Death Is Bad

Yesterday I mentioned several of Seth Dickinson’s stories over at the podcast site. Today I want to focus on one in particular – Economies of Force. It is a transhumanist story so I’ll assume readers are already aware of common themes in transhumanist fiction – particularly the proposed ability of humans to edit their own mental make-up. Not just memories, but preferences and personality traits as well.

This has been speculated to allow for some pretty worrisome scenarios under sub-ideal economic circumstance, because (quoting Scott Alexander)

>brutal Malthusian competition combined with ability to self-edit and other-edit minds necessarily results in paring away everything not directly maximally economically productive. And a lot of things we like – love, family, art, hobbies – are not directly maximally economic productive. … [Bostrom worries] that consciousness itself may not be directly maximally economically productive. He writes: “We could thus imagine, as an extreme case, a technologically highly advanced society, containing many complex structures, some of them far more intricate and intelligent than anything that exists on the planet today – a society which nevertheless lacks any type of being that is conscious or whose welfare has moral significance. In a sense, this would be an uninhabited society. It would be a society of economic miracles and technological awesomeness, with nobody there to benefit. A Disneyland with no children.”

Yudkowsky introduced a different worry a few years earlier. In Amputation of Destiny he points out that the Culture of Iain M. Banks’s novels is rather bad for the humans, because there is nothing in the galaxy that is worth doing that humans can do. Anything they can do is done better by the Minds, and the humans exist simply because the Minds humor them. The humans are basically kept pets. The Minds are the true main characters of the story of the galaxy now. And while it’s good that there’s still intelligent life in the galaxy, it is sad that humanity has made itself irrelevant.

In Economies of Force, Dickinson has managed to bring these two together in a nicely chilling way. It is conveyed rather quickly that humanity is a kept pet species. No human really knows how the system works anymore, all major decisions are passed on to the machines, because the machines always make the best decisions. It’s beautifully described in a section too long to quote, which makes you feel the disorientation and helplessness in the face of forces human minds cannot comprehend. But everyone’s OK with this because it’s so darned efficient and works so well that humanity is basically living in a utopia. The story draws a picture of an idyllic world where life is easy and everything is nice. It certainly beats the pants off of what most people living today have to go through, even in the nicer parts of the world.

But humanity’s keepers are not like Banks’s Minds, because they have no sentience themselves. Humanity has made itself a pet species and the beings taking our place as the main characters of the universe aren’t even characters. They’re self-replicating animatronic gods.

The system which supports and cares for humanity, while making them irrelevant, has an immune system. To keep running it requires a certain mentality of the humans that comprise it. We need all our cells to work together, and if some cells stop working for the whole and start hoarding all the body’s resources to perpetuate only themselves, we start to die. We call them cancer, and excise them. Likewise, the non-thinking god is composed of humans, and the humans must work in concert. So when certain humans stop working to keep the system alive, they are excised. They’re even described in cancer terms:

 >How could you be part of something that, on the deepest level, only cared about making more of itself? A network whose only value was more network, with no ambition to ever be anything more?

Who could live that way?

 

I read an interview where someone thought of the Loom as an alien virus, a scary zombie-like thing. I think that’s the wrong interpretation though. It’s a memetic hazard, and the really great part of the story is that the hazard is things that we the reader think are good. These humans become a cancer on the system when they start valuing the wrong things. Specifically:

>They just care about something different. Reaching other people, instead of reaching that new promotion, that new car. And they’re here, you understand? You’d be one of them right now.”

 

And that’s the terrible horror of the story. We can identify with the system, a being composed of smaller parts which must cooperate for us to continue living, and the necessity of eliminating those parts which would kill us in their selfishness. But we also identify with the cellular components as they are us, and the cancer that the greater system must eliminate is what we consider the most precious things in life, while the values the system needs are what we would consider banal, meaningless striving. And worst of all is that the system we are part of isn’t even a being with moral worth. It is mindless. We created what, from the outside, looks like a utopia that most people would kill for. But it is hollow. It is an example of one of the many things that could go very wrong if we create an AI that will give us what we think we want, but fails to fully capture all our values. It’s a demonstration of half of Eliezer’s warnings of faux-utopias that hits you on an emotional level.

(It’s not a true horror story though, but I’ve spoiled enough as it is)

The amazing part of all this is that a story that requires such a level of background knowledge got published in a major market. This is a testament to Dickinson’s writing skill – he made a story on these themes so compelling that it pulls in the average reader unacquainted with these esoteric minutia. When I read Dickinson it makes me want to give up writing entirely, because I know I’ll never be able to make anything as beautiful as what he’s put together. I won’t subject you to my continued ravings, but… damn! So good!

