From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Mar 9 11:50:59 1992 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!seunet!mcsun!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!bionet!raven.alaska.edu!never-reply-to-path-lines From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: THE DIVIDE by Robert Charles Wilson Message-ID: <1992Mar5.202523.23692@raven.alaska.edu> Date: 5 Mar 92 20:25:23 GMT Sender: wisner@raven.alaska.edu (Bill Wisner) Organization: University of Alaska Computer Network Lines: 50 Approved: wisner@ims.alaska.edu THE DIVIDE by Robert Charles Wilson A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper Let's clear something up right away: this book is *not* by the co-author of the "Illuminati" books. That is Robert *Anton* Wilson. No, this is by the author of A HIDDEN PLACE. MEMORY WIRE, and GYPSIES, all of which I read, liked, and recommended previously. So it should come as no surprise that I liked this book as well. (My delay in reviewing it is due to the relatively poor distribution trade paperbacks get, coupled with an apparent change of publishers--Wilson's three previous novels were with Bantam Spectra and I expected his future novels to appear under that imprint as well.) John Shaw is the result of a government-sponsored experiment in enhancing intelligence. (The back blurb compares THE DIVIDE to FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON, but there is something of FIRESTARTER here as well.) But John found that greater intelligence was a curse as well as a blessing, and so Benjamin was born. Beginning as a role that John played, Benjamin became an independent personality, a normal person who lived a normal life. And now, to complicate matters, John/Benjamin gets a message that he is dying. It is difficult to portray convincingly a genius so that the non-genius reader (or viewer) can comprehend it. This was one of the major failings of the film LITTLE MAN TATE, for example. Wilson knows this, and even has John comment on this in regard to Olaf Stapledon's ODD JOHN, a classic work on this theme. Wilson succeeds in his portrayal by avoiding the specific--he doesn't show John solving polynomials in his head or doing esoteric scientific experiments. Rather, he is shown as subtly different in outlook, successful at anything he sets his hand to, and alone. On the other hand, THE DIVIDE does have problems. The "psychotic boyfriend" subplot seemed unnecessary (one might almost say gratuitous), and the resolution was singularly unsatisfying--it was just too fortuitous. (This is similar to the problem that Wilson had in his second and third novels, MEMORY WIRE and GYPSIES, whose endings I felt were too predictable.) Because of these flaws I can't recommend this book as strongly as Wilson's previous works, but if you are interested in the subject of enhanced intelligence and its effects, this book is of definite interest to you. %T The Divide %A Robert Charles Wilson %C New York %D January 1990 %I Doubleday Foundation %O trade paperback, US$8.95 %G ISBN 0-385-26655-3 %P 249pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From /tmp/sf.4258 Tue Feb 1 03:34:17 1994 Xref: liuida rec.arts.sf.reviews:312 rec.arts.books:61169 alt.books.reviews:901 Path: liuida!sunic!uunet!psinntp!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: Evelyn.Chimelis.Leeper@att.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books,alt.books.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: HARVEST by Robert Charles Wilson Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <9307291901.AA04911@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Date: 02 Aug 93 14:45:51 GMT Lines: 40 HARVEST by Robert Charles Wilson A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper What if aliens offered us the chance to live forever--if the only price we had to pay was to give up being human? That is the premise of Robert Charles Wilson's latest book, HARVEST. As might be expected from the premise, HARVEST is more a study in characters than an action story, though there is a very impressive storm sequence. Wilson looks at the world through the eyes of those few who chose to remain human. And they are a motley crew--a doctor, a fundamentalist Christian, a car salesman, a politician, two teenagers, a farmer's wife, an Army colonel, a retired worker. They have little in common--except their decision. What makes some choose one way and some another is one of the main questions of the book, but Wilson never satisfactorily answers it, and indeed, towards the end HARVEST becomes very much like an update EARTH ABIDES, as the remaining humans cope with lack of electricity, the search for