in life is his massive collection of classic comics, his dominating and aggressive wife Donna, their daughter Imogen and Keith's strange friend George, who shares his enthusiasm for the odd collectables of life. Donna is determined to convert their attic into something useful and plots to clear the space by manipulating her husband into selling the comic collection which covers the floor (the book's title refers to one of these). There is much loving description of the stories in the comics as Keith sorts through them, trying to decide what to do. The characters are well-drawn, the scenario and relationships entirely convincing. Only at the end of this part of the book is there any hint of a connection between Earth and Razalia.
The final part of the story returns to Razalia and describes the efforts of the Tharles to discover why the white barriers have begun to expand. One of their number has invented a peculiar device which he claims enables him to see and hear the legendary Maker of Razalia, who lives in a world which sounds increasingly familiar.
This short novel (under 160 pages) is only Part 1 of Valiant Razalia, and the various story threads are all left hanging in the air at the end of it. I am still trying to make up my mind about this book. It isn't the stuff of best-sellers, and the series could either vanish without trace or attract a cult following. However, it managed to hook me to the extent that I will be looking to get hold of Part 2 when it comes out.
-----------------------------------
I've just noticed that BBC Radio has been broadcasting some work by Charles Chilton. See: This link for details.
I remember the original versions of these stories, when Journey into Space was broadcast in the 1950s - it helped to get me interested in SF. I've still got one of his books from 1960 - The World in Peril. I must re-read it sometime!
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Agent of Change, by Lee and Miller, plus Ashes to Ashes
Agent of Change, first published in 1988, kicked off the authors' extensive Liaden Universe series. I had heard good things of the stories but had never read them before, so I tackled this one with interest.
It is classic space opera, set in a distant future in which humanity has spread through the galaxy and interacts (sometimes in a friendly way, sometimes not) with various other equally advanced races. Most of the other races bear no resemblance to humans, the exception being the Liadens who are close enough related to be able to interbreed – although how this came to be is not explained in this story.
The two heroes of this story are Val Con, a male Liaden spy, and Miri, a female human ex-mercenary bodyguard, both more than capable of looking after themselves in dangerous situations. At the start of the story they accidentally meet on the world of Lufkit when both are being hunted; Val Con by the planetary authorities, Miri by a criminal organisation called the Juntavas. Their pair up out of necessity, and the rest of the story is largely concerned with their efforts to survive. A key role is played by a magnificently realised alien race known as the Clutch, who resemble giant turtles and have previously befriended Val Con. I hardly need add that the action is flavoured by a developing romance between the two heroes.
A fast-paced and entertaining read, if rather lightweight and not particularly memorable. I might chase up the sequels in due course, but I have a tall stack of books to read and a long list of others to buy, so it's likely to take a while.
--------------------------------
Ashes to Ashes
The TV detective series Life on Mars, about a present-day policeman who inexplicably finds himself a part of a 1970s detective squad, was deservedly a huge hit. Not surprisingly it was followed by a new series, Ashes to Ashes, following the same detective team into the 1980s with a new "throwback", Keeley Hawes replacing John Simm. The first series was rather disappointing by contrast with LoM, but the second series (which finished a couple of weeks ago) was a great improvement. The characters were much better developed, and the twin plot threads of Hawes' character desperately trying to get back to the present day and her growing relationship with Philip Glenister's crusty, misogynistic detective became increasingly intriguing. As well as the drama and mystery this was one of the funniest series on TV, with more laugh-out-loud moments than most comedies (and – blessed relief – no canned laughter). From being an "OK to watch" for the first series this became a "must watch", and the highlight of the week's viewing. I realised just how much I had come to like the characters when felt quite sad on discovering that one of them had betrayed the team (for all-too-human reasons). The finale was the best episode of the lot, with a commendably ambiguous and open ending.
There's no doubt that Glenister was the star of the show; he was given a string of often outrageously funny non-PC one-liners which he delivered in his characteristically gruff, deadpan, rapid-fire style. One which sticks in my mind; on seeing Hawes looking unusually happy: "What's up with you then? You look as if you've been sitting on the washing machine again!" And the gag in the last episode concerning the detective at a chip-shop crime scene who was happily munching on a battered and deep-fried sausage until he discovered that it was from a literally dis-membered murder victim brought tears to my eyes. I'm eagerly awaiting the third series, due next year.
It is classic space opera, set in a distant future in which humanity has spread through the galaxy and interacts (sometimes in a friendly way, sometimes not) with various other equally advanced races. Most of the other races bear no resemblance to humans, the exception being the Liadens who are close enough related to be able to interbreed – although how this came to be is not explained in this story.
The two heroes of this story are Val Con, a male Liaden spy, and Miri, a female human ex-mercenary bodyguard, both more than capable of looking after themselves in dangerous situations. At the start of the story they accidentally meet on the world of Lufkit when both are being hunted; Val Con by the planetary authorities, Miri by a criminal organisation called the Juntavas. Their pair up out of necessity, and the rest of the story is largely concerned with their efforts to survive. A key role is played by a magnificently realised alien race known as the Clutch, who resemble giant turtles and have previously befriended Val Con. I hardly need add that the action is flavoured by a developing romance between the two heroes.
A fast-paced and entertaining read, if rather lightweight and not particularly memorable. I might chase up the sequels in due course, but I have a tall stack of books to read and a long list of others to buy, so it's likely to take a while.
--------------------------------
Ashes to Ashes
The TV detective series Life on Mars, about a present-day policeman who inexplicably finds himself a part of a 1970s detective squad, was deservedly a huge hit. Not surprisingly it was followed by a new series, Ashes to Ashes, following the same detective team into the 1980s with a new "throwback", Keeley Hawes replacing John Simm. The first series was rather disappointing by contrast with LoM, but the second series (which finished a couple of weeks ago) was a great improvement. The characters were much better developed, and the twin plot threads of Hawes' character desperately trying to get back to the present day and her growing relationship with Philip Glenister's crusty, misogynistic detective became increasingly intriguing. As well as the drama and mystery this was one of the funniest series on TV, with more laugh-out-loud moments than most comedies (and – blessed relief – no canned laughter). From being an "OK to watch" for the first series this became a "must watch", and the highlight of the week's viewing. I realised just how much I had come to like the characters when felt quite sad on discovering that one of them had betrayed the team (for all-too-human reasons). The finale was the best episode of the lot, with a commendably ambiguous and open ending.
There's no doubt that Glenister was the star of the show; he was given a string of often outrageously funny non-PC one-liners which he delivered in his characteristically gruff, deadpan, rapid-fire style. One which sticks in my mind; on seeing Hawes looking unusually happy: "What's up with you then? You look as if you've been sitting on the washing machine again!" And the gag in the last episode concerning the detective at a chip-shop crime scene who was happily munching on a battered and deep-fried sausage until he discovered that it was from a literally dis-membered murder victim brought tears to my eyes. I'm eagerly awaiting the third series, due next year.
Friday, 19 June 2009
Starship Troopers, by Robert A Heinlein – book and film
I read a lot of Heinlein in the 1960s, when I absorbed all of the SFF I could get my hands on, but was never a great fan and didn't read any of his books more than once. I remember enjoying Starship Troopers, though, so looked forward to a re-read with the Classic Science Fiction discussion group. Coincidentally, the film of the book was on the TV just before I read it, so I recorded it to watch immediately after the read.
I remembered nothing about the plot except for what is obviously implied by the title, and those cool combat suits; part exoskeleton, part armour, part space-suit, part weapon carrier (probably what appealed to my teenage self!). I was at first impressed by the way in which the blunt, matter-of-fact style is well-suited to the subject of a personal memoir by a no-nonsense soldier, and followed his account of life on a future Earth and training in the "boot camp" with interest. I was not immediately put off by the right-wing moralising, since that seemed to go with the territory, but about half-way through this becomes the dominant theme.
An entire chapter is spent recalling a school lesson in which he learned the importance of corporal and capital punishment, and how stupid societies had been to abandon them in the late 20th century. Reading now from an adult perspective, I'd certainly agree that too many children are brought up badly today and lack a structured disciplinary environment, but the notion that if we always hit them immediately they did anything wrong they would grow up to be model citizens is simplistic, to put it mildly. So is Heinlein's notion that children are not born with any moral sense, it has to be beaten into them. Plenty of studies have shown how people, like other social animals, are hard-wired to have an understanding of working cooperatively with others and adhering to the behavioural codes which make that possible – the basis of morality.
Elsewhere in the book is another polemic about the evils of universal franchise, and why governments should be controlled only by those who have volunteered for military service and passed the rigorous training designed to weed out those without the "right stuff". In fact, the entire book is a paean to the virtues of the military life, the harsher the better, and also to unthinking obedience untroubled by any concerns about right or wrong – that's the responsibility of those who give the orders. And this so soon after Nuremburg?
The last part of the book returns to action rather than polemic and is all the better for it. The book is not without its merits, mainly the laconic and gritty account of future combat which presumably influenced Haldeman's vastly superior The Forever War. However, the plot gets swamped by the repellent philosophy. This is best regarded as a curiosity, mainly of value in providing an insight into the mind of right-wing America in the mid-20th century.
------------------------------
Watching the film, made in 1997 some 38 years after the book was first published, is a rather strange experience. It's as if the characters and plot elements of the book have been chopped up and rearranged, with some additions and subtractions, and the attributes of one character sometimes assigned to another. The script stays broadly true to the spirit of the book, with Heinlein's jingoism parodied in a series of simplistic, gung-ho news broadcasts. There are some major differences, however. One is (almost inevitably) a much stronger romance element, achieved partly by making the Mobile Infantry mixed rather than male-only. The other (sadly) is the absence of those impressive combat suits and the tactics associated with them. Apart from the grenade-sized tactical nukes, the infantry fight with equipment and tactics not dissimilar to those of World War 2, which makes the military aspect of the film rather a sad joke. And as usual, the director is keen to maximise the use of the CGI "Bugs" with lots of associated nastiness and slaughter. He also doesn't remotely care about basic credibility; the Bug homeworld is shown as being on the other side of the galaxy (at least 50,000 light years away) but their favourite mode of attack is to launch asteroids from the belt around their planet to score direct hits on specific Earth cities, despite the lack of evidence for any technology. Given that a human spaceship was able to take action to avoid a collision with an incoming asteroid, they clearly travel at a small fraction of lightspeed, so would be likely to take at least a million years to make the journey. No wonder today's youngsters are so ignorant of science.
------------------------------
A brief heads-up for those who followed my series of posts on Global Warming and SF. I have combined and updated them and put the result on my website as a handy reference (to be amended in the light of any further developments) HERE .
I remembered nothing about the plot except for what is obviously implied by the title, and those cool combat suits; part exoskeleton, part armour, part space-suit, part weapon carrier (probably what appealed to my teenage self!). I was at first impressed by the way in which the blunt, matter-of-fact style is well-suited to the subject of a personal memoir by a no-nonsense soldier, and followed his account of life on a future Earth and training in the "boot camp" with interest. I was not immediately put off by the right-wing moralising, since that seemed to go with the territory, but about half-way through this becomes the dominant theme.
An entire chapter is spent recalling a school lesson in which he learned the importance of corporal and capital punishment, and how stupid societies had been to abandon them in the late 20th century. Reading now from an adult perspective, I'd certainly agree that too many children are brought up badly today and lack a structured disciplinary environment, but the notion that if we always hit them immediately they did anything wrong they would grow up to be model citizens is simplistic, to put it mildly. So is Heinlein's notion that children are not born with any moral sense, it has to be beaten into them. Plenty of studies have shown how people, like other social animals, are hard-wired to have an understanding of working cooperatively with others and adhering to the behavioural codes which make that possible – the basis of morality.
Elsewhere in the book is another polemic about the evils of universal franchise, and why governments should be controlled only by those who have volunteered for military service and passed the rigorous training designed to weed out those without the "right stuff". In fact, the entire book is a paean to the virtues of the military life, the harsher the better, and also to unthinking obedience untroubled by any concerns about right or wrong – that's the responsibility of those who give the orders. And this so soon after Nuremburg?
The last part of the book returns to action rather than polemic and is all the better for it. The book is not without its merits, mainly the laconic and gritty account of future combat which presumably influenced Haldeman's vastly superior The Forever War. However, the plot gets swamped by the repellent philosophy. This is best regarded as a curiosity, mainly of value in providing an insight into the mind of right-wing America in the mid-20th century.
------------------------------
Watching the film, made in 1997 some 38 years after the book was first published, is a rather strange experience. It's as if the characters and plot elements of the book have been chopped up and rearranged, with some additions and subtractions, and the attributes of one character sometimes assigned to another. The script stays broadly true to the spirit of the book, with Heinlein's jingoism parodied in a series of simplistic, gung-ho news broadcasts. There are some major differences, however. One is (almost inevitably) a much stronger romance element, achieved partly by making the Mobile Infantry mixed rather than male-only. The other (sadly) is the absence of those impressive combat suits and the tactics associated with them. Apart from the grenade-sized tactical nukes, the infantry fight with equipment and tactics not dissimilar to those of World War 2, which makes the military aspect of the film rather a sad joke. And as usual, the director is keen to maximise the use of the CGI "Bugs" with lots of associated nastiness and slaughter. He also doesn't remotely care about basic credibility; the Bug homeworld is shown as being on the other side of the galaxy (at least 50,000 light years away) but their favourite mode of attack is to launch asteroids from the belt around their planet to score direct hits on specific Earth cities, despite the lack of evidence for any technology. Given that a human spaceship was able to take action to avoid a collision with an incoming asteroid, they clearly travel at a small fraction of lightspeed, so would be likely to take at least a million years to make the journey. No wonder today's youngsters are so ignorant of science.
