The Freeze Frame Revolution, by Peter Watts

The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Well...of the other stories in the Sunflower Cycle I have only read The Island, and I don't remember it well, and also I have not decoded the red letters in the book. With those caveats, I have to say that I liked the story a lot and can highly recommend it. Watts' very intellectualized and engaged pessimism about human nature leads him to write interestingly layered plots and characters. The plot itself reminds me of another book featuring a rebellion across time--I thought it was Vernor Vinge's A Deepness In the Sky but I can't confirm it. Sunday as a heroine struck me as very brave and real. It's a fine and satisfying read on its own--probably would feel more complete if I read it in with the others in the series.



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The Things, by Peter Watts

SF gets a fair bit of mileage from revisiting a classic and telling it from a different point of view.  Peter Watts does this brilliantly in The Things.  It's a retelling of John W. Campbell's Who Goes There?, told from the point of view of the alien taking over the bodies.  In the story it was easy to believe in the mindless evil of the assimilator, a story told many times over in SF.  But assimilators can have their own point of view--in this case the Things have accumulated the wisdom of the universe, and are wanting to add to the store, improving Man in the process.  We might not want it to happen, but the creature certainly believes it is doing good.  Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series has a similar point of view.  This has to be the short story front runner for Hugo 2011.  4 stars

The Island, by Peter Watts

The Island by Peter Watts, a Hugo finalist, tells a really interesting story about a deep time colonization project. Peter Watts specializes in horror, so of course this has a dark turn. The human crew are creating colonization star gates for a completely post-human humanity. They live in tension with the AI guiding the ship. The protagonist has to work and contend with a human co-opted by the AI--her son. They encounter a large distributed intelligence encompassing a star. Their gate will destroy some part of it. Which part?

These kinds of stories aren't too common, but they are some of my favorites. I give this one 3 stars.