[Archren]

Well, I just finished reading this one. I liked it quite a bit, although I can see why some people had trouble finishing it. There were definite pacing issues, and the ending seemed horribly anticlimatic. Still, the politics were interesting (if a little simple), I loved the characters of Zephyr and the Abacand, and I thought it raised some very interesting questions.

If you thought it was your only avenue to freedom from a system you deemed oppressive, would you give up your individuality? It's a tough question. I might do it just to be able to join in the experience of the truly alien, more of a "go out and get new knowledge" sort of thing, but even then, would "I" really appreciate it? I'm not sure. It might be worth it.

BTW, I am totally dense when it comes to themes & symbols in literature. What was up with the "American Pie" song leitmotif? I didn't get that at all. :o

[intensityxx]

Well I'm a refugee from Natural History. I tried, really I did. And for awhile there I liked it even. But I quit 1/3 through it.

Then I read more comments by other people, and many of them said something like: when you get to discover the Big Ending, it makes everything that happened in the rest of the book pointless and obsolete.

So at some point I want to know the Big Ending so I don't have to read the rest of the blasted thing.

[FicusFan]

I am still reading. I do enjoy it, and I like the ideas - but the writing is tough. I am only at about page 170 and have been reading it seems like forever. Of course I read a little and put it down, so it doesn't get much mileage. But I do plan to finish.

Nice to know the Big Ending makes it all pointless -- just what I want in a tough to read book. ;)

[intensityxx]

...many of them said something like: when you get to discover the Big Ending, it makes everything that happened in the rest of the book pointless and obsolete. I am still reading...Nice to know the Big Ending makes it all pointless -- just what I want in a tough to read book. ;) :o Whoops. I thought it was okay to discuss now. Well, most likely those people I mentioned lack the depths of insight that FicusFan and the rest of you would bring to the book. *whew!* :p

[FicusFan]

Go ahead and discuss if you want to. This is the book group and it is the right month. I view the thread as enter at your own risk if you haven't finished reading yet. Spoilers don't usually bother me anyway, which is why I signed up before I was done.

I have now passed page 200 -- only 192 to go ....

[Kamakhya]

Yes, indeed. The BOTM books are obviously full of spoilers. You are free to discuss any aspect of the book you like.

I wasn't able to get a copy of this book, so I will not partake in the conversation. However, thanks to the comments so far, it is unlikely I will try too hard to get a copy!

[intensityxx]

Thanks. I just read that there's a sequel coming out.

[Archren]

For intensityxx so she doesn't have to live her life wondering:

In the end it turns out that beings that spend much time around Stuff end up being integrated into it's conciousness. This happens to Corvax, Zephyr (on the planet) and Isol. Meanwhile Tristan(?) is still handing out Stuff to other Forged in the system, refusing to believe that it will happen to him. There are a couple problems with this. Corvax, becoming the spokesman for the conciousness of Stuff mentions that it won't integrate with someone that doesn't want to. But Isol completely and totally doesn't want to and ends up being integrated anyway. I guess this is because she kept using the FTL travel capability. The story mostly ends with Zephyr being integrated. it doesn't deal at all with the continuing poltical implications of a bunch of Forged becoming one with the Stuff and other choosing not to and any other ramifications. Disappointing.

I can see where it naturally leaves itself open to a sequel, and maybe I'll read it, but the ending was so badly handled that I'm not sure.

[FicusFan]

OK I finally finished it. Yeah ... It took forever to read, though I did like a lot of it. But parts of the story read more like a text book, and a badly written one at that, than a story. Many times I would start a sentence and by the time I got to the end it of it, I had no idea what it was about, though I understood all the words used. I cut her some slack because she was trying to write about stuff that didn't exist, and she was trying to be Miss Hard SF geek. I also got very strong 'trendiness' vibes at the start ala Light (M. John Harrison), which I disapprove of strongly.

This is the first Justina Robson book I have read, so I don't know if she normally writes like this, or if she made a special effort. I have Mappa Mundi an earlier book, but haven't read it yet.

Ok I didn't mind the ending, and I look at the book on 2 levels: the story on the surface, and what I think she is writing about. The story on the surface had some interesting and good scenes, but it never really jelled together as a real seamless tale. I also had some problems with how she set-up/told her story.

First problem: the Incoherence and trendiness at the start - once I got to Corvax's asteroid I was ok - but that was were the trendiness kicked in. Until then it was very hard to care about Isol, because there was no description of anything - you didn't know who she was, where she was, what she found, or what was going on. Of course JR had to make it all up so I hung in there.

I thought the forged was a neat, if black and white idea. The story was set so far into the future that people can be made to mesh and grow with machines and computers - but here's the catch (2nd Problem): by the time they get that far there won't be any 'unevolved' except for small groups of religious nuts who refuse all technology. We already have people who have titanium and plastic replacements, and the replacements are getting better and better. They help people live longer, and more normally - I don't see humanity suddenly saying no. By the time you can make a human/metal insect mixture that can cruise space, there are going to be no large numbers of 'pure' humans left, to feel this supposed revulsion and superiority. So the two groups that she posits, and the conflict they have, don't really ring true to the story.