------------------------------
A brief heads-up for those who followed my series of posts on Global Warming and SF. I have combined and updated them and put the result on my website as a handy reference (to be amended in the light of any further developments) HERE .
Friday, 12 June 2009
Dream Park, by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes
This novel was first published in 1981 and I read it not long after. I thoroughly enjoyed it then, and was pleased to return to it when it was selected for the Modern Science Fiction discussion group, particularly since I remembered nothing about the plot.
The story is set on Earth some time in the future; there are ultra-high-speed trains running in evacuated tunnels and life-like holograms, but not much else in the way of advanced technology. The location is the Dream Park of the title, a huge leisure park which, in addition to more familiar attractions, hosts role-playing games on vast sets, their actual topography enhanced by computer-generated holograms so they seem to stretch for miles. Keen role-players participate in these games, in which the Lore Master, the leader of the players, pits his wits against the Game Master who devises the game and supervises its progress. Games last for several days during which the players remain on the set and maintain their chosen roles – warrior, thief, cleric or magic user – the magic users being able to summon holographic "supernatural aid" at need. A lot of money rides on these games because, if deemed successful, they are turned into computer games and other merchandise.
The plot concerns the running of a new game, seen as a "blood match" between the Game Master and Lore Master, who have clashed before. Most of the action happens on set, but there is a parallel plot concerning the murder of a security guard at Dream Park, which seems to be associated with the game. The Park's Head of Security, Alex Griffin, becomes convinced that one of the players must have been responsible so he anonymously joins the game as a player in order to try to identify the criminal. However, he finds the game a lot more absorbing than he ever imagined.
I had better start by admitting that I have never participated in a role-playing game of any kind; I'm not sure if that's a benefit or a handicap in reviewing this story! The writing style is brisk and well suited to the teenage market. At first I was disappointed because I found the tale rather frustrating. Many characters are introduced in quick succession and I soon lost track of them. A list of characters is included at the front of the book but, while an essential reference, this only gives their names and roles. Not enough information is provided to round out the personalities or fix their descriptions in the reader's mind, so I kept flipping back though the text to find where they were first (albeit only briefly) described. This lasted until about half-way through the book, during which time I still felt that I didn't know the characters or much care what happened to them.
However, after that the story begins to take off. The surviving characters become more familiar and the story more gripping as the players battle their way through the obstacles and dangers set by the Game Master towards a still-unknown goal in the fantastical world of Melanesian mythology and the Cargo Cult. At the same time Griffin, who secretly keeps in daily contact with his security team, is trying to identify the criminal. The game is a lot more successful than the rather cursory solution of the crime; the eventual revelation of the killer was more of a "huh?" than an "of course!" moment, as not enough clues had been provided.
Despite these reservations, it's an unusual and exciting mix of adventure and crime story, worth the time to read if you can get past the initial problems with characterisation. I expect that RPG fans will enjoy it even more.
The story is set on Earth some time in the future; there are ultra-high-speed trains running in evacuated tunnels and life-like holograms, but not much else in the way of advanced technology. The location is the Dream Park of the title, a huge leisure park which, in addition to more familiar attractions, hosts role-playing games on vast sets, their actual topography enhanced by computer-generated holograms so they seem to stretch for miles. Keen role-players participate in these games, in which the Lore Master, the leader of the players, pits his wits against the Game Master who devises the game and supervises its progress. Games last for several days during which the players remain on the set and maintain their chosen roles – warrior, thief, cleric or magic user – the magic users being able to summon holographic "supernatural aid" at need. A lot of money rides on these games because, if deemed successful, they are turned into computer games and other merchandise.
The plot concerns the running of a new game, seen as a "blood match" between the Game Master and Lore Master, who have clashed before. Most of the action happens on set, but there is a parallel plot concerning the murder of a security guard at Dream Park, which seems to be associated with the game. The Park's Head of Security, Alex Griffin, becomes convinced that one of the players must have been responsible so he anonymously joins the game as a player in order to try to identify the criminal. However, he finds the game a lot more absorbing than he ever imagined.
I had better start by admitting that I have never participated in a role-playing game of any kind; I'm not sure if that's a benefit or a handicap in reviewing this story! The writing style is brisk and well suited to the teenage market. At first I was disappointed because I found the tale rather frustrating. Many characters are introduced in quick succession and I soon lost track of them. A list of characters is included at the front of the book but, while an essential reference, this only gives their names and roles. Not enough information is provided to round out the personalities or fix their descriptions in the reader's mind, so I kept flipping back though the text to find where they were first (albeit only briefly) described. This lasted until about half-way through the book, during which time I still felt that I didn't know the characters or much care what happened to them.
However, after that the story begins to take off. The surviving characters become more familiar and the story more gripping as the players battle their way through the obstacles and dangers set by the Game Master towards a still-unknown goal in the fantastical world of Melanesian mythology and the Cargo Cult. At the same time Griffin, who secretly keeps in daily contact with his security team, is trying to identify the criminal. The game is a lot more successful than the rather cursory solution of the crime; the eventual revelation of the killer was more of a "huh?" than an "of course!" moment, as not enough clues had been provided.
Despite these reservations, it's an unusual and exciting mix of adventure and crime story, worth the time to read if you can get past the initial problems with characterisation. I expect that RPG fans will enjoy it even more.
Friday, 5 June 2009
Interzone 222 and Dark Horizons
Yet more short stories, from the British SFF magazine Interzone and the British Fantasy Society's Dark Horizons. For someone who prefers novels, I've been reading a lot of the shorter works recently.
Interzone has the usual six stories as well as news and reviews. The cover illustration, by Adam Tredowski, shows a strange, rather abstract spaceship blasting off from a planet.
Johnny and Emmy-Lou Get Married by Kim Lakin-Smith (illustrated by Warwick Fraser-Coombe): 1950s-style romance across the boundaries of futuristic US gangs, the Rocketeers and the Flies.
Unexpected Outcomes by Tim Pratt: is the Earth real – or just a simulation?
Lady of the White-Spired City by Sarah L Edwards (illustrated by Martin Bland): an imperial envoy revisits the backward planet from which she had fled centuries before.
Microcosmos by Nina Allen: a dystopian near-future Earth adapting to changed circumstances, and the personal costs of this.
Ys by Aliette De Bodard (illustrated by Mark Pexton): the magical drowned world of Ys emerges, figuratively and literally, into the life of a young woman.
Mother of Champions by Sean McMullen (illustrated by Anne Stone-Coyote): cheetahs are not at all what we think – they have evolved to perfection!
An entertaining and varied collection which I enjoyed. I'd have to award the medal to Sean McMullen for sheer originality, with a mention in dispatches for Tim Pratt's intriguing take on his theme.
Dark Horizons goes one better with seven stories, plus five poems and several articles including an interview with Robert Holdstock (ancient woodland magic) and summary reviews of the work of David Gemmell (I haven't yet read) plus the Elfin Fantasies of James P Blaylock (quirky tales which I recall enjoying).
Passing Through by Jim Steel: a brief episode set in a grim medieval world
For a Strong, Healthy Body by Andrew Knighton: the consequences of not properly disposing of factory waste.
Nanna Barrows by Jan Edwards: a sick boy is helped by the traditional healer who lives opposite – but there is more…
The Putrimaniac by Brendan Connell: a gruesome tale of tastes and sensibilities running out of control.
Telemura by Douglas Thompson: a horror-filled house and paint of a strange, magical colour.
Everything He Touched, Burned by Mathew F Riley: life in the tunnels under a city.
Beyond the Fifth Sky by Ross Gresham: navigating the underground seas of a strange planet.
Horror is not my favourite genre and I usually prefer SF to fantasy, so no surprise that Ross Gresham's tale appealed to me the most, although Matthew Riley's atmospheric story also sticks in the memory.
The poems are mostly short and elliptical but I have to mention the heroic Chronicle of a Conflagration by Skadi meic Beorh: a graphic three-page account of a battle between the followers of Odin and Lugh, written in triplets in an epic style.
Interzone has the usual six stories as well as news and reviews. The cover illustration, by Adam Tredowski, shows a strange, rather abstract spaceship blasting off from a planet.
Johnny and Emmy-Lou Get Married by Kim Lakin-Smith (illustrated by Warwick Fraser-Coombe): 1950s-style romance across the boundaries of futuristic US gangs, the Rocketeers and the Flies.
Unexpected Outcomes by Tim Pratt: is the Earth real – or just a simulation?
Lady of the White-Spired City by Sarah L Edwards (illustrated by Martin Bland): an imperial envoy revisits the backward planet from which she had fled centuries before.
Microcosmos by Nina Allen: a dystopian near-future Earth adapting to changed circumstances, and the personal costs of this.
Ys by Aliette De Bodard (illustrated by Mark Pexton): the magical drowned world of Ys emerges, figuratively and literally, into the life of a young woman.
Mother of Champions by Sean McMullen (illustrated by Anne Stone-Coyote): cheetahs are not at all what we think – they have evolved to perfection!
An entertaining and varied collection which I enjoyed. I'd have to award the medal to Sean McMullen for sheer originality, with a mention in dispatches for Tim Pratt's intriguing take on his theme.
Dark Horizons goes one better with seven stories, plus five poems and several articles including an interview with Robert Holdstock (ancient woodland magic) and summary reviews of the work of David Gemmell (I haven't yet read) plus the Elfin Fantasies of James P Blaylock (quirky tales which I recall enjoying).
Passing Through by Jim Steel: a brief episode set in a grim medieval world
For a Strong, Healthy Body by Andrew Knighton: the consequences of not properly disposing of factory waste.
Nanna Barrows by Jan Edwards: a sick boy is helped by the traditional healer who lives opposite – but there is more…
The Putrimaniac by Brendan Connell: a gruesome tale of tastes and sensibilities running out of control.
Telemura by Douglas Thompson: a horror-filled house and paint of a strange, magical colour.
Everything He Touched, Burned by Mathew F Riley: life in the tunnels under a city.
Beyond the Fifth Sky by Ross Gresham: navigating the underground seas of a strange planet.
Horror is not my favourite genre and I usually prefer SF to fantasy, so no surprise that Ross Gresham's tale appealed to me the most, although Matthew Riley's atmospheric story also sticks in the memory.
The poems are mostly short and elliptical but I have to mention the heroic Chronicle of a Conflagration by Skadi meic Beorh: a graphic three-page account of a battle between the followers of Odin and Lugh, written in triplets in an epic style.
Friday, 29 May 2009
Global Warming and SF – Part 3
This is the third and last part of my tour around the global warming issues and what might be done about them, with a view to how these might feature in SF. Last time I identified four possible courses of action: to cut back CO2 production; to remove CO2 already in the atmosphere; to reduce insolation (heat received from the sun); and finally to adapt to the changes which are now inevitable. I have already dealt with the first one, now for the other three.
Remove CO2 already in the atmosphere
One of the major problems with churning out CO2 is that, once in the atmosphere, it persists for a very long time. This contrasts with other greenhouse gases such as methane, which disappear relatively quickly. Even if it were possible to stop all burning of fossil fuels immediately, the quantity of CO2 already in the atmosphere would remain higher than pre-industrial levels for centuries to come; which means that the Earth will continue warming up for centuries. As a result, there is increasing interest in "geoengineering" – physically removing CO2 from the atmosphere, or finding other ways to increase CO2 absorption or to prevent the greenhouse effect.
Geoengineering is highly controversial because of worries that it may have unwanted consequences; for instance, increasing oceanic absorption of CO2 will increase seawater's acidity (something which is already beginning to happen) with potentially dire consequences for the marine ecosystem. It is therefore only being considered as a last resort, because climate scientists now believe that there is no chance of cutting CO2 production by enough to make much difference; in fact, before the current recession hit, carbon emissions were still increasing by 3% a year.
Geoengineering techniques can be as simple as planting trees, but this only postpones the problem – at some point, the trees will die and their carbon will be released. More drastic measures are therefore being considered. These include seeding the oceans with iron filings to encourage the growth of organisms which would trap CO2. However, apart from the acidification problem, a recent experiment failed to achieve the desired effect.
A more high-tech approach is to manufacture huge quantities of "scrubbers" which will physically remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Three different techniques have been proposed.
One is a "spray hangar" in which air is sucked in one end and blown out of the other after being sprayed with sodium hydroxide solution; this reacts with CO2 to form droplets of sodium carbonate. This is known to work, but in its present form requires a huge amount of energy.
An alternative is the "solar scrubber", using sun-focusing mirrors to heat a transparent tube filled with pellets of calcium oxide. As the temperature rises to 400 degrees C, air is blown through the tube and its CO2 combines with the chemical to form calcium carbonate; virtually all of the CO2 is extracted. The process can be reversed by doubling the temperature in order to drive off pure CO2 which can easily be captured; but of course, a safe way of disposing of it then has to be found. One possibility is to pump it into adjacent greenhouses in order to promote crop growth (a technique which is already being used).
The third option is the "air collector", which pumps air over an ion exchange resin, a polymer impregnated with sodium hydroxide, to which the CO2 adheres. It can later be washed out for disposal using humid air at only 40 degree C.
The benefit of these technologies is that there appears to be minimal risk of unintended consequences since all they do is extract CO2, a process which can instantly be switched off when no longer needed. The main drawback of the CO2 scrubbers is that millions of the things would be needed, at huge cost.
Reduce insolation
A different approach is to reduce the degree by which the sun heats up the Earth, by reflecting more of its rays back into space. As we have seen, ice fields reflect around 90% of the insolation (compared with 94% absorption in open water) and their melting is contributing to Arctic warming. One study calculated that reflecting an extra 1.8% of insolation would cancel out the effects of doubling the CO2 levels.
