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OtherRealms Issue 22 Part 06
Electronic OtherRealms #22
Fall, 1988
Part 6
Copyright 1988
by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written permission from Chuq
Von Rospach. The electronic edition may be distributed or reproduced
only in its entirety and only if all copyrights, author credits and
this notice, including the return addresses remain intact.
No article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way
without the express permission of the author.
Just for the Fun of It
Alan Wexelblat
Copyright 1988 by Alan Wexelblat
Consider Phlebas
Iain M. Banks
St. Martin's Press, 0-312-01752-9, 467pp, 1987
[***]
The Forge of God
Greg Bear
Tor, 372 pp, 1987
[****+]
Computers in Battle: Will They Work?
edited by David Bellin and Gary Chapman
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
0-15-121232-5, 362pp, 1987
[****]
Chanur's Homecoming
C. J. Cherryh
DAW, 349pp, 1986
[****+]
FirstFlight
Chris Claremont
Ace, 0-441-23584-0, 243 pp, 1987
[***]
On Stranger Tides
Tim Powers
Ace, 312pp, 1987
[*****-]
Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology
edited by Bruce Sterling
Ace , 0-441-53382-5, 239pp, 1986
[*****]
Involution Ocean
Bruce Sterling
Ace, 0-441-37206-6, 179 pp, 1977
[****-]
The Crown Jewels
Walter Jon Williams
TOR, 0-812-55798-0, 247pp, 1987
[****]
This summer has been hot. The local paper is running cartoons about the
devil taking a plane flight out of town because of the heat. It's far
too hot to do much serious reading, if you ask me. I don't know how you
deal with the heat where you live; around here we like to kick back and
relax with some iced tea and some books that are just plain good
reading. This month we'll take a look at several of those, as well as
couple of more serious endeavors.
The Crown Jewels
This offering from Walter John Williams is not, according to the list
inside the front cover, a novel. It is, we are told, one of his
"divertimenti;" literally, a diversion.
The Crown Jewels is a light-hearted science fantasy set in the far
future. Humanity has been conquered by a race called the Khosali.
These aliens are so immeasurably superior to all the other races that
their conquests are ho-hum affairs. As conquerors go, they're not that
bad. They allow the subject species a great deal of freedom, asking
only that they accept the Khosali Imperial System and the hereditary
aristocracy that goes along with it. In return, the conquered get
access to the advanced Khosali technology and to the many other races
that the Khosali have conquered. However, the ungrateful humans manage
to pull off a galactic first by staging a successful revolution.
The story opens in the time of an uneasy peace between the Khosali
Empire and the human Constellation. Our hero, Drake Maijstral, is a
thief. Not a criminal -- the law allows him to steal provided he takes
care not to actually get caught. And provided, of course, that he does
it with sufficient style. Maijstral always gets points for style.
Unfortunately, that's about all he's been getting lately; consequently,
he's almost broke.
He doesn't hesitate (more than style requires, anyway) to take on a
seemingly-insignificant job for Amelia Jensen. All she wants is a
sealed box from a collection of war-era antiquities. Nothing could be
simpler. Unfortunately, a lot of other people from both sides of the
Khosali-Human border seem to want that box as well, and Maijstral finds
himself in the middle of a complex jumble of robbery, kidnaping,
and... well, let's not give too much away.
The Crown Jewels is a lot of fun to read. Williams' style lends itself
easily to the humorous situations he sets up. From the ear-sniffing
greetings of Khosali High Custom, to the Elvis-impersonator
performances which are one of the only relics left of Old Earth
culture, the tone of the novel kept me just below the level of a
constant giggle. The characters are realistic, fun people. They are not
quite stereotypes and not quite self-parodies, but they tread
humorously close to both.
Speaking of the characters, there are quite a number of them. The
supporting cast numbers close to a dozen, and I am impressed at how
well Williams handles them. In particular, he manages to introduce most
of the major players in the first chapter via a complex dance sequence
that allows the reader to quickly become familiar with most of them.
Don't be fooled into thinking that the fun of this book indicates a
lack of writing skill. On the contrary, the writing is excellent as I
have come to expect from Williams. Put this one on your must-read-some-
weekend list.
