Wheelers

Rating:
Summary: Sense of Wonder
Review: For those of us of a certain age, our first SF reads brought a sense of wonder -- "yes, yes it *really* could be like that!" we'd say to ourselves. And then, for most of us, the world caught up with the sense of wonder. We were on the moon. We were cloning. We had the Internet. This book, this literally marvelous book, re-awakens that sense of wonder. Cohen and Stewart's aliens are really *alien.* The science of 200 years from now is not only plausible but seems inevitable. The plot is great; you care about the characters (who actually grow by book's end -- something rare in SF), but it's the science that raises the hairs on your arms. Read a chapter by Cohen -- I presume it's Cohen as he's a reproductive biologist -- on how the aliens reproduce and it's the biological equivalent of listening to Bach knock out a clever etude. And if all this doesn't light you up, the book also has a fey English wit. You won't be disappointed -- it's one of those books that's fun to read again and again.

Rating:
Summary: Tasty cosmic soup
Review: I rarely read "hard" sci-fi anymore, but this book successfully caught and held me with its richly eclectic mix of elements. History, highly realistic and interesting futurism, religion (presented with beautifully understated cynicism), social analysis, and a non-standard human drama enrich this book beyond its science fiction base.

These authors take meticulous care to make their science fiction as believable as possible; a praiseworthy - and unfortunately rare - trait in modern sci-fi authors. While the premise of intelligent life on Jupiter initially seems wildly far-fetched, the explication is amazingly logical, plausible, and well fleshed out... though occasionally a touch ponderous. Wheelers makes the point that reality is all about unexpected truths - particularly when life enters the equations.

Stewart and Cohen obviously had a good deal of fun in their creation of a sentient alien society! The ponderous movings of the alien government, and political groups and movements are amusingly parodical. And several groan-out-loud sick word jokes ("antibiautics" and "antibiautic resistance" particularly spring to mind!) are buried like juicy nuggets in the cosmic soup.

All in all, this was an enjoyable and thought-provoking book. I am not sure that the "Pause" is an original concept, but from this pre-Pause point in history, I am hoping it is an accurate prediction...

Rating:
Summary: Excellent sci-fi from scientists
Review: I rarely read "hard" sci-fi anymore, but this book successfully caught and held me with its richly eclectic mix of elements. History, highly realistic and interesting futurism, religion (presented with beautifully understated cynicism), social analysis, and a non-standard human drama enrich this book beyond its science fiction base.

These authors take meticulous care to make their science fiction as believable as possible; a praiseworthy - and unfortunately rare - trait in modern sci-fi authors. While the premise of intelligent life on Jupiter initially seems wildly far-fetched, the explication is amazingly logical, plausible, and well fleshed out... though occasionally a touch ponderous. Wheelers makes the point that reality is all about unexpected truths - particularly when life enters the equations.

Stewart and Cohen obviously had a good deal of fun in their creation of a sentient alien society! The ponderous movings of the alien government, and political groups and movements are amusingly parodical. And several groan-out-loud sick word jokes ("antibiautics" and "antibiautic resistance" particularly spring to mind!) are buried like juicy nuggets in the cosmic soup.

All in all, this was an enjoyable and thought-provoking book. I am not sure that the "Pause" is an original concept, but from this pre-Pause point in history, I am hoping it is an accurate prediction...

Rating:
Summary: Life, Ant Country, the Universe and Everything
Review: Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart are at it again, and, with Earth in the balance, it's bureaucrats all the way down.

Wheelers, the well-known authors' first SF collaboration, is a terrific, if quirky read. Here's the essential plot: Quick Girl makes exciting discovery. Stodgy Boy hesitates. Girl stomps off. Boy gets the glory. Boy becomes bureaucrat; Girl gets going, and brings back souvenirs (this is where the Wheelers come in). Boy ruins Girl's career, again, and threatens Girl's family. Killer snowball threatens everybody. Boy can't save the earth alone. Girl has a go, but needs Boy, with a little help from her friends, and a nephew, and a rebellious Blimp. The Earth is saved, more or less. Boy and Girl find Themselves, Each Other, and the Guru (who talks a lot like a wound up Cohen or Stewart at the pub's corner table). Boy and Girl sort of hitch their star to a wagon drawn by celestial Clydesdales and prepare to ride off out of the sunset, approximately. Music of the spheres up.

