Pacing! Contrivances!

Before I actually start talking about the book, I'm going to take this moment to state that I actually mostly liked this book. I enjoyed it more than Cosmonaut Keep. But it's by no means a favorite, and I don't feel inspired to read the rest of the books in this particular arc. I guess I 70% liked it. Not that it gets a score of 70%, but I 70% liked it. I put this preface here because most of what follows will be complaints.

Pace and contrivances. These are the two biggest issues with this book.

The first; contrivances. I realize that any thing that is not a factual retelling of a real event will be totally contrived, not in a negative connotation, but in a literal connotation whereby I mean to create a desired outcome through a scheme or planning. So, I was talking to my wife about why I didn't like Harry Potter, and ultimately it comes down to the number of contrivances. A staggering amount. In order for Z to happen, A through Y must happen, and to top it off, we discover C through H, M through R, and T through W through horrible exposition. As I said before, I realize that any kind of story is at base level, contrived, but with the best books, there's a particular balance where the contrivances feel natural. And these Deepness in the Sky and Harry Potter are not that.

In fact, reading Deepness at times felt like I was back in art school, and that one kid wouldn't shut up about his undercover super spy hoagie wizard anthropomorphic fairy kitten dog samurai epic. I kind of just go, “oh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah. I see. Uh huh. Uh huh.” That is: I don't feel engaged. Everything feels so planned and plotted that it doesn't really feel like there's any room for me to speculate or even just simply be curious. Or, to use another metaphor, it would be like listening someone say something like, “The radio is indeed a marvel and a mystery!” and then listen to them then follow up that statement with an excruciating explanation of how the stereo really works. And anticipating that explanation. I can't wonder because I know it's about to be sapped from me.

And then pacing. I'm not entirely certain what to say on this, other than it wasn't quick. Even the parts I found interesting (the history of Pham Nuwen) got stale and old after 20 pages of listening to Pham argue the practicalities of an empire. I get it: he wants an empire. Next chapter please. And the spiders! I hope they actually live in slow motion, because otherwise there's no real reason for their chapters to just seem like endless chasms across which I must bravely leap.

And let me discuss the spiders really quick. I understand that there is a number of us who actually enjoyed those chapters, even if those numbers may only number in the “couple” or the “few,” but honestly, they were completely unnecessary. All the information you learn in the spider chapters, you completely relearn in all the space chapters. Literally. I think not only was my time wasted by reading those particular chapters, but space was wasted. I would often skip entire spider chapters, and I never once felt like I needed to go back and reread what I skipped because I was still told everything.

Their civilization in general wasn't really spider like either. It felt like his intentions were confused: try to humanize something completely inhuman. Which is probably a worthwhile goal in literature, but when you pretty much just write this equation: spider X human + 1950/human = 1950 spiders, you've not exactly gone through many pains to make the alien civilization seem all that alien. Or human. It was an operation that, to me, failed on both fronts. And the names were stupid too. But that's really moot.

Back to the pacing: it's been my experience that as something moves closer to the end, it's pace quickens. Your interest is piqued, more things are happening, a multiplier effect happens. In this book, I definitely felt the first two, but for some reason, it still felt like it did when I knew barely anything about the characters or the events. It kind of felt like how they keep prolonging Battlestar Galactica by putting a year long commercial break smack dab in the middle of season 4.

Spiders humanized, humans de-humanized

Through reading A Deepness in the Sky, a single thought kept crossing my mind..."the spiders seem to be more human and deeply characterized than 90% of the actual humans in this book". That might just be a product of the author introducing a device which strips humans of their natural personalities...or of the fact that the author deliberately chose to completely remove most emotions from most of the humans. Sure, you get good characters like Pham Nuwen, or the occasion emotional outburst from Ezr...but on the whole, i felt that the human side of the book was very inhuman, and fell into the analytical trappings that bind most science fiction. In my experience this seems to happen often in this type of science fiction...the author gets so hung up in the science, and the overly drawn out plot, that he often forgets that what makes a story great are the characters that drive it.
On the converse, you have Sherkaner Underhill, a brilliant mad scientist far ahead of his time. I felt that he was the best character in the book, simply because he had a human aspect that nobody else had; the desire to explore. everbody else had these paper thin motives...i want to rule everything...i want to get my 45 year old girlfriend back...i want Thomas to love me because apparently i am a 30 year old with a 13 year olds emotions...but not Sherkaner, he had the completly human desire to explore the possibilities that his imagination had thought up. And one of those possibilities was complete social reform on a deep level. It was if he was Einstein, Oppenheimer, Columbus and Joan of Arc all rolled into a spider...who didnt actually know any real science. He even had an evil religious antagonist to bring him down.

all in all i found the book interesting, but the length was not needed...at all. it was well written (unlike this blog), but the story just didnt want to get to the story till about 200 pages from the end. i give it possibly a B+...A-?

