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The Broken God 58

Posted by Hemos from the conceiving-different-universes dept.
Andrew Hunt has come through with his first review for Slashdot, of David Zindell's The Broken God. Set in the distant future, the book chronicles vast, divinely created supercomputers, a humanity spread throughout the stars, and the notion of humanity achieving divine nature. Excellent science fiction.
The Broken God
author David Zindell
pages 695
publisher Bantam Books
rating 9.5/10
reviewer Andrew Hunt
ISBN 0553564501
summary Story of divinity in the distance future.

The Scenario

This masterful work of science fiction by David Zindell takes place several thousand years after the destruction and abandonment of Earth. Humanity now covers thousands of worlds and shares the galaxy with many races of aliens. Gods roam the universe and several inhabit huge nebulae in the Milky Way, endlessly turning dead matter into the vast supercomputers that make up their brains. Among these are Nicolas Daru Ede, who imprinted his consciousness into a computer and became humanity's first god; and Mallory Ringess, who discovered an entirely different path toward godhood embedded in human genetic memory.

Danlo wi Soli Ringess, the son of Mallory Ringess, is born on the planet Icefall, heart of civilization and home of the Order, the group of intellectuals dedicated to discovering all that is knowable about reality. However, he is born deep in the Icefall's frozen wilderness into a group of primitives who know nothing more of civilization than a rumor of an Unreal City far to the east. When he is thirteen years old, an engineered virus kills all the members of his tribe. It is his fate to journey far across Icefall's frozen waste to the Unreal City, that is properly called Neverness, to join the ranks of the most glorified profession of the Order, the Pilots, and to learn of the infinite possibilities for humans.

What's Bad?

[This section left blank intentionally.]

What's Good?

Zindell displays incredible skill and imagination in constructing this universe. Neverness is populated by many species of aliens and groups of humans, each with its own philosophy and view of reality. More importantly, Neverness is the home of the Order of Mystical Mathematicians and Other Keepers of the Ineffable Flame. There are many professions in the Order, from Pilots to Librarians, and each dedicates itself to understanding reality more deeply in a different way.

While Neverness is civilization's most important city and the setting of the novel, Zindell does not neglect to describe the rest of the galaxy. Many philosophies, religions, and wars helped shape civilization, and the author presents this background information without disrupting the flow of the story.

This universe is apprehended through the experiences of Danlo Ringess. Because of his tragic childhood, heroic journey through the wilderness, and enduring love of life, the reader sympathizes with him. Because of his combination of primitive beliefs and desire to experience the world in different ways, he continually interests the reader. Because of his genius and wildness, the reader sees him as a hero.

What does an author need other than a beautifully crafted universe and a compelling character? Zindell has not forgotten to include a plot in his novel. It involves the birth of a religion, romance, assassins, warring philosophies, flight through the stars, virtual realities, and much more.

Conclusion

Many Slashdot readers will like the computer ideas presented in this book, including his idea of "cybernetic philosophies" which view the universe as a computer program run to discover the answer to some question. There's also stuff about telepathic interfaces and virtual realities.

Much of this book can be thought of as the author discussing the difference between perception of reality and reality itself, and many other themes pervade the novel. The possibility of discussing such topics in the flow of an intriguing plot is why I enjoy science fiction so much, and why I view this book as one of the best recent examples of the genre. It's also why I think you should procede directly to mxbf.com (or your local used book store) and buy a copy of this book immediately. It's been out of print for a while now, so the big retail stores probably won't have it.

If you like this book, you should definitely read Neverness, by the same author, which might be considered the prequel to The Broken God. It's at least as good, though harder to get your hands on.

If such things offend you, you might want to know that there are occasional fairly graphic sex scenes.

Purchase this book at fatbrain.
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The Broken God More

The Broken God

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  • No flaimbaid intended. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The fact that I did not like the book IS NOT the reason I post as AC, rather I just moved back to Europe and don't have my password handy.

    Anyway, I think this review shows how much taste can differ. I read the book more than 2 years ago, but I remember distinctively that I did not enjoy it very much. It was quite a disappointment since I liked the first book in the series. This book I found to be quite repetitive. The time the hero spent in school was a rather boring recall of what poor new students all over the world may have to suffer on the hands of more 'senior' students. Especially in a boys-only boarding-school environment. Have seen and read that kind of plot a million times. And the author spends half the book on that very non-original stuff.

