Subject: A Million Open Doors, John Barnes

From: markg@pdx820 (Mark Gonzales)
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1992 23:12:00 GMT

Just read the the new John Barnes book, "A Million Open Doors". It is
good enough for an award nomination or two, and actually based on an
idea that I haven't seen used before.

The background is that Earth sent out lots of colonies using sub-light
technology.  Each colony used a custom designed _culture_ to set up its
society, producing a civilisation called the 'Thousand Cultures'. When
the book opens, a FTL matter transmitter has just been invented, so
Earth is busy recontacting all the formerly isolated cultures.

Girault, the hero of the book lives in a culture based on the late
medieval and early Renaissence notions of Troubadours and Courtly love,
where young men wander around having a lot of fun duelling with
electronic epees (no real blood) and courting Damsels. He ends up being
invited on a mission to recontact Caledony, which is a culture based on
a strange hybrid of fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist
Capitalism. Initially Girault hates every thing about Caledony, but as
he befriends its inhabitants, he learns to see both the good points
about Caledony, and the unpleasant side of his own Culture.

This is another book in a recent welcome trend in SF writing where
_cultures_ are characterized as well as, and in almost the same level of
detail as the characters themselves. If you are a social scientist, it
counts as "Diamond Hard SF".

Mark