Hehe, everyone is making their posts the night of, aren't they? >.<

Anyway, I suppose I share the sentiments of my fellows about the length of the book; a lot of drawn out technological explanations contributed to it, but what else are you expecting with space opera? The convoluted names of everything [deepness isn't just in the sky with stuff named the Unthinking Depths. the Beyond and the Transcend], the scope of the plot, the conflict between different groups, a bit of familial drama, sinister illness, the future of an entire species hanging in the balance; all of these have evolved to be very stereotypical of space opera. I guess the over abundance of tech-talk went the way of Episode I [midichlorians anyone?] and can tend to do a lot to demystify a good experience. 

However I think that the intensity of the plot is enough to balance out the denser parts of the book, once you plow through it. 

Die Emergent Scum!

When I first set out to read this, I thought that this must be better than the last one, please let it be better! Well so far it's been better, but it's still slow and way too long and it doesn't help that I have so many books at home that I'd rather be reading. Then I got to the point when the true purpose of the mindrot disease was revealed, and that pissed me off. So now I read on with the hope that the Emergents will get what's coming to them, those stupid meatbags. Especially Tomas Nau, what with the way he caused the death of Qiwi's mom and then covered it up, then took advantage of her, oh he needs to die slowly for that.

Finale to "Sky"

Well the book was overly slow and many many pages could have been deleted from the whole book.
I am kind of in the middle about how the Spiders were written as being people, the only difference was that they were spiders, everything else about them was talked as if they were people.
The "Finale" where the supposed big battle would take place between the Traders and the Spiders, Vs the Emergents was very sad, But Pham knew that that was when it would happpen. Over all I am glad that I read this book is was pretty well done, excpet for some parts that could have been taken out and whatnot.
The love that was placed in there was very low, which was good, the last book we read had randomness in it, and this was something that wasn't important but had to be put in there because it is human nature to love.

The finality of the darkness.

[Note: I e-mailed Paul and he said to post the blogs from A Deepness In The Sky here, so here it is].

Some spoilers ahead maybe?


This book was perhaps one of the longest which shouldn't have been. I wonder if there is actually a reason for this, if we were meant to feel the angst and helplessness the Qeng Ho felt; although on my end it just transferred to borement.
That being said I think it had a good plot, it was sound albeit the weird things such as the flying kittens (seriously? Seriously...) and Trixia wanting to be semi-focused.
I think that it had a lot of cliché points, such as the end of Nau in the hands of Qiwi; it was finalized (finally!) and I felt better, but possibly this is the point of Space Opera.

I did enjoy the description of the plants Dr. Ali came up with though, and much of that was well-described; as well as the spiders' world, I thought of them as persons and I believe that is how the author wanted them to be.
I did get a sense of Star Trek while reading some of this book, but it was different even though similar.

Now the localizers, they were certainly a piece of work to come up with, don't they die? I mean don't they get destroyed or are they biomechanical somehow? I kept thinking that as Pham Nuwen seemed to be almost godly with them, also, someone please explain to me the anti-gravity, it was just somehow a part of some material or did it just occur naturally in the planet at a certain place? There are things like these that are fuzzy for me, but I suppose this is not hard sci-fi.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book more towards the end when the wait was FINALLY over and everything unfolded, otherwise I think this book should have been shorter, perhaps it was also so the Spiders could develop, even so I liked this book more than Cosmonaut Keep.

holy wack unlyrical lyrics..
okay so first of all im so confused by all the different relationships in the book. why God why? are there so many different, confusing and all over the place relationships?
also, when i first read about elizabeth's description i was so turned on!!!lol. she sounds hot!!!

Like being cut in half

Well, its pretty hard to find a place to start but I gotta say that this book is divisive in a lot of ways. Now that's a statement that doesn't really mean much so I'll expand on it. Obvious divisions in the book include the switching between stories every chapter, changing between third and first person every time, and as many have pointed out before me: the book is divided between a slow beginning and launching into action much later.

At first when I was reading the book the constant switching around and unexplained phenomena just had me confused more than anything. Communists to traders, gravity skiffs to wet tech, hackers to sailors. It was pretty much just a sea of unintelligible text that I couldn't figure out what to do with. As I read on however the settings, characters, technology, and spacial time distortion all kind of filed into place in a way that made them easy to understand; instead of having an supernatural or unearthly feel, everything just felt very familiar.

