Perhaps the Stars (Palmer)
May. 25th, 2024 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnOkay, so, I didn't even try to write anything coherent about this book. Instead I had the idea to take quasi-real-time notes. I wasn't aware of this at the time, but of course it's somewhat thematic that I took notes during the actual events instead of writing it up afterwards as I did the other books... and also thematic that I was taking these notes because I was envisioning a dialogue with you, dear readers, but could not have that dialogue until I had finished the book (since the only other person I know who was reading this semi-concurrently, hidden_variable, had already finished reading it). (Also thematic that I often had to go back and revisit/edit my notes :P )
0-20% through:
-Everyone: Gosh, we are twisting ourselves into knots over uniforms!
-Me: Wouldn't it be easier to have, like, idk, pins or something? Scarves?
-Everyone: Wouldn't it be easier to have pins or armbands or something?
I called it! But also -- and perhaps this hit differently in 2021 when I at least still thought we lived in a world that had less conflict than it became apparent that it actually did -- I feel like everyone in this book is really not all that good at waging war if they are being careful about wearing uniforms/insignia/what-have-you and agreeing with everyone else they are fighting against about things like this. (I love it.) It reminds me a bit of when my ward tried really hard to be like other churches and have ~major music drama~ and congregational infighting, only to fail in a big way when people ended up saying things like, "Look, I don't want to fight any more, can we work this out?" We're such amateurs!!
-I also thought that it somehow didn't seem in-character for what I knew about Utopia for them to be behind the savage incredible beasts! I'm really glad it turned out not to be them. But then who could it be? Who even has the know-how, except for Utopia?
-This exchange:
"Is it working?"
"Unknown. A scryhawk brought me skysight, but I've no groundword from beyond the river."
When I read that, I came up with a theory: in addition to vowing to renounce complacency and all that, Utopians also vow to follow the Rule of Cool. I claim this explains A LOT about everything we see about Utopia!
-I find it fascinating that this world sees Free Speech as not a good thing. I think that's actually rather interesting -- and also that censorship and things like wearing a tracker all the time are seen as good. It's an interesting system.
20-40% through:
-Huh, I really like 9A and their narration. I like them more than I like Mycroft, sorry. Also their writing is a lot clearer, omg!
-Heh, I twigged to Mycroft's story being the Odyssey right before the story namechecked Circe. I was very proud of myself! I did wonder whether Mycroft was making it up. It didn't occur to me that it might be the influence of Bridger living after their death (that's kind of weird, actually??)
-At this point in my life, I don't really want to read about war more than I have to. I skimmed a lot of the war parts.
-Whenever set-sets come up, ND me is all "set-sets are so cool! I would totally sign up to be a set-set!" I mean, they seem to be pretty happy and they can do such cool analytical things... uhhhh. Well, okay, as soon as I wrote this down, there's that set-set-ish Lorelei-Cook-individual. But I feel for them! :( It's not their fault they were totally set up!
-Every time Huxley opens their mouth it's more evidence for my theory that the Utopians take an oath to uphold the Rule of Cool. "So toxic a warp will have been wefted as occultly as possible." Really??
-Uhhhh Mycroft IS Odysseus?? Huh.
-HOLY CRAP the Mitsubishi were right???? Cornel MASON really is imprisoning his Son?
40-60% through:
-IT WAS GORDIAN THE WHOLE TIME! I was so sure that Gordian couldn't be it because of the better-than-Utopian U-beasts, but yeah, we never saw those fantastical U-beasts, just heard wild rumors about them, so they wouldn't have to be super-perfect or super-powerful, just good enough to scare people.
-Now hold on. Does Gordian actually have the technical know-how? Are there really that many mechanical engineers in Gordian? Hmm. I guess if they were planning this for decades they could have got engineers to work for them even if they weren't Gordian themselves... just like they got the Guildbreakers (!!) to work for their purposes.
-but I very much reject the principle that the Gordian route is mutually exclusive to the Utopian route!! I really reject the principle Mycroft tries to explain, that Earth is too good so we won't ever want to go into space. Nah. There will always be people who want to climb Mt. Everest, even if I think they're all delusional. There will always be people who want to go to space or to push past that last frontier. Also there will always be people who will be interested in the technological and scientific frontiers, if not the physical frontiers! Maybe I feel strongly about this because I grew up on James Tiptree, Jr. who famously wrote all those stories about how humans basically have this drive to fuck outwards (literally).
-Eureka Weeksbooth! Aw, I love that kid. When not overtaken by, er, events, Eureka is living their best life and knows it.