    The other thing that bothered me big time is the complete lunacy and total inrational behaviour of most humans in this particular universe. Especially the religious fever. I just don't get it and it thought it was never very well motivated or explained. As I said, I liked the first one, and the universe the author created is really cool, but IMHO 'The broken god' was not worth reading. Nevertheless when I am getting bored (is not going to happen soon) I may try out the next book in the series just to see if it improves again. Well, no offense meant if you want to flame me nevertheless feel free to email me at ground_zero@gmx.net.

  • God Is Dead? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is God Dead? Not really... God keeps us going, he may not even exist, but he is the universal scape goat to the world... if something bad happens which is beyond our control... it must've been God's diving will. God's not dead, just preparing to go into the witness protection program. -- The Kid]CWA[ http://openacan.cjb.net
  • Man through scientific endeavor and whatnot gets to the point where he considers himself god and gives up atheistic notions. The council of scientists select a member to address God. The man goes an declares that he is now a god as are all his colleagues and as such they have no further need for God.

    God challenges the man to prove his godhood and the man says OK, Let's have a man making contest, just like the old days. God agrees and bends down to gather some mud. The man dose likewise and god snaps at him.

    "Go create your own clay."

    Moral ? : There is a lot more to God than just the big things wich are obvius.
  • Man through scientific endeavor and whatnot gets to the point where he considers himself god and gives up atheistic notions. The council of scientists select a member to address God. The man goes an declares that he is now a god as are all his colleagues and as such they have no further need for God.

    God challenges the man to prove his godhood and the man says OK, Let's have a man making contest, just like the old days. God agrees and bends down to gather some mud. The man dose likewise and god snaps at him.

    "Go create your own clay."

    Moral ? : There is a lot more to God than just the big things wich are obvius.
  • >Organized Religion: The only thing preventing people from being civilized.

    Tell that to Renaissance thinkers, artists, and scientists that were devout Christians. I don't think they would be very amused.
    --GAck
  • We are, pretty much, destined to become gods. It is obvious that with the tools we'll have in less than a century, we will gain the ability to do anything that isn't inconsistent with the laws of physics. Between nanotechnology and artificially enhanced intelligence, very little should be beyond our capacities.

    Perhaps you haven't noticed the growing technological changes around you. Perhaps your belief that we are too "stupid" impairs your ability to notice that we're rapidly learning how to fix that.

    In any case, however, neither quasi-religious optimism nor quasi-religious pessimism stemming from political beliefs about how horrible the human race is are likely to have a long term impact on what actually happens.
  • No, it's not a logic jump. If you had read the books, you would realize that he is postulating the "devine" in all humans. Literally "in". Zindel goes way beyond discussing "soul". He examines the nature of universal, timeless memory, determinism, and transcendence. These are excellent books full of ideas that will keep your late-night bull sessions interesting until dawn. Oh yeah. And the story's good too.
  • I read TBG before Neverness; fortunately, I read the two a few years apart so that TBG didn't ruin Neverness for me. Both are very good. I haven't finished the series yet; they're hard books to find.

    Other SF authors in the same vein, writing literate SF, are the aforementioned Ia in Banks [dmoz.org] (make sure you consider this website [phlebas.com]), the well-known Ste phen R. Donaldson [dmoz.org] and Dan Simmons [dmoz.org] (in particular his Hyperion [amazon.com] series). Iain Banks writes non-genre fiction as Iain M. Banks and is hugely popular in the UK. Donaldson, lambasted and praised for his Unbeliever Chronicles [amazon.com], also wrote The Gap Series [amazon.com], a dark DF space opera based on the Ring Cycle. Simmons writes a lot of horror and other dark fiction.

    Another author in the vein is Steven Brust [dmoz.org] (whose Taltos [amazon.com] series is his masterwork), as well as the other members of his writing circle, the Pre-Joycean Fellowship [corrupt.net], including Emma Bull [dmoz.org].

    Another fine but relatively obscure author is the powerful writer George Alec Effinger [bookmag.com]. Lordy lordy, is this man good. If I'm not mistaken, he's also worked on comix with Neil Gaiman and wrote for the supercool SF cartoon Galaxy Rangers [dmoz.org], along with another great author, Tom De Haven [sff.net].

