The Sword and Laser discussion

This month's pick is An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon, but I totally dropped the ball on the announcement thread.

I didn't want to create it too early in February so of course I just forgot to create it at all. Oops.

I'm about 1/3 of the way through. Rough topics, but very well told (and narrated).

I loved the worldbuilding in this book. The dialect differences, the folk tales, the different gender expressions. It's a difficult read, but really neat.

I enjoyed it far more than expected, but I figure I'll give others time to dig in before talking about it too much on the forums.

So I read this = "Aster lives in the low-deck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South."

And immediately reacted with "Uh, I'm going to have a hard time suspending disbelief..." because frankly I find the idea of a society that's capable of launching a starship also launching one that's modeled after the antebellum South... unlikely. Even more so that such a society would be stable enough to survive for generations in a starship.

So, folks... how well is this idea sold? Or is it just 'the way it is' without explanation?

Rick wrote: "So I read this = "Aster lives in the low-deck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South."

And immediately reacted with "Uh, I'm going to have a hard time su..."

Coming from someone without much knowledge about slavery in America, I didn't find the setting to be overbearing or unrealistic. The book does a good job explaining the setting and at least some of the motivations and at least for me, it made a lot of sense that humans would create a world like that. Plus the setting isn't the (sole) point of the book; its something the characters have to deal with while they do other things.

If it helps sell it to you, I ended up reading this book in 2 days because I couldn't put it down.

Hmm. thanks. The antebellum south was cruel, repressive and based on backward thinking and racism. I guess I have a hard time reconciling a society like that with one that could also build a starship and I'm... unconvinced that it would be stable enough to last for generations in the fragile ecosystem of a generation ship.

Rick wrote: "Hmm. thanks. The antebellum south was cruel, repressive and based on backward thinking and racism. I guess I have a hard time reconciling a society like that with one that could also build a starship and I'm... unconvinced that it would be stable enough to last for generations in the fragile ecosystem of a generation ship"

I read the book last month and this was pretty much my problem with the setting. I don't know much about the antebellum south so if people tell me the portrayal of that part was convincing I'm going to take their word for it. However, I felt that the generation-ship aspect wasn't really well explored and left many questions for me (mostly about how this ship actually works and how this society could remain stable for as long as it apparently does). It's not that a technically advanced society wouldn't conceivably be cruel and exploitative, but I think the generation ship setting should have some sort of impact on the society that lives on it and it really didn't.

I still would mostly recommend the book though since I liked the characters and the writing.

Anyone else reading this in audiobook format? I’m about a quarter of the way through and I think the narrator (Cherise Booth, who I haven’t encountered before) is doing a good job so far.

The setting is certainly interesting and tbh I don’t find it that much of a suspension of disbelief to imagine a space-faring society degenerating into an autocratic slave-based system over time because of the need to keep order on board the ship and keep the food production (and the baby sun) going, even if people wouldn’t willingly take on those hard/dangerous jobs.

The actual story is intriguing, with the mysterious mother’s journal and the question of what is happening with the Sovereign’s strange illness, and I’m interested to see how it develops.

I also like the touches of mordant humour.

Ruth wrote: "I don’t find it that much of a suspension of disbelief to imagine a space-faring society degenerating into an autocratic slave-based system over time because of the need to keep order on board the ship ..."

A generation ship is, by its very nature, going to be a highly sophisticated, technical thing to build and run and keeping an enclosed, artificial ecosystem balanced over generations isn't going to be done by slaves. Consider KSR's Aurora as a counter example. Hell, if me and mine felt things were that bad, why couldn't we sabotage the ship or breach it and destroy it?

Maybe if I read this I'd be convinced but knowing myself I'm going to have a hard time buying into this one. I'll be interested in reading the comments here but I'm going to pass.

Rick wrote: "Hell, if me and mine felt things were that bad, why couldn't we sabotage the ship or breach it and destroy it?"

The human drive for self preservation and to protect their loved ones would stop any thought of self destruction.

I'd think the lower-decker would be more likely to try and take over the ship, than kill themselves as a means to freedom.

Or that. My point is that it's a starship. Outside the ship is death. It would only take a few people, potentially, to do a lot of damage and, well, given the news lately there seem to be plenty of crazy people in the human species.

I am currentyl 25% into the book. I really like the main Charakter so far. Aster is just great. The mystery is what keeps me reading. There are some good and interesting ideas, but mostly the world building feels to me kind of "unchallenging" and chliche ridden.

