Subject: Review: "Standing Wave", Howard V. Hendrix

From: "Rob Slade, doting grandpa of Ryan and Trevor" <[email-masked]>
Date: 08 Nov 1999 14:20:49 -0500

"Standing Wave" by Howard V. Hendrix
	Review Copyright 1999 Robert M. Slade

To say what this novel is about would be to deny its buddha-nature.  Or
something.  The plot, such as it is, seems to be primarily a structure for
stringing together endless pseudo-profound lectures.

It is very hard to get into the book as such.  Indeed, a sizable chunk at
the beginning reads like a collection of short stories, seemingly intent
on presenting a random set of future technologies in order to buttress the
claim of the work to be called science fiction.  As in the endless novel
that is being written by "Peanuts'" Snoopy, these threads are eventually
related, if not woven together, but much of the book does read like a
series of intercut novellas, tied to each other by random coincidences.

How about the technology?  Well, it's very hard to comment, since trying
to nail down an idea in this book is like trying to pin jello to the wall.
However, one technology that plays a large part in this roughly fifty-
years-hence future is the infosphere, a sort of supercharged Internet.  A
great many of the plot devices used throughout rely on functions that
simply are inconsistent not only with existing telecommunications, but
with basic ideas about information processing and transfer.

I suppose I have only myself to blame: when the jacket copy talks about
"philosophical ore" and "thoughtful science fiction" it should be a
warning.  While there is a limited amount of technology in this book,
there really isn't any science.  Oh, certainly there are mentions of
quantum physics, "bubble" cosmology, topological transformations, and a
number of other high level topics, but these topics are not explained or
examined in any real sense.  Even the title is a mistake: the author
confuses the concept of multiple or reflected wave functions interacting
in such a way as to create a certain function at a stationary point, with
the idea of moving (and self-reinforcing) solitons.  As is usual in works
of this calibre, the author hasn't even mastered simple math.  An analysis
of the number of options of holding up fingers on a hand figures that
there are only five, rather than the correct thirty two.

This is newage science: vague ideas gleaned from popularizations and
tending to rose coloured mysticism.  There is a kind of continual
namedropping of technical terms from a variety of fields.  This is "X
Files" science, or possibly worse: a few pieces of jargon misrepresenting
the basic foundations and holding to the more egregious philosophical and
pseudo-scientific attitudes of our age, such as the belief that evolution
has some objective, or that a sufficiently large aggregation of unsorted
facts or events will somehow create something magical and wonderful.  In
opposition, one is inescapably reminded of Stephen Crane:

    A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!"
    "However," replied the Universe,
    "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."

or Mark Twain:

    Don't go around saying the world owes you a living.  The world
    owes you nothing.  It was here first.

Word play seems to be very important to the book.  There are a number of
deeply buried puns such as a book entitled "Myth's Edge and Nation" that
refers to miscegenation.  This should give you an idea of the level of
profundity we are dealing with here.

%A   Howard V. Hendrix
%C   200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY  10016
%D   1998
%G   0-441-00553-5
%I   Ace/Penguin/Putnam
%O   800-788-6262 www.berkley.com/berkley www.penguinputnam.com
%P   386 p.
%T   "Standing Wave"

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