Terraformers
Destry's life is dedicated to terraforming Sask-E. As part of the Environmental Rescue Team, she cares for the planet and its burgeoning eco-systems as her parents and their parents did before her. But the bright, clean future they're building comes under threat when Destry discovers a city full of people that shouldn’t exist, hidden inside a massive volcano. As she uncovers more about their past, Destry begins to question the mission she's devoted her life to, and must make a choice that will reverberate through Sask-E's future for generations to come.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
5mentions
2people
2023–2026years
80% recommend20% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I see it is part of the general problem of the culture industry.
Back in the 1980s the average young "science fiction fan" had never read Heinlein or Asimov or Niven or LeGunn or Anderson or Smith or Robinson or Pohl. Instead of reading 20 books by 20 different authors, they read Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy 20 times.
In the 2000s it was the same with fantasy and Harry Potter. Zillions and zillions of fantasy books but everybody just had to read the same one over and over.
And of course these folks are always negative and not positive, they aren't going to talk about what you should move on to, or even that you should read something like The Terraformers which (1) is pretty good no matter how you slice it and (2) represents an NB point of view.
Contrast that to a healthy culture in Japan where 4-panel comics that have come up in the last four years have had visual adaptations, I'd have no trouble naming 20 fantasy titles that have had visual adaptations, etc.
One thing everybody agrees in the US is that is all about gatekeeping, gatekeeping, gatekeeping, and more gatekeeping. Thing is you can't gatekeep your way to a successful culture industry, like you have to let creative people produce something.
- I liked this one
https://www.amazon.com/Terraformers-Annalee-Newitz/dp/125022...
- I see overread books like Dune and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe as part of the problem, not part of the solution. Back in the 1980s there were so many "sci-fi fans" who had read Hitchhiker 20 times but never read Asimov or Heinlein or Dick or Smith or LeGunn or Pohl or...
I am a big fan of Frank Herbert's other books, particularly The Santaroga Barrier, Under Pressure, Destination Void, Eyes of Heisenberg, Whipping Star and the Dosadi books. I can't stand Dune but for some reason people read it over and over again and don't get into the rest of Herbert never mind any other authors.
I'd also blame Tor press for the downfall of sci-fi. Some of their books were groundbreaking like Ender's Game and Forge of God but because they represented a counter-reformation to the "new wave" which made Smith look cool again (great!) but really diminished the range of stories people would tell instead of expanding it. There was also the expansion of fantasy megaseries like Xanth (way too squicky for visual adaptation) and Discworld (too bad visual adaptations stopped when Pratchett passed away, but at least I can go to a Hogfather showing on the epiphany and cosplay as Twoflower)
I kinda feel about Vinge the way I feel about Niven, he didn't quite continue the promise he showed in his early career in his late career. Same with Charlie Stross, who became as bad a left wing nut (sees a fascist under every rock) as Niven was a right wing nut and gave up on the promising Eschaton series for just plain tiring series like The Merchant Princes (Xanth envy without the notes at the end about how much the author hates writing them?)
I liked the self-published We are Legion (We are Bob) which I found at the Salvation Army. Also
https://www.amazon.com/Terraformers-Annalee-Newitz/dp/125022...
for a very recent book.
- Why, I just read a book[^1] whose author gave personhood to lifted animals, and made everybody vegetarian. She also made everybody monogamous...even the moose. IMO, she could have written a better story if she hadn't been afraid of over-critical readers that would think her work is propaganda advocating for XYZ. The moose didn't need to act like a politically correct western guy. But it's fun to comment on those details, politics and all; they don't subtract from the work.
And yes, there are non-fiction books, like the Bible and "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws", but those can also be approached with a dose of lightheartedness.
[^1] The Terraformers, By Annalee Newitz. Go, buy it, read it. It has real science in it, nothing else needs to be said.
- See also the common sci-fi story such as Skylark of Space or Microcosmic God or The Stars my Destination. Those are oldies but goodies, in all of them the hero experiences major leveling in capability by pulling up on their bootstraps.
Newer literature is more sophisticated as the hero becomes more socially involved. It definitely happens in Pohl’s Heechee series and also Vinge’s The Peace War but you don’t see it in The Terraformers by Newitz as the characters are born into the post-human.
Commercially there is a lot to gain from ‘future histories’ but they have a way of blowing up: exponential leveling can be sometimes contained, as in Niven’s Known Space but such a system can be killed by any bad idea, and that one got two.
