The Sword and Laser discussion

Finished this book a while ago. Found it pretty much average. Decent insomnia reading, kept me involved in the world, but didn't deliver on promises made

Spoiler protected below for the digest readers, so expect full book spoilers within the spoilertext.

(view spoiler)[What a mixed bag this book is. We've got a first contact that maybe isn't, or perhaps the intelligence is so strange we don't understand it. Humanity pulling back for sheer survival and not caring who gets hurt in the process. Should be a great book, right? Well, I found some odd stereotypes along the way, and the scale was well off.

Early on we hear of the terraformed worlds and humanity moving out into space. Sounds great! Big scale! Early HFY (Humanity Fuck Yeah) optimistic book!

Well, nope. After the setup, we...spend a third of the book cramped into a barely-working space station. Sure, the sociological dynamics are interesting, but don't get to the level of compelling. Slow reveal on station dynamics and how the various groups worked out a functional society in extreme resource scarcity. Nice work, and as I read this I'm thinking that the Expanse writers must have read this book. Rosalind especially seems like she should be wearing the split circle of the OPA.

Parts of the station dynamics leave me quizzically tilting my head, like the "confused dog" meme. So people live on ships outside the station and get their via wires. I can suspend disbelief that far. But next I'm supposed to believe kids played there? Like some kind of space playground? What kind of parent would say "sure, go out to a vacuum in a leaky spacesuit, and if you make the slightest mistake you're dead. Tah, have fun!"

And then Malley. He...has an aversion to airlocks? On a space station. It's as if Czerneda went to a writing workshop and was challenged to come up with the most unlikely phobia for a space dweller to have.

The action is good in chunks, and the setups work. The facility in spacewalks established early turns into a critical plot point later.

I can buy the captain of the ship, Gail Smith, and her motivations leading up to becoming captain. Humanity needs to understand and perhaps exterminate the Quill. It's a survival imperative. She's ambitious, smart, capable. And then...

then...

She is willing to throw everything away for her burgeoning emotions. Can we not do this trope? Could we never see this trope again? Can we drop this trope into a waste bin and shoot it into the sun? It's the "incompetent female captain" bit ad nauseum. I think in that situation a woman is just as capable as a man of being hardnosed and making tough decisions. Heck, ST:TNG got it right when Troi couldn't pass command training until she was able to send Geordi to his death while making a needed repair. It was a simulation, but that's what you have to be willing to do. (Episode is Thine Own Self.)

The plot moves on adequately. We never get the vast scale implied by the early part of the book. What we do get is a look at an unknowable intelligence. It's either intelligent and so strange we just don't get it, or is an impressionable medium that is not in itself intelligent. While we're led to the latter conclusion, at the end of the book I wasn't so sure. Perhaps the Quill are just so different we can't understand them.

I wanted this book to be larger scale than it was. We get just a touch of that at the end when we deal with what the Quill actually are. All in all enjoyable, even with obvious tropes and stereotypes. I wanted it to step off the deep end like, say, Stapledon's Star Maker, but instead it stuck to the unknowable unknown, more like Rendezvous with Rama.
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completely agree with what you said about the first half of the book on the station makes me want to read the expanse even more and the big scale ambition that did not deliver.

one though I had on Gail's romance with Aaron I wanted to ask the group. how much was Gail affected by Aaron "quill effect"? hard to grasp his abilities but I think survival through empathy sums it up. was Gail in love or under this effect?

I'm struggling to get into it. I think I'm only on page 45 or so and I just don't want to read it. I listened to what they said on the podcast and I'm trying to give it a chance, but I just don't care about any of them.

Terkpristin: This might be a good one to skim through. The ending is pretty interesting. IMO you won't miss a lot if you skim the middle 50%

Lee: I really love that idea. What if...(taking it to spoilers) (view spoiler)[the Quill were reaching out to humanity through Aaron? Perhaps they were equally scared of the effect humans had on them but had no way to turn off the part of their biology that was fatal to humans. Certainly it's telegraphed early on that Aaron is different and the obvious conclusion from the about the 1/3 mark of the book is that he's part Quill. So as a hybrid, does he influence humans via his Quill part?

I thought about it for a while, but I don't find that the text supports that idea. He's able to communicate with the transplanted spirit of his grandmother, but it doesn't seem like he has any other charisma abilities. Certainly the romance would make more sense if he was influencing Gail Smith and the rest of the crew through an extraterrestrial enhancement. I like it, but in the end, I don't see enough in the text to conclude that as the reason for events in the book. Too bad, I like this better than the actual reasons given! (hide spoiler)]

Lee wrote: "how much was Gail affected by Aaron "quill effect"? hard to grasp his abilities but I think survival through empathy sums it up. was Gail in love or under this effect?"

Interesting thought. I never really felt that him being very well liked was part of his powers. But Gail definitely crossed some ethical lines with this romance...

you're probably right John, I like you was confused how and driven brilliant woman throws everything away for a seemingly average man, you could convince me that Malley is a exceptional individual but the only exceptional thing about Aaron is the quill. but rather than Czenda adding a foil only I see, she probably just had a editor ask her where is the love.

This first half of the book reminded me of another S&L pick Downbelow Station.

Lee wrote: "one though I had on Gail's romance with Aaron I wanted to ask the group. how much was Gail affected by Aaron "quill effect"? hard to grasp his abilities but I think survival through empathy sums it..."

I had the same thought. That "romance" just developed too fast for no apparent reason. I think it would have felt more normal after the two characters had interacted more outside the lab.

Overall I enjoyed the book but like others the world building and station portion was more interesting to me than back end of the book.

AndrewP wrote: "This first half of the book reminded me of another S&L pick Downbelow Station."

A stellar recommendation!

OK, so some people find it hard to believe that the great mind of Gail would fall for "OK" level Aaron.

Sometimes a guy isn't that attractive, special or bright, yet an amazing woman inexplicably falls for them.

I have no other explanation for the existence of my wife.

Hmm, I read this as a good version of Vessel....