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Orbitsville 60

Posted by timothy from the not-geosynchronous dept.
In the book world, new and good are not exclusively linked. Classic books may get short shrift, but that doesn't mean they're not worth sampling. Even -- or especially -- in the world of SciFi, for a book to be worth reading 25 years later is an impressive feat. In that spririt, Duncan Lawie brings you another retrospective book review, this time of Bob Shaw's Orbitsville.
Orbitsville
author Bob Shaw
pages 190
publisher Pocket Books (out of print)
rating 8
reviewer Duncan Lawie
ISBN 0671698168
summary Classic science fiction sense of wonder with an enlightened investigation of the effects of discovery.

Bob Shaw grew up in Northern Ireland and rose from the ranks of fan fiction in the 1950s. His varied career began with structural engineering and aircraft design. As writing became a more significant part of his career, he moved into industrial public relations and journalism. Orbitsville was published in 1975, the year that Shaw finally became a full-time writer. It was later sequelised -- Orbitsville Departure -- and finally became a trilogy with the publication of Orbitsville Judgement in 1990. This review is of the original stand-alone novel but it is worth noting that the second book suffers the common problem of sequels which attempt to reopen the original closure, while the third novel is an excellent conclusion to the story, reinvigorating the themes of both foregoing novels. His other work shows similar creative approaches to ideas from science and a tendency to rework earlier themes, with his characterisation skills becoming stronger as his career continued.

Orbitsville is set in a new Elizabethan Age, and it soon becomes clear that this Elizabeth is a tyrant. She is the president of a monopolistic company which controls interstellar exploration and owns the ships capable of reaching Earth's only extra-solar colony. The novel's protagonist, Garamond, is the captain of one of her faster-than-light "flickerwings," but is soon fleeing her empire in the hope of reaching an almost-mythical refuge. The conveniently discovered system, which soon becomes known as Orbitsville, is utterly unlike anything previously thought possible: a massive Dyson sphere completely enclosing a sun in a shell only centimetres thick. The internal surface area - greater than that of 625 million Earths -- is a vast land of grass-covered hills and valleys which seems perfect for colonisation. It was constructed using methods incomprehensible to its human discoverers and the only access port is surrounded by the remnants of alien fleets.

With a constrictive human society and an mysterious yet invaluable resource under the nominal control of a refugee, the book has the tension and potential to go in any direction. Shaw has difficulty balancing the desire to go exploring in the vast volume of Orbitsville with the need to investigate its human consequences. Garamond is forced to apply all his wit to playing an unfamiliar political game against a resourceful and experienced opponent, and is repeatedly thrown off balance by Elizabeth's manoeuvres. At the same time, he wants to be in the midst of every revelation about Orbitsville. The sphere itself is a classic science fiction 'sense of wonder' trope, perceptible but apparently indefinable. The idea was not new when the book was written -- it invites comparison with Larry Niven's Ringworld -- but the author's attention to physical detail brings an inconceivably large object into telling focus. The novel is strengthened further by going beyond this engineering approach to consider the potential this discovery has to affect the entire human race.

The author's primary concerns in this work are the "big dumb object" and its grand effects. As a result, the characterisation is efficient rather than elaborate -- the personal actions of individuals sometimes seem to follow the requirements of the plot rather than flowing from the nature of the characters. Nevertheless, the large-scale repercussions of strategic decisions by both Garamond and Elizabeth are beautifully played out. The gradual definition of Orbitsville is also well told and the direction of the plot is cleverly perturbed by information gleaned about the structure. Orbitsville is an excellent example of the New Wave approach to classic science fiction, reviving familiar ideas through greater sophistication and new perspectives.

Orbitsville may be out of print, but harrass Fatbrain enough and perhaps they'll demand another printing.
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Orbitsville

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  • The conveniently discovered system, which soon becomes known as Orbitsville, is utterly unlike anything previously thought possible: a massive Dyson sphere completely enclosing a sun in a shell only centimetres thick. The internal surface area - greater than that of 625 million Earths -- is a vast land of grass-covered hills and valleys which seems perfect for colonisation.

