Topic Actions

Topic Search

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests

Into the Light Snippet #13

Aliens? Invading aliens? What will Earth do? Well...we may have a few more resources than we first thought. Come join a friendly discussion about David Weber's newest Tor series - "Out of the Dark."
Re: Into the Light Snippet #13
Post by PeterZ   » Thu Aug 01, 2019 8:46 am

PeterZ
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 6432
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 1:11 pm
Location: Colorado

PeterZ wrote:The last Safehold novel wasn't dominated by economics? My point is that having another sort of story will be more interesting. Reading similar stories is less so.

Besides, this story has VAMPIRES. Why waste that novel element?
phillies wrote:
I think you didn't parse that last sentence of mine correctly. Or I was too obscure. Probably the latter. Or something. Search Mistress of the Waves on Amazon, though it may not be worth your time to do so, if you are curious what I was talking about. Otherwise, don't wirry about it, but I agree that the last Safehold novel was about economics.

I might try your book, George. Waiting for RFC's next novel appears to be a long proposition.
Top
Re: Into the Light Snippet #13
Post by Isilith   » Thu Oct 03, 2019 6:06 pm

Isilith
Captain (Junior Grade)

Posts: 310
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2015 11:58 am

phillies wrote:
Then there may come the point at which the President makes a big mistake, and realizes that if he were the Emperor of Earth no one would have done something different to make the mistake visible.



I keep wondering why no one remembers the title of the epilogue in "Out of the Dark". It was "Year 1 of the Terran Empire"
Top
Re: Into the Light Snippet #13
Post by Daryl   » Tue Oct 08, 2019 8:52 am

Daryl
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 3488
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2010 1:57 am
Location: Queensland Australia

Much of the criticism of the Puppies software reminds me of the history of Microsoft and Windows and their bloatware.
Windows 10 is a revelation, loading and switching off quickly.
I still have memories of Windows 98's blue screen of death telling me that I had performed an illegal act, when actually the situation was that its software had failed to run in my hardware.
Top
Re: Into the Light Snippet #13
Post by phillies   » Wed Oct 09, 2019 3:14 pm

phillies
Admiral

Posts: 2076
Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2010 9:43 am
Location: Worcester, MA

runsforcelery wrote:
feyhunde wrote:I'm just amused here as everything being discussed re: computers are common discussion topics on why doesn't the honorverse have X.



The Honorverse doesn't have self-aware AI for two reasons. One is that I had just finished two different novels, both of which had fully self-aware AIs in them, and I wanted something different. Same reason for the keyboards; both Mutineers' Moon and Path of the Fury had direct neural interfacing and I wanted something different for the Honorverse.

There's a heap of "expert programs" and "brilliant software" running in the Honorverse; it's usually just far enough in the background that it doesn't show, and the characters don't think about it a lot more than a 21st century American thinks about electricity. It's just there, doing it's job. You see some of it surfacing occasionally, usually when the AI is interfacing with a human character and usually in a civilian setting. Verbal commands are not used by the military for a lot of reasons, but the big one is that I've written using voice recognition software for 26 years, and in that time I have been greatly impressed by its ability to misunderstand me even under optimum audio conditions. I know perfectly well the Honorverse's tech could deal with that; it's just pissed me off enough upon occasion that I decided I wouldn't use it, so there, nyah-nyah! :lol:

And of course another reason is that I set the basic template for the Honorverse's tech 27 years ago. There's a limit to how far I can adjust some of the underlying assumptions without violating canon and continuity. I think that may be THE biggest single problem with writing a science-fiction series that runs as long as this one has.

In the case of these books, I'm starting much later (from the viewpoint of my own contemporary tech base); the gradient between the Good Guys' and Bad Guys' starting tech is much steeper' and a big part of the plot relies on the human need to overcome that gradient --- to reverse it, really --- absolutely ASAP. So we're looking at a society whose basic tech level and entire understanding of the laws of physics are in what might be called a state of whirlwind change. Which also changes what the characters are going to be talking about in the foreground. Unlike folks in the Honorverse, they haven't built their "baseline tech" yet, so they're going to be discussing it a lot more.


Set the baseline 27 years ago...?

Indeed, we are approximately the last generation of science fiction authors who can discuss the planetary systems of nearby stars by making them up. Soon we will be joining the honorable forebearers who write about the tropical swamps of Venus, because modern telescopes in orbit will tell us what they are like. And if we manage to live another 50 years, which we may, thanks to currently fringe medicine, we may not be able to reference the fictional first Alpha Centauri probe,because it is already there.
Top
Re: Into the Light Snippet #13
Post by isaac_newton   » Thu Oct 10, 2019 5:22 am

isaac_newton
Rear Admiral

Posts: 1182
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 6:37 am
Location: Brighton, UK

phillies wrote:SNIP

Indeed, we are approximately the last generation of science fiction authors who can discuss the planetary systems of nearby stars by making them up. Soon we will be joining the honorable forebearers who write about the tropical swamps of Venus, because modern telescopes in orbit will tell us what they are like. And if we manage to live another 50 years, which we may, thanks to currently fringe medicine, we may not be able to reference the fictional first Alpha Centauri probe,because it is already there.


Interesting point!

I have always really like C S Lewis 'Out of the Silent Planet' - especialy for the sense of what it might have been as an inhabitated planet - a world in its autumn - even though I knew that even when written it would have been known that Mars was airless and most everything else on the areogeology was inaccurate.

I have the feeling - though I could be wrong - that RFC used Bode's Law for his planetary spacing. I also believe that that seems to have been shown to not apply to many/most exo systems.
Still I guess that we can give RFC a pass on that :-)
Top

Return to Out of the Dark