September BOTM: The Wreck of the River of Stars by Michael Flynn

[intensityxx]

He deserves a bigger crowd than he got, and I wish now I'd had the courage to go to his Kaffeklausch. He gave us a choice of whether he'd read from his new book, or read from some stories. We chose the latter, because we all pretty much planned to get the new book anyway. He read us the beginnings of three short stories and we voted on which one he should expand into a book. We were evenly divided, but the one I chose will be a book.

He mentioned a class he teaches - I can tell he'd be a great teacher, and would really enjoy sparking the interest of his students.

[Andrew Byers]

I apologize for resurrecting such an old thread, but I've finally gotten around to reading The Wreck of the River of Stars. It's an outstanding book, made even more interesting by the fact that each of the characters is a different Myers-Briggs personality type. I have attempted to match up each of the characters with one of the MBTI types below. I welcome comments and suggested changes, especially since my knowledge of the Myers-Briggs personality types is imperfect at best.

ISTJ Inspector Bigelow Fife
ISFJ Protector ‘Abd al-Aziz Corrigan
INFJ Counselor Nkieruke Okoye
INTJ Mastermind Stepan Gorgas
ISTP Crafter Mikoyan Hidei
ISFP Composer Timothy “Moth” Ratline
INFP Healer Ivar Akhaturian
INTP Architect Fransziska Wong, MD
ESTP Promoter Twenty-four deCant
ESFP Performer Ramakrishnan Bhatterji
ENFP Champion The Lotus Jewel
ENTP Inventor Raphael “Rave” Evermore
ESTJ Supervisor Enver Bey Koch
ESFJ Provider Eaton Grubb
ENFJ Teacher Evan Dodge Hand
ENTJ Field Marshal Eugenie Satterwaithe

[intensityxx]

Welcome, Andrew. We like zombie-threads here at sffworld. You're braver than I, to attempt to assign the types to the characters.

[Andrew Byers]

Welcome, Andrew. We like zombie-threads here at sffworld. You're braver than I, to attempt to assign the types to the characters.

Thanks! And frankly, I'd be really happy if anyone feels I got even half of them right....

[Himself]

I replied privately to Andrew, so he knows how many were right. As an aside, where he was wrong, it was usually by one letter. And for all I know that was because of my inability to portray the type clearly.

Balthazar, a while back, was distracted by the omniscient narrator and his wisecracking. I have noticed that the omniscient voice is nearly 100% absent from SF stories, and many genre readers have a hard time adjusting to it. I know I did when I began reading more mainstream stuff. One effect of it is a distancing from the characters, which seemed appropriate for Wreck. For Eifelheim (out now; buy early and often), I used two voices. For the medieval portions, the immediate third person [Dietrich]. For the modern, a more detached semi-omniscient third person [Anton], who breaks into first person whenever he is personally involved. The intention was to distance the reader from the modern parts while making the medieval parts seem more immediate.

I have had feedback on Eifelheim that SF readers are finding it a bit difficult to get their minds into a truly alien society; viz., medieval Europe.

+ + +

Meanwhile, for masochists, the new book in the works is The January Dancer, which is high space opera. My agent has begged me not to kill everyone off in this one.

[Himself]

BTW, I ran across a review of The Wreck of The River of Stars a while back that speculated about who the narrator of the story was: namely: Rivvy, the ship's intelligence.

What would be the arguments supporting this view?

The arguments against?

[FicusFan]

One effect of it is a distancing from the characters, which seemed appropriate for Wreck. For Eifelheim (out now; buy early and often)

I will snatch it up as soon as it goes into paper. Do you know when that will be, and is it going into Trade or Mass Market ?

Thanks for the info on the new book, do you have an approximate date for publication ? I couldn't find it on Amazon, and I want to put it on my wish list so I won't forget (while I wait for it to go into paper ).

FYI, over in Fantasy, I know I have seen Eifelheim listed as one of the year's Year's Best Reads for 2006

[Himself]

I will snatch it up as soon as it goes into paper. Do you know when that will be, and is it going into Trade or Mass Market ?

Thanks for the info on the new book, do you have an approximate date for publication ? I couldn't find it on Amazon, and I want to put it on my wish list so I won't forget (while I wait for it to go into paper ).

FYI, over in Fantasy, I know I have seen Eifelheim listed as one of the year's Year's Best Reads for 2006

I've been told that the trade paperback of Eifelheim will be out in November 2007. It's actually gotten rave reviews from Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. It was even capsule-reviewed by of all places Entertainment Weekly, which called it "Umberto Eco meets Carl Sagan" and gave it an A-.