Of course, there are complications galore: hard boiled poachers, a nutty production crew, a four year old cockroach whisperer, an empty talking head, Chinese drug (think viagra) kingpins, a top-gun Buddhist monk rocket driver that makes Han Solo look a Pasadena Granny on Sunday afternoon, stupefying intra-jovian politics, errant semi-sentient machines (which slightly resemble Niven's and Pournelle's Brown Moties), and a wayward moon. It is in these details that the story really takes off.

There is a huge quantity of real science in Wheelers, which makes sense: Stewart is a Mathematician, while Cohen's specialty is reproductive biology. Together and separately, the prolific writers are responsible for many science books, both popular and academic. Plus, they co-authored, along with Terry Pratchett, the best-selling Science of Discworld. There is much fictional science as well, which, for the most part, hangs together quite well (I thought the crucial concept of gravitational repulsion needed some stronger explanation). But can they write a story? This is a more complicated issue. That is, yes indeed, but there are caveats. Oh, there's plenty of narrative imperative, along with good fun, like a James Bondian, hell-bent-for-sulfurous-leather interplanetary chase scene (the other 007 touch is a propensity for unbelievably close calls). But the characters and institutions, at least the human ones, seem far from organic. And, considering the "hard" science, the use of the undefined term "year" and the non-use of metric units are questionable. More importantly, while you might be able to take the professors out of the classroom, it is apparently harder to take the classroom out of the professors: Stewart and Cohen have so much to say that, explanatory or no, the explication often breaks up the flow of the story. And the reader unfamiliar with the authors' style might find the pedagogy somewhat heavy-handed. Still, these forced breaks are often interesting in their own right. Particularly involving is an extended riff on Jovian reproduction. Also, there's a great bit about fancy rocket science, which is seamlessly, if hair-raisingly integrated into the story.

Then, too, Wheelers can't quite decide whether it wants to be a suspense drama or an lecture hall tour-de-wit, being replete with inside Pratchettian jokes (such as the running million-to-one gag, a nice Granny Weatherwax killer bees bit, and a "personal disorganizer" cameo), allusions to all kinds of movies and movie characters (Jaws, Horse Whisperer, Indiana Jones, Yoda), plays on Jungian terminology (the aliens have a collective consciousness), and hilarious translations of putative Jovian documents. And, I'm sure, many other would-be howlers that went screaming over my head. I personally find these to be hidden nuggets rather than distractions (even Hamlet has such extra layers), but, again, some may feel that they get in the way of a straight story. In any case, it is hard not to like the authors' proclivity to work in digs about pop culture and academic committees, along with sharp pokes at rivals in the paradigm wars.

Old-time SFers will recognize the punch line as that of Zenna Henderson's wonderful 1962 short story, "Subcommittee" (when push comes to shove, don't leave the fate of Earth in the hands of professionals), but the meta-message is found in the denouement (a long sequence intended to evoke an almost mystical, Rachel Carson-like sense of wonder, but instead will leave many heads well scratched): It's life all the way down--or up, or back, or something--from quantum to molecular to memetic to plasmoid (the latter are represented by "magnetotori", the aforementioned celestial chariot pullers, steeds worthy of a literal Phaeton). The bottom line? Highly recommended. Life wants to live...and, hey, guys, narrative imperative wants a sequel.

Rating:
Summary: Tomorrow's Horse Whisperer?
Review: Moses Odinga, raised in an animal shelter in central Africa, is bracketed by a loving mother and a freebooting aunt. Charity and Prudence, divergent personalities, logically follow dissimilar life paths. Prudence's has led her from Egyptology to Europa the Jovian Satellite. In her travels, she's stumbled on artifacts indicating, finally, that human beings are not alone in the universe. The results of that discovery reach beyond nearly anyone's imagination. While Prudence struggles for recognition, and income, from her discoveries, Moses has been kidnapped, resulting in a life among vicious street children and even more vicious animals. But Moses has a talent - he can communicate with nearly everything but humans. This skill is honed as he faces increasingly difficult challenges. He develops other skills as well - notably very efficient killing ones. How useful will this secretive street urchin be in preventing a comet from doing to humanity what another did to the dinosaurs?