Ash, by Melinda Lo

Synopsis: An asexual lesbian retelling of the Cinderella story

Book Review: I’m reluctant to say bad things about this book, because it seems to have come from a sincere place. So I’ll start by saying it was nice to see some depth in the evil step-mother and step-sisters. They were still evil, but not for the sake of generic evil-doing, but for good reasons. We as readers could detest them properly, the way real shitty people deserve to be detested. :) And the imagery in the book is beautiful, Lo knows how to turn a paragraph into a painting. The important things pop out and grab you.

But that being said, I’m glad I had heard beforehand that this was a lesbian retelling, because I wouldn’t have known it until halfway through the last chapter otherwise. Not once did I get the impression Ash was attracted to the huntress. I don’t expect erotica, but even a mention that her pulse quickening would be something. Honestly, I feel more passion toward my platonic male friends than Ash did to her love interest. Which is why I said this was an asexual lesbian retelling – but in retrospect, that is unfair to asexuals. Because it wasn’t just a lack of sexual attraction or tension – Ash doesn’t seem to feel any strong emotion at any point in the book. Reading this was very much like watching Kristen Stewart act. There is only one expression, and it is always Bland.

I was also annoyed by how many times something really interesting and potentially emotionally-involving is brought up, and then is never mentioned again. The “dry, atheist philosophers” vs “earthy, nature-based spirituality” was being set up very nicely, and I thought I could get good and steamed about that, but no – nothing. It just petered away. Same with the conflict between the male and the female fairies. And Ash’s mother’s journal. And on and on. So many things that I can’t even call “missed opportunities”, because they were clearly being capitalized on! Before they are entirely forgotten.

And finally, the way Ash gets out of her obligation to the fairy at the end is simply a reinforcement of every negative stereotype of women that every MRA-douchebag has ever vomited forth, and just made me give up in complete despair. If that’s what love is, you can count me out.

But more than anything, the book was just boring, primarily because of its lack of emotion. Not Recommended

Book Club Review: Even if there had been good emotion and strong plotting and I enjoyed the story, I still don’t think this would make a good Book Club book, because it just doesn’t have anything to say. It’s a “Thing That Happened” story. It doesn’t champion any struggle, say anything about the human condition, or question any assumptions. It doesn’t even have a new take on the Cinderella story. It’s just there. Swirsky’s “All That Fairy Tale Crap” may have an unlikable protagonist, but it has more to say in a few thousand words than Ash said in a full novel. Not Recommended.

Only hours left to get in your Hugo ballots! By long* tradition, my ballot and reasoning below.

Best Novel

1 – Ancillary Justice, obviously. So cool that in addition to my standard Book Club Review I also had to write a second post, about the themes I loved within it. Deserves the win.

2 – Warbound. This was a bit of a hard call. I wouldn’t consider either of them to be a “great” work, but Warbound is certainly less interesting and more popcorny. So why Warbound above Neptune’s Brood? I guess I just preferred its tone of humanity ultimately being good, if flawed, over Brood’s brooding “all humans are scum” feel. That makes up for a lot.

3 – Neptune’s Brood.

4 – Parasite. I didn’t read it. I slogged through the last three books Mira Grant managed to get nominated, all of which were too long and two of which sucked. I know Seanan McGuire is awesome IRL, I’d love to hang out with her (altho if she ever saw this I doubt the feeling would be mutual). But I simply no longer trust her to tell a story. Certainly not enough to entrust her with many hours of my life. If she ever writes something really awesome I’ll have to be told of it by others, I certainly won’t find out for myself.

5 – Wheel of Time. I’m glad this got on the ballot, it’s fun to stick a wrench in the works from time to time. :) But let’s get serious when we’re voting.

 

Only read one Novella (Valente, cuz she’s awesome), so I’m not voting there.

 

Best Novelette

1 – Truth of Fact, Truth of Feeling

2 – Lady Astronaut of Mars

3 – The Waiting Stars

4 – The Exchange Officers

5 – Opera Vita Aeterna

Explanation why, and reviews, here.

 

Best Short Story

1 – Selkie Stores Are for Losers

2 – Ink Readers of Doi Saket

3 – If You Were a Dinosaur

4 – The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere

Explanation why, and reviews, here.

 

No votes in any other catagories, since I haven’t read/seen enough of the ballot to make an informed decision. Although y’all really should read We Have Always Fought if you haven’t already, it’s really good.

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*since last year

Book Review:  Every year my book club reads all the short stories and novelletes nominated for Hugo Awards and discusses those at a meeting, rather than reading a novel. So this will be more of a quick review of a bunch of stories, rather than of a single work.

