The Wellstone by Wil McCarthy

I group of teenage boys at summer camp, feeling that their parents are never going to treat them like adults and are always going to hold them down make a break for it. They escape the camp, traveling quite a long way. Some of the boys fight with one another; others make up often obscene songs they all sing to pass the time. They have interesting adventures and meet some interesting characters. Sounds like a boys adventure book? Well, in this case, summer camp is on a small artificial planetoid in the Kuiper belt. The kids feel put down because they see that their immortal parents will never clear out of the way. They escape in a spaceship made from a log cabin and powered by a solar sail. Along the way, they encounter a group of stowaways on a huge barge harvesting material to create compressed matter. And, oh yes, the leader of the group is the son of the king and queen of the solar system.

There is a lot to like in Wil McCarthy’s rich and imaginative novel The Wellstone, a sequel of sorts to his Collapsium. In the earlier novel, Bruno de Towaji, favorite and sometime lover of the Queen, had saved the solar system. This book is set several hundred years later, when the heir, Bascal Edward de Towaji Lutui – sometimes brilliant, often bratty or obnoxious – has been sent to summer camp the Kuiper belt. There, he first leads an escape back to Earth – to Denver, one of earth’s cities that has a large population of children – to lead a riot. They are caught, but Bruno leads another escape, this time in a cobbled together space ship.

This is a novel filled with marvelous gadgets. “Faxes” act like both replicators and transporters. They can disassemble people, send the information anywhere at the speed of light, and reassemble them. They can repair what is wrong (which is why people are now immortal) and store backups. They can even make extra copies and then reassemble them and integrate their experiences of the copies so that the person has the memories and experiences of several versions of him/herself. I thought the latter was stretching it a bit, carrying the magic a bit too far, but it’s all great fun. Wellstone is the artificial material from which the fax gates can make other things. It is programmable matter, and thus matter programmers can turn it into other substances. Even smart teenagers – including several in our crew of camp escapees – can do so.

Most of the novel follows the small crew of boys – and one girl who tagged along with them as the travel from the Kuiper belt, toward a neutronium barge, which presumably will have fax gates back to earth. While there is some focus on the science fictional elements here, for much of the trip the focus is more on the dynamics of the situation, the hierarchies that develop, and how the various kids cope.

The main character – or at least the focal point character, and the one we most sympathize with – is Conrad Mursk. Conrad is a smart boy – at least in the subjects he likes – who has been sent to summer camp, like most of the other boys, for disciplinary reasons. While at times friends with Bascal, the boy prince, he, more than anyone, is both the voice of reason and the conscience of the crew (even though they – particularly Bascal – ignore him when they don’t like what he has to say). He is more staid, more restrained than the others, and more mature. He is also more likeable.

Bascal, on the other hand, while at times charming, is more often annoying than note. Convinced of the importance of his mission – to act as an example to help free the young people of the solar system – and of his right to rule, he is often callous and reckless. He uses people, often giving important positions to people simply for backing him (including the thuggish Ho, who acts as his enforcer for much of the novel). He’s believable in most ways, but not likeable.

While much of the book is quite good, there are aspects of it that I couldn’t believe or didn’t like. The biggest is something that he continues from Collapsium: the assertion that people really want a monarchy, that we are hard-wired to be happier when we have someone at the top taking responsibility. This is the case of the king and queen, and it is the case with Bascal. He at one point lectures Conrad on this topic, pointing out that he is likely to be right and be accepted because he was raised to be the eventual ruler. And in the end, everyone (including people who should not) except Conrad view him that way. But I don’t buy it. Some people perhaps want to live in a monarchy, but frankly history doesn’t back the sweeping generalization McCarthy makes for the book. Perhaps I’m particularly sensitive to this point because the other book I’m now reading is a long biography of Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson (and Adams, Madison, Franklin, etc.) certainly did not have some hereditary need for a monarch.

In a few places in the novel, he says that most people no longer exercise or even walk around. Several characters express astonishment that anyone would ever want to. Why bother when you can go through a fax and it can restore your body in tip-top shape? Again, I don’t buy this for most people. Sure, some people really don’t like to walk. But many people – me included – walk not only to try to keep somewhat fit but because we enjoy the activity. The good brisk walk is invigorating; it feels good. I can’t imagine people would give up such activities just because they no longer needed to do so to keep their bodies fit.

Beyond this, the novel’s biggest flaw is that McCarthy decided to use the first and last chapter as a framing story, set well in the future of the novel. The indication is that the future, in the aftermath of the novel’s true conclusion a chapter earlier, is not going to be what we might expect or hope. Clearly, he’s setting up another novel to explore this. But the frame isn’t needed for this, since what should have been the final chapter set up a sequel on its own. The frame is both a bit confusing as your read it, and is something you almost forget as you read the novel proper. It would have been a better novel without it.