Ruth wrote: "Anyone else reading this in audiobook format?"

Yes, and the narrator is doing an excellent job. A proper performance with distinct character voices. Really enjoying it so far.

Ivi_kiwi wrote: "The mystery is what keeps me reading. "

This was exactly how I felt.

Read 40% of it last night. I thought the beginning was actually the shakiest bit, but once you get through that its very good.

This is a stand alone right? There won't be any sequel? I really don't want to read too many first-in-series this year. Got fooled by Tchaikovsky's Children of Time (great book, but still..)

I'd say it's written like a stand alone open to a sequel if it does well enough or the author is so inclined.

Thanks, Rob. Will consider whether to buy now or later.

I read the book by a pool on a Canary Island. This led to a little cognitive dissonance with the subject matter, but may have, in the end, made it easier to digest.

I gave the book four stars and felt that it did a very good job of exploring its themes. I feel the reasons the society developed the way it did was explained by the end of the book.

I agree that the mystery plot is what keeps you going.

Wasn't sure if I should put this here, or in the Quick Burns thread, but I just saw on Twitter that "An Unkindness of Ghosts" was named as a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards in the LGBTQ SF/F/Horror category! Way to pick 'em, Tom!!!

Here's a link to the announcement.

I'm listening to it as an audio book, and loving the narrator. I'm only about two hours in.
It's not so much suspension of disbelief regarding the world, I have a problem with, more so what the layout of the ship is. I'm having trouble building the setting in my mind.
Rather than focus so much on that I think moving forward I'll focus less on the setting and more on the books ideas normalizing a broader gender variance, the idea of unifying to keep each other, healthy in such harsh circumstances, and how relationships are built around those circumstances. There are also the issues of the extreme policing of bodies imposed by the higher classes, and the hatred that is bred in such a (relatively) small setting.
Solomon is very deliberate with dialogue, so I'll be hanging on to every word coming out of Aster's mouth as well as those talking to her.

Alex wrote: "It's not so much suspension of disbelief regarding the world, I have a problem with, more so what the layout of the ship is. I'm having trouble building the setting in my mind."
I know what you mean. I don't think I ever quite figured out how the Field Decks are meant to look.

Julie wrote: "Alex wrote: "It's not so much suspension of disbelief regarding the world, I have a problem with, more so what the layout of the ship is. I'm having trouble building the setting in my mind."
I know..."

I had the same problem. Though the thing that bugged me the most was, that I can just not figure out how big this ship is supposed to be. Unfortunately I have the kind of mind that won't let go of stuff like that, so I never got to the point where I could just enjoy the story.

I'm about 50% of the way through the book now and without a doubt it's been a tough read so far. The more I get into it, the easier it is to believe the social structure and environment the main character finds herself in. I'm glad I stuck with it, as the story is getting interesting.

I had no problems with this book and loved it all the way through.

I'd give it 4.5 if I could. I ended up giving it a 4 :-)

I liked it too. The author was probably smart to avoid exact numbers regarding people, size of the ship, but my sense is it was huge, with the Field Decks in the centre. What i couldn't figure out is how they possibly had enough guards.

Brendan wrote: "I liked it too. The author was probably smart to avoid exact numbers regarding people, size of the ship, but my sense is it was huge, with the Field Decks in the centre. What i couldn't figure out ..."

When I finished I found myself wondering if I had missed the population numbers somewhere. It feels like a large ship with a small population, to me. I base that on the dealings between the Lord High Muckety-Muck and very lowly workers. It just seems wrong without a smaller group.

When I finished I found myself wondering if I had missed the population numbers somewhere. It feels like a large ship with a small population, to me. I base that on the dealings between the Lord High Muckety-Muck and very lowly workers. It just seems wrong without a smaller group.

It just seemed so inconsistent to me. On the one hand it's so huge that people speak different languages on different parts of the ship. On the other hand people interact with one another as if they lived in a small town and everyone knows everyone else on some level and you can walk everywhere.

Ruth wrote: "Anyone else reading this in audiobook format? I’m about a quarter of the way through and I think the narrator (Cherise Booth, who I haven’t encountered before) is doing a good job so far.

The sett..."

Rick wrote: "So I read this = "Aster lives in the low-deck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South."

And immediately reacted with "Uh, I'm going to have a hard time su..."