I ended up really loving the switching between near future and distant future. I don't think I'd have faired well reading just on or the other. They had the feel of a spy novel and a fantasy adventure story. If I had to read one or the other I'd probably have lost interest but when combined it allows Cosmonaut Keep have a fairly dynamic feel to it and it helped me enjoy both styles. One is as technical, witty, and the atmosphere is dramatic and tense. The other is more laid back about fantastic technology and it allows for more inspection of history over current events. The story with Gregor Cairns also had better imagery I thought and I found myself more drawn into the alien setting of the distant future than the paranoid and conspiracy heavy hacker's world. I'd think I would understand the near future earth better than the deep space story but the writing kind of defied my intuition.

In the end I feel a bit ambiguous when I try to express how I feel about the book. It was a tangled, horrid mess but I kinda think: so were the lives of almost every character main character, so it balances itself out. Jadey is an American Agent deep in commie territory with her cover blown; Matt has to flee the planet because he very quickly got into other people's data way over his head; Gregor has to sort out his romantic, professional, and family lives as the collapse into each other; and Elizabeth is flung into an inept adventure of grand scale and even grander consequence and all she can think about is her perpetually clueless crush. The only character who seems to know exactly where his towel is would be the Salasso, the stoned saur at the back of the airship. Telling a story like this in a strait forward and clear way would just be wrong.

Anyway, I guess my final review is that this book is confusing, creative, and as an end result: highly amusing. Good but not epic. At least the pot smoking dinosaurs didn't disappoint at all.

An Author Stoned

Throughout the course of this book, I've noticed a lot of trouble with organization and delivery of information, among other things. At first I just thought the author was just trying to do something different, that it was his intention to let us sort things out ourselves instead of putting it all on the table in plain english. Even that, however, does not excuse the shoddy job of putting this thing together. Then it hit me: all the casual pot-smoking, the alien conspiracies, and the government cover-ups and corruption all led me to one conclusion. And that conclusion is that it's highly probable that Ken Macleod is a total stoner. Not only that, but he could've been baked while writing this thing, which would explain a lot. I'm not against the green herb at all, having had some before, but c'mon man, business before pleasure! There's a reason that ideas that you get while high sound stupid when you pull yourself together, and that reason is that the smoke chokes your brain, making you into a stupid person for awhile. Not the best state of mind to be writing a book in.
I guess I'm expected to write a review of some sort for this book, so here it is. The story was complex and not fluidly organized, something that I as well as others have not taken well to. It was also slow in the beginning but did get better halfway through, that's one thing it's got going for it at least. When it comes to slow beginnings Stephen King is the worst so at least Macleod isn't that bad.
The setting of the high-tech near-future and the low-tech distant future seemed fairly original from my standpoint, a plus for this book.
The characters weren't completely shallow, however they appeared to be only fleshed out to the extent that Macleod could say that he gave them depth and not be lying, kind of half-assed really. I don't care one way or another, I'm just not accustomed to it that's all.
We really could've done without the romance factor here and reading about sex was kind of awkward, but at least he didn't get too descriptive about it most of the time.
My final rating for this story is 3 out of 5 stars, and my advice to anyone reading this is to not decide whether or not to read this book based on the opinions of one man, official critic or not. It did win some kind of award after all, that's got to be worth something.

This is the end

Cosmonaut Keep was... eh. The guy had some really good ideas, but he didn't unveil them until hella late, and by the time he did I kind of feel like maybe I should have known about it earlier. Mostly because earlier was when I was confused about what was going on, but now that he's talking about it, I kind of already figured it out, or just don't care anymore.

The book certainly does pick up in the latter have, and stuff does actually start to happen, but it's never really enough. It's like this one time, I sat around with my friend, and we came up with the coolest sci-fi story ever. We worked out the protagonists, the antagonists, the climax, the resolution, all that. But we never actually published it. That's what I feel like this was: the author telling me about a really cool story, but not actually telling me the story.

And I feel like some (many) things were a little (a lot) contrived. Like when Salasso gets into the disagreement with his dinosaur pals, so they go talk to the kraken. That was an entire 10 page section that could have been cut. It didn't add anything. Sure, we get more veiled references about “gods” and the saurs actually having come from earth, but once again, these are things we already kinda figured out, or don't really care about anymore.

The book didn't have any head slapping, “oh my God!” moments either. Matt would be going on and on about some deep mystery that he's very much obsessed over, and my eyes glaze a little and I just say, “uh... ok. I don't get why that bugs you.”

I guess that's how I ultimately feel. The book wasn't horrible, and not the worst thing I've ever read, but it certainly felt clumsy and poorly written. I was expecting to see the reason why this guy won the grammy, and the tony, and the best day time TV supporting actor award, but I didn't. And I kind of don't really feel like going onto the next books to see if they know why.

