Book Review: Grail by Elizabeth Bear
Apr. 30th, 2015 05:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: Grail (Jacob's Ladder Book 3)
Author: Elizabeth Bear
Published: New York: Spectra, 2011
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 352
Total Page Count: 158,475
Text Number: 462
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: As the ship nears the planet where they hope to end their thousand-year journey, they discover the worst: the planet is already inhabited—by humans. The divergent human societies can feel insufficiently alien—or, rather, they don't extrapolate well: the clash of worldviews stretches thin when meant to encompass two complete cultures. But when it works (and, here, Bear's headhopping shines), the view of each society from without is creative, refreshing, thoughtful, and sometimes even hilarious. Bear measures perfect balance between high concept and its trickledown to the personal and social. Grail has the large premise and lively plot that Chill failed to create, yet the interpersonal effects are equally important and frequently more affecting. It's a triumphant end; Chill lags a bit, but Dust and Grail are fantastic and the series entire is well worth reading.
A tangential but fantastic quote, for preserving purposes:
Please please tell me other people are making connection between companion animals/bond creatures and AI companions; please pretty please tell me there's media about artificial intelligence as bond creatures out there, somewhere. Because they hella hit the companion animal tropes sweet spot of ideal-friend-means-inhuman/subservient-but-intelligent.
Author: Elizabeth Bear
Published: New York: Spectra, 2011
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 352
Total Page Count: 158,475
Text Number: 462
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: As the ship nears the planet where they hope to end their thousand-year journey, they discover the worst: the planet is already inhabited—by humans. The divergent human societies can feel insufficiently alien—or, rather, they don't extrapolate well: the clash of worldviews stretches thin when meant to encompass two complete cultures. But when it works (and, here, Bear's headhopping shines), the view of each society from without is creative, refreshing, thoughtful, and sometimes even hilarious. Bear measures perfect balance between high concept and its trickledown to the personal and social. Grail has the large premise and lively plot that Chill failed to create, yet the interpersonal effects are equally important and frequently more affecting. It's a triumphant end; Chill lags a bit, but Dust and Grail are fantastic and the series entire is well worth reading.
A tangential but fantastic quote, for preserving purposes:
What was less ethical than giving artificial intelligence personalities? Than creating—in essence—a slave race: creatures with agency and identity but only the semblance of free will?
Danilaw's people still used smart systems. But they had long since abandoned the horrific practice of making people of them, and then enslaving the people they had made.
Please please tell me other people are making connection between companion animals/bond creatures and AI companions; please pretty please tell me there's media about artificial intelligence as bond creatures out there, somewhere. Because they hella hit the companion animal tropes sweet spot of ideal-friend-means-inhuman/subservient-but-intelligent.