60-80% through
-It is unclear to me whether Cornel MASON is supposed to be at all sympathetic when he's all "no compromise, only surrender to me is acceptable, and also vengeance forever!" (I can see he's not necessarily supposed to be right.) I am not AT ALL sympathetic to him in the year 2024. Maybe I would have been a bit in 2021? But from the vantage point of now, PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS, CORNEL. Much better to have J.E.D.D. or 9A (!! that part was great) as Emperor if that's what you're going to be like. Bryar was right! [I mean... it's probably hypocritical of me to be OK with Bryar when I'm not okay with the Emperor. But in my head there's a difference.] [Also, I think the ending makes it clear that whether he's sympathetic or not, he's definitely not right.]
-I legit cried when 9A said their piece about how they supported Sniper and that others they didn't even know about over space and time were supporting them... Charles Williams wrote a poem about centuries of readers supporting Virgil and this reminded me of that, a bit. (Williams' poem is from a Christian and also bananapants perspective, but it's stuck with me.)
-This interaction between Faust and Huxley and J.E.D.D. Faust is really interesting. Faust appears to be an Eliezer Yudkowsky type? Conquer death, then everything else. [I was probably going to write more here, but didn't.]
-Should we be so honest with our enemies? I had the sudden feeling we were amateurs, three children play-acting at war. CALLED IT. But you know what... yes! be like that. Show me that the world has advanced since 2024. Please.
-Okay, uh, I think I wasn't paying enough attention when Madame was talking earlier (Madame's philosophy is legit kind of boring to me) so I guess I totally missed that she thought war would result in the testosterone-laden men taking over. Like. What? Why? (Also, DW!salon continually reminds me that being a woman, even a relatively powerful one, in more patriarchical eras was NOT FUN, which makes me continually seriously question Madame's whole schtick.) So, I guess yay that she was wrong, but this fell a little more flat for me than I think it was intended to.
-But! I really like the reveal in general that many of the movers and shakers here are in fact people with female body parts, and many of those that have male body parts are feminine-coded in nature. And my stupid head still defaults to male for, like, everyone.
-9A is sounding more and more like Mycroft. I don't know what to make of that. (Also is having more and more conversations with Hobbes.) [My 80% self is coming back here to say: I almost deleted this bullet point a bit later when I thought oh, I must not have been paying attention, it really was Mycroft, not 9A sounding more like Mycroft, that's kind of embarrassing... but it turns out I was right the first time!]
-Thisbe?? I thought we were done with her! Ugh. (I admire the craftsmanship that tied up her loose end as well, but also: ugh.)
-I continue to be not very interested in Achilles and the Illiad, but maybe we are done with that now? Achilles is also one of those people who mean we CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS. I guess maybe this is saying something deep about the ancient world vs the future world, that maybe by that time there is progress?
-Hey!! They figured out Bridger's resurrection potion! So there's no more issue with Gordian and Utopia!
-Sniper and 9A <3333333333333333 And also "No One," omg <3 :(
-I miss you, 9A! (Also, I find 9A's style a lot easier to take than Mycroft's, though Mycroft's style is similar to Voltaire's, it is true...)
-Because that exquisite thinking thing which is your self isn't soiled by, but constituted by, cumulative complexities, even the grief-born ones.
-Wait, we're still having this Gordian vs Utopian conversation? Why? I thought Bridger's potion licked death and we were all set for space again? Hey, Sniper says what we're all thinking! Humans do hard things for their own sake, that's more unique to our species than intelligence is. Yes! I really don't get it, shouldn't a Gordian understand that since their whole thing is understanding the human brain?? I'm very disappointed in them, that seems like a fundamental flaw in their reasoning. If I were a Brillist, maybe this is where I'd strike off and form a Brillist heresy, or something. [From post-book: ha, or a smaller Hive!]
80-100% through
-HAHAHAHA I called it about Madame not being able to refrain from either polyamory or conspiracies
-while I actually am sympathetic to the king's reaction of "will Perry just die already??" it's also not okay to kill people?? Didn't we just spend, like, 3 1/2 books talking about this? [from post-book self: yes, happy that they very much addressed this at the end!]
-This whole Gordian vs Utopian Thing is just really irritating to me. Now that we know the immortality potion exists, sure, let's prioritize working on that... but working on brain stuff and working on space stuff is not mutually exclusive?? and has Felix Faust ever heard of comparative advantage?? Because the people who are the best at working on space are probably not always the people who are best at working on brains?? [Here from near 100%: keep reading, self!]
-It's interesting that this is a world where distance is considered as such a problem. I guess that makes sense given that everyone is so connected not just by the internet/comms (as we are today) but also by the cars system.
