A Sci Fi Reading Odyssey - 50 Novels

[Matt H.]

Honestly, I've always thought by and large, Gibson was a blast, and he always went down easy. I just read Pattern Recognition about 5 minutes ago, and again, thought it was a blast. Not SF, but still,a fun interesting read. The only book (of the ones I've read) that I had a prob with was Count Zero. That was during the time when Gibson was insisting in interviews that he could "do plot". I don't know why he thought he couldn't, but he over compensated and overplotted that book, so that it had this irritating plotting rhythm -"ABC-ABC-ABC-...
It became like a march. Almost drove me nuts. Tom Clancy by way of another example, often drives me nuts with this...

Arthur, interesting, thank you. Perhaps exaggerated the book's difficulty level. I think it would probab;y work fine with a more "let-it-flow" reading too. But somehow felt responsible for figuring everthing out and catching all the nuances, etc. and that added a certain extra burden to the reading. When I set it down and picked it up again, I had a hard time re-entering both the plot and the exact implications of all imagery and jazzy writing leading up to that point. Still it's not exactly like reading Samuel Beckett or something. Like I said it had enough action and plot.

 

[Matt H.]

Thanks @ArthurFrayn and @Westy for reading! I touched up the review. [v.18] I think it's somewhat smoother and clearer. Hated that last sentence... No one is suggesting that the book is that artsy, so it was a non-sequitur.

Browsing the book now, seems many might ask, where is all this abstract stuff you're talking about? Thing is the passages make an impression out of proportion to their text percentage, so you don't see the effect easily without re-reading larger sections...

Did you all see nothing the least bit tough in the style? Did it read like Doc Smith, Little Fuzzy or early Heinlein? Not to me anyway...

Still loving The Long Tomorrow. It highlights a fact... the intensity you care about something is not in proportion to the intensity of the subject. The book for me engages my emotions and excitement (so far) every bit as intensely as Forever War, maybe more! Shows, you don't need wars, giant robots or exploding space ships to create emotional impact. (Not that you didn't know that) ... this is a very quiet story, with *small-stakes* (so far), highly unusual for Sci Fi (meaning novels I know of or have read so far)

 

[Vince W]

Good review, Matt. I read Neuromancer when it was first published in 1984. It was mind-altering stuff and I have read everything Gibson has written. You're correct in saying it is a demanding read. I read it and immediately read it again there was so much that was new and exciting.

Gibson has said many times that he wanted to write a book in a similar vein as Alfred Bester's Tiger! Tiger! and that he wanted to be the Samuel Delany of the 80s. The influence of these two authors is quite clear to me in Neuromancer.

As good as Neuromancer is Count Zero is better. Gibson found his voice and is at the top of his game with Count Zero. I read that one in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. It had the honour of being the first ever novel serialised by Asimov's.

 

[Matt H.]

Good review, Matt. I read Neuromancer when it was first published in 1984. It was mind-altering stuff and I have read everything Gibson has written. You're correct in saying it is a demanding read. I read it and immediately read it again there was so much that was new and exciting.

Gibson has said many times that he wanted to write a book in a similar vein as Alfred Bester's Tiger! Tiger! and that he wanted to be the Samuel Delany of the 80s. The influence of these two authors is quite clear to me in Neuromancer.

As good as Neuromancer is Count Zero is better. Gibson found his voice and is at the top of his game with ...

Thanks Vince! Gratified you liked the review. Yep, I can also easily see Bester and Delaney both in there. The creepy aristocrats are reminiscent of those in Bester's The Stars. There is a Delanyesque feel to the mental-psych stuff, as well as the cometo-surgury. There is probably much more too.

Interesting that you and Arthur have somewhat different take on Count Zero. I for one would be at least open to any other Gibson books, especially anything approaching the prose excellence of Neuromancer. Thanks for the recommendations!

 

[ArthurFrayn]

Interesting that you and Arthur have somewhat different take on Count Zero. I for one would be at least open to any other Gibson books, especially anything approaching the prose excellence of Neuromancer. Thanks for the recommendations!

I liked the next one -Mona Lisa Overdrive better than Count Zero...

