The Sword and Laser discussion

Whilst I had the odd vague ‘when does the sci-fi start’ thoughts from time to time, I was enjoying (or perhaps, engaged in is a better way of putting it, given the subject matter) the story of struggles against the persecution of natives enough not to care if the genre was barely there at all. There were some interesting characters, and I felt that the varying perspectives offered good insight into the ways such awful situations arise, and how different people felt about them. I almost felt it would be a shame when the aliens showed up in a spaceship or one of the characters stumbled across some kind of tech (I figured this was where the sci fi would come in) and changed the story completely - the world building was so good and solid, that it seemed like those kind of elements would be out of place. What would adding aliens or tech add that wasn’t already present - most likely they’d just be jarring and out of place.

Well, jarring was right, just not in the way I had expected. Good bye preconceptions - you guys let me down big time! At first, I was very jolted and confused. I’m listening to the audio book, and the implications of the (view spoiler)[reveal didn’t hit me until later. For a while, I was like ‘oh, okay, so now we’re finding out about an alien invasion in the future, but how will this tie in with our historical tale. Then…oh. Time to adjust everything I had thus far been imagining.

I’m curious how folks feel about this. Was it jarring for you guys too, and how does it affect your take on the book.

I both like and dislike it. I think the dislike comes from feeling tricked. Clues to what was actually going on were purposefully hidden, and the story very much encouraged me to think of this story belonging to some horrible events in the past. From a story point of view, it doesn’t really add anything, since it is a reveal only to the reader - the characters already know so it feels like a cheap trick, like they’ve all been ignoring the details that would have revealed the truth until the author felt ready to tell us about them.

On the other hand, it certainly makes you think about the circumstances in a different way. I’m white and British, so when I think about the way colonialism affected natives in Australia and other places, it is always through the perspective of looking at the awful things ‘we’ did to ‘them’. Its such a natural perspective to me, that I never really thought to question it, or what it might mean. In the early chapters, I was not Jacky, not really. I was running beside him, watching and sympathising with him, but I didn’t really relate to him. I was more like one of the nuns, one of the nicer ones, I hope, but my perspective (and I didn’t even really think about this at the time) was standing more with them, condemning my fellow settlers, sure, for their cruel and warped perspectives on the natives, but the natives were still ‘the other’ because their lives are outside of my experience. The realisation that this was false, that I was a native, I was the one running away, being persecuted, treated like an animal, as if I wasn’t a thinking creature at all caused me to consider the way I see myself in issues of race and prejudice. I don’t think this would have sunk in the same way if not for the ‘trick’ the author played on me. It’s one thing to put yourself in a person’s shoes, but this made you look down and realise you were already wearing them.

Away from all that, I also find it fun shifting the things I had imagined to fit with this new perspective. (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[The trick is intentional. It is an allegorical tale.

You are supposed to feel sympathy for the natives and hatred for the settlers.

At the reveal, you realise that, hey I'm the native and it is my land that was stolen. Now you start to feel a fraction of what it was like for displaced indigenous in Australia, the Americas and Africa by the white European invaders.

We would be just as helpless against an advanced alien race as the indigenous were against modern weaponry of the Europeans. (hide spoiler)]

I get what the author was trying to do, I just don't think it was done well. There were no hints or foreshadowing and it was just thrust into the story out of the blue. I thought it was a really great work of tough examination of the Australian colonization and if it stayed there, it would be a great novel. (view spoiler)[ It was like, hey this book is really great, know what would make it better, Aliens! I just think the way it was presented was ham-fisted. There are other problems like the names of some of the aliens are European. There is a religion with nuns. And if these are the most violent aliens, more so than the Europeans, why is there a board to protect aliens at all? I'm actually enjoying the science fiction aspect, it's just that it gave me whiplash and needed a bit more care to set up. (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[The flip isn't just that its aliens. The flip is that it is us that are the oppressed, invaded peoples. It's holding a mirror to us and society, to think about what our ancestors did and what we can do to help rectify the continuing problems.

We are so used to looking at colonisation from the other side of the fence. "Most" of us would not be descended from a displaced indigenous peoples and couldn't really understand how it would feel to have your lands stolen, your children taken to be raised in a culture and religion not yours. To be enslaved because the settlers believe you to be an inferior species simply because you look different or your culture hadn't developed at the same technological rate as they had.

That it is set in Australia is great, but this could have been set in the US, Africa, South America, India etc and the message would still have been the same.

Colonisation of already populated lands is evil and never benefits the indigenous people.

