Subject: Cold as Ice by Charles Sheffield

From: [email-masked] (Wayne Throop)
Date: 2 Jun 93 22:14:31 GMT

I expect many to disagree (since this is one of the perennial discussion
topics upon which people never seem to agree), but I think Charles Sheffield
is one of the best hard sf authors at describing extremely intelligent
people.  In fact, it is almost a hallmark of his work, from
_Web_Between_the_Worlds_ right up to _Cold_as_Ice_.  Sometimes he does it
quite well, as in _The_McAndrew_Chronicles_, and sometimes he does it
indifferently, as (it seems to me) in his "Heritage Universe" series, or in
_The_Nimrod_Hunt_/_The_Mind_Pool_ recently released rewrite.

Another hallmark of Sheffield's is the description of devious political/
social maneuverings behind the scenes, the sort of wheels-within-wheels
feeling I associate with the first of Herbert's _Dune_ series, or Glen
Cook's _The_Dragon_Never_Sleeps_.

Yet another: Sheffield's normal position is one of largely ignoring the
"Vinge Singularity", that is, ignoring the presumed impact of AI on the rate
of "progress".  It's as if he writes all his stories based on the idea that
we are in the Slow Zone, indeed as if the whole universe is in the Slow.  AI
constructs are limited, and never seem to reach even human competence in
Sheffield universes.  We see some possible notion in _The_Mind_Pool_ that
his position may be related to Penrose's _The_Emperor's_New_Mind_, which
would make a certain amount of sense, but it also shows up in this story in
the (it seems to me from other contextual details) relatively primitive
state of AI personal assistants (called "Faxes" in the story).

Of course, there's also the possibility of a Butlerian Jihad situation that
limits the I-ness of AIs in _Cold_as_Ice_, which is mentioned in the story
(and there's even an AI as one of the characters).  Sheffield introduces the
(IMO great (when taken in context)) slogan "Smart is Stupid" in this regard.
These issues aren't explored deeply, but this does highlight the richness of
this story, that it throws in some thoughts on AI into a work already
posessing more thoughts on more subjects than you can shake a stick at.

I think Sheffield has put these elements together in an excellent mixture in
_Cold_as_Ice_, shaken, not stirred.  He has ended up with a book I vastly
prefer to his "Heritage" series and other recent works.

The book is set a couple of decades after the Great War between earth and
the belt.  In this war, 3/4 of all humans on earth died, and the social,
technological, and psychological effects are still echoing through the
surviving members of humanity.

The story takes place primarily among the moons of Jupiter, where societies
that were isolated and "backward" before the war rode it out in relative
neutrality.  Out here is where the action is nowadays...  as one character
put it (roughly) "the system from the belt in is dead" (meaning culturally
dead, but all too nearly most sincerely dead).

A group of people is drawn to the various moons of Jupiter from all over the
system.  It is fairly obvious that *some*body behind the scenes is pushing
them around the scenery like pieces on a game board, but the real reason
behind this, and even who is responsible, is at best obscure.  (In some
ways, this is a weakness in the book, because the people being moved around
show little curiosity in the who and why, and allow pretty sketchy reasons
to placate them for major disruptions of their personal and professional
lives, but this is only a marginal quibble... it hangs together well
enough.)

But plausible or not, into the mix goes Rustum Battachariya, a Nero Wolf
analog, who never leaves his Bat Cave, and lets all information come to him
in its own time; Cyrus Mobarak, the inventor of the "Moby" series of compact
fusion power systems upon which much of the technological infrastructure is
based; Hilda Brandt, head of the science team that is investigating the
Europan subsurface sea (as Sheffield says in the front matter: "borrowed
from Arthur C.  Clarke), and proponent of keeping Europa as a "wilderness
preserve" for scientific purposes; Camille Hamilton and David Lammerman,
astrophysicists from the Distributed Observing System (atronomical
instrument of unparalleled power), dragged away from their work just as it
nears a culmination; Jon Perry, deep sea expert from earth, relocated to
Europa because of his expertise in deep submersibles; Nell Cotter,
"broadcast journalist" tagging along with Jon Perry because she smells
politics in the air; Wilsa Sheer, keyboardist and composer at the start of a
brilliant career; and an additional cast of thousands.  A diverse crew of
multifaceted characters.

These people go through an intricate dance directed by Sheffield's plot, and
touch upon the most interesting background details one could ever wish to
find as scenery along the way.

Finally, Rustum Battachariya, as the detective of the peice, leaves the Bat
Cave to stage a classic confrontation with all the "suspects".  But the book
has been supplying third-person clues right along, and we aren't really
surprised by what he reveals.  Yet we can appreciate his figuring it out
from his position within the story, not having access to the internals of
the other characters' thoughts, or to the omnicient view of the story.

Get it. Read it.  It's good for what ails you.

%T   Cold as Ice
%A   Charles Sheffield
%C   New York, NY
%D   June 1992
%G   ISBN 0-812-51163-8
%I   Tor
%O   paperback, $4.99 US
%P   372
--
Wayne Throop  [email-masked]

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