Orbital Decay, Allen Steele
Mar. 28th, 2016 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSo, I finished reading the book.
*blinks*
Okay, so, it turns out that the way it writes about women is among the least of this book's problems.
And I say that about a book where every single woman exists only to get laid, do her job poorly, maybe suffer or die. The author and I have very different ideas about what motivates actual human women. (At one point one guy get laid - no, actually, starts a lasting relationship - by telling a story about shagging an ugly hooker and failing to be a drug dealer.) (This is flirtation.) (WTF?)
This is pushed down the problem stack because the author and I have very different ideas about how any human people work.
I mean, granted, he was writing about a bunch of ways of going crazy in space, but I didn't find them particularly compelling to read about, and the crazy wasn't where the plausibility really fell down.
See it turns out that the Big Bad of the book is the NSA.
It turns out - and you will be shocked - the NSA are planning to listen to our phones.
... that's it. That's all. That's the insult to freedom that cannot be borne.
I think it's fair to say that the context of the reader is rather different than the one assumed by the writer.
Which is doubly funny when I realised the book, written in 1989, is actually set in 2016.
So, the NSA are planning to listen to all communication in the world. They can do this because for the first time there are communications satellites so all the tens of thousands (yes tens) of phone calls in the world are going to route through twenty (20) communications satellites that will all talk to one (1) computer module.
The NSA's secret plan is discovered by a secret society of environmentalists, founded by hippies who refused to fade away. They infiltrate the space station by sending weed. Their secret agent is hydroponics specialist who figures out how to grow weed in secret in a space station of 130 people. He uses it to discover who is trustworthy and then enlists them in his cunning plan to strike a blow for freedom.
This involves the science fiction writer protagonist hacking secret NSA files. With two commands and a password. A password that is the NSA agent's last name.
... I know hacking in books is always awful and always out of date, but really?
He then writes a virus that will be beamed into the NSA and overwrite all their computers and trash their space hardware.
Because you can do that without knowing their code.
And the NSA would not have thought of it or had any counter measures in place.
... there's leaving room for the difficulties of predicting future technology, and there's this. Epic fail of my suspension of disbelief.
Funny, though, from some angles.
The plan goes to hell, though, because they are a bunch of stoner idiots.
I don't think we're meant to think they're idiots. There's this big speech about how the true pioneers are always the outcasts and that means they're... super special? ... I don't know, blah blah, America, wild west?
the argument didn't make much sense to me. sounded like they were saying civilisation is built by the drug dealer fuckups. er, no?
But the bad guy had a speech about how space is really for the master race, so I think the group repeatedly described as regular blue collar workers are meant to be, you know, heroes, somehow. Even with the drugs, drug dealing, and murder.
I mean the guy who destroys the module in what everyone else thinks is a heroic sacrifice gets to live and walk away, finally letting go of the depression about his ex-wife.
The thing where it's depression about murdering his ex-wife would be sufficient in itself to get me to nope this book, and yet it's mostly just the cherry on the shit cake. It was pretty clear all along that he'd killed her, I was only vaguely hanging around to see if it was an accident or on purpose. Turns out to be an unplanned bit of violence because she laughed at him. Very unpleasant.
If the point of the book is that humanity is kind of shitty and there will be arseholes wherever we go, well, point made.
If it actually believed its own rhetoric about the outcast pioneer heroes... *shudder blergh*
I am not even slightly tempted to seek out further works by this author.
*blinks*
Okay, so, it turns out that the way it writes about women is among the least of this book's problems.
And I say that about a book where every single woman exists only to get laid, do her job poorly, maybe suffer or die. The author and I have very different ideas about what motivates actual human women. (At one point one guy get laid - no, actually, starts a lasting relationship - by telling a story about shagging an ugly hooker and failing to be a drug dealer.) (This is flirtation.) (WTF?)
This is pushed down the problem stack because the author and I have very different ideas about how any human people work.
I mean, granted, he was writing about a bunch of ways of going crazy in space, but I didn't find them particularly compelling to read about, and the crazy wasn't where the plausibility really fell down.
See it turns out that the Big Bad of the book is the NSA.
It turns out - and you will be shocked - the NSA are planning to listen to our phones.
... that's it. That's all. That's the insult to freedom that cannot be borne.
I think it's fair to say that the context of the reader is rather different than the one assumed by the writer.
Which is doubly funny when I realised the book, written in 1989, is actually set in 2016.
So, the NSA are planning to listen to all communication in the world. They can do this because for the first time there are communications satellites so all the tens of thousands (yes tens) of phone calls in the world are going to route through twenty (20) communications satellites that will all talk to one (1) computer module.
The NSA's secret plan is discovered by a secret society of environmentalists, founded by hippies who refused to fade away. They infiltrate the space station by sending weed. Their secret agent is hydroponics specialist who figures out how to grow weed in secret in a space station of 130 people. He uses it to discover who is trustworthy and then enlists them in his cunning plan to strike a blow for freedom.
This involves the science fiction writer protagonist hacking secret NSA files. With two commands and a password. A password that is the NSA agent's last name.
... I know hacking in books is always awful and always out of date, but really?
He then writes a virus that will be beamed into the NSA and overwrite all their computers and trash their space hardware.
Because you can do that without knowing their code.
And the NSA would not have thought of it or had any counter measures in place.
... there's leaving room for the difficulties of predicting future technology, and there's this. Epic fail of my suspension of disbelief.
Funny, though, from some angles.
The plan goes to hell, though, because they are a bunch of stoner idiots.
I don't think we're meant to think they're idiots. There's this big speech about how the true pioneers are always the outcasts and that means they're... super special? ... I don't know, blah blah, America, wild west?
the argument didn't make much sense to me. sounded like they were saying civilisation is built by the drug dealer fuckups. er, no?
But the bad guy had a speech about how space is really for the master race, so I think the group repeatedly described as regular blue collar workers are meant to be, you know, heroes, somehow. Even with the drugs, drug dealing, and murder.
I mean the guy who destroys the module in what everyone else thinks is a heroic sacrifice gets to live and walk away, finally letting go of the depression about his ex-wife.
The thing where it's depression about murdering his ex-wife would be sufficient in itself to get me to nope this book, and yet it's mostly just the cherry on the shit cake. It was pretty clear all along that he'd killed her, I was only vaguely hanging around to see if it was an accident or on purpose. Turns out to be an unplanned bit of violence because she laughed at him. Very unpleasant.
If the point of the book is that humanity is kind of shitty and there will be arseholes wherever we go, well, point made.
If it actually believed its own rhetoric about the outcast pioneer heroes... *shudder blergh*
I am not even slightly tempted to seek out further works by this author.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-29 07:51 am (UTC)