I listened to the audio-book also and can only agree that the narration was really good.

The description was not helping me to get exited for the book at first (maybe I need to read a bit few more happy/funny books), I have come across the idea which seems plausible to me that slavery actually directly impedes innovation because if you got access to lots of free labor you don't have the pressure to find better and more effective ways to do stuff (Why didn't the renaissance start during the roman empire?).

(view spoiler)[I could buy that the system evolved over time in the generation-ship, especially with the accident if it killed of the scientists/technicians that ran the ship. (hide spoiler)]

But aside from that I'm glad I picked it up and I enjoyed it. At times I got a bit frustrated with the characters but that might be a result of my shortcomings.

Isak - (view spoiler)[If the people who knew how to turn the technical bits of an ecosystem died the ship would die soon after. That's part of my issue with the premise. See KSR's Aurora for example (hide spoiler)]

All the technical knowledge on this ship is still there, but its very divided, people only know how to run the part of the ship that their section is in charge of. Other information is locked away in libraries that only the Masters (and Aster) can access.

Rick wrote: "Isak - [spoilers removed]"

(view spoiler)[Remember the auto-pilot. Also, I suspect it was the astro-navigation and leadership that was lost. Most parts of this ship are pretty indestructible. (hide spoiler)]

Aurora was pretty rubbish.

Be that as it may, it made a good point about the fragility of an artificial, fully enclosed system in space. It's simply not credible to me that a slave state similar to the antebellum South is going to run that complex of a system for generations which undercuts everything for me.

Interesting that you're determined to not like this book without having read it.

Brendan wrote: "Interesting that you're determined to not like this book without having read it."

That's what I was thinking.

:) Fair point. I just can't get over the opening premise to bother and I tend to be very sensitive to an author's hand manipulating things so they can make points. But I'll refrain from further comment.

Rick wrote: ":) Fair point. I just can't get over the opening premise to bother and I tend to be very sensitive to an author's hand manipulating things so they can make points. But I'll refrain from further comment"

The author does make some points about slavery, the treatment of women, gender identification and sexual diversity. But they are not forced or manipulated. They are parts of the world and the characters that inhabit it.

It is a good sci-fi story with very memorable characters. It is a hard read at times with brutality and abuse (sexual, physical and psychological)

I would recommend it as a worthwhile read.

Yeah, I just don't think I'll be able to get past the fact that I find it unbelievable that a highly technical, complex enclosed ecosystem like a generation ship in the utterly unforgiving environment ofouter space could be run for generations when governed by a system the resembles the antebellum South. It feels from what people have been saying that the setting itself is the manipulation so that the story can be told.

The last "No, but this is really good" book I read when I went in feeling the premise was not believable was St. John Mandel's Station Eleven. Lovely writing but I didn't buy the setting there either.

At the end of the day, too... I'm not really up for brutality. Not when the news reminds me nightly of people being bombarded to death in Syria, etc.

Tassie Dave wrote: "The author does make some points about slavery, the treatment of women, gender identification and sexual diversity. But they are not forced or manipulated. They are parts of the world and the characters that inhabit it."

What he said!

I'm always wary of what you might call "message" fiction, so I was a little cautious when I saw other Goodreads users filing the book on shelves called "race" and "feminism" and so forth, but I'm glad I gave it a shot. I thought that the author struck just the right balance between examining Aster's personal quirks and relationships, issues of race and slavery, and the underlying SF story about the generation ship and it's journey to the stars.

Did anyone else get a Wool-ish vibe from the book? The same sort of enclosed, claustrophobic environment - built on technology that still runs, but not everyone is privy to the why or how?

This is reminding me of something Jo Walton mentioned in a blog post years ago on Tor.com:

My ex-husband once lent a friend Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War. The friend couldn’t get past chapter 2, because there was a tachyon drive mentioned, and the friend couldn’t figure out how that would work. All he wanted to talk about was the physics of tachyon drives, whereas we all know that the important thing about a tachyon drive is that it lets you go faster than light, and the important thing about the one in The Forever War is that the characters get relativistically out of sync with what’s happening on Earth because of it. The physics don’t matter—there are books about people doing physics and inventing things, and some of them are SF (The Dispossessed…) but The Forever War is about going away to fight aliens and coming back to find that home is alien, and the tachyon drive is absolutely essential to the story but the way it works—forget it, that’s not important.

Sometimes it's best not to get too hung up on something because it just doesn't matter for the story.

