{"id":1729,"date":"2010-11-29T02:20:05","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T02:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2018\/11\/28\/2-revision-v1\/"},"modified":"2019-07-09T11:35:35","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T11:35:35","slug":"the-algebraist-br-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/11\/29\/the-algebraist-br-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Algebraist (BR)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>The Algebraist<\/strong>\u00a0is a science fiction novel set in the unfathomably far future and is penned by the established author\u00a0<strong>Iain M. Banks<\/strong>. The plot concerns a star system being attacked by some force, (I would have written &#8220;alien force&#8221; but by this stage in the universe&#8217;s history to define something as an alien is rather provincial). The attack is motivated by a desire to conquer the key to a secret formula which, it is believed, will reveal a large\u00a0wormhole\u00a0network present within that system. Access to this network would solve the perennial problem faced by all empires: communication and transport. Before the attack forces arrive, the key character, Fassin Taak, travels to the planet of a species called the\u00a0Dwellers\u00a0to attempt and retrieve this priceless secret, and so perhaps channel the unfolding history into another direction.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The novel was nominated for a\u00a0Hugo award\u00a0in\u00a02005\u00a0for best novel.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Some comments:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">A lot of the plot involves what is essentially a scavenger hunt by Taak, going from A to B to get the next clue to C. Arguably most plots involve this familiar format, but this particular novel doesn&#8217;t do much to hide it.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">The author plays around with the\u00a0<a class=\"populated\" title=\"original\" href=\"https:\/\/everything2.com\/title\/original\">novel<\/a>\u00a0idea of different minds operating on different time scales. Case in point are the Dwellers who can slow down their consciousness to the scale of aeons. This species live on\u00a0gas planets\u00a0and are ubiquitous throughout the\u00a0<a class=\"populated\" title=\"fictional\" href=\"https:\/\/everything2.com\/title\/fictional\">known<\/a>\u00a0universe. When they choose to live in slow-time, the comings and goings, and brief wars, of the humans everywhere else appear to them fleeting. This, in addition to the fact that they can live some few billion years, means that they care little for everything that happens to anyone else.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Humans are differentiated into ahumans (<em>a<\/em>\u00a0for advanced) and rhumans (<em>r<\/em>\u00a0for remainder). This results from the common phenomenon by which advanced species kidnap a new sentient species, and form a small civilization which they technologically advance &#8211; in this case the ahumans. Thus when the remainder species (e.g. rhumans) finally make it out to space they&#8217;re humbled. It&#8217;s not clear why Banks chose to make this part of the novel&#8217;s mythology &#8211; perhaps it&#8217;s a pet interest of his, or maybe it fits into the\u00a0<a class=\"populated\" title=\"tabula rasa\" href=\"https:\/\/everything2.com\/title\/tabula+rasa\">model<\/a>\u00a0of science-fiction from which his stories stem. I don&#8217;t know, but it is curious.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Because travel without wormholes is limited to the speed of light, wars are planned in terms of hundreds of years in advance. Similarly, it may be that a war is already over and (seemingly) forgotten, when a large mass of\u00a0<a class=\"populated\" title=\"Deep Impact\" href=\"https:\/\/everything2.com\/title\/Deep+Impact\">asteroids<\/a>\u00a0come hurtling at a battle site at the\u00a0speed of light. Advanced peoples having found that hurtling rocks very very quickly is actually one of the better ways of hurting someone. I quite liked this idea. So much science fiction feels obligated to propose advanced and incredible weaponry &#8211; but I found this to be a commonsensical (all things considered) form of futuristic warfare.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Algebraist\u00a0is a science fiction novel set in the unfathomably far future and is penned by the established author\u00a0Iain M. Banks. The plot concerns a star system being attacked by some force, (I would have written &#8220;alien force&#8221; but by this stage in the universe&#8217;s history to define something as an alien is rather provincial). [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,198,204,93],"tags":[],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-1729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-book-review","category-everything2","category-sci-fi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2926,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/11\/20\/superman-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1729,"position":0},"title":"Superman #2","author":"Pala","date":"November 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This will\u00a0start from Action Comics Annual #1, then overlap with the Millennium event. Superman Annual\u00a0#1\u00a0Tears for Titano. (Dr Moyers [cf. S#7], also Mrs Wallers and Mr Steel). An experiment that escapes, and keeps growing until Moyers kills it. Action Comics Annual\u00a0#1.\u00a0Superman helps Batman out in a small town with an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All Posts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":377,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2009\/12\/20\/the-peacekeepers-tng\/","url_meta":{"origin":1729,"position":1},"title":"The Peacekeepers (TNG)","author":"pastfarpoint","date":"December 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Peacekeepers, by Gene DeWeese, is the second of the numbered TNG books. The plot begins with the Enterprise identifying a strange vessel which is completely self-enclosed and uniform in layout. 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