If it makes people question what the governments of the world need to do to improve their treatment of indigenous people, then it has done its job. (hide spoiler)]

I was honestly really bored until the Sci-if stuff came in then I was hooked

(view spoiler)[

The flip isn't just that its aliens. The flip is that it is us that are the oppressed, invaded peoples. It's holding a mirror to us and society, to think about what our ancestors did and what we can do to help rectify the continuing problems.

I think where this didn't work for me is that normally when somebody's doing this SFnal metaphor for commentary on real-world oppression and injustice, is they lead with Sci-Fi, and then bring up the real-world comparisons later.

In this book, it's the reverse. Consequently, it feels almost like a lack of confidence. That they felt that the first 10 chapters of the book aren't enough to get the reader to display empathy. Now, admittedly, maybe that's the case.

Still, when this came up as a pick on the list, and I saw that the start of the book had the trappings of a non-genre historical fiction narrative, my first thought was that this was going to go into territory of Magical Realism and using that to explore the impact of colonialism on the Aboriginal population of Australia, like what Underground Railroad did for slavery or Lovecraft Country did for Black experiences in the south in the '50s and '60s.

On the other hand, when I was reading the first 10 or so chapters of the book, it felt like something where, as a Autistic White American (or even just as an American), my place was to shut up and take my medicine. That any criticism from me was out of place. That any contribution to the discussion I should have would be to just sit here and nod at what the book has to say.

The clunkyness of the transition to literal Alien Invasion SF felt like it changed that some, where I felt so spectacularly lost and thrown from what was trying to be said in a way that felt unintentional, and in way where I went from not feeling that I should say anything, to a place where I felt like I had to say something, even if it was just "You lost me. There's something missing there. Can we back up?"
(hide spoiler)]

I do think Claire should have made the situation clear from the start. I knew that going in, as I had heard a preview on TV that spoiled the premise, and I still enjoyed the story.

I get what you mean about metaphor. Which many authors have used in a more subtle way. (view spoiler)[H.G. Wells used British colonialism of Australia as his influence for War of the Worlds. Obviously he didn't go for a full literal allegory and took some artistic licence to have a satisfactory conclusion, which the indigenous of Oz didn't get. (hide spoiler)]

I did not find the transition jarring at all. I found the book looking for Aboriginal SF writers so new it was SF going in (but nothing more) so I was looking for the parallels.

(view spoiler)[I think it is completely intentional to take you from the White settler viewpoint to the Aboriginal viewpoint in a shocking transition.

Some of the experiences here are things that have happened in my lifetime.

I am not surprised the transition is not subtle, subtle hasn't worked at all. Time for the sledge.
(hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[The problem I had isn't that the transition wasn't subtle, it's that it threw me out of the work. Unsubtle and jarring are very different things.

Again, the comparison I made earlier was to The Underground Railroad. That is a show that is about as subtle as a 50-ton hammer to the face - and that's fine (relatively speaking - there's some discussion that came up among some POC critics I pay attention to about how the show perpetuates the commodification of Black Pain to a perverse extent, but that's a discussion for another time and another thread).

If this was Alternate History SF, or Magical Realist, or if it had just worn the alien invasion narrative on its sleeve from jump street, it wouldn't have thrown me out of the book. But the decision to make it a "Twist" feels like it displays a lack of confidence. Like the "twist" is there to get the Really Important Literary Book Critics who would turn up their nose at anything remotely SF to give the book the time of day, and in the hopes that booksellers would only look at the first 8 chapters, and shelve it in Historical or Literary Fiction instead of Science Fiction.

Except, from my experience, the people who hate SF aren't going to suddenly reach the part where we get into the alien invasion, and go "Ah, you got me, I guess I'll read your SF novel, you sly author." They're going to put the book down and rip it, and the author, a new one, because they're generally very closed-minded about SF, and if they'll accept it at all, they'll consider something as big as an actual alien invasion narrative to be a bridge too far. (hide spoiler)]

I do think Claire should have made it clear from Chapter 1 what type of book this is.

She isn't M. Knight Shyamalan, who's works require the twist.

Let the book live or die on its premise. I knew going in and enjoyed the tale for what it is.

Another perspective is that (view spoiler)[ an alien invasion story is not SF for Indigenous people. It is lived experience.

Having read a few interviews I do not think Claire was trying for literary awards. She wanted to write SF from an indigenous perspective. She has commented that the Aboriginal people live in a dystopia.

Also this is not an invasion book, it is a post colonisation story.

