Skip to main content

Cytonic (SF) - Brandon Sanderson **** 

Updated for paperback
The third in Brandon Sanderson's Skyward series is perhaps not quite as impressive as the second, Starsight, but still packs in enough to make it a good read. Interestingly, where Starsight triumphed in terms of action sequences, the best bits of Cytonic for me were more talky and philosophical - but filled in huge gaps in exactly what is going on in the series, particular in terms of the nature and motivation of the mysterious delvers. Not as action packed, then, but more fulfilling in its revelations. 

Broadly we get three acts here - the first is a kind of mission quest across a Roger Dean-like (and surely Roger Dean-inspired) floating islands, the second involving some of the starfighter flying action that Sanderson does so well, and the third the talky bit, which had a touch of van Vogt about it, for SF oldies who might appreciate the reference. (Speaking of Roger Dean's art, the Barbie-like proportions of the central character seem to get more extreme with every cover, bearing in mind she's 5 foot 1 tall in the book.)

Pretty well all the action takes place not in the real universe, but the 'nowhere' that ships pass through when travelling faster than light. It's amusing that the up-front dedication (as opposed to the lengthy acknowledgements at the end) refers to getting physics guidance, as one thing this place lacks is good physics - specifically, the conservation of energy. It's very convenient to keep the plot line simple that no one in the nowhere needs to eat, for example, but you do wonder how they get their energy.

This non-physics underlines what is the most important thing about the Skyward series as it is developing - it's not really science fiction. Like the Star Wars films, it is a fairy story that makes use of SF tropes. That's not a bad thing - I loved the original Star Wars trilogy - but accepting this is essential to be able to make use of the right suspension of disbelief to read the book if you are into real science fiction. Sanderson even underlines this by making explicit referral to storytelling and inhabiting a story.

Once you pick up this idea, the parallels with Star Wars are strong. Not only in the central character from a hick location who becomes a space jockey and then a user of mental 'cytonic' abilities. But also, for example, in the way that all the aliens are just humans with a different shape (with the exception of the delvers, whose difference is here explained), in the juvenile aspects that are particularly strong in the first novel, not to mention in the irritatingly pompous-yet-cute entities. (Remember ewoks, anyone?)

I ought to stress that I am not putting this forward as a negative. Apart from finding the quest section a little episodic, the book was highly enjoyable to read (based on having read the previous titles - I wouldn't recommend it standalone), with some clever twists. And I am looking forward to the way Sanderson develops the new complexities added at the end of the book in the already promised sequel, Defiant. But don't expect sophisticated SF, because that's not what this book is.

Paperback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email for free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Laws of Thought - Tom Griffiths *****

In giving us a history of attempts to explain our thinking abilities, Tom Griffiths demonstrates an excellent ability to pitch information just right for the informed general reader.  We begin with Aristotelian logic and the way Boole and others transformed it into a kind of arithmetic before a first introduction of computing and theories of language. Griffiths covers a surprising amount of ground - we don't just get, for instance, the obvious figures of Turing, von Neumann and Shannon, but the interaction between the computing pioneers and those concerned with trying to understand the way we think - for example in the work of Jerome Bruner, of whom I confess I'd never heard.  This would prove to be the case with a whole host of people who have made interesting contributions to the understanding of human thought processes. Sometimes their theories were contradictory - this isn't an easy field to successfully observe - but always they were interesting. But for me, at least, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Infinity Machine - Sebastian Mallaby ****

It's very quickly clear that Sebastian Mallaby is a huge Demis Hassabis fan - writing about the only child prodigy and teen genius ever who was also a nice, rounded personality. After a few chapters, though, things settle down (I'm reminded of Douglas Adams' description of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ) and we get a good, solid trip through the journey that gave us DeepMind, their AlphaGo and AlphaFold programs, the sudden explosion of competition on the AI front and thoughts on artificial general intelligence. Although Mallaby does occasionally still go into fan mode - reading this you would think that AlphaFold had successfully perfectly predicted the structure of every protein, where it is usually not sufficiently accurate for its results to have direct practical application - we get a real feel for the way this relatively unusual company was swiftly and successfully developed away from Silicon Valley. It's readable and gives an important understanding of...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nanotechnology - Rahul Rao ****

There was a time when nanotechnology was both going to transform the world and wipe us out - a similar position to our view of AI today. On the positive transformation side there was K. Eric Drexler's visions in the 1986 Engines of Creation. Arguably as much science fiction as engineering possibilities, it predicted the ability to use vast armies of assemblers to put objects together from individual atoms.  On the negative side was the vision of grey goo, out of control nanotechnology consuming all in its path as it made more and more copies of itself. In 2003, for instance, the then Prince Charles made the headlines  when newspapers reported ‘The prince has raised the spectre of the “grey goo” catastrophe in which sub-microscopic machines designed to share intelligence and replicate themselves take over and devour the planet.’ These days the expectations have been eased down a notch or two. Where nanotechnology has succeeded, it has been with the likes of atom-thick mat...
Post a Comment
Read more