food, and so on. Wilson also makes a few flubs. He says that on election night, "a long Republican ascendancy over the White House had come to an end," obviously expecting Bush to win in 1992. (Internal evidence says the story takes place in 1996.) He also seems to think Lima is in a time zone between Los Angeles and Anchorage, while it is actually in the same time zone as New York. In spite of these minor quibbles, however, I would still recommend HARVEST. Wilson at least touches on the nature of humanity, and his characters and their reactions to the situation and to each other may give us some clues, if not to *the* answer, at least to *an* answer. %T Harvest %A Robert Charles Wilson %C New York %D January 1993 %I Bantam Spectra %O trade paperback, US$12. %G ISBN 0-553-37110-X %P 394pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgpfs1.att.com / Evelyn.Leeper@att.com From new Thu Jun 16 19:02:27 1994 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: liuida!sunic!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!library.ucla.edu!socrates!lichter From: lichter@sscnet.ucla.edu (Michael Lichter) Subject: Review: _Mysterium_ by Robert Charles Wilson Message-ID: Organization: University of California Los Angeles Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 10:20:53 GMT Lines: 71 In 1989, a strange green stone is found at an archaeological dig in Turkey. Its composition and origins defy analysis. Some time later, a government laboratory is built near Two Rivers, a small, isolated Michigan town. One night, strange lights fill the sky, and the next morning the residents of Two Rivers find themselves in a very different world than the one they had known the day before. Slowly, the residents find that they haven't moved geographically, but have instead slipped into an alternate universe, one where the political entity called the United States of America never existed, and where much of what we call North America is ruled by a brutal and racist Christian theocracy. The key players from Two Rivers include high school teacher Dexter Graham, an intellectual, a rugged individualist and a man with a past; Howard Poole, young physicist and nephew of the great cosmologist Alan Stern; Clifford Stockton, an adventurous kid with a bicycle; and Evelyn Woodward, Dex's some-time lover. The New World contributes Lt. Demarch, the man in charge of overseeing the control and exploitation of this strange new community; Linneth Stone, an ex-pagan ethnologist who befriends Graham; and Censeur Bisonette, a religious autocrat involved in the plan to develop an atomic bomb to use in an ongoing war against Spain. While much of the book concerns the sociology of two universes in collision -- the efforts of people to understand and adjust to huge disruptions in their worlds -- at the core are Dex and Howard's attempts to discover what has happened to them. Their intellectual journey brings them to the "*mysterium tremendae*, the outer limit of rational thought" whence the book's title. _Mysterium_ is Robert Charles Wilson's seventh novel, and in my opinion his best since _Gypsies_ (1989), to which it is akin in its exploration of alternate universes. With its reliance on Christian Gnostic cosmology (which is only sketchily explicated), _Mysterium_ also recalls Philip K. Dick's _VALIS_. In structure, _Mysterium_ resembles a 70's disaster movie or a TV-miniseries; it has a large stock of characters and situations and the book develops through individual development of the many threads and their eventual interweaving. In this structure, and in the focus on an independent and individualistic man -- Dex -- _Mysterium_ resembles Wilson's disappointing _The Harvest_ (1993) and most of his earlier novels. As with too many SF novels, the female characters are secondary and mostly passive. Linneth, an extraordinary woman in her world, is definitely underexploited by Wilson. Wilson's prose is, as always, spare, tightly controlled and transparent. The biggest flaws in his storytelling in his earlier novels have been a tendency towards excessive distance from his characters, and a habit of building to sudden and unsatisfactory resolutions. Fortunately, neither are significant problems with this book. Overall, _Mysterium_ is a compelling story with a set of eternal questions at its heart. It has action, mystery, romance, and an optimistic humanist sensibility. It's a good read, and I recommend it highly. %A Robert Charles Wilson %T Mysterium %I Bantam Spectra %C New York %D 1994 %G ISBN 0-553-37365-X %O $11.95 %P 276 pp -- /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Michael Lichter // // UCLA Department of Sociology lichter@nicco.sscnet.ucla.edu // /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// From /tmp/sf.4146 Tue Aug 9 01:56:37 1994 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!library.ucla.edu!psgrain!charnel!yeshua.marcam.com!hookup!news2.