On Stranger Tides
Now this is a fantasy. Listen up, all you fantasy lovers who've been
numbed by Generic Fantasy Trilogies. This book is for you. Tim Powers
is ready to take you on a swashbuckling ride over the Caribbean seas.
And what a ride!
On Stranger Tides is the story of John Chandagnac -- how he sails for
Jamaica, how he is captured by pirates and becomes Jack Chandy, a
pirate in his own right. And how Voudun magic and mystery lead him
closer to and farther from Beth Hurwood, the woman he loves. Her
father, it seems, is some kind of serious wizard, and he has plans for
his daughter that certainly don't include Jack Chandy.
Mind you, this is not highfalutin' magic we're talking about here. This
is down-in-the-dirt, gut-wrenching Caribbean magic: spit and mud and
the blood of beheaded chickens. Loas with real totems that any man can
use, if he knows how. Bocors that can summon up the spirits of the
dead. No outright miracles, but power enough to stop a pistol bullet,
if you take the right precautions. For me, this magic has a certain, if
you'll pardon the word, reality to it. I can imagine myself, like
Chandy, slowly learning to believe in and to use this sort of magic.
This sense of "that could be me" is one of the things I liked best
about this book.
It's hard to say much about the plot of this book without spoiling it
for the reader. Powers writes extremely good swashbuckling non- stop
action. Just when you've forgotten a plot thread, he weaves it back in.
It's exciting and involving and lots of fun.
As with the Williams book, Powers doesn't take the lightness of the
book as a chance to slack off. His writing talent is evident
throughout. Jack Chandy and the other characters are well-rounded
human beings. They grow and develop and we cheer (or boo) them in large
part because they are so real. Powers also has a keen eye for
historical detail; he has done his homework and it shows in the rich
background fabric of the story.
This one is a page-turner; don't start reading it just before bedtime.
Chanur's Homecoming
Let's see... the last time we checked in with Pyanfar Chanur and her
crew, they were riding the crest of the wave of conquest spawned by the
war between Akkhtimakt and Sikkukkut. They had managed somehow to avoid
being squeezed between the Hani secret policewoman Rhif Ehrran and her
intended quarry, the pirate Hani Dur Tahar. But now Ehrran was running
for the main Hani port, Gaohn station, and her report would finish off
the politically crippled Chanur clan.
They had also managed to get back the human, Tully, though they were not
sure what secret message he bore. That message had gone on to the Mahen
homeworld of Maing Tol with the hani captain Banny Ayhar. Tully and the
Pride of Chanur's junior crewwoman, Hilfy, had been returned by Sikkukkut
in return for Pyanfar's promise to help him take Kefk station -- and act
of outright piracy that would be sure to upset the already-jittery Stsho.
Meanwhile, the mahen hunters Jik and Goldtooth have had some sort of
falling out, resulting in Goldtooth heading for gods-know-where,
possibly bringing a fleet of human ships into Compact space.
If you're getting a mental image like that of the surfer riding the
tsunami in Lucifer's Hammer, you're on the right track.
Chanur's Homecoming is the final chapter in the story started in The
Pride of Chanur, and continued in Chanur's Venture, and The Kif Strike
Back. If you haven't read those books yet, go out and get them.
If you have read them, you know what a treat it is to visit Compact
space with Cherryh as tour guide. This book is by far the most hair-
raising of the quaternary. The tension runs high throughout the story,
and the pace just keeps getting faster. I am continually amazed at
Cherryh's ability to handle all the elements of the narrative. The
things I mentioned above are only some of the major plot elements.
The characters are equally numerous, and equally well-drawn. Despite
their numbers, Cherryh allows each one room enough to grow. There are
no stereotypes, no two-dimensional players on this stage. I also like
the way Cherryh shows us the female (some would say feminist) point of
view of her protagonist without engaging in male-bashing.
I think I've said before that I consider the alienness of Cherryh's
different species to be excellently done. Her work is a yardstick
against which I compare other authors' efforts. These are not just
humans in funny skins; these are four distinct races of sentients who
think and act in their own self-consistent, but very unhuman, ways.
