TheBrainintheJar

Some think fun adventures and depth don’t go together. That’s a silly thing to think. Nothing in the adventure structure prevents it from showing us new ideas and make us look at the world in a different way. Adventures are, after all, tend to be an intense series of events that highly influence the character. This novel is a good enough example of such an adventure, but it’s the only good thing about it.

Anderson has some interesting ideas. His Created World feels like something that needs more novels written about. Inventions don’t exist just for convenience, but their effects are apparent. Life can be extended for almost eternity, yet a human can’t contain all these memories. It also doesn’t stop the gap in perspectives. Those who were born when the invention first kicked in got a different outlook and a different culture to draw on.

Anderson also takes the Multiple Alien Civilization to an interesting direction. He can’t come up with interesting organisms (They are basically Argonians and Khajits, from Elder Scrolls) but the behavior is. There’s a stab at racism here. Authors often use races to represent ideas. There is a race of strong, a race of stealthy, a race of intelligent and so on.

Anderson acknowledges that, unless a race has a hive mind the effect of intelligence will result in individuality. His approach is like the Elder Scrolls. A rule may apply generally, but there will be plenty who will deviate from the stereotype. He also creates a barrier between the races. Two species are too different in mindset to ever form a close relationship.

Such ideas and others rear their head, but they tend to go back down. For Love and Glory is a Foundation novel without Asimov’s spare prose and with a hefty dose of The Power of Love.

I wonder if Anderson also avoided sexuality in his early books, like Asimov. We get here the excitement of the discovery. Sex is fantastic, and it’s always around. Nothing can stop it. No adventure is too intense to be put on-hold for a romance.

Unlike Asimov, Anderson’s view of sexuality is closer to reality. The people who will fall in love and have crazy sex with be the beautiful and skilled. They will not be social outcasts and iconoclasts who are stuck on their hobbies. They will be low-fat adventurers and women of royal birth.

It never occurs to Anderson that the Beautiful People are just another elite. Money is great when you have it but it sucks when you don’t. The same goes for sex. It’s harder to imagine an alternative to sex, though. Currency is something human came up with, but sexuality was imposed on us. You can’t get away from sexuality.

That’s why I see no one questioning the promise that we will all get a hot women (or men) in the end. No one dares to acknowledge the existance of the unattractive. The only time we talk about them is as People We Will Never Have Sex With. In sex talks with guys, they talked about these girls like they’re low-quality products in a shop. They never thought that they are just like them, and that being in such a position isn’t fun.

Anderson halfway acknowledges the reality of the ugly people, but the result is insulting. Esker is what you’d expect from a social outcast. He fits nowhere. He’s ugly. He’s also very good at his field and that’s all he has. He’s pretty unpleasant, which is the result of being constantly spat out by society.

Despite all his rage he’s a rat in a cage, and Anderson is fine with that. He never stops to show some empathy for the poor thing. He appears once in a while and we’re invited to be disgusted by him, just like Lissa and Torben are. I couldn’t be disgusted. I saw in him what I am and what many people are. It’s the disgust that Anderson shows for Esker that makes him act that way in the first place. You can extract a meta novel out of this. Esker is mad at the God who created him and then scoffs at him. The result is a ‘metaphysical rebellion’ and, if we get a film adaptation a soundtrack full of Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson.

There’s also descriptive prose that tries to be unique but just ends up as gibberish. Exact descriptions of machinary are boring. Novels are not a visual medium and the writing shouldn’t try to do what film does better. Anderson understands that, but his descriptions are too abstract.

Authors should describe outer space with such wonder. There is no other way to talk about a ball of gas with beautiful rings surrounding it, just hanging there. The description often slip from expressing wonder to abstract word salad. It often hits scenes whose descriptions are supposed to be precise. There is a collision of ships in this novel, only the word ‘collision’ doesn’t appear. The purpose of langauge is not to obscure the event. If you’re not going to use the exact word, use words that imply and make us feel it. Anderson just skips the collision.

These problems are not a result of the novel’s background. It’s composed of fragments, some which were supposed to be a part of a Shared Universe project. The story is fragmented, but plenty of authors write fine fragmented stories. Good writing will take a fragmented structure and let the story come out of it. Anderson’s ambition for a literary adventure are appreciated, but the result is either incoherent or insulting. The few interesting ideas make me want to see what else he has, and hope this is just the product of an old man who’s past his prime.

Also posted in my blog

2 alien civilizations out of 5