    More old-school authors who wrote very post-modern SF include the amazing Avram Davidson [kosmic.org] (check out the great Treasury [amazon.com]) who wrote primarily short stories, and the odd and great Polish author Stanislaw Lem [dmoz.org] (whose career began in 1951 and continues to this day). Starting from Lem, you get into the great European (including S. America) "fantastic philosophers" [mtsu.edu] Borges [dmoz.org] and Calvino [dmoz.org]. And if you like them, then you're sure to like Pynchon [dmoz.org], and so on to David Foster Wallace [salonmagazine.com] and Don DeLillo [dmoz.org], who all write SF-tinged fiction.

    And the list goes on.
  • It's beautifully written, but develops very slowly. I have not managed to finish it.
  • Iain M Banks [phlebas.com] - Author of 'Consider Phlebas' 'The Player of Games' 'Excession' and 'Against a Dark Background' amongst others. Intellegent SF, written for adults. Oh yeah, and he does great mainstream novels as Iain Banks, try 'The Crow Road' or 'Complicity'.

  • Actually I agree with you, I found 'Neverness' to be more satisfying than 'The Broken God' which as you say dragged in places and relied heavily on mass religious fervour which I could not relate to. But, again like you, I will be keeping an eye open for the next in the series to see if it does pick up again.
  • I would recommend reading this series in order. I was fortunate enough to have discovered Neverness while it was still in print, but it can be obtained. There are a slew of allusions in this book, ranging from Kabbalah to Tim Learys 8 circuit brain model if you look hard enough.
  • This will make people worry wether or not you read the book with intend to like it.

    I think most people read books with the intent to like them - you're not going to go out and buy/borrow books (fiction) that you don't expect to like surely?
  • > his idea of "cybernetic philosophies" which
    > view the universe as a computer program
    > run to discover the answer to some question.

    Didn't Doug Adams do this, to come up with the question which had an answer of 42? Isn't the question still in Arthur Dent's brain?

    Also, as another commentator noted, this isn't available at Amazon, although Neverness is... bn.com doesn't carry either, but does have War in Heaven, another book set in the same universe, published in 1998.

  • I have been told this compares to "The Book of the New Sun" cycle by Gene Wolfe. Does it? Which is better? I have read neither, but I'm hesitating between the two books.

    "The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
  • If your argument was more coherent, I'd say you were using a straw man device, but as it is I think you're trying a reductio ad gibberatum.
    --
    "HORSE."
  • "Technology is a tool, a thing, an it. We cannot draw philosophy from a thing, we cannot use it to judge"

    Agreed, mostly, but technology offers us a new view of things. When we go to another solar system, we'll view things differently, another galaxy. When we find other beings, boy, will things be different.

    Techonology is a MEANS to and end, and we ain't there yet, either the means or the end way.

    "Why is it man created our problems by eating the apple and now we think we might be able to fix it ourselves by using our MacIntoshes?"

    Dude, I love that quote, and I hate to ask this, but is it yours? I've got a big quote file that I save cool stuff in.

    Thanks
  • This sounds like EXACTLY what I've been looking for in space-based science fiction for the LONGEST time now! Babylon 5 and especially 2001 came closest to what I want-decently written adult science fiction that doesn't talk down to the reader (or viewer) and isn't dumbed down for the masses. This sounds perfect! I'm there. And yeah, I know--I've got to read more. I'm composing a reading list for next year right now, in fact, and Kim Stanley Robinson, Neil Stepenson (sp?) and Neil Gaiman are all on it. Any other suggestions?
  • Out of Print - This item is no longer being produced and is not available for purchase
  • This David Zindel fellow sounds like a good writer, but is his work up to the quality of Peter F. Hamilton? The title and trilogy aspects put me in mind of The Naked God [amazon.com] (the final 1,000 page book in the trilogy "Night's Dawn"), and the content put me in mind with some of the earlier books in the trilogy. Has anyone read both? Care to share your opinions?