As with the Powers book, it's hard to say much about the plot without
spoiling it. It's a wild ride, and a fun one. There are so many irons
in the fire it's impossible to say who will survive. And, take my word
for it, I think you'll like the ending. It's logical. The loose ends
are tied up in a believable way. This one's another page-turner,
guaranteed to keep you up past your bedtime.
FirstFlight
Many of you know Chris Claremont as the author of Marvel Comics'
phenomenally successful series of X-Men comics. FirstFlight is his
first foray into non-graphic, novel-length material. Coincidentally,
C.J. Cherryh is quoted as giving it an "...enthusiastic
recommendation." And considering the poor quality of many of the first
novels I've seen recently, I'm inclined to agree with her.
Certainly Claremont has the wisdom to draw on his strengths. Many of
the characters will be easily recognizable to X-Men readers as
analogues of characters he's developed in the past.
The protagonist, Lt. Nicole Shea, is an extremely talented young space
pilot. She's so talented that NASA administrators are willing to
overlook her occasional carelessness in the hope that experience will
mature her and her talents will shine through.
In the not-too-distant future of FirstFlight, humanity has established
outposts on the moon and in the asteroid belts. A newly-developed FTL
star drive makes visiting nearby systems practical, and development of
colonies there is beginning. However, the solar system is so poorly
mapped that using the high-power, high-speed starships in-system is
dangerously impractical. Shea is given captaincy of the
conventional-drive spaceship Wanderer and its crew with a mission to
chart a volume of the solar system and leave marker buoys along the
way, allowing the starships to navigate safely.
Now you just know this is far too tame a scenario for Claremont. First
our heroes tangle with a mess of asteroid-hopping pirates. As you might
expect, the long arm of the law barely touches the uncharted outbacks
of the asteroid belt beyond Mars. Then the aliens arrive. Yes, this is
a first-contact novel, too. The aliens have their own problems, and
they team up with Wanderer's crew to solve them.
The plot is pretty simplistic. Claremont's strength has never been in
the kind of intricate intrigue that Cherryh is so adept at. However,
his talent with the novel's characters is not to be taken lightly. He
has trouble dealing with the large number of them, but Shea and the
other major players are well-handled. He deals with complex themes of
love (including sex) and responsibility, and allows his major
characters to grow together in a team.
His aliens are about what you'd expect. They are technologically
slightly more advanced that the humans. Since they come from closer to
the center of the galaxy, their transmissions were lost to us against
the background noise. Earth, seen against the relative quiet of inter-
galactic space, stood out like a beacon for them. Claremont has clearly
put some effort into making them real; unfortunately there's only one
major alien character.
The real weakness of the novel is the villains. They are one-
dimensional cutout bad guys with cliche motives who act in standard
bad-guy ways. I almost expected them to chortle evilly.
This is not a great novel by any means, but it is a respectable first
effort and is fun to read. I'm looking forward to seeing if Claremont
continues writing in this universe. There are some obvious loose ends
left over at the end of the book that make me think he's got at least
one more related story up his sleeve.
Mirrorshades
It's hard to know what to say about a book that purports to define a
movement which many deny the very existence of. However, the debate
over the existence and/or meaning of cyberpunk inevitably acknowledges
the force and importance of the introduction to this collection.
The essay, written by anthology editor Bruce Sterling, is an attempt to
define a movement by taking a kind of snapshot of it. By attempting a
coherent articulation of principles that had guided writers yet
remained unexplained to many readers, he drove a stake into the ground
around which a debate could be built. His compelling vision and the
collection of stories accompanying it form a portrait of a new dynamic
in science fiction.
With any dynamic process, static representations are doomed to be
incomplete. Just as no one Beethoven symphony presents the entirety of
orchestral composition, no single story or collection of them presents
the entirety of that thing Gardner Dozois dubbed "cyberpunk" and Bruce
Sterling calls simply the "Movement."
As I noted, the preface to the collection is a seminal explanation for
the mass-market public of what it is that makes up the Movement.
Sterling touches on many of the themes and many of the inspirations for
the mirrorshades group. He acknowledges their debt to many who came
before, as well as to many who are still at work in the field today. He
tries to explain what is new and compelling about this thing called
cyberpunk. He also coined the phrase that has become symbolic of a
great deal of the Movement, and grail-like to its imitators: "...the
realm where the computer hacker and the rocker overlap." If you read
nothing else in this volume, read the preface.
