(no subject)

[prog]

Finished A Deepness in the Sky. Liked it a lot, though I grumble at the authorial tactic of hiding information from the reader in a very sneaky way. Specifcally, having characters we know everything about secretly make a discovery and then conspire to work behind the reader's back! There is a "clue" in the fact that, from that point (whose location is spelled out at the very end of the story), we never see the story from those characters' points of view again. But still... argh, tricky!

While I really enjoyed the villains, who are some of the nastiest bad guys I've ever met in a novel, I dunno how I felt about them both being sexual predators on the side. I mean, in literature, that's kind of a cheap way to make a character completely despicable. A killer, no matter how brutal, still has shades of gray to play with, machiavellian ideals and whatnot. A rapist, on the other hand, really has nowhere to go. It was perfectly fitting with how they thought of everyone below them, though... hmf.

The ending actually becomes a little depressing, since we know from Fire what ultimately happens with Pham's mission to explore the galactic core... not only did it end in disaster, but the entire excursion was, in retrospect, based on an ill-informed jump to conclusions. I guess it was done for the right reasons, but the inspiration that Pham means to engender with his speech at the end hangs heavy with unwitting, and most unfortunate, irony.

Unanswered question, at the meta-plot level: I can't think of a reason not to recommend that a new reader read this book before A Fire Upon the Deep. What am I forgetting about?

One thing I have forgotten: do the Spiders appear at all in Fire?

Comments

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

I think the gut level "huh?" reaction, the good one, is much more intense if you read Fire first, because the tines and the way they are introduced are so novel and cool. I think Deepness has a little of the twee. Besides, just knowing who/what Pham is/might be adds a lot to Deepness that doesn't work as well in Fire if you read Deepness first. I also think Deepness has a little more soapbox than Fire and some people find that offputting.

I don't get you

[prog.livejournal.com]

You're saying that the twist about Sherkaner's secretly discovering the humans is amplified by the reader's knowing about the Tines? Whaaa?

How does Deepness have the twee? (Or is that a typo? :) )

IIRC, the two Phams are only vaguely the same character, like two interpretations of the same backstory. I'm not convinced that one would spoil the other, no matter what order you read the books in.

Re: I don't get you

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

nah, I just think the tines are cooler and so splashing right into that book without knowing the other is more cool than reading about the spiders first. Twee means excessive cuteness and I think there's a little too much of that in the "translated" descriptions of spider development. I also think that knowing Pham is someone special makes rediscovering him in Deepness kinda cool.

Of course, I read them that way and can't take it back.

Read Alastair Reynolds... p;lug... plug...

oh, and also I've been drinking Scotch.

[radiotelescope.livejournal.com]

There are other clues, but I am having to go look at old Usenet discussions to remind myself what they are.

"Sherkaner's reaction ("even the---") when he first learns that the antigravity dust is real."

"Anne's belief that someone was interfering with the Focused."

And, my all-time favorite hidden meaning in any story ever (well, mostly) -- in the middle of chapter 33, Trixia says out loud: "Really? I'm not a machine?" And Ezr thinks she's responding to *him*.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Oh that's good, though I'd never have caught it. The "perhaps ten or fifteen seconds later" thing is the tip-off, but at this point in the story that time interval doesn't carry any meaning for the reader, and is easy to forget. (That said, I'm not sure what exactly was transpiring between her and Sherk at that moment. Did she IM "Ezr says I'm not a machine :(" to him after Ezr spoke?)

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

She's pretty much entirely in the mindset of a Spider at that point, so it's not clear what she's reporting about ship-side activities. I imagined that Sherk was more or less able to see out of her eyes, but thought she was some kind of mechanical relay until then.

[prog.livejournal.com]

OH I GET IT NOW. Up until this very moment, Sherk thought that Trixia was an AI (he and his kids mention this mistaken initial thinking several times at the end of the book). So her repsonse was actually more Sherk's than her own.

Very tricky. (Not sure why she spoke it out loud, but whatever.)

[radiotelescope.livejournal.com]

Right, yes, that was it. (I told you I didn't remember the scenario very well. One more book to re-read someday.)

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

The twist at the end took me completely by surprise, though (like all good twists) it's hinted at and foreshadowed beforehand, so you can't accuse the author of pulling a deux ex machina.

You're right...The bad guys were fully evil enough, and making them sadistic sexual predators as well seems like overkill. I'm not sure why that bit was put in.

One thing I rather enjoyed was thinking of the similarities of the Spider's world and the burst of scientific research at MIT and Princeton during WWII...It seemed like each cycle of the Spiders goes through about fifty years of human scientific progress, starting at telegraphs and crude radio, World War I, through the "roaring twenties", and then into World War II. I think Vinge took a lot of inspiration from that chunk of American history.

You'll find my comments, from a couple months ago, here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/hauntmeister/87194.html