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Total Eclipse
In 2020, an international space team, exploring Sigma Draconis, 19 light years from earth, discovers the remains of a highly advanced society that has left behind as its most spectacular artifact the largest telescope imaginable, carved & polished from a natural moon crater. Successive space crews determine that the native culture evolved & disappeared mysteriously after a mere 3000 years of existence. It's now 2028. Another mission reaches the planet with just one goal--to discover why the civilization disappeared--& with just one hope--that this knowledge will prevent the same thing from happening on earth.
Exhibiting that rare sense of sf mystery that distinguished Arthur C. Clarke's 2001, John Brunner weaves a haunting tale of how 30 people attack the nearly insuperable task of unriddling the mysteries of a long-buried culture. Was it a fatal virus, an internecine war, a religion of lunatic brutality or a deleterious mutation that destroyed an entire civilization? All remains hypothesis until Ian Macauley unravels the riddle. But does it provide a solution to human problems & will the answer reach earth in time?
Exhibiting that rare sense of sf mystery that distinguished Arthur C. Clarke's 2001, John Brunner weaves a haunting tale of how 30 people attack the nearly insuperable task of unriddling the mysteries of a long-buried culture. Was it a fatal virus, an internecine war, a religion of lunatic brutality or a deleterious mutation that destroyed an entire civilization? All remains hypothesis until Ian Macauley unravels the riddle. But does it provide a solution to human problems & will the answer reach earth in time?
187 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
20 people are currently reading
644 people want to read
About the author
John Brunner
573 books477 followersJohn Brunner was born in Preston Crowmarsh, near Wallingford in Oxfordshire, and went to school at St Andrew's Prep School, Pangbourne, then to Cheltenham College. He wrote his first novel, Galactic Storm, at 17, and published it under the pen-name Gill Hunt, but he did not start writing full-time until 1958. He served as an officer in the Royal Air Force from 1953 to 1955, and married Marjorie Rosamond Sauer on 12 July 1958
At the beginning of his writing career Brunner wrote conventional space opera pulp science fiction. Brunner later began to experiment with the novel form. His 1968 novel "Stand on Zanzibar" exploits the fragmented organizational style John Dos Passos invented for his USA trilogy, but updates it in terms of the theory of media popularised by Marshall McLuhan.
"The Jagged Orbit" (1969) is set in a United States dominated by weapons proliferation and interracial violence, and has 100 numbered chapters varying in length from a single syllable to several pages in length. "The Sheep Look Up" (1972) depicts ecological catastrophe in America. Brunner is credited with coining the term "worm" and predicting the emergence of computer viruses in his 1975 novel "The Shockwave Rider", in which he used the term to describe software which reproduces itself across a computer network. Together with "Stand on Zanzibar", these novels have been called the "Club of Rome Quartet", named after the Club of Rome whose 1972 report The Limits to Growth warned of the dire effects of overpopulation.
Brunner's pen names include K. H. Brunner, Gill Hunt, John Loxmith, Trevor Staines, Ellis Quick, Henry Crosstrees Jr., and Keith Woodcott.
In addition to his fiction, Brunner wrote poetry and many unpaid articles in a variety of publications, particularly fanzines, but also 13 letters to the New Scientist and an article about the educational relevance of science fiction in Physics Education. Brunner was an active member of the organisation Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and wrote the words to "The H-Bomb's Thunder", which was sung on the Aldermaston Marches.
Brunner had an uneasy relationship with British new wave writers, who often considered him too American in his settings and themes. He attempted to shift to a more mainstream readership in the early 1980s, without success. Before his death, most of his books had fallen out of print. Brunner accused publishers of a conspiracy against him, although he was difficult to deal with (his wife had handled his publishing relations before she died).[2]
Brunner's health began to decline in the 1980s and worsened with the death of his wife in 1986. He remarried, to Li Yi Tan, on 27 September 1991. He died of a heart attack in Glasgow on 25 August 1995, while attending the World Science Fiction Convention there
aka
K H Brunner, Henry Crosstrees Jr, Gill Hunt (with Dennis Hughes and E C Tubb), John Loxmith, Trevor Staines, Keith Woodcott
Winner of the ESFS Awards in 1980 as "Best Author" and 1n 1984 as "Novelist"..
At the beginning of his writing career Brunner wrote conventional space opera pulp science fiction. Brunner later began to experiment with the novel form. His 1968 novel "Stand on Zanzibar" exploits the fragmented organizational style John Dos Passos invented for his USA trilogy, but updates it in terms of the theory of media popularised by Marshall McLuhan.
"The Jagged Orbit" (1969) is set in a United States dominated by weapons proliferation and interracial violence, and has 100 numbered chapters varying in length from a single syllable to several pages in length. "The Sheep Look Up" (1972) depicts ecological catastrophe in America. Brunner is credited with coining the term "worm" and predicting the emergence of computer viruses in his 1975 novel "The Shockwave Rider", in which he used the term to describe software which reproduces itself across a computer network. Together with "Stand on Zanzibar", these novels have been called the "Club of Rome Quartet", named after the Club of Rome whose 1972 report The Limits to Growth warned of the dire effects of overpopulation.
Brunner's pen names include K. H. Brunner, Gill Hunt, John Loxmith, Trevor Staines, Ellis Quick, Henry Crosstrees Jr., and Keith Woodcott.
In addition to his fiction, Brunner wrote poetry and many unpaid articles in a variety of publications, particularly fanzines, but also 13 letters to the New Scientist and an article about the educational relevance of science fiction in Physics Education. Brunner was an active member of the organisation Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and wrote the words to "The H-Bomb's Thunder", which was sung on the Aldermaston Marches.
Brunner had an uneasy relationship with British new wave writers, who often considered him too American in his settings and themes. He attempted to shift to a more mainstream readership in the early 1980s, without success. Before his death, most of his books had fallen out of print. Brunner accused publishers of a conspiracy against him, although he was difficult to deal with (his wife had handled his publishing relations before she died).[2]
Brunner's health began to decline in the 1980s and worsened with the death of his wife in 1986. He remarried, to Li Yi Tan, on 27 September 1991. He died of a heart attack in Glasgow on 25 August 1995, while attending the World Science Fiction Convention there
aka
K H Brunner, Henry Crosstrees Jr, Gill Hunt (with Dennis Hughes and E C Tubb), John Loxmith, Trevor Staines, Keith Woodcott
Winner of the ESFS Awards in 1980 as "Best Author" and 1n 1984 as "Novelist"..
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
June 29, 2020
DAW collectors #162
Cover Artist: Christopher Foss.
Alternate Names: K. Houston Brunner, Kilian Houston Brunner,, Henry Crosstrees, Jr., Gill Hunt, John Loxmith, Ellis Quick, Trevor Staines, Keith Woodcott.
Set in the early 21st century, the story details the amazing discoveries being made at an archaeological dig on Sigma Draconis III, which, it seems, was populated by an enigmatic race of aliens who evolved from primitivism to technological genius in a scant 3000-year period, only to vanish mysteriously leaving exactly one each of a myriad of artifacts behind. As the novel opens, a fresh team of scientists is arriving at the mystery shrouded world from an Earth plagued by war and strife. Along for the ride is a profoundly paranoid Bolivian military general, who has been sent along by an equally paranoid U.N. to make sure that the scientists are not in fact digging up some amazing ancient alien weaponry with the intent of unleashing it upon the less well defended nations of their home world. The general, and the whole subplot, are as richly silly as anything out of one of those low-rent 1950's B-movies you often used to see on the late and lamented Mystery Science Theatre 3000. But oddly, he excuses himself from the proceedings after the first 60 pages or so, depriving the story of its clearest source of conflict and leaving us, for the most part, with lots of exposition and speculation coming from a stereo typically culturally diverse yet blandly homogeneous cast of Idealistic Scientists.
Cover Artist: Christopher Foss.
Alternate Names: K. Houston Brunner, Kilian Houston Brunner,, Henry Crosstrees, Jr., Gill Hunt, John Loxmith, Ellis Quick, Trevor Staines, Keith Woodcott.
Set in the early 21st century, the story details the amazing discoveries being made at an archaeological dig on Sigma Draconis III, which, it seems, was populated by an enigmatic race of aliens who evolved from primitivism to technological genius in a scant 3000-year period, only to vanish mysteriously leaving exactly one each of a myriad of artifacts behind. As the novel opens, a fresh team of scientists is arriving at the mystery shrouded world from an Earth plagued by war and strife. Along for the ride is a profoundly paranoid Bolivian military general, who has been sent along by an equally paranoid U.N. to make sure that the scientists are not in fact digging up some amazing ancient alien weaponry with the intent of unleashing it upon the less well defended nations of their home world. The general, and the whole subplot, are as richly silly as anything out of one of those low-rent 1950's B-movies you often used to see on the late and lamented Mystery Science Theatre 3000. But oddly, he excuses himself from the proceedings after the first 60 pages or so, depriving the story of its clearest source of conflict and leaving us, for the most part, with lots of exposition and speculation coming from a stereo typically culturally diverse yet blandly homogeneous cast of Idealistic Scientists.
January 12, 2025
It was sheer luck I picked up Total Eclipse. I saw in my GR timeline some folks reading a 1986 book titled "Ringmakers of Saturn" by an ex-NASA guy where the guy apparently explains how an ancient alien species colonized Saturn and blah blah blah. I could not stand debilitating rants by a delusional ex-scientist BUT it planted a seed in me that planted the idea of reading a fictional archaeological sci-fi story.
I had no idea how to find a book on such a specific topic. I turned to ChatGPT, which is a really stupid program when it comes to literature (I swear the thing gave me really odd and inexact info more than once) but this time it appeared to work!
I've never heard of John Brunner before. I don't know if he's well-known or not but he's linked to over 500 books on GR so I guess he is. So I would never think of him.
But it would have been so sad!
This sci-fi story not only fits the theme I was looking for but does fit a fundamental of mine when it comes to aliens: no anthropomorphic and anthropocentric crap. John Brunner here has invented a whole species with entire different charactistics than ours. He came up with new senses, new communication modes, new ways of thinking, etc. He let us in a truly *alien* world in the purest meaning of the word.
I had fun reading about a future that is my present, as the book is set in the 2020s. There's nothing that goes the right way and we see a future that is tinted by the 1970s and the modernity of its time. Everything seems obsolete, cassettes, tapes, machines full of knobs, computers of high technology that are worse than what Gameboys were, etc. ^^
The book is self-contained. Everything we ever get lies in those 200 pages and I feel like there is not a single thing missing for such a short book with so much to cram in.
