The Embedding

Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking with original SETI implications.
Review: Contrary to the other reader review of this book I found it to be one of the most thought provoking SF novels ever (this from a thirty year afficianado of Clarke, Asimov, Bradbury et al). Watson weaves an engrossing tale with tanatlising sub plots and questions the very fundementals of language and communication with massive implications for SETI planners and participants. I heartily reccomend this novel to any reader capable of discerning original SF thought from Star Wars 9. It is dissappointingly currently out of print so get down to your library or nag the publisher!

Rating:
Summary: Poor science and poor fiction means poor science fiction.
Review: I haven't quite read every book, but this could possibly be the worst book ever written. The story focuses on linguistic theories about embedded language. The problem is that if you don't have a background in linguistics (universal grammar, embedding, recursiveness) then you will have trouble understanding it. Either way, the book is horrible. The characters are shallow, the action is forced, and the plot is unbelievable. At some points the writing is so bad I had to put the book down. It's a nice effort, but it just can't hold the reader for more than 2 or 3 pages.

Rating:
Summary: Transcendent otherness
Review: Ian Watson's first novel, published in 1973, was one of his best, and an acknowledged classic of science fiction. Its theme is not a traditional sf topic, but a very intellectually challenging one: language as the means to bridge the gap between human consciousness and the otherness of the objective world. In Watson's fictional "embededed" language of the Xemahoas, a Brazilian Indian tribe, "This-Reality" is converted into the transcendent pattern of "Other-Reality," which is the world of pure being. The Sp'thra (who represent the essential otherness of the objective world, everything about it that we do not understand) bargain for the brains of speakers of this language, which they desire to learn. At the end, the main character experiences a breakdown of reality and a cognizance of a new state of being, reminiscent of such occurrences in the work of Philip K. Dick.

Rating:
Summary: Full of v interesting ideas.
Review: In terms of interesting ideas, this book is one of the best in SF I have read. If you are even vaguely interested in language theory, you will like the interesting twists the author gives to the ideas in that field. In terms of developing these ideas to their full potential, the book is not so good. It makes a v fine start but leaves you a little dissatisfied in the end. If you like SF for ideas, this is a good choice. But if you are looking for characterization or action, there are lots of other far better ones.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book by a provocative writer
Review: There are tons of great ideas expresed in this book, must of them have to do with the way that the languaje can twist reality and how everithing we perceive is perceived thru the use of language.
I think that the characters are much better built than the ones done by the late Isaac Asimov, I don't agree with the bad review given below.
If I ever write a novel I hope that it will be as good as this one ( yes, this was his first novel, an incredible achievement).
A must read.

Rating:
Summary: Aims high, misses by that much
Review: This book is generally famous within the annals of SF for really dealing with the concept of language and its nature, indicating a level of thought that wasn't often seen in the genre and helping to elevate its status above that of "rayguns and spaceships", which is how people typically see these types of novels. The origins and evolution of language is one of the more fascinating topics in the world, and many a person spends a large amount of time trying to piece together evidence in order to discover the "original language". Ian Watson probably has a background as a linguist to some extent (or at least he's well read), but it doesn't translate as well into novel form as one might hope. One of fiction's most famous linguists was, of course, JRR Tolkein, who basically came up with Lord of the Rings to field test his nifty Elven language that he came up with. Ian Watson doesn't go to those extremes and keeps things more in the realm of the abstract and the story suffers a little for it. It may be a case of biting off more than he can chew, because there are a lot of subplots swimming around in what turns out to be a fairly slim book (ah, the old days of SF, nowadays half the plots take up ten times the space, thank you, "decompression") . . . you have a team of researchers isolating children and giving them a certain drug to see if they can stimulate them into creating their own language, an "embedded" one, you also have a French fellow in the Amazon jungle studying a tribe that appears to connect to an Other-Reality when taking a local herb, allowing things like myth and legend to be experienced through language (or something), lastly you have aliens from beyond the solar system showing up to barter because they're fascinated by our language. And much like "Day of the Dead" they want brains. The cover copy on this novel, as if typical of most seventies SF books, tends to overpromise up the wazoo, calling the book a "superthriller about mind control" when I'm not really sure that's the case. Not only is the book not exactly thrilling in the same way that a good spy novel is, it's not really about mind control either, unless that went over my head. I originally thought that the focus of the story was going to be on the aliens and our attempts to understand them and that would be where the language theories would come in, much like "Solaris" (which this book is compared to on the cover) it could be have been about our attempts to understand that which we have little common ground with. Alas, the aliens speak perfect English, just like any other SF alien. So instead the book is all over the place, to the aliens, the kids, the jungle, back and forth and it's not really clear where any of it is going. The importance of the Other-Reality language that the natives can tap into isn't really that clear and the implications of the experiments on the kids is never really apparent either. Needless to say there's probaly just too much plot stuffed into too little space, although the sketches of Watson's ideas are absolutely fascinating and it's a better first novel than anything I might have written (or have written, I should say). By the end it all gets quite psychedelic and more science-fictional, and it all becomes rather vague. Watson gets credit for tackling so much at once and for introducing questions on the nature of language itself and its ability to manipulate reality, an honest to Asimov original idea in SF. Unfortunately intent and execution aren't the same thing and a lot gets lost, the reader is left with a lot of pieces that don't really connect in any obvious fashion and the transcendental feeling that Watson is shooting for kind of falls flat. But it does read quick and a lot of the scenes are quite fun, most of the interactions with the aliens are interesting and the bits with the tribe range from intriguing to disturbing (including one of the most disturbing moments I've ever read in SF . . . look for it when the baby shows up), the problem is that scattered decent scenes don't add up to a classic novel. But it still deserves to be on your reading list and should be required reading for anyone looking to devour the more important novels of the genre. Just be warned that what you expect may not be what you get.

Rating:
Summary: A slow read, confusing at times.
Review: This book tells three stories about: an experiment involving children, to find out if they can develop their own language with the aid of computer altered English; a secluded Brazilian tribe of people who speak two languages, one which is a drug enhanced version of the other; aliens who are discovered orbiting Earth in a ship while taking an extraordinary interest in the English language. Throw in some politics, and you have a story with much potential. Unfortunately, I found some of the ideas and details a bit hard to follow at times. The overall pace was mostly slow. These factors made it difficult for me to maintain any interest in the ultimate connection of the stories, and I'm certain the author's intended effect escaped me. Interesting at times, though finishing the book was an exercise of discipline. I hoped it would pay off. It didn't.