Seventh Son – Alvin Maker: Book One

Alternate History: it is a subgenre of fiction that I am getting in to more and more as I evolve my taste of Sci-fi/fantasy. JonathanStrange & Mr. Norrell had some of it, but what better way to really dive into it than from a book written by one of the modern masters of Science Fiction? And I feel like I need to include that this alternate history is primarily American History. How much fun would it have been to have Thomas Jefferson as a revered witch, Benjamin Franklin as a magician, George Washington as a martyr? I cannot think of a more masterful take on American alternate history with folklore tied into it.

The tale of Alvin Maker begins like any good, kickass Orson Scott Card sci-fi story: a child with a unique talent that he/she does not quite understand and is punished unmercifully for it. In this case, it is the torch, young Peggy Guester. She is the first person we are introduced to and though she plays a majour part in the protagonist’s role, she is mentioned very little.

The untimely death of the eldest son happens just as Alvin is making his impromptu appearance into this world, being born only with the help of the little girl whose knack is that of torch. She foresees his powers, and is able to realize that he is the seventh son of a seventh son.

The Seventh Son is also my introduction to this particular bit of folklore; that magical superstitious sensation of seventh son and better yet, seventh son of a seventh son. Turns out Orson Scott Card did a bit of research on that.

As a devout Mormon, he also has a majour Christian influence in this story. But because it is during that pre-Mormon-anti-gay-Extremist part of his life, it is actually not the sort of Christian influence you might expect. Preachers in league with the devil, atheist protagonists, highly religious figures who unknowingly succumb and submit to the powers of knacks, hex and spells, and perhaps best of all, this quote from Armour-of-God Weaver when discussing an equally awesome character:

                

“They say he knew that wizard Ben Franklin. And that atheist from Apalachee Tom Jefferson.”

Two of my favourite historical figures. And made all the more badass in this alternate history. Not all Christians in this book are crazy, but for the most part, there is a clear, often hostile line drawn between the Christians and the practice that the others have for an active, powerful working spirit world.

Oh and the other great part about the above mentioned quote by Armor-of-God, the man he is talking about is a lonesome, vagrant story teller who walks around the American frontier with two goals: 1 – to have a vision (which never happens, no matter how hard he tries); 2 – to exchange honest labour for food/shelter and the ability to swap stories. His name is Taleswapper, and though he is a great character, really the best in the book, he lets it slip that his real name is William Blake. What a fantastic (fictional) historical twist!

Alvin experiences pain through his own evil doings, cheats death and learns to defeat it, but what everyone suspects is that he has to actually use special powers to cheat death. Meaning that he both possesses special powers and is being hunted, rather creatively, by some evil force. We learn to call this force The Unmaker, thanks to Bill Blake’s eloquence. The Unmaker and some devilish being have it out for him, and ironically, so do the hardcore Christians of early America. Through his power, the will and spiritual/philosophical goodness of the natives (called reds in this story), and Taleswapper’s cleverness, he is able to learn some balance between his unique gift and the evil that is both hunting him, and working its way inside of him. For a relatively short novel, it is magnificent with typical Orson Scott Card torture towards an unknowingly powerful child. 

Whether or not Book Two and all the others slow down, Seventh Son is absolutely fantastic and a refreshing jolt of creative fantasy that doesn’t just rely on children’s love of monsters and spells (no offense Harry Potter fans) nor does it require goblins, trolls or elves to be truly engaging (again, no offense to my Lord of the Rings readers).

Destination: Void

Whoa. Fuckin'....whoa.

Don't know how many times I have let Frank Herbert absolutely fuck my mind, but I keep coming back for it. The author of Dune and, perhaps more importantly, mastermind/creator of the Dune universe, wrote Destination: Void, which kicked off the WorShip series that included 3 others (all other 3 co-authored with Bill Ransom).

In an undated near-future scenario, astronauts are sent to the Tau Ceti galaxy to begin colonising a habitable planet. Sounds like a simple enough plot, until Herbert tosses in that 6 prior missions have all ended in disaster, the technology for such a journey is either in its infancy or does not exist, the astronauts are genetically (strategically) placed clones (with clone colonists in hybernation tanks on-board) and have dozens of replacements for each of the four full-time positions out of the thousands of bodies inside said tanks...and biggest of all...semi-self-aware-computers.

It actually is a very short book and a very short read, but many of the paragraphs and Herbertian tirades are in regards to something I just cannot wrap my brain around: the logic of creating a self-aware computer. I'm sure that if I were a computer nerd and made wiring up computers and trying to gain them a consciousness a hobby of mine, plus had a firm understanding of human psychology and the biology of the brain, that I could follow along no problem. Let me just throw a few phrases out there that sound like Chinese to me:

nerve-net simulators; electroform inputs of nerve impulse groups; flux impulses in four dimensions; inhibitory roulette cycles; black box – white box transfer;

Why? Why can't I understand any of this? Maybe it is just me being an idiot and I will shut up about it.

The good news is, however, that this takes nothing away from the book. As I did not fully understand what was going on with the wiring of this system, I appreciated it as an effort, a means to an end, to get a self-aware computer constructed. And that is exactly what all this is, so it is not imperative to the plot. But once shit starts getting constructed and happening...whoa man, hold on!

The first brains, the organic mental cores, which are crude versions of humans' early attempts at constructing self-aware computers, have human brains acting as the emotional/reactionary/survivalist side of the ship's computer. They all go mad, and are destroyed. The astronauts are then completely on their own save for the others in hibernation. When I had this much of the book in my brain's grasp I told myself this is basically what 2001:A Space Odyssey would have been if it were fucking great.