 

[Vince W]

I liked the next one -Mona Lisa Overdrive better than Count Zero...

Interesting. I like Mona Lisa Overdrive but not as much as the first two.

 

[ArthurFrayn]

Interesting. I like Mona Lisa Overdrive but not as much as the first two.

MMV -I like the first the best. I started Virtual Light, but that's disappeared into the phantom zone along with missing socks..when it shows up I'll finish it.
Iduro is right here on the TBR pile...

 

[Matt H.]

(edited)
Hi @Matthew Hughes , saw you've been on line lately. Hope all's well.

You might remember I was formulating a list of older Sci Fi novels to review. (influential or lesser known shorter, non-series Sci Fi novels 1935-1985.)

Recently expanded the list to 50

1. If you feel like tossing out one or two favorite Sci Fi novels not on the list would love to hear about them. Other comments on the list?

2. Wanted to include at least one Vance novel. I came up with The Dragon Masters. (#25 on list) What do you think? Other suggestions? (for his more influential and representative works)

Thanks!

 

[ArthurFrayn]

Interesting that you and Arthur have somewhat different take on Count Zero. I for one would be at least open to any other Gibson books, especially anything approaching the prose excellence of Neuromancer. Thanks for the recommendations!

BTW, I went around checking reviews (Library Thing/Amazon/Good Reads) on Count Zero online, just to see maybe if I was the outlier. It's pretty much a draw. People like this novel better than/less than Neuromancer fairly evenly. Kind of a surprised at the lack of concensus actually, but there it is. So it's totally MMV...what scratches the itch...

 

[Vince W]

BTW, I went around checking reviews (Library Thing/Amazon/Good Reads) on Count Zero online, just to see maybe if I was the outlier. It's pretty much a draw. People like this novel better than/less than Neuromancer fairly evenly. Kind of a surprised at the lack of concensus actually, but there it is. So it's totally MMV...what scratches the itch...

I think part of the reason can't decide is that it's actually easier to read than Neuromancer in that after reading Neuromancer, Count Zero is much easier to grasp and understand the first time through. It's not that Count Zero is a better novel in any empirical sense, rather having a better understand of the world the story is set in makes it less work and easier to enjoy for what it is.

The same thing seems to be occurring between The Peripheral and Agency.

 

[ArthurFrayn]

I think part of the reason can't decide is that it's actually easier to read than Neuromancer in that after reading Neuromancer, Count Zero is much easier to grasp and understand the first time through. It's not that Count Zero is a better novel in any empirical sense, rather having a better understand of the world the story is set in makes it less work and easier to enjoy for what it is.

The same thing seems to be occurring between The Peripheral and Agency.

As a reading strategy, if a writer makes you think you want to read something again, that's a good thing I always think. In general, the takeaway for me is -he's a fairly consistent writer! Kind of getting into him again...

 

[Vince W]

As a reading strategy, if a writer makes you think you want to read something again, that's a good thing I always think. In general, the takeaway for me is -he's a fairly consistent writer! Kind of getting into him again...

I've been slowly rereading all of his books again. I need to move on to Mona Lisa Overdrive next.

 

[Matt H.]

The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett [1955]
Phoenix Pick
197 pages
Reader Response by Matt H. [v 1.29] from Reading Odyssey
Rating: Recommended, but generally understated

Story and Setting

Eighty years after the world has suffered a nuclear war, the US has become a ruralized land of small towns. It is an extremely religious and conservative society. Orthodoxy and the fear of God’s wrath has willfully frozen technology in the pre-electric age. The Thirtieth Amendment of the Constitution outlaws large cities. Most feared and forbidden of all is anything associated with the Satanic power of the atom.

Two boys, Len and Esau Colter, cousins, live in the small town of Piper’s Run near the shores of the Pymatuning river in the Eastern US. They belong to the New Mennonite community, a prominent sect in the region. Len and Esau lead an ultra-strict existence. It’s a world of wagons, horses and farms, endless chores, corporal punishment and occasional lynching, a way of life that demands absolute behavioral and psychological obedience.

