ZERO: A Moral Issue

JS Collyer, Zero (Nottingham, 2014).

The deal with Zero is: enjoy covert action and character interaction (we do) while absorbing the complicated background information as it is gradually revealed to us. This has to be a spoiler alert. If I am going to unravel this interesting futuristic scenario while still reading the book for the first time, then I will discuss details that others would prefer not to know until they have read the book to its conclusion. And I might get some of the details wrong but will then correct them later.

As far as I can discern so far:

there has been a "Whole World War" (p. 47) (thus, we might say, not a WWIII but a WWW);

there is an interplanetary civilization called the Orbit;

the Orbit defense/security/enforcement agency is called the Service;

the Service has Headquarters in Sydney and a Command Centre in space (this implies that the center of civilization moved to the Southern Hemisphere and/or off Earth after the WWW);

the Zero, ostensibly a "...a pirate ship..." (p. 47), is really a covert Service ship (does piracy work in space?);

Colonel Luscombe of the Service assigns the Zero to investigate "...Albion Integrated's revenue stream..." (p. 43) (will AI turn out to be run by an AI?);

the only way to access the relevant data is physically to burgle the AI command centre on Earth;

while doing this, the Zero commander casually kills an AI security guard.

Stop! Morality alert! Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys here? Is this "Service" really a Service or an instrument of oppression? That is all that I have got so far. Well, there has been a defeated Lunar Revolution as well but right now I am mainly concerned about the moral issue of our heroes (?) casually killing someone especially since they could presumably just have rendered the guy unconscious.

This has become my way of engaging with a text. It takes a while. But I get a lot more out of it than if I just read the text straight through.

ZERO II

JS Collyer, Zero (Nottingham, 2014).

I have developed the (bad?) habit of posting about a book while still reading it for the first time. Not only is this easy and enjoyable but it also means that, instead of reading an entire text, then writing a single review of it, I stay with the text for several posts, focus on details that might otherwise have been missed and ask questions that might be answered by further reading.

In Zero, what is the spaceships' means of propulsion? So far, the text has focused on space combat, criminal activity and undercover work, not (as yet) on explaining the hardware - but there is plenty of time for that.

Zero is not set tomorrow or the day after but further in the future. There has been time for:

artificial gravity;
cities with "spacescrapers" on the Moon;
a Lunar Revolution.

The tech includes "'...gravgen units.'" (pp. 30-31) Gravity generation? Are the ships propelled by artificially generated gravity fields? Further reading will tell.

ZERO: First Impressions

Star Trek, Blake's Seven and other popular sf series have familiarized us with combat spaceships and their crews. JS Collyer's Zero, Volume I of a series, clearly belongs to this sub-genre. Collyer's space-faring civilization seems to be interplanetary, not as yet interstellar. There is an armed force called simply "the Service," as in James Blish's "Beep"/The Quincunx Of Time.

An author of this kind of futuristic sf needs to describe a future society as if from experience. Thus, Poul Anderson gives us the impression that he is a veteran of faster than light interstellar combat. Robert Heinlein opened a novel with the line:

"If a man walks in dressed like a hick and acting as if he owned the place, he's a spaceman."
-Robert Heinlein, Double Star (New York, 1957), p. 5.

Collyer matches Anderson and Heinlein when, describing two members of the Zero crew, she writes:

"They walked with the wide gait of men used to space decks..."
-JS Collyer, Zero (Nottingham, 2014), p. 16.

Of course they did. We know how spacemen walk, don't we? At least for a moment we feel that we do. I have read only a few pages but must break off to go and watch Superman IV. Obviously, there will be more on Zero.

War World: The Burning Eye

War World, Vol I: The Burning Eye (New York, 1988), created by Jerry Pournelle, "A New Shared Universe," with the editorial assistance of John F Carr and Roland Green, published by Baen Books, dedicated to Jim Baen.

A map of the moon, Haven.

A Chronology from the Moon landing in 1969 to the Great Patriotic Wars, the End of the CoDominium and the Exodus of the Fleet in 2103.

A Table of Contents.

