Radiance

by Carter Scholz

Born from the threat of nuclear weapons comes a program to build an impenetrable defense against them. The technical obstacles are enormous, the costs exorbitant, and the results dubious. Philip Quine didn't come to the Lab to work on weapons, but his expertise with X-rays leads him to Superbright, in theory an orbital battle-station to shoot down missiles, in reality little more than spotty test data. Superbright is only the beginning, as Quine is drawn further away from the pure physics he set out to do and deeper into the machinations of those who would use the Lab for their own monetary or ideological advantage. Radiance is a brilliant and entertaining exposé of the way in which the bright hopes and fond dreams of talented scientists are turned on the grindstone of political expediency until all that remains are the rough deceptions of self and nation.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published February 9, 2002

About the author

Carter Scholz (né Robert Carter Scholz) is a speculative fiction author and composer of music.

(wikipedia)

Reviews

[Bart · Rating 5 out of 5]

(...)

Thematically, Scholz pairs a character that is realistic and sees human politics for what it is – inevitable, Machiavellian, out of control, conflicted – and one that is naive, in search for truth. But in the novel – as in life – truth is problematic, as even smart men can’t agree. It is not much of a spoiler to say the tragedy of Quine is that he eventually makes ‘moral’ mistakes like Highet too. Yet, morality is in the eye of the beholder, and while Scholz has written an indicting, political book, it steers clear of easy judgements or finger pointing. Democratic oversight is very hard to get right, and bureaucracy unavoidable. Decisions are “taken in the absolute vacuum of procedure and contingency”, and humans have complex, differing motivations. We all need to eat.

(...)

Full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry, couldn't get through it. The weird way the author chose to denote dialog (without using quotation marks) was just too confusing. I constantly found myself reading past the dialog and then realizing the dialog had ended, only to have to go back and reread the paragraph again to figure out what the heck was going on. I have no idea what the point of this was, but once again we see that "weird" is the not the same as "interesting". Some things are the way they are because that's what works best.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conversations interrupted by stream of consciousness in a style unlike anything I've read before. Such a picture of Big Science office politics. Pairs well with Oppenheimer and When We Cease to Understand the World. I'd love to read a version of this book set in more recent times.

[Kathe Koja · Rating 4 out of 5]

RADIANCE is dark, erudite, utterly involving: a contemporary tragedy played out in a lab where the tenets of high science and the living muck of political expedience struggle, and succumb, and rise to struggle again. The human actors - among them fretful, ferocious Leo Highet, stunned and seeking Philip Quine, and the despicable, unforgettable Dan Root, spiritual twin of Cormac McCarthy's Judge Holden - find or make or lose their way, again and again, as those powers they serve or flee seek to turn them into pure pawns in a larger and more terrible game, one without a human end.

This novel is nothing like light reading: it rewards your full attention, respects your intelligence, and repays rereading, to receive everything the story has to give.

[J.C. · Rating 1 out of 5]

the worst book i ever read, the worst book i ever finished. after reading this book I instituted the 80 page rule... If it sucks after page 80 we stop reading it.

[Suhrob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely wonderful!

A few years ago I've read Gustersson's A Pedagogy of Diminishing Returns and Radiance is essentially a dramatization of this fascinating ethnography (and much more).

The writing, especially the dialogues are simply impeccable.

The only thing I wished was to have more scenes with Reti (=Teller). Scholz is fantastically capturing the dynamics of interactions with an orders of magnitude larger intellectual giant, with all the quirks, dangers and dark ambitions - seen in its un-embellished lucidity.

As a fallen scientist many passages were hurting (not to put myself anywhere near to the brilliance of the people here or the height of the stakes.)

Unsettling, fascinating and excellently written!

Thank's to Gwern for making this available.
Also read his writing on this book, they are excellent.

[Aaron Gertler · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 when read on its own, 4.5 when read with Gwern's annotations. Extremely dense memoir-novel about wasted defense spending and the perils of moon-shot science. Tells a sad, true, and important story, but sometimes gets in its own way with a superabundance of allusions and commentary on American life in the early Nineties.

