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 Post subject: Ken MacLeod ~ Learning the World (spoilers)
PostPosted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 6:19 am 
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Lady Scryer
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Joined: Sun Nov 17, 2002 5:11 pm
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Location: Michigan, USA
I am a long time fan of science fiction, and it frustrates me every year when the Hugo Award nominations come out and I have usually read an average of one of the nominated novels - and I usually have not even heard of many of them. This year was typical, in that I had only read George R. R. Martin's A Feast For Crows. This year I intend on reading the other four nominees as well. I have not read any books by any of the other four authors.

I am nearly finished with the first one I tracked down, Ken MacLeod's Learning the World.

This is a novel of first contact, which in the past has been so well handled in such science fiction classics as 2001 A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama.

A great star ship (with a name worthy of an Iain Banks Culture ship) called But the Sky, my Lady! The Sky! is on an epic journey spreading mankind through the stars. There are three sorts of people on the ship - the crew, the very long lived people who have been on the ship throughout its voyage of centuries and expect to make some nice profits because of that voyage (the founders), and a bunch of young humans who were specifically born to found a colony at the star the ship is approaching. The ship is larger and more complex than anything I can really imagine, and the engines are so powerful that they create new universes as they move the ship.

When a colony is founded, people live in domes and habitats which are diamond shielded in the asteroid belts and the various planets and moons. The habitats are filled with living plants, and after some time, the colony spreads out so much around the star that from a distance the star it surrounds actually begins to look green from a distance in space. After the colonists are dropped off and the colony is safely and well established, the ship takes up asteroids and other space debris to power the engines, then moves on to the next system.

In all of that time ,and after all of those systems, humans have not found any intelligent life...until now.

From the second planet of the intended star system (a world called Ground orbiting a star called Destiny), radio transmissions are picked up. Humans are not alone...

Meanwhile on Ground, a young astronomer sights what he thinks must be a comet. But it does not act in any way that any natural object would act...and in time it becomes clear that the bat people are not alone...

The book switches points of view from one chapter to the next - a human chapter, a bat people chapter, a human chapter, a bat people chapter...

The bat people are pretty close to early/middle twentieth century technology, with the exception of artificial flight (and since they can fly with their own wings, that makes perfect sense). They seem, in some ways, to be closer to us in outlook than the humans on the ship do. At least I was much more able to identify with the bat people than with the primate people.

The humans of that era are very peace loving, but the tensions of the first contact split the people on the ship into warlike factions.

The bat people are still in nation states. But the tensions of the first contact bring them together.

It was a very enjoyable book. I like how all of the people (whether primate human or bat human) are just people. Sure, one culture and species is more high tech than the other, but they are still all just people. No one had God-like powers, and both of the peoples have a lot to learn from each other and teach each other.

And by the way - Danlo - like Iain Banks, this guy is very gifted Scottish science fiction writer.
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