The only massive flaw of this story is the way women and especially Cathy are depicted 🙄 I guess it's in the vein of the 1970s but still, it's lame.
All in all, if you're not in the mood for a book where nothing happens but scientific experts discussing old artefacts and trying to find answers to the disappearance of an ancient civilization, do not choose this book: you won't find anything other than what it promises.
But it was exactly what I was looking for right now ^^
Total Eclipse is a total surprise and I'm happy I read it!
I had no idea how to find a book on such a specific topic. I turned to ChatGPT, which is a really stupid program when it comes to literature (I swear the thing gave me really odd and inexact info more than once) but this time it appeared to work!
I've never heard of John Brunner before. I don't know if he's well-known or not but he's linked to over 500 books on GR so I guess he is. So I would never think of him.
But it would have been so sad!
This sci-fi story not only fits the theme I was looking for but does fit a fundamental of mine when it comes to aliens: no anthropomorphic and anthropocentric crap. John Brunner here has invented a whole species with entire different charactistics than ours. He came up with new senses, new communication modes, new ways of thinking, etc. He let us in a truly *alien* world in the purest meaning of the word.
I had fun reading about a future that is my present, as the book is set in the 2020s. There's nothing that goes the right way and we see a future that is tinted by the 1970s and the modernity of its time. Everything seems obsolete, cassettes, tapes, machines full of knobs, computers of high technology that are worse than what Gameboys were, etc. ^^
The book is self-contained. Everything we ever get lies in those 200 pages and I feel like there is not a single thing missing for such a short book with so much to cram in.
The only massive flaw of this story is the way women and especially Cathy are depicted 🙄 I guess it's in the vein of the 1970s but still, it's lame.
All in all, if you're not in the mood for a book where nothing happens but scientific experts discussing old artefacts and trying to find answers to the disappearance of an ancient civilization, do not choose this book: you won't find anything other than what it promises.
But it was exactly what I was looking for right now ^^
Total Eclipse is a total surprise and I'm happy I read it!
October 11, 2019
Of all the 'classic' science fiction writers, John Brunner was probably the most variable. At his best - which I would say was The Shockwave Rider - he was great. But equally, quite a few of his novels appear to be dashed off to make a bit of money without a lot of thought. In some ways, Total Eclipse sits somewhere between the two.
It's a book of ideas. The eclipse in the title is not the astronomical version, but rather the eclipse of a civilisation. Earth's one starship makes occasional trips (constrained by budget and politics) to a planet where the remains of a civilisation has been discovered. We follow the latest trip, attempting to make some sense of the baffling remains that have been left behind.
In some ways the attempts to understand the alien remnants are reminiscent of (but far better than) the attempts to decipher alien language in the movie Arrival. Brunner did one of the best jobs I've seen of setting up a genuinely alien culture and the difficulties that xenoarcheologists might have in understanding what they are finding. Although one of the means used to try to get into the mindset of the aliens is downright silly, it's still a genuinely engaging challenge, especially as a kind of parallel emerges with human developments.
The book does have its problems. It's very cold - there is no feeling of engagement with the characters. This is very much an intellectual exercise, and the attempts at building in social interaction feel forced. The presence of a pantomime nasty general in the early pages doesn't help. It also has a couple of issues of feeling dated, particularly around the use of tapes for data and in the programme that it's suggested the aliens undertook - which with our current scientific understanding seems unlikely.
Even so, despite the flaws this is a genuinely interesting book which achieves a far better idea of an alien culture that isn't just a variant on a human one than I have seen elsewhere. Overall, it should be counted as one of Brunner's successes.
It's a book of ideas. The eclipse in the title is not the astronomical version, but rather the eclipse of a civilisation. Earth's one starship makes occasional trips (constrained by budget and politics) to a planet where the remains of a civilisation has been discovered. We follow the latest trip, attempting to make some sense of the baffling remains that have been left behind.
In some ways the attempts to understand the alien remnants are reminiscent of (but far better than) the attempts to decipher alien language in the movie Arrival. Brunner did one of the best jobs I've seen of setting up a genuinely alien culture and the difficulties that xenoarcheologists might have in understanding what they are finding. Although one of the means used to try to get into the mindset of the aliens is downright silly, it's still a genuinely engaging challenge, especially as a kind of parallel emerges with human developments.
The book does have its problems. It's very cold - there is no feeling of engagement with the characters. This is very much an intellectual exercise, and the attempts at building in social interaction feel forced. The presence of a pantomime nasty general in the early pages doesn't help. It also has a couple of issues of feeling dated, particularly around the use of tapes for data and in the programme that it's suggested the aliens undertook - which with our current scientific understanding seems unlikely.
Even so, despite the flaws this is a genuinely interesting book which achieves a far better idea of an alien culture that isn't just a variant on a human one than I have seen elsewhere. Overall, it should be counted as one of Brunner's successes.
July 11, 2023
I really enjoyed this entertaining and heartbreaking alien archaeology mystery. Brunner had some interesting ideas, and even if the execution wasn't always wonderful, it does provide something to think about.
October 4, 2018
A tough one to grade. The author goes to a great extent in an attempt to describe an alien culture where its citizens are blind, deaf and dumb, but communicate everything through magnetic resonances. Unique in some ways which give the novel its science fiction credo, but lackluster in the story which detracts from the total product. In truth, I didn't really begin to enjoy the novel until the second half as the first seemed trivial.
January 26, 2014
Mr. Brunner has a tremendously agile imagination, and while I found much to admire about this absorbing, albeit talky, archaeological mystery on Sigma Draconis, I was a little alienated by the ending; while coolly logical, it was not only extraordinarily bleak, but somehow it also felt rather rushed. And after the glorious Epiphany in the final act, the tale ends somewhat abruptly; and, frankly, as I enjoyed spending time with these obsessive eggheads, it left me on a major bummer; which in all likelihood might well be Brunner's intention!
It was interesting to note how much of this read like an Asimov robot story; a human with a Promethean scientific mind is posed with a seemingly impossible alien conundrum, and yet the socially awkward, stoic logician solves said anomaly with applied scads of vertiginous genius and dogged, deductive reasoning. I also feel that 'Total Eclipse' might either have benefited from being shorter, or, conversely, by Brunner's embellishing it into a decidedly weightier tome; yes, the more I think about it, the final act really needed to be considerably more layered and; all the filigree detail during the unfolding is completely absent at the end; blunt verse; blunter ending!...still a bit narked, really! (Grrrr! it's always dashed annoying when one really digs on 2 thirds of a book, since everything you did genuinely enjoy about the work is tainted by the little that you didn't!)
Also, what gives about the massive telescope, man??? I was eagerly awaiting a brain-freezing 'Monolith' reveal, and...nada, butkiss! THE TELESCOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As they say, one should never judge a book by the size of the telescope on the cover. To whit, in future, I will remain wholly oblivious to all the demonstratively sized hardware emblazoned on crusty old 70's SF novels.
"They, whoever, whatever they were, came to their moon and smoothed and rounded and polished a whole vast crater and made it into the largest telescope imaginable. And they're dead"
Dude?????????
It was interesting to note how much of this read like an Asimov robot story; a human with a Promethean scientific mind is posed with a seemingly impossible alien conundrum, and yet the socially awkward, stoic logician solves said anomaly with applied scads of vertiginous genius and dogged, deductive reasoning. I also feel that 'Total Eclipse' might either have benefited from being shorter, or, conversely, by Brunner's embellishing it into a decidedly weightier tome; yes, the more I think about it, the final act really needed to be considerably more layered and; all the filigree detail during the unfolding is completely absent at the end; blunt verse; blunter ending!...still a bit narked, really! (Grrrr! it's always dashed annoying when one really digs on 2 thirds of a book, since everything you did genuinely enjoy about the work is tainted by the little that you didn't!)
Also, what gives about the massive telescope, man??? I was eagerly awaiting a brain-freezing 'Monolith' reveal, and...nada, butkiss! THE TELESCOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As they say, one should never judge a book by the size of the telescope on the cover. To whit, in future, I will remain wholly oblivious to all the demonstratively sized hardware emblazoned on crusty old 70's SF novels.
"They, whoever, whatever they were, came to their moon and smoothed and rounded and polished a whole vast crater and made it into the largest telescope imaginable. And they're dead"
Dude?????????
January 12, 2022
There are thirty scientists on Sigma Draconis investigating the intelligent life that was once there. Earth has one starship funded by an international fund. In the two years since its last voyage tensions on Earth have increased and this trip may be the last one. A Bolivian general needs to be convinced there are no conspiracies and has the authority to shut everything down. If all goes well ten new scientists will stay and an equal number will return home.
The first few chapters are about whether the project will be shut down or continue. After that it turns into a mystery of what caused the native race to go extinct. Ian is one of the recent arrivals and has a knack for coming up with useful insights. His expertise is in figuring out the language. These Draconians have a different body structure and don't even have the same senses as humans, so understanding them is a challenge.
Good characters, the mystery of why the Draconians died out held my interest, lots of interesting theories brought up and shot down. 3.5 stars. My reasoning for why all the cities were alike would be more like assembly line/cookie cutter, rather than Brunner's they did it perfect the first time, all new cities will be that way from now on, but when he throws out dozens of these conclusions there's bound to be some like that. The epilog could have gone several different ways and he chose one.
The first few chapters are about whether the project will be shut down or continue. After that it turns into a mystery of what caused the native race to go extinct. Ian is one of the recent arrivals and has a knack for coming up with useful insights. His expertise is in figuring out the language. These Draconians have a different body structure and don't even have the same senses as humans, so understanding them is a challenge.
Good characters, the mystery of why the Draconians died out held my interest, lots of interesting theories brought up and shot down. 3.5 stars. My reasoning for why all the cities were alike would be more like assembly line/cookie cutter, rather than Brunner's they did it perfect the first time, all new cities will be that way from now on, but when he throws out dozens of these conclusions there's bound to be some like that. The epilog could have gone several different ways and he chose one.
March 3, 2020
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
"Over the years I’ve deluded myself into becoming a John Brunner completest — around twenty-five of his novels line my shelves and I’ve read most of them over the years. At his best he’s without question one of the great masters of the genre — Stand on Zanzibar (1968), The Sheep Look Up (1972), etc. are evidence of this. However, in-between his social science fiction masterpieces are a plethora of unsatisfying attempts at traditionalist space opera. In these works Brunner never fully leaves his pulp [...]"
"Over the years I’ve deluded myself into becoming a John Brunner completest — around twenty-five of his novels line my shelves and I’ve read most of them over the years. At his best he’s without question one of the great masters of the genre — Stand on Zanzibar (1968), The Sheep Look Up (1972), etc. are evidence of this. However, in-between his social science fiction masterpieces are a plethora of unsatisfying attempts at traditionalist space opera. In these works Brunner never fully leaves his pulp [...]"