Despite these misgivings, this was an enjoyable book. McCarthy’s future and the technology in it are fascinating, and the majority of the novel is well done. I note that there is a sequel, which I’ll have to look for.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

I first read Stranger in a Strange Land sometime in the early 1970s. At that point, I’d read perhaps a dozen of Heinlein’s novels and several collections of short stories, and was finally getting around to what was often billed as his major novel. I was looking forward to it, because at the time Heinlein was one of my favorite writers (his best works still rank high on my list). I came away disappointed. While the first half of the book was good, the second half (after Mike leaves Jubal) seemed to spin out of control. It was a half good (or half bad) novel, and certainly not Heinlein’s best (or even one of his half dozen or so best).

I’ve re-read a lot of Heinlein over the years. I greatly enjoy and have reread multiple times Citizen of the Galaxy, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, Double Star, The Star Beast, and a number of the short stories. I even re-read Time Enough for Love once; it’s a flawed, very overwritten novel, but there are several very good novellas buried in it. But I never re-read Stranger. But our local Barnes and Noble has an SF reading group, and Stranger is the novel for July, so I decided to re-read it. Besides, I thought, my tastes have changed a lot in 30+ years. I’ve read a lot of different kinds of things (ranging from more SF to Jane Austen to James Joyce to Leo Tolstoy), and I’ve like some things that I’ve reread far more than I liked them as a teenager, noticing more levels or appreciating that there is more to a book than an interesting plot.

Unfortunately, my opinion of Stranger hasn’t change. If anything, the second half bothered me more than it did all those years ago, and I think I can say more of why I didn’t like. I’m going to talk about that a bit here. This “review” really isn’t something that someone who hasn’t read the novel may relate too, since I presume some knowledge of the book on the part of the reader.

When I first read it, the point where I thought the novel went down hill was when Mike left Jubal. I felt that Jubal had kept things under control. That was part of it, but there is more to it than that. The big change actually happens about a chapter earlier. The Mike of the first half of the book is learning what it means to be human. He doesn’t understand much, and thus his views are an interesting glimpse at our customs from the outside. Mike in the second half has grown up, and now seems to understand everything. He is a less interesting character (and we actually see less of him), but more importantly his knowing everything makes the social commentary less pointed.

Moreover, the first part of the novel is structured around Mike’s coming to earth, his imprisonment, his escape, and the negotiations that essentially save him and establish his rights. There’s a lot of interesting story in the midst of the social commentary, and it’s only occasionally broken up by speeches by Jubal. The second half is drowned in the speech making. Everyone pontificates at great length. Nobody can have a simple conversation without it turning into a several-page-long lecture.

The novel as a whole but especially the second half is also a textbook example of one of Heinlein’s most annoying traits in some of his later books. The viewpoints of his main characters are right, by definition, no questions asked, and the events of the book are structured to show that they are right. Mike groks rightness and wrongness, and, by definition, he’s right. We aren’t supposed to question him, and neither are the other characters. He’s even right when he kills (transports into another dimension) a burglar in the church. After all, Mike knows he’s right so why should he, for example, simply transport the burglar, naked, outside (something he can do) rather than killing him? Mike doesn’t question it, and neither does anyone else. But of course, at this point everyone else – our main characters – have all learned Martian, and once you can think in Martian you know there is life after death, what’s right and what’s wrong, and so on. . Near the very end – before he discorporates – Mike murders (“discorporates,” to use his term) about 450 criminals. Again, since he is, by definition, right (and since he also knows that there is life after death), this is presented as being quite OK. Frankly, it made me more uncomfortable than most of the things Heinlein included to make his readers uncomfortable.

Mike’s superpowers are also too much. He can do anything. James Blish in his essay “Cathedrals in Space,” summed it up:

He can control his metabolism to the point where any outside observer can judge him to be dead; he can read minds; he is a telekinetic; he can throw objects (or people) permanently away into the fourth dimension by a pure effort of will, so easily that he uses the stunt often simply to undress; he practices astral projection as easily as he undresses, on one occasion leaving his body on the bottom of a swimming pool while he disposes of about thirty-five cops and almost as many heavily armored helicopters; he can heal his own wounds almost instantly; he can mentally analyze inanimate matter, well enough to know instantly that a corpse he has just encountered died by poisoning years ago; levitation, crepitation, intermittent claudication, you name it, he’s got it—and besides, he’s awfully good in bed.

Near the books end, it’s even noted that he could destroy the planet if he wanted to. It’s all too much, and we’re supposed to take it all as a given (or as a result of being able to think in Martian).