+ + +

The January Dancer is still in rough draft, which is why you haven;t heard about it yet. I think it is 1/3 done. While not intended as comic, it is not quite so serious as Eifelheim or The Wreck of The River of Stars. Far future space stuff. Woo-hoo. Electric Avenue - star systems are connected by superluminal "roads" or creases in space. Think chutes and ladders. Tramp freighters, long-gone aliens, ninja-like Hounds, civil wars, alien artifacts, power-mad executives, secret identities, treachery and betrayal, the Terran Brotherhood, ghettos for the diaspora from the "so-called home world." The Confederation of Central Worlds vs. the [not so] United League of the Periphery, separated by the Rift, a starless region in which ships have been known to vanish. The ULP stretches from Gatmandar to Ugly Man, from the Old Planets of Die Bold and 'Saken to the Greater Hanse. The CCW, on the inner side of the Rift, are the suns of the Old Confederacy - Tsol, Dao Chetty, the Century Suns, etc. - overthrown long ago by Those of Name, totalitarian rulers of the ex-colony of Dao Chetty.

What is the alien artifact called the January Dancer? Why do so many want it? Who has it now? Amos January, who discovered it among the Immovable Objects on an unnamed world and escaped with it from the Irresistable Force? Little Hugh O'Carroll, the Ghost of Ardow, who ran the brilliant guerilla campaign during the civil war on New Eireann? Colonel-Manager Jumdar from Gladiola, whose fortuitous intervention quashed the civil war? The Fudir, a petty Terran criminal who rescued Little Hugh in the Terran Corner of Jehovah? The Molnar khan Matsumo, bejewelled chairman of a pirate fleet from Cynthia's Cluster? Na Fir Li, the mad(?) Hound who guards the Rift at Sapphire Point? Greystroke, his senior pup? Donovan, the shadowy CCW agent? Memsab Radha Chaudary, chairman of the Interstellar Cargo Company on Old 'Saken?

And just how long-gone are those aliens?

[intensityxx]

Thanks for popping in to update us!

Ficus, Eifelheim also is on the Kirkus Best SF of 2006 list. It's on my shelves, ready to read as soon as my brain-fog clears.

January Dancer sounds like great fun. Space opera and alien artifact, topped off with another large cast of interesting Flynn characters. You've hooked me already.

[Andrew Byers]

I replied privately to Andrew, so he knows how many were right. As an aside, where he was wrong, it was usually by one letter. And for all I know that was because of my inability to portray the type clearly.

Mr. Flynn, thank you very much for the reply.

Just for everyone's information, here are the guesses that Mr. Flynn has confirmed as being correct:

ISTJ: ‘Abd al-Aziz Corrigan
INFJ: Nkieruke Okoye
INTJ: Stepan Gorgas
ESFP: The Lotus Jewel
ENTP: Raphael “Rave” Evermore
ENTJ: Eugenie Satterwaithe

I'm glad I got Gorgas correct, since he and I share INTJ status. I have to admit, I started off disliking him immensely (I think my exact quote to my wife was: "I can't believe what a jerk this guy is!"), then a few more chapters in it dawned on me that he had to be an INTJ because his revealed thought processes were very close to what my own would have been. I started being much more sympathetic to him from then onward.

Alas, the rest of my guesses were all wrong. I'll give it a couple days for others to weigh in on correcting the rest, then I'll hazard a second set of guesses.

[Andrew Byers]

BTW, I ran across a review of The Wreck of The River of Stars a while back that speculated about who the narrator of the story was: namely: Rivvy, the ship's intelligence.

What would be the arguments supporting this view?

The arguments against?

My initial, gut reaction to the idea was that Rivvy couldn't possibly be the narrator -- some of the remarks are simply too insightful for such a limited, troubled A.I. Some of the narration would, seemingly, require a profound insight into human nature and quotes like the following solidify that feeling for me: "Ship had watched without understanding, for understanding was as far beyond Ship as it was for any of the other entities within it..." (p. 421 in the paperback edition). But maybe the quote just implies that Rivvy has as much understanding of human nature as any human would.

I think that one of the strongest arguments supporting the Rivvy as narrator idea is the fact that on the last page we see that Cutter downloads its last report to Ship just before it passes out of range, and (coincidentally?) we don't get any more narration on what happens in the Cutter after that. Rivvy doesn't know what happens to the Cutter after that, so we don't hear any more about it. Circumstantial, but it does tend to support the theory.

Personally, I like the idea of Rivvy as narrator, but I'm not 100% sold on it yet.

[Himself]

Andrew sent me a second cut at the MB types in Wreck, but I have to say that most of them were further off the mark than the first cut.

+ + +

Meanwhile, Eifelheim is out and collecting excellent reviews - the kiss of death IOW. People were telling me at Boskone that on the panel for NESFA recommendations for the Hugo, two of the panelists were calling it the best SF book of last year; the other two disagreed and said it was the best book of the past five years. Who am I to dissent? It probably means I'll lose a Hugo by the narrowest margin yet.

[intensityxx]

That's grrreat news about Eifelheim. I love having a champion I really believe in when the Hugos come around!

Btw, my acronym search for IOW came up with interesting results:
Isle Of Wight
I/O Write
Innovators of Wrestling
In Other Words (d'oh!)