For those who venture on, there's a wealth of good material, from Gibson's
"Gernsback Continuum," which is really an embodiment of the principles
in their starkest form, to the Sterling/Shiner collaboration "Mozart in
Mirrorshades." In my opinion, there's not a bad story in the lot.
There are ones that qualify as hard-core cyberpunk, like Tom Maddox's
excellent "Snake Eyes" -- about a human mind forced into an interface
it's not equipped to handle -- and John Shirley's rock- and-roll
Eclipse excerpt titled "Freezone." Then there are ones that, in
addition to being good Movement stories, are almost philosophical
treatises on the themes of the movement, like Greg Bear's beautiful but
disturbing story about the death of God, "Petra," and the
Sterling/Gibson collaboration "Red Star, Winter Orbit," about the real
movement of humanity into outer space.
In between are other sorts of Movement stories: In Pat Cadigan's "Rock
On," the rock ethic and the business ethic collide to the detriment of
a rock and roll sinner. Rudy Rucker's "Tales of Houdini" is a
nail-bitingly exciting short about Harry Houdini, alive in an alternate
history. "The 400 Boys" brings together the worlds of post- nuclear
mutations and street gangs in a bizarre combination that would be
totally hokey if done by someone less talented than Marc Laidlaw. James
Patrick Kelley's entry, "Solstice," is a sad story of love and loss set
against the background of a pharmaceutical Wonderland. Similarly,
Lewis Shiner's "Till Human Voices Wake Us" is about love and loss, but
it is set against a background of corporate politics. The same sort of
politics gives Paul Di Fillipo's "Stone Lives" its hard edge. "Stone
Lives" is perhaps the prototypical cyberpunk coming-of-age story.
I think this is an excellent collection with a wealth of good
material. It's not easy reading by any stretch of the imagination, but
it repays the effort ten times over.
Involution Ocean
Some of you may be wondering why the preface to Mirrorshades is in the
back of this book. Well, it's sort of complicated... The original
edition of Involution Ocean was an Ellison Discovery novel. It was
prefaced with an essay written by Harlan describing Bruce Sterling, as
Harlan saw him in 1977. That essay is somewhat dated by now and doesn't
bear reprinting. So when Ace went to republish the book in anticipation
of the imminent releases of Mirrorshades and Islands in the Net, they
found themselves with a rather slim volume. In order to expand it (and
to promote Mirrorshades), they included the Mirrorshades preface.
Naturally, they didn't bother to consult Sterling about any of this. So
goes the merry world of publishing! (Actually, Sterling tells me he
doesn't mind, though the juxtaposition is a little odd.)
Involution Ocean begins as the story of John Newhouse's search for the
source of syncophine, the drug to which he is addicted. The drug is produced
only by refining portions of the viscera of a unique creature -- the
dustwhale of Nullaqua. Nullaqua is a planet without water. It has no
oceans of liquid; however, it does have a large ocean of fine dust, in
which live a number of creatures, including the dustwhale. These
whales are carefully harvested by the whalers of Nullaqua -- for each
whale taken, three fertilized eggs are dropped into the ocean.
However, the whalers' interest is not in syncophine; in fact, the
planet's rulers have made the drug illegal. Thus, in order to get the
raw materials to make the drug, Newhouse must sign on to a whaling ship
himself, steal the needed whale parts and create the drug himself.
He rapidly becomes caught up in what can only be called the 'Ahab-like'
insanity of the ship's captain, Desperandum. The captain is certain
that great mysteries lurk in the dust sea, and is determined to prove
himself right. He leads the ship into danger time and again, holding on
to his crew and command by force of personality and physical strength.
Newhouse must walk a tightrope between offending the captain, an
unpredictable temper, and offending the xenophobic crew. Inevitably,
he is forced to choose sides and become deeper enmeshed in the insanity
aboard ship.
Involution Ocean is certainly a significant cut above the average first
novel. Despite its obvious homage to Moby Dick, there are a number of
interesting new ideas in the story. The characters are burdened a bit
by being symbols -- everything in this book is symbol-laden, even down
to the names. Still, they manage to exist in three dimensions. Even
Desperandum has an originality beyond the stock mad-sea-captain character.