    On a side note, it'd be cool is Slashdot would review the books (as I did a quick search and see no reviews).
    ---
  • Who am I to tell a God he is wearing no clothes.
  • Without wanting to take away from what is probably an interesting read, I thought I would comment on the amusing impression I get whenever I read stories such as these.
    We live in an era of considerable consumerism. Consumerism which willfully ignores most warnings that our planet cannot continue to support the exponential growth of our use its resources. Yet somehow we are destined to spread throughout the galaxy and become Gods? At the current rate of consumption, when and if we figure out how to break the barriers of time that seperate us from the rest of the galaxi, I hope they will have discovered paper spaceships because thats all that will be left to build them with. That, of course, assuming we haven't exterminated ourselves in some new and awful war.
    Hopefully the universe will judge us only on our ambitions, not our mistakes or our arrogance.
    Stupid people do not become Gods; despite our technology, we are still mostly very stupid.
    If you don't believe me try watching the news or reading the paper a bit more. They will provide you with a refreshing reminder that despite all the "progress" made we still edge ever closer to the abyss of extinction.
  • Wolfe's _The_Book_of_the_New_Sun_ is hard to find if I recall correctly. I read them (4 novels) around 5 years ago and you won't be dissappointed. As well, _The_Book_of_the_Long_Sun_ series is also incredible. Wolfe has been described as a writer who never wastes one word. His ideas are incredible and his ability to beautifully express them place them in a league with very few SF/Fantasy writers, though Le Guin comes to mind. Why not read both? I've read the Zindell books too and enjoyed them as well but David is not yet in a class with Wolfe.
  • Zindell writes well. He's very inventive; his creations are vivid and interesting.

    But damnit, he does go on. And on. And on. This book could have told its story in half its length. Toward the end, I was just plain irritated at the characters. "Grow up! Get lives! Quit acting like characters already!"

    AND IT'S NOT OVER, DAMNIT! This book is a set-up for still more angst-ridden ponderous pondering. I give up.

    Stefan


  • Some suggestions to make your life worthwhile :)

    William Gibson (read everything, if you haven't already, Especially Neuromancer, Burning Chrome)

    John Brunner (esp. The Shockwave Rider, Stand on Zanzibar)

    Bruce Sterling (esp. Islands in the Net, Heavy Weather

    Elizabeth Hand (esp. Winterlong)
  • I thought that Tipler's book on the omega point was one of the best works of science fiction I've ever read! And if we humans do ever manage to get to the point of exponential expansion across the universe Tipler's book is *nothing* compares to how 'wacked out' things will really be con't you think?

  • Agreed.

    The Bad Parts of the Book

    If people can become gods how do people get the responsibility to wield that power? Wouldn't this just turn into a Greek Pantheon gone horribly wrong? Worlds would be destroyed and created at a whim with little care for their inhabitants. Do you really think humanity will really be that different from what we are now? A couple thousand years ago we killed each other with swords and sticks, now we kill each other with guns and bombs. In a couple thousand years from now we'll just be killing each other with bigger, better more sophisticated things than we have now. Big f***in' difference...

    The Rant

    Why is it that Sci-Fi has started doing this so much recently? Technology is a tool, a thing, an it. We cannot draw philosophy from a thing, we cannot use it to judge morals. It exists, no more. Why all these stories about technology inspiring man to perfection or man evolving into godhood? If I wanted men becoming gods I'd read fantasy were such visions belong.

    There are too many humanistic visions of our future perfection out there. We operate by a dialectic process. Humanity does not create perfection, we continuously create things that are a little better than we currently have. We make improvements. The problem with this process is that at no time will we ever achieve perfection. Its like walking half-way to a door each step, you can never go through it.

    Technology is and has always been as much of hindrance as a help. The internet has allowed us to connect with people and information like never before. This is a good thing. The internet also allows anybody to learn how to build a bomb or engorge themselves in pornography or delude themselves with online relationships or stalk small children in chatrooms or even coordinate global terrorist activities. Help and hindrance.

    Why is it man created our problems by eating the apple and now we think we might be able to fix it ourselves by using our MacIntoshes?

  • This is a reply to this and the other response.

    The *QUESTION* (which came out of arthur dent's brain in a random draw of scrabble token at the beginnig of time (or at least early on) after drawing a Q and chucking it into a bush and killing a rabbit which dent kills again later... enough, read the books.)

    Right, the *QUESTION*:

    "What is six times nine?"

    The *ANSWER*:

    "42"

    "Which merely demonstrated that there is something fundamentally wrong with the universe."

    Though actually if you work it out in Base 13 it *is* correct.

    Do the math.

  • Cool. (Score:1)

    by jdube ( 101986 )
    I'm glad that book reviews have begun to grow in number on slashdot . Love reading them. This book sounds great I'll check it out. I've begun to notice, however, that many sci-fi / fantasy themes are very similar. Unfortunatly, you can only read the same plot so many times. I hope more original stuff, as this seems to be, keeps coming. Authors need to innovate (ie do the opposite of MS). I hope to see many more books like this in the future :)


    If you think you know what the hell is really going on you're probably full of shit.
  • Even worse. If *we* do something wrong, we can always say God made us do it and then obtain his forgiveness after blaming him.
  • I recently read Neverness, and I loved it. This review of the Broken God is great, and I can't wait to read the book! For those of you looking for a copy of The Broken God or Neverness, don't give up! I found copies of Neverness on-line (check ebay.com) and in used book stores. The paperback copies cost me $5 or less.

