From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Wed Aug 18 1999 - 11:44:00 MDT
I haven't run across anyone mentioning this, so I thought
I would comment on it.
The Saga of the Cuckoo, by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson
consists of two parts: "Farthest Star" (1975) and
"Wall Around A Star" (1983).
The style of the book doesn't make it something to write
home about -- it seems like it was adapted from a set of
shorter stories. The content however is very interesting
to many of us because of the subjects, which include:
- The Cuckoo -- a 1 AU sphere with a very low density
approaching the galaxy from points unknown whose
"creator" is "asleep".
- The primary transportation method - tachyon replicators
[Step into one, get scanned and out pops a duplicate
of you many light years away.]
- The concept of aliens "operating" "purchased people".
- The priority differences between races that operate as
"individuals" and races that operate as "collectives".
- The sociology of interactions between races of many kinds.
Probably none of this is new to old SF hands. I thought
it was both educational and entertaining from the perspectives
we have regarding M-Brains, uploading, personal identity,
self-editing, limits to intelligence, etc. I recomend it to
people who want to expand their collection of ideas on these
subjects.
The best part from my perspective were the internal self-conflicts
that arose when you were "beaming" yourself into situations that
were potentially dangerous ("... What risk? Its the *other* me that
might get killed..."; "... Sure, why not, I've only been killed 7
times already..."). The complications of copies of copies with
different time lines (some of whom were involved in romantic
liasons & forced separations) point out how complicated this
can get.
Powells (www.powells.com) has a couple of used copies for sale.
Robert
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