Building on their writings as scientists merged with their collaboration with Terry Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen have produced a gripping story. Wandering comets and near-Earth asteroids are much in the news these days. What if there's more involved than "simple" celestial mechanics? Applying their respective sciences to the fullest, the authors propose life forms in the Jovian atmosphere and unimaginable forces applied to stars, planets and moons. Comets, long considered "debris of creation" might be cast aside as thoughtlessly as any other trash. As with other rubbish tossed aside, where it lands is rarely given much thought. Cohen and Stewart use this foundation to build a structure of many aspects, each neatly supporting the others until reaching a off-beat conclusion.

In presenting their story, they indulge in what can only be labelled "post-modern' [ugh!] characterization. Charity and Prudence are distinctly different, despite being twins. Charles Dunmore is the archetypal politically successful academic. The authors spare him a formula end, but the means seems a bit thin. Angie Carver, who becomes a prop for Prudence and Moses, has built a fortune from seven husbands. While she claims to have loved them all, she mourns for none. Of all the characters, Moses, so important to the story, is constructed of implausibilities. Even the aliens are more realistically portrayed. In fact, the Elders might have been lifted straight from Pratchett's Discworld wizards. The story's scope, however, relegates most of the human characters to near-irrelevance. It is the aliens who dominate, both in assertive physical power and in personality.

There are other minor problems with this book. While the authors are strong scientists and use their experience to explain the forces involved, their retention of Imperial measurement [miles, feet] in the twenty-third century is pretty depressing. It reflects, one hopes, only current marketing realities and not future forecasting. The concept of "intelligent" atomic particles or forces is neither new nor adequately explained. A good course in cognitive studies might have helped here. This aspect of the science of the book left the ending rather limp. However, this same ending is a clarion call for a sequel to Wheelers. Look forward to it. It is likely to be rewarding.

Rating:
Summary: Topical Grab Bag Of Themes And Plot Elements
Review: Recently awarded Locus' nod as one of the best first novels of the past year, this entertaining novel is a potpourri of popular and topical themes, drawn from such diverse sources as ecoterrorism and diversity, cloning, Zen Buddhism, Egyptian archeology, Von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods," and the anticipated future cataclysm of a killer comet, recently so thoroughly milked by both the news media and Hollywood. While one might suspect that the authors, both of whom have extensive scientific and academic publishing resumes, have been somewhat calculating as to their inclusion of plot elements, there is little question that they have interwoven these themes into a successful and entertaining novel, written with verve and a great amount of imagination.

Though the introductory chapters start out appearing only tentatively connected, pursuing multiple storylines that at first seem largely unrelated, it is not long before the authors begin to bind their protagonists' tales together, spinning out their coalescing narrative at an ever increasing pace that soon matches the onrush of climatic events that equally propel towards the book's conclusion. Once the reader enters the climacteric phase of the novel, it is difficult to put down, marred slightly only by the final chapters, which become a summary tidying up of events and characters that seem somewhat a let down after all the excitement preceding. Nonetheless, the authors succeed in investing much of their tale with an ever-increasing suspense that is handled deftly, and which largely offsets any flaws found in the final slowdown of events.

In addition, while a blend of both hard and soft science, the multiple points of view are balanced, as well as well integrated into the plot elements, science and conceptual elements only on occasion dominating at the expense of the storyline. Further, the authors use their tale to delightfully parody contemporary government and beauracracy, as well as academia and the news media, with a sardonic humor reminiscent of authors such as Terry Pratchett, which are bound to raise a chuckle, even if darkly lined, and leaven the narrative throughout.

Even though not a huge fan of science fiction, I found this book enjoyable, and will certainly follow the authors' novels in future---hopefully there will be successors. While, if allowed, I would have given this first effort only 3 and a half stars, I suspect fans of the genre will respond more generously.

Rating:
Summary: Read Vinge, Egan, anything but this book
Review: Simply put, this book is terrible. It's advertised as "hard sci fi" but the ideas, not even to mention the story or characters, just aren't there. The characters are all paper cutouts and the storyline drags very badly. I kept checking the page number and thinking, "Is it possible I've read this many pages and still feel like the interesting part hasn't started yet?" Worst of all, the "hard sci fi" consists of a Jovian gas-based society (which has been done much better by other authors) and nanotech machines, the Wheelers, which they simply *skip* actually describing in detail in the book! By the end I felt scammed by the marketing of this book. If you are looking for hard sci fi, do yourself a favor and buy anything by Vernor Vinge, Ian Banks, Greg Egan, or any of the many other authors writing much better works in this genre.