    If the enclosure is complete, then how do you get in?
  • Since the sun is inside the sphere, the whole
    thing is practically invisible to explorers, until
    they bump on it. Might be good idea if there will
    be ever need for hideout =).

    (too much baaad scifi =)
  • It sounds like an intersting book. But I wonder which avenue it follows more. Does the book focus more on the interactions between society and this man, or rather his exploration of this new planet for colonization. All in all, it looks to be a good read, now if I could only get my hands on a copy! :-P
  • "and the only access port is surrounded
    by the remnants of alien fleets."

  • Haiku (Score:2)

    by 575 ( 195442 )
    Review an old book
    Regardless of the story
    Dyson Spheres kick ass

  • Well, it certainly sounds interesting enough, and if I ever get the opportunity I'll give it a go, but in general I'm not a huge fan of older science fiction. Personally I find that a lot of it, although based on intruiging ideas, just puts me off because of a lack of any kind of realism - the original series of Star Trek springs to made as a well known example.

    I'm not saying that all old sci-fi sucks, but it does seem like the genre has had a welcome influence of people who know what they're talking about over the last few decades. I find that a great idea in a story can be devalued when it is expressed in terms of science that a 16 year old could debunk.

    Anyway, as for Dyson spheres, has anyone else here read The Ring of Charon and The Shattered Sphere by Roger Macbride Allen? Good books, if a little bit obscure :)

  • Classics? (Score:4)

    by El Volio ( 40489 ) on Friday June 02, 2000 @04:44AM (#1030533) Homepage
    Classic books may get short shrift, but that doesn't mean they're not worth sampling. Even -- or especially -- in the world of SciFi, for a book to be worth reading 25 years later is an impressive feat.

    What's this? I'd say that there's a lot of staying power in classic SF, maybe more so than in many other forms of fiction. Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, etc. still exert a hugeinfluence on SF today. There's no need to apologize for reviewing a classic (note: haven't read the entire review yet.)

  • Of all the books that have been writen in the last "25 years" that needs to be reviewed, and talked about is Shockwave Rider.

    After re-reading it, it still struck me as a amazing novel that reads like a novel about now, it's strange and wonderfull novel. It amazes me that someone could see and write about the issues that we are dealing with now. and will be dealing with.

  • Powell's Bookstore in Portland, OR is the largest new and used bookstore in the US. They link up with smaller bookstores as well, and can often get out of print and rare books with amazing ease. Their website is http://www.powells.com

    Happy Reading!
  • I agree that it sounds interesting but where exactly is the value in reviewing a book that's out of print? Is someone just trying to get one of their favorite books re-issued?

    Reviewing a book without having a way for people to get their hands on it is kind of a teaser. If anyone knows where to find it let us know.

  • Dyson spheres and ring worlds, oh my! ?p? I just love stories involving these MASSIVE engineering projects. They evoke a sense of awe and an optimism in our technological future even when they are impractical and/or physically impossible. Niven's ?I?Ringworld?/I? and Clarke's ?i?Renedezvous with Rama?/i? are the most well known examples, but here are a couple of others: ?p? ?i?The Time Ships?/i? by Stephen Baxter - Nobody does engineering like the Morlocks! ?br? ?i?Anvil of the Stars?/i? by Greg Bear - This sequel to ?i?The Forge of God?/i? features manufactured planets, gas giant mining and electro-magnetic fields around a star to control and mine it's energy.


    Read a good book lately?
  • Those are two of my favorite SCI-FI books. The technology described is fascinating.
  • Welcome to June's edition of Karma Whore Tip Of The Month.

    This months top tip: The Haiku, poetry, with a twist. Its sharp, witty, and appeals to the minimalist in all geeks, and has a zingy splash of the (highly fashionable) orient to boot, but remember to stay on topic, or the moderators will spot you for the troll you are and your karma will disappear in a puff of troll smoke.