Various fanciful ideas have been proposed, such as dumping vast quantities of white polystyrene to float in the oceans (which could of course reduce their capacity to absorb CO2) or pumping sulphate particles high into the atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays (but this could cause catastrophic droughts in some regions, and would need constant renewal). A variation on the last one is to pump atomised seawater into stratocumulus clouds in order to increase their density and make them more reflective. This should work, but the processes of atomisation and of getting the water up to the clouds in such enormous quantities are obviously not trivial issues.
A more high-tech approach is to launch "sunshades" into space, in the form of discs of silicon about 60 cm across., just a few micrometers thick and weighting 1 gram. Each would be covered with holes calculated to act like a lens, causing dispersion and dimming of the sunlight. They would be "steerable" using solar energy to keep them in the correct position and orientation. The proposal involves launching containers, each carrying a million discs, from huge electromagnetic rail guns, towards the L1 Lagrange point where the Earth's and the sun's gravities cancel out. It has been estimated that twenty rail guns, each 3 km high and working around the clock to launch one container every five minutes for ten years, could achieve the 1.8% reduction, and it is hoped that the discs could last for up to 50 years.
The danger with all of these techniques would be if they were relied on to cancel out the effect of rising CO2 levels, thereby allowing CO2 to build up to high levels. Should the regular renewal of the sunshades then fail for any reason, the consequences to the climate of being suddenly exposed to high levels of atmospheric CO2 could be sudden and catastrophic.
A lower-tech approach would be to install reflective surfaces on the roofs of buildings or in the form of material covering desert areas, in those locations not required for solar heating or power systems.
Adapt to the changes
It is now accepted by climate scientists that any effective moves to reduce CO2 production will now be too late to avoid some unpleasant consequences – our politicians have already failed us by avoiding the potentially unpopular measures required. Even the 2007 IPCC report predicted a rise in global average temperature of between 2 and 6.4 degrees C this century and, as we have seen, a recent conference of climate scientists concluded that the outlook has worsened since that was written. An increase of 4 degrees by the end of the century now looks quite possible on present trends. So as well as continuing to try to minimise the warming effect, we are going to have to prepare for the consequences of a warmer world.
What this might mean is discussed in an article published in New Scientist on 28 February 2009 ("Surviving in a Warmer World"), which spells out the implications of a 4 degree warmer world. The picture painted is frankly horrifying. Much of the tropics would become uninhabitable due to drought, floods or extreme weather; the Amazon basin would become a desert, as would most of the USA, southern Europe, nearly all of Africa, southern Asia and Australia. Rising sea levels would mean that low-lying areas would vanish. On the bright side, there would be some potential for reforestation due to changing wind patterns, in west Africa and western Australia. However, the main areas suitable for habitation and farming would be Canada and Alaska, northern Europe and Asia, New Zealand, western Greenland and western Antarctica. These would become exceedingly crowded places, with the surviving population having to live in dense, high-rise accommodation to leave as much usable land as possible free for agriculture.
James Lovelock, who developed the "Gaia" theory, estimates that the devastation caused by climate change could result in the world's population reducing to 1 billion or less by the end of this century. Inevitably, there would be huge conflicts as displaced populations attempted to move to more favoured areas. Many observers think that the first climate change war has been underway for years, in the civil war in the Sudan. Christians and Muslims had lived peacefully side-by side in Sudan's Darfur province for centuries, but the trigger for their vicious war (in which 200,000 have already died and around two million been displaced) has been a dramatic reduction in rainfall over the past few decades, leading to increasing desertification and a conflict over the remaining usable land. If the regional climate projections are right, similar problems are likely to occur throughout the tropics during this century.
Other climate impact specialists consider that the worst consequences can be reduced, provided that we start planning and acting now, by determinedly adopting the kind of measures discussed in this survey. It's too late to prevent a lot of problems, but it's worth doing all we can to minimise the future scale of them, since that could prevent a bad situation from becoming utterly appalling. The political issues and pressures generated by all this are a potential source of material for near-future fiction.
Even if world leaders really begin to address this problem effectively, some changes will have to be made. The rising sea level, combined with more, and more violent, storms means that it would generally be futile to continue defending low-lying coastal areas. To give one well-known example, there is no point in the long term in trying to protect cities like New Orleans. This is already beginning to happen in a small way, with the evacuation of the 1,400 inhabitants of Papua New Guinea's Carteret Islands, and there are similar plans to abandon other low-lying oceanic islands. The prospect of millions of Bangladeshis moving into India as their land floods will raise problems on a very different scale.
Water shortages resulting from a combination of climate change and population growth will also require some changes to farming to get the maximum value out of agricultural land. One consequence is that meat-eating will have to diminish because, for the same food value, animal farms use farmland and water at several times the rate of crop farms. So the only farm animals likely to survive will be those which can live on rough mountain pasture unsuitable for agriculture. To make matters worse, fish stocks will continue to shrink, not just through overfishing but through the increasing acidification and deoxygenation of the oceans. The water shortages will almost certainly end the current squeamishness about genetically-modified crops; to produce enough food, it will be necessary to develop drought-resistant strains.
Even so, a switch to a largely vegetarian diet wouldn't provide a complete solution. Crops not only use up a lot of water, our commercial farms are also heavily dependent on oil, for farm machinery, transport and fertiliser. Reductions in the use of fossil fuels to cut back on CO2 production, combined with an increasing shortage of oil as cheap sources are used up, will make traditional crop-growing far more difficult and expensive. A recent UK TV programme on "farms of the future" predicted the decline of large-scale crop growing in favour of local "vertical farms", based on hedges and trees producing fruit, nuts and edible leaves, which can provide several times the food value of the same area of arable land. These require very little work or other resources to grow, but they are much more labour-intensive to collect.
That just about wraps up my survey. In a nutshell, climate change is accelerating, and if we wish to avoid some rather horrendous consequences, we need to put a far higher priority on taking the kind of preventative and precautionary measures I have been describing. I hope that all of this provides some useful material for the SF community; certainly there is scope for a wide range of backgrounds, from best-case to worst-case. My own novel, which I mentioned last time, was intended to represent a likely future but, in the light of the latest information, is now looking to be at the optimistic end of the spectrum!
Remove CO2 already in the atmosphere
One of the major problems with churning out CO2 is that, once in the atmosphere, it persists for a very long time. This contrasts with other greenhouse gases such as methane, which disappear relatively quickly. Even if it were possible to stop all burning of fossil fuels immediately, the quantity of CO2 already in the atmosphere would remain higher than pre-industrial levels for centuries to come; which means that the Earth will continue warming up for centuries. As a result, there is increasing interest in "geoengineering" – physically removing CO2 from the atmosphere, or finding other ways to increase CO2 absorption or to prevent the greenhouse effect.
Geoengineering is highly controversial because of worries that it may have unwanted consequences; for instance, increasing oceanic absorption of CO2 will increase seawater's acidity (something which is already beginning to happen) with potentially dire consequences for the marine ecosystem. It is therefore only being considered as a last resort, because climate scientists now believe that there is no chance of cutting CO2 production by enough to make much difference; in fact, before the current recession hit, carbon emissions were still increasing by 3% a year.
Geoengineering techniques can be as simple as planting trees, but this only postpones the problem – at some point, the trees will die and their carbon will be released. More drastic measures are therefore being considered. These include seeding the oceans with iron filings to encourage the growth of organisms which would trap CO2. However, apart from the acidification problem, a recent experiment failed to achieve the desired effect.
A more high-tech approach is to manufacture huge quantities of "scrubbers" which will physically remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Three different techniques have been proposed.
One is a "spray hangar" in which air is sucked in one end and blown out of the other after being sprayed with sodium hydroxide solution; this reacts with CO2 to form droplets of sodium carbonate. This is known to work, but in its present form requires a huge amount of energy.
An alternative is the "solar scrubber", using sun-focusing mirrors to heat a transparent tube filled with pellets of calcium oxide. As the temperature rises to 400 degrees C, air is blown through the tube and its CO2 combines with the chemical to form calcium carbonate; virtually all of the CO2 is extracted. The process can be reversed by doubling the temperature in order to drive off pure CO2 which can easily be captured; but of course, a safe way of disposing of it then has to be found. One possibility is to pump it into adjacent greenhouses in order to promote crop growth (a technique which is already being used).
The third option is the "air collector", which pumps air over an ion exchange resin, a polymer impregnated with sodium hydroxide, to which the CO2 adheres. It can later be washed out for disposal using humid air at only 40 degree C.
The benefit of these technologies is that there appears to be minimal risk of unintended consequences since all they do is extract CO2, a process which can instantly be switched off when no longer needed. The main drawback of the CO2 scrubbers is that millions of the things would be needed, at huge cost.
Reduce insolation
A different approach is to reduce the degree by which the sun heats up the Earth, by reflecting more of its rays back into space. As we have seen, ice fields reflect around 90% of the insolation (compared with 94% absorption in open water) and their melting is contributing to Arctic warming. One study calculated that reflecting an extra 1.8% of insolation would cancel out the effects of doubling the CO2 levels.
Various fanciful ideas have been proposed, such as dumping vast quantities of white polystyrene to float in the oceans (which could of course reduce their capacity to absorb CO2) or pumping sulphate particles high into the atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays (but this could cause catastrophic droughts in some regions, and would need constant renewal). A variation on the last one is to pump atomised seawater into stratocumulus clouds in order to increase their density and make them more reflective. This should work, but the processes of atomisation and of getting the water up to the clouds in such enormous quantities are obviously not trivial issues.
A more high-tech approach is to launch "sunshades" into space, in the form of discs of silicon about 60 cm across., just a few micrometers thick and weighting 1 gram. Each would be covered with holes calculated to act like a lens, causing dispersion and dimming of the sunlight. They would be "steerable" using solar energy to keep them in the correct position and orientation. The proposal involves launching containers, each carrying a million discs, from huge electromagnetic rail guns, towards the L1 Lagrange point where the Earth's and the sun's gravities cancel out. It has been estimated that twenty rail guns, each 3 km high and working around the clock to launch one container every five minutes for ten years, could achieve the 1.8% reduction, and it is hoped that the discs could last for up to 50 years.
The danger with all of these techniques would be if they were relied on to cancel out the effect of rising CO2 levels, thereby allowing CO2 to build up to high levels. Should the regular renewal of the sunshades then fail for any reason, the consequences to the climate of being suddenly exposed to high levels of atmospheric CO2 could be sudden and catastrophic.
A lower-tech approach would be to install reflective surfaces on the roofs of buildings or in the form of material covering desert areas, in those locations not required for solar heating or power systems.
Adapt to the changes
It is now accepted by climate scientists that any effective moves to reduce CO2 production will now be too late to avoid some unpleasant consequences – our politicians have already failed us by avoiding the potentially unpopular measures required. Even the 2007 IPCC report predicted a rise in global average temperature of between 2 and 6.4 degrees C this century and, as we have seen, a recent conference of climate scientists concluded that the outlook has worsened since that was written. An increase of 4 degrees by the end of the century now looks quite possible on present trends. So as well as continuing to try to minimise the warming effect, we are going to have to prepare for the consequences of a warmer world.
What this might mean is discussed in an article published in New Scientist on 28 February 2009 ("Surviving in a Warmer World"), which spells out the implications of a 4 degree warmer world. The picture painted is frankly horrifying. Much of the tropics would become uninhabitable due to drought, floods or extreme weather; the Amazon basin would become a desert, as would most of the USA, southern Europe, nearly all of Africa, southern Asia and Australia. Rising sea levels would mean that low-lying areas would vanish. On the bright side, there would be some potential for reforestation due to changing wind patterns, in west Africa and western Australia. However, the main areas suitable for habitation and farming would be Canada and Alaska, northern Europe and Asia, New Zealand, western Greenland and western Antarctica. These would become exceedingly crowded places, with the surviving population having to live in dense, high-rise accommodation to leave as much usable land as possible free for agriculture.
James Lovelock, who developed the "Gaia" theory, estimates that the devastation caused by climate change could result in the world's population reducing to 1 billion or less by the end of this century. Inevitably, there would be huge conflicts as displaced populations attempted to move to more favoured areas. Many observers think that the first climate change war has been underway for years, in the civil war in the Sudan. Christians and Muslims had lived peacefully side-by side in Sudan's Darfur province for centuries, but the trigger for their vicious war (in which 200,000 have already died and around two million been displaced) has been a dramatic reduction in rainfall over the past few decades, leading to increasing desertification and a conflict over the remaining usable land. If the regional climate projections are right, similar problems are likely to occur throughout the tropics during this century.
Other climate impact specialists consider that the worst consequences can be reduced, provided that we start planning and acting now, by determinedly adopting the kind of measures discussed in this survey. It's too late to prevent a lot of problems, but it's worth doing all we can to minimise the future scale of them, since that could prevent a bad situation from becoming utterly appalling. The political issues and pressures generated by all this are a potential source of material for near-future fiction.
Even if world leaders really begin to address this problem effectively, some changes will have to be made. The rising sea level, combined with more, and more violent, storms means that it would generally be futile to continue defending low-lying coastal areas. To give one well-known example, there is no point in the long term in trying to protect cities like New Orleans. This is already beginning to happen in a small way, with the evacuation of the 1,400 inhabitants of Papua New Guinea's Carteret Islands, and there are similar plans to abandon other low-lying oceanic islands. The prospect of millions of Bangladeshis moving into India as their land floods will raise problems on a very different scale.
Water shortages resulting from a combination of climate change and population growth will also require some changes to farming to get the maximum value out of agricultural land. One consequence is that meat-eating will have to diminish because, for the same food value, animal farms use farmland and water at several times the rate of crop farms. So the only farm animals likely to survive will be those which can live on rough mountain pasture unsuitable for agriculture. To make matters worse, fish stocks will continue to shrink, not just through overfishing but through the increasing acidification and deoxygenation of the oceans. The water shortages will almost certainly end the current squeamishness about genetically-modified crops; to produce enough food, it will be necessary to develop drought-resistant strains.