June 17, 2021
Į šį mano vertinimą per daug nekreipkite dėmesio – nesu nei mokslinės-fantastinės literatūros žinovas, nei mėgėjas. Per metus perskaitau vos vieną kitą tos rūšies knygą. Šią turiu savo bibliotekoje, man ypatingo įspūdžio nepadarė, bet negaliu teigti, kad ir bloga...
June 30, 2025
The best Brunner I've read and it's okay at best. I enjoy the investigation part of a new civilization . I would think this is how archaeology works. The investigation for seeing any kind of a rebellion was a bit strange. the ending was probably the worst part.
November 24, 2021
I saw a reference on the internet to John Brunner as a dystopian writer. I'm not sure that's true in any literal sense. Stand on Zanzibar was based on the rather pessimistic ideas of Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome, but The Shockwave Rider was based on the far more optimistic ideas of Alvin Toffler. In any event, ever since science fiction writers learned about the existence of the atomic bomb, they've been writing about ways in which we, ourselves, might bring about the end of the world. At least, of our world.
Mind you, that goes back, in various ways, even before World War II. Aldous Huxley wrote a book called Eyeless in Gaza. Those of you who are not familiar with the book of Judges should know that the allusion is to the legend of Samson. The Philistines captured Samson and put out his eyes. They brought him to their temple as a public spectacle. Samson's hair had grown out, and he brought the temple down on the crowd, killing three thousand, including himself.
Total Eclipse is a lovely, short, novel set in the 2020s. (It was published in 1974, so I guess that Brunner thought putting it fifty years in the future was sufficient.) Humans have discovered a distant planet which once had an amazing civilization, which has since died out. An exploratory group has been sent out from Earth to figure out what happened.
The story is nicely told, the characters are well-drawn, and the alien culture is beautifully imagined. The whole thing is, of course, a metaphor for human cultures. Are we, too, going to become so obsessed with winning, at any cost, that we condemn ourselves to extinction? Perhaps we have already passed the point of no return.
Considering the COP26 conference in Glasgow, I become ever more convinced that we will not take the measures required to prevent catastrophic climate change. We are too arrogant to take those measures. Like Hobbes' Leviathan, Total Eclipse is a warning against the evils of arrogance. What do you suppose are the chances that we will heed those warnings?
Mind you, that goes back, in various ways, even before World War II. Aldous Huxley wrote a book called Eyeless in Gaza. Those of you who are not familiar with the book of Judges should know that the allusion is to the legend of Samson. The Philistines captured Samson and put out his eyes. They brought him to their temple as a public spectacle. Samson's hair had grown out, and he brought the temple down on the crowd, killing three thousand, including himself.
Total Eclipse is a lovely, short, novel set in the 2020s. (It was published in 1974, so I guess that Brunner thought putting it fifty years in the future was sufficient.) Humans have discovered a distant planet which once had an amazing civilization, which has since died out. An exploratory group has been sent out from Earth to figure out what happened.
The story is nicely told, the characters are well-drawn, and the alien culture is beautifully imagined. The whole thing is, of course, a metaphor for human cultures. Are we, too, going to become so obsessed with winning, at any cost, that we condemn ourselves to extinction? Perhaps we have already passed the point of no return.
Considering the COP26 conference in Glasgow, I become ever more convinced that we will not take the measures required to prevent catastrophic climate change. We are too arrogant to take those measures. Like Hobbes' Leviathan, Total Eclipse is a warning against the evils of arrogance. What do you suppose are the chances that we will heed those warnings?
August 25, 2013
I threw this book out when I was done reading it.
I've never done that with a book before. There are plenty of books that I don't like that I keep around - pass them on to other people, let them sit on my shelf, accumulate dust, what have you. But something set this book apart.
It had potential. And it wasted it.
For the first three-fourths of the book, I was extremely interested. I read the entire thing in a day and a half, which isn't a huge deal since it's a shorter book. Then, as I drew near the end, I started to feel like the author had backed himself into a corner - there were some interesting threads that hadn't been picked back up, the story was wandering, and the characters started to freak out about something that shouldn't have been a huge deal.
And then there was the reveal. And the depressing ending. I won't tell you what either one was because I'm not into the whole spoiler thing, but let me say this - the answer to the mystery sucks. It fits with the clues left like breadcrumbs through the book, but when you actually think about it, you realize that it just doesn't work. Brunner tries to draw analogies with human behavior and it falls flat.
This is a shame, because the lead up is really, really interesting. There are all kinds of fascinating theories thrown around, and the characters actually feel like a bunch of intelligent experts. I liked quite a few of them.
But it all goes to waste.
So, two stars for potential. I think that if Brunner had spent a little more time polishing the ending, it could have been four star material. As it is, I really can only justify the two stars because it really did keep me reading, first in interest, then in horror.
I've never done that with a book before. There are plenty of books that I don't like that I keep around - pass them on to other people, let them sit on my shelf, accumulate dust, what have you. But something set this book apart.
It had potential. And it wasted it.
For the first three-fourths of the book, I was extremely interested. I read the entire thing in a day and a half, which isn't a huge deal since it's a shorter book. Then, as I drew near the end, I started to feel like the author had backed himself into a corner - there were some interesting threads that hadn't been picked back up, the story was wandering, and the characters started to freak out about something that shouldn't have been a huge deal.
And then there was the reveal. And the depressing ending. I won't tell you what either one was because I'm not into the whole spoiler thing, but let me say this - the answer to the mystery sucks. It fits with the clues left like breadcrumbs through the book, but when you actually think about it, you realize that it just doesn't work. Brunner tries to draw analogies with human behavior and it falls flat.
This is a shame, because the lead up is really, really interesting. There are all kinds of fascinating theories thrown around, and the characters actually feel like a bunch of intelligent experts. I liked quite a few of them.
But it all goes to waste.
So, two stars for potential. I think that if Brunner had spent a little more time polishing the ending, it could have been four star material. As it is, I really can only justify the two stars because it really did keep me reading, first in interest, then in horror.
February 3, 2025
Brunner gets a lot of things right in Total Eclipse that other writers of this period got wrong or - through the haze of their soft-science lenses - didn’t even consider. That was enough to keep me going: reading about characters who thought the right things and looked at their situation rationally. If you are a scientist, clinical technician, or engineer, you will probably enjoy the group of characters here as much as I did.
I looked forward to each time I sat down with this story because the cast of characters act like a true science team, not the Hollywood version with some psychopath in their midst, and I was really engaged with their problem solving endeavors. Of course, exactly where I’m nodding my head with enthusiasm other readers may find the scientific process interminably dull.
The backdrop for the story seems realistic enough: Earth had pooled it resources to fund expeditions to the nearest stars. There is only one space ship because the cost of funding a manned expedition is so staggering, no single nation or small consortium of nations could hope to make it viable. But previous missions to Proxima, Epsilon Eridani, and Tau Ceti had all come back empty-handed, with no exciting news to report, as in prospects for making a second home. Thus, the mission to Sigma Draconis was likely to be man’s last effort to travel to distant stars.
On Sigma Draconis they discover the remnants of a long disappeared space-faring alien culture that was apparently blind and mute, and communicated by sensing electromagnetic resonance. Because they could not hide thoughts or emotions from each other, there were no liars or politicians selling a bill of goods. Furthermore, through archeological investigation we determined that they progressed from the equivalent of our Neolithic era (using stone tools) to building a giant telescope on their moon, in a span of just three thousand years. It took humans much longer to make that kind of technological progress. Their sudden demise seemed even more rapid. What happened to them? Since there was no evidence of warfare, was it blight, disease, or insanity and mass suicide?
The bulk of the story follows on that question, and Earth is concerned about whether or not such an ending could befall humanity. One big dislike for me was how Brunner cast a stereotyped mustachioed Bolivian generalissimo as a hyper-paranoid and overweening bully, come to make sure that whatever happened to the aliens doesn’t make its way back to Earth. Fortunately, the General finally heads back to Earth on the ship’s return voyage, as part of the two-year rotation of crew and supplies.
One reason why this does not get five stars is the ending. Things progress as I’ve described until the last sixteen pages, when suddenly things take a very different direction. As another reader says, Brunner is brutal with the ending. Think about it: just sixteen pages to completely change the tone of the story. I have to wonder if Brunner’s publisher urged him to hurry along and be done with it, as this ‘coda’ certainly seems much less developed than the rest of the story. Or maybe Brunner simply decided on rapidity for his final blow, for - like it or not - it is a powerful ending.
I can’t say more than that for fear of spoilers, and even talking about the change of directions may make some readers become less invested in the positive attributes of the story. But I have a feeling I will read this again at some point, even knowing what I know.
Verdict: recommended as one of Brunner’s more thought-provoking stories.
I looked forward to each time I sat down with this story because the cast of characters act like a true science team, not the Hollywood version with some psychopath in their midst, and I was really engaged with their problem solving endeavors. Of course, exactly where I’m nodding my head with enthusiasm other readers may find the scientific process interminably dull.
The backdrop for the story seems realistic enough: Earth had pooled it resources to fund expeditions to the nearest stars. There is only one space ship because the cost of funding a manned expedition is so staggering, no single nation or small consortium of nations could hope to make it viable. But previous missions to Proxima, Epsilon Eridani, and Tau Ceti had all come back empty-handed, with no exciting news to report, as in prospects for making a second home. Thus, the mission to Sigma Draconis was likely to be man’s last effort to travel to distant stars.
On Sigma Draconis they discover the remnants of a long disappeared space-faring alien culture that was apparently blind and mute, and communicated by sensing electromagnetic resonance. Because they could not hide thoughts or emotions from each other, there were no liars or politicians selling a bill of goods. Furthermore, through archeological investigation we determined that they progressed from the equivalent of our Neolithic era (using stone tools) to building a giant telescope on their moon, in a span of just three thousand years. It took humans much longer to make that kind of technological progress. Their sudden demise seemed even more rapid. What happened to them? Since there was no evidence of warfare, was it blight, disease, or insanity and mass suicide?
The bulk of the story follows on that question, and Earth is concerned about whether or not such an ending could befall humanity. One big dislike for me was how Brunner cast a stereotyped mustachioed Bolivian generalissimo as a hyper-paranoid and overweening bully, come to make sure that whatever happened to the aliens doesn’t make its way back to Earth. Fortunately, the General finally heads back to Earth on the ship’s return voyage, as part of the two-year rotation of crew and supplies.
