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Title: Learning the World
Author: Ken MacLeod
Genre: Hard sf
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: A generation ship in a universe of only humans arrives at their destination to find the first aliens anyone's ever discovered.
Thoughts: Generation ships are nothing new in science fiction, but this does manage to do some new things with the concept. Unfortunately, while it starts off very strong, it kind of peters out by the end.
The chapters alternate between the ship, as they gradually realize that one of the planets in their destination system is occupied by the first life more advanced than algae that's ever been found, and the planet, as they gradually realize that the weird comet is artificial in origin. In both cases, the societies have to completely reevaluate their understanding of the universe, which outlines a lot of the issues with their own societies in the process. There are some interesting developments of the concept, and some great characters among both races.
But the ending feels forced. I'm not going to go into spoilers, but the author goes to great lengths to convince you that certain conflicts are going to be inevitable, only to hand-wave them away in the process of declaring a theme that he hasn't actually supported until the last thirty pages of the book. (It's never a good sign when you're approaching the end of a book and worrying that there just are not enough pages left to wrap things up satisfactorily. There weren't.) Also, apparently a technology that he spent exactly half a page discussing halfway through and never mentioned again until the last couple pages is majorly significant, again to this theme that just blew up out of nowhere.
It's a pity, because it's an interesting theme. But it requires the aliens to have characteristics that they just show no evidence of until the last couple pages. I feel like the author wasn't sure where he was going until the last couple chapters, and then didn't go back and rewrite to lay the appropriate groundwork after he discovered what his book was about. Which is a pity, because there was a lot of potential.
Author: Ken MacLeod
Genre: Hard sf
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: A generation ship in a universe of only humans arrives at their destination to find the first aliens anyone's ever discovered.
Thoughts: Generation ships are nothing new in science fiction, but this does manage to do some new things with the concept. Unfortunately, while it starts off very strong, it kind of peters out by the end.
The chapters alternate between the ship, as they gradually realize that one of the planets in their destination system is occupied by the first life more advanced than algae that's ever been found, and the planet, as they gradually realize that the weird comet is artificial in origin. In both cases, the societies have to completely reevaluate their understanding of the universe, which outlines a lot of the issues with their own societies in the process. There are some interesting developments of the concept, and some great characters among both races.
But the ending feels forced. I'm not going to go into spoilers, but the author goes to great lengths to convince you that certain conflicts are going to be inevitable, only to hand-wave them away in the process of declaring a theme that he hasn't actually supported until the last thirty pages of the book. (It's never a good sign when you're approaching the end of a book and worrying that there just are not enough pages left to wrap things up satisfactorily. There weren't.) Also, apparently a technology that he spent exactly half a page discussing halfway through and never mentioned again until the last couple pages is majorly significant, again to this theme that just blew up out of nowhere.
It's a pity, because it's an interesting theme. But it requires the aliens to have characteristics that they just show no evidence of until the last couple pages. I feel like the author wasn't sure where he was going until the last couple chapters, and then didn't go back and rewrite to lay the appropriate groundwork after he discovered what his book was about. Which is a pity, because there was a lot of potential.