-That's a super interesting resolution of the Gordian vs Utopian worldviews, though, I'll have to think about that. [After reading the whole book, going off and thinking about it, and reading a bit: Interesting that it's a theological resolution, that's to say, as Palmer said somewhere-or-other, it is a very Enlightenment/Voltairean kind of way of presenting and solving the problem, not a 21st-century kind of way.]
-This resolution will let the Earth's garden grow -- OMG is there also a layered Candide metaphor running through these books???? Probably, it's JUST the kind of thing Palmer would do (at the very least I'm absolutely sure the Candide reference is 100% intentional) but I'm too lazy to look for it now
-I mean, J.E.D.D. kicking all the Utopians outward and upward ALSO rather keeps the Utopians wedded to the Rule of Cool. I'M JUST SAYING.
-WAIT WHAT WTF scientific progress in this world isn't publicly disseminated?? Brillist and Utopian research isn't available to everyone?? WELL YEAH it's just about time to fix THAT! I mean, yes, now that I look back this has been clear from the very first book, it's not like it was a secret, I just... airheadedly didn't even think about it, I assumed that every time Mycroft was like "oh yeah, no one knows how Brillists do their thing" he just meant that people didn't bother to learn... because free exchange of scientific knowledge is such a fundamental principle of the world I live in. (Although it's very true that one can also see how they got there from here, because in this world as well there's governmental and corporate science that is closely held.)
...Now I understand the whole Gordian vs. Utopia thing a lot better, because in this worldview, yeah, it makes a lot more sense that you can't cross-pollinate easily and that resources that are used for one thing are categorically filed as resources that aren't used for another. Okay, got it. It's an interesting difference of their world.
end
I'm very impressed by this whole series -- I really can't remember the last time I read a series that both was so thoughtful in its worldbuilding and so complete in the way it worked things out. With all these notes, I think it's less than half of the things I would have liked to say/talk about (if I'd really been taking real and constant live notes), there was so much! (I never even said anything about Carlyle, love them!)
I find it a series I find more impressive than lovable. I don't think that's an insult in any way, mind you: it's clearly setting out to do things in a way that is meant to engage me cerebrally rather than aiming directly at my tropes, for example. But wow there's a lot there and a lot to think about and I'm glad I read them.
hidden_variable, had already finished reading it). (Also thematic that I often had to go back and revisit/edit my notes :P ) 0-20% through:
-Everyone: Gosh, we are twisting ourselves into knots over uniforms!
-Me: Wouldn't it be easier to have, like, idk, pins or something? Scarves?
-Everyone: Wouldn't it be easier to have pins or armbands or something?
I called it! But also -- and perhaps this hit differently in 2021 when I at least still thought we lived in a world that had less conflict than it became apparent that it actually did -- I feel like everyone in this book is really not all that good at waging war if they are being careful about wearing uniforms/insignia/what-have-you and agreeing with everyone else they are fighting against about things like this. (I love it.) It reminds me a bit of when my ward tried really hard to be like other churches and have ~major music drama~ and congregational infighting, only to fail in a big way when people ended up saying things like, "Look, I don't want to fight any more, can we work this out?" We're such amateurs!!
-I also thought that it somehow didn't seem in-character for what I knew about Utopia for them to be behind the savage incredible beasts! I'm really glad it turned out not to be them. But then who could it be? Who even has the know-how, except for Utopia?
-This exchange:
"Is it working?"
"Unknown. A scryhawk brought me skysight, but I've no groundword from beyond the river."
When I read that, I came up with a theory: in addition to vowing to renounce complacency and all that, Utopians also vow to follow the Rule of Cool. I claim this explains A LOT about everything we see about Utopia!
-I find it fascinating that this world sees Free Speech as not a good thing. I think that's actually rather interesting -- and also that censorship and things like wearing a tracker all the time are seen as good. It's an interesting system.
20-40% through:
-Huh, I really like 9A and their narration. I like them more than I like Mycroft, sorry. Also their writing is a lot clearer, omg!
-Heh, I twigged to Mycroft's story being the Odyssey right before the story namechecked Circe. I was very proud of myself! I did wonder whether Mycroft was making it up. It didn't occur to me that it might be the influence of Bridger living after their death (that's kind of weird, actually??)
-At this point in my life, I don't really want to read about war more than I have to. I skimmed a lot of the war parts.
-Whenever set-sets come up, ND me is all "set-sets are so cool! I would totally sign up to be a set-set!" I mean, they seem to be pretty happy and they can do such cool analytical things... uhhhh. Well, okay, as soon as I wrote this down, there's that set-set-ish Lorelei-Cook-individual. But I feel for them! :( It's not their fault they were totally set up!