Instead, Herbert spends the next 180 or so pages (of 200, mind you) fucking with the reader on what it means to be conscious. Just soak that in for a second. What does it mean to you? This discussion could go on for years, and has. It has evolved since the first philosophers. Even before Diogenes the Cynic helped us bridge the gap between man and animal.

To me it has always been signified by goals. Seeking more than survival and reproduction, but setting up goals for ourselves. Aspirations. Shit like that.

But this book does not stop there. Not only is the question a constant issue amongst the crew and constant theme throughout the book, but there are other, brilliant, typical Frank Herbert ideas thrown in there to help get your brain motivated and thinking of new, novel, ideologically challenging concepts.

It was interesting to me that the ship's Psychologist is also the ship's Chaplain, for example. Why? Because psychology is not much for an exact science, and has assumptions associated with it and diagnoses that are based on historical symptoms and behaviour of the human. Religion is not so different from that, now is it? He also comments later on that both Religion and Psychology are methods of healing, specifically healing people's brain or intellect. I can attest to this. Because when one feels uncomfortable with an anxiety brought on by substance abuse there are two overwhelmingly popular choices people make to seek treatment: Religion (e.g. Jesus, e.g. Being born again) and medical (e.g. psychological) treatment. It happens like that, not just limited to those two but much more often than not. Honestly, it does!

Another great moment is when men are trying to teach the computer life and death by teaching it what it means to preserve a life dependent upon its systems – in this case a farm animal in gestation/fetus phase that the colonists could use if they land at their destination – and the computer decides to kill it, just to learn its limits, learn of its own behaviour and maybe even test its own powers. Well one of the most hopeful men on the crew for this test working out is the Life Systems Engineer. And of the people on this crew, of the four awake, of course the Life Systems Engineer is going to have the most trouble seeing past this self-aware-computer initiated abortion. And it shows.

source: http://www.voodish.co.uk/articles/human-brain-simulated-on-super-computer/ 

Moments like this happen in a Frank Herbert novel within a sentence or two, and it is all thanks to his amazing ability to develop characters. You see more of what is going on inside their heads than with any other story-teller. The female working in the group of four has a much different but equally as interesting role. She is a clone placed on board because of her natural ability to lead, care for others, and juggle several responsibilities at once. As such, her independence is driven by certain chemicals and offset by others that showcase her caring side, and whatever it takes to match these Herbert explains that it inadvertently forces her to be extremely sexually active by nature. She takes chemicals to reduce her sex drive, but she also experiments, due to the pressure of the situation, with chemicals that enhance her awareness and help her ponder as the crew tries to wrap their minds around  consciousness. The taking of these drugs displaces those that reduce her sex drive, and soon enough she is conflicted by constant sexual thoughts, fantasies and desires.

Seriously, for such a short book the character development is incredible. I could go on, but I won't. Instead, I'll just say that everyone should be reading plenty of Frank Herbert, and once you get accustomed to his style, then you can delve into this one, because it is complex and difficult to follow but extremely brilliant.

Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

Well now this was good. Very good. A comet is spotted by a playboy millionaire/part-time stargazer who uses it to promote his image and get a television documentary. This turns into a sort of Doomsday phenomenon, complete with a prophet spreading the word of God about our Judgement, sort of like Marshall Applewhite or that Harold Camping guy, except this bullshit happened in real life and not in a science fiction book written 35 fucking years ago.

The book also features some of the wonders of contemporary science. Space shuttles were just getting going, but the astronauts in this book use an Apollo craft to team up with awesome Russian kosmonauts. There are many characters in this story, but none top the guy who works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (more on him later). The authors’ take on JPL and the magic those nerds are able to generate is really wonderful. I read this book shortly after the Mars Curiousity landed, and was able to view the landing via a stream online, straight from JPL command center. I also was fortunate enough to attend the landing party for our previous mission to Mars, Phoenix, as the University of Arizona coordinated that mission with JPL. Being in the nerd-command-center for those moments is really exciting, and Pournelle and Niven capture the essence perfectly.

(Lesson from Marshall Applewhite: if you're gonna start a cult, pick a logo that's slightly more timeless)

Once the comet hits, much of the writing oscillates between a sort of Crichton-paced action adventure Doomsday book and a very clever post-apocalyptic thriller. Some scenes just stand out more, and are usually isolated and short, but the one that jumps out to me the most is the diabetic scientist from JPL, Dr. Forrester, bagging his entire library, each book in several sets of Ziploc bags, and stashing them away for safe keeping after society is completely destroyed. It was almost as if he had read all of the same post-apocalyptic books that I have read and did what I thought I would do in that situation.

(Illustration from the book? Nope. Harold Camping's fucking people.)

As society really falls apart, with looting leading to survivalist campaigns of hostile cannibals – another post-apocalyptic touch I really appreciated – a Senator with a ranch and hot daughter look to save the day for everyone in the Southern California area (the focus of virtually all the action). Things go well for this society until they inevitably have to deal with the cannibals, and if not for the saving grace of science, which is complemented by people saving science in the battle of the nuclear powerplant (a great mirroring of our relationship with science), things would get even more gruesome than they do. Which would have been fun, of course, but I’m happy with how things turned out.

This book had just about everything I need: end of world, cannibals, scientists being badasses, shit-hits-the-fan scenarios and people’s planning around the apocalypse (i.e. guns, food, water; always something to learn), religious cukes and a cult-like mentality, babes, a cameo by a Dodge Dart, Russians, inappropriate relationships between Scout leaders and girl scouts (and underage boys and underage girls, for that matter) and more cannibals.

To say this book is a good time is an understatement.