[Chelsea · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a headache to read. There is (I think) a really interesting concept in there somewhere but finding it is like digging through a scrap pile of half-finished sentences and run-on paragraphs. I probably missed important plot points because I skipped chunks of text just out of annoyance. And then 380 pages later it ends with a wet flop. Clearly some people like this style of writing but I did not.

[Huera · Rating 5 out of 5]

As many have remarked, the way dialogue is written is quite flawed. I can think of a scene where the confusion created by it was a net gain for the book, but in general, it is somewhat annoying — but not a huge deal, all in all. Ignoring the stylistic choices, I was pretty impressed with how naturalistic the dialogue feels — people interrupt each other all the time, change their minds mid-sentence. Honestly, I don’t remember ever encountering dialogue that would feel so realistic. The naturalistic feeling is omnipresent — when Quine becomes director his workday is pandemonium from dawn till dusk. He’s constantly late to meetings, people barge into his office with no appointment, figurative skeletons constantly falling out of closets. Also, having Highet brazenly break traffic laws is such a brilliant piece of characterization.

I was also pretty impressed with how well the author can convey a visceral sense of loss and regret. It’s there in Highet’s POV as well, but especially in Quine’s. That one scene with Reti deserves mention too.

Highet:

He had a picture of himself then. Twenty years ago in Geneva. The Soviet delegate looking at him in disbelief as he said what everyone there knew: [...] And then the awful silence in which he knew that he had ruined himself. In that silence he had learned how disliked he was. No one stood up for him, no one attempted to cover for him. That silence followed him as he walked afterward by the lake, with the swans gliding by, followed him through his years of penance and obscurity in the Lab’s temporary trailers as he slowly reconstructed his career, working on deadwood projects no one wanted, through years of swallowed pride and cagey maneuvering, the silence that could be covered only by doing and more doing, and it was here now, as they all looked at him, saying nothing. He was as alone and unprotected as he had ever been, like his father when the hammer had fallen on him. And in that silence he heard that temptation of a stillness in which doing might cease

Reti:

"So when this Lab started, I be­came di­rec­tor, be­cause I had no com­pe­ti­tion. I was the best of those who re­mained. The best of not the very best, do you see? I had won by a for­feit. My friends were no longer my friends. Now I talked with gen­er­als and sen­a­tors, to whom physics was a magic trick. To whom I was a magus. That was my com­pen­sa­tion. Nobel prizes for Bohr⁠, Wigner⁠, Ein­stein⁠, Lawrence⁠, Fermi⁠, Urey⁠, Rabi⁠, Bethe⁠, Bloch⁠. For me, the ear of gen­er­als and Pres­i­dents. Now you know some­thing I never told even my good friend Leo Highet. Some­thing I am maybe a lit­tle ashamed of. So that you will un­der­stand what this place is to me."

Quine:

–…every day it’s like, like waking up from a, a long sleep, to a world where things have, have gone on without me and I don’t know how I got here, what day it is, how much time has passed, everything I’ll never, never recover, all that loss, every day I wake up that way and every day the hope for, for something else gets smaller, and I have nothing, just nothing…

In general, Scholz is simply great at creating psychological portraits, even with side-characters like Nan or the (comedic relief?) Kihara.

The author is impressively erudite, and the themes considered are truly worthy of capital-L Literature. I don’t have much to add to this, so I won’t.

I read the Gwern’s annotated version, and the reading experience was enhanced by at least a star. The convenience of Wikipedia links in the text is pretty nice too. And how can you not love the footnotes when one of them starts with: “If this seems im­pos­si­bly over the top as satire, con­sider [...]”?

[Joshua]

Read this online at http://www.gwern.net/docs/2002-radiance

Awesome—did a great job of evoking life at the National Labs, and Livermore in particular. The interrupted-conversation bits are hard to read, but it is clear what is going on. I really enjoyed this one.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome book, brought to my attention by The Quarterly Conversation.