Oh, before I forget, there's the issue of all the pot in the book. Why? What purpose did it serve? And it's not that I have an ax to grind against pot, I could care less. It's about as consequential to me as to whether or not you use single or two ply, but this guy was hella obsessed with it, but I don't see what it actually added. And the pilot smoking pot on the station? Really? ExSqueeze me? Baking Powder? The US government does have an ax to grind with smoking pot. Bigass time. They pretty much wouldn't let her fly anymore if she tested positive. Bah. Whatever. This guy gets jolly over an excess of pot references for no good reason, so let him have at it. It fits with the rest of the book being clumsy, etc.

And the love interests. I felt kind of blindsided by it. Especially the bit with Lydia. I'm sure it had to have been somewhere else, but hell if I find it. All of a sudden, Gregor's got two babes, and one of them is totally ok with three ways. And the line about Elizabeth “doing the most surprising thing with her tongue and foreskin” was the grossest line I've ever read in a book ever. I read it 3 times. Twice to make sure I'd read, and again out loud to make sure I wasn't fuckin with myself. Mostly, this is how I feel like the sex scenes were handled in this book: imaging you're on a beach. It's a cool, windy day, but the sun is out, shining brightly. The waves are lapping gently against the shore, and you can see dolphins playing in the distance. Oh look, there are two people doing it! Man, they are really going at it! I think they might want to slow down. They might pull a muscle or slip a disc.

That's how I felt.

Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

To all those that didn't want to give this a chance, you won't regret reading past the halfway point of this book. It gets faster then, with space travel and revolotion and visiting a Saur city and all that, and at that point you stop getting meaningless, incomplete, and confusing information flung at you so you can enjoy the experience better. Now, we move towards the end of the road.

Open Source Subsulture References

I feel like I could go on about this story for a very, very long time. The plot devices, the similarities between the two stories told, the view of Humanity and the other races of the universe. These are all wonderful ways to go. Since it's 1:30 in the morning, however. I will have to make my post short er than I'd like and write on the geek references and open source culture references that few, if any people in the class should be expected to understand.

The story opens with a line from Zork: "You are in a twisty maze of passages, all of them alike" Setting my expectations for the author's geeky knowledge rather high. I was not disappointed. Information wanting to be free is an ideal of open source enthusiasts and data pirates. If information can be transmitted near-instantly and copied with negligable recources, one can expect that it should be free. Anything which has no cost to copy should be free (Or so some would say)

The conflict in the book plays very much like the conflict seen between those who want information to be free and those who would want you to pay (To pay them of course) for access to this information. The book even mentions that Linux (The free information) had won out over Windows (The not-so-free information) in the future. I'm unsure if this is foreshadowing as the crew of the brightstar don't entirely win. They did succeed in giving Humanity the gift of long distance spaceflight and on the Internet, once information is 'freed' it isn't going to be put under control.

I will be reading the rest of this series. I liked the author's particular slant on technology, government and politics. Seems like a guy I'd gladly drink with.

I haven't explored all of my points but my brain doesn't seem to be letting me so good night, all you crazy cats. (I also think Cairns is a significant name for a navigator. eh?)

Decent Story

I found this to be a decent story. I liked the Gregory and Elizabeth side of the story better than the other side of things, it was much easier to understand. There was too many acronyms and when the characters would start in on a computer process it felt way to tech savy for a normal person to understand.
With the second story in and of itself the plot line was easy to follow and it gave a clear definition of what you were seeing in your head. There were, however, too many characters and they were not told where they all came from. Sometimes they would just pop up in the middle of a scene or at the end of a scene without any indication that they were there for any part of what was going on.
I did find myself, in some small fashion, loving Elizabeth for her feelings towards Gregory, but I have always been a sucker for a love story. Gregory in his own fashion was like alot of men I have had the pleasure of knowing, falling in and out of love easily. I also liked how the saurs where in a way protecting some of the knowledge that they have, it seemed almost like as the saying goes, too much knowledge in the wrong hands, kind of thing. I loved the fact that the two of them were Biologists, it was wonderful to have a book get into the scientific side of nature, and the world around them.
All in all I believe I would read the rest of the series just to see if the story gets any better or if it continues along the same lines as it left us.

