| Title: | Arcana Caelestia |
| Notice: | Directory listings are in topic 2 |
| Moderator: | NETRIX::thomas |
| Created: | Thu Dec 08 1983 |
| Last Modified: | Thu Jun 05 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 1300 |
| Total number of notes: | 18728 |
"To the Stars" trilogy - Harry Harrison HomeWorld 1980 #0-553-22647-9 StarWorld (C) 1981 by Bantam, #0-553-20774-1 WheelWorld 1981 #0-553-20780-6 Synopsis: It's the 24th Century, and "1984" was pretty much accurate: the national governments of Earth have united into one oppressive oligarchy, with a large, abused Proletariat, a select Bourgeois of technicians and scientists, and a ruling Aristocracy. Earth has been raped by generations, and the pickings are slim - but the Bourgeois does fairly well if one minds one's manners. Jan Kulozik is a well-to-do EE, Mech E - raised to believe his rightful place is in the Bourgoise. But under bizarre circumstances, he is rescued by Israeli submariners - representing the last democracy on the planet - and later, is recruited into the revolutionary movement the Israelis are planning to do in the dictatorship. State Security is all over him like flypaper, and he is booted off Earth to an agrarian colony planet - where he continues his revolutionary work. But the odds are insurmountable - Earth has set up the system with preventing colonial revolution as a first priority, and it seems our hero has a snowball's chance of freeing the galaxy... Opinion: This is a fine action series, with some politicking going on in the background. The plot moves well, reminding me of a 007 story at points. Harrison's characters are generally well-rounded and believeable, with minor lapses. Think of it as a "Stainless Steel Rat" saga that takes itself seriously, and again - injects some modern-day political analogies. My major problem with the trilogy is, in fact, the politics: it's textbook liberalism taken to the point of a cliche', and it's so blatantly woven into the story that it reminds me of the Ayn Rand propoganda I've found so distasteful, on the other side of the coin. All in all, generally a good trilogy loaded with "educational" messages. If that dosen't put you off, the saga rates a six. Worth a purchase, in my book. Mark Maxson ARPA: maxson%[email protected]
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 156.1 | Marvin Minsky working with Harrison? | ADVAX::KLAES | All the Universe, or nothing! | Tue Feb 26 1991 16:15 | 12 |
From: [email protected] (Marvin Minsky) Newsgroups: sci.geo.geology,sci.astro Subject: Need Eclipse help Date: 26 Feb 91 17:45:08 GMT Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA I'm finishing a techno-thriller novel, with Harry Harrison, about AI in around the year 2023. But we need to know when will be the next solar eclipse visible after that from Borrego Springs, Calif. That's about 100 miles east of San Diego. Does anyone have an eclipse calendar or a program to compute them? | |||||
| 156.2 | OASS::MDILLSON | Generic Personal Name | Tue Feb 26 1991 16:23 | 4 | |
Yep.
Their book was already supposed to be at the publisher. It is a
techno-thriller about AI.
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| 156.3 | More from Marvin Minsky | ADVAX::KLAES | All the Universe, or nothing! | Wed Feb 27 1991 09:29 | 43 |
Article 12055 From: [email protected] (Marvin Minsky) Newsgroups: sci.geo.geology,sci.astro Subject: Re: Need Eclipse help Date: 27 Feb 91 03:41:20 GMT Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA What a great newsgroup. Very shortly, both [email protected] (Keith Johnson) and Roger Noe <[email protected]> came up with what I needed. There is a nice total eclipse at Borrego Springs on 2205/07/17 at 13:45 UMT. Found with the MAC planetarium program VOYAGER. In the novel, the hero, a young AI programmer, has a brain injury (from being shot by industrial spies stealing his valuable AI breakthrough). Fortunately, by 2023, it is possible to repair some brain injuries by implanting a computer with special flexible film-arrays coated with embryonic brain-cells, etc. The implant computer of the future naturally contains a few gigabytes of reference data (like what the NeXT comes with only more so) and this includes the 2020 edition of the Handbook of Astronautics, which naturally contains the most useful algorithms. Somehow, our ex-hacker manages to log-in to the computer implanted in his head and predicts the next eclipse. By a remarkable coincidence, VOYAGER also finds a pretty good partial eclipse visible from Borrego on 2023/10/14. Can you believe that the 2023 date was chosen for other reasons long before I thought of the eclipse scene -- and it perfectly fits: Brian, the hacker sees it that day and then, falling asleep, wonders when the next one, total, will be -- if he should live that long. The novel is mostly done and should be published either by Christmas if we get all the loose ends together or next March, for sure. (I wouldn't be so sure, because my last book took 10+ years, but Harry Harrison has turned out some 30 good novels, and is a real pro.) Will Brian live long enough to see the eclipse in 2205. Probably yes -- because the novel tries to establish the feasibility of downloading a brain's information content. (Much as in Moravec's book, "Mind Children.") And by 2023, terabyte memory units should be showing up on the shelves -- as though that were the real problem :-) | |||||
| 156.4 | Any news? | SNDPIT::SMITH | N1JBJ - the voice of Waldo | Thu Jul 18 1991 17:36 | 4 |
Anyone seen this book yet? The bookstores I've tried have barely heard
of Harry Harrison, much less Marvin Minsky.... :+|
Willie
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| 156.5 | OASS::MDILLSON | Generic Personal Name | Mon Jul 22 1991 18:24 | 2 | |
As of January of this year, it was in final re-write. As to when we'll
see it, ???
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| 156.6 | One way to find out... | SNDPIT::SMITH | N1JBJ - the voice of Waldo | Mon Jul 22 1991 18:53 | 4 |
I wrote Marvin Minsky a note, and he indicated that it would be out
_next_ March, as in 1992.
Willie
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