In fact the whole political situation seemed more like welding the Communist worker's rebellion ala early 1900 Russia onto a far future SF story. You have the people in power who are using the military and secret police to repress a larger group of people. The larger group wants to have a voice in their lives. Some are violently millitant, some are just go-alongs, and some are turncoats. The outcast workers are used as spies. Within the workers group you have players with different ideas competing to be the one in charge, and you have the same in the traditional power structure that is trying to repress them. It just never worked for me that either group was realistic both from the inside or in conflict with each other.

The 3rd problem I had was with Zephyr -- who was not a believable person, or scientist. She was pretty boring. She was like Athena springing fully-formed from Zeus' brow. She had no past, no real family, no friends, no outside interests, and no real lovers,( she even chose a married man, and an ocean breathing forged to keep herself isolated). In many ways she was the human equivalent of Isol. I just didn't buy her as a human, and I really didn't care what happened to her.

In terms of her job as an archeologist, I thought she was much too interested in 'ideas' and 'ancient people and civilizations in an abstract way'. She was supposed to be a physical scientist, a stone and bone person and she hardly paid any attention to the artefacts. That was how she would have been sucked into her profession - back when she was a child, they would have been her passion -- the ideas, the people would only exist to explain the artefacts. She perhaps should have been an anthropologist, or a sociologist.

I suspected the rock on the planet was in fact the people, but not a meshing of the people and their technology. I just thought they were silca based and moved, and lived in geologic time and that we couldn't see them doing anything because of the difference in time frames. The idea of the technology is cool, but I still have a problem with 'rock' being technological.

I am not sure how I feel about the fact that the technology was dangerous and came with a price. On the one hand it make sense and seems right, on another it could be, and was, exploited by the surface story for hysteria, and excuses for grand gestures, and that was tiresome.

I thought the whole idea of the planet that wasn't ZDN (what was up with that) responding to the Gaiaforms was cool. I just wonder what happened with the smaller life -- the bacteria, and insects, and animals and plants. If it wouldn't take the Abacand because it lacked sentience, why would it take the living but really non-sentient population of the planet ?

I think the idea of not taking any but those who want to go, does mean that if you use the technology, and want something from it, then you have agreed to its terms of consent, even if later you find it was for more than you bargained for (ala Isol and Tatresi).

I really liked Trini and the hive and her time on the Moon.

I thought the ending on not-ZDN with Isol and Zephyr was very Thelma and Louise and I thought it worked with what JR was really writing about.

To me it was about identity, who you are, and how you define yourself. I thought she was actually talking about us-- since the industrial revolution we have defined ourselves by our function. There are those who think that not too far in the future most professions will be obsolete. I am not talking about the singularity. I am talking about the gradual move towards better economies so that any job that has any type of repitition will eventually be done by robots and/or computers. Who are we, when we can no longer identify ourselves as what we do ?

The groups in the novel seemed to be those who existed for their function, and those who had found another organizing principle. The forged were the ones who were tied to function. Those who had other outlets were represented by Zephyr and Machen. Machen had the dog, the walk in the park, the sillyness of the two spy-birds. He concentrated on the smaller things in life, the little pleasures of life, on just being. Zephyr on the other hand was unhappy, and restless, because she really was ready for more. The 'more' was presented to her on not-ZDN. She got to join with others in her passion of learning and exploring. She disappeared into her passion, and she gave up her past physical aspect that held her back to do that.

So that is my first stab at what I want to say about the book. I did enjoy it, but I am not sure if I will read a sequel, because the enjoyment was more for the novelty, and the ideas, and not so much for the characters or the story.

[Archren]

I'd just like to second a bunch of Ficus' comments and add a few more.

Definitely her characterization needed a lot of work. As Ficus pointed out, it was really hard to get a handle on Isol' character, which should've been central. Her character was described by other characters instead of shown in scenes involving her. Didn't make much sense.

Has anyone else noticed that sometimes the AI are the best characters? I loved the abacand, and there are several other books where this seems to be the case. Dan Simmon's "Illium" also springs to mind.

There were a bunch of threads in "Natural History" that the author seemed to simply drop. The consquences of the Stuff planet being in a totally different galaxy; anything having to do with the Stratgos, any of Zephyr's interpersonal relationships (as few as they were), the consequences of the Gaia robots choices, etc. She'd bring up these interesting things and then simply never get back to them.

BTW, I totally agree with Ficus on the unbelievability of there still being completely "unevolved" humans in a future with such extensive forged humans. Even the fairly simple humans would still have improvements, I imagine.

I saw in Locus that she has delivered a sequel to her publisher. I'm honestly not sure if I want to read it or not.