Even so, a switch to a largely vegetarian diet wouldn't provide a complete solution. Crops not only use up a lot of water, our commercial farms are also heavily dependent on oil, for farm machinery, transport and fertiliser. Reductions in the use of fossil fuels to cut back on CO2 production, combined with an increasing shortage of oil as cheap sources are used up, will make traditional crop-growing far more difficult and expensive. A recent UK TV programme on "farms of the future" predicted the decline of large-scale crop growing in favour of local "vertical farms", based on hedges and trees producing fruit, nuts and edible leaves, which can provide several times the food value of the same area of arable land. These require very little work or other resources to grow, but they are much more labour-intensive to collect.
That just about wraps up my survey. In a nutshell, climate change is accelerating, and if we wish to avoid some rather horrendous consequences, we need to put a far higher priority on taking the kind of preventative and precautionary measures I have been describing. I hope that all of this provides some useful material for the SF community; certainly there is scope for a wide range of backgrounds, from best-case to worst-case. My own novel, which I mentioned last time, was intended to represent a likely future but, in the light of the latest information, is now looking to be at the optimistic end of the spectrum!
Friday, 22 May 2009
The Time Machine by H G Wells
I surely must have read this at some point in my youth, but I can't recall it. All I can remember is watching the 1960 film version and that memory only involves Yvette Mimieux in a starring role, which gives a clear idea of adolescent priorities. So it was with some interest that I read this prior to discussing it with the Classic SF group.
H G Wells (1866-1946) was of course one of the pioneers of modern science fiction, writing such classic works as The War of the Worlds (invasion from Mars), The War in the Air (foreseeing aerial warfare – in 1908), The Invisible Man, The First Men in the Moon and The Shape of Things to Come. He also forecast – and named – the atomic bomb in 1914, in The World Set Free.
The Time Machine was Wells' first novel, published in 1895, and made his reputation. It is narrated by an unnamed guest at a Victorian dinner party given by a man identified only as the Time Traveller, and consists of the Time Traveller's account to his guests of a journey to the future from which he had just returned.
The story was controversial on publication because its principal theme was that mankind would evolve. Since resistance on the part of fundamentalist religious groups to the idea of evolution in general, and human evolution in particular, still exists even today, their condemnation is not surprising. What must have been even worse to many people is that Wells showed a humanity which had devolved into two degenerate races: the small and beautiful but unintelligent Eloi, who lived an apparently idyllic existence on the surface of a garden-like world, and the hideous and evil subterranean Morlocks. The novel, or more precisely novella since it is only 80 pages long, principally deals with the Time Traveller's stay with the Eloi and his encounters with the Morlocks.
A particularly interesting suggestion in the story, also obviously prompted by Darwin's theories, was that the decline of humanity had occurred because civilisation had become too successful; the upper classes lived such idyllic lives that the evolutionary pressures which had sparked the development of intelligence had disappeared. The lower classes, slaving away in the darkness, had similarly become adapted to their environment. In the world of the Eloi and the Morlocks, the ruins of an obviously glorious past (still in our future) were still scattered across the landscape.
Leaving the world of the Eloi behind, the Time Traveller rushes into the far future. He stops only when the sun has become a vast, dim and stationary red ball in the sky. All is silent, with just a few creatures scavenging a living in the thin air of a cold and almost dead world. For me, these brief images carry more evocative power than the rest of the story.
The themes of The Time Machine are as relevant today as they were then; the style of the story-telling has changed a lot, but the ideas still resonate. The impact which they had on a Victorian world largely unexposed to science fiction can be imagined. About the only anachronism is the short timescale, which only reflects the lack of knowledge when the story was written. The Eloi and the Morlocks are said to live just over 800,000 years in the future, the end of the world in only 30 million years. Compared with modern works there is also a total lack of characterisation, but that doesn't really matter here – this was a novel of ideas.
H G Wells is one of the few novelists whose work reached beyond its powerful influence on the genre, extending to a genuine impact on ideas in wider society. He also did more than write fiction; for the latter part of his life he became what would be known today as a futurist, concentrating on writing forward-looking works such as The New World Order and The Future of Man. Much of his later fiction also departed from SF, focusing more on society as in The History of Mr Polly, which I recall having to study in school.
The Everyman edition of The Time Machine which I have contains a lot of related material, including a chronology of Wells' life, a 23-page introduction to the story, comments on the text (plus an additional section which was omitted from the published novel) and the varied critical assessments of the work. Useful additions which add to the appreciation of one of the most famous SF novels ever written.
H G Wells (1866-1946) was of course one of the pioneers of modern science fiction, writing such classic works as The War of the Worlds (invasion from Mars), The War in the Air (foreseeing aerial warfare – in 1908), The Invisible Man, The First Men in the Moon and The Shape of Things to Come. He also forecast – and named – the atomic bomb in 1914, in The World Set Free.
The Time Machine was Wells' first novel, published in 1895, and made his reputation. It is narrated by an unnamed guest at a Victorian dinner party given by a man identified only as the Time Traveller, and consists of the Time Traveller's account to his guests of a journey to the future from which he had just returned.
The story was controversial on publication because its principal theme was that mankind would evolve. Since resistance on the part of fundamentalist religious groups to the idea of evolution in general, and human evolution in particular, still exists even today, their condemnation is not surprising. What must have been even worse to many people is that Wells showed a humanity which had devolved into two degenerate races: the small and beautiful but unintelligent Eloi, who lived an apparently idyllic existence on the surface of a garden-like world, and the hideous and evil subterranean Morlocks. The novel, or more precisely novella since it is only 80 pages long, principally deals with the Time Traveller's stay with the Eloi and his encounters with the Morlocks.
A particularly interesting suggestion in the story, also obviously prompted by Darwin's theories, was that the decline of humanity had occurred because civilisation had become too successful; the upper classes lived such idyllic lives that the evolutionary pressures which had sparked the development of intelligence had disappeared. The lower classes, slaving away in the darkness, had similarly become adapted to their environment. In the world of the Eloi and the Morlocks, the ruins of an obviously glorious past (still in our future) were still scattered across the landscape.
Leaving the world of the Eloi behind, the Time Traveller rushes into the far future. He stops only when the sun has become a vast, dim and stationary red ball in the sky. All is silent, with just a few creatures scavenging a living in the thin air of a cold and almost dead world. For me, these brief images carry more evocative power than the rest of the story.
The themes of The Time Machine are as relevant today as they were then; the style of the story-telling has changed a lot, but the ideas still resonate. The impact which they had on a Victorian world largely unexposed to science fiction can be imagined. About the only anachronism is the short timescale, which only reflects the lack of knowledge when the story was written. The Eloi and the Morlocks are said to live just over 800,000 years in the future, the end of the world in only 30 million years. Compared with modern works there is also a total lack of characterisation, but that doesn't really matter here – this was a novel of ideas.
H G Wells is one of the few novelists whose work reached beyond its powerful influence on the genre, extending to a genuine impact on ideas in wider society. He also did more than write fiction; for the latter part of his life he became what would be known today as a futurist, concentrating on writing forward-looking works such as The New World Order and The Future of Man. Much of his later fiction also departed from SF, focusing more on society as in The History of Mr Polly, which I recall having to study in school.
The Everyman edition of The Time Machine which I have contains a lot of related material, including a chronology of Wells' life, a 23-page introduction to the story, comments on the text (plus an additional section which was omitted from the published novel) and the varied critical assessments of the work. Useful additions which add to the appreciation of one of the most famous SF novels ever written.
Friday, 15 May 2009
Fiction bonanza from the BSFA!
The British Science Fiction Association doesn't usually publish fiction (unlike the other major UK SFF organisation, the British Fantasy Society); its periodicals contain reviews, analyses and other articles. So it was a surprise to find that their most recent postings contained three short-story collections. One consists of the four stories on the shortlist for the BSFA Short Fiction Award for 2008. The next is a special edition of their normally non-fiction "magazine for writers", Focus, which this time contains the six shortlisted stories specially written for a competition to mark the 50th anniversary of the BSFA. The third is a sampler edition of Postscripts, "The A to Z of Fantastic Fiction" (from www.pspublishing.co.uk), with stories from previous editions.
BSFA Awards 2008: short fiction shortlist
Two of the four stories I had already read and reviewed, since they originally appeared in Interzone magazine. These are Crystal Nights by Greg Egan (Interzone 215) and Little Lost Robot by Paul McAuley (Interzone 217). To save you from rummaging through the history of this blog, I'll reproduce what I said here:
Crystal Nights, by Greg Egan: One of the world's richest men is paying the best programmers to evolve artificial intelligence by developing initially simple virtual beings then applying a carefully controlled process of natural selection. With the aid of a new generation of superfast computers, the evolutionary process is extremely quick and soon the AIs are beginning to outstrip their human creators, with unexpected results.
Little Lost Robot, by Paul McAuley: A different take on Saberhagen's Berserker series, this time seen from the viewpoint of an ancient but still all-powerful robotic killer spaceship. Problems arise when the ship detects signs of life in a system which seems strangely familiar.
The other two stories are:
Exhalation, by Ted Chiang (first published in Eclipse 2): Set in an enclosed, robotic civilisation with no knowledge of other forms of life. The narrator, one of the robots, conducts experiments into his own nature and functioning, concluding (in an amusing take on creationist notions) that there must have been an "Intelligent Designer", and predicts the end of their existence.
Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment: One Daughter's Personal Account, by M. Rickert (first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October/November 2008): A dystopian future set in a society governed by religious fundamentalism, where women found guilty of having abortions are publicly executed.
The pick of the bunch for me was Ted Chiang's story, very strong in the "sense of strange" gained from letting a denizen of an alien environment describe his life in a very matter-of-fact way.
----------------------------
Next, the stories in Focus, starting with the winner of the competition (the others are in alphabetical order).
Nestbuster by Roderick Gladwish
A doctor visits a man called Abraham and his family on a remote farm on a distant planet, to carry out some tests. It gradually emerges that Abraham is a former "nestbuster" – a soldier with highly enhanced capabilities to fight a war with aliens. These soldiers had been successful in winning the war but very few had survived, most committing suicide if they weren't killed in battle. The doctor wants to know why Abraham is still alive, but it turns out that he has another agenda altogether – and that Abraham has a secret.
Time's Chariot by Nina Allen
An intense relationship between a brother and sister living in a strange family, well described but not obviously SF.
Surf Town by James Bloomer
The Mesh Surf Pro Tour is arriving in town, using advanced technology to whip up the sea into waves to challenge any surfer. One resident, a former surfing champion who left the circuit when the artificial wave generators were introduced, is not pleased to see them. He has no intention of being drawn into the circus, but…
This is seemingly an alternative history story, since the champion surfer is called Bodie Miller, presumably a reference to the current US skier Bode Miller, one of the most successful competitors in recent winter sports championships.
The Mark by Nigel Envarli Crowe
The separate but intertwined stories of three women, related but of different generations, commencing with a Chernobyl nuclear accident and showing the long-term consequences for humanity.
Maria Via Lilly by Gary Spencer
A future world in which the dying can be scanned to generate a virtual copy (including the personality) which can be viewed on-screen, living in the environment created by the recorded memory. But what happens if the copy is stolen and duplicated for others to enjoy?
Rescue Stories by Andrew West
A space-ship crashes on a stone-age world, far from any chance of rescue. The crew can last for a long time in hibernation waiting for the natives to develop sufficiently advanced technology to help them, but only if the crew intervene to speed up the natives' development, which proves to have a drawback…. It brings to mind a similar story, although the ending is different.
-------------------------
On to Postscripts. This contains ten previously-published stories from Stephen Baxter (Eagle Song – the consequences of receiving a transmission from the stars), Ray Bradbury (Juggernaut – the hazards of moving house), Ramsay Campbell (Direct Line – a modern horror story), Peter F Hamilton (Footvote – the consequences of a wormhole providing access to another habitable world being opened in England), Joe Hill (Best New Horror), Stephen King (Graduation Afternoon – a horrifying image of what might happen), Paul MacAuley (The Thought War – zombies with a difference), Lisa Tuttle (Closet Dreams – more contemporary horror, without any fantastic elements), Gene Wolfe (Comber – life on a floating city), and Al Robertson (Sohoitis – a god lives in Soho). The emphasis is too much on horror for my taste, but an interesting read nonetheless.
BSFA Awards 2008: short fiction shortlist
Two of the four stories I had already read and reviewed, since they originally appeared in Interzone magazine. These are Crystal Nights by Greg Egan (Interzone 215) and Little Lost Robot by Paul McAuley (Interzone 217). To save you from rummaging through the history of this blog, I'll reproduce what I said here:
Crystal Nights, by Greg Egan: One of the world's richest men is paying the best programmers to evolve artificial intelligence by developing initially simple virtual beings then applying a carefully controlled process of natural selection. With the aid of a new generation of superfast computers, the evolutionary process is extremely quick and soon the AIs are beginning to outstrip their human creators, with unexpected results.
Little Lost Robot, by Paul McAuley: A different take on Saberhagen's Berserker series, this time seen from the viewpoint of an ancient but still all-powerful robotic killer spaceship. Problems arise when the ship detects signs of life in a system which seems strangely familiar.
The other two stories are:
Exhalation, by Ted Chiang (first published in Eclipse 2): Set in an enclosed, robotic civilisation with no knowledge of other forms of life. The narrator, one of the robots, conducts experiments into his own nature and functioning, concluding (in an amusing take on creationist notions) that there must have been an "Intelligent Designer", and predicts the end of their existence.
Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment: One Daughter's Personal Account, by M. Rickert (first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October/November 2008): A dystopian future set in a society governed by religious fundamentalism, where women found guilty of having abortions are publicly executed.