    :)

    Thad

  • That is an odd question? Don't you people have
    libraries? That's where I found it, read it and
    eventually, returned it.

  • Related Links.. (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02, 2000 @05:03AM (#1030541)
    You can find out about Dyson Spheres here [nada.kth.se].

    There is more info about the author, Bob Shaw here [fantasticfiction.co.uk].

    Orbitsville also won 3rd Prize in the 1976 John W. Campbell award [ukans.edu] for science fiction.

  • The two Greg Bear books rocked. the idea of using whole solar system as a honey pot, was awsome.

  • Yeah, I read the Ring years ago and found it really interesting, especially the whole idea of gravitic technology, something which will allow us to really play around with spacetime, and when it ended I looked around for the follow up but couldn't find it :( Only found it a few months ago by accident which was lucky :)

  • but you used Star Trek as an example of earlier science fiction. Star Trek was a television series with a science fiction bent.

    You do seem to know some science fiction, but drawing conclusions about old science fiction by citing Star Trek seems as relevant as drawing conclusions about old computers by citing HAL 9000.

    George
  • "...Since the sun is inside the sphere, the whole thing is practically invisible to explorers..."

    The star still radiates the same amount of energy whether or not it is inside a Dyson sphere. With a much greater surface area, you get a much lower surface temperature, but you still must emit that energy (I'll guess much of it as infrared).
  • How do I order this out of print book from Fatbrain, to keep ./ whoring itself?

    Save your rant for something more ontopic.

    George
  • I have to say that this book is well worth reading, balancing both the sense of wonder and the personal. There are some nicely thought out consequences and ideas in the later part of the book. Note, this book is now back in print (at least in UK). Gollanzc has just re-published it here in paperback (along with a number of other SF classics they had previously published in HB).
  • Agreed, Shockwave Rider is definitely in my top 5 of science fiction books.

    What's it take to write a /. review, can anyone?

    George

  • David Wingrove (Score:3)

    by BoLean ( 41374 ) on Friday June 02, 2000 @05:17AM (#1030549) Homepage
    When I select a book to buy new I tend to gravitate to the larger novels -more bang for your buck. I stumbled across Wingrove's Chung Kuo serveal years ago and have found this series (up to book 8 I think) to be one of the best I have ever read (Bio of a Space Tyrant and Mission Earth being a few others).

    Each book has a myriad of characters who each have unique personalities. The concept behind the books is entirely plausable. In the near future China becomes the dominant power in the world and in an effort to save humanity from overpopulation two strategies are devised. The first is populating nearby planets and the other, China's solution, is to build huge continent size cities with mant levels to each city. The space program is shot down by China so humanity if forced to live in these huge cities where there is a caste system roughly coresponding to what floor of the city you live on. From royalty living on the upper levels down to "clay" people living in the dark beneath the city off the refuse that works its way down. The plot is so intriguing with so many twists that even after eight novels I'm chomping at the bit for the next one.

    David Wingrove has also written several book adaptations based on the Myst game. Not bad books, but they seem to suffer a little from the constraints of the writer having to follow what has/is happening in the Myst/Riven saga.

  • Well, it certainly sounds interesting enough, and if I ever get the opportunity I'll give it a go, but in general I'm not a huge fan of older science fiction. Personally I find that a lot of it, although based on intruiging ideas, just puts me off because of a lack of any kind of realism - the original series of Star Trek springs to made as a well known example.

    The original Star Trek is an example of "older science fiction"? Oog. First of all, science fiction is older than 1966; secondly, Star Trek isn't exactly representative of science fiction....

    ---Bruce Fields

  • With a much greater surface area, you get a much lower surface temperature, but you still must emit that energy (I'll guess much of it as infrared).

    There is an SF novel (but I can't for the life of me remember what or who by) that includes the detection of a Dyson sphere by looking for a bright IR source with no (or little) visible presence.

