December 11, 2022
Interconnection is everything
I´ve recently finished the ninth part and I must say that the immense coherency, precision in plotting, and meta context are so fine tuned that it is a joy to read. The effort to polish this until perfection without hardly any logic holes, lengths, and errors and to stay comprehensible must be immense and I must say that I´ve rarely ever seen something like that in Sci-Fi because it´s such a difficult task.
That´s how it often goes
Mostly, the novels of a series are closed in themselves and there are not so many retrospects and connections because it can get too complicated. Peter F Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds, Banks, and some others come close, but Hamilton is the only one with similar interconnections and great character development.
It´s not just that the events, fractions, and happenings of the previous parts are used for reminiscences, the whole power balance, allies, and economic motivations change and keep both the honest, direct war and the hidden, political messes and backstabbings evolving. In such cases I like to imagine the storyboard with context and lines in different colors, metaplots, subplots,… and how complex and interwoven it must be for the creators standing in front and, while writing, in their work and expanding it, pun intended.
All that makes sci fi great in one package
And there is everything, the war, supersoldiers, rebel fractions, big questions about the alien technology, mixed quantum fantasy elements, the highly recommended function of putting the name of the character whose POV is described in front of each chapter to get quicker and directer suspense without the need of explaining where we are, extreme attention on the detailed and realistic description of ship design, physics, life in space,... perfect balance of technobabble, harmless infodumps, tons of tropes, credible characters who are great for constructing inner and outer conflicts, unbelievable worldbuilding, sense of wonder en masse, just everything is done completely right to write one of the greatest space operas ever.
One doesn´t have to be a sci fi nerd to enjoy it
Even people who aren´t so in Sci-Fi can read it just because of the characters, like someone who reads Game of Thrones because of an interest in the protagonists and not because of medieval times, magic, and stuff. I think that sci-fi needed something like that, away from the, for an average audience, too complex hard sci-fi, the too slow and less explosive social sci-fi, too indodumpy and tech-focused cyberpunk, and the general very long and complex novels of many other authors.
Side by side together on the legendary shelve
One of the reasons why this series is so great may lie in the cooperation of the authors, that the weaknesses, if there are any, of the one can be compensated by the other and that everyone writes the stuff he is best at. This practice could get interesting in the future, not just with more and more collaborations to produce high-quality content, but with collaborative writing in a fictional social cataloging network, let´s call it goodbook. Whose inhabitants could, with the help of the book adaptability quote, become professional at escalating the whole thing very quickly, because the knowledge and experience of thousands of readers of specific genres are immense and the one or other might have already played with the thought of writing something, but has problems with the plot or the characters or the twists or… is just a lazy as heck procrastinating slacker. Ahem
Nom nom in space
Growing food in space is a tricky thing, even with advantages such as permanent solar energy and sunshine or someday taming and using the power of black holes, etc., but the side effect is the omnipresent danger of being a very attractive target in case of a war, of getting sabotaged or of errors, black swans, tiny imbalances that accumulate to a collapse of the food production. Personally, I would avoid direct sunlight, drill deep inside asteroids, dwarf planets, or planets and build underground farming complexes, avoiding most dangers this way and focusing on a mix of bioreactors and farming, to have 2 independent food production lines in case of catastrophes.
Necromanced vomit zombies. In space!
Zombies in space that vomit, what else could one´s heart wish for? But seriously, the average umbrella corporation zombie reason with out of control bioweapons can be greatly extended when one goes to space. Be it parasites, symbionts, programs converting all biological mass into something more useful for them, mind control,... it´s always great fun.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
This series has some of the most amazing and massive tropeicaltiy t I´ve ever seen.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
I´ve recently finished the ninth part and I must say that the immense coherency, precision in plotting, and meta context are so fine tuned that it is a joy to read. The effort to polish this until perfection without hardly any logic holes, lengths, and errors and to stay comprehensible must be immense and I must say that I´ve rarely ever seen something like that in Sci-Fi because it´s such a difficult task.
That´s how it often goes
Mostly, the novels of a series are closed in themselves and there are not so many retrospects and connections because it can get too complicated. Peter F Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds, Banks, and some others come close, but Hamilton is the only one with similar interconnections and great character development.
It´s not just that the events, fractions, and happenings of the previous parts are used for reminiscences, the whole power balance, allies, and economic motivations change and keep both the honest, direct war and the hidden, political messes and backstabbings evolving. In such cases I like to imagine the storyboard with context and lines in different colors, metaplots, subplots,… and how complex and interwoven it must be for the creators standing in front and, while writing, in their work and expanding it, pun intended.
All that makes sci fi great in one package
And there is everything, the war, supersoldiers, rebel fractions, big questions about the alien technology, mixed quantum fantasy elements, the highly recommended function of putting the name of the character whose POV is described in front of each chapter to get quicker and directer suspense without the need of explaining where we are, extreme attention on the detailed and realistic description of ship design, physics, life in space,... perfect balance of technobabble, harmless infodumps, tons of tropes, credible characters who are great for constructing inner and outer conflicts, unbelievable worldbuilding, sense of wonder en masse, just everything is done completely right to write one of the greatest space operas ever.
One doesn´t have to be a sci fi nerd to enjoy it
Even people who aren´t so in Sci-Fi can read it just because of the characters, like someone who reads Game of Thrones because of an interest in the protagonists and not because of medieval times, magic, and stuff. I think that sci-fi needed something like that, away from the, for an average audience, too complex hard sci-fi, the too slow and less explosive social sci-fi, too indodumpy and tech-focused cyberpunk, and the general very long and complex novels of many other authors.
Side by side together on the legendary shelve
One of the reasons why this series is so great may lie in the cooperation of the authors, that the weaknesses, if there are any, of the one can be compensated by the other and that everyone writes the stuff he is best at. This practice could get interesting in the future, not just with more and more collaborations to produce high-quality content, but with collaborative writing in a fictional social cataloging network, let´s call it goodbook. Whose inhabitants could, with the help of the book adaptability quote, become professional at escalating the whole thing very quickly, because the knowledge and experience of thousands of readers of specific genres are immense and the one or other might have already played with the thought of writing something, but has problems with the plot or the characters or the twists or… is just a lazy as heck procrastinating slacker. Ahem
Nom nom in space
Growing food in space is a tricky thing, even with advantages such as permanent solar energy and sunshine or someday taming and using the power of black holes, etc., but the side effect is the omnipresent danger of being a very attractive target in case of a war, of getting sabotaged or of errors, black swans, tiny imbalances that accumulate to a collapse of the food production. Personally, I would avoid direct sunlight, drill deep inside asteroids, dwarf planets, or planets and build underground farming complexes, avoiding most dangers this way and focusing on a mix of bioreactors and farming, to have 2 independent food production lines in case of catastrophes.
Necromanced vomit zombies. In space!
Zombies in space that vomit, what else could one´s heart wish for? But seriously, the average umbrella corporation zombie reason with out of control bioweapons can be greatly extended when one goes to space. Be it parasites, symbionts, programs converting all biological mass into something more useful for them, mind control,... it´s always great fun.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
This series has some of the most amazing and massive tropeicaltiy t I´ve ever seen.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