Slow Beginning

This book's progression is kind of slow, not Stephen King slow thankfully but still pretty sluggish. I rather liked Matt Cairns' side of the story better since his had some more action to it earlier on, and who doesn't love reading about an outlaw rebelling against a corrupt government? That, and Jadey seems to be hot too LOL. Earlier I mentioned that dinosaurs should not smoke pot because we don't want them to be more hungry, but now I see another problem with that as well. Okay sure, it would be a bit much to expect Cheech and Chong level of comedy there but the pot-smoking aspect of this story doesn't bring any laughs to the table at all, and that's so wrong. I hope things pick up soon, introducing a new antagonist to the story would help. We already have the commies but that's not original, they've always been the bad guys. Also, in regard to Gregor falling in love with Lydia, I must add that he appears to be totally whipped and that's funny, LMAO!

The stories converge

Cosmonaut Keep's two story-lines converge over the course of the last two thirds of the book, concluding with the last chapter of the book remaining in Matt Cairns first person perspective instead of switching to the third person perspective that the far future chapters have always been written in up to that point. The path that the convergence takes is interesting because it covers why the crew of the Bright Star showed up at Mingulay and explains much more about the culture of the saurs. I think that the deeper insight into saur and kraken cultures that the book provides as it gets closer to the end is important for understanding how everything fits together but is also partly to maintain the balance between the near and far future aspects. The book definitely has a much faster pace for the last two thirds but at the same time seems to scramble for things to keep it going. If the author (Ken Macleod) wanted to provide fewer details the book could have easily been 100 or so pages shorter. Another aspect that fewer details would have provided is that the mystery and imagination that is persistent for the first eight chapters would have remained. To put it simply, there is less material that encourages enthusiastic discussion in the last two thirds of the book.

This book made me dream that Denver was invaded by Communists.

I think the most poignant, yet the most subtle thing about Cosmonaut Keep has to be the idea of contrast that Macleod weaves into, well, everything. In Matt's chapters there are multitudes of "x vs. y" all over the place; in one of the previous blog posts someone mentioned Yanks vs. Communists, but there's also old vs. new - specifically pertaining to the geeks (who I loved, but more later). The nature of information is cleverly hidden away in the Microsoft vs. Linux jokes (the boot up screen with Tux was awesome and exactly what I'd want from an author from the UK: cheeky snark) and though this idea starts out light hearted in those chapters, it does evolve gradually and carry over into Gregor's story in a very important way. 

The problems that are posed by the lapsing of time during space travel or what have you are present in equally subtle ways; Elizabeth's hunt for a dress and inner reflection about the history presented by the available options was a wonderful way to illustrate the ways that the future culture has both fallen behind and advanced, equally. 

Also, Macleod's take on how information and technology are going to change culture, in the nearer future portions of the book, is well done and believable. So much of the literature commonly accepted to be the great stuff is grounded on information or idea revolutions and given that science fiction as a genre, typically at least, is based on grand interpretations of what those shake-ups will involve, it is surprising that more science fiction works are not viewed with a bit more respect. Macleod crafts his version(s) of what is in store for us as a race rather well. 

Ending could have been better

Compaired to the first 100 and more pages, the book didn't turn out half bad, infact it did get better the deeper I got into the book, unfortantly the ending could have been alot better, and I wouldn't have minded to read 100 more pages for it to make more sense. The ending just happened and that was it, it was kind of like the Golden Compass movie...it just stopped. Which is the dumbest thing since sliced bread that people can actually get away with a half ass ending.
at the same time, I know there are more books, but I am not planning on reading them, and I think it is really retarded to read one book from a series and not read the rest.
But it is all good, I can just forget I ever read the book once we start a new one.

The End,

Well, I have to say I enjoyed the rest of this book, it was able to draw me into it to wonder what was going on with every single one of the characters, after I figured out that Gregor and Matt were distant relatives it was also much more enjoyable.

I actually found myself rooting for Gregor and Elizabeth, which is not something I usually do, since the romance is sort of secondary to me usually; this time I was able to follow it. One thing I still don't really get is how the Krakens piloted the spaceships? Would anyone care to explain? I mean the picture on the cover seems sort of interesting but that was a bit confusing for me.

The whole political issue was true to life in my opinion, the Commies vs. Yanks is a sad but true reality even in that future. I also liked the quiet tension that build up while Salasso was in trouble; it was almost too civilized for saurs, I almost expected to see some fighting, but it would have gone against their own quiet nature, even so I appreciated that the author also had them insulting humans, they're not perfect after all.

I would actually like to know more of what happened in Matt's life and it would have been nice to see how they actually managed to survive after the jump; regardless, I enjoyed the book better than the first hundred pages, I am not sure what that translates to, if it's "hey the beginning sucked but the end was decent" or something along those lines, I think the first third was bad but the other two-thirds made up for it.

And those are my opinions, it's not Ender's Game or The Foundation, but it was new and I like reading new things :D.

Let's Define Terms!!