-Every time Huxley opens their mouth it's more evidence for my theory that the Utopians take an oath to uphold the Rule of Cool. "So toxic a warp will have been wefted as occultly as possible." Really??
-Uhhhh Mycroft IS Odysseus?? Huh.
-HOLY CRAP the Mitsubishi were right???? Cornel MASON really is imprisoning his Son?
40-60% through:
-IT WAS GORDIAN THE WHOLE TIME! I was so sure that Gordian couldn't be it because of the better-than-Utopian U-beasts, but yeah, we never saw those fantastical U-beasts, just heard wild rumors about them, so they wouldn't have to be super-perfect or super-powerful, just good enough to scare people.
-Now hold on. Does Gordian actually have the technical know-how? Are there really that many mechanical engineers in Gordian? Hmm. I guess if they were planning this for decades they could have got engineers to work for them even if they weren't Gordian themselves... just like they got the Guildbreakers (!!) to work for their purposes.
-but I very much reject the principle that the Gordian route is mutually exclusive to the Utopian route!! I really reject the principle Mycroft tries to explain, that Earth is too good so we won't ever want to go into space. Nah. There will always be people who want to climb Mt. Everest, even if I think they're all delusional. There will always be people who want to go to space or to push past that last frontier. Also there will always be people who will be interested in the technological and scientific frontiers, if not the physical frontiers! Maybe I feel strongly about this because I grew up on James Tiptree, Jr. who famously wrote all those stories about how humans basically have this drive to fuck outwards (literally).
-Eureka Weeksbooth! Aw, I love that kid. When not overtaken by, er, events, Eureka is living their best life and knows it.
60-80% through
-It is unclear to me whether Cornel MASON is supposed to be at all sympathetic when he's all "no compromise, only surrender to me is acceptable, and also vengeance forever!" (I can see he's not necessarily supposed to be right.) I am not AT ALL sympathetic to him in the year 2024. Maybe I would have been a bit in 2021? But from the vantage point of now, PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS, CORNEL. Much better to have J.E.D.D. or 9A (!! that part was great) as Emperor if that's what you're going to be like. Bryar was right! [I mean... it's probably hypocritical of me to be OK with Bryar when I'm not okay with the Emperor. But in my head there's a difference.] [Also, I think the ending makes it clear that whether he's sympathetic or not, he's definitely not right.]
-I legit cried when 9A said their piece about how they supported Sniper and that others they didn't even know about over space and time were supporting them... Charles Williams wrote a poem about centuries of readers supporting Virgil and this reminded me of that, a bit. (Williams' poem is from a Christian and also bananapants perspective, but it's stuck with me.)
-This interaction between Faust and Huxley and J.E.D.D. Faust is really interesting. Faust appears to be an Eliezer Yudkowsky type? Conquer death, then everything else. [I was probably going to write more here, but didn't.]
-Should we be so honest with our enemies? I had the sudden feeling we were amateurs, three children play-acting at war. CALLED IT. But you know what... yes! be like that. Show me that the world has advanced since 2024. Please.
-Okay, uh, I think I wasn't paying enough attention when Madame was talking earlier (Madame's philosophy is legit kind of boring to me) so I guess I totally missed that she thought war would result in the testosterone-laden men taking over. Like. What? Why? (Also, DW!salon continually reminds me that being a woman, even a relatively powerful one, in more patriarchical eras was NOT FUN, which makes me continually seriously question Madame's whole schtick.) So, I guess yay that she was wrong, but this fell a little more flat for me than I think it was intended to.
-But! I really like the reveal in general that many of the movers and shakers here are in fact people with female body parts, and many of those that have male body parts are feminine-coded in nature. And my stupid head still defaults to male for, like, everyone.
-9A is sounding more and more like Mycroft. I don't know what to make of that. (Also is having more and more conversations with Hobbes.) [My 80% self is coming back here to say: I almost deleted this bullet point a bit later when I thought oh, I must not have been paying attention, it really was Mycroft, not 9A sounding more like Mycroft, that's kind of embarrassing... but it turns out I was right the first time!]
-Thisbe?? I thought we were done with her! Ugh. (I admire the craftsmanship that tied up her loose end as well, but also: ugh.)
-I continue to be not very interested in Achilles and the Illiad, but maybe we are done with that now? Achilles is also one of those people who mean we CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS. I guess maybe this is saying something deep about the ancient world vs the future world, that maybe by that time there is progress?
-Hey!! They figured out Bridger's resurrection potion! So there's no more issue with Gordian and Utopia!