Note, on a technicality Australia was not invaded.. It was settled.

From: https://racismnoway.com.au/teaching-r...


According to the international law of Europe in the late 18th century, there were only three ways that Britain could take possession of another country:

If the country was uninhabited, Britain could claim and settle that country. In this case, it could claim ownership of the land.

If the country was already inhabited, Britain could ask for permission from the indigenous people to use some of their land.
In this case, Britain could purchase land for its own use but it could not steal the land of the indigenous people.

If the country was inhabited, Britain could take over the country by invasion and conquest- in other words, defeat that country in war. However, even after winning a war, Britain would have to respect the rights of indigenous people.

Strangely Britain did not follow any of these rules in Australia. Since there were already people living in Australia, Britain could not take possession by “settling” this country. However from the time of Captain Cook’s arrival the British Government acted as if Australia were uninhabited. So, instead of admitting that it was invading land that belonged to Aboriginal people, Britain acted as it were settling an empty land. This is what is meant by the myth of terra nullius.

(hide spoiler)]

I think the reason it is jarring is that there is no internal reason for the secrecy. It was effective for giving an 'oh shit' moment, and bringing about the thoughts we've discussed here about perspectives.

But the story goes from making no mention of (view spoiler)[any sci-fi elements, to constant referenaces to fliers and toads. If it didn't need to be spoken of before, why so much reference to it afterwards? Once we know it's aliens, we are constantly reminded of it, so why didn't it come up before? It breaks the story for the shock, which I don't like. (hide spoiler)]

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the story overall, but I do think that element, whilst effective, was also poorly done.

Perhaps it's just my Hoopla version but the lack of any sort of break between POV's is really annoying. I have to constantly back up and read it again to see where the POV changed.

Is this the same in other e-book versions?

I knew the twist going in which bums me out. I also agree with Ruth, once the twist happens, (view spoiler)[the scifi elements are talked about a lot. (hide spoiler)]

AndrewP wrote: "Perhaps it's just my Hoopla version but the lack of any sort of break between POV's is really annoying. I have to constantly back up and read it again to see where the POV changed."

The Hoopla version is difficult to read without POV breaks. I've had the same problem with other ebooks from Hoopla. Not sure why.

There were no POV breaks in my Kindle version. I figured it was an artistic choice.

I finished the book and I ended up liking the book because of the characters and the (relatively) realistic ending. (view spoiler)[ I still found the switch to aliens jarring though I understand where it was coming from, but it changed my view of the book as well, as the settlers were now fantastic and not as weighty as when people are oppressing people. Also, slightly surprised by the ending as there were some quotes from humans that seemed to indicate the humans had more of a voice, though it might have been hundreds of years later. I was hoping for a more happy ending where this was the beginning of gaining rights, instead of what seems the continuation of the terrible status quo, though that makes more sense. (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[A happier ending wouldn't have made sense.

The fight for indigenous rights world-wide is still an ongoing process.

The humans are in a better place in the book at the end, but they are far from ideally situated to regain lost land and ownership of the planet (hide spoiler)]

Here's everything I put under a spoiler flag on Discord, too. TL;DR: Thanks, I hate it (but for reasons)

(view spoiler)[My problem with this book is not the structure, because the twist is designed to be "AH-HA, IT WAS YOU ALL ALONG". It's that I think all the interest and accolades have come from quarters who don't usually have genre in their lit? A bit like Station Eleven fell flat for me. Genre-fic, and SF in particular, is where issues like colonialism and imperialism are explored in a 'safe' space (it's not modern day humans in modern day earth). It's often nuanced and sophisticated because that's how the genre has evolved. Terra Nullius is as nuanced as a brick.

The conceit of the book is what if the Australian Indigenous experience happened to you and I think if you're not a genre fic reader, it's an interesting and different thought experiment. As an addition to the genre, I think it's basic and needed a few more edit passes. A bit more hinting in the start that things aren't as they seem. A bit more exploration of the characters as people rather than relying on tropes we see in the historiography of colonisation (the noble native, the colonisers who think they have the right path and know better for the good of integrating the native, the only one who sees the natives as people is the one who didn't fit into settler society anyway. (hide spoiler)]

As a white person living in Australia and benefiting from this history, I absolutely felt more uncomfortable in the first half when it was pretty close to historical narratives of the invasion of Australia. As a story bringing the Indigenous Australian experience to an international audience, it's doing the job. As sci-fi, I think it fails.

I did not know the twist going in and I was likewise not impressed.

