If anyone has read story #2 from Lem's Cyberiad (eg maybe
@warpus), was the robot's own system of calculation supposed to be specific (consistent between calculations)?
If so, any guess as to what it would be? I was disappointed when Lem had the robot ask how much 2 times 2 is, but we never got its own answer for it, to compare with its calculation of 2 plus 2.
Robot's math:
2+2=7
1+1=0
7 isn't in between 6 and 8 (presumably robot 8 stands for human 7)
The robot was meant to be a metaphor for the puppet communist regime that was ruling Poland at the time, and the robot's illogical answers were meant to represent that regime's methods of stifling freedom of thought and expression of the people.
Meaning that even though everybody
knew that 2+2=4, the communist regime had the power to say that 2+2=7, or any other answer they wanted, even if it made no sense, logically consistent or not.
So no, I don't think the robot's math was meant to be logically consistent - the same way such a regime it was representing would pick and choose "the truth", based on whatever they wanted to achieve at the time. If they said that 2+2=7, then people had to accept that or face the consequences - i.e. the robot chasing after them and attacking them.
When the robot breaks down at the end and falls apart, I believe that was supposed to be a metaphor for such a communist system eventually crumbling down, the people being victorious in the end. Which is what ended up happening in real life (in Poland at least)
Lem wrote many stories that criticized the government, but he had to hide his criticism behind stories like this one. The authorities would read his stories and approve them, without catching on to the true meaning.
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I just got back from a week at the cottage and ended up getting a bunch of reading done there. Here's my mission report:
I finished reading
The Lives of Tao, the rest of the book was a nice read, and the conclusion was satisfactory enough. I say that, because I figured out what was going to happen before it did. Having said that, I am going to pick up the sequels and read them too. The characters were well written and fleshed out, and I want to see what happens next.
I also read through
Proxima by
Stephen Baxter. And I gotta say.. WOW! I've read Baxter before (The Time Ships), but Proxima just blew me away. It's gotta be in my top 10 all time favourite sci-fi novels ever.
First of all, it's a fascinating premise that I just couldn't wait to start digging into: A new age of exploration, of a planet of the nearest star to our own. It was so interesting to read all the scientific details of the various technologies required to make such a journey, to explore the planet, to build a colony, etc. It's obviously futuristic, but all the futuristic technologies seemed very grounded and realistic. All the science presented in the novel seems incredibly well thought out and imagined. Baxter has the right sort of background for that, but the way he weaves this story together is just masterful.
One thing I hated about the Red/Blue/Green Mars trilogy was that.. well.. the characters really sucked. They weren't developed well and they all sort of spoke the same. The story focused on the setting and ignored character development almost, which bored me. In contrast to that, Baxter was here able to focus on both the characters and the setting in a very balanced way. The characters are well imagined and well developed, the female characters are written in a way that many male sci-fi authors just can't seem to pull off very well, the relationships and chemistry & interactions between the characters were great, and there was a very nice balance of all that. One problem with Peter F Hamilton is that his female characters generally suck & he creates way too many secret agent type characters and way too many subplots and this and that happening independently, for it all to come together at points that felt very predetermined and somewhat coincidental. Baxter's approach here was in contrast a lot more down to Earth, the characters were a lot more believable, each one had their own personality that you could feel almost falling off the page. There was a decent amount of characters, but not too many. There were unexpected at times connections between them, but nothing over the top. Overall the character work in Proxima was just great. And you dont' end up weaving through hundreds of pages of seemingly unrelated stories, Baxter's writing here keeps you focused on the main story. There
are subplots, but the general balance of all that is GREAT. This is a book I just couldn't put down. Every chapter was the exact length it needed to be. There is no point at which you're hoping to make your way to the next chapter just so you can get on with the story.. There is a perfect balance between dialogue and non-dialogue. Everything comes together so well.
Proxima also managed to surprise me at key points in the novel. Some reveals seemed a bit obvious to me, but many took me by complete surprise. The story keeps moving at a very nice pace, and when things are just starting to feel like they might start getting stale - something happens and you think "WOW, I have to keep reading"
Another thing I liked about this book was that it forces you to take in parts of the story through the eyes of people who don't necessarily know everything. Some books explain way too much, but Baxter basically forces us to understand everything through the eyes of the characters. Certain parts do venture outside of that dynamic, events are described that nobody sees, etc.. But a lot of the meat of the story is not rammed down your throat sort to speak. There are also well done plot/narrative devices that he uses that feed into this dynamic. For instance, there is a robot/rover which is able to analyze various experiments and speculate on the science behind whatever they're exploring or looking at. It's done in a way that escapes being cliche. So while we see a lot of the story through the eyes of the characters, there is a great balance there with some extra information and speculation you get from various other sources.
This is not necessarily the sort of book you think it might be. It's not a book about how a planet got colonized or terraformed. Some of that happens, but it's first and foremost a book about humanity and about the characters who find themselves in the situations that they do. There are grand scale space opera type events that happen in the novel as well, so don't assume it is 100% character focused either. The word that kept popping in my head over and over was - balance.
The planet explored/colonized/interacted with is a great example of worldbuilding, with the geologic, cosmological, physical, biological, etc. aspects all well thought out. The setting is great and engaging and parts of it reminded me of the wonder I felt when I first read
Rendezvous with Rama as a teen. The place felt plausible and real to me, and yet at the same time it felt utterly fantastical and magical.
The ending is unexpected and made me want to immediately order the sequel. It arrives tomorrow.