The pick of the bunch for me was Ted Chiang's story, very strong in the "sense of strange" gained from letting a denizen of an alien environment describe his life in a very matter-of-fact way.
----------------------------
Next, the stories in Focus, starting with the winner of the competition (the others are in alphabetical order).
Nestbuster by Roderick Gladwish
A doctor visits a man called Abraham and his family on a remote farm on a distant planet, to carry out some tests. It gradually emerges that Abraham is a former "nestbuster" – a soldier with highly enhanced capabilities to fight a war with aliens. These soldiers had been successful in winning the war but very few had survived, most committing suicide if they weren't killed in battle. The doctor wants to know why Abraham is still alive, but it turns out that he has another agenda altogether – and that Abraham has a secret.
Time's Chariot by Nina Allen
An intense relationship between a brother and sister living in a strange family, well described but not obviously SF.
Surf Town by James Bloomer
The Mesh Surf Pro Tour is arriving in town, using advanced technology to whip up the sea into waves to challenge any surfer. One resident, a former surfing champion who left the circuit when the artificial wave generators were introduced, is not pleased to see them. He has no intention of being drawn into the circus, but…
This is seemingly an alternative history story, since the champion surfer is called Bodie Miller, presumably a reference to the current US skier Bode Miller, one of the most successful competitors in recent winter sports championships.
The Mark by Nigel Envarli Crowe
The separate but intertwined stories of three women, related but of different generations, commencing with a Chernobyl nuclear accident and showing the long-term consequences for humanity.
Maria Via Lilly by Gary Spencer
A future world in which the dying can be scanned to generate a virtual copy (including the personality) which can be viewed on-screen, living in the environment created by the recorded memory. But what happens if the copy is stolen and duplicated for others to enjoy?
Rescue Stories by Andrew West
A space-ship crashes on a stone-age world, far from any chance of rescue. The crew can last for a long time in hibernation waiting for the natives to develop sufficiently advanced technology to help them, but only if the crew intervene to speed up the natives' development, which proves to have a drawback…. It brings to mind a similar story, although the ending is different.
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On to Postscripts. This contains ten previously-published stories from Stephen Baxter (Eagle Song – the consequences of receiving a transmission from the stars), Ray Bradbury (Juggernaut – the hazards of moving house), Ramsay Campbell (Direct Line – a modern horror story), Peter F Hamilton (Footvote – the consequences of a wormhole providing access to another habitable world being opened in England), Joe Hill (Best New Horror), Stephen King (Graduation Afternoon – a horrifying image of what might happen), Paul MacAuley (The Thought War – zombies with a difference), Lisa Tuttle (Closet Dreams – more contemporary horror, without any fantastic elements), Gene Wolfe (Comber – life on a floating city), and Al Robertson (Sohoitis – a god lives in Soho). The emphasis is too much on horror for my taste, but an interesting read nonetheless.
Friday, 8 May 2009
Where is Everybody? Fifty solutions to the Fermi Paradox, by Stephen Webb
The Fermi paradox is named after the mid-twentieth century physicist who posed a simple question: calculations based on reasonable estimates indicate that this galaxy should host a large number of extraterrestrial civilisations capable of interstellar communication or travel (which Webb shortens to ETCs), yet we have so far been unable to find any evidence for the existence of even one such civilisation. So where are they all?
The astronomer Drake later quantified the calculation like this: the number of ETCs in the galaxy (N) is determined by the rate at which stars form (R), the fraction of stars with planets (fp), the number of those planets with an environment suitable for life (ne), the fraction of those planets on which life actually develops (f1), the fraction of those which produce intelligent life (fi), the fraction of those which develop a civilisation capable of interstellar communications (fc), and finally the number of years that such a culture will devote to communication (L). The "Drake equation" therefore reads N=(R)x(fp)x(ne)x(f1)x(fi)x(fc)x(L). This looks impressively authoritative, but a moment's thought reveals that we have no means of knowing most of the factors, so figures which we enter for them are little better than guesswork. And the calculated number of ETCs will vary greatly depending on the particular guesses we make. Another point is that should any of the factors be zero, then the outcome will also be zero. Despite this, calculations of star formation rates for this galaxy result in N being a very large number even with pessimistic assumptions being made about the other factors. In other words, this galaxy should have been swarming with ETCs for millions of years, which we could hardly have failed to notice.
Having discussed this paradox, the author then briefly describes and evaluates a select fifty (there have been many more) explanations put forward to account for this interstellar silence, before revealing his own solution. As the reviewer, I will of course conclude by proposing a slightly different answer! Webb divides up the explanations into three broad categories: "They are here"; "They exist but have not yet communicated"; and "They do not exist". I'll take each of these in turn; I obviously can't do justice to a book full of ideas in a blog, so I'll just pick a few examples.
They Are Here
This group contains only eight explanations, ranging from the amusing (they exist and are meddling in human affairs), through the paranoid (we have been isolated by the galactic civilisation, or we live in a simulation), to the more serious (panspermia: we are all aliens, because life was kicked off by being seeded from outer space) and finally the religious (God created this universe only for us; any other ETCs have their own universes created for them).
Webb clearly doesn't rate any of these very highly. The most feasible, panspermia, doesn't actually solve the problem, since if our planet was seeded so presumably was every other suitable one – so where are they all?
They Exist But Have Not Yet Communicated
More than twenty explanations here, some of which argue that ETCs may for various reasons not be interested in travelling to, or even communicating with, other civilisations. Just because we are explorers doesn't mean that everyone else has to be. However, Webb points out that it only takes one with the same urges as we have to reach out to other worlds, and potentially spread throughout the galaxy.
Other explanations are therefore more practical, focusing on the difficulty of interstellar communication – let alone interstellar travel. The popular belief that ETCs in our neighbourhood would have detected us now via our routine radio and TV broadcasts is shot down; it appears that these would fade out before they could reach even the nearest star. Even a focused radio beam aimed at another star would be hard to detect; lasers are more promising, but a nearby ETC would have to exist now, and be beaming a signal directly at us, and we would have to be looking in the right place at the right time to notice it. Another idea is that they are signalling but we're not picking it up, for various reasons; or we have picked it up, but haven't properly analysed the data. Or possibly ETCs don't spend long in an active signalling phase before they upload themselves into computers or some higher non-material plane to enjoy the unlimited pleasures of virtual reality.
The difficulties of interstellar travel are well rehearsed, since there are no indications that Faster-Than-Light (FTL) spaceships will ever be possible and frozen sleep or generation ships have their own major problems. Bracewell-Von Neumann probes (which are sent to other star systems to mine their resources and then replicate themselves to send out to more systems) would be one way of spreading an inanimate presence throughout the galaxy quite quickly. The fact that we have not detected such probes is therefore a puzzle. Somebody should have got around to doing it.
They Do Not Exist
Webb lists almost as many ideas under this heading, which to me represents the most interesting part because it is more solidly based in science rather than speculations about alien psychologies or the like. These explanations look at the sequence of improbable events which has led to our civilisation and argue that this sequence may be unique.
There are several elements to this: first that the galaxy is a dangerous place, regularly blasted by intense bursts of gamma radiation from supernovae which would affect life for thirty light years around. The outer galactic zone in which the Solar System sits may be in the "Galactic Habitable Zone" (GHZ), a less vulnerable position than the more crowded central zone. The mysterious Gamma Ray Bursters (GRBs) are even more devastating; they could affect an entire galaxy and reset the evolution clock each time (for obvious reasons, they have so far only been observed in other galaxies). It is estimated that a GRB could happen in a galaxy like ours about every hundred million years, which would approximately match the frequency of mass extinction events on Earth. So maybe we are among the first to achieve a technological civilisation since the last GRB wiped out any previous ones.
The next point is that planetary systems are inherently dangerous. Catastrophic events such as asteroid strikes, supervolcanoes like Toba or other causes of wild fluctuations in the global climate may have led to many mass extinctions even without the help of GRBs or supernovae. Life may also require very particular circumstances in which to develop intelligence: obviously, any life like ours needs liquid water to be available for hundreds of millions of years, which means that the planet must be in exactly the right circular orbit (the continuously habitable zone, or CHZ) to achieve this even through various fluctuations in the sun's output. Finally, the tidal effects of one large moon plus the constant crustal renewal of plate tectonics may also be important elements in the conditions which led to us, although that is more speculative.
Then we come on to the biological improbabilities. A key one identified by Webb is the development of multi-cellular eukaryotic life, compared with much simpler prokaryotic life such as bacteria. This was a remarkable event which took billions of years to happen – possibly, it's uncommon. So might be the development of intelligence at our level. Perhaps most significantly, of all of Earth life, we are the only one to develop the sophisticated language without which our civilisation could never have arisen, so this may be a very rare feat. And we cannot assume that every intelligent civilisation will be a technological one.
The Author's Solution
Webb makes clear at the beginning that in assessing the probabilities of ETCs developing, he is looking only at life "as we know it, Jim": based on carbon and liquid water. He acknowledges that there may be other forms of life, but since we know nothing about this, there is no basis even for speculating what it might be capable of. Anyway, that doesn't affect the basic problem that we have detected no indications of any forms of life.
Webb's conclusion, based on the arguments raised in the last section, is that we can't detect any ETCs because there aren't any – at least in our galaxy. (There are estimated to be hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, but the difficulties of communication and travel escalate by orders of magnitude if we try to include them; our own galaxy is big enough to grapple with!)
His view is that our complete failure to identify any signs of life elsewhere, when all the logic of Fermi's paradox suggests that there should be countless ETCs out there, probably with successive waves of expansion affecting the Earth, has only one feasible explanation – that we are alone. He works through several steps to justify this. First, he estimates that star systems in the galactic habitable zone make up only about 20% of those in the galaxy. Next, stars like our sun are needed to develop life as we know it; they make up only about 5% of the total. So we are down to only 1% of stars being suitable. Thirdly, a terrestrial planet needs to remain in an orbit within the continuously habitable zone for billions of years. He guesstimates that applies to perhaps only 0.1% of all planets (assuming 10 planets per star, that's 1% of the suitable stars). We are now down to about ten million such planets in our galaxy.
Now we switch from the potential for life to its actuality. How many of these ten million will support life? Webb guesstimates maybe half a million, of which 20% might suffer catastrophic extinctions; now we have 400,000. Factor in the number on which life progresses to the complex multicellular eukaryotic stage – he suggests one in forty – and we're down to 10,000. Then apply factors for tool use, high-level intelligence and complex language – and Webb believes we're left with just one; us.
Your Reviewer's Conclusion
Webb puts forward a well-reasoned case to explain why we might have the only technological civilisation in the galaxy. However, I still find his conclusion improbable. Obviously, this is purely a matter of subjective opinion – emotional prejudice, if you wish – as there is no hard evidence one way or the other. It is just that faced with the early development of life on Earth and its tenacity in colonising every possible environmental niche and developing a myriad forms of increasing complexity, I find it impossible to accept that, among the billions of star systems, we might be in the only one to have produced a technological civilisation.
My conclusion goes part-way with Webb, in that I think that while life may be very common, complex animal life may be very much less so; beings intelligent enough to develop technology far less still; and the actual development of a technological civilisation extremely rare. Just look at the history of our planet; simple monocellular life seems to have occurred quite early, perhaps less than a billion years after Earth's formation. But the oldest evidence for complex animals comes almost three billion years later. These rapidly developed to dinosaur levels of complexity, but then stagnated for hundreds of millions of years. Finally, through sheer luck, humanity evolved, but the earliest hominims were around for several million years before modern humans arrived about 200,000 years ago; and for 95% of those 200,000 years, our ancestors did nothing but live in hunter-gatherer packs, like clever animals. Our technological civilisation is the result of a long series of improbable accidents.
As a result of studying Webb's arguments, I am more pessimistic than I used to be about the chances of other ETCs developing. However, given that there are calculated to be 100 billion stars in our galaxy (that's 100,000,000,000), even if our planet was literally "one in a million" in producing a technological civilisation, that still works out as 100,000 ETCs. So where are they? The answer I favour is "not here now". Two different timescales need to be borne in mind: the age of the galaxy, and the probable lifespan of an ETC. Our own star is around 4.5 billion years old, compared with the average for our galaxy of 6.5 billion years (the oldest star being over 13 billion). So if we assume that it takes 4.5 billion years after star formation to produce a technological civilisation (the only example we've got), that means that other stars average a two billion year advantage over us – lots of time to produce a huge range of ETCs. But how long can these ETCs be expected to last?
Just consider our situation again. We achieved the theoretical capability to communicate with other star systems only within the last century. Only half a century after that, we came dangerously close to wiping out our civilisation in a global thermonuclear war. Many scientists fear that over the next century or two we will have devastated our global environment to such a degree that our civilisation will collapse, giving us only a few centuries of possessing advanced technology. By definition, any civilisation with the technology capable of communicating with ETCs will develop the potential to destroy itself, one way or another. So perhaps ETCs just don't last very long. Suppose that the average is 1,000 years; multiply that by the nominal 100,000 ETCs mentioned above, and you get a total of 100 million "ETC years". Compare that with the 2 billion year average time advantage the galaxy's stars have over our sun, and you will see that an ETC will have been in existence for only about five percent of the last two billion years. So at any given moment there may be only a one-in-twenty chance of a single ETC existing anywhere in this galaxy. And no ETC would have the time to spread very far even if it wanted to; possibly none would ever manage to establish itself on another star system.
This is, of course, speculation built on speculation, but with a grand total to date of just one known example of a life-bearing planet to go on, that is bound to be the case. My vision is this: imagine if a camera could have been sited over our galaxy, filming continuously for the last few billion years, and recording each ETC as a bright flash. Then replay the film in quick time. I think we would see a huge number of ETCs sparkling all over the galaxy, from two billion years ago to the present. But slow the film down, and we may see only one flash at a time, with long pauses between them. Occasionally we might see two or more flashes occurring simultaneously, but on average they would be so far apart that communication between them would be highly improbable.