One reason why this does not get five stars is the ending. Things progress as I’ve described until the last sixteen pages, when suddenly things take a very different direction. As another reader says, Brunner is brutal with the ending. Think about it: just sixteen pages to completely change the tone of the story. I have to wonder if Brunner’s publisher urged him to hurry along and be done with it, as this ‘coda’ certainly seems much less developed than the rest of the story. Or maybe Brunner simply decided on rapidity for his final blow, for - like it or not - it is a powerful ending.
I can’t say more than that for fear of spoilers, and even talking about the change of directions may make some readers become less invested in the positive attributes of the story. But I have a feeling I will read this again at some point, even knowing what I know.
Verdict: recommended as one of Brunner’s more thought-provoking stories.
June 6, 2025
Vi sentite depressi? State esaurendo le speranze nei confronti dell’umanità? Avete bisogno di qualcosa che vi tiri su di morale? Bene, quello che non dovete assolutamente fare è leggere questo libro.
Eclissi totale, di John Brunner («Urania Collezione» n. 267), è un hard sci-fi di stampo decisamente pessimista. La storia ruota attorno a un gruppo di scienziati inviati sul pianeta Sigma Draconis III per indagare su una civiltà avanzata misteriosamente estintasi nel giro di tremila anni… ma centomila anni fa. L’obiettivo? Scoprirne la causa, per evitare che succeda anche sulla Terra.
Onestamente, non sono riuscito a cogliere fino in fondo il messaggio che l’autore voleva trasmettere. Forse voleva dirci che sì, l’umanità fa schifo; che siamo destinati all’estinzione a causa del nostro scarso impegno nelle relazioni sociali? Non lo so. Sarà che non sono un grande fan dell’hard sci-fi, e questo è un racconto molto intellettuale, in cui vari personaggi con competenze specifiche si confrontano per cercare di ricostruire il puzzle dell’estinzione di quella antica, affascinante civiltà.
La prima parte del romanzo, fra l’altro, mi ha un po’ imbarazzato, con la storia dell’ispettore complottista inviato sul pianeta dalle Nazioni Unite assieme alla spedizione ciclica dello Stellaris. Perché, ehi, se una civiltà si è estinta, quasi sicuramente esiste un’arma di distruzione di massa, e quindi gli umani mandati a indagare devono per forza utilizzarla per distruggere la Terra. Fortunatamente, dopo una sessantina di pagine, l’ispettore sparisce – e con lui anche le speranze dell’umanità.
E niente, la trama alla fine è tutta qui. Non sono riuscito a empatizzare con i personaggi, non sono entrato nel vivo della storia. Probabilmente è un mio difetto.
5.5/10 ★★½
Eclissi totale, di John Brunner («Urania Collezione» n. 267), è un hard sci-fi di stampo decisamente pessimista. La storia ruota attorno a un gruppo di scienziati inviati sul pianeta Sigma Draconis III per indagare su una civiltà avanzata misteriosamente estintasi nel giro di tremila anni… ma centomila anni fa. L’obiettivo? Scoprirne la causa, per evitare che succeda anche sulla Terra.
Onestamente, non sono riuscito a cogliere fino in fondo il messaggio che l’autore voleva trasmettere. Forse voleva dirci che sì, l’umanità fa schifo; che siamo destinati all’estinzione a causa del nostro scarso impegno nelle relazioni sociali? Non lo so. Sarà che non sono un grande fan dell’hard sci-fi, e questo è un racconto molto intellettuale, in cui vari personaggi con competenze specifiche si confrontano per cercare di ricostruire il puzzle dell’estinzione di quella antica, affascinante civiltà.
La prima parte del romanzo, fra l’altro, mi ha un po’ imbarazzato, con la storia dell’ispettore complottista inviato sul pianeta dalle Nazioni Unite assieme alla spedizione ciclica dello Stellaris. Perché, ehi, se una civiltà si è estinta, quasi sicuramente esiste un’arma di distruzione di massa, e quindi gli umani mandati a indagare devono per forza utilizzarla per distruggere la Terra. Fortunatamente, dopo una sessantina di pagine, l’ispettore sparisce – e con lui anche le speranze dell’umanità.
E niente, la trama alla fine è tutta qui. Non sono riuscito a empatizzare con i personaggi, non sono entrato nel vivo della storia. Probabilmente è un mio difetto.
«È facile guardare tranquillamente in faccia un grave problema» ribatté Igor. «I gravi problemi sono semplici, facili da definire. I piccoli invece sfuggono, e sono quelli che rendono la gente irritabile e litigiosa. Sanno che qualcosa non va, ma non sanno cos'è.»
5.5/10 ★★½
October 26, 2022
Next up when I finish one of the books I'm currently reading. I picked this off my rescued shelves. In this case probably rescued from the local transfer station's "stuff" trailer. I picked up another classic sci fi(C. J. Cherryh) today from a free book exchange box at the Brunswick 50-Plus building parking lot.
Moving along in fits and starts as this is not exactly a page-turner. More of an intellectual slog, actually. I read all the techo-babble and keep going for the sci-fi payoff. We'll see if it's any good. The big picture is interesting enough, while the writing is just serviceable.
- "peaches melba" s. b. "peach melba"
And so to the end of this reasonably engrossing, but not exactly exciting "thinking person's" sci-fi tale. The alien people, though long gone from Sigma Draconis III(a real-life star), play a very important role, in fact it's about a 50-50 split between them and the humans investigating them. The ending is kind of a bummer, though.
- Uh-oh, the author described an Arab character as "beak-nosed" - naughty naughty!
- Other reviewers have noted the humungous telescope maguffin is not explored AT ALL!
Moving along in fits and starts as this is not exactly a page-turner. More of an intellectual slog, actually. I read all the techo-babble and keep going for the sci-fi payoff. We'll see if it's any good. The big picture is interesting enough, while the writing is just serviceable.
- "peaches melba" s. b. "peach melba"
And so to the end of this reasonably engrossing, but not exactly exciting "thinking person's" sci-fi tale. The alien people, though long gone from Sigma Draconis III(a real-life star), play a very important role, in fact it's about a 50-50 split between them and the humans investigating them. The ending is kind of a bummer, though.
- Uh-oh, the author described an Arab character as "beak-nosed" - naughty naughty!
- Other reviewers have noted the humungous telescope maguffin is not explored AT ALL!
January 27, 2015
The characterization is slight and, after the improbable Spanish aristocrat departs in a cloud of space ship exhaust, the conflict drains out of the story. In short, Total Eclipse is a HAITE story (Here's An Idea. The End.) But what HAITE! The idea is pretty good, and Brunner strings it out. Even though the final reveal is presented in an uninteresting way (the scientist simply wakes up and realizes he's solved the puzzle) you still enjoy the explanation. It's all about the sudden decline and fall of an advanced civilization.
The other big idea (regarding the lengths to which someone might go to understand the psychology of an alien race) is pretty cool too. So, in all, a recommended read. Just don't expect the usual novelistic good stuff, such as interesting characters or well-paced plot.
The other big idea (regarding the lengths to which someone might go to understand the psychology of an alien race) is pretty cool too. So, in all, a recommended read. Just don't expect the usual novelistic good stuff, such as interesting characters or well-paced plot.
June 3, 2018
What a pleasant surprise. This book features a multi-ethnic team, capable female researchers, a credible description of a research team in action, and a real understanding of the difficulties of archaeology; such things certainly were not common in SF in 1974. The relics and research involving the extinct aliens is really similar to Alastair Reynolds' Amarantin culture in "Revelation Space," if the ultimate fate of the cultures differ greatly. This book reads fast, and is more similar in tone and presentation to SF of the 2010s than of the 1970s in many ways; not a plod through a dated book at all, but a fun, smart read. I'm a bit sad I dodged this for so long.
November 8, 2022
Much of John Brunner's later work was visionary: e.g. Shockwave Rider and The Sheep Look Up. This is an earlier work but shares with these the idea of a society on the edge of collapse. I don't think I've read a more pessimistic SF book than 'Total Eclipse' with this collapse involving not just one civilization but two. The first being the long dead Draconians and the second those humans sent to ascertain the reason for the extinction of that species. It is not an uplifting read but it is prescient in its vision of what might cause extinction.
June 21, 2016
I found "Total Eclipse" a well structured and enjoyable book. There is, although, a lack of character development and some flatness in the way that everyone (besides main character) is presented, but still plot is fluid enough to balance some other weak elements.
There are some missing strings here and there, but as with all archaeological work (a main theme of this book) many times we have to rely on our own imagination to reconstruct a reality that does not exist anymore.
There are some missing strings here and there, but as with all archaeological work (a main theme of this book) many times we have to rely on our own imagination to reconstruct a reality that does not exist anymore.
January 9, 2021
I did not expect to cry with this.
October 31, 2013
review of
John Brunner's Total Eclipse
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 30, 2013
Whenever I read Brunner & I'm reminded of another writer it's always someone whose work I respect - J. G. Ballard, eg. In this case, I made a note to myself as soon as I started reading this that I was reminded of Arthur C. Clarke & Ursula K. LeGuin - again, 2 writers that I respect - but ones that don't quite fit into my personal canon as much as Ballard does (well, actually, LeGuin is probably in there but Clarke's a little too drily 'hard science' for it - altho it's mainly b/c I haven't read anything by him for 40+ yrs). Why Clarke? I was probably just thinking of the monolith in 2001 in comparison to the giant telescope on a moon in Total Eclipse.
The basic story is that humanity finds traces of a sophisticated civilization that blossomed & died at an unusually quick rate. The explorer's job is to try & figure out what happened to them? Did they really die off? If so, why? How? "He had sometimes mentioned to close friends a dream that haunted him concerning the disappearance of the Draconians: the possibility that they had been less lucky than mankind when they made their first experiments with hyperdrive." (p 9) The "Draconians" are so-called b/c their planet is "Sigma Draconis III". Nonetheless, I still wonder about the oddity of the 'inevitable' association w/ the legal meaning of the word "Draconian" - a harsh punishment.
Complicating this is that the socio-political situation back on Earth, many light yrs away, is getting worse & worse. The scientist astronauts are depending on support from Earth in order to keep their research going. & the problems on Earth & their associated bigotries are a threat to the research. A 1st hint of this is in something like this:
"And because Irene was both female and black, the choice was more likely to fall on Lieutenant Gyorgy Somogyi.