Steve has made an excellent point - not all of us are wholly familiar with some of the terms that we have used in class (ie: space opera, cyber punk) so let's see if we can make a group effort to define some of those terms. Please comment with further definitions, and what said definitions mean to you, especially if your view differs from the wikipedia definition.

Wikipedia defines "space opera" as: "a subgenre of speculative fiction or science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing powerful (and sometimes quite fanciful) technologies and abilities. Perhaps the most significant trait of space opera is that settings, characters, battles, powers, and themes tend to be very large-scale."

Wikipedia defines "cyber punk" as: "a science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is derived from cybernetics and punk and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983, although the style was popularized well before its publication by editor Gardner Dozois. It features advanced science, such as informational technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order."

Cosmonaut's Keep OR "At Least It's Not an Anne Rice Inspired Vampire Love Story."

I know that what I'm about to say I say entirely from personal prejudices and, essentially, for no good reason. But I really hate romance stories woven into sci-fi. It feels so damned nerdy. Even in Hyperion, the first scifi I read with an arguably fleshed out romantic story (several romances actually [with surprise sex scenes and turgid members ambushing you at the flanks. I thought I was reading scifi! Surprise! It's really a story about swollen and throbbing orifices and accessories!]), but even then I kind of had to look away and prepare myself to shut and hide the book at a moment's notice if someone were to walk in the room, so that I wouldn't have to explain to them what I was really doing. I mean, I doubt I'm the only person that can't not help but think of Kirk and Moon Babe 5 whenever the topic of romance pops up in scifi.

Unless of course the story is built around love, such as the Fountain, where the entire thing would not happen if it weren't for love. And I don't get that feeling with Cosmonaut's Keep. Maybe it really is, and I'll find out that she has the missing half of the golden amulet (not really in the story), or that she's secretly a robot squid sent to deliver Ultimate Illumination to all the poor slovenly human folk. But I don't really get that feeling.

So, that's not really all of the book. In fact, it's split in twain, as it were. One half in the year 2050ish (estimating to the nearest ish) where some slick, and no doubt sexy, hacker types are up their asses in uncovering a government cover up involving aliens and the such. There's a kind of love story here. It makes me feel less embarrassed to read, mostly because it doesn't have some (maybe?) hard and grizzled sailor (kind of?) guy gently caressing the small of a girl's back, and then the narration waxing poetically about the duality of feeling safe on a cliff's edge ad nausea. But the hacker one is pretty interesting. And I always feel happy when I get to read a chapter of it.

Then there's the whole Mingulay thing. Fuck (I'm ensuring I earn this R rating) if I know what's happening there. I think I could only as of page 100, and because of page 100 exclusively, give you a coherent idea of what's happening: this guy and his grandpa (I think. Might be an uncle) are SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! charting a course from their planet to... some... other... place (end spoiler? I guess.)? Using maybe like, a kind of old spaceship that's just been, you know, hanging out. I don't really know. At first I thought the main character was James in this story, and his wife Margaret, mainly because the book opened with them. And then there's something about krakens and clinging tenaciously to their cephalopodal bosoms like barnacles as a substitute for space travel. And then there's pot smoking dinosaurs. The pot thing is all the rage and oh so funny, but I think it's pretty dumb. Sure, you could argue that the pot makes them self reflective, and that's one of their favorite states, but it still seems like there's really no good reason to include pot specifically. It mostly just seems the author thought he would be clever and risqué by including it in his book. He might as well of had them smoke babies.

To get back on track, all of a sudden, fuck off James! Don't give two pisses about you! Now it's all about your grandson Gregor and his consuming drive to... meander. And hit on chicks at parties. Well, mostly just one.

So, I understand that as an author you don't want to tip your hand all at once. You don't want to open up the big with a big lengthy monologue that explains all of why everything is, because then there's nothing left for the big reveal, when I as the reader go, “oh, I get it! It was the nanny!” and the big reveal is really important. But at the same time, going out of your way to not mention stuff is pretty lame, and hella confusing. Also, love story = dumb. But thankfully there has been nothing turgid. Yet.

I also imagine that as this guy (Macleod) starts to actually flesh out the things he's been vaguely not telling us, I'll like the far future stuff as much as the cyber hacker stuff. But until then, this guy's on some thin ice.

Sincerely,
Cuyler

Alan Lorditch's the story so far

From the first 100 pages I can see that the author had many ideas for this book and couldn't decide on a space opera or a cyber punk so he made it both. I think it was pretty clever the way he got his sci fi sub-genre fixes by having the story periodically switch between the mid-21st century(Matt Cairns) and who knows when(Gregor Cairns)
Also the idea of pot smoking dinosaurs is probably the most whimsical concept I have ever seen in a sci-fi book. The idea of dinosaurs and other now extinct critters existing in Gregor's world is pretty cool even if scientifically unlikely.
I also like the idea of Krakens piloting ships awesome (hi-ho Kraken!!)
The thought of the reds taking over Europe is kind of unpleasant though, as is the thought of the U.S. still being dependant on oil.