The story is interesting. Newhouse's struggles to survive and succeed
make good reading. However, it suffers from a weak opening and an
unbelievable ending. The ending in particular seems out of control.
Sterling throws in a number of new ideas and events and expects the
reader to keep up -- a task I found difficult. Still, Involution Ocean
was fun and interesting.
The Forge of God
I confess, I have a tendency to hate end-of-the-world novels. They're
usually full of impossibly heroic or impossibly stupid people doing
stereotypically heroic or stupid things. And the reasons given for
world destruction, if any, are usually pretty strained. On these counts
alone, Greg Bear deserves a round of applause. He has managed to put
together an end-of-the-world story with real people acting in real
ways. And he's got a frighteningly good scenario for blowing up the Earth.
There's a current in SF thought that hypothesizes that we might be doing
ourselves a disservice by broadcasting as noisily as we do out into the
interstellar medium. What if, they ask, there were not just aliens out there,
but hostile aliens? Perhaps these aliens are Mongol-like and bent on
conquest, or xenophobic like late feudal Japan, and actively resent
contacts with other cultures, or... well, you get the idea.
The Forge of God starts off with a bang. Except that it's in the vacuum
of space, so there is no sound. On June 26, 1996, Europa -- Jupiter's
sixth moon -- disappears. Gone without a trace. There's no explanation
possible except extra-solar effects. Arthur Gordon, astronomer and
retired science advisor to the president can only wonder "... maybe
somebody's collecting moons."
Three months later Edward Shaw, a geologist from the University of
Texas, is leading a hiking party through Death Valley when he spots a
hundred-meter tall cinder cone that isn't on any of the maps of the
area. It's too big to have been missed by hikers and by satellite
surveys; therefore it's new. The problem is that no one seems to have
any record of an eruption or impact that might have produced it. The
mound appears to have no life forms of any kind until Edward and his
companions stumble onto what appears to be the first honest-to- god
alien being on the planet. Naturally, they and it quickly wind up in
the custody of the US Air Force and government, who set about trying to
figure out just what the alien is and how it got there and what it
wants. Naturally, they can't just let Edward and his group wander
around telling the world what they'd seen.
Three days later, the Australians announce to the world that they, too,
have some sort of extraterrestrial visitor, ensconced in a duplicate of
Ayres Rock.
From there the action moves at a considerable clip as Bear begins to
bring the threads of the plot together, blending them in with the
background of a cynical, post-presidential-assassination America.
There are a number of first-class supporting characters: there's Harry
Fineman, a brilliant scientist now fighting a battle with cancer; there's
Trevor Hicks, a mainstream author and journalist, now riding a small
wave of fame from his publication of a science fiction novel about
first contact. These two come to play important parts in the investigation
of the aliens and in helping shape America's reaction to it.
As I said above, the real strength of this novel is in the characters.
There's not much doubt for most of the book that the earth is going to
be destroyed. Even though the aliens' technology is only a couple
centuries beyond ours, it's enough that we don't have a way to stop
them. What matters in this story is how the people deal with that
impending event.
Bear's writing style is very involving. He draws you in first by the
simplicity of his scenes and backgrounds. They are comfortable, almost
down-homish, even when he's talking about alien settings like military
bases and the inside of the White House. His characters are enhanced by
the settings, and you are drawn further in by the combination.
It's also noteworthy that the 'bad guys' of Forge of God really don't
appear on-stage. It's a tribute to the strength of Bear's talent that
he doesn't need evil aliens in stormtrooper suits to make his tale
work. Oh, and don't walk away thinking I've given away the plot of the
book; I haven't. There's an ending that I think will rock your socks off.
Consider Phlebas
A four-hundred-seventy page novel is pretty daunting to start with.
When I open up to the table of contents and find three appendixes, two
purporting to give the "Reasons" for the two sides of a war and one
purporting to be an "abstract of main text" of the novel, I get the
shivering willies. But I have to at least give it a try, right?