"Who's less well qualified and far less quick-thinking. High on the list of possible explanations for the extinction of the Draconians, so they tell me, is the idea that it was due to some fatal flaw in their nature. All too easily some stupid irrational prejudice could get rid of us, too, couldn't it?" - pp 11-12
As I read more & more by Brunner, this is the 23rd story I've read by him so far, the more respect I have for his various takes on the psychological affects of setting up humanity on another planet. There's Castaway's World ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/72... ), Bedlam Planet ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... ), & now this.
Brunner, ever the political realist, portrays the problems on Earth:
"There had been famine in half a dozen densely populated countries, all of whose governments were controlled by greedy, short-sighted, thoughtless med whose first reaction when the starving mobs came battering at their gates was to accuse a scapegoat. The Starflight Fund was an obvious target. Rumours took their rise: here's another way the rich are cheating the poor, for if you hadn't had to subsidize the fund, there'd be another million in the treasury to spend on food!
"No mention, of course, of the fact that the Prime Minister had made his fortune by hoarding rice during the previous famine, or that the President's brother owned the nation's largest pharmaceutical factory and was taking a profit of 1700 per cent on every ampul of niacin, ascorbic acid and B12. That news was stale." - p 17
B/c of this situation & paranoias associated w/ it, a general has been sent from Earth to investigate the Sigma Draconis III base "and that was why General Ordoñez-Vico had been given power to order the abandonment of the Draco base, and the abolition of the Starflight Fund, if any hint, clue, trifling suspicion, triggered his all too obvious latent paranoia." (p 18)
Under pressure from the paranoid general, one of the less self-controlled of the scientists has an outburst in an attempt to explain the reality of the scientist's situation:
""There's a landslide somewhere. A concrete wall collapses, opens a whole building to the weather. There's a temblor, and a hundred buildings fall. All that can happen in one hundred years, and it's only the beginning. La Paz after a century, tumbledown, covered with creepers, the home of wild animals and snakes and butterflies and birds—how much could you tell about the way of life of a human family by burrowing into the rubble and rotting leaf mold, hm—if you were from another planet and had never seen a live human being? Ask yourself that! Here's a piano frame—but you have no ears, you never imagined music! Here's a tableknife—but you don't eat, you only drank liquids! Here's a sewing machine—but you have fur and don't wear clothes! After one century, how much sense would you make of what remained? And we're not talking about a hundred years here. We're talking about a hundred thousand! Ignorance? Don't make me laugh! It's taken genius for the people here to find out what they do know, and it's small thanks to the shortsighted fools who picked on you to come and pester them!" - p 63
Short-sightedness is a key idea here. Brunner explores the short-sightedness of polluters brilliantly in his ecological masterpiece The Sheep Look Up ( http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3... ). People w/o vision of expansive future possibilities inhibit the imagination & the pursuit of knowledge. Brunner explores the possibility of trying to figure out whether the Draconians even had multiple languages, as we wd expect given our own Earthly experience:
""Well, Igor's insight suggested that they may not have had languages, plural, but at worst the equivalent of dialects . . . which would be a logical starting point anywhere in the universe, come to think of it. It's been shown that all human languages have a fundamentally identical structure—"
[..]
"["]You surely must have been told that baby talk in every known human language is grammatically consistent?"" - p 86
This is a subject that I will, 'no doubt', return to again & again for the rest of my life. One can read my essay about my relevant feature-length movie entitled Story of a Fructiferous Society here: http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/... . & this justifies my reprinting a relevant part of an interview that I conducted under the name of "Party Teen on Couch #2" w/ someone calling himself "Party Teen on Couch #3":
*************************************
3: Adamitic language..
2: Adamitic? I think that the idea of an Adamitic language is interesting but I’m wondering, you would know much more about this than I do because I know nothing about it since I know nothing about everything & everything about nothing, etc, etc.. - but, is there any sort of theory amongst linguists, or whatever the appropriate field of study would be, that you know of that tends to trace language back to common roots of any sort?
3: Yeah, there is, um, for example in Chomsky & linguistics you have this idea that you have something like semantics & patterns in a language which are common to all languages.
2: Does he develop this theory in great detail? In other words does he have a technical description of it?
3: Yeah, it’s called [unintelligible] schematic transformational grammar.
2: Could you say that again, please?
3: Generative transformational grammar.
2: Ok.
3: But actually I’m not that familiar with this kind of linguistics because linguistics in this century has very much split into various fields. You could say, from something like literary linguistics, which is mainly from the structuralist tradition; from Ferdinand de Saussure over Roman Jakobson to post-structuralism, deconstructionist approach as well as Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco - but, on the other hand, you have this kind of technical linguistics, Chomsky, for example, which is, actually, more the kind of linguistics which you study if you study linguistics properly, which is, for example, also important for computer linguistics if you generate speech recognition or speech systems & then you, mostly [unintelligible] to this kind of scientific linguistics - & then you also have philosophical linguistics like, uh, for example, speech act theory by Austin & Searle..
2: Which is what?
3: Well, uh, this is actually something where you could say that modern linguistics have an approach which is closer to the idea of Adamitic language because, well, the primary assumption of modern linguistics is that language is arbitrary - that a linguistic sign has no absolutely whatever organic relation to the thing which we represent.
2: So no onomatopoiea? or whatever?
3: Yes, that would be, actually this is a different [unintelligible] which has been introduced by Charles Saunders Peirce who differentiated between the iconic, the indexical, & the symbolic sign where you actually have these possibilities of the onomatopetic relationships but, um, no, the question’s rather, to quote Austin, how to do things with words. There is 1 problem - if you have arbitrary language, it just means that, for example, if I say the word "cassette” or if I write it down then it has no relationship whatsoever to a cassette & by saying the word "cassette” I’m not manipulating the matter of the cassette in a way. So, it’s a purely arbitrary relationship..
2: So that’s..
3: Somebody has just decided just to call this piece a cassette.
2: Which is opposite to Adamitic language.
3: Which is opposite to Adamitic language because in Adamitic language you will have an organic relationship between the word & the thing so that by uttering the word you would, for example, invoke or manipulate the thing so like the classical example is of the Genesis where god says, uh "It shall be light” & then it’s light. This is Adamitic language. & the theory, the theory of Adamitic language as it’s notably present in the Kabala & in Jewish mysticism is that in the paradise, before the expulsion from the paradise Adam actually possessed a language which was similar to that of the divine language - where he was capable, for example, of naming animals. & that this original language where you could invoke & manipulate things with was lost when humanity was expelled from the Garden of Eden. So, um, the whole, um, occupation of Kabalism, or also you could say magic in general, is to, sortof, regain command over things by the means of language. & you could say that, in a way you could use it as a critique against modern linguistics because, for example, if Bill Clinton, today, says, uh, "Drop the atom bomb over Moscow” then the atom bomb would actually be dropped because he has the power & the possibility to do so. & just by saying this & by, maybe, having a few codes, or whatever, this would be made to happen today. So you could say that modern linguistics in defining language as arbitrary is actually missing some aspects. It cannot answer the question of how language is actually capable of directly invoking things or making things happen. & this is, for example, a matter which has been discussed by speech act theory - that’s exactly the question of speech act theory, how you..
2: Speech act?
3: Speech act theory, yes, by, notably by Austin & um..
2: Austin’s spelled A,u,s,t,i,n?
3: Exactly, yeah. He was an Oxford linguist, I think in the 1930s.
2: So is the concept of Adamitic language mainly supposedly originating from Kabalists or from who?
3: I would say it’s probably related in all kinds of magical or even metaphysical notions of language. I have thought about, for example, what, how 1 could locate multiple names as they are used in Neoism - in, uh, in either Adamitic or arbitrary language. I think this is extremely interesting because my theory is that they are both - or neither of them, in a way - because, when you say, you have a multiple name, an open situation, everybody can use that name & share this identity there was an extreme case of an arbitrary name - because the name is not naturally given to you - you know, it’s not like somebody’s born & he has, uh, he gets a name & the name is stamped on the passport but, it’s, it’s, it’s a name, say, Monty Cantsin, Luther Blissett, Karen Eliot. &, um, uh, as you wrote, the name is fixed, but the people using it aren’t. So this would be like the classical definition of arbitrary language in a way - the same way as I say, for example, if I take beer, then the notion, the word beer, b, double e, r, is fixed, but, for example, the meaning may change over the centuries - something like this..
2: Let’s make a projection right now. Am I interupting your train of thought too much?
3: A little bit. Ok, so 1 could say, on the 1 hand, the use of multiple names is a use of language as extremely arbitrary - where you’ve got an extremely flexible signifier-and-signified or sign-and-thing relationship. It’s the highest possible flexibilization of the sign-and-thing relation. On the other hand, as soon as you participate in that multiple name, you are immediately, since there is no fixed referent, say there is no fixed referent for Luther Blissett because there is no person Luther Blissett - or, also, Monty Cantsin - it’s a fiction, it’s a fiction created by those using the name. So, you could say that by sharing this identity, by adopting this arbitrary name, you, you get the immediate power to, to change it. Yeah? Which is like Adamitic language. Because you are now able to do something in the name of Monty Cantsin, Karen Eliot, Luther Blissett, & so on & actively participate in the shaping of the identity & you can, sortof, directly invoke the character of Monty Cantsin by using the name. So that would be an extreme example of Adamitic language. So, so that, that’s, uh, that multiple names, sortof, a kindof flip-flop thing, you know? where you..
2: What d’ya think about the idea of extending that type of thinking so that, for example, beer, the word beer, would be an open concept that could refer to any object? etc, I mean, this obviously refers back to my interest that anything is anything or anything as anything, etc, etc.. Or just taking all words & making them open contexts which can be used freely by the people who choose to use those words in this manner. So, for example, I might say to you "Pass the beer” but I could mean anything by that & you could respond in whatever way you felt appropriate.
3: Yeah, this would actually be the, exactly match post-structuralist or contemporary linguistics. That you say there is no fixed meaning for any word & the meaning actually.. the, the - this is justified by the use or by the difference - that you say "beer is not wine”, for example. Yeah, that you have a purely relational definition & usage but there is no actual referent to the word.
*************************************
Ok, that was a long tangent but wasn't it great?! After all, ""There's an old saying: The genius sees what happens, but the plodder sees what he expects to happen.["]" (p 88)
Brunner's political group experience shows: ""Does anybody disagree violently?" Rorschach inquired, and when nobody else spoke up continued, "So resolved, then.["]" (p 126) A theme explored in Bedlam Planet of how astronaut colonists become natives is here too: "Nobody wanted to settle permanently on Sigma Draconis III, because they hadn't come here as colonists, but as investigators." (p 175) In summary, an important political question relevant to the afore-mentioned short-sightedness appears: "How often have human beings acted against their own best interests, and particularly on behalf of some small group rather than in favor of the race as a whole?" (p 186) Indeed.