Short Stories

‘‘The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere’’, John Chu
I don’t see why this is considered Speculative Fiction. There’s basically nothing SF in here (and the water doesn’t count). This is a plain ol’ coming-out story. More than that, it’s a boring coming out story. And maybe worst of all, there wouldn’t even be a story if the protagonist had even a single vertebrae worth of backbone. I have no interest in reading about a complete wus being so much of a loser that it hurt my eyes to read about it. Jesus, ovary up!

 

‘‘The Ink Readers of Doi Saket’’, Thomas Olde Heuvelt
A delightful fairy tale, with a beautiful cadence. It’s fun to read, but it won’t leave your life changed, or your week altered. Fun, but light.

 

‘‘Selkie Stories Are for Losers’’, Sofia Samatar (audio)
I first heard this in audio, so I almost didn’t read it, which would have been a huge mistake. Something is lost in the audio, I don’t know what it is. The meter of the words maybe. The breaks are very important too. I didn’t get anything from it when I heard it.

Then I read it.

This story is amazing. It hits one of my favorite themes, the same theme that Comes The Huntsman and Evangelion and Vellum and all sorts of things I love portray well – People Will Leave You. Whether by choice or accident or death, eventually everyone you know will leave your life in some way, and it will fucking hurt. But trying to shield yourself by not forming attachments ends up hurting even more, because human psychology sucks and isolation is awful. Putting it in crass words like this is terrible and doesn’t convey any of the emotion, which is why you’ll never see it put in this way in anything worth reading/watching. Read this story. It’s amazing.

The fear and pain of abandonment drips from every single sentence. And let me say this is one of the best written works I’ve read in a long time. The craft of the wordsmithing is breath-taking. It flows like a song, tugging you where it wants you to be with the rhythm of the words and the tension of the voice. Tugging is the wrong word to use, it embraces and guides you.

And the protagonist! Holy god! It’s been said that Superman isn’t brave when he jumps in front of a bullet, because he knows it won’t hurt him. Actual bravery is a normal human who does so, because he knows he could be maimed, or killed, and maybe it won’t even matter. This protagonist is the bravest fucking person I’ve read about in ages. You feel her bowel-liquidating fear and yet she goes forward with what terrifies her. She refuses to live cringing from life for fear of pain, she grabs onto life and screams in defiance and accepts that maybe she’ll be thrown off and it’ll hurt and it’ll be awful but fuck it all, that’s no way to live. It’s exhilarating and moving and terrifying and inspiring.

This story deserves to win SO HARD it’s ridiculous.

 

‘‘If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love’’, Rachel Swirsky
This isn’t a short story, it’s a poem, but let’s let that slide since there’s no poetry category. It is technically magnificent. It does exactly what it sets out to do with skill so precise it’s scary. Every bit as amazingly written as Selkie Stories. However, what it sets out to do is hurt you. This is a sad-fic. It describes something so unutterably tragic and terrible in such a perfect way that you feel every bit of that pain. And unlike Selkie Stories, there is no brave protagonist pushing forward and being amazing. There is just the pain. This is the literary equivalent of taking a straight razor, dulling it just slightly, and then running it over your skin just hard enough to cut it without drawing much blood. If that’s what you want in your fiction, this is perfect for you and you will fall in love with it instantly. Me, I left my cutting days back in my teen years. I don’t like stories that exist just for the catharsis of experiencing pain. I feel this story would have been better off in a Literary Fiction magazine.

 

Novelettes

‘‘The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling’’, Ted Chiang
When he writes, Ted Chiang dissects our universe. He keeps cutting until he finds something interesting, one little bit of reality that captures his interest. He then removes this piece, studies it, and alters it ever so slightly to create a unique and fascinating premise for a story. Then he surgically re-inserts this altered bit, re-composes reality, and finally creates the story that would arise naturally from that little bit of the universe being different. And as you examine this story, you can see reflected in its surfaces and vertices what the original piece of our world was. By presenting us a story where that piece is different, it brings light to how that original piece shapes our own reality.

Which is to say (again) Ted Chiang is the best short-fiction writer of the present day.

He does that again with this story. This time the piece is literacy. Obviously this was my favorite novelette, and you should read it. :)

 

‘‘Opera Vita Aeterna’’, Vox Day
I tried to give this a chance. I really did. I read Warbound with an open mind, and Correia himself seemed quite happy with my attempt at fairness. So I went in thinking this could be a good work, even if I think Vox Day himself is an insufferable douchebag. Certainly wouldn’t be the first time a great artist has been personally reprehensible.

I kept waiting for the story to start. It never did. Seriously, there is nothing here. The writing itself isn’t bad (a bit amateurish, but we all gotta start somewhere), but this isn’t a story. As one of our book club said “If this was presented to our writing group, we’d return it without comment, saying it’s not worth our time to critique.” It is purely a finger-in-the-eye to the Hugos. All I can say is… well played Correia.

