The Sword and Laser discussion

I wrapped this book up a little over a week ago. I have to say that I enjoyed it quite a bit, but this certainly was not a very uplifting or positive outlook to read in the midst of a pandemic, political turmoil and elevated unemployment .

The whole broader story arc of humanity clearly losing and either dying out or leaving earth entirely just sort of circles above the stories in this book. In many of the corrupted stories our two main characters didn't even have a happy ending.

Not trying to make Tom feel bad or anything, but did anyone else just get a bit more depression from this story?

Well it certainly wasn't happy, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't in some way hopeful. (view spoiler)[ Considering an advanced alien species went ahead and destroyed human life on Earth so they could colonize it themselves, it's about as hopeful as can be. A group of people use their ingenuity to first survive, then fight back, and then escape to start life somewhere else in the galaxy. Instead of following those that left (which could have been a pretty uplifting story), we end up following those that stayed. It's a perspective I appreciated, and though it didn't make me happier or anything, I don't think it deepened my depression. (hide spoiler)]

Matthew wrote: "Not trying to make Tom feel bad or anything, but did anyone else just get a bit more depression from this story?"

I didn’t, but then I’m not exactly against an apocalypse to cleanse the world.

Plus, I’ve read so many apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories that one more doesn’t shock me. Books like A Canticle for Leibowitz posit that we are horribly flawed people (due to our original sin) and are thus doomed to cycles of self-destruction, each more horrible than the last. And that one is like the least of the unpleasant fates of humanity I’ve encountered in SF, so Elysium didn’t bother me in that regard.

Seth wrote: "Well it certainly wasn't happy, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't in some way hopeful. [spoilers removed]"

See, I didn't take that way from the novel. I found our narrator to be so unreliable, that we truly have no idea what actually happened. Not only did humanity lose our home and likely our lives, but the one monument that we built to our legacy was corrupted and therefore can't even tell our story.

For all we know, the last story with the ships leaving, could have been completely fake, the computer telling almost to itself that it happened simply to make itself feel better.

Matthew wrote: "Seth wrote: "Well it certainly wasn't happy, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't in some way hopeful. [spoilers removed]"

See, I didn't take that way from the novel. I found our narrator to be so..."

Careful because quite a bit of what you're saying ventures into potential spoiler territory.

That said, (view spoiler)[One of the stories makes it seem like humans may have moved on to other planets, so there could be hope for humanity in that storyline, and all that's really left in the end is a faulty computer program an alien is trying to make sense of while the lights are still on. That's one read. Finding a new place to live seems hopeful.... (hide spoiler)]

As far as Matthew’s take, (view spoiler)[ the alien at the end tells the computer program that the humans who left Earth on the ships are thriving on another planet (hide spoiler)]. And yes, even though I appreciated this story, it did make me feel rather depressed during the reading.