John Brunner's Total Eclipse
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 30, 2013
Whenever I read Brunner & I'm reminded of another writer it's always someone whose work I respect - J. G. Ballard, eg. In this case, I made a note to myself as soon as I started reading this that I was reminded of Arthur C. Clarke & Ursula K. LeGuin - again, 2 writers that I respect - but ones that don't quite fit into my personal canon as much as Ballard does (well, actually, LeGuin is probably in there but Clarke's a little too drily 'hard science' for it - altho it's mainly b/c I haven't read anything by him for 40+ yrs). Why Clarke? I was probably just thinking of the monolith in 2001 in comparison to the giant telescope on a moon in Total Eclipse.
The basic story is that humanity finds traces of a sophisticated civilization that blossomed & died at an unusually quick rate. The explorer's job is to try & figure out what happened to them? Did they really die off? If so, why? How? "He had sometimes mentioned to close friends a dream that haunted him concerning the disappearance of the Draconians: the possibility that they had been less lucky than mankind when they made their first experiments with hyperdrive." (p 9) The "Draconians" are so-called b/c their planet is "Sigma Draconis III". Nonetheless, I still wonder about the oddity of the 'inevitable' association w/ the legal meaning of the word "Draconian" - a harsh punishment.
Complicating this is that the socio-political situation back on Earth, many light yrs away, is getting worse & worse. The scientist astronauts are depending on support from Earth in order to keep their research going. & the problems on Earth & their associated bigotries are a threat to the research. A 1st hint of this is in something like this:
"And because Irene was both female and black, the choice was more likely to fall on Lieutenant Gyorgy Somogyi.
"Who's less well qualified and far less quick-thinking. High on the list of possible explanations for the extinction of the Draconians, so they tell me, is the idea that it was due to some fatal flaw in their nature. All too easily some stupid irrational prejudice could get rid of us, too, couldn't it?" - pp 11-12
As I read more & more by Brunner, this is the 23rd story I've read by him so far, the more respect I have for his various takes on the psychological affects of setting up humanity on another planet. There's Castaway's World ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/72... ), Bedlam Planet ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... ), & now this.
Brunner, ever the political realist, portrays the problems on Earth:
"There had been famine in half a dozen densely populated countries, all of whose governments were controlled by greedy, short-sighted, thoughtless med whose first reaction when the starving mobs came battering at their gates was to accuse a scapegoat. The Starflight Fund was an obvious target. Rumours took their rise: here's another way the rich are cheating the poor, for if you hadn't had to subsidize the fund, there'd be another million in the treasury to spend on food!
"No mention, of course, of the fact that the Prime Minister had made his fortune by hoarding rice during the previous famine, or that the President's brother owned the nation's largest pharmaceutical factory and was taking a profit of 1700 per cent on every ampul of niacin, ascorbic acid and B12. That news was stale." - p 17
B/c of this situation & paranoias associated w/ it, a general has been sent from Earth to investigate the Sigma Draconis III base "and that was why General Ordoñez-Vico had been given power to order the abandonment of the Draco base, and the abolition of the Starflight Fund, if any hint, clue, trifling suspicion, triggered his all too obvious latent paranoia." (p 18)
Under pressure from the paranoid general, one of the less self-controlled of the scientists has an outburst in an attempt to explain the reality of the scientist's situation:
""There's a landslide somewhere. A concrete wall collapses, opens a whole building to the weather. There's a temblor, and a hundred buildings fall. All that can happen in one hundred years, and it's only the beginning. La Paz after a century, tumbledown, covered with creepers, the home of wild animals and snakes and butterflies and birds—how much could you tell about the way of life of a human family by burrowing into the rubble and rotting leaf mold, hm—if you were from another planet and had never seen a live human being? Ask yourself that! Here's a piano frame—but you have no ears, you never imagined music! Here's a tableknife—but you don't eat, you only drank liquids! Here's a sewing machine—but you have fur and don't wear clothes! After one century, how much sense would you make of what remained? And we're not talking about a hundred years here. We're talking about a hundred thousand! Ignorance? Don't make me laugh! It's taken genius for the people here to find out what they do know, and it's small thanks to the shortsighted fools who picked on you to come and pester them!" - p 63
Short-sightedness is a key idea here. Brunner explores the short-sightedness of polluters brilliantly in his ecological masterpiece The Sheep Look Up ( http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3... ). People w/o vision of expansive future possibilities inhibit the imagination & the pursuit of knowledge. Brunner explores the possibility of trying to figure out whether the Draconians even had multiple languages, as we wd expect given our own Earthly experience:
""Well, Igor's insight suggested that they may not have had languages, plural, but at worst the equivalent of dialects . . . which would be a logical starting point anywhere in the universe, come to think of it. It's been shown that all human languages have a fundamentally identical structure—"
[..]
"["]You surely must have been told that baby talk in every known human language is grammatically consistent?"" - p 86
This is a subject that I will, 'no doubt', return to again & again for the rest of my life. One can read my essay about my relevant feature-length movie entitled Story of a Fructiferous Society here: http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/... . & this justifies my reprinting a relevant part of an interview that I conducted under the name of "Party Teen on Couch #2" w/ someone calling himself "Party Teen on Couch #3":
*************************************
3: Adamitic language..
2: Adamitic? I think that the idea of an Adamitic language is interesting but I’m wondering, you would know much more about this than I do because I know nothing about it since I know nothing about everything & everything about nothing, etc, etc.. - but, is there any sort of theory amongst linguists, or whatever the appropriate field of study would be, that you know of that tends to trace language back to common roots of any sort?
3: Yeah, there is, um, for example in Chomsky & linguistics you have this idea that you have something like semantics & patterns in a language which are common to all languages.
2: Does he develop this theory in great detail? In other words does he have a technical description of it?
3: Yeah, it’s called [unintelligible] schematic transformational grammar.
2: Could you say that again, please?
3: Generative transformational grammar.
2: Ok.
3: But actually I’m not that familiar with this kind of linguistics because linguistics in this century has very much split into various fields. You could say, from something like literary linguistics, which is mainly from the structuralist tradition; from Ferdinand de Saussure over Roman Jakobson to post-structuralism, deconstructionist approach as well as Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco - but, on the other hand, you have this kind of technical linguistics, Chomsky, for example, which is, actually, more the kind of linguistics which you study if you study linguistics properly, which is, for example, also important for computer linguistics if you generate speech recognition or speech systems & then you, mostly [unintelligible] to this kind of scientific linguistics - & then you also have philosophical linguistics like, uh, for example, speech act theory by Austin & Searle..
2: Which is what?
3: Well, uh, this is actually something where you could say that modern linguistics have an approach which is closer to the idea of Adamitic language because, well, the primary assumption of modern linguistics is that language is arbitrary - that a linguistic sign has no absolutely whatever organic relation to the thing which we represent.
2: So no onomatopoiea? or whatever?
3: Yes, that would be, actually this is a different [unintelligible] which has been introduced by Charles Saunders Peirce who differentiated between the iconic, the indexical, & the symbolic sign where you actually have these possibilities of the onomatopetic relationships but, um, no, the question’s rather, to quote Austin, how to do things with words. There is 1 problem - if you have arbitrary language, it just means that, for example, if I say the word "cassette” or if I write it down then it has no relationship whatsoever to a cassette & by saying the word "cassette” I’m not manipulating the matter of the cassette in a way. So, it’s a purely arbitrary relationship..
2: So that’s..
3: Somebody has just decided just to call this piece a cassette.
2: Which is opposite to Adamitic language.
3: Which is opposite to Adamitic language because in Adamitic language you will have an organic relationship between the word & the thing so that by uttering the word you would, for example, invoke or manipulate the thing so like the classical example is of the Genesis where god says, uh "It shall be light” & then it’s light. This is Adamitic language. & the theory, the theory of Adamitic language as it’s notably present in the Kabala & in Jewish mysticism is that in the paradise, before the expulsion from the paradise Adam actually possessed a language which was similar to that of the divine language - where he was capable, for example, of naming animals. & that this original language where you could invoke & manipulate things with was lost when humanity was expelled from the Garden of Eden. So, um, the whole, um, occupation of Kabalism, or also you could say magic in general, is to, sortof, regain command over things by the means of language. & you could say that, in a way you could use it as a critique against modern linguistics because, for example, if Bill Clinton, today, says, uh, "Drop the atom bomb over Moscow” then the atom bomb would actually be dropped because he has the power & the possibility to do so. & just by saying this & by, maybe, having a few codes, or whatever, this would be made to happen today. So you could say that modern linguistics in defining language as arbitrary is actually missing some aspects. It cannot answer the question of how language is actually capable of directly invoking things or making things happen. & this is, for example, a matter which has been discussed by speech act theory - that’s exactly the question of speech act theory, how you..
2: Speech act?
3: Speech act theory, yes, by, notably by Austin & um..
2: Austin’s spelled A,u,s,t,i,n?
3: Exactly, yeah. He was an Oxford linguist, I think in the 1930s.
2: So is the concept of Adamitic language mainly supposedly originating from Kabalists or from who?
3: I would say it’s probably related in all kinds of magical or even metaphysical notions of language. I have thought about, for example, what, how 1 could locate multiple names as they are used in Neoism - in, uh, in either Adamitic or arbitrary language. I think this is extremely interesting because my theory is that they are both - or neither of them, in a way - because, when you say, you have a multiple name, an open situation, everybody can use that name & share this identity there was an extreme case of an arbitrary name - because the name is not naturally given to you - you know, it’s not like somebody’s born & he has, uh, he gets a name & the name is stamped on the passport but, it’s, it’s, it’s a name, say, Monty Cantsin, Luther Blissett, Karen Eliot. &, um, uh, as you wrote, the name is fixed, but the people using it aren’t. So this would be like the classical definition of arbitrary language in a way - the same way as I say, for example, if I take beer, then the notion, the word beer, b, double e, r, is fixed, but, for example, the meaning may change over the centuries - something like this..
2: Let’s make a projection right now. Am I interupting your train of thought too much?
3: A little bit. Ok, so 1 could say, on the 1 hand, the use of multiple names is a use of language as extremely arbitrary - where you’ve got an extremely flexible signifier-and-signified or sign-and-thing relationship. It’s the highest possible flexibilization of the sign-and-thing relation. On the other hand, as soon as you participate in that multiple name, you are immediately, since there is no fixed referent, say there is no fixed referent for Luther Blissett because there is no person Luther Blissett - or, also, Monty Cantsin - it’s a fiction, it’s a fiction created by those using the name. So, you could say that by sharing this identity, by adopting this arbitrary name, you, you get the immediate power to, to change it. Yeah? Which is like Adamitic language. Because you are now able to do something in the name of Monty Cantsin, Karen Eliot, Luther Blissett, & so on & actively participate in the shaping of the identity & you can, sortof, directly invoke the character of Monty Cantsin by using the name. So that would be an extreme example of Adamitic language. So, so that, that’s, uh, that multiple names, sortof, a kindof flip-flop thing, you know? where you..