  • And maybe the wrong one at that :) No, I didn't mean to cast TOS as "definitive" early science fiction, I was merely talking about it being an example of a good idea being spoiled for me by very poor realism. The stuff I was actually talking about was a few decades prior to that really, so okay, maybe I should have come up with something else...

  • Another argument for reviewing old books is that what's old in the US can be a fresh translation in Finland, Indonesia or whatever.

    Especially, I think that Eastern Europe has a lot of interesting Western books to discover, don't they?
    __
  • As they said in the book, suidac! (sp?)
    __
  • It's *just* been republished in the U.K. by Gollanz: it's available from amazon.co.uk. First the SF Masterworks series, now the Gollanz reprints: older SF is finally getting the recognition it deserves (in the UK at least). Now if only _True Names_ would be republished..
  • I don't have the book at hand [ in theory, I'm still working :-) ], but IIRC they actually bumped in it (knowing only the general area of the universe where it was).

    I read this book many years ago. Actually, Orbitsville is a trilogy ( a real one, with only three episodes ). Episode I is quite good. Then things go a bit mystics, though I still enjoyed it.

    If you are after the 'sci' of 'scifi', Asimov or Larry Niven might be a better reading [IANAS]. If you, like me, are after the 'fi' , you could quite like the Orbitsville saga.

  • Star trek as "hard" Science Fiction? That's almost funny. Star Trek was a Drama that used the trappings of SF in order to explore various aspects "of the Human Condition" (As my english teacher used to say), with occasional forays into environmentalism.

    As such, it was able to tell some interesting stories (despite a certain actor's well known ability to over-act! ;-)

  • Re:Haiku (Score:3)

    by 575 ( 195442 ) on Friday June 02, 2000 @05:47AM (#1030558) Journal
    Troll? I disagree
    These posts seek not to inflame
    Karma whore? You bet
  • What grade school do you go to?
  • Ive always found serious problems with these huge novels. The 'never mind the quality feel the width' school of SF has always to my mind been severely lacking in redeeming qualities. the Wingrove series looses its pace after about 4 books, Bio of a space tyrant lost its way a little over half way through and the mission earth series is excrement from the very first page. Even though if you look at the writing style the last two books appear to have been written by someone else.(although still a vast improvement over battlefield earth, which would fight hard for the honours in any 'worst book ever written' contest.)
    I've always been vaguely suspicious of the vast multi-volume set, as this often appears to be more the work of marketing men rather than writers. If you're going to read multi volume stuff then the thing to read is either the Gibson trilogy or the Peter F Hamilton. If you want multi book but don't mind disconnected stories, then it's got to be the Ian Banks.
  • Not to talk about Stanislaw Lem, the über-novelist of science fiction, the Emperor of Visions of Future, Poland's Pet^Hrsonified Wonder of the World. One can not truly claim being a science fiction fan before touching the cover of one of his holy books, Cyberias and Star Diaries being the brightest stars in that multiverse.

    Cultural achievements do not one-way stream.

    (Sorry about the mandatory Lem praisal, but it is mandatory.)
  • Obvious answer being, "read the book so you'll find out", what values this book quite perfectly is how does the writer keep stuff to the ground inside of a sphere?

    - is "Dyson" something special about a sphere that I missed, or
    - is there something in real physics making this possible, or
    - has the ball been written to be rolling insanely fast, or
    - is this yet another "aliens built it" cheapo?
  • ... And vice versa. There is alot of excellent classic sci-fi from Eastern Europe and Russia. Well known examples: Stanislas Lem, or the Strougatski brothers...
  • I have to admit, you are good. :)

    Thad

  • In an Afterword for the 10th anniversary edition of Neuromancer, William Gibson talks about one of "the secret adult pleasures of science fiction." Specifically, learning to enjoy the dated aspects of an old science fiction novel, rather than discounting the whole work.