One night the boys sneak away and attend a gathering of religious fanatics out of boyish curiosity. They witness a violent incident and later become involved in even more serious transgressions. An ensuing drama leaves the boys severely punished and determined to leave home. They sneak off and set out for the mythic city of Bartorstown - imagined to be a metropolis of scientific wonders and total intellectual freedom. After a stay in the town of Refuge, the boys are again forced to flee from religiously inspired violence. At this point the boys become wards of the mysterious roving trader Hostetter. They are finally on their way to Bartorstown. It is a long dangerous journey. The boys are sternly warned that Bartorstown will be nothing whatsoever like they imagine.

It turns out to be true. Bartorstown has a dark side and is in some ways rigid, like the wider world that it hides from. There are forces there that seem truly demonic to the religious faithful. After some time, Len must make a fateful decision betraying some of those that he cared about. Another long journey is in his future. This time home proves hopelessly illusive, and his next meeting with Hostetter, far away in a lonely Texas town, will be fatally decisive.

Critical Reader Response

This is an understated book with a quiet tone, but it achieves a great degree of emotional impact. It is ingeniously themed and creates a vivid physical and social reality. It also has the wisdom to balance its presentation of two extremes. The book has the feel of a grown-up novel and its resolution is not entirely an adventure story ending. Three main parts divide the text and story and they are a convenient way to discuss the book.

Part one is about the boys’ life in Piper’s Run. The writer paints a persuasive picture with very graceful prose of the natural setting and day-to-day life so that you believe in it. She also presents a certain strand of religiosity and its reasoning quite convincingly, and you can see its internal logic, even though it is barbaric and anti-rational. But it gets far darker. She makes you feel and fear the reality of severe corporal punishment from a child’s point of view. It’s not sensationalized, but merely a horrible fact of New Mennonite life. I admit my feelings were strongly engaged; I really hated the abusers and religious fanatics as well as their way of life. But with all that, you see grimly that there might be a grain of sense in their basic ideology after all. They maintain a faith-based need to cleanse the world of any who would again start down the road back toward nuclear destruction. The epitome of this forbidden road is Bartorstown

Section two explores a political conflict between two towns. On one side is a group of moderates, who merely want to expand the town modestly. However, they have just built one building too many. The religious conservatives and the farmers raise a mob and there is bloodshed. The boys are snatched away from the violence by Hostetter, who eventual becomes a beloved father-figure and plays a key role in the plot. This section shows another stage of the boys' development, an intermediate step towards Bartorstown.

Section three covers the boys' stay in Bartorstown itself. It is a place encompassing the very heart of Satanic deviltry, deeply, deeply sinful to God. At least, that is what is absolutely ingrained in the mind of every believer of the outside world since infancy. In reality Bartorstown is a community of specialists, originally a research installation before the nuclear war, at an extremely remote and difficult location. Though it is a place of scientific inquiry and a degree of liberalism, it is not a cheerful place, and also has to enforce ruthless discipline at times to maintain its secrecy. The ultimate purpose of Bartorstown is noble, but the crushing, never ending difficulty of the task takes its toll. The effects of this futility is dramatized in the meltdown of Gutierrez.

In characterization the book is also highly successful. Len is intelligent and inquiring, but also fearful and cautious, prone to feelings of intense guilt when he transgresses the rules he was brought up with. Esau, his cousin is bright too, but with less scruples. His dad is a vigorous corporal punisher. Esau is drawn to Bartorstown because of his love of machines and technology. As the boys develop into adolescents the story tells with sensitivity of their first romantic involvements. By the story's end, both have wives.

Physical and psychological acts of leaving and returning are the central themes of the book. And they are woven together beautifully, including reversals and ironies a-plenty. I would give the novel’s structure very high marks. Towards the end of Len’s return journey, the tone changes and his thoughts merge in a sense with the narrator’s. They have a declarative and scriptural sound, and very deep impact. Will he return to his religious roots, or even go into fanaticism? I cared, and the writing was powerful.

If forced to mention a flaw I would say that, at times the characters seem a little like mouthpieces for specific ideologies. Also, the kernel of the book is not essentially a highly speculative one. One could remodel this novel and set it in the present in a Mennonite community and change Bartorstown to “the big city.” It would be a different book of course. You could also say Brackett’s Sci Fi technology seems a little primitive. Everything is at least the size of a house or mountainside. The mechanical brain has a Bronze Goddess feel.