-Sniper and 9A <3333333333333333 And also "No One," omg <3 :(
-I miss you, 9A! (Also, I find 9A's style a lot easier to take than Mycroft's, though Mycroft's style is similar to Voltaire's, it is true...)
-Because that exquisite thinking thing which is your self isn't soiled by, but constituted by, cumulative complexities, even the grief-born ones.
-Wait, we're still having this Gordian vs Utopian conversation? Why? I thought Bridger's potion licked death and we were all set for space again? Hey, Sniper says what we're all thinking! Humans do hard things for their own sake, that's more unique to our species than intelligence is. Yes! I really don't get it, shouldn't a Gordian understand that since their whole thing is understanding the human brain?? I'm very disappointed in them, that seems like a fundamental flaw in their reasoning. If I were a Brillist, maybe this is where I'd strike off and form a Brillist heresy, or something. [From post-book: ha, or a smaller Hive!]
80-100% through
-HAHAHAHA I called it about Madame not being able to refrain from either polyamory or conspiracies
-while I actually am sympathetic to the king's reaction of "will Perry just die already??" it's also not okay to kill people?? Didn't we just spend, like, 3 1/2 books talking about this? [from post-book self: yes, happy that they very much addressed this at the end!]
-This whole Gordian vs Utopian Thing is just really irritating to me. Now that we know the immortality potion exists, sure, let's prioritize working on that... but working on brain stuff and working on space stuff is not mutually exclusive?? and has Felix Faust ever heard of comparative advantage?? Because the people who are the best at working on space are probably not always the people who are best at working on brains?? [Here from near 100%: keep reading, self!]
-It's interesting that this is a world where distance is considered as such a problem. I guess that makes sense given that everyone is so connected not just by the internet/comms (as we are today) but also by the cars system.
-That's a super interesting resolution of the Gordian vs Utopian worldviews, though, I'll have to think about that. [After reading the whole book, going off and thinking about it, and reading a bit: Interesting that it's a theological resolution, that's to say, as Palmer said somewhere-or-other, it is a very Enlightenment/Voltairean kind of way of presenting and solving the problem, not a 21st-century kind of way.]
-This resolution will let the Earth's garden grow -- OMG is there also a layered Candide metaphor running through these books???? Probably, it's JUST the kind of thing Palmer would do (at the very least I'm absolutely sure the Candide reference is 100% intentional) but I'm too lazy to look for it now
-I mean, J.E.D.D. kicking all the Utopians outward and upward ALSO rather keeps the Utopians wedded to the Rule of Cool. I'M JUST SAYING.
-WAIT WHAT WTF scientific progress in this world isn't publicly disseminated?? Brillist and Utopian research isn't available to everyone?? WELL YEAH it's just about time to fix THAT! I mean, yes, now that I look back this has been clear from the very first book, it's not like it was a secret, I just... airheadedly didn't even think about it, I assumed that every time Mycroft was like "oh yeah, no one knows how Brillists do their thing" he just meant that people didn't bother to learn... because free exchange of scientific knowledge is such a fundamental principle of the world I live in. (Although it's very true that one can also see how they got there from here, because in this world as well there's governmental and corporate science that is closely held.)
...Now I understand the whole Gordian vs. Utopia thing a lot better, because in this worldview, yeah, it makes a lot more sense that you can't cross-pollinate easily and that resources that are used for one thing are categorically filed as resources that aren't used for another. Okay, got it. It's an interesting difference of their world.
end
I'm very impressed by this whole series -- I really can't remember the last time I read a series that both was so thoughtful in its worldbuilding and so complete in the way it worked things out. With all these notes, I think it's less than half of the things I would have liked to say/talk about (if I'd really been taking real and constant live notes), there was so much! (I never even said anything about Carlyle, love them!)
I find it a series I find more impressive than lovable. I don't think that's an insult in any way, mind you: it's clearly setting out to do things in a way that is meant to engage me cerebrally rather than aiming directly at my tropes, for example. But wow there's a lot there and a lot to think about and I'm glad I read them.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-27 12:18 pm (UTC)(like
no subject
Date: 2024-05-31 05:00 am (UTC)Yesssss and I was right there with him going "wait... what... do you mean... what... WHAT!"
but then in Perhaps the Stars when that all broke down it felt particularly relatable
Yes, this! Also the parts with 9A on the ventilator were rather on the nose, even in 2024, and gosh, reading it in April 2020 must have been Something.
no subject
Date: 2024-06-01 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-04 04:17 am (UTC)Ah, right -- I knew that she had experience with chronic illness, but that didn't occur to me when reading.