    When the Magyar version of Neuromancer was published, he wrote an afterword to Hungarian readers, assuring them that the Soviet presence in Neuromancer was in no way a prediction of some resurgence of a communist government, but rather that Gibson could not, at the time he wrote the novel, imagine a future without the Soviet Union. "This stuff ages fast," he wrote.

    Neuromancer does invoke the eighties, strongly. In its presentation of corporate hegemony vs. cowboy outlaws, there is a delineation between the squares and the hipsters which, in the nineties, became increasingly blurred. Nowadays, you can find corporate lawyers who wear little rimless glasses and dress like James Dean, the Gap having made bohemian as easy as Garanimals. Starbuck's represents a late commodification of an older European cultural node, and (wherever you stand on the issue) an anarchic little piece of code called Napster may lead to an IPO.

    In Neuromancer, corporate is corporate; dressed-up and buttoned-down, conservative as hell. It even resides in its own separate world, compartmentalized from the retrofitted subcultural outlaw bohemia of Chiba city. Gibson also cites the fact that people in the novel jump into bed at the drop of a hat, and he had to backpedal in subsequent books, with the explosion of AIDS.

    The whole point being that if you accept a novel for its dated aspects, you get a snapshot of the era in which it was written. If the novel is really good, the effect is almost impressionist: suggestive, peripheral detail accumulating into a kind of broader meta-landscape which the author may not even have intended.

  • Yeah, but are there good ones unpublished in English?

    I read "It's hard to be a god" from Strugatskis and something from Lem and I don't think of them as so big (And the film Solaris is even more boring than 2001).
    __
  • The Gibson trilogy was pretty good. I never understood why he has gotten so much attention as a writer. Maybe because he wrote books about the internet when the internet was just being born. What I really love about Wingrove is the level of detail and character development. Short books often leave me wanting more and if I just coughed up $7-9 I feel a little ripped. A good writer leaves you wanting more so I usually pick up the shorter books second-hand.

    the problem with some multi-volume books is if the auther intended for that to happen. I think you are correct that often, the author writes a good book and the publisher wants more of the same for quick-easy sales.

  • Peter F. Hamilton rules! I just started re-reading his "Reality Dysfunction" two-part book after finishing "The Neutronium Alchemist" a little while ago. I'm going to read the four books in order, then get the conclusion when it comes out in paperback (has it already?), because when I was reading "The Neutronium Alchemist", I found I had no clue wtf was going on at first. I read "Reality Dysfunction" in 1997, so I'd forgotten a lot of it. Re-reading "Reality Dysfunction" with the knowledge I've gained from "Neutronium Alchemist" is a very pleasurable experience. The 100 pages of set-up at the begining all MAKES SENSE. :) I really enjoy Hamilton's imagination, even if everything he's writing about has been done before (if somewhat differently). He puts together some very diseperate themes in SF in an interesting and believable way, especially considering the fantastic circumstances.

    Regarding gigantic, multi-volume SF series in general, I would have to agree with you. I tried to read the "Dune" series, and I couldn't get past the third book (and this is Dune we're talking about here, not some Scientologist bullshit!). The first two books were really good though...
  • John Brunner is the real daddy of what was once called cyberpunk !!!!

    lcase
  • Hehe, let's not argue about taste, then again:

    I for one love Stanislas Lems work. His books are unconventional, witty, funny at places and always very thought-provoking. I didn't even know there was a movie based on Solaris. Any details?

    Boris and Arkadi Strougatsky. Well okay, maybe they're no "monuments" but I liked their War of the Worlds parody anyway (exact title?).

    Lem however is an important sf author, he has often treated subjects which would later become fashionable (human-computer interfaces for example) well before everyone else. As such, he would not use the later established and popular conventions (or dare I say clichées?)... cyberpunk anyone?

    I think he is a greatly underrated author, but that's just me.

    (Incidentaly, I think some of the Big Ones, especially A.C. Clarke, are vastly overrated...*ducks, looking frantically for cover*)

    As usual, this is just imho.