Thanks to the author’s good sense, when finished you don’t feel banged over the head with any particular morality. It leaves you with much ambivalence. Although the faults and flaws and the likely futility of Bartorstown are clear, the wider world is a good deal more hideous still. In the end, the depressing, long, plodding reality and unhealthy isolation of Bartorstown seems the preferable path.

 

[Matt H.]

Got my review of the Long Tomorrow...

Not only is tomorrow long but the review is a little long too.

It's a good book. And looking back it's value and impression has grown on me! I would recommend it, but not for giant robots and exploding space ships It's fairly deep in a philosophical sense and doesn't give you any easy answers. Powerful characterization and imprssive structure/plot. Anyone read it recently?

(added)

Cleaned up the review a bit. Please check it out. @pogopossum would recommend this book, if by review you think might be your cuppa (tea)

 

[Matt H.]

Finished Lest Darkness Fall... Well... see my review coming as soon as possible.

(edit)
I started Pillars of Eternity. One third in and it's great so far!

 

[Matt H.]

Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp [1939]
Baen Books
267 pages
Reader Response by Matt H. [v 1.09] from Reading Odyssey
Rating: Not highly recommended

[**POTENTIAL SPOILERS**]

Story and Setting

Martin Padway is a 20th century American archeologist on an expedition in Rome. After a discussion with his colleague, Tancredi about the nature of time and some mysterious disappearances, Padway goes to visit the Pantheon. As he stands in front of the ancient building there is a thunderclap and he is suddenly transported back in time more than a thousand years. As he looks around in amazement, he soon figures out he seems to be in the 6th Century, the Late Classical period, on the cusp of the Middle Ages.

He soon accepts the fact that it is not a joke, a movie set or an hallucination. He must somehow make his way in ancient Rome. Luckily he has knowledge of Latin, Ancient and Medieval history and many other useful arts and sciences, and so Padway is able to survive. He obtains a loan from Thomasus of Syria, a money changer, by bartering the idea of modern arithmetic. Then he uses the money to buy materials for distilling brandy. It’s a success. He proceeds on to ever more ambitious technological projects. And he begins judiciously bringing 20th century knowledge into the Late Classical world.

Eventually he has conflicts with the authorities. He is imprisoned and they threaten to have him tortured. To save himself he is drawn into politics. He can use his knowledge of the period’s history to predict major events. Thus he wiles his way into a position of high-influence, and eventually becomes a military commander. He makes improvements to the crumbling Empire technologically, socially and economically. His primary goal is not wealth or personal glory, it is to prevent the darkness of the Middle Ages from falling.

Critical Reader Response

This is a quintessential “light-hearted romp” of a book. But as a basic adventure story it seemed to be missing an important part – namely some form of return. It has a missing bookend. The most surprising omission of all is that there is no explanation of how or why the time slip occurred in the first place. No worries, there is still fun to be had, and it’s very light reading. The central premise is alluring too. But unfortunately about half way in the fun begins to fade.

I think some of us perhaps have daydreamed, wondering… If I went back in time, how much of the 21st Century’s ideas and technology would I be able to carry with me mentally? It’s the competent male’s dream. Oh how brilliant you would be! What a savior you could be! You could introduce the world to a thousand epoch-making inventions, printing presses, journalism, modern democracy, social consciousness, empirical science, universities, etcetera, etcetera. Well both de Camp and his protagonist could not agree more. In fact they riffed on this theme for about 260 pages.

There are some entertaining characters in the book. They are largely types, but still amusing. You have superstitious old ladies; washed-up, morose, braggadocious ex-soldiers; scheming, greedy but lovable money changers; vain, senile old kings; spoiled aristocratic young louts; vengeful femme fatals and more. De Camp loads you up with long Gothic names and delights in it. Perhaps they add to the overall humor, but they are burdensomely similar to each other and numerous. The author is quite taken with his own knowledge of history and Medieval culture and does not go light on it. It was a politically very complex era – with Goths, Gepids, Franks, Bulgars, the Eastern Empire and the decentralized Italians. About halfway through, the book turns from inventions and science to politics and war. Not bad at first, but it quickly got pretty confusing and pretty quickly started to bore. The writer seems most proud of all of his knowledge of Medieval war, weapons and strategy. There’s far too much of it in the second half of the book.

