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Dreaming Metal
Are the dreams of metal different from those of flesh?
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Dreaming Metal
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By Melissa Scott
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Tor Books
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$22.95
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Hardcover, July 1997
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ISBN 0-312-85876-0
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Review by Susan Dunman
 elinde Fortune is a conjurer who thrills audiences on her home planet of Persephone with spectacular illusions and sleight-of-hand trickery. Celinde's magic act features life-size karakuri, a type of robot puppet controlled by electronic transmission beams rather than string or wire. The show is one of the main attractions of Tin Hau, an entertainment complex appealing to both coolie and yanqui segments of the population. Coolies are contract laborers shipped to Persephone to fill jobs requiring unskilled workers. Yanquis, on the other hand, are highly skilled Cartel employees who enjoy high wages and full company benefits unavailable to coolies.
Of growing concern to coolie and yanqui alike is the controversial issue of machine rights. On a planet where powerful computers have reached a level of sophistication approaching artificial intelligence, what happens when true AI is achieved? Should machines with intelligence and technical expertise be accorded rights similar to those of human workers? Opinions soon polarize into opposing political groups, with Dreampeace advocating machine rights while Realpeace champions recognition of coolie human rights.
Tensions come to a head when Micki Tantai, lead sign dancer and main face for a popular musical group, is gunned down by Realpeace assailants. Crowd unrest forces the temporary closure of Tin Hau, which gives Celinde time to improve her magic show. Her decision to add two new karakuri requires additional computing capacity, so she combines two powerful computer programs to choreograph the robot troupe. The resulting computer construct will definitely produce one heck of a magic show -- and it may be able to do a whole lot more.
Sociology 101 meets applied computer science
In her latest novel, Melissa Scott returns to the environs of one of her earlier books, Dreamships. It's not necessary to have read the first work to enjoy this second visit to Persephone, a rather desolate world where most of the action takes place in the underground capital city of Landage. Scott uses the closed culture of this planet to effectively examine themes of class struggle, artificial intelligence and societal evolution.
The social milieu of Persephone is revealed by subtle clues which pop up throughout the narrative. Because readers need an accumulation of these information nuggets to figure out what is happening, the first few chapters can be slow going. Fortunately, perseverance is rewarded as Scott demonstrates remarkable skill in mixing sociology with technology to create entertaining (and sometimes depressing) visions of the future. Her speculations about trends in the media, music and communications are a treat to read. The far future may be more technologically advanced, but the basic human desire to overcome class and economic barriers for a better chance in life is timeless.
The novel unfolds from the points-of-view of three characters -- the magician Celinde, a veteran spaceship pilot named Reverdy Jian, and Fanning Jones, member of the up-and-coming fusion band Fire/Work. Individual stories begin to dovetail nicely as the book progresses, and the resulting cohesiveness offsets a weakness in character development caused by the multiple points of view. And in the final analysis, the most interesting person in the story isn't a person at all.
An uneven start is followed by one of the best endings I've read in a long time. -- Susan
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Alpha Centauri
Lust in space
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Alpha Centauri
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By William Barton and Michael Capobianco
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Avon Books
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$13.00 Trade Paperback/$23.00 Hardcover
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July 1997
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ISBN: 0-380-79282-6 (Trade)
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ISBN: 0-380-97511-4 (Hardcover)
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Review by Curt Wohleber
 he starship Mother Night has more problems than the Mir space station. After 14 years in suspended animation, the crew awakes to find they are on a one-way journey. The ship, damaged in transit, will not be able to return to Earth. Hopes of rescue grow dim when their survey of the Alpha Centauri system, Earth's nearest stellar neighbor, finds no planets worth colonizing. They are on their own.
As if Captain Virginia Vonzell didn't have enough to worry about, it turns out that not one but two of her crew members are Not Who They Seem to Be. One is a government agent with a mysterious agenda. Another, scientist Mies Cochrane, belongs to an organization dedicated to population control via secretly sterilizing 90 percent of the human race. Programmed to be the ultimate seduction machine, Mies systematically infects female crew members with fertility-destroying "autoviroids." Only the captain can resist his wiles. Raised by a religious cult (based in Antarctica!) and subject to years of ritual sexual abuse, the traumatized Virginia is the one woman on board who is immune to Mies Cochrane's advances.
Despite enough sexual shenanigans to propel several seasons of Melrose Place, the crew does manage to get some work done. The dead worlds of Alpha Centauri harbor remnants of three distinct alien civilizations. And a device called a "synchronoptic analysis engine" enables the crew to peer far back in time and catch tantalizing, imperfect glimpses of live aliens. Exploring several of Alpha Centauri's major planets, the crew gradually pieces together clues about the aliens' culture, technology and their ultimate disappearance.
In space, no one can hear you have a nervous breakdown
A lot of so-called "hard science fiction" focuses on Big Ideas and cool hardware while paying scant attention to fashioning interesting, three-dimensional characters. In Alpha Centauri, co-authors Barton and Capobianco have created an unusual mix of hard science and complex, tormented characters. It reads like an unholy collaboration between Larry Niven and David Lynch. The treacherous Mies Cochrane gradually falls apart as his synthetic personality disintegrates and his true self begins to emerge. The sexually troubled Captain Vonzell carries on affairs with both a hermaphrodite crew member and the ship's asexual physician.
Just about all the travelers have managed to bring along more than their quota of emotional baggage. While many space adventures suffer from bland, too-perfect heroes, Alpha Centauri perhaps dwells too much on the worst in people and not enough on people's capacity for unalloyed compassion, courage and self-sacrifice. The authors' pessimism extends to their treatment of the vanished aliens. A fascinating mystery unfolds, but the bleak resolution is both anticlimactic and unconvincing.
That said, Alpha Centauri is still a rich and absorbing odyssey through both deep space and the dark territories of the human heart. It's jam-packed with strange vistas, intriguing ideas and stylish writing, and the authors have left the door wide open for a sequel (the ship's robot never even comes out of storage). Perhaps the crew of the Mother Night will encounter more new worlds and civilizations and, with luck, a good psychotherapist.
I couldn't put this book down. I'm still not sure what
an "eyebubble" is, though I think I might like to have one. -- Curt
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