Factoring Humanity
Jan. 11th, 2004 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
herewiss13SPOILERS TO MANY BOOKS
There is an odd sameness to many of Robert Sawyer's books. A Canadian Scientist of some sort is confronted with personal trauma (rape, cancer, death of parent, etc.) and then comes in contact with two (not one, but two) different scientific breakthroughs/insights which generally colide. One of those is quite often quantum mechanics and its applications in re: computing and parallel universes.
In Homonids you have parallel worlds and Neaderthal society, where the main geneticist (Canadian) is raped just before she meets a man who isn't a "Man".
In Calculating God you have aliens and mass extinction where the main paleontologist (Canadian) is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
In End of an Era you have time travel and Martians with the protagonist (Canadian) having a dying father.
There are others. 'Illegal Alien' and 'Frameshift' come to mind, but I can't recall the plot details clearly enough to say for certain.
But in 'Factoring Humanity', the formula achieves its zenith. The main character, a (Canadian)researcher in quantum computing and AI development has just been accused by his daughter of having molested her as a child. His wife is a psychologist attempting to decipher a large and enigmatic alien radio message. The ultimate result of the decrypted message juxtaposes with the quantum nature of conciousness to produce a really neat resulting view of humanity. A view which, coincidentally, allows the (innocent) researcher to vindicate himself to his wife and daughter (who's suffering from False Memory Syndrome).
In that one book, after several attempts, Sawyer got the formula right. Unfortunately, he's kept trying afterwards with less success. Idea-wise Sawyer's books are top-notch and thought provoking. Unfortunately the emotional plot and the idea/technology plot often seem unrelated and pasted together (after reading a few they also seem extremely formulaic, but that's another matter.). The trauma inflicted on the protagonist doesn't seem natural so much as foisted upon them so that they're interesting. 'Factoring Humanity' is the one book where the emotional informs the technical, and vice versa. Much more unified and quite a bit more satisfying.
There is an odd sameness to many of Robert Sawyer's books. A Canadian Scientist of some sort is confronted with personal trauma (rape, cancer, death of parent, etc.) and then comes in contact with two (not one, but two) different scientific breakthroughs/insights which generally colide. One of those is quite often quantum mechanics and its applications in re: computing and parallel universes.
In Homonids you have parallel worlds and Neaderthal society, where the main geneticist (Canadian) is raped just before she meets a man who isn't a "Man".
In Calculating God you have aliens and mass extinction where the main paleontologist (Canadian) is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
In End of an Era you have time travel and Martians with the protagonist (Canadian) having a dying father.
There are others. 'Illegal Alien' and 'Frameshift' come to mind, but I can't recall the plot details clearly enough to say for certain.
But in 'Factoring Humanity', the formula achieves its zenith. The main character, a (Canadian)researcher in quantum computing and AI development has just been accused by his daughter of having molested her as a child. His wife is a psychologist attempting to decipher a large and enigmatic alien radio message. The ultimate result of the decrypted message juxtaposes with the quantum nature of conciousness to produce a really neat resulting view of humanity. A view which, coincidentally, allows the (innocent) researcher to vindicate himself to his wife and daughter (who's suffering from False Memory Syndrome).
In that one book, after several attempts, Sawyer got the formula right. Unfortunately, he's kept trying afterwards with less success. Idea-wise Sawyer's books are top-notch and thought provoking. Unfortunately the emotional plot and the idea/technology plot often seem unrelated and pasted together (after reading a few they also seem extremely formulaic, but that's another matter.). The trauma inflicted on the protagonist doesn't seem natural so much as foisted upon them so that they're interesting. 'Factoring Humanity' is the one book where the emotional informs the technical, and vice versa. Much more unified and quite a bit more satisfying.