Sometimes it seems the writer worried (or was told?) that readers would find the protagonist to be a smug twit. Thus he makes several explicit protestations “He’s a fun guy actually! Really! I swear!” But it just didn’t fit with the overall character described. He is also a strangely prude womanizer. The “romance” material seemed glaumed-on. (He’s no sissy. Yes, of course he likes girls!)

In additional to the unthinking surrender to a condescending and unsympathetic world-view, markedly Nineteenth Century in its hyper-ethnocentricity, there are some specific culture fouls that can’t be honestly overlooked. By far the worst comes at the end in his letter to a king -- a real religious doosey. Is he kidding even a little? Hard to be sure. The book can be partly rescued by its clearly humorous tone throughout. There are obvious jokes (successful and not) and even sometimes real silliness. It has a Walter Mitty feel at times – revenge of the wimp. Padway is not of glamorous appearance. When he ends up basically running the world he says: “Not bad for ‘Mouse’ Padway!”

There are other small logic problems that mildly drew my attention: explaining his modern clothes when he first appears, his too rapid progress from basic Latin to highly complex Latin, etc. I only mention them because the writer tries to be realistic by and large and to explain many other details.

So while there is some inherent fun in the basic premise and some old-fashioned funny characters, and though the first half is a rapid, engaging read, the jagged lack of explanation for the time-slip, the somewhat unlikable protagonist, and most of all the tedious dilation of the military scenes, largely spoiled the overall effect for me.

 

[Matt H.]

Finished Pillars of Eternity - Damn what a book! Reminded me in way of Bester's The Stars. It's rich with quintessentail Sci Fi ideas... Boaz is one of the coolest heroes in the 21 books I've read so far. Started to mull on review...

Special thanks @ArthurFrayn for introducing me to the book. (I think it was you..?)

I should wait until review of Pillars is complete, but I picked up another book already.. (avoid inter-book depression, hehe..)

Puppet Masters anyone?

(update)

Into PM a bit... great fun as I thought it would be. It wastes no time getting to the good stuff.

 

[Mostlyharmless]

As Lest Darkness Fall is on my list of favourite novels, I am rather shocked that anyone doesn't love it and that it is left to me to defend it.

A point not mentioned in the review is that many of Lest Darkness Fall's initial readers would have recently read Count Belisarius by Robert Graves (admission: I had read Count Belisarius first). If one had previously read Graves's novel, one would know most of the names involved in the war and politics section. Further, their characters in Lest Darkness Fall are consistent with their characters in Count Belisarius. In a sense, Lest Darkness Fall is almost Count Belisarius volume 2.
Now historians are quite critical of Graves's accuracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Belisarius and Lest Darkness Fall has the same faults magnified. In particular, Sprague de Camp doesn't capture just how treacherous was the Gothic nobility, which is not in Graves and which would have made Padway's job much more difficult. Belisarius's religious views were also probably much more important than they appear in both Graves and Sprague de Camp's character.

Which brings us to religion, which Sprague de Camp clearly doesn't like. This is a fairly rational attitude but, at least as far as Christianity, was much braver in 1939 than in 2020. Up to that point, wars inspired by religion had been amongst the most destructive and, of course, the Byzantine Empire's partial destruction in the Seventh Century involved its own weaknesses due to doctrinal disputes between the Orthodox, the Monophysites and Nestorians well as attacks by first the Zoroastrian Sassanian Empire and then by the new Islamic Caliphate. Of course, immediately after 1939, history demonstrated that secular fanatics could be just as destructive as religious ones but Sprague de Camp and Martin were simply being realistic based on what they knew. Sprague de Camp attitudes are reminiscent of Hendrik van Loon who published "Van Loon's Lives" in 1942 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Loon's_Lives. In that fantasy, pairs of guests from the past are invited to his house for the evening. Torquemada and Robespierre are a pairing of a religious and a secular monster. Also quoting from Wikipedia "For example, the Archbishop of Bithynia and Archbishop of Cyrenaica, who were staunch theological foes during the 4th century Council of Nicea, wildly assault each other as soon as they are resurrected in the 20th century and run out into the streets of Veere, shouting abuse. A local policeman locks them up in separate cells, but by the next morning they had mysteriously disappeared". Given Martin Padway's attitude to religion, it would be surprising if he had wanted a new and very militant one to emerge.