Rating:
Summary: BORING
Review: The first 80 pages are boring. The first chapter is cryptic--a feeble attenpt at creating a story hook. I don't know how this book got through an editor. Wait, it didn't. Sometimes its about who you know, not about your abilities as a writer. Makes sense, otherwise this book would never get published.

Rating:
Summary: Good ideas wasted
Review: There's some good stuff here but it's wasted in a ridiculous plot. One of the differences between the real world, and fiction, is that in the real world, things happen according to the laws of probability. In fiction, it often seems, such laws are completely ignored. Is the imminent destruction of Earth at exactly the instant that people become able to do something about it somehow caused by human actions in space? No, it's just a million-to-one coincidence. How does it happen that one of the primary characters has a relative who has exactly the paranormal powers that are needed to have a chance of preventing the disaster? Just another million-to-one coincidence (maybe billion-to-one?).

The author's ideas about how humanity would approach the one chance to prevent the destruction of the Earth---the types of people who would be involved, the level of independent action that they would undertake, the degree of communication that would exist in such a crisis---struck me as ridiculously cynical.

I felt the good ideas about alien life were wasted in this story. The method of exposition of the alien perspective also felt redundant and unnecessarily obtuse.

Rating:
Summary: Round and round and round...
Review: Wheelers is a collaborative novel by two writers better known for their non-fiction. Ian Stewart is a Professor of Mathematics who writes columns for Scientific American and who has published many popular science books. Jack Cohen is a biologist who has also had a long and eminent career as an academic. He's blotted his copy book a lot though - he is a long time SF fan and has been a popular speaker at many a British SF convention. He has been the power behind the SF throne of many a novel, in that he can't resist providing the hard scientific advice that has raised a lot of SF books head and shoulders above the competition. He devised much of the clever biological speculation that made Harry Harrison's Eden novels so memorable, for instance.

Now, with Wheelers these two non-fiction giants have turned their hand to story telling with, it must be admitted, mixed success.

It is the twenty third century. The world is recovering from a technology meltdown caused by a generation of "smart" computers that proved to be too smart for their own good. The world is now quite under populated and the Moon and the asteroids are largely the province of a curious Zen Buddhist offshoot cult who make a very rich living mining them.

Prudence Odingo is an ex-archaeologist and something of a recluse. Her early career was ruined partly by her own headstrong behaviour and partly by the wheelings and dealings of her post-graduate supervisor. She has spent many of the years since then in space. She returns to Earth from an expedition to Callisto where she has excavated wheeled artefacts that seem to be more than 100,000 years old.

In a dramatic courtroom scene, the wheelers come abruptly to life and provide evidence of their extraterrestrial origins by gliding smoothly from the courtroom on anti-gravity beams. It takes the world by storm.

But a new crisis arises. A comet from the Oort cloud is heading towards the inner solar system. It seems likely that it will collide with Jupiter. To the consternation of observers on Earth, the four inner moons of Jupiter suddenly change their orbits and their altered gravitational influence diverts the comet. Now it is heading directly for Earth.

It seems obvious that some alien intelligence (probably connected with the Wheelers, given that they were discovered on one of Jupiter's moons) is manipulating the comets. Perhaps it is a declaration of war. Prudence and the Zen Buddhists and the academic who once destroyed her career are all charged with making contact with the aliens and attempting to persuade them to modify the Jupiter moon orbits again in order to prevent the comet hitting the Earth. It turns into a nail biting race against time...

It's a great plot, with great characters and the tension is admirably maintained right through to the end (will the comet hit the Earth or won't it?). Certainly the book has a lot going for it. Unfortunately the authors inexperience with fiction shows - they fall so much in love with the ideas the novel dramatises that they can't resist the urge to explain in far too much detail and consequently the book fills up with great big wodges of infodumps that slow the story down to nothing flat. However I can't condemn it out of hand - both authors are superb writers of non-fiction; brilliant explainers of often complex ideas and the infodumps are quite fascinating in themselves and beautifully written to boot. They just don't belong in a slam-bang novel like this one.