    But as to your question. I wouldn't know, since I read in french, german, spanish and then english(in that order)(*), and I try to avoid translations as much as my language skills allow me (too bad for Lem, who's polish, so I read the french translations).

    (*) I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm boasting. I couldn't claim much merit for it. I'm just the result of a rather adventurous pan-european love story :)

  • The same technique was used in The Lost World. It turned out that some dinosaurs had escaped from Jurassic Park, unbeknowst to the rest of the world but knownst to us (sorry, I had to stick in the Spaceballs reference). Kinda sleazy, but it enabled another few bucks to fow to Crichton's pocket.
  • I agree, but I have to point out that all the Rama books after the first one sucked. This guy Gentry Lee is a horrible writer, and it's very clear which passages were written by him and which were written by Clarke. For that matter, Clarke is no Shakespeare, either, or even a Neal Stephenson. Although Childhood's End was a pretty good book.
  • Here's a good rule-of-thumb: does the story run to multiple volumes because the author believed that it should? Or because some marketing wonk believes that people will not read unfamiliar books? For a great example of a writer who runs to multi-volumes while at the same keeping a narrative under firm control, check out Gene Wolfe. He criminally under-appreciated.
  • Wise Man! I agree
    (Karma troll? You bet)
  • Sir, when correcting science, please use science.

    Light doesn't reflect perfectly from any surface I know of, so the laser is absorbed a little by each mirror it reflects off of. The laser beam would slowly dim, until it was so dim that you couldn't perceive it if it went straight into your eye. This is why people do research on mirrors & coatings for astronomy: you dont' want to absorb one of the five photons which strike the mirror of your telescope. (I don't know if photon count is this low, but some observations are so dim that counting photons is easier than calculating lumens.)


    BTW, is there an androgenous term of respect? I used 'Sir' because in English, when the sex is unknown, the default is the masculine pronoun. (Don't blame me, I think it's imprecise: implying that I know the sex of the person in question when I actually don't.) I don't know if cheese_wallet is male, female, Kzinti, or Klingon, but I know that I want to speak with respect.

    Maybe I should learn Esperanto. ;)

    Louis Wu

    Thinking is one of hardest types of work.

  • Just to be clear, I thought Dyson is the name of the person who first thought up the idea of surrounding a star with a shell to harvest 100% of the radiated energy. The engineering problem would be immense, almost more so than the ammount of materials required to build such a thing (x number of large planets would need to be crushed into material, etc). Probably the only way, other than "aliens built it" to get the semblance of gravity, that is uniform all over its surface, is to make it really thick, this would take the mass of thousands or millions of planets to achieve and would probably cause problems of its own. The other alternitive is something like in Ringworld, which could be easily spun, or only living perpendicular to the rotational axis.
  • Thickness won't help because you're on the inside. The thickness below you pulls you down, but the thickness (and the star) above you pull you up.

    If it spins at a faster than orbiting rate, you will spin at a faster than orbiting rate, some force other than gravity will need to push against your feet. In the equitorial regions, this could probably nicely replace gravity. Then you'd have a "planet" of constantly varying gravity. You could dispose of trash by pushing it towards the poles until it falls into the sun. If you didn't need to conserve the material.
  • A Dyson sphere need not have magical gravity generators, you can spin it like a Ringworld (Larry Niven), you just don't get artificial gravity everywhere. There will be an inhabitable ring at the equator of the sphere, where 'gravity' will be the maximum and where the air will settle. Not all bad, you can do micro-gravity research near the spin axis, and you can still take the train to work from your 0.9g home (fast train, but it's not impossible).

    Keeping the air 'down' near the people might be hard. Take your wok (I know you have one :) and put a little water in it, just covering the bottom half inch (1 cm). Now swirl the water around, keeping the water level at some specific height. Notice how hard it is to keep the water right at that height? That's pretty much what will happen to the air in the Dyson sphere as it rotates: tiny perturbations will move the 'edge' of the air around. A wall to keep the air in place might be appropriate. Maybe a few kilometers high is all that would be needed, depending on whether or not people were going to live near this wall. The closer people want to live to the wall, the higher it will have to be to keep in enough air to have normal air pressure. (To get normal atmospheric pressure of 101kPa, if you have constant Earth-normal gravity, you need air about 8.4 km high.)