Glass Half...Something

As i started reading Cosmonaut Keep, i found myself a little lost. my initial confusion was soon put to rest with the understanding that, Yes, it's two different time periods. that understanding then forced me to do something i try not to do with any sci-fi novel, and that is that i tried to predict the ending. To try and predict the ending of a book that has 2 completely separated story lines, means that you have to find the connections between the story lines. As far as i have read in the book so far, i really cant find any ideas that will clue me into how this book will turn out.

That creates two completely different feelings. The first, is that the book is wasting my time. its like reading two different writers. the story in the past is engaging, exciting, and very well described. the time period is one that is easy to relate to, and is very reminiscent of Orwell's 1984. This is completely set back by the second story line, taking place hundreds of years into the future, on a different planet. the writing is rather vague, but only on facts. The alien race that is still a mystery, even to the people who have spent generations living with them, have not been given any real solid physical description. every now and then a little fact will be dropped about what they eat, or the shape of their head, or an activity they enjoy. but no real background has been given. this is rather infuriating. how do you lose the ability to travel between the stars, all the while, you are still traveling between the stars? what happened to earth? why was The Bright Star abandoned? i am sure that these all will be answered in the end, or at least i hope.

My other aforementioned feeling is that of anticipation. the author has created a mystery on top of a mystery. i have the feeling that the story will become clear when the past story line becomes clear. kind of a "discover the past to understand the future".

i will keep this blog brief simply because there would be too much speculation without real understanding if i kept going, but all i can say is that this book has all kinds of potential, and potential isn't always a positive thing. some things have the potential to suck.

excuse the lack of capitalization, the computer for some reason doesn't it to heppen, so i am not fighting it.

My thoughts about the book until now.

Note: I am assuming this is to be a blog with our opinions/reflections about the book, if it's not, comment or something.

If I had to be honest I would have to say I dislike the book, however, if I had to be completely honest, the good points of the book are lost within its pages.

Initially the attribute that caught my attention was the alliteration within the paragraphs, which in the preceding content quite honestly annoyed me; some alliteration is good, almost fun, but persistent attempts at tongue-twisting my brain were not so witty in my mind. An example, of course, follows:

"Trilobites and ostracoderms, mostly, with a silvery smattering of teleostean fish, a slimy slither of sea-slugs, and crusty clusters of shelled moluscs ..." (pg 3)

At the moment I cannot find the other example in a few paragraphs later, nevertheless someone else can do it for me if they want.
Having said the above, I want to now focus on constructive parts of the book, ideas that should have been expanded, and some questions I have for whoever is reading this and wishes to answer.

Something very amusing to me was the relevance to what is called Legacy code/programmers/systems. In short, Legacy basically means "Old", so in our times, Legacy code would be something written in COBOL, I am assuming in the time set in the book, they mean C++ or Perl. Just as amusing was the way some of those old programmers acted, which is based on our times as well, how they subscribed to a fanatic sense of almost worship for Windows, Linux, or the Mac OS, or all of them is true today and in the book.

Additionally, the references to scientific definitions such as the quantum pool, the pH levels, and electrical potentials (or voltage) were enjoyable but could have been lost to the reader who isn't into science.
The way Macleod sees the future and past (although still essentially the future) is much more personal than perhaps someone who is not him could see; this is of course the case with any author, but I believe the job of a writer is to help the reader see what she/he sees through their eyes. I think that he has some sound ideas, but the reading is difficult to follow in some places because of the amount of information given and the lack of the same with other things such as the saurs; to me saurs imply reptilian in appearance, although they seem to have hands, the lack of "dino" makes me think of dinosaurs but not really. However, he could have done a better job at describing them, unless he wanted them to be as quiet and unseemingly non-present as their own character is described in the book.

The latter brings me to my questions, does the author seem to have something against a Social Democracy? Or is that his view of how humanity will progress politically? Also, is it implied that they smoke/do drugs/etc because they have the medical expertise to elongate life anyway? So they don't care, or is humanity just very indulging to begin with?

Those are my questions and my opinions about the book, it is actually getting increasingly easier to follow and even a bit more interesting, so I shall see what happens.

wow.....pot smoking lizards....pretty cool

Well It did take me a few chapters to understand that one story was in the past while the other was set in the future....I didn't read the back until much later. But so far everything seems pertty cool...like the small hope of love that Elizabeth has for Gregor is kinda intresting..she just didn't seem like the kind of woman who would be intrested in a man like that, and the fact that he is completely smitten for her, but totally goes for another chick..men. I do like Matt's story better, it seems a bit more intresting mostly because the action happened almost immedently.
Over all so far the book is cool, but sort of slow....I haven't read enough to get to the conncetion between them, but I have an idea.