Prolog: "Discovery", unattributed, pp. 1-8.
"Haven": Description; Early History, unattributed, pp. 9-12.
A note on the Bureau of Relocation, unattributed, pp. 13-15.
Nine stories by different authors, each preceded by an unattributed note, the first being the one on BuReloc.
"Discovery," unattributed, pp. 361-362.
An unattributed note, pp. 363-366.

I will at least read the stories by Poul Anderson, SM Stirling and Harry Turtledove and the explanatory notes and check through the rest. I am reminded of Anderson's deposed psychotechnicians exiled on an outer moon in the Solar System.

More Martians And Invasions

The previous post traced a conceptual thread through Wells, Lewis and Anderson. We can also do this with Lewis, Bradbury and Heinlein. All three show immortal beings on Mars. In Lewis' Out Of The Silent Planet, Earthman travel to Mars with evil intent. In Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and Heinlein's Red Planet, human beings colonize Mars.

In Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, a man raised by Martians founds a Terrestrial religion whereas Lewis' Elwin Ransom returns from Mars and Venus to become the Pendragon of Logres and the spearhead of extraterrestrial intervention.

In Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, as in Nigel Kneale's Quatermass II, alien invasion involves mental control whereas, in Jack Finney's Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, it involves body duplication and, in Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's Footfall, it involves asteroid stikes.

In Olaf Stapledon's Last And First Men, Martians invade Earth and Terrestrials invade Venus and Neptune. In Sleeping Planet by William Burkett, extrasolars invade Earth but are soon defeated whereas, in the Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher, extrasolar invaders have ruled Earth for generations but are eventually overthrown.

And I think that Clifford Simak has some alien invasions?

Through Space With HG Wells And His Successors

In The War Of The Worlds by HG Wells, Martians invade Earth and Venus.

In Star-Begotten by Wells, Planetarium Club members discuss cosmic rays and Martians before one of their number summarizes and criticizes The War Of The Worlds, mistakenly attributing it to "'...Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, one of those fellows...'" (New York, 1975, p. 48), then proposes instead Martianization of human beings by cosmic rays.

In the Ransom Trilogy by CS Lewis, a scientist visits Mars and Venus, in the latter case as the spearhead of a planned demonic invasion. Lewis parenthetically comments that "...Mr Wells' Martians [are] very unlike the real Malacandrians..." (Voyage to Venus, London, 1978, p. 7).

In The War Of Two Worlds by Poul Anderson, Martians militarily conquer Earth but are being covertly manipulated by extrasolars.

In "Soldier From The Stars" by Anderson, humanoid extrasolars conquer Earth economically by selling their superior military services to the highest bidder among Terrestrial governments.

Later, I will add a few more alien invasions but I think that this is a neat progression through Wells, Lewis and Anderson. See here.

Nuclear Warfare In Science Fiction

 Novels involving nuclear warfare:

The World Set Free by HG Wells;
On The Beach by Nevil Shute;
Ape And Essence by Aldous Huxley;
Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury;
Twilight World by Poul Anderson (see here).

In CS Lewis' The Hideous Strength, first published in 1945, World Wars I and II "'...were simply the first two of the sixteen major wars which are scheduled to take place in this century.'"
-Lewis, That Hideous Strength (London, 1955), p. 157.

Robert Heinlein predicted "Mutual Assured Destruction" in "Solution Unsatisfactory" and described free men continuing to fight after a nuclear war in "Free Men."

In Isaac Asimov's future history, a far future radioactive Earth probably resulted from a near future nuclear war - although Asimov revised the history later.

In James Blish's A Case Of Conscience, populations wind up living underground in permanent city-sized nuclear air raid "Shelters," even though nuclear war is avoided.

In Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium future history, the Great Patriotic Wars of 2103 end the CoDominium and are followed by the Exodus of the Fleet so they sound like a delayed World War III.

In SM Stirling's Draka timeline, the three major wars of the twentieth century are not numbered but named - the Great War, the Eurasian War and the Final War.

Harry Turtledove describes Anson MacDonald (Robert Heinlein) fighting on after Stirling's Final War.

In Alan Moore's V For Vendetta, "England prevails" under fascist rule after opting out of a nuclear exchange whereas, in the same author's Watchmen, a faked inter-dimensional invasion prevents a nuclear war.