    The problem most people will have with Dyson spheres will be that the 'down' you feel won't be directly into the sphere when you are a large distance from the inhabitable ring. At 45 degrees lattitude, 'gravity' would be 6.94 m/s^2 (you're feeling 9.81 m/s^2 right now), 70% of the maximum. (The 'gravity' felt varies as the sine of the lattitude.) And the direction of that force of 'gravity' would be at a 45 degree angle, not down. Everything will have to built at an angle to the ground if you want to walk with 'down' toward the floor.

    The spin you have to give it is kinda fast, one complete revolution every 34 hours. This is a sphere which has a radius as big as the distance from the Sun to the Earth, so the fastest parts of the sphere are traveling at 1,213 kilometers per second; the Earth orbits at 29.9 kilometers per second. Really fast. Really, really fast. The fastest parts of the sphere travel at 0.4% of the speed of light. That is how fast you are traveling when you stand at the equator of a Dyson sphere. Don't worry about the relativistic effects, they show up in the sixth decimal place.

    I'd tell you what kind of stress that several centimeter thick shell has to withstand, but I can't find a formula for the mass-moment of inertia of a thin shell. I'm lazy today, sorry.

    Louis Wu

    Thinking is one of hardest types of work.

  • Gibson has a particularly keen eye for this effect, as shown by "The Gernsback Continuum", a wonderful short story where a 1980s photo-journalist starts seeing visions of the future from the 1920s. The whole story is written with a disturbing under-the-skin irreverance. Every time I see once cutting edge technology go obsolete I think of this story.
  • Spinneret by Timothy Zahn had a Dyson sphere. It was good too.
  • I also really enjoyed this book- when I was about 10. It's still a great read, although I agree that some of the characterisations were a little lacking BUT did improve in the sequel- if other aspects didn't. I didn't know there was a part III; I eagerly await the chance to read it.
    Thanks for the review, please keep reviewing the old with the new.
    Cheers
    Julian

  • Another interesting characteristic of the "future technology" envisioned during the 1920s was the Victorian-influenced design aesthetic. The non-futuristic, workaday tech in the 20's featured modest artistic fluorishes, "curlicues of design" which Gibson writes about in the Gernsback Continuum.

    The futurists of the 20s assumed, as all generations do, that the prevailing contemporary aesthetic would continue forever. A current example would be, oh, let's say, the redesigned Robot in the Lost in Space film, which looked like the product of the Dodge Viper design team. Which, sure, cool and everything, but the aesthetics of future generations will be either A) Something we can't imagine right now, or B) a new iteration of the aesthetics of generations past, seeing as how these things tend to be cyclical -- i.e., cars are all curvy and everything right now, which was the mode in the 40s and 50s. So here's my prediction: angular cars within 10 years. Take it to the bank; it's gold, baby.
  • Deform the shell. Put dents in the shell to provide the basis for oceans and mountains; dents protruding out of the sphere are oceans, dents into the sphere are mountains.

    Louis Wu

    Thinking is one of hardest types of work.

  • Your assumption that I am male is correct. (At least it was the last time I checked.)

    There isn't a specific androgenous term of respect in English, that I am aware of. But I am not a linguist. The best I can think of would be "Dear Sir or Madam" which is used frequently.

    My comment about "What grade school..." was almost sincere. I was in grade school when I would think about these thing. I wasn't trying to correct the AC. I was answering his question.

    --Scott

  • Thanks for your answer, it was nice to read. I got an email telling that the book takes the easiest way out. Blah.
  • Info about tha Soviet film "Solyaris [imdb.com]" based on Stanislaw Lem's book, from IMDB.
    __

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