2: What d’ya think about the idea of extending that type of thinking so that, for example, beer, the word beer, would be an open concept that could refer to any object? etc, I mean, this obviously refers back to my interest that anything is anything or anything as anything, etc, etc.. Or just taking all words & making them open contexts which can be used freely by the people who choose to use those words in this manner. So, for example, I might say to you "Pass the beer” but I could mean anything by that & you could respond in whatever way you felt appropriate.
3: Yeah, this would actually be the, exactly match post-structuralist or contemporary linguistics. That you say there is no fixed meaning for any word & the meaning actually.. the, the - this is justified by the use or by the difference - that you say "beer is not wine”, for example. Yeah, that you have a purely relational definition & usage but there is no actual referent to the word.
*************************************
Ok, that was a long tangent but wasn't it great?! After all, ""There's an old saying: The genius sees what happens, but the plodder sees what he expects to happen.["]" (p 88)
Brunner's political group experience shows: ""Does anybody disagree violently?" Rorschach inquired, and when nobody else spoke up continued, "So resolved, then.["]" (p 126) A theme explored in Bedlam Planet of how astronaut colonists become natives is here too: "Nobody wanted to settle permanently on Sigma Draconis III, because they hadn't come here as colonists, but as investigators." (p 175) In summary, an important political question relevant to the afore-mentioned short-sightedness appears: "How often have human beings acted against their own best interests, and particularly on behalf of some small group rather than in favor of the race as a whole?" (p 186) Indeed.
July 20, 2018
Me encantan las historias sobre encuentros con los restos de otras civilizaciones quizá ya desaparecidas, pero también me gustan los libros bien escritos, y por desgracia este no acaba de serlo. La idea es maravillosa, pero por desgracia la ejecución empaña su brillo. Antes que nada, debo decir que la traducción al español que yo he leído deja mucho que desear (de hecho, parece que la hicieron tres personas distintas; incluso en el último tercio del libro aparecen expresiones propias del español latino que no había visto antes), por lo que quizá eso ayude a que mi opinión sobre la novela no sea todo lo positiva que me gustaría.
La idea (un equipo de arqueólogos en un planeta remoto intentando averiguar por qué una raza alienígena supuestamente avanzadísima desapareció de manera abrupta) es buena, muy buena, pero tiene demasiados puntos que no acaban de ser explicados en el libro. Por ejemplo, cómo construyeron los draconianos su telescopio en la luna y por/para qué. Sorprende que los humanos viajen tan tranquilos por un mundo cuya fauna y flora autóctonas existen (son mencionadas alguna que otra vez) sin preguntarse si estar en contacto con esa atmósfera y todo lo que la habita pueda tener algún tipo de efecto secundario en su salud a largo plazo. Me hubiera parecido más creíble tener a varios equipos dispersos por el planeta estudiando más cosas a parte de los restos arqueológicos, aunque teniendo en cuenta que en la Tierra la situación no es precisamente estable, tiene sentido que hubiesen priorizado un campo de estudio sobre el resto.
A lo largo de toda la lectura he tenido la sensación de que los personajes, planos, simples y muy iguales entre ellos (excepto Ian e Igor), eran una mera excusa para que Brunner pudiese exponer todas sus ideas y cavilaciones, poniéndolas en boca de los distintos personajes de manera artificial y forzada. La mayoría de conversaciones me resultaron artificiales , y los conflictos se resuelven de forma poco creíble ; parece como si Brunner quisiera introducir este tipo de vivencias para darle más realismo y humanidad a la obra, pese a que al final solo consigue que sus ideas acaben repartidas casi a partes iguales entre todos los personajes.
No todo iba a ser malo, por supuesto. El final, pese a lo abrupto y pesimista (odio lo primero y adoro lo segundo), redondea esas capas de profundidad que tiene la obra con respecto a la situación de la Tierra y su relación con la expedición. Me quedan muchas dudas sobre los draconianos y sobre la Tierra y, como decía al inicio, no sé si será cosa de la traducción (por desgracia, creo que sí; ya sabemos todos que la calidad de las traducciones de obras de ciencia ficción de hace unas cuantas décadas dejaba mucho que desear), pero no tengo la sensación de haber aprendido tantas cosas sobre ellos como el libro plantea.
Yo quería que este libro me gustara. Y no me ha desagradado, pero me ha dejado con ganas de más... y de manera diferente, quizá. El libro quería ser profundo, pero por desgracia no lo consigue. En cualquier caso, y pese a que me ha quedado una reseña bastante más negativa de lo que me gustaría, recomiendo su lectura, aunque sea solo por el planteamiento, y que cada uno saque sus conclusiones. No creo que esta obra deje indiferente, y algo me dice que seguiré pensando en ella durante un tiempo.
La idea (un equipo de arqueólogos en un planeta remoto intentando averiguar por qué una raza alienígena supuestamente avanzadísima desapareció de manera abrupta) es buena, muy buena, pero tiene demasiados puntos que no acaban de ser explicados en el libro. Por ejemplo, cómo construyeron los draconianos su telescopio en la luna y por/para qué. Sorprende que los humanos viajen tan tranquilos por un mundo cuya fauna y flora autóctonas existen (son mencionadas alguna que otra vez) sin preguntarse si estar en contacto con esa atmósfera y todo lo que la habita pueda tener algún tipo de efecto secundario en su salud a largo plazo. Me hubiera parecido más creíble tener a varios equipos dispersos por el planeta estudiando más cosas a parte de los restos arqueológicos, aunque teniendo en cuenta que en la Tierra la situación no es precisamente estable, tiene sentido que hubiesen priorizado un campo de estudio sobre el resto.
A lo largo de toda la lectura he tenido la sensación de que los personajes, planos, simples y muy iguales entre ellos (excepto Ian e Igor), eran una mera excusa para que Brunner pudiese exponer todas sus ideas y cavilaciones, poniéndolas en boca de los distintos personajes de manera artificial y forzada. La mayoría de conversaciones me resultaron artificiales , y los conflictos se resuelven de forma poco creíble ; parece como si Brunner quisiera introducir este tipo de vivencias para darle más realismo y humanidad a la obra, pese a que al final solo consigue que sus ideas acaben repartidas casi a partes iguales entre todos los personajes.
No todo iba a ser malo, por supuesto. El final, pese a lo abrupto y pesimista (odio lo primero y adoro lo segundo), redondea esas capas de profundidad que tiene la obra con respecto a la situación de la Tierra y su relación con la expedición. Me quedan muchas dudas sobre los draconianos y sobre la Tierra y, como decía al inicio, no sé si será cosa de la traducción (por desgracia, creo que sí; ya sabemos todos que la calidad de las traducciones de obras de ciencia ficción de hace unas cuantas décadas dejaba mucho que desear), pero no tengo la sensación de haber aprendido tantas cosas sobre ellos como el libro plantea.
Yo quería que este libro me gustara. Y no me ha desagradado, pero me ha dejado con ganas de más... y de manera diferente, quizá. El libro quería ser profundo, pero por desgracia no lo consigue. En cualquier caso, y pese a que me ha quedado una reseña bastante más negativa de lo que me gustaría, recomiendo su lectura, aunque sea solo por el planteamiento, y que cada uno saque sus conclusiones. No creo que esta obra deje indiferente, y algo me dice que seguiré pensando en ella durante un tiempo.
March 9, 2024
A very cold, scientific novel that will leave you asking questions till the very end, where suddenly, just like the scientists portrayed, enlightenment dawns. But the hammer comes crashing down. Hard.
Brilliant little book with a well intentioned message. Brunner was rightfully cynical about human failings and possibly the most prescient sci-fi author ever when its comes to predicting not what the future entails, but how people will react to it. Hell this whole novel’s plot revolves around discovering how a race presumably, and inevitably, killed itself.
He also has an incredible description of archaeology that made me instantly think of Byron’s ‘Darkness’:
“Right: imagine it without its people. It stands there empty. No one clears that blocked drain. The rains cause a flood. Dead leaves build up in the gutters, they rot and seeds start to sprout, blown from gardens and parks. Weeds blot out the flowers. The paving stones twist and heave as the tree roots burrow under them; grass grows in the cracks, moss and lichens appear on the walls as the foundations of the buildings shift. The glass cracks in the windows, and the rain blows in, and the wooden furniture starts to rot and crumble. Books dissolve into a soggy mess, birds flit in and make nests on the shelves and insects take shelter in closets and bathrooms and behind oil paintings. Fungi move in, too, and creepers, and mould. Wind-borne dust gathers in corners both outside and inside the buildings; soon, that’s also overgrown.
There’s a landslip somewhere. A concrete wall collapses, opens a whole building to the weather. There’s a temblor, and a hundred buildings fall. All that can happen in one hundred years, and it’s only the beginning. La Paz after a century, tumbledown, covered with creepers, the home of wild animals and snakes and butterflies and birds-how much could you tell about the way of life of a human family by burrowing into the rubble and rotting leaf mould, hm-if you were from another planet and had never seen a live human being?
Ask yourself that!”
Brunner just doesn’t seem to miss. I hope I can find more of his gems in the secondhand stores where they seem to bide their time like science fiction fossils.
Brilliant little book with a well intentioned message. Brunner was rightfully cynical about human failings and possibly the most prescient sci-fi author ever when its comes to predicting not what the future entails, but how people will react to it. Hell this whole novel’s plot revolves around discovering how a race presumably, and inevitably, killed itself.
He also has an incredible description of archaeology that made me instantly think of Byron’s ‘Darkness’:
“Right: imagine it without its people. It stands there empty. No one clears that blocked drain. The rains cause a flood. Dead leaves build up in the gutters, they rot and seeds start to sprout, blown from gardens and parks. Weeds blot out the flowers. The paving stones twist and heave as the tree roots burrow under them; grass grows in the cracks, moss and lichens appear on the walls as the foundations of the buildings shift. The glass cracks in the windows, and the rain blows in, and the wooden furniture starts to rot and crumble. Books dissolve into a soggy mess, birds flit in and make nests on the shelves and insects take shelter in closets and bathrooms and behind oil paintings. Fungi move in, too, and creepers, and mould. Wind-borne dust gathers in corners both outside and inside the buildings; soon, that’s also overgrown.