  • Neverness... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It might be usefull to note that `The Broken God' is the second book written in the Nevernes usinverse. It is the first of a trilogy (with `The Wild' and `War in Heaven'. The first book is called `Neverness' -- strange that ;> There are a couple of web pages dedicated to it: http://www.7threalm.com/neverness/ yann.

  • Reviews are inherently biased, however, and negative comments do not imply objectivity. It's quite the opposite, in some cases; reviewers with the idea that they absolutely must say something bad tend to bring up negative aspects of what they're reviewing that they would otherwise ignore, elevating tiny flaws to the level of serious concerns.

    If someone honestly thinks there are not any flaws with a work that merit mentioning, I have no problem with them not mentioning it. I agree that nothing's perfect -- the existance of minor (in the reviewer's opinion) flaws is evidenced by the less-than-perfect rating.

    Note that I haven't read the book. I probably will, though -- it sounds like an interesting plot.

    phil

  • Here: http://www.b ookshop.co.uk/ser/serdsp.asp?shop=1&isbn=058621189 6&DB=220 [bookshop.co.uk]

    And likely many other (on-line) bookshops.

  • Stupid people do not become Gods; despite our technology, we are still mostly very stupid. If you don't believe me try watching the news or reading the paper a bit more. They will provide you with a refreshing reminder that despite all the "progress" made we still edge ever closer to the abyss of extinction.
    Which is why we need to use technology to make ourselves smarter.

    If we don't do that, it's extinction for us. Maybe some other species will hit upon large brains and opposable digits, and dig up our remains in a few million years.

    But if we do make ourselves smarter - not just smarter, but wiser - then the process won't stop until we become gods. We'll hit Vinge's singularity [sine.com], and after that who knows? (Note: you may want to turn off style sheets when viewing that link, the font is illegible in my Netscape on MacOS.)

  • Neverness is the first book in the series followed by Broken God, The Wild, and lastly, War In Heaven. So if you plan to read The Broken God, I would defintely read Neverness first since it will add a lot of context to the second book.
    BTW, my domain plexity.net, comes from this book :)
    --
    Deepak Saxena
  • [The Broken God has] been out of print for a while now

    In the US. Those in the UK (or with lots of disposable income) might wish to check out a mazon.co.uk [amazon.co.uk], which lists The Broken God as "usually dispatched in 24 hours"

    • I hope they will have discovered paper spaceships because thats all that will be left to build them with.

    Seeing as most metals and many plastics are recyclable, I find this an amazing speculation.

    Surely it's more in line with the Henny Penny tone of the rest of your Comment to suggest that all the trees, and thus all the paper, will soon be gone.

  • Personally I regret reading reviews that claim there is nothing bad in a book. It immediatally causes me to discard the review as biased. (Which I did in this case, I skimmed it, saw the [this....blank] part and decided not to waste my time reading it). No matter how much you like a writer or how good you think a book is, it is never perfect.

    Cheering and all positive reviews are great, but they provided little for the writer and the prospective reader of such an book. Writing down what was imperfect in your opinion helps the writer, and gives the propective reader a chance of his own to discard those things as very minor shortcomings.

    The way it looks now, it looks like you wanted to give as positive a message about the book as you could. This will make people worry wether or not you read the book with intend to like it.

    Edwin Oostra

  • disappointing trip (Score:3)

    by PD ( 9577 ) <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Tuesday November 16, 1999 @05:31AM (#1529514) Homepage Journal
    What a disappointment it was for that character to get to Unreal City, only to find out that it was destroyed in a earthQuakeTest.

    Gotta get this book. It sounds like a good read.

  • Re:There's nothing bad ?! (Score:3)

    by rde ( 17364 ) on Tuesday November 16, 1999 @05:29AM (#1529515)
    Over the past ten years I've reviewed hundreds of books, and in about fifteen I've said "I can find nothing wrong with this book". I'll agree that there's no such thing as the perfect book, but that's not the same as a particular reader finding nothing. Excellence is in the eye of the beholder, and if you disagree, that's fine.
    It's been a long time since I read Zindell's books, and while I wouldn't say they're without flaws, they are very good.

    I'd suggest a greater sin is to castigate a review without having read it.

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