Webb didn't mention the Gamma Ray Burster problem in his conclusion, but if our galaxy is blasted by one every hundred million years or so, clearly many of the above calculations become rather academic. That could explain the silence all by itself.
And another thing…
A further point may limit the number of ETCs likely to be in existence at any one time. If an ETC is established on a planet and fails, for any of the reasons mentioned above, it may prove to be the one and only chance that planet ever has to establish an ETC. To understand why, just imagine the outcome if our present civilisation collapsed, leaving what would inevitably be a relatively small number of survivors existing at a subsistence level. Unless the environment had become irrevocably hostile to humanity, it is reasonable to suppose that some kind of recovery could be made, based on utilising organic resources such as wood to make carts, ploughs etc. The problem would arise with the switch to the mineral-based economy (metal processing and fuel) which, as far as we are aware, is needed to achieve an ETC – because the easily accessible mineral deposits have mostly been exhausted. Even if our unfortunate successors knew where the remaining oil or metal ore deposits could be found, they would be unable to reach them without the advanced technology we deploy. It would be a classic Catch-22; they couldn't develop a technological civilisation without advanced technology! Perhaps they would find a different, non-mineral, route to a more sophisticated level of civilisation, but it seems highly unlikely that this would result in the technology needed to communicate with ETCs, let alone travel to them.
SF is full of beautiful dreams about humanity spreading through the galaxy and meeting other technological civilisations (or nightmares if they turn out to be hostile). Sadly, these are looking increasingly like fantasy rather than SF. I hope this is wrong, and that SETI will discover proof of ETCs, but I'm more pessimistic than I used to be.
The astronomer Drake later quantified the calculation like this: the number of ETCs in the galaxy (N) is determined by the rate at which stars form (R), the fraction of stars with planets (fp), the number of those planets with an environment suitable for life (ne), the fraction of those planets on which life actually develops (f1), the fraction of those which produce intelligent life (fi), the fraction of those which develop a civilisation capable of interstellar communications (fc), and finally the number of years that such a culture will devote to communication (L). The "Drake equation" therefore reads N=(R)x(fp)x(ne)x(f1)x(fi)x(fc)x(L). This looks impressively authoritative, but a moment's thought reveals that we have no means of knowing most of the factors, so figures which we enter for them are little better than guesswork. And the calculated number of ETCs will vary greatly depending on the particular guesses we make. Another point is that should any of the factors be zero, then the outcome will also be zero. Despite this, calculations of star formation rates for this galaxy result in N being a very large number even with pessimistic assumptions being made about the other factors. In other words, this galaxy should have been swarming with ETCs for millions of years, which we could hardly have failed to notice.
Having discussed this paradox, the author then briefly describes and evaluates a select fifty (there have been many more) explanations put forward to account for this interstellar silence, before revealing his own solution. As the reviewer, I will of course conclude by proposing a slightly different answer! Webb divides up the explanations into three broad categories: "They are here"; "They exist but have not yet communicated"; and "They do not exist". I'll take each of these in turn; I obviously can't do justice to a book full of ideas in a blog, so I'll just pick a few examples.
They Are Here
This group contains only eight explanations, ranging from the amusing (they exist and are meddling in human affairs), through the paranoid (we have been isolated by the galactic civilisation, or we live in a simulation), to the more serious (panspermia: we are all aliens, because life was kicked off by being seeded from outer space) and finally the religious (God created this universe only for us; any other ETCs have their own universes created for them).
Webb clearly doesn't rate any of these very highly. The most feasible, panspermia, doesn't actually solve the problem, since if our planet was seeded so presumably was every other suitable one – so where are they all?
They Exist But Have Not Yet Communicated
More than twenty explanations here, some of which argue that ETCs may for various reasons not be interested in travelling to, or even communicating with, other civilisations. Just because we are explorers doesn't mean that everyone else has to be. However, Webb points out that it only takes one with the same urges as we have to reach out to other worlds, and potentially spread throughout the galaxy.
Other explanations are therefore more practical, focusing on the difficulty of interstellar communication – let alone interstellar travel. The popular belief that ETCs in our neighbourhood would have detected us now via our routine radio and TV broadcasts is shot down; it appears that these would fade out before they could reach even the nearest star. Even a focused radio beam aimed at another star would be hard to detect; lasers are more promising, but a nearby ETC would have to exist now, and be beaming a signal directly at us, and we would have to be looking in the right place at the right time to notice it. Another idea is that they are signalling but we're not picking it up, for various reasons; or we have picked it up, but haven't properly analysed the data. Or possibly ETCs don't spend long in an active signalling phase before they upload themselves into computers or some higher non-material plane to enjoy the unlimited pleasures of virtual reality.
The difficulties of interstellar travel are well rehearsed, since there are no indications that Faster-Than-Light (FTL) spaceships will ever be possible and frozen sleep or generation ships have their own major problems. Bracewell-Von Neumann probes (which are sent to other star systems to mine their resources and then replicate themselves to send out to more systems) would be one way of spreading an inanimate presence throughout the galaxy quite quickly. The fact that we have not detected such probes is therefore a puzzle. Somebody should have got around to doing it.
They Do Not Exist
Webb lists almost as many ideas under this heading, which to me represents the most interesting part because it is more solidly based in science rather than speculations about alien psychologies or the like. These explanations look at the sequence of improbable events which has led to our civilisation and argue that this sequence may be unique.
There are several elements to this: first that the galaxy is a dangerous place, regularly blasted by intense bursts of gamma radiation from supernovae which would affect life for thirty light years around. The outer galactic zone in which the Solar System sits may be in the "Galactic Habitable Zone" (GHZ), a less vulnerable position than the more crowded central zone. The mysterious Gamma Ray Bursters (GRBs) are even more devastating; they could affect an entire galaxy and reset the evolution clock each time (for obvious reasons, they have so far only been observed in other galaxies). It is estimated that a GRB could happen in a galaxy like ours about every hundred million years, which would approximately match the frequency of mass extinction events on Earth. So maybe we are among the first to achieve a technological civilisation since the last GRB wiped out any previous ones.
The next point is that planetary systems are inherently dangerous. Catastrophic events such as asteroid strikes, supervolcanoes like Toba or other causes of wild fluctuations in the global climate may have led to many mass extinctions even without the help of GRBs or supernovae. Life may also require very particular circumstances in which to develop intelligence: obviously, any life like ours needs liquid water to be available for hundreds of millions of years, which means that the planet must be in exactly the right circular orbit (the continuously habitable zone, or CHZ) to achieve this even through various fluctuations in the sun's output. Finally, the tidal effects of one large moon plus the constant crustal renewal of plate tectonics may also be important elements in the conditions which led to us, although that is more speculative.
Then we come on to the biological improbabilities. A key one identified by Webb is the development of multi-cellular eukaryotic life, compared with much simpler prokaryotic life such as bacteria. This was a remarkable event which took billions of years to happen – possibly, it's uncommon. So might be the development of intelligence at our level. Perhaps most significantly, of all of Earth life, we are the only one to develop the sophisticated language without which our civilisation could never have arisen, so this may be a very rare feat. And we cannot assume that every intelligent civilisation will be a technological one.
The Author's Solution
Webb makes clear at the beginning that in assessing the probabilities of ETCs developing, he is looking only at life "as we know it, Jim": based on carbon and liquid water. He acknowledges that there may be other forms of life, but since we know nothing about this, there is no basis even for speculating what it might be capable of. Anyway, that doesn't affect the basic problem that we have detected no indications of any forms of life.
Webb's conclusion, based on the arguments raised in the last section, is that we can't detect any ETCs because there aren't any – at least in our galaxy. (There are estimated to be hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, but the difficulties of communication and travel escalate by orders of magnitude if we try to include them; our own galaxy is big enough to grapple with!)
His view is that our complete failure to identify any signs of life elsewhere, when all the logic of Fermi's paradox suggests that there should be countless ETCs out there, probably with successive waves of expansion affecting the Earth, has only one feasible explanation – that we are alone. He works through several steps to justify this. First, he estimates that star systems in the galactic habitable zone make up only about 20% of those in the galaxy. Next, stars like our sun are needed to develop life as we know it; they make up only about 5% of the total. So we are down to only 1% of stars being suitable. Thirdly, a terrestrial planet needs to remain in an orbit within the continuously habitable zone for billions of years. He guesstimates that applies to perhaps only 0.1% of all planets (assuming 10 planets per star, that's 1% of the suitable stars). We are now down to about ten million such planets in our galaxy.
Now we switch from the potential for life to its actuality. How many of these ten million will support life? Webb guesstimates maybe half a million, of which 20% might suffer catastrophic extinctions; now we have 400,000. Factor in the number on which life progresses to the complex multicellular eukaryotic stage – he suggests one in forty – and we're down to 10,000. Then apply factors for tool use, high-level intelligence and complex language – and Webb believes we're left with just one; us.
Your Reviewer's Conclusion
Webb puts forward a well-reasoned case to explain why we might have the only technological civilisation in the galaxy. However, I still find his conclusion improbable. Obviously, this is purely a matter of subjective opinion – emotional prejudice, if you wish – as there is no hard evidence one way or the other. It is just that faced with the early development of life on Earth and its tenacity in colonising every possible environmental niche and developing a myriad forms of increasing complexity, I find it impossible to accept that, among the billions of star systems, we might be in the only one to have produced a technological civilisation.
My conclusion goes part-way with Webb, in that I think that while life may be very common, complex animal life may be very much less so; beings intelligent enough to develop technology far less still; and the actual development of a technological civilisation extremely rare. Just look at the history of our planet; simple monocellular life seems to have occurred quite early, perhaps less than a billion years after Earth's formation. But the oldest evidence for complex animals comes almost three billion years later. These rapidly developed to dinosaur levels of complexity, but then stagnated for hundreds of millions of years. Finally, through sheer luck, humanity evolved, but the earliest hominims were around for several million years before modern humans arrived about 200,000 years ago; and for 95% of those 200,000 years, our ancestors did nothing but live in hunter-gatherer packs, like clever animals. Our technological civilisation is the result of a long series of improbable accidents.
As a result of studying Webb's arguments, I am more pessimistic than I used to be about the chances of other ETCs developing. However, given that there are calculated to be 100 billion stars in our galaxy (that's 100,000,000,000), even if our planet was literally "one in a million" in producing a technological civilisation, that still works out as 100,000 ETCs. So where are they? The answer I favour is "not here now". Two different timescales need to be borne in mind: the age of the galaxy, and the probable lifespan of an ETC. Our own star is around 4.5 billion years old, compared with the average for our galaxy of 6.5 billion years (the oldest star being over 13 billion). So if we assume that it takes 4.5 billion years after star formation to produce a technological civilisation (the only example we've got), that means that other stars average a two billion year advantage over us – lots of time to produce a huge range of ETCs. But how long can these ETCs be expected to last?
Just consider our situation again. We achieved the theoretical capability to communicate with other star systems only within the last century. Only half a century after that, we came dangerously close to wiping out our civilisation in a global thermonuclear war. Many scientists fear that over the next century or two we will have devastated our global environment to such a degree that our civilisation will collapse, giving us only a few centuries of possessing advanced technology. By definition, any civilisation with the technology capable of communicating with ETCs will develop the potential to destroy itself, one way or another. So perhaps ETCs just don't last very long. Suppose that the average is 1,000 years; multiply that by the nominal 100,000 ETCs mentioned above, and you get a total of 100 million "ETC years". Compare that with the 2 billion year average time advantage the galaxy's stars have over our sun, and you will see that an ETC will have been in existence for only about five percent of the last two billion years. So at any given moment there may be only a one-in-twenty chance of a single ETC existing anywhere in this galaxy. And no ETC would have the time to spread very far even if it wanted to; possibly none would ever manage to establish itself on another star system.
This is, of course, speculation built on speculation, but with a grand total to date of just one known example of a life-bearing planet to go on, that is bound to be the case. My vision is this: imagine if a camera could have been sited over our galaxy, filming continuously for the last few billion years, and recording each ETC as a bright flash. Then replay the film in quick time. I think we would see a huge number of ETCs sparkling all over the galaxy, from two billion years ago to the present. But slow the film down, and we may see only one flash at a time, with long pauses between them. Occasionally we might see two or more flashes occurring simultaneously, but on average they would be so far apart that communication between them would be highly improbable.
Webb didn't mention the Gamma Ray Burster problem in his conclusion, but if our galaxy is blasted by one every hundred million years or so, clearly many of the above calculations become rather academic. That could explain the silence all by itself.
And another thing…
A further point may limit the number of ETCs likely to be in existence at any one time. If an ETC is established on a planet and fails, for any of the reasons mentioned above, it may prove to be the one and only chance that planet ever has to establish an ETC. To understand why, just imagine the outcome if our present civilisation collapsed, leaving what would inevitably be a relatively small number of survivors existing at a subsistence level. Unless the environment had become irrevocably hostile to humanity, it is reasonable to suppose that some kind of recovery could be made, based on utilising organic resources such as wood to make carts, ploughs etc. The problem would arise with the switch to the mineral-based economy (metal processing and fuel) which, as far as we are aware, is needed to achieve an ETC – because the easily accessible mineral deposits have mostly been exhausted. Even if our unfortunate successors knew where the remaining oil or metal ore deposits could be found, they would be unable to reach them without the advanced technology we deploy. It would be a classic Catch-22; they couldn't develop a technological civilisation without advanced technology! Perhaps they would find a different, non-mineral, route to a more sophisticated level of civilisation, but it seems highly unlikely that this would result in the technology needed to communicate with ETCs, let alone travel to them.