I get what she was going for, but I think it fails. (view spoiler)[There’s no subtlety here — Coleman just crossed out “European” and wrote in “extraterrestrial”, and didn’t bother changing anything else. I mean, they have nuns and a Mother Superior, fer cry. You don’t need to be a rocket surgeon to figure out who her target is. (hide spoiler)] As such, it comes across as a polemic essay rather than a story.

There’s zero worldbuilding here. Compare this to Octavia Butler, who invented a new religion. Or Mary Doria Russell, who created a new culture based on unique biology unlike anything seen on Earth. Or Margaret Atwood, who gave existing religion a twist and told a terrifyingly possible story in a new way. They all deal with the same topic, but it’s much less heavy-handed and clunky.

I appreciate the effort and I applaud the attention the book is getting, but at the end of the day it’s just not that great, which I think hurts the message.

I agree with my namesake that the transition felt jarring and a bit of a cheap trick. I haven’t read very far past the reveal so I don’t yet know how I’ll enjoy the book overall. However, I was finding it compelling as a ‘straight’ work of historical fiction and I was hoping that the SF aspects would be fairly low-key - someone else mentioned The Underground Railroad and I was anticipating something similar.

I find that it over simplifies the situation it paints the European as evil and the indutious as inocent pastoral people that certainly was not true in the Americas the Aztecs were not at all at peace and planes Indian's were at war some times.

AndrewP wrote: "Perhaps it's just my Hoopla version but the lack of any sort of break between POV's is really annoying. I have to constantly back up and read it again to see where the POV changed.

Is this the sam..."

It is the same on my Google Books version. This (IMHO) editing/layout failure regularly takes me out of the story as I have to re-read a paragraph or two to reframe the scene in my mind. (view spoiler)[Though, the suddenness of the reveal had a similar effect as I had to reframe the first half of the book in my mind as it took a while to realize that all the previous chapters were contemporary and not what the alien invasion/settlement was echoing. (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[One thing that I found odd about myself (and have had to think about for a bit, so I guess the book did something), is before the twist I had an intense, visceral hate towards Sister Bagra, Rohan, and Devil as well as a slightly lesser but strong hate towards the Settler society as a whole. Once the reveal happened and I found that they were aliens, my hate lessened and I just saw them as "yet another invading alien society", a stock in trade of much of Sci-Fi.

What I'm wrestling with is while I understand why I felt that way to humans treating humans like that, why I didn't have as much an issue with two separate intelligent species conflicting like this. Almost like, while detestable, different intelligent species are almost expected to have more friction than harmony.

Not sure if I'm explaining my self well...
(hide spoiler)]

Sembazuru wrote: "One thing that I found odd about myself (and have had to think about for a bit, so I guess the book did something), is before the twist I had an intense, visceral hate towards Sister Bagra, Rohan, ..."

Depends on the aliens. Snake-aliens? Friction. Puppy-aliens? Best buds.

…right up until they eat us.

David wrote: "I find that it over simplifies the situation it paints the European as evil and the indutious as inocent pastoral people that certainly was not true in the Americas the Aztecs were not at all at pe..."

I've never heard indigenous described purely as innocent pastoral people. They were when they wanted to be.

Most indigenous lived a more balanced life with their environment, but they also fought with each other over land use, petty disputes and "just because we don't like you".

The difference with the Europeans was that they brought superior weaponry (and exotic diseases) and killed indigenous on a near genocidal scale. Then proceeded to steal their land, steal their children and enslave the adults. Then deny them rights when society became more enlightened.

Well. Once I got past the reveal I struggled with this book, tbh. It just felt very heavy-handed and the SF element didn’t seem to be explored in an interesting way. I think I would have preferred a slower reveal and a much subtler approach to the central allegory. I ended up DNF’ing at just under halfway through.
Nvm, you can’t win them all. Hoping next month’s pick is more my style.

David wrote: "I find that it over simplifies the situation it paints the European as evil and the indutious as inocent pastoral people that certainly was not true in the Americas the Aztecs were not at all at pe..."

In a very real sense every word in this book is true.

Every horrible and apparently exaggerated event has happened in real life. The framing as SF is in many ways an attempt to get white people to relate to the things that white people have done to indigenous people in Australia.

(view spoiler)[One of the final revelations/commentaries at the end of the book is that the colonisers have a much larger capacity for violence. Where the indigenous would fight they would never eradicate entire tribes...