There’s a landslip somewhere. A concrete wall collapses, opens a whole building to the weather. There’s a temblor, and a hundred buildings fall. All that can happen in one hundred years, and it’s only the beginning. La Paz after a century, tumbledown, covered with creepers, the home of wild animals and snakes and butterflies and birds-how much could you tell about the way of life of a human family by burrowing into the rubble and rotting leaf mould, hm-if you were from another planet and had never seen a live human being?
Ask yourself that!”
Brunner just doesn’t seem to miss. I hope I can find more of his gems in the secondhand stores where they seem to bide their time like science fiction fossils.
July 22, 2025
A lot of "talking-as-science-action" here, the narrative filled with hypotheses, theories, deduction, lucky guesswork, all in the guise of planet-scaled detective work: what killed the Draconians? There's a kind of brainy, international conglomerate / United Nations, post-"Star Trek" feel to it, but the situation back on Earth feels a lot less stable, more draconian (this plays into multiple fates in the book). Was the book written on the basis of a pun? Could be.
At any rate, I found the book a good enough, fast enough read, kept waiting to see what new discovery would unfold, what new mystery would deepen, but ultimately never quite invested enough in the characters (and certainly not the lead, Ian Macauley, who is borderline insufferable most of the time - written to be that way, but ugh). Most of the other characterizations were fairly flat, one-note affairs, and though each was apparently the top of their gene-pool (a major plot point), they just seemed there to fill a plot-point, not as a mechanism by which Brunner might develop more psychological, psychosocial themes with greater complexity. The ending was dismal, but I didn't really care enough for it haunt me later.
Late-'60s to 1970s science fiction can be pretty hit-or-miss for me, though I've at least two shelves of books from the period by names I know like Brunner, Robert Sheckley, Brian Aldiss, Norman Spinrad, Joanna Russ, Samuel Delaney, Gene Wolfe, Ursula K. Le Guin, Barry Malzberg, some I've read and forgotten, others I'll read and forget. A few I'll come back to. On that scale, "Total Eclipse" has been sitting there for a while now. Glad I read it. Won't come back to it. Not at the level of "Stand on Zanzibar," an altogether superior, if ultimately also dour, take on humanity's tendencies and fate.
At any rate, I found the book a good enough, fast enough read, kept waiting to see what new discovery would unfold, what new mystery would deepen, but ultimately never quite invested enough in the characters (and certainly not the lead, Ian Macauley, who is borderline insufferable most of the time - written to be that way, but ugh). Most of the other characterizations were fairly flat, one-note affairs, and though each was apparently the top of their gene-pool (a major plot point), they just seemed there to fill a plot-point, not as a mechanism by which Brunner might develop more psychological, psychosocial themes with greater complexity. The ending was dismal, but I didn't really care enough for it haunt me later.
Late-'60s to 1970s science fiction can be pretty hit-or-miss for me, though I've at least two shelves of books from the period by names I know like Brunner, Robert Sheckley, Brian Aldiss, Norman Spinrad, Joanna Russ, Samuel Delaney, Gene Wolfe, Ursula K. Le Guin, Barry Malzberg, some I've read and forgotten, others I'll read and forget. A few I'll come back to. On that scale, "Total Eclipse" has been sitting there for a while now. Glad I read it. Won't come back to it. Not at the level of "Stand on Zanzibar," an altogether superior, if ultimately also dour, take on humanity's tendencies and fate.
April 8, 2024
It's weird how I ended up finishing a book with the title "Total Eclipse" on the very day of an actual eclipse taking place. I didn't even realize it until now, because the title has so little to do with the contents. This book is suspiciously devoid of eclipses, they don't even get a mention.
Anyway, the setup for this book was interesting enough. Mankind is just starting to explore the universe and finds the remnants of a long-dead civilization. We are with a team of scientists trying to figure out what killed this civilization, while worries about the political situation back on Earth are increasing. So there's a mystery to be solved, while the tension gets higher and higher. Will the ship come back for them at all? But...
Anyway, the setup for this book was interesting enough. Mankind is just starting to explore the universe and finds the remnants of a long-dead civilization. We are with a team of scientists trying to figure out what killed this civilization, while worries about the political situation back on Earth are increasing. So there's a mystery to be solved, while the tension gets higher and higher. Will the ship come back for them at all? But...
December 23, 2021
John Brunner at his best.
This is the story of a group scientists arriving at Sigma Draconis on Earth's one and only starship. They're relieving another group who have been onsite for two years studying the dead planet that once hosted a thriving, space-faring civilization. This is the first hint of intelligent life ever found outside of Earth but, because they died out 100,000 years ago, not much can be found to study. On the planet's airless moon are the remains of a giant telescope with a 36 km mirror built into the surface. They've also found "libraries" of crystal objects that contain electromagnetic wave recordings but no one has yet been able to translate them.
The new group of scientists will get their two year crack at learning who the aliens were and what happened to them. And it may be the last chance. It takes a massive amount of money to operate the starship and Earth is descending in chaos, paranoia, and possibly war. The UN fund that operates the starship may be shut down after this research cycle.
Most of the book revolves around the efforts of Ian Macauley, a linguist who is attempting to make sense of the crystal recordings. The book reminded me at times of H. Beam Piper's famous short story, "Omnilingual" in which a linguist finds a method of translating the language of a long-dead Martial civilization (a method that became a standard trope of science fiction ever since).
The final result of Ian's research managed to surprise and fascinate me. Definitely worth a read.
This is the story of a group scientists arriving at Sigma Draconis on Earth's one and only starship. They're relieving another group who have been onsite for two years studying the dead planet that once hosted a thriving, space-faring civilization. This is the first hint of intelligent life ever found outside of Earth but, because they died out 100,000 years ago, not much can be found to study. On the planet's airless moon are the remains of a giant telescope with a 36 km mirror built into the surface. They've also found "libraries" of crystal objects that contain electromagnetic wave recordings but no one has yet been able to translate them.
The new group of scientists will get their two year crack at learning who the aliens were and what happened to them. And it may be the last chance. It takes a massive amount of money to operate the starship and Earth is descending in chaos, paranoia, and possibly war. The UN fund that operates the starship may be shut down after this research cycle.
Most of the book revolves around the efforts of Ian Macauley, a linguist who is attempting to make sense of the crystal recordings. The book reminded me at times of H. Beam Piper's famous short story, "Omnilingual" in which a linguist finds a method of translating the language of a long-dead Martial civilization (a method that became a standard trope of science fiction ever since).
The final result of Ian's research managed to surprise and fascinate me. Definitely worth a read.
June 25, 2025
Life, or atleast evidence of life, has been discovered on Sigma Draconis III, some nineteen light years from Earth. But poliical and economic factors have made the current mission likely to be the last one and Ian Macauley has been included for his archeological expertise. The planet had one astonishing artifact - a crater some 36 kilometres across polished to mirror perfection - which acts as a telescope. But no living Draconians have been found and the diggings have given a date of some hundred thousand years ago for their extinction. Gradually Macauley’s brilliance comes up with theories surrounding the Draconians, such as that they communicated by electromagnetic signals and that they were quite advanced in genetic sciences. Their technology was biologically based and yet they appear to have succumbed to genetic stagnation. After surviving a scathing critique of their expedition the inspectorate leaves, hopeful of returning in a few years time. The dig continues, but as the time of the ship’s return draws close and passes, the realisation that they may have been marooned there becomes a reality. Lots of interesting things in John Brunner’s book but some unforgiveable sins as well…like changing from third person to first person at the end, and the ending itself? Well, the less said about it the better but it does at least solve the disappearance of the Draconians. He has written much more effective books than this.
April 29, 2023
Archaeologists from near-future Earth, on another planet, are investigating the ruins of an extinct alien civilization and trying to figure out what killed it. Meanwhile, international tensions are rising on Earth, with poorer countries lambasting the brand-new super-expensive hyperdrive as a waste of money if not a way for the rich countries to bring back new weapons from the alien world.
The characters are two-dimensional, but they answer well enough. The puzzle is what made the book for me. The methods of investigation and breakthroughs are fun, and I think Brunner's answer is ingenious.
However, Brunner then gives us a downer ending, with depressing themes rising to prominence and heavily-implied disaster on Earth as well. It's a perfect thematic echo to the aliens' extinction: in both civilizations, some firmly-woven wrongness brings disaster, which the civilization is unable to avoid despite outsiders thinking it obviously avoidable. Within the novel's small sample size, it even seems inevitable. I would like a possibility of hope - or at least, I would like it further explored rather than ladled on with thematic implication.
August 18, 2025
In the far future of 2020 hoomans have discovered evidence of an alien civilization on another planet. An alien civilization that suddenly died out 100,000 years ago. Scientists are sent to figure out what happened to the aliens, while things back on Earth aren't going so great. What follows is an exploration of the methods of discovery. Scientists gather evidence from disparate sources, try to fathom what it all means, often making insights correctly, often following dead ends, and progress is made but not in a direct line. Some discoveries don't lead forward but open up new avenues of investigation in other directions. Slowly a full picture is brought together.
Not much in the way of action, just a bunch of scientists digging in the dirt and then talking about what they found. There is the foreboding fear of events on Earth, and one particular guy is singled out for his genius and his instability. A study of science at work.
Not much in the way of action, just a bunch of scientists digging in the dirt and then talking about what they found. There is the foreboding fear of events on Earth, and one particular guy is singled out for his genius and his instability. A study of science at work.
April 7, 2025
I'm conflicted. The end was dramatic, bold, and dark. But getting there was a slog. So much scientific, archeological mumbo jumbo for at least half the book. The way the book ended seemed to make it all for nothing. Maybe that's part of the point?
The extinct intelligent species that the humans were investigating on a faraway planet were so obsessed with breeding genetic intelligence that they didn't see their own downfall of recessive genes like immune disorders, infertility and the like. Meanwhile the single ship that was capable of transporting humans back and forth from this faraway planet never returned, leaving 30 humans to attempt to build a new civilization. It all failed as their babies died, and all eventually succumbed to the harsh environment.
I struggle with finding the inner core of the lesson here.
The extinct intelligent species that the humans were investigating on a faraway planet were so obsessed with breeding genetic intelligence that they didn't see their own downfall of recessive genes like immune disorders, infertility and the like. Meanwhile the single ship that was capable of transporting humans back and forth from this faraway planet never returned, leaving 30 humans to attempt to build a new civilization. It all failed as their babies died, and all eventually succumbed to the harsh environment.
I struggle with finding the inner core of the lesson here.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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