SF is full of beautiful dreams about humanity spreading through the galaxy and meeting other technological civilisations (or nightmares if they turn out to be hostile). Sadly, these are looking increasingly like fantasy rather than SF. I hope this is wrong, and that SETI will discover proof of ETCs, but I'm more pessimistic than I used to be.
Friday, 1 May 2009
Global Warming and SF – Part 2
A few weeks ago I summarised the current state of the developing understanding among climate scientists concerning the increasing rate of change in our climate. Even the 'most-likely' scenarios are now looking grim – the worst-case ones don't bear thinking about. So, what (if anything) can we do about it? What kind of measures might a realistic near-future SF story include?
There are basically four different approaches, most if not all of which may be needed in order to have a significant moderating effect on climate change. These are: to cut back CO2 production; to remove CO2 already in the atmosphere; to reduce insolation (heat received from the sun); and finally to adapt to the changes which are now inevitable, it being already too late to prevent some of the consequences of warming. I'll take each of these in turn.
Cut back CO2 production
This is the best known approach, or rather a whole cluster of different approaches under the same general heading. The techniques available range from the simple and obvious to the complex and difficult. The former are being applied already, to a greater or lesser extent in different places, but the latter will need strong political will on an international basis; i.e. they're not likely to happen until the consequences of climate change have become so obvious – and obviously bad – that not even short-termist politicians can ignore them.
Save energy - buildings: The relatively easy measures include changing building designs to minimise the need for heating in cold countries and for air-conditioning in hot ones. The former is well understood and already widely practiced; it requires good insulation standards, preferably including heat-recovery ventilation systems. The beauty of this is that most such measures can be retrofitted to most existing buildings, an important point given that complete replacement of our building stock will take a very long time. Measures to reduce air conditioning (likely to become increasingly important as the globe warms up) are less common and may be more difficult to apply to existing buildings. Some techniques are similar to the cold-climate ones – better insulation, smaller windows – but could also include installing an oversized 'floating' roof canopy, detached from the main structure, to provide shade without transmitting heat to the building. Some buildings are cleverly designed to have a ventilation system driven by natural convection, while 'green' roofs and walls – covered with plants – have been found to have a significant effect, not only in providing shade but in evaporative cooling. You do need a good water supply for these, though, which will be an increasing problem in many hot areas. Cooling systems using water circulating through underground pipes (a kind of reversal of the usual heat-pump heating system) may be more efficient than electrical air-conditioning.
Save energy – equipment and processes: Another well-known and much-practiced technique is the use of low-energy lights and appliances. Industrial processes are major users of power, an area which has probably received less attention so far than the domestic side.
Save energy – power generation: This is the major source of human-caused CO2 production, so non-polluting power generation has received a lot of attention in recent years, as demonstrated by the huge wind turbine farms sprouting up on land and in coastal areas. However, as is often pointed out, these aren't much good unless the wind blows. In fact, except for geothermal power, other sustainable power sources – hydro-electricity, tidal, wave and solar power – suffer from related problems in that the sources of power (even if reliable) are not constant, and may be a long way away from where they are needed. There is a potential solution to this, however; while AC current (in almost universal use) loses a lot of power when transmitted long distances, DC current does not. Until recently, converting DC to AC for domestic use was difficult, but solutions have been found. Some high voltage DC lines are already in use, and an international DC 'supergrid' has been proposed to link up Europe and North Africa. This will not only even out the supply from erratic sources such as wind power, but also provide access to solar power. Its proponents claim that a Europe-wide supergrid in conjunction with the full development of sources of sustainable power (mostly in the form of offshore wind farms) could reliably replace all of Western Europe's coal and gas power stations within thirty years.
Other alternatives being much discussed are the use of 'carbon capture' systems with fossil fuel power stations, by which the CO2 produced is trapped and pumped underground, and a revival in the use of nuclear power. The problems are that the carbon capture system is unproven (and some experts are dubious that it will work as advertised) and the supply of nuclear fuel is finite. Of course, if an economical source of fusion power could be developed that would solve most problems, but it's been 'coming soon' for about half a century and still seems a long way off, so it would be unwise to rely on that.
Interestingly, sustainable power is causing major divisions in the environmental lobby (a potentially fruitful source of SF plots). While all environmentalists are in favour of reducing CO2 production, some are also appalled by the alternatives, especially nuclear power, the visual blight of massive wind farms, and the potential effect on wildlife of huge engineering schemes such as the proposed tidal-power Severn Barrage in the UK. No doubt plans to cover vast areas of desert with solar collectors will result in similar protests.
These environmental protectionists argue that power generation systems do not need to be grand schemes. They believe that we should be thinking small-scale, with local generation of heat and power. Solar panels for water heating are commonplace now, and photo-voltaic solar cells are predicted to get a lot cheaper. These don't just work in hot and sunny climes; astonishingly, the world's major user of domestic PV cells is Germany, as a result of a scheme which provides significant financial rewards to people who sell their surplus power to the grid. However, while such schemes are well worthwhile and can reduce the demands on the power grid, the problem of the erratic supply of power from such sources can only be met by massive, interlinked, engineering projects.
Save energy – transport: This brings us onto another big polluter – transport. Much attention is being paid to road vehicles, with electric and hybrid (petrol/electric) vehicles in use and fuel cells being tested experimentally. Each of these systems, as presently conceived, has problems. Pure electric vehicles are limited to short-range use because of battery limitations. Furthermore, recharging batteries by plugging them into the grid isn't going to help much unless the electricity is generated from sustainable sources, so that would need to be in place to gain the full benefit from electric cars. Assuming that eventually happens, a battery swap system is proposed to allow drivers to change battery packs at service stations in the same way that they now fuel up, although there are indications that very fast-charging batteries may be on the way somewhat later.
Hydrogen cells, which develop electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen in a kind of reverse electrolysis (the only by-product being water) are at a much earlier stage of development. Hydrogen has to be manufactured (not currently a very clean activity) and special transporting, storing and dispensing arrangements would need to be put in place. This seems unlikely to be adopted on a large scale without major government start-up funding, because manufacturers won't develop and make fuel-cell cars unless they are confident that people will buy them in large quantities, people won't buy fuel-cell cars unless there is a comprehensive network of hydrogen filling stations, and companies won't manufacture and distribute hydrogen, or equip the filling stations to dispense it, unless there is a proven demand (or someone else provides the start-up funding).
Taking all of this into account, the best approach for the near future is to have an electric car with plug-in recharging and an internal-combustion on-board generator to top up the batteries on a long run. This generator could be very small, as it would only need to supply cruising rather than full power. It could also run at a fixed speed, further improving efficiency. The next stage will probably be all-electric, using high-capacity fast-charging batteries, with fuel cells possibly coming along later.
Of course, mass transport tends to be the most efficient way of moving people, at least in areas of high population density. Tram and other light-rail systems are proliferating and will probably continue to do so. Unfortunately, there is a major problem with aviation. The growth in this is very bad news for the environment, not only because of the large quantities of CO2 and other pollutants produced, but also because they get ejected high in the atmosphere where they are far more damaging than at ground level. It is very difficult to see what can be done to ameliorate this, apart from taxing air travel so highly that it once again becomes the privilege of the rich few, but this would be politically virtually impossible. Hydrogen fuel would help, but planes designed to use this are so far off that they don't even seem to be being considered at the moment.
A different approach to reducing vehicle pollution is to make fewer journeys. Modern communications technology makes it feasible for increasing numbers of employees to spend at least part of their time working from home instead of commuting into cities. There is also growing criticism of our exploitation of cheap fuel in amassing "food miles" (the distance food travels before it reaches local shops), one example being fish originating in Scotland being sent to Poland for preparation and packaging before being sent back to the UK for sale. This has led to a growth in the UK in "farmers' markets", which are limited to selling local produce, bypassing the big commercial distribution networks. This is another aspect of the "think small, think local" movement already identified in the section on power generation. This issue, combined with a likely increase in international instability caused by climate change, may well see traditional food importing countries like the UK reverting to more domestic local production. Our gardens of the future may well consist of vegetable plots, as in the Second World War.
Making it happen – incentives: Clearly, the speed at which all of the above measures can be implemented (at least in free-market economies) depends on financial incentives, as demonstrated by the German PV cell experience. It has been suggested that the simplest and most fool-proof method of encouraging the most efficient and sustainable use of energy for all purposes would be to tax all fossil fuels at source, when they are removed from the ground. This would not only discourage the use of fossil fuels, it would make sustainable energy sources more competitive on price. The major problem is that this would require global agreement, and that is inconceivable in present circumstances (when countries can't even agree to tax all aviation fuel). Maybe much later, if the environment is sliding into chaos, by which time it would probably be far too late.
The population problem: As mentioned in Part 1, an underlying problem which is going to undermine all of the attempts to minimise CO2 production is the projected huge rise in the world's population, from about 6.4 billion now to around 9 billion by the middle of this century. Although population forecasting is notoriously unreliable, anything remotely like this will cause enormous problems even without climate change. Unless, of course, there were to be devastating famines, epidemics or wars, with death rates orders of magnitude greater than anything seen to date, which is hardly an attractive option. Add in the predicted effects of climate change in drying out continental interiors, and such appalling outcomes become more likely as starving, desperate populations try to move to more fertile lands. It is hard to see a way to avoid this without drastic limits on childbirth, which even a dictatorship like China has struggled to enforce.
A different style of living: Can anything be done about coping with the population increase? The major problem is of course producing enough food, but the extra living space required will also be an issue, particularly since conventional housing developments use up a lot of land which might otherwise be growing crops. This suggests that different forms of living may be developed, possibly in the form of arcologies; huge buildings in which city-sized populations can live, work and play while occupying only a small fraction of the ground area of a conventional city – and also using up only a small fraction of the energy per person. By a not-so-strange coincidence, the novel on which I am (very intermittently) working, set a century into the future, takes place in such an arcology.
This subject is taking more space to cover than I expected, so the other possible measures to tackle global warming will have to wait until Part 3…
There are basically four different approaches, most if not all of which may be needed in order to have a significant moderating effect on climate change. These are: to cut back CO2 production; to remove CO2 already in the atmosphere; to reduce insolation (heat received from the sun); and finally to adapt to the changes which are now inevitable, it being already too late to prevent some of the consequences of warming. I'll take each of these in turn.
Cut back CO2 production
This is the best known approach, or rather a whole cluster of different approaches under the same general heading. The techniques available range from the simple and obvious to the complex and difficult. The former are being applied already, to a greater or lesser extent in different places, but the latter will need strong political will on an international basis; i.e. they're not likely to happen until the consequences of climate change have become so obvious – and obviously bad – that not even short-termist politicians can ignore them.
Save energy - buildings: The relatively easy measures include changing building designs to minimise the need for heating in cold countries and for air-conditioning in hot ones. The former is well understood and already widely practiced; it requires good insulation standards, preferably including heat-recovery ventilation systems. The beauty of this is that most such measures can be retrofitted to most existing buildings, an important point given that complete replacement of our building stock will take a very long time. Measures to reduce air conditioning (likely to become increasingly important as the globe warms up) are less common and may be more difficult to apply to existing buildings. Some techniques are similar to the cold-climate ones – better insulation, smaller windows – but could also include installing an oversized 'floating' roof canopy, detached from the main structure, to provide shade without transmitting heat to the building. Some buildings are cleverly designed to have a ventilation system driven by natural convection, while 'green' roofs and walls – covered with plants – have been found to have a significant effect, not only in providing shade but in evaporative cooling. You do need a good water supply for these, though, which will be an increasing problem in many hot areas. Cooling systems using water circulating through underground pipes (a kind of reversal of the usual heat-pump heating system) may be more efficient than electrical air-conditioning.
Save energy – equipment and processes: Another well-known and much-practiced technique is the use of low-energy lights and appliances. Industrial processes are major users of power, an area which has probably received less attention so far than the domestic side.
Save energy – power generation: This is the major source of human-caused CO2 production, so non-polluting power generation has received a lot of attention in recent years, as demonstrated by the huge wind turbine farms sprouting up on land and in coastal areas. However, as is often pointed out, these aren't much good unless the wind blows. In fact, except for geothermal power, other sustainable power sources – hydro-electricity, tidal, wave and solar power – suffer from related problems in that the sources of power (even if reliable) are not constant, and may be a long way away from where they are needed. There is a potential solution to this, however; while AC current (in almost universal use) loses a lot of power when transmitted long distances, DC current does not. Until recently, converting DC to AC for domestic use was difficult, but solutions have been found. Some high voltage DC lines are already in use, and an international DC 'supergrid' has been proposed to link up Europe and North Africa. This will not only even out the supply from erratic sources such as wind power, but also provide access to solar power. Its proponents claim that a Europe-wide supergrid in conjunction with the full development of sources of sustainable power (mostly in the form of offshore wind farms) could reliably replace all of Western Europe's coal and gas power stations within thirty years.
Other alternatives being much discussed are the use of 'carbon capture' systems with fossil fuel power stations, by which the CO2 produced is trapped and pumped underground, and a revival in the use of nuclear power. The problems are that the carbon capture system is unproven (and some experts are dubious that it will work as advertised) and the supply of nuclear fuel is finite. Of course, if an economical source of fusion power could be developed that would solve most problems, but it's been 'coming soon' for about half a century and still seems a long way off, so it would be unwise to rely on that.
Interestingly, sustainable power is causing major divisions in the environmental lobby (a potentially fruitful source of SF plots). While all environmentalists are in favour of reducing CO2 production, some are also appalled by the alternatives, especially nuclear power, the visual blight of massive wind farms, and the potential effect on wildlife of huge engineering schemes such as the proposed tidal-power Severn Barrage in the UK. No doubt plans to cover vast areas of desert with solar collectors will result in similar protests.