This has been repeated over and over again in the frontier wars. White settlers would kill, rape or drive off Aboriginals. If the Aboriginals retaliated the white settlers would wipe out the entire tribe.

The religious schools were barbaric... (they were also barbaric to white orphans or wards of the state, forcing kids to do menial work to earn a living, my Aunt was in one for many years).

Even now we steal the water, destroy culturally significant landmarks, and kill them in police custody. What white, European society, has done to indigenous people is evil. No excuses, it is just evil.
(hide spoiler)]

Fort me this book resonated far more strongly than any of the other indigenous books we have read recently. The Marrow Thieves seemed shallow and the crimes did not resonate.

Most of the books we read as a group are distinctively American or British. This most reminds me of Rivers Solomon work. The palpable rage and thinly veiled polemic is very similar.

Trike wrote: "I did not know the twist going in and I was likewise not impressed.

I get what she was going for, but I think it fails. [spoilers removed] As such, it comes across as a polemic essay rather than a..."

Do those writers deal with the same subject matter...

I find Atwood clunky and have never managed to see them as more than thinly veiled polemic.. I mean it isn't much of a reach to vie the US as a theological society. I have never been able to see why Atwood has such a following.

Similarly Butler's books never really resonated. I struggle to get into them. Although in this case I can see the value and the merit.

One day I will pick up the Sparrow.

In any case you are comparing a first work with mature writers well into their careers.

Iain wrote: "Trike wrote: "I did not know the twist going in and I was likewise not impressed.

I get what she was going for, but I think it fails. [spoilers removed] As such, it comes across as a polemic essay...

Do those writers deal with the same subject matter..."

I would submit that Butler’s debut novel Patternmaster covers very similar territory. She deftly uses single sentences to convey things like sexism, segregation and a caste system. Extraordinarily impressive for a book written by a 26-year-old black woman who grew up in America’s Jim Crow pre-Civil Rights era where she had none of the privileges afforded to whites. She couldn’t even travel freely without the threat of being imprisoned or murdered. Even her own family discouraged her from being a writer.

When you look at everything stacked against Butler, it’s miraculous she could accomplish writing a book, nevermind one as artful as hers.

As I said in my review of Terra Nullius:

Maybe this will reach someone who had previously dismissed talk about colonizers versus colonized. I certainly hope so. But for me, someone who is already in that camp, this is preaching to the choir, and unfortunately not terribly original preaching at that.

Which is why I was disappointed. Australia has the exact same issues the US has when it comes to barbaric mistreatment of minorities. Possibly worse since both the indigenous and black population are the exact same group of people.

I was distinctly uncomfortable when visiting Australia to hear open talk of “blackfellas” being this way or that, but I didn’t know enough to speak up. The casual racism I’ve encountered in America, Canada, South Africa and Australia enrages me. While in South Africa I learned that my American assumptions don’t map onto their culture, as the terms “black”, “white” and “mixed” don’t carry the same connotations that they do in the US. But when our hotel’s owner casually referred to black people as “two-legged baboons”, well… there’s a long way to go.

There are certainly people who need to be hit over the head with this message. But I am not one of them, and despite the fact I have friends and family members who no longer talk to me because I won’t tolerate their racism, I can’t review a book by pretending to be on that side of the equation. I have to look at it as the person I am. Nor do I think the people who most need to hear this message will.

Trike wrote: "Iain wrote: "Trike wrote: "I did not know the twist going in and I was likewise not impressed.

I get what she was going for, but I think it fails. [spoilers removed] As such, it comes across as a ..."

I get why you brought this one up (it was the first book in the series that she published) but for someone new, I'd start with the amazing Wild Seed and read the series in internal chronology

As Trike says: “There are certainly people who need to be hit over the head with this message.”

The problem is that there’s a negative correlation between “people who need to be hit over the head with this message” and “people who are likely to pick up this book”. I suppose it could be useful in an educational setting to teach about eg the concept of Terra Nullius, but as a science fiction book it didn’t really work for me. A shame as I found the early sections promising.

I really enjoyed it. Not something I would have picked up without the group. As we become more aware of the real history, it is important that the message gets out there. Even today atrocities are being found.
The European powers coming in with technological weaponry and proceeding to carry out genocide on the people already there is perfectly matched by the aliens. The European powers viewed the native people as lesser or even animalistic. As a different species.
Unfortunately I think this still needs to be acknowledged and shouted about as it continues to happen. Even in small insidious ways.
Profiling still occurs based on skin tone or country of origin. I don’t, as a white European (sod brexit), fully realise the privileges and freedoms that I have and just don’t see.
It may not be the best written book, but certainly an important one in the genre.

