[Erfael]

The discussion is now open for July's book of the month, Spin.

Archren has contributed some topics to get things rolling, but don't feel you have to stick just to these topics. Let us know anything that came to mind while reading this Hugo nominee.



1) What is your opinion of each of the three main characters? Did they seem realistic to you? Did they strike you as three-dimensional or perhaps not fully fleshed out?

2) Did you see the science fictional element, the "Spin," as a metaphor for something else? If so, what?

3) What was your opinion of the secondary characters, (Molly, the Martian, Jason's parents, Diane's husband)? What purpose did they serve?

4) Did the science fantasy aspect of the plot bother you, i.e. the fact that it wasn't rigorously hard SF?

5) Did you feel that the social extrapolation was accurate, i.e. if that were to really happen, people would probably react the way that the book depicted?

[Ropie]

1. Overall I was impressed by the characterisation and thought they were well rounded and credible. The problem I had was that I really disliked all three of the main characters - the 'twins' and Tyler were so irritating in their smug self righteousness. I really didn't sympathise with any of them, or their stereotypical 'bad dad', E.D. The characters I did like were the matriarchal figures, of which I think there were three - the twins' and Tyler's mother and the Malaysian lady at the hospital; these were all interesting and original characters, as was Jason, Diane's husband.

2. Erm, not really, a washing machine maybe?

3. With the exception of E.D., I thought these were the most interesting characters. I was not overly enamoured of Wilson's attempt to portray deep relationships between the characters but I really thought the twist involving the relationship between the two mothers at the Big House was excellent. The Martian - well, let's just say the situation surrounding his existence was the good part.

4. No, I was very impressed with Wilson's description of the spin and his handling of the events that sprang up in its wake. The writing was nicely understated and rarely clunkingly scientific. In particular I loved the line: "Entire Martian civilizations could rise and fall whilst I waited at red lights". But imagine being a Martian and coming to Earth after however many thousand years of Martian social development and meeting the man who was responsible for your entire existence just two of his years ago! That has to rank amongst the best SF concepts I've ever read and if anything I thought Wilson's handling of it was too understated (still, rather that than blatheringly overwrought).

5. I don't know how people would react. Wilson seemed to rely on the usual social upheaval scenario in SF: that of major uprising in the middle and far East. Maybe this is what would happen though.

I've already put a review up on the Internet Book List, here (http://www.iblist.com/list_reviews.php?id=32750#uid6150). Overall I enjoyed reading Spin and thought that it would deserve to win the Hugo over Old Man's War, but only just. Maybe Wilson tried a bit too hard to be literary in a non-genre sense, with mixed results. 3/5 from me.

[Rob B]

I haven't bought or read the book (yet), but I thought it worth pointing out either last week or the week prior to that, Stephen King mentions how much he enjoyed the book in his Back Page column for Entertainment Weekly.

[Luke_B]

4) Did the science fantasy aspect of the plot bother you, i.e. the fact that it wasn't rigorously hard SF?


Huh? I don't even agree with the premise of this question. Maybe Archren could explain why this isn't rigorously hard SF, because I think it is very much a great example of hard SF done well? For me this had many traits that made it hard science fiction: there are various passages of infodump and the plot hinged on many rigorously logical scientific extrapolation; one of the main characters is a scientist (a classic hard SF trait), while character development was dependent, and therefore secondary, to the exploration of the scientific phenomena (for example, the human condition was examined very much by way of the characters' values and view points regarding the circumstances of the Spin).

[Erfael]

Huh? I don't even agree with the premise of this question. Maybe Archren could explain why this isn't rigorously hard SF, because I think it is very much a great example of hard SF done well? For me this had many traits that made it hard science fiction: there are various passages of infodump and the plot hinged on many rigorously logical scientific extrapolation; one of the main characters is a scientist (a classic hard SF trait), while character development was dependent, and therefore secondary, to the exploration of the scientific phenomena (for example, the human condition was examined very much by way of the characters' values and view points regarding the circumstances of the Spin).

I think the issue at hand is the fact that we have no way of really extrapolating from what we know now forward to some sort of bubble around the earth that keeps us slow while letting time in the universe at large keep chugging along. As I understand Hard SF, it MUST logically follow from our sciences. While what happens in the book is certainly based in our understanding of things, it's not something that we can say, "Yes, this is possible, given what we now know."

But maybe that definition is wrong.....

EDIT: Now that I'm having a look at the Wiki entry on Hard SF, they can't even agree on it over there....but the above is my interpretation of why this might be SFan versus Hard SF.