Needless to say, this isn’t worth your time.

 

‘‘The Waiting Stars’’, Aliette de Bodard
Everyone else seemed to love this, but I don’t know why. It’s a retelling of The Matrix that doesn’t add anything. Meh.

 

‘‘The Lady Astronaut of Mars’’, Mary Robinette Kowal 
A very good story about aging. The conflict between being true to your calling and what you view as your duty. And what it means to grow old and useless to society. This speaks directly to me. It was very moving, and the resolution made me a bit misty-eyed. Let’s never get old, OK?

 

‘‘The Exchange Officers’’, Brad Torgersen
This starts with the line “Does technology change the nature–and meaning–of sacrifice?” as a teaser. The answer is yes. Trashing some government agency’s expensive hardware from a safe bunker hundreds of miles away is not at all as compelling as sacrificing your own life. One might say that applying the word “sacrifice” to the first scenario is an abuse of the reader’s trust. This was more like the power-fantasy that boys write in early high school (I would know). It was boring, and bad.

 

Book Club Review: Despite some of these stories sucking (which happens every year), I cannot do anything less but heartily recommend the “reading stories/novelettes” practice to all book clubs. It’s a different form of story-telling, and the scattershot approach exposes you to a variety of styles and authors you probably wouldn’t normally read. It’s a very refreshing change of pace, and it’s fun to compare stories to each other directly, rather than discussing a single work in isolation as is generally done. It gives you a ton of subject matter to talk about. And it’s ok if some of it sucks, it lets you vent, and you move on to the good stuff. This is great fun, and I hope more people get into it!

Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie

Synopsis: A warship’s AI, inhabiting a human body, seeks revenge upon the ruler of a galactic Roman-esque empire.

Book Review: Fascinating! For starters, I absolutely love everything about this setting. From the extremely-Roman empire, to the opt-in procreation (yay for default-on contraceptive implants for everyone!), to the genderless society. In addition, I loved the protagonist, she was portrayed extremely well as a multi-bodied AI, and you could feel the panic and confusion whenever she was reduced to single-body-operations. Moreover the lack of emotional attachment to her body(ies) was well-portrayed. They were just vehicles, to be used up when the situation required it. The passages describing her losing her hands, arms, and feet were akin to someone describing a tire going flat. It was delicious! The themes the book explored were exactly the sorts of things I love to see explored, but I can’t really go into those without major spoilers, so I’ll be writing another post right after this for those who’ve already read the book. And finally, the plot had the sorts of political intrigue and subterfuge I had just been talking about a few weeks ago that I enjoy. On top of all that it’s very well written.

On the downside, it’s very hard to feel like you should cheer for the protagonist. She’s written with a bit of emotional distance that makes sense, but also makes her harder to relate to. Without a very deep emotional investment it’s much harder to excuse what she ends up doing to get her revenge. Also, there is absolutely NO technological advancement over a 1,000 year period. None. That was like nails-on-chalkboard for me. There really should have been some authorial effort spent on giving an in-universe reason why that is.

Still, an amazing book. Highly Recommended.

Book Club Review: If you’ve heard one thing about this book, it’s probably that it’s basically genderless, and the “she/her” pronouns are applied uniformly to everyone. For a genderless AI that controls hundreds of bodies, existing in a gender-neutral society, this makes plenty of sense. Sure, it’s a thing the author did on purpose for whatever reason, but so is everything else in a novel. This is just one of the many themes in the book, and frankly it’s a minor one. Determinism, Ends-Justifying-Means, and Classism are all far more central to the story, and receive far more attention. And yet during our book club meeting there were almost more words spoken about the genderless thing than the other three put together.

I wasn’t sure quite what to make of this, because there isn’t all that much to say in the first place. The impression from several members was that all the characters have gender, and that a character’s gender tells you a lot about the character and helps you relate to them, and this information was withheld from the reader, and they felt cheated and annoyed by that. Of course the genders different readers mentally assigned for the same characters where all over the map, which suggests that maybe the gender really doesn’t tell you all that much, and what it does tell is likely due in large part to roles that society has assigned to them rather than anything inherent in the person, but I digress. Please note that aside from this well-publicized aspect of the book, there is also a lot of political commentary, morality commentary, and philosophical speculation. Astute readers will NOT be lacking for things to talk about in a book club setting!

(Although, in fairness, while there is commentary on these matters, the author never seems to take a position on either side. She simply lays out some events and doesn’t do much judging as to how things should be. This, again, makes it hard to get emotionally invested in the themes. Why take sides on an issue when the author herself doesn’t have a stake in the matter? Perhaps this is why those other themes were overlooked in favor of the genderless one by most of our group.)

Again, Highly Recommended.