Pavane

One of my favorite last moments with this book was the warm hearted story at the end where the young man seeks refuge in a old world town. Him, being a new worlder, has no one to help him, but a girl sees him and decides to show favor upon him. That's heart warming. 

You only get to see a few glimpses into the world Roberts has created here. The Church runs everything, they're using technology that is pretty much steampunk aesthetic but won't share it with the rest of the world. 

A heretical Priest forms his own faction and becomes a leader. A Queen forbids technology from entering her country in order for her people to have more time to believe in Truth and Reason, a Renaissance of sorts, that could have actually happened in an alternate history timeline simulacra. 

There's train haulers that know every nook and cranny of their machines. There's a lot of mini stories in Pavene, but in addition to interesting story lines and narrative development, there's also a lot of very well written sentences, sentences written in an elegant, stylistic way. Roberts is a stylist after all. And he never failed to deliver. In some ways I could compare this with some of William Gibson's stories from Burning Chrome or Neuromancer, but that wouldn't do it justice, it's simply a thing  entirely on its own, it's Pavane: 

a stately dance in slow duple time, popular in the 16th and 17th centuries and performed in elaborate clothing.

a piece of music for a pavane.

"the repertory consists mainly of pavanes and galliards"

2100

Hello, how's it going? I was thinking about the current state of affairs in the world and started thinking about what planet Earth would look and be like in say, 2050, 2100. I'd like to jot down some ideas on that subject. 

1) Will we take to the Stars?

Well, technically speaking, we have already gone far in space via machinery. But to see the human race fly to the stars and live there, that would be a true scientific revolution, the likes of which haven't been seen for a long time.

2) What would a banana republic like the United States look like in say, 2100, over the current debacle going on since 2016?

Government has shown to be effective and useful when used by the right hands, working with the heads and hearts of the people. But there are always going to be bad actors in any sort of governing, thus, as bad as Trump is, is there any more worse it can get?

3) How would we react to an overheated Earth, with lots of pollution? Natural disasters that get worse and worse every year. It's already happened in the California and Australian fires recently, but the key to effective climate control is your government officials, signing laws that lessen the impact of pollution, using clean, renewable energy and resources and cracking down on companies that violate those protocols. 

4) What if there's life out there?

The potentiality of others, alien life, is always there. Perhaps not in our solar system but in another one like it, or different to it. Possibly travel there via wormholes. Wormhole technology. I surely jest with science fiction but if there's water on other planets perhaps there's a slight chance that sentient life lived there at some point in the billions of millennia.  

5) Will education fail our young?

Education is a powerful thing, especially when imposed upon the young. What we teach our youth, or even younger friends even, is what we know based on education and experience. Learning through various methods will help you get through in life, bearing a modest sentimental education. You don't have to go to college, you don't even have to have finished high school, the more you educate yourself through various activity like reading, writing, and public speaking, the better your chances. Sounding less street can get you places. 

6) Will there be hover cars? 

Of course! But probably meant for the pure novelty at first until they figure out how all the techno-gadgetry works.  

7) What will people eat?

Obviously, the world's supply of chicken, beef, and pork will run out. With a growing population, planet Earth is eventually going to run out of food. Will this inevitably bring about an apocalyptic vision that was early COVID where all retailers rationed chicken, beef, and pork to only two packages? Perhaps we will need a lot more farmers in the world and America can become like the Old West. Oh, where the buffalos roam. 

8) Will we run out of air? 

What if the oxygen on Earth runs out and we all have to fly to colonies on Mars? Or perhaps to some neighboring star?

9) Will there be laser-guns or portal-guns? 

There are some great laser-gun fights in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It gave the novel a lot of pure action. Would laser-gun tech come about easily? Likewise, it would be cool to have a real, live, portal-gun, and be able to go places through your portals. Much like the critically acclaimed Steam game, Portal.  

10) Where does humanity go from here?

Well, you ask that question to everyone and they'd all tell you something different. Some would say we need to take to the stars and colonize them. Others would say stay home and read your Bible. Yet more would say we need to improve science and technology, because, as they say, things like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cognitive learning are where it's at. We live in a postmodern philosophical world if one could even call it that. There's no telling where we as a people, as a tribe, as dna, will go. 

Excelsior! 

The Difference Engine

The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling is one of those all-time great 'hard' science fiction novels. Set in a steampunk alternative history where primitive computers were invented in the mid 1800s thanks to Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, the story has the three things a good cyperpunk story has: steam airships, brass computers, and kinky feminine underwear (Gibson's words). 

The story follows Sybil Gerard, the daughter of a famous Luddite agitator Walter Gerard (Luddites being anti-technologists), Edward 'Leviathan' Mallory-paleontologist and explorer, and Laurence Oliphant, a historical figure, a travel writer who works under service of Her Majesty. What links all these characters together are these computer punch cards that are supposed to be powerful, important enough to die for. 

The characters believe the punch cards are part of a gambling 'modus', a device used in gambling where you can never lose, and have infinite money, a alchemist device.  "The last chapter reveals that the punched cards represent a program that proves two theorems which, in reality, would not be discovered until 1931 by Kurt Gödel. Ada Lovelace delivers a lecture on the subject in France." 

Mallory, his brothers, and Ebenezer Frazer (part of the Secret Police) defends the cards against Captain Swing, who leads a riot during the 'Stink', a major pollution event that happened in London, similar to the London Smog of December 1952. 

At the end Oliphant meets Sybil Gerard and tells her he knows who she is, the daughter of Walter Gerard, the famous Luddite agitator. He says he won't share her identity with anybody, but that he needs information to help take down Charles Egremont MP, her seducer, who poses as an obstacle in the way of Charles Babbage and Lord Brunnel's political careers. 

The end of the novel features all these different histories that occur in the world of Difference Engine. Lovelace delivers her lecture on Godel's Theorem, as its counterpart is known in our world. Fraser accompanies Sybil and meets Lovelace, with Sybil not ever able to forgive Lovelace's father Byron, for her role in her father's death.  

The end features a view of an alternate 1991 from the point of a computer, which turns out to be the narrator as it achieves self-awareness. 

Wow! What a novel. There's a lot to like about this novel. There's even realistic sex scenes, sort of like noir. The description of 'clackers', the book's version of hackers is pretty interesting, and similar to what hackers are like in real life, the 30-hour savants working around the clock with their calculations. 

But I think what was most exciting about this novel was the sheer brilliance of the writing-dialogue, plot, exposition, niche time period words of the 1850s, its got a lot going for it. The way that Gibson and Sterling made the narrator a computer, it gave them more options when it came to plot and exposition. I also believe that because this is the work of Gibson and Sterling, that it was destined to be great. This book was written at a high period of literary achievement for both writers. So its no surprise that the writing is very good. Both of them went on to become very different writers after the cyberpunk 90s. 

Although the novel was nearly 500 pages and took a long time to read (including a lot of 30 minute lunch breaks at work), I would say it was well worth it. This book compares to something like Dune, which I put at a really high literary and science fiction pinnacle. Its just that good.

The truth though is that the book took me a long time to get into. In fact, I had checked it out numerous times and barely ever got 50 pages in and at point I even listened to the audio book version on YouTube. Eventually I decided I was going to read the whole thing, turns out it was well worth the time and effort. But a book this great doesn't take too much effort, the words seemingly move across pages very easily. The time invested in reading this book is time well enjoyed. Such is the literary style of Gibson and Sterling. 

Well worth the read if you like alternative history, steampunk, or cyberpunk stories.