There are good things here. There is good social satire – both biting and at times funny. Some of the sidetracks and speeches are interesting in their own right. I’ve always enjoyed Jubal’s sidetrack on Rodin and representational art. But these good moments do not a good book make. I really wanted to like this book more this time than last. I really went into hoping that my broadened tastes would let me appreciate it. But, I’m sorry. I can’t. This is a flawed book, and in the end its flaws overwhelm it.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

One a panel at a convention a while back, Patrick Nielsen Hayden talked about the difference between “plot” and “story.” I won’t try to give his denition here – this was a while ago and I don’t remember all the details – but instead give my approximation. Plot is the structured storyline, leading to a definition end, and often having a form that English teachers like to draw in class. Story is all the incidents that happen. Some very good novels – Don Quixote comes to mind – have very little plot but lots of story. Patrick Rothfuss’s first novel, The Name of the Wind, is likewise full of story, but with little structured plot.

The story is told as a story within a story. Kvothe, pronounced like “quothe,” somewhat of a legendary character (perhaps a hero, perhaps not), has retired and is now living in hiding as an innkeeper. Only he and his servant Bast know who he is. But he’s tracked down by a traveling scribe who wants to know his story. Kvothe promises to tell him his story over several days. The Name of the Wind (subtitled The Kingkiller Chronicles: Day One) comprises the first day of Kvothe’s storytelling.

Kvothe starts the story with his childhood. As a young boy, he had been part of a wandering group of entertainers. He had a tutor who taught him, among other things, artificing (essentially magic). His father is a singer. One day, when Kvothe comes home from wandering in the woods, he finds that his whole troupe has been slaughtered. The Chandrian, a fairy folk, have killed everyone, apparently because a song his father had been writing told of them. This event becomes the driving motivation in Kvothe’s life.

The young Kvothe finds his way to the nearest large city, where, homeless, he lives by his wits (and petty theft). Yet his aim is to make his way to the university, to get access to the great library, and learn more about the Chandrian. Eventually, he makes his way there, and using courage, bravado, and some keen thinking not only passes the entrance interview but convinces the faculty to charge him a negative tuition for the first term.

He becomes a very good student, though he makes enemies of some of the faculty – and of one of the rich kids on campus. But behind everything is his desire to learn more about the Chandrian. And he does get one more shot before this volume ends.

Weaved throughout the story is his romantic attraction for the beautiful, smart, but flighty Denna (though at times she calls herself several variants of this). He first encountered her on his carriage trip as he headed for university, but he finds her again several times later, and their stories become intertwined. They become close – or as close as she will allow anyone to get to her. There is more here, perhaps, to be told in the next book.

Also weaved throughout the story of Kvothe’s life is music. He learned early to play the lute, and when his parents died, he taught himself to do amazing things with it. His love of music is perhaps the only thing in his life that drives him as much as his desire to learn more about the Chandrian. His ability as a player and his public performances also are important at key elements at major points in the novel.

One strength of The Name of the Wind is that the magic feels real. It’s consistent and it has a cost. There is a low of conservation of energy at work: to heat something up by sympathetic magic requires heat to be drawn from somewhere else. An unwary artificer who tries to draw too much heat from himself rather than an external heat source can cause his body temperature to drop, perhaps fatally. Kvothe makes a mistake early on, and it nearly kills him. Contrast this, say, with the Harry Potter universe, where magic is everywhere, and is used for the most trivial things (e.g., washing dishes) with no real drain on the practitioners. Moreover, in the Potter universe, magic doesn’t seem to have a consistent, defined basis. Rowling invents new things as her plots require them. This makes for an interesting, inventive universe, but one that doesn’t quite feel real. Rothfuss’s universe does feel real, and the magic seems to be bound by a set of rules (and is not overused).

Likewise, the non-magical parts of Rothfuss’s world are well constructed. The city and its underbelly where Kvothe lives on the street are very real, as is the university. At school, students don’t just study artificing, but basic subjects one would expect in school. (By contrast, one wonders how Harry Potter and friends ever learn basic arithmetic, geography, etc. – or even how the muggle world works – when all they ever study are potions, defense against the dark arts, etc.) [A side note: Don’t let my nit-picking about a few things in the Potter universe lead you to believe I don’t like Rowling’s books. I do; all are fun, and a couple are major fantasy novels. But they are not without their flaws.]

The characters – especially Kvothe, who we learn a lot about – are well drawn also, though both Kvothe and Bast still have mysteries behind them that we’ll need to wait for later books to resolve. Kvothe seems very human and very (at risk of overusing this word) real – something that’s very important in a fantasy novel, where we need grounding in reality if we are going to accept the fantastic.

After finishing this review, I looked for other reviews of the novel. I found a number of positive ones, but one I particularly liked was in Strange Horizons by Hannah Storm-Martin (http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2007/06/the_name_of_the.shtml). She calls The Name of the Wind, the David Copperfield of fantasy. I thought that comparison summed up so much about the book that I borrow it here. There are many aspects about the plot, the characters, and even the style that are a bit Dickensian that I thought this a very apt observation. My earlier comment about “plot” vs. “story” also applies here. While some Dickens novels had plot, plot was often overwhelmed by story, and David Copperfield is a good example of that.

I look forward to the next installment, hoping that it can live up to the promise of the first.