Gordon wrote: "Unfortunately I think this still needs to be acknowledged and shouted about as it continues to happen. Even in small insidious ways."

Absolutely, a hundred times yes to this.

I think the crux of the problem with a book like this is that it’s difficult to separate the important, necessary message of the book from the art and craft of telling a story.

The message needs to be repeated and repeated until even the dumbest, most obdurate racists get it. For me, who is already fully on board, I’m looking at it from the privileged position of judging the story separately from the message. That’s why I would give this book 5 stars for “Important Message That Bears Repeating” while only giving it 2 stars for the way the message is conveyed.

I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m denying how important works like this are when I say that I wasn’t impressed by the stylistic side of it.

And just to make it all even more complicated, sometimes I can differentiate between the two and sometimes I can’t. I wish I weren’t so inconsistent with that, but I think that’s part of the push-and-pull between one’s emotional reaction to something versus the intellectual reaction to it.

Your mileage may vary…

Her second book The Old Lie is unambiguously SF with good old fashioned alien invasion followed by interstellar war.

Warning dark as anything.

I’ve been reading the book Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race which already I think should be required reading for every white American, but I think it also applies to descendants of European colonizers across the world.

The specific examples she uses are US-centric, but the overall lesson about how the white majority subconsciously treats other races as different is valuable. Even when it’s just out of ignorance rather than maliciousness, it serves to demean and subjugate, creating and perpetuating second-class status of entire groups of people that do generational damage.

That book is explicit in laying out all the biases white culture has created over the century, which I think is valuable.

For a book like Terra Nullius, I would prefer that the message be less overt, at least in the early stages of the story. Drop the boom closer to the end, where you have to recontextualize what you’ve just read.

Kind of like the classic Star Trek episode about the last two survivors of a civilization continuing their battle to the death. The Enterprise crew is baffled by their conflict because they appear the same. “Are you blind? Look at me!” “You’re black on one side and white on the other.” “I’m black on the right side. He’s white on the right side!” And watching that you think, “Well that’s dumb,” and hopefully the next thought is connecting that to one’s own prejudices.

I shared a lot of the same reactions as everyone else:
oh, this is an allegory.
huh. that was awkward.
oh, it's still an allegory.

when the technology was brought in, it was surprising how tech starved the settlers were. Transportation was especially scarce and I felt the handling of that was clumsier than it could have been. My measure of this was that I had more fundamental questions than I had answers. They explained the satellite shortage, but not the lack of ground transportation and how basic supplies would get from place to place, something necessary in any colony.

The lack of ground transportation bothered me too. Did I read that right in that the Settlers hadn't discovered the (view spoiler)[ wheel ? (hide spoiler)]

yes, that was there and it struck me as deus sine machina (god without the machine) because circles, spinning things, and bearings are necessary for an industrial society.

Steve wrote: "yes, that was there and it struck me as deus sine machina (god without the machine) because circles, spinning things, and bearings are necessary for an industrial society."

I thought I had misread that but apparently not. Such a bone headed idea that I'm knocking off another star from my review.

AndrewP wrote: "Steve wrote: "yes, that was there and it struck me as deus sine machina (god without the machine) because circles, spinning things, and bearings are necessary for an industrial society."

I thought I had misread that but apparently not. Such a bone headed idea that I'm knocking off another star from my review."

I, too, enjoy a little science in my science fiction.

AndrewP wrote: "Steve wrote: "yes, that was there and it struck me as deus sine machina (god without the machine) because circles, spinning things, and bearings are necessary for an industrial society."

I thought..."

I don't know, wheels are not so useful in a swamp... Cultural biases may play a significant role in what technology becomes common place. Just because you invent bearings doesn't mean you want to use a wheel when a boat is better.

I did enjoy the book, but I understand the criticism. For me the message was a bit too obvious from the start. It actually got better for me after the twist because it made the book more interesting, but there were quite a few plot holes and the world building was lacking too much explanation for it to make sense. As a reader I was more or less left to trust the author that the Settlers had better technology, it was never actually shown. Same with the nuns and religion which felt too close to home to feel truly alien.

Funnily, I think there were a few hints in the book. (view spoiler)[I distinctly remember that early in the story a kangaroo was mentioned and I was like "Huh, do they have kangaroos on other planets?" I can see Settlers bringing sheep, dogs or cows with them to colonize another planet, but not kangaroos. (hide spoiler)]