David wrote: "This is reminding me of something Jo Walton mentioned in a blog post years ago on Tor.com:

My ex-husband once lent a friend Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War. The friend couldn’t get past chapter 2, ..."

Great point.

David wrote: "Sometimes it's best not to get too hung up on something because it just doesn't matter for the story. "

There is some truth to that, but in my experience it's not always a matter of conscious choice wether one gets hung up on certain details or not. It's more like an annoying voice that continually whispers "but it can't possibly work that way..." and keeps you from enjoying the story.

Colin wrote: Did anyone else get a Wool-ish vibe from the book? The same sort of enclosed, claustrophobic environment - built on technology that still runs, but not everyone is privy to the why or how?


I didn't before you mentioned it, but now I see the parallels. Especially with the idea of society being divided into literal levels. In Wool they have the 'down deep' where the mechanics keep the machines running which provide power for the whole bunker, in AUoG they have the field decks where people toil away to provide food.
And the Nexus where (view spoiler)[ the workers develop cancer from their close contact with 'baby sun' (hide spoiler)]

David wrote: "This is reminding me of something Jo Walton mentioned in a blog post years ago on Tor.com:

My ex-husband once lent a friend Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War. The friend couldn’t get past chapter 2, ..."

I don't really want to derail this, but since you're commenting on the issue I raised...

In that case you're being asked to accept new physics. If someone can't, that's fine, but then you rule out a swath of SF (anything needing FTL). I know people do this and that's their choice but it's not what I'm talking about.

Here's the core of my issue: I thought that the author struck just the right balance between examining Aster's personal quirks and relationships, issues of race and slavery, and the underlying SF story about the generation ship and it's journey to the stars.


I just don't see the latter surviving for long if the society is a slave-based one. Maybe for a generation or two but not long term.

IN any event, I really am done here. I didn't mean this to get so... derail-y, sorry about that.

I read this book via Audible.

The first few minutes of the book I just had a hard time getting into it and was regretting joining in on this one as my goal was to read all of the group picks this year.

As i continued to listen my mind went to what if this was on a generational ship like the Nauvoo from the Expanse series (had it actually been used for its intended purpose) and we were in that universe, Then the writing style, more like that of the Belters in the Expanse took shape, and I was hooked. I could not wait to make more time to listen. [I know there are a lot of holes if this was truly part of the Expanse universe, but that is how I got more invested into this story, if it was not for that I am not sure I would have enjoyed it]

I loved learning about the ship and the areas not listed on any of the existing maps, how events of the past were related to what was happening now on the ship.

Then the endings.... Like all books that I start to really get into the ending comes too fast and never has enough details, This ending I hope was the beginning of more from the author, River Solomon.

I gave this book a 4 out of 5 stars.

Can not wait to see what the March Madness bracket brings us for our next read.

Heinlein had a book, Orphans of the Sky, where the generation ship pretty much ran itself. The people had lost knowledge and just lived day to day (one even had people burning an important book just for fuel, warmth or cooking, can't recall.) Another Heinlein book, Citizen of the Galaxy, had rampant slavery.

Well I enjoyed the heck out of this book.

I did find the setting somewhat problematic, due to some of the issues that have already been raised - I never got a good grasp of the details of Matilda (it's layout, populations, etc), or how it ended up being organized like the antebellum South, or why the generation ship was just running on autopilot with no one the wiser even when (view spoiler)[the whole thing completely reversed course and had returned to the Great Lifehouse (hide spoiler)]. BUT I was able to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the story for what it was, which wound up being pretty great, IMO.

I thought Aster was a wonderful main character, and really liked her relationship with Theo. I do think the end of the book left me with a host of questions, but the journey getting there was interesting and entertaining, if also quite troubling along the way.

I actually felt myself choke up a bit when Aster breaks down while working in the Bowels: "'Nobody's allowed to touch me. Nobody's allowed to call me names. I'm alive,' she sobbed out. 'I'm alive,'" - referring to how she had recently noted that she was deserving of the same respect owed to any living thing.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Jessica wrote: "Well I enjoyed the heck out of this book.

I did find the setting somewhat problematic, due to some of the issues that have already been raised - I never got a good grasp of the details of Matilda ..."

The ending is reminiscent of (view spoiler)[Wall-E, what with everyone coming back to Earth and the ship running on remote control (hide spoiler)]...

Slightly different feel though.