Cosmonaut Keep (Lessons in Temporal Displacement) *no real spoilers*

When reading Cosmonaut Keep, there are many concepts that pique my interest. The Quasi-Orwellian Earth of just-a-few-decades-from-now, and the alien world of Mingulay. The characters of each are (for the most part) interesting, as are their histories. However, it is the technology of Cosmonaut Keep that fascinates, or rather, the tech of interstellar travel.

The concept of space travel in Cosmonaut Keep is one based solely in relativity, e.g., while to those on the ship a journey from point A to point B will seem instantaneous, it will be tens to hundreds of years to those at point A and B, depending on where those points lie. This, as one saur suggests to the descendants of the Cosmonauts, lets the ships act as one way time machines,
allowing someone to jump into their planet's future. However, the unfortunate affect is of course that once someone leaves on a star ship, they might as well be gone forever (which, by the way, is the only sympathetic aspect of the Elizabeth-Gregor-Lydia triangle, as otherwise they might as well be torn from one of those cheesy romance novels that the vendors of Mingulay are so careful to keep tucked under the stand). And upon returning to your home world after a star-faring journey, you are probably going to be in for quite a culture-shock.

This concept is furthered by the fantastic way the novel jumps time periods, and how it slowly reveals how one time-line will eventually meet the other. This time distortion is somewhat similar to what early Earth explorers and merchants likely experienced when they returned home after prolonged journeys. While yes, they will be aware of time passed, they would have almost (if not any) idea of what had been happening in their homelands. And during feudal times, this could mean an entirely different world waiting for them, and sometimes, they would not always be welcomed back.

It is concepts and ideas like these that keep me absorbed in Cosmonaut Keep, no so much any one character or plotline, although the story back on Earth is really picking up around pg. 120.

-Dan

Why did we let this book get published!!!

The first part of this book was to say at the least dry dull and utterly a boring mess. There was little in the way of good writing;good writing being that witch conveys emotional responses or made you love, hate, or feel for in anyway, for the character. If this was truly a book worth its weight then any or all of those would have been present. The Saurs were not described in away to make you go "I can believe that". All you really get for the best of description is on pg4-5 when talking about Salasso for the first time. This was worse then some of the works I have read of high school freshmen. I'm not even sure you could call this a work of literature. I would more likely read a trashy romance novel then a book by this man ever again.

So before i get my self in anymore trouble because I know if I yell more about this book someone will yell and bitch back to me. So I will leave this first blog at this my thoughts.

Madwonderland's Ravings

Cosmonaut Keep (to chapter 8)

The first three sentences really set the mood for this book: a state of limbo between dualities. This dreamy quality flows through the book but never quite so clearly as it does in the beginning.

"You're not here. Try to remember this. Try not to remember where you really are."

Reading the book from this perspective leaves you as an outside observer to what is happening but draws you away from your own reality pushing you into a place that is not "here" in the book or "here" in the real world. It shifts you into a place that is not the near or far future but instead an undefined middle ground. A place where things proceed in familiar ways but with an alien feel.

Looking at the far future, saurs (pot smoking lizard aliens) present the feeling of slow wisdom, quietly learning and allowing the impetuous youth to create their own new mistakes to learn from. Perhaps the saurs are a representation of a middle age species watching over the ambitious, young human species and learning from their differences. Krakens, from the few glimpses we are given from the perspectives of human and saur, indicate the are the ancient species that can frolic and travel as they wish. They can do so because they have already made their youthful mistakes, gone through their slow acquisition of knowledge and can finally use what they have learned to enjoy themselves and their prosperity.

The duality is in the not so distant future where we are given a view of humanity having more difficulty because of their technology and complicated ways pushing them around in ways that the seemingly low tech existence in the far future avoids entirely. The society of humans in the near future is a complex web of distrust and deception that uses technology for everything. This near future uses virtual reality and artificial intelligences to deal with information and even the dust in certain areas is technologically advanced to deter electronic listening in to conversations. This reliance on technology influences the actions of everyone in these sections of the story. The sections that take place in the far future, by contrast, still have some technology but they use it only when absolutely necessary so it has almost no effect on their daily lives. The humans in the far future don't even use calculators to help them with the math required for their great project of re-using a star ship (that was created by humans) so that they may be able to travel independently of the krakens. These things may change as the book progresses and I look forward to finding out.