Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the novelette:


"The Deeps of the Sky" by Elizabeth Bear

This story can be read on-line @IO9.com

This story is part of the Edge of Infinity group anthology discussion.

I usually like Bear's science fiction, and her "The Deeps of the Sky" is no exception, though I didn't love it.

It took me a while to get traction reading this. Given the stated "hard SF" nature of the anthology, I was a little surprised to discover a story written in the PoV of an intelligent alien lifeform. The story takes place in the atmosphere of an unidentified gas giant, I'm guessing Jupiter, in these Jovians fly around in the upper atmosphere collecting blowing resources. There's a bit of a worker bee/queen bee division among the Jovians.

And into this society, unmanned probe from Earth (I assume) drops down into the atmosphere.

There does an interesting job dealing with the alternate chemistry of Jupiter, pointing out that the gases of Jupiter's atmosphere become quite volatile in the presence of oxygen, and that oxygen and nitrogen would likely be poisonous to a ammonia-based life form. As to the alien biology, Bear more or less waves her hands over that, except for such reproductive aspects as are necessary for the plot.

As for the First Contact story, I didn't think it broke any new ground.

By the way, Bear has previously imagined a different form of life in the upper atmosphere of gas giants. See her short story Boojum.

It's also interesting to compare the story to it's counterpart from Arthur C Clarke, A Meeting With Medusa. Clarke also imagines a life form floating in the upper atmosphere, though his is written from the point of view of the "human" (who is actually genetically enhanced for his role as explore.)

3 Stars ***

★★★ (Complete review on my blog)

I also like her work, e.g. The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward which is a 5 star Boojum work.

Initially, I was overwhelmed with sometimes incomprehensible technical explanations about atmosphere and the mining conditions. Bear mitigates this by using an alien as a point of view while maintaining distance and thus avoiding humanizing the aliens. They remain alien, and we learn a lot about this strange setting in only a couple of pages. The story is all about world-building; there are nearly no character development or emotions built into the story. It excels by its atmosphere.
Thinking about those aliens: Could the be long adapted or mutated humans? Bear doesn't hint at it. But if they are really aliens, the story doesn't smoothly fit into the anthology.

I too wondered if the aliens might "be long adapted or mutated humans," but ultimately I think the evidence in the story points . I liked the details of the mining life and the sailing apparatus (though in a few places I had some small difficulties following). Bear's prose really didn't really draw me in ... just something about the language itself that made me spend more time stopping to process than fluidly connecting sentences.

Even though the First Contact piece of the story didn't get too much attention, I think it's interesting that our protagonist's main goal (which I was def. sucked into the story enough to be rooting for him to accomplish) was so truly alien (view spoiler)[("mating" with the Mother by attaching to her underside and atrophying away) (hide spoiler)]. There's a nice moment where the protagonist & one of the humans reflect on their different views of longevity & memory.