One issue where Martin is in tune with modern attitudes is that he organises a slave rebellion. This succeeds in winning him his war but loses him Dorothea, his ideal senator's daughter with whom he could have discussed classical literature. Her views are strongly expressed: "You beast! You slimy thing! We befriended you, and you ruin us! My poor old father's heart is broken! And now you've come around to gloat, I suppose!" "What?" [from Martin] "Don't pretend you don't know! I know all about that illegal order you issued, freeing the serfs on our estates in Campania. They burned our house, and stole the things I've kept since I was a little girl-" . Possibly Sprague de Camp had seen "Gone with the Wind" before writing that section but Martin Padway was definitely playing General Sherman's role.

 

[Matt H.]

As Lest Darkness Fall is on my list of favourite novels, I am rather shocked that anyone doesn't love it and that it is left to me to defend it....

(edited)

Mostlyharmless, thanks for the well-composed, researched, in-depth response! I didn't know most of that. But in these reviews I am making a point of reading each novel as a totally independent work. I don't consider any other books or background. (To me that makes honest reader-response style criticism far easier and more realistic.)

I would agree the author's take on religion is advanced. My favorite line is about that "persecution" is not letting a particular sect burn and kill all the others... That was grimly funny and had truth. And as I acknowledge there was still a lot of fun to be had. I liked the technology/invention-related stuff, but too much of the war maneuvering, etc. lost me as a reader.

Certain readers still will find the final letter to the king as pretty outrageous. Is he maybe partly joking or ironic? Like I said, not sure. I don't read books as a "political policeman" but on the other hand certain things just stick out too bad to be honestly ignored (at least from my POV). He doesn't mention anything explicitly about snuffing out Christianity or the Catholic church I noticed. Though agreed his atittude towards religion comes through as largely negative. (***deleted a few sentences here out of caution - because they might lead to discussions that are outside site discussion guidelines, also only marginally relevant to discussion at hand)

It's still an original and engaging main idea... Did you ever pick up anything about how/why the time-slip occurs? Didn't see anything at the end there is only the beginning with Tancredi. So to me, it seemed to be missing a book-end.

Thanks for your comment and for offering a different perspective! That's what it's all about.

 

[Matt H.]

The Pillars of Eternity by Barrington Bayley [1983]
DAW Books, Inc.
159 pages
Reader Response by Matt H. [v 1.08] from Reading Odyssey
Rating: Highly recommended

Story and Setting

In the distant future, human descendants have spread to other worlds. Levels of political centralization have risen and fallen. Now it’s a time of weak central control and of relatively ungovernable outpost planets on the fringes of authority. On one such hard-scrabble, back-water planet, Corsair, a humble and unfortunate waif of a child, known derisively as “Mudworm”, is rescued by an impressive stranger. He is a visiting spaceship captain, a Colonnader, who follows a philosophical religion of high ethics. He realizes the unique opportunity presented by the child and makes Mudworm an offer that seems too good to be true.

The child is taken to Theta, the Colonnader home world. His mind is cultivated and his body is modified. He will be the first to have certain super-human capabilities – mental, physical and perhaps meta-physical. He takes for his new name “Joachim Boaz”, words of outsized and portentous meaning. Though Boaz adopts the philosophy of the Colonnaders, he is not content. He leaves Theta. Later Boaz is the victim of a horrific accident involving scientific alchemists. He is burned by Hell fire, and endures agony literally beyond normal human endurance. Later Boaz is partially healed on Theta. However, from then on he must be forever attached to his ship. He can only physically stray a matter of miles from it, otherwise he will die.