These environmental protectionists argue that power generation systems do not need to be grand schemes. They believe that we should be thinking small-scale, with local generation of heat and power. Solar panels for water heating are commonplace now, and photo-voltaic solar cells are predicted to get a lot cheaper. These don't just work in hot and sunny climes; astonishingly, the world's major user of domestic PV cells is Germany, as a result of a scheme which provides significant financial rewards to people who sell their surplus power to the grid. However, while such schemes are well worthwhile and can reduce the demands on the power grid, the problem of the erratic supply of power from such sources can only be met by massive, interlinked, engineering projects.
Save energy – transport: This brings us onto another big polluter – transport. Much attention is being paid to road vehicles, with electric and hybrid (petrol/electric) vehicles in use and fuel cells being tested experimentally. Each of these systems, as presently conceived, has problems. Pure electric vehicles are limited to short-range use because of battery limitations. Furthermore, recharging batteries by plugging them into the grid isn't going to help much unless the electricity is generated from sustainable sources, so that would need to be in place to gain the full benefit from electric cars. Assuming that eventually happens, a battery swap system is proposed to allow drivers to change battery packs at service stations in the same way that they now fuel up, although there are indications that very fast-charging batteries may be on the way somewhat later.
Hydrogen cells, which develop electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen in a kind of reverse electrolysis (the only by-product being water) are at a much earlier stage of development. Hydrogen has to be manufactured (not currently a very clean activity) and special transporting, storing and dispensing arrangements would need to be put in place. This seems unlikely to be adopted on a large scale without major government start-up funding, because manufacturers won't develop and make fuel-cell cars unless they are confident that people will buy them in large quantities, people won't buy fuel-cell cars unless there is a comprehensive network of hydrogen filling stations, and companies won't manufacture and distribute hydrogen, or equip the filling stations to dispense it, unless there is a proven demand (or someone else provides the start-up funding).
Taking all of this into account, the best approach for the near future is to have an electric car with plug-in recharging and an internal-combustion on-board generator to top up the batteries on a long run. This generator could be very small, as it would only need to supply cruising rather than full power. It could also run at a fixed speed, further improving efficiency. The next stage will probably be all-electric, using high-capacity fast-charging batteries, with fuel cells possibly coming along later.
Of course, mass transport tends to be the most efficient way of moving people, at least in areas of high population density. Tram and other light-rail systems are proliferating and will probably continue to do so. Unfortunately, there is a major problem with aviation. The growth in this is very bad news for the environment, not only because of the large quantities of CO2 and other pollutants produced, but also because they get ejected high in the atmosphere where they are far more damaging than at ground level. It is very difficult to see what can be done to ameliorate this, apart from taxing air travel so highly that it once again becomes the privilege of the rich few, but this would be politically virtually impossible. Hydrogen fuel would help, but planes designed to use this are so far off that they don't even seem to be being considered at the moment.
A different approach to reducing vehicle pollution is to make fewer journeys. Modern communications technology makes it feasible for increasing numbers of employees to spend at least part of their time working from home instead of commuting into cities. There is also growing criticism of our exploitation of cheap fuel in amassing "food miles" (the distance food travels before it reaches local shops), one example being fish originating in Scotland being sent to Poland for preparation and packaging before being sent back to the UK for sale. This has led to a growth in the UK in "farmers' markets", which are limited to selling local produce, bypassing the big commercial distribution networks. This is another aspect of the "think small, think local" movement already identified in the section on power generation. This issue, combined with a likely increase in international instability caused by climate change, may well see traditional food importing countries like the UK reverting to more domestic local production. Our gardens of the future may well consist of vegetable plots, as in the Second World War.
Making it happen – incentives: Clearly, the speed at which all of the above measures can be implemented (at least in free-market economies) depends on financial incentives, as demonstrated by the German PV cell experience. It has been suggested that the simplest and most fool-proof method of encouraging the most efficient and sustainable use of energy for all purposes would be to tax all fossil fuels at source, when they are removed from the ground. This would not only discourage the use of fossil fuels, it would make sustainable energy sources more competitive on price. The major problem is that this would require global agreement, and that is inconceivable in present circumstances (when countries can't even agree to tax all aviation fuel). Maybe much later, if the environment is sliding into chaos, by which time it would probably be far too late.
The population problem: As mentioned in Part 1, an underlying problem which is going to undermine all of the attempts to minimise CO2 production is the projected huge rise in the world's population, from about 6.4 billion now to around 9 billion by the middle of this century. Although population forecasting is notoriously unreliable, anything remotely like this will cause enormous problems even without climate change. Unless, of course, there were to be devastating famines, epidemics or wars, with death rates orders of magnitude greater than anything seen to date, which is hardly an attractive option. Add in the predicted effects of climate change in drying out continental interiors, and such appalling outcomes become more likely as starving, desperate populations try to move to more fertile lands. It is hard to see a way to avoid this without drastic limits on childbirth, which even a dictatorship like China has struggled to enforce.
A different style of living: Can anything be done about coping with the population increase? The major problem is of course producing enough food, but the extra living space required will also be an issue, particularly since conventional housing developments use up a lot of land which might otherwise be growing crops. This suggests that different forms of living may be developed, possibly in the form of arcologies; huge buildings in which city-sized populations can live, work and play while occupying only a small fraction of the ground area of a conventional city – and also using up only a small fraction of the energy per person. By a not-so-strange coincidence, the novel on which I am (very intermittently) working, set a century into the future, takes place in such an arcology.
This subject is taking more space to cover than I expected, so the other possible measures to tackle global warming will have to wait until Part 3…
Friday, 24 April 2009
Dune by Frank Herbert
Dune was first published in 1965 to immediate acclaim, and it remains one of the most popular SF novels ever written. I read it several times in the late 1960s and early 1970s but not since, so when it was chosen as "book of the month" for the Classic SF discussion group, I returned to it with great interest to see how it stands up today.
At around 500 pages it is a massive tome by the standards of the time (when less than 200 pages was a typical SF novel length), space which Herbert put to good use in making his world rich and complex. Unlike so many long novels, there is no padding here. The story is set in the distant future when humanity has colonised thousands of star systems, ruled by hereditary nobles with an Emperor reigning over all. The civilisation is held together by a spaceship service monopolised by the Guild of Navigators whose pilots rely on a drug called spice or melange, which enables them to see the future and thereby guide their ships safely. Melange is highly addictive, cannot be synthesised and is only found on the desert world of Arrakis. As a result of political machinations, the House of Atreides, led by Duke Leto, is awarded custody of Arrakis and its fabulous wealth. But the previous owners, the Harkonnens, have no intention of surrendering quietly and a bitter conflict results.
This would appear to provide all of the elements of a classic space opera but, unusually, almost all of the action takes place on the surface of one planet – Arrakis. The author thoroughly worked out the details of this world. The ecology is explained, backed up by an appendix devoted to it, with the interrelationships between giant desert sandworms and melange being a key issue. So also is the long-term attempt by the independent and ferocious desert-living natives, the Fremen, to alter the climate. The psychological, cultural and technical implications of living in such a harsh environment are a major theme, including details such as the design of the "stillsuits" which enable people to survive in the desert.
The rest of the story is also filled with fascinating and original ideas. The human reliance on computers had been destroyed in a revolt thousands of years before, prompting the developed of advanced mental powers through intensive training. The most direct computer replacements are the Mentats, who are able to analyse vast reams of data and compute probable outcomes of any course of action. Most advanced of all are the Bene Gesserit, a manipulative guild of women highly trained in both physical and mental skills to achieve astonishing feats; perhaps above all the ability to analyse personalities through their speech patterns and to influence their actions via the use of "Voice", a tailored manner of speaking.
The story is full of quasi-religious issues. Although not themselves religious, the Bene Gesserit encourage the development of religions which feature their own members as revered – and feared – leaders. They are also trying to create by selective breeding over millennia the "Kwisatz Haderach"; a man who will have all of their abilities plus be capable of far more. The Fremen are religious (influenced long ago by the Bene Gesserit) and are waiting for their own "redeemer" figure; Lisan al-Gaib. These concepts combine to form a key plot element.
More conventional space-opera elements are present, particularly the existence of shields which block any high-velocity projectiles, leading to the re-establishment of knife fighting as a key battle tactic. There is much exotic communication, with battle languages, code words, hand signals and even a private humming language used by two of the characters.
Despite this richness of invention, the writing is not loaded with infodumps, the author slips in just enough information in passing (with a glossary of the terms used at the back as an aide memoire). The first two-thirds of the book consists of one almost continuous sequence, but there is then a break with the remainder of the book being more episodic as the various plot threads develop towards a climax over several years. Some unconventional approaches are taken; for instance, one person is identified as a future traitor before even making an appearance, the author deliberately sacrificing conventional surprise to achieve a sense of impending doom. There is something of the flavour of an epic classical tragedy, emphasised by a "chorus" in the form of extracts from historical accounts at the start of each chapter, looking back on the events being recounted. This deliberate myth-making reminds me somewhat of Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality series.
Very unusually for SF of the time, the characterisation is good. Space is allowed for exploring personalities, for instance a formal dinner which takes up some twenty pages of fascinating multi-level exchanges, and six pages on the slow death of one character in the desert, giving us his final hopes and fears. Such is the skill of the author that such scenes as these are just as gripping as the action sequences. The hero of the tale fights against his destiny, regretting the way in which former friends have come to regard him but knowing he has to use their devotion in the right way. The conclusion is unexpected and satisfying.
Reading the book now with an author's as well as an SF fan's eye, I am more deeply impressed than ever. Dune is a superb achievement, one of the finest SF stories ever written, not just in plot originality but in the style of its writing. As so often happens, its success prompted a production line of ever-declining sequels. I read a few but kept only the first one, Dune Messiah, for a re-read someday. I won't comment on the 1984 movie, except to say that's what you get if you try to compress a densely-plotted book, which takes me around seven hours to read, into just over two hours.
At around 500 pages it is a massive tome by the standards of the time (when less than 200 pages was a typical SF novel length), space which Herbert put to good use in making his world rich and complex. Unlike so many long novels, there is no padding here. The story is set in the distant future when humanity has colonised thousands of star systems, ruled by hereditary nobles with an Emperor reigning over all. The civilisation is held together by a spaceship service monopolised by the Guild of Navigators whose pilots rely on a drug called spice or melange, which enables them to see the future and thereby guide their ships safely. Melange is highly addictive, cannot be synthesised and is only found on the desert world of Arrakis. As a result of political machinations, the House of Atreides, led by Duke Leto, is awarded custody of Arrakis and its fabulous wealth. But the previous owners, the Harkonnens, have no intention of surrendering quietly and a bitter conflict results.
This would appear to provide all of the elements of a classic space opera but, unusually, almost all of the action takes place on the surface of one planet – Arrakis. The author thoroughly worked out the details of this world. The ecology is explained, backed up by an appendix devoted to it, with the interrelationships between giant desert sandworms and melange being a key issue. So also is the long-term attempt by the independent and ferocious desert-living natives, the Fremen, to alter the climate. The psychological, cultural and technical implications of living in such a harsh environment are a major theme, including details such as the design of the "stillsuits" which enable people to survive in the desert.
The rest of the story is also filled with fascinating and original ideas. The human reliance on computers had been destroyed in a revolt thousands of years before, prompting the developed of advanced mental powers through intensive training. The most direct computer replacements are the Mentats, who are able to analyse vast reams of data and compute probable outcomes of any course of action. Most advanced of all are the Bene Gesserit, a manipulative guild of women highly trained in both physical and mental skills to achieve astonishing feats; perhaps above all the ability to analyse personalities through their speech patterns and to influence their actions via the use of "Voice", a tailored manner of speaking.
The story is full of quasi-religious issues. Although not themselves religious, the Bene Gesserit encourage the development of religions which feature their own members as revered – and feared – leaders. They are also trying to create by selective breeding over millennia the "Kwisatz Haderach"; a man who will have all of their abilities plus be capable of far more. The Fremen are religious (influenced long ago by the Bene Gesserit) and are waiting for their own "redeemer" figure; Lisan al-Gaib. These concepts combine to form a key plot element.
More conventional space-opera elements are present, particularly the existence of shields which block any high-velocity projectiles, leading to the re-establishment of knife fighting as a key battle tactic. There is much exotic communication, with battle languages, code words, hand signals and even a private humming language used by two of the characters.
Despite this richness of invention, the writing is not loaded with infodumps, the author slips in just enough information in passing (with a glossary of the terms used at the back as an aide memoire). The first two-thirds of the book consists of one almost continuous sequence, but there is then a break with the remainder of the book being more episodic as the various plot threads develop towards a climax over several years. Some unconventional approaches are taken; for instance, one person is identified as a future traitor before even making an appearance, the author deliberately sacrificing conventional surprise to achieve a sense of impending doom. There is something of the flavour of an epic classical tragedy, emphasised by a "chorus" in the form of extracts from historical accounts at the start of each chapter, looking back on the events being recounted. This deliberate myth-making reminds me somewhat of Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality series.
Very unusually for SF of the time, the characterisation is good. Space is allowed for exploring personalities, for instance a formal dinner which takes up some twenty pages of fascinating multi-level exchanges, and six pages on the slow death of one character in the desert, giving us his final hopes and fears. Such is the skill of the author that such scenes as these are just as gripping as the action sequences. The hero of the tale fights against his destiny, regretting the way in which former friends have come to regard him but knowing he has to use their devotion in the right way. The conclusion is unexpected and satisfying.
Reading the book now with an author's as well as an SF fan's eye, I am more deeply impressed than ever. Dune is a superb achievement, one of the finest SF stories ever written, not just in plot originality but in the style of its writing. As so often happens, its success prompted a production line of ever-declining sequels. I read a few but kept only the first one, Dune Messiah, for a re-read someday. I won't comment on the 1984 movie, except to say that's what you get if you try to compress a densely-plotted book, which takes me around seven hours to read, into just over two hours.
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