Proximal Eye – Page 5 – Mark W Tiedemann

Anaximander and the Birth Of Now

October 20, 2023 No Comments

I intend to harp on one of my pet themes/issues, all the guise of reviewing a book. Carlo Rovelli has in the last several years become one of my favorite writers on science. He not only has a keen sense of how to explain, he is gifted with excellent translators, as his first language is Italian. He is a theoretical physicist, specializing in quantum gravity, which he explicated marvelously well in his book Reality Is Not What It Seems. He came on the popular science scene with a short book remarkable in its concision and depth, Seven Brief Lessons On Physics, and has since cast his gaze widely and effectively. His most recent work is Anaximander and the Birth of Science. It is ostensibly a history, tracing the growth of this tool we have that has simultaneously given us so much and yet shaken our confidence in ourselves. Anaximander of Miletus, along with Thales, is credited with positing the first observational shift in

The Prosthetics of liberation

September 3, 2023 No Comments

Given the recent increase in media attention to strong AI, the serendipity of two novels (among others) appearing that deal directly with the consequences of it provides an opportunity to reminisce on the treatment of artificial intelligence in science fiction. But only, for our purposes, as background to examination of those two novels, which take very different tacks in portraying the problem even while sharing certain commonalities. Both are near-future. The first is set a definite century hence. The secondwe aren’t sure, but some time in the next ten to fifty years. S.B. Divya’s Machinehood is a thriller. We have a clear set of antagonisms, commercial and political tensions, and a messianic movement to change human society. Enter the omnicompetent hero who will ascend the slopes of adversity to bring resolution and justice to for the threatened world. In the end, the threat is presumably neutralized and the world can go on as it has. If this were a standard-issue

The Tangled Paths Of History

June 27, 2023 No Comments

I have made no secret over the years of my personal dislikes. Certain tropes in fiction usually fail to engage my interest and in some instances actively dissuade me from reading. Zombies are the top of my list—automatic non-starter—with vampires a close second. I’m not entirely sure why. Originally I avoided them because they were mainstays of horror and I am not a fan, but there have been many uses of them in science fiction and fantasy and I still find them, at best, a waste of good story potential and, at worst, a kind of pollutant to what might otherwise be a good story. I’m not, as I say, sure why, but since there is so much in the world that does not deal with zombies and vampires that I do enjoy, the puzzle is not important enough for me to fully explore. Too often I think they are cheats, the primary one being that they attempt to set

Languages Of Family

May 25, 2023 No Comments

Ann Leckie’s Raadch Universe is one of the most useful conceits in recent science fiction. Not that there aren’t plenty of background templates to choose from—Iain M. Banks’ Culture, C.J. Cherryh’s Alliance//Union, Martha Wells’ Murderbot universe—but Leckie’s stands out in the way the separate polities interpenetrate and shift and establish themselves based on the intrinsic diversities each entity exhibits. There are nonhumans—the Geck, the Rrrrrr, the Presger—and human and parahuman, and they all, even among themselves, have distinct modes of expression and subsequently unique interests. Translation State is her fifth entry in what has been thus far a consistently fascinating foray into interstellar…well, it’s all there: war, politics, philosophy, sociology. But for me the stand-out interest has been from the beginning personal identity. In this new novel, it is everything. Leckie is exploring what it means to express autonomy and possess agency. Enae is facing life outside the home she has always known. Maman has died, the family is gathering

Yes and the Negativity of missing the point

April 30, 2023 No Comments

As I sit here writing I am listening to Close To The Edge by YES. Those who know me know that this is my band. The way the Beatles made a profound and indelible impression on some people way back when they were still around, YES did so for me. And as time has gone on I have found them to be a source of ever-wonderous musical pleasure. They produced music that at the time fit no category and did things no other musical group was doing. The same could be said of any number of other groups of the Sixties and Seventies, but they likewise all stood apart in their own ways. Nevertheless, most of them, even the seriously unique examples, could be said to share with other groups certain aspects. With the release of Fragile and then Close To The Edge and then a couple of years later Tales From Topographic Oceans, I can think of no other

Ruin, Blood, Iron, and Context

March 23, 2023 No Comments

It has been some time since I read a comprehensive history of World War II. Richard Overy’s Blood and Ruins is subtitled The Last Imperial War and so it is an examination of the war as the last blatant excess of imperialism. At least, in the traditional sense of the term, as an open and unapologetic expression of the prejudice of the so-called Great Powers to hold, maintain, or create vast colonial empires. One can argue that we still live in an imperial age, but not in the same way and certainly not as a condition sustainable in any meaningful way. What we have now is a state of economic imperialism that on the national level constantly fragments, reorganizes, and coalesces around stated anti-colonial principles. Again, one can argue about the successes or failures of this, but it is a different kind of thing than the Empires of the 18th and 19th Centuries, which, according to Overy, collapsed with WWII.

Reformed Colonizing

February 22, 2023 No Comments

In some form or another, the idea of terraforming has run through science fiction for decades. The term was coined by Jack Williamson back in his 1942 story Collision Orbit, which involved the hammerblow of an asteroid impact. Gradually the idea seeped into the general body of science fiction as the problem of actually stumbling on a habitable world to settle became apparent and more intrusive measures were proposed. By the late 1980s it had blossomed into an accepted practice. Most of the early examples dealt with Mars. The fascination with colonizing the Red Planet had always been there. After the hoped-for suitability of Mars was thoroughly dashed by actual probes, other solutions informed new stories. The difficulties are nicely laid out in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy. The sheer expense of the endeavor rose to daunting prominence. More solutions came to the fore. Nanobots, microfauna, slamming a planet with iceballs (comets). Proposals from the other end of the problem

2022

January 18, 2023 No Comments

I have been remiss in not doing these annual reviews more regularly. I have no excuse. Other words get in the way sometimes. But this, one year into my “official” retirement, I have no excuse not to do. So. I read, cover-to-cover, 89 books in 2022. Compared to 48 in 2021. I try to make it through 70 to 80 a year, but some yearswell. A handful in ’21 were doorstops, but really, I have no excuse for not getting through the nearly 100 books I read only partly. Of the 89 this past year, 40 were some species of science fiction. That’s up in percentage from the past few years. A handful were rereads, like Samuel R. Delany’s Tales of Neveryon, Heinlein’s Space Cadet, Laumer and Dickson’s Planet Run, Greg Bear’s Heads. As I’ve noted before, I rarely reread. I read slowly, compared to some, and I have too many books on my TBR pile to choose to go

Mark W. Tiedemann

Author. Blogger. Photographer.

The Proximal Eye