Thursday, December 28, 2006
Book Review - This Alien Shore
This Alien Shore, by C.S. Friedman – unrated. This was an amazing book, with one fatal flaw that prevents me from assigning a score out of 10: extensive use of the “f-word” by one of the central characters. If not for the bad language, I would say that this was the best science fiction book I’ve read in years, and possibly one of the top 10 science fiction books I’ve ever read—as befits a book by the author of the Coldfire trilogy that I enjoyed so much.
There were several interesting ideas going on in this book; I’ll highlight a few:
* “brainware” – computer interfacing directly with the brain plays a huge role in the book.
* computer programming – the way futuristic computer programming is presented was very interesting, and two of the major characters are computer programmers (one legit, one a hacker). Basically, it involves tracing patterns, creating independent subroutines, tracking other peoples’ programs through the net, etc. But much more interestingly than my description!
* a diaspora – in this future world, Earth sent out colonies which got cut off from the mother world. When contact with Earth was lost (prior to this book), some of these colonies banded together; some got lost. When contact was reestablished (also prior to this book), Earth is practically the “bad guy”. This book was written entirely away from Earth.
* different “variants” – the reason why contact with Earth was lost, is that Earth discovered that the initial space travel had left the travelers genetically altered, making “variants” on the basic human DNA. Thus the colonies have unique traits—some good, some bad, some neither—and some are so different as to practically be different species.
* the Guild monopoly on space travel – the much plot line involves a group attempting to break the monopoly on space travel possessed by the “Guild”. Reminded me a bit of Dune, in that sense.
* the “anniq” – the reason why the monopoly exists, is to travel large distances, people must use a worm-hole like thing called an “anniq”. Inside the anniq, however, are powerful creatures which attack travelers—so only those pilots who can sense the creatures and avoid them are able to traverse the anniq. Such pilots are tightly controlled by the Guild—hence the monopoly.
Again, it was a great book, except the language. Sadly, I can’t recommend it.
There were several interesting ideas going on in this book; I’ll highlight a few:
* “brainware” – computer interfacing directly with the brain plays a huge role in the book.
* computer programming – the way futuristic computer programming is presented was very interesting, and two of the major characters are computer programmers (one legit, one a hacker). Basically, it involves tracing patterns, creating independent subroutines, tracking other peoples’ programs through the net, etc. But much more interestingly than my description!
* a diaspora – in this future world, Earth sent out colonies which got cut off from the mother world. When contact with Earth was lost (prior to this book), some of these colonies banded together; some got lost. When contact was reestablished (also prior to this book), Earth is practically the “bad guy”. This book was written entirely away from Earth.
* different “variants” – the reason why contact with Earth was lost, is that Earth discovered that the initial space travel had left the travelers genetically altered, making “variants” on the basic human DNA. Thus the colonies have unique traits—some good, some bad, some neither—and some are so different as to practically be different species.
* the Guild monopoly on space travel – the much plot line involves a group attempting to break the monopoly on space travel possessed by the “Guild”. Reminded me a bit of Dune, in that sense.
* the “anniq” – the reason why the monopoly exists, is to travel large distances, people must use a worm-hole like thing called an “anniq”. Inside the anniq, however, are powerful creatures which attack travelers—so only those pilots who can sense the creatures and avoid them are able to traverse the anniq. Such pilots are tightly controlled by the Guild—hence the monopoly.
Again, it was a great book, except the language. Sadly, I can’t recommend it.
# posted by John Colton @ 8:55 AM 
