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?)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I'm all for information being free, though some should carry a warning with it indicating whether or not it's "hot" (as in it could get you in deep shit just knowing it). I mean seriously, on the 'net what real work do information providers actually do in order to earn our money anyway? Not much as far as I can see, but I'm not a computer geek so I'm probably missing something.
"You are in a twisty maze of passages, all of them alike" is pretty much how i felt.
I liked the geeky references too, but I think the whole thing about information being free is something that also made me want to read the book more.
I don't know if I want to read the rest of the series though, but I actually might pick up the books since the saur city was interesting to me.
Post a Comment