Fortunately, the prologue is pretty good. Sentient ship-guiding
machines called Minds, produced by a star-spanning confederation called
the Culture; hyperspace; Planets of the Dead. Hmmm... this might not be
so bad after all.
In fact, it's not nearly as bad as it might have been. Iain Banks has produced
a fairly good science fantasy about the very distant future and a war
between the communistic Culture and the fanatically religious Idirans.
The story revolves around the actions of one Bora Horza Gobuchul, a
mercenary in the service of the Idirans. Horza is a member of a race
called Changers, so named because they have the ability to change their
form and appearance. This ability makes them dangerous infiltrators and
assassins, and Horza is a well-trained assassin. His employers rescue
him from almost certain death at the hands of a Culture-allied group
called the Gerontocracy. He had been exposed by a Culture agent,
Perosteck Balveda, who is captured when he is freed. His employers
want him to go to a Planet of the Dead called Schar's World and capture
a Culture Mind that has managed a previously- impossible feat -- warping
from outer space into the tunnel system under the planet's surface.
Planets of the Dead are normally forbidden places. They are maintained
as monuments to the races that occupied them and exterminated
themselves. The maintainers are an extremely advanced race called
Dra'Azon whose technology allows them to establish impenetrable energy
fields called Quiet Barriers around these Planets of the Dead. On
occasion the Dra'Azon, for their own unfathomable reasons, will allow
lesser races to visit these planets. Changers have been allowed to
maintain a research outpost on Schar's World; in the past, Horza served
at that outpost. The Idirans hope that the Dra'Azon will allow Horza
back onto the planet where he can retrieve the now-trapped Mind and its
unique knowledge. The Culture has no comparable agents, but they can
attempt to stop Horza until they can persuade the Dra'Azon to allow
them to retrieve the Mind. Consider Phlebas is the story of Horza's
attempts to get to Schar's World and capture the Mind, and of the
Culture's efforts to stop him.
It's a complicated story. There are lots of obstacles to be overcome.
Banks throws one sidetrack after another into the plot, visiting
several strange cultures and giving us glimpses of the unusual universe
he has constructed. Unfortunately, Banks overcomplicates things. There
are whole sections and irrelevant characters that could easily have
been deleted, bringing the novel down to more reasonable size.
The other problem with Consider Phlebas is that Banks is concerned with
more than just writing an SF novel. He is also interested in producing
a socio-political treatise and he feels free to use long passages of
the words of the characters to express his premises. It's deadly dull,
and only marginally relevant to the action of the book.
There's some rip-roaring action and lots of good writing at the heart
of it all, but wait for the paperback.
Computers in Battle
There's a lot to be said for knowing your science. Many SF readers will
debate with authors over the minutest details of physics in the stories
they read. Yet they continue to accept much sillier fictional suppositions
about the capabilities of computers. I suppose this has something to do
with the large overlap between those who work with computers and those
who read SF, particularly what we like to call hard SF.
Working with them, we see computers as our 'babies' and gloss over
their flaws. We are also aware that computers are not bound by the same
sorts of laws as physics. What today seems computationally impossible
may be solved by a faster processor tomorrow or a new learning algorithm
next year. Past leaps in the field make it seem like nanotechnology and
true artificial intelligence are just around the corner.
And in our optimism, we forget that there are some realities that have
been brought home to us by experience and by the mathematics associated
with computer science. Bellin and Chapman's book is a good cure for
that sort of overoptimism.
In the eleven essays that comprise this volume, thirteen authors take a
hard look at the realities of computer capabilities as we see them
today. They probe the use of computers by and for the military with an
eye toward questioning the 'accepted wisdom' about the burden computers
will be able to bear in the near future, and perhaps for an indefinite
time beyond.
The book is aimed at the general public; it assumes that the reader
knows almost nothing about computers or about the military's use of
them. The first essay, "Computers in Battle: A Human Overview" by
Severo Ornstein, gives a detailed look at some of the principles of
what computers can do, at the basics of software engineering, and gives
a simple, but good, explanation of what the past can and cannot teach
us about the future. Paul Edwards follows this up with a short history
of the interaction between computers and the military, listing and
giving the background of some of the systems that will be talked about
in later chapters.
