Transport

Where is My Flying Car, what author and nanotechnologist J. Storrs Hall refers to as his intellectual memoir, is the first book I can remember hoping that everyone would read. Graceful, witty, we cut through the blather to the chase of social good: technology, always and forever, and where and how we got off this crystal ship, and how we can get back on it. Consider this the truer, more resonant, more actionable big brother of Tyler Cowen’s Great Stagnation. A random excerpt from 40% in:

Gyros of perfectly usable specs are being built now. This is mostly in Europe, because the EU has an approved rotorcraft classification that is similar to the light-sport fixed-wings you can buy here, but the US does not. That means that in Europe, you can buy a gyro built in a factory, but if you want one here you have to build it yourself. A typical gyro goes for about a third the price of a helicopter and can use a 200-foot runway. The Dutch company PAL-V is in the process of launching a new design roadable autogyro. It has the same advantages as the Pitcairn designs of the 1930s, but updated with modern materials and technology. It also has to face a lot more regulatory hurdles, as a car as well as an aircraft, than there were in the 30s. As a result its roadable configuration is three-wheeled so that it comes under motorcycle regulations instead of car ones. The rotor, tail, and propeller retract and/or fold up and it becomes an enclosed trike-style motorcycle on the road. It’s listed  at better than 100mph both on the road and in the air.

This is fascinating and exciting ⁠— especially today when one can simply search the the company name (PAL-V) and instantly see the company’s news and promotional materials. But the book is not just a catalog, it’s a manifesto. And it’s not just a manifesto, it’s a history. I’m not doing it justice. I’ll come back and write more and differently on it.

[Update 2022 Jan 27: The book has been out a couple of years, so it’s suprising that just a month ago we have The Wall Street Journal’s review by Philip Dewlves Broughton.

I was brought to this most non-sci-fi of sci-fi novels by the Brighton Science Fiction Discussion Group. Narrated in character by its autistic protagonist, Speed of Light initially reminded me of Mr Robot. Yes, I did like it, but wasn’t sure if the thinness of the other characters is due to our narrator’s limitations or those of the author; I don’t know her other work so can’t say. A mostly unsentimental decency permeates – actually it’s an exploration of decency – which gives it an appreciable pre-cyberpunk, almost square feel.

“Speed of Dark” by Elizabeth Moon

This is the least sci-fi novel of any that we’ve read for the Sci-Fi Book Club or whatever it’s called, or any that has sci-fi written on the cover. Having a cure for autism isn’t really enough of a difference from our current world to justify the name. But whatever. I guess if it wasn’t classified as such it would seem very geeky?

I enjoyed and appreciated it, the device of the narrator being autistic. It reminded me near the beginning of Mr Robot, but is more old-fashioned in the sense that the protagonist/narrator ends up a completely good guy whereas Mr Robot is more cyperpunk in that he’s more of an anti-hero, and right now in the middle of season 2 I’m wondering if Ray is just as much a figment of Elliot’s imagination as his father and the ruthless owner of the illicit trading web site is none other than Elliot himself, and the one who gave him such a beating is, well, himself, again Fight Club style.

But that is not this novel. Here the combat is the much more civilized, stylized fencing. The choice seems so particular that once again I wonder/fear that the character fences because the author does. And we come away at the end with no sense who the other characters are, which is great in a way because our narrator has been autistic, but in the end, once he is no longer, then it wasn’t enough to suddenly break out into longer, less stacatto sentences; we should have had enough time to suddenly see Tom and Lucia, the fencing instructor couple and surrogate parents, and Marjory the love interest, in technicolor as it were.

Nonetheless, I like the unabashed Ayn Randian morality; this strong, anchored, decent impressive man has moved on up to the next step, almost a superhuman now in that he has access to the analystic obsessiveness of his pre-op life.

Perhaps these days it would be looked at from a transgender or whatever viewpoint; he has been given his true self by medical intervention.

The speed of dark idea is nice and cute and it makes me think of the Tao, and absence vs presence, the power of nothing, etc, but the speculations about it seem incomprehensible or nonsensical or meaningless to me. As someone who takes an interest in this, I didn’t get it. It is a nice conceit though. And it is a big question: is nothing actually something?

There are lovely touches, like his dream of riding light and being faster then waking up feeling happier than ever before.

The bad guys, Don and Mr Crenshaw, are kind of ridiculous, but the decency of everyone else keeps the worldview sane. Again, we don’t see them, as if the narrator is looking at his toes the whole time. So there should have been a more explosively colorful epilogue than the accomplished man sitting at his desk on a spaceship. We never see him interact with any of the old characters now that he’s normal, beyond the second visit to the rehab center by Tom. It’s like 2001 – no sentimentality, onward, upward, though this time it’s our character rather than humanity.

Mr Aldrin, the sympathetic supervisor, it’s good that the narrator doubts him but he does activate whatever network he has within the company and act subtly to make people aware of the enormity being committed. He is perhaps the most 3-dimensional character. Is that deliberate or just how it worked out for this reader?

So, did I like it? Yes? Does it shimmer as great literature, every nuance reflecting off every other to build this big metaphorific edifice? No, I don’t think so. Place is never mentioned but it does somehow feel very American, very somewhere between the northeast and the midwest or something. Not further west I don’t think. There’s something about it that just doesn’t feel British. Interesting that. Why could it not be in England?

Yes, there are hints that this is in a different world: it’s hotter, the maple trees have died, there’s an emphasis on public transport – that’s one thing American, that this is a sci-fi notion.

Published in 1976, the themes nonetheless feel contemporary some 40 years later: environmental destruction, economic inequality, social alienation, childlessness. It’s all very naturalistic. We never encounter any aliens because they are long gone, and we don’t understand their amazing technological artifacts at all. And the people are in constant emotional turmoil.

Published in 1976, the themes nonetheless feel contemporary some 40 years later: environmental destruction, economic inequality, social alienation, childlessness. It feels very naturalistic: we never encounter any aliens because they are long gone, and we don’t understand their amazing technological artifacts at all. But we’re trying, we’re organized, fumbling around for it, and desperadoes like our (male) narrator Robinette Broadhead are at the vanguard of discovery, setting out in the alien pre-programmed spacecraft in a gold rush for more abandoned alien technology.

The committee that runs the colony from where it happens is also very nicely depicted in that it’s harsh but seems meticulously fair; large sums of money are doled out to successful pilots.

As well as the scenario and setting, the characters and their tales are also naturalistic: they’re in constant emotional turmoil. It’s an interplanetary human society that without religion and tradition leaves many of its members morally rudderless.

Only the narrative device of telling the story to an AI psychotherapist feels a bit clunky.

Assigned by the Brighton Science Fiction Discussion Group.