[Luke_B]

I think the issue at hand is the fact that we have no way of really extrapolating from what we know now forward to some sort of bubble around the earth that keeps us slow while letting time in the universe at large keep chugging along. As I understand Hard SF, it MUST logically follow from our sciences. While what happens in the book is certainly based in our understanding of things, it's not something that we can say, "Yes, this is possible, given what we now know."

Don't agree at all. The idea of the Spin seems very scientifically plausible to me - a filter for incoming electromagnetic radiation, blocking out the view of anything beyond low orbit and permeable to the point allowing space probes to pass through - how is this anything but an exaggeration of the characterstics of the Earth's real atmosphere? The idea if time passing at a highly accelerated rate outside the Spin really isn't that much of a leap from thetheory of General Relativity.

[FicusFan]

Well you know it was no more than a month since I read it, and I enjoyed it very much, but I don't remember much. It just didn't stick well.

I thought the 3 main characters were ok, though I thought the POV guy (the poor friend) was a bit of a doormat, and didn't seem to have any existence that wasn't defined by the twins.

I thought that the girl twin and her husband and the whole religious thing was hard to swallow. It just seemed to require the participants be stupid and she wasn't.

I too liked the lady doctor on the asian island (forget the name), but I really wanted more explanation about the political situation there that was a cause for danger.

Even the transfer to the new world wasn't real well explained (in terms of how it worked in our world, and the impact and attempt to control it).

I thought the Martians were interesting, I would have liked more about their culture and what their goals and aims were.

The Martian who got killed had real overtones of the original Martian and his death (Valentine Michael Smith). I didn't care for that part of the story.

[Ropie]

Even the transfer to the new world wasn't real well explained (in terms of how it worked in our world, and the impact and attempt to control it).
It felt like the end of the book, after they set sail to the Arch, seemed to breeze by in just a couple of pages compared to the amount of time devoted to other subjects earlier in the novel.

I thought Wilson's attempts at action/adventure (eg: the scenes of rioting and arson at the port, or when Jason gets locked up at the religious sect building) were the weakest parts of the book though. The tension just wasn't there for me.

[Archren]

OK, my reason for characterizing it as "not Hard SF" was pretty similar to what Erf said. We can't imagine a way to get from what we know now to there. OK, so you spin up the Earth to relativistic speeds. To get the time compression described, every point on the surface of the Earth would be moving at more than half light-speed. And you don't do it instantaneously, you accelerate it over time. But the initial acceleration would still have been tremendous, but perhaps they've got some sort of inertial dampeners so that we don't feel it at all, and the Earth doesn't fly apart when it's tangentinal velocity overcomes its gravitational attraction to itself. How does that work? Also, since this is rotational, not translational relative motion, the core of the Earth is moving slower than the surface, so time should pass differently there and the Core of the Earth should be cooling down over years instead of billions of years. That would cause other problems that the aliens presumably fix somehow. This is all implied, BTW, never explained as it would be in your average over-explicated Hard SF novel.

Then there's the problem with gravity. Gravity apparently isn't filtered out by the barrier, since we're still orbiting the Sun (gravity effecting the Earth), and satellites still fall back to Earth (Earth's gravity effecting orbital objects). So we should still be feeling the Moon's gravity, even though it will now be orbiting the Earth several times a minute. Really, the tidal forces should have been messing everything up, possibly even tearing the Earth apart. But it's OK, because Wilson explains away that and a bunch of other phenomena away with a wave of the aliens' magic science wand and says they're being very nice and selective (although he never mentions the Moon thing explicitly. I think he didn't think of it). No other explanation given.

I don't mind that since it's a really well written book. I too absolutely loved the idea of terraforming Mars and seeing the results in a single lifetime. Amazing!

But given the "magic wand" aspect of the Spin barrier, I thought of it a bit as a metaphor, especially for future shock; the sense of being hurtled into a future that you can't quite get a grip on and that is out of your control. Basically an exaggerated metaphor for life itself, really.

BTW, you can read the review I wrote of it closer to when I read it here. (http://home.earthlink.net/~karen20000/Spin.htm)

[intensityxx]

I loved Spin, which I read about a year ago. The first-person narrative really drew me into the story, especially because it began from a child's viewpoint. It gave me a sort of warm, Ray Bradbury Dandelion Wine feeling.

After about 150 pages I found myself shocked to realize how much story had happened in so few pages, especially because it was so comfortably readable. Why can't other authors write like this? If you know of anyone else, please let me know!

I thought the main idea was fascinating, and was surprised by each new development. I especially liked how terraforming and space exploration could be accomplished in such a short local timeframe. The girl (Diane?) and religion thing didn't work very well for me. I can't remember if it was she that bothered me, or whether I didn't find her actions to be convincing. I guess the best part for me was discovering what amazing idea was next around the corner.

Sensawonder. Bigtime.