Gary Chapman then dives into the world of the next war, the one that's
supposedly going to be fought by and with a new generation of high-tech
weapons. His essay gives broad coverage to the programs underway in the
Army, Air Force, and Navy. Unfortunately, most of these systems are
still not combat-tested, so all we (and the Pentagon) can do is
speculate based on the results of tests and war games. However, Chapman
shows some principles that might help to predict success or failure.
"Computer System Reliability and Nuclear War" by Alan Borning looks at
the problems that have plagued this country's early-warning systems in
the past and tries to give an explanation of why the latest and predicted
future systems are not likely to solve the problems. Touchy issues
such as "launch on warning" and "limited vs protracted nuclear war" are
discussed. Borning shows how political impositions can distort the
supposedly-unbiased realities of computer science, for better or worse.
Then Eric Roberts and Steve Berlin try, in just twenty pages, to cover
the interaction between computers and the newest nuclear war player,
SDI. Their chapter is one of the weaker ones in the book; fortunately,
it works well in conjunction with Borning's excellent piece.
Jonathan Jacky takes a look at the Strategic Computing Program, an
adjunct to SDI that has received comparatively little publicity,
despite it's potentially enormous implications.
David Parnas contributes the first of the theoretically-oriented
essays, "Computers in Weapons: The Limits of Confidence." Parnas is
well known for his public abandonment of $1000/day of SDI money. In
this essay he largely avoids SDI, concentrating instead on
'conventional' computerized weapons systems. He shows, in simple
non-technical language, how increasingly-sophisticated weapons systems
must deal with higher and higher levels of uncertainty and how that
uncertainty proportionally reduces the level of confidence we can have
in the computerized systems. Parnas is a practiced speaker and essayist
and this is easily the best chapter of the book.
Tom Athanasiou looks at "Artificial Intelligence as Military Technology."
Unfortunately, he spends too much time criticizing AI in general
instead of showing why it will not be able to fulfill the role the
military claims it will. While it is true that if AI in general fails
to live up to its promise, it will mean failure for many proposed
military systems, I would have preferred to see a more focused discussion.
One of the things I find exciting about Movement science fiction, and
find depressing about much of what passes for computer science, is
their treatment of the interrelations of computer systems and those
systems' environments. In the 'classical' computer science I was
taught, computer systems are considered separate entities from the
environment. In Movement fiction as in so much of reality, high
technology is inextricably bound up in the web of life. Lenny Seigel
and John Markoff look at an important aspect of this in their chapter,
"High Technology and the Emerging Dual Economy." They provide an
informative counterpoint to the conventional wisdom that military
production 'creates jobs,' 'promotes prosperity,' and 'produces
spinoffs' and thus is a beneficial thing to be sought after.
Another facet of the same interaction is examined in Clark Thompson's
chapter "Role of Military Funding in Academic Computer Science."
Thompson examines the trends in funding over the last ten years and
probes into the question of why it has become so hard for
non-defense-oriented computer science professors to get funds. Coupled
with Seigel & Markoff's essay, this gives us some interesting insights
into where our high-tech economy may be heading in the next decade. SF
readers who wonder why much speculative fiction these days predicts a
rising Japanese sun and a disintegrating American middle class should
definitely make a point of reading these two chapters.
The last chapter is John Ladd's essay "Computers and War:
Philosophical Reflections on Ends and Means." Ladd compares the
approaches to war taken by Carl von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu, the two
people who most literally can be said to have 'written the book' on
war. He contrasts the goals for war each sets forth and reflects on the
implications of each set of strategies. He then examines some questions
raised by the use of computers to attain these ends. For a
philosophical treatise, it's a little lightweight, but it makes
thought-provoking reading for the mainstream public.
Overall, I was favorably impressed by the volume. It's no secret that
the editors and most of the authors come to this collection with preset
points of view. However, this doesn't detract from the quality of most
of the chapters, which are heavily footnoted and referenced. If the
authors set out to prove a point, they did so armed with a mass of data
and experience that makes their conclusions hard to ignore.
I recommend this book to anyone who like to look critically (and
knowledgeably) at the scientific premises behind the fiction they read.
Despite its flaws, it's a useful book for layman and computer
scientist.
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End of Part 6