Meanwhile, there is word that the wandering planet Meirjain, will be soon reappearing. It is a legendary world that is said to contain artifacts and treasure of inestimable value, including forbidden time-gems. Boaz and a group of allies, Obsoc a hyper-obsessed gem collector, Mace, “a nymph girl” and Romry a specialist in foreseeing the future, manage to find the planet. But a group of frightening inter-stellar criminals have too. They also must be dealt with.

On Meirjain Boaz encounters the 4-dimentional, Ibis-headed aliens with a near divine knowledge of truth. They offer Boaz the chance to actually become a God, the first one to ever exist. But the price is beyond even what a stoic like Boaz can endure. He returns to more familiar settings. In the end though, the issue is forced as the authorities finally swoop in for an assault. There is a conflagration and agony. In being transformed, will Boaz finally free sentient beings to live outside of an endlessly repeating and absolutely deterministic reality? Or will he destroy the very universe itself?

Critical Reader Appraisal

The Pillars of Eternity takes as its scope all of humanity, all of existence, the whole current universe and all possible future universes, truth, perception, determinism, God, altered states of consciousness, the limits of suffering and joy. Sounds a little grandiose, err… perhaps into the tedious? Miraculously and decisively NOT!

All this deep thought is packaged amazingly into a compact story that most strongly engages your wonder. It is a book that sets forth impressive philosophies and then shatters them. Various levels of truth are explored, but the overall impression is not a dry philosophical one, but aesthetic and emotional engagement. The books combines enjoyment and substance, both in massive quantities.

The plot has an almost classical feel – a hero undergoes a series of trials and transformations. A very unique atmosphere is achieved by having a direct and virulent protagonist who is also of exquisitely fine ethics. You see a pretty sick, decadent world through his eyes, but without judgment. He is very much part of this world, but at the same time above it. This is just one aspect of the protagonist that grabs you. His trials are horrible, his origin humble, his aspirations the grandest possible - to become the first true God, to possibly remake the universe.

Colonnaderism, the philosophy and root of ethics in which the protagonist is trained, would seem to have certain similarities with Buddhism and Hinduism. Equanimity and enlightened states of mind are a main feature. In their associations the various electrically stimulated energies Boaz can activate through his synthetic bones sound a bit like “chakras.” But there’s a twist. Re-incarnation per se is not spoken of. Instead we have an endless series of repeating universes (like Buddhist “kalpas”? ) And the emphasis is on the exact repetition of the universe, of every life and experience, even at the atomic level. It’s a high-minded absolute determinism. It is considered proven -that's just nature, there's no way to ever change it. Or is there? Again, Bayley sets up a highly evolved-sounding philosophy and then shatters it. Later there is another instance of this also. Near the very end a type of “street logic” effectively tears into the philosophy of Boaz. Who the hell really knows? It’s all irrelevant, mental B.S! Simply enjoy life! But in the final paragraph, this realization too is perhaps superseded. All these reversals and successive truths give the book its very unique, hard-edged, multi-transcending iconoclasm.

Apotheosis through pain, and increasing the pain it is possible to feel, both are irresistible and original ideas. They are here presented in all their horribly scary potential and effectively dramatized. It is suggested that the same is possible through pleasure too -- both erotic pleasure as well as general happiness and joy. The integration of man and machine is explored, digitally extended consciousness, four-deminsional existence, death-sex, “collector” aliens, remote sensing and scanning, piety, abstinence, erotic ecstasy, and mental augmentation through essentially computerized bones. Tarot cards and future-telling are also in the mix.

Bayley’s prose is blocky at times and I didn’t feel him to be a slick stylist. There is still some vivid scene setting and figurative language too. The world of the Ibis-headed ones was wondrous indeed. But the sometimes blocky feel somehow harmonized with this third person narrative story. Boaz is a blocky character, with his past, with his secretive hard shell and his high, sometimes outmoded ethics. The work is short also, which leaves no space for extensive frills.

With a book like this, that climaxes on the final paragraph, even the final sentence – that final sentence takes enormous strain. I will admit that after reading the very ending, I felt a little of the need to wish it was stated slightly differently. But as is often the case, you see wisdom (a little later) in the writer’s decision. If there was a slight unappeased feeling when I finished it, that feeling was soundly overwhelmed by the overall recollection of this vivid, powerful and meaningful book.