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: Evelyn.Chimelis.Leeper@att.com () Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: MYSTERIUM by Robert Charles Wilson Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <9404180935.ZM5052@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 02:09:00 GMT Lines: 80 MYSTERIUM by Robert Charles Wilson Bantam Spectra, ISBN 0-553-37365-X, 1994, 288pp, US$11.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper I have liked all of Robert Charles Wilson's previous books (THE HIDDEN PLACE, MEMORY WIRE, GYPSIES, THE DIVIDE, THE BRIDGE OF YEARS, and HARVEST), which is even more interesting when you consider how widely they vary. THE HIDDEN PLACE is a fantasy set in a hobo camp during the Great Depression, MEMORY WIRE is a science fiction story of cybernetics in 21st Century Brazil, GYPSIES is about the military trying to use children who can "sidestep" into other worlds, THE DIVIDE is about the experimental enhancement of intelligence, THE BRIDGE OF YEARS is about time travel, and HARVEST is about aliens who come to transform the human race into something higher. If there's a pattern here, I don't see it. (And lest there be any confusion, this book is *not* by the co-author of the "Illuminati" books. That is Robert *Anton* Wilson.) And now we have MYSTERIUM, a book based on gnosticism. I must admit that gnosticism in the early Christian church is not one of my strong points. From a historical perspective, I know that gnosticism led inpart to Manichaeism and the religion of the Bogomils, but I am less clear on their doctrines, so I have to take MYSTERIUM based on what Wilson conveys within it. (I hope he's more accurate on gnosticism than on mathematics-- where he refers to the "anthropic principle in the language of set theory"- -or physics--where he describes a thirty-degree incline as "not steep.") Of course, one might claim that since one of the basic principles of gnosticism is hidden knowledge Wilson doesn't have to convey it clearly. After all, in Luke 8:10 it is said, "Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand," a very gnostic concept. The town of Two Rivers, Michigan, is happy when the government builds a secret laboratory nearby, disappointed when they discover the employees won't be pumping money into the local economy, and surprised when they wake up one morning to discover that their entire town has been transported to a world like theirs--but different. Their country--whatever it is--seems to be at war with New Spain, and the Proctors have arrived to bring the town under control. No one is quite sure what has happened, but Howard Poole is sure it has something to do with his uncle, Alan Stern. The three parts of MYSTERIUM are entitled "Mysterium," "Mysterium Tremendae," and "Axis Mundis" (reminiscent of the three sections of A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ). Each begins with a brief excerpt from Stern's diary, heavy on the Greek terms but somewhat helpful in understanding the religious basis not only of this new world but also of the book itself. Because gnosticism is the key to what's happened to the town of two rivers. I have a couple of minor quibbles. Given the time of the "world- split," it seems unlikely that names such as Boston and Meso-America would be use. (Wilson attempts to explain this by having Graham note, "The movements of people, the evolution of language. It's as though history wants to flow in certain channels. Broad ethnic groupings persist, and there are roughly analogous wars, at least up until the tenth or eleventh century. There are plagues, though they follow different patterns. The Black Death depopulated Europe and Asia no less than five times," but I'm not convinced.) And his science is sloppy (see my comments about set theory and thirty-degree slopes earlier). But in spite of these problems, I found MYSTERIUM to be an engrossing novel. I may not believe the religious underpinnings of it, but then the same was true of A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ and that didn't stop me from liking that. This uses religion slightly differently, of course, but read it for yourself to see how. %T Mysterium %A Robert Charles Wilson %C New York %D April 15, 1994 %I Bantam Spectra %O trade paperback, US$11.95 %G ISBN 0-553-37365-X %P 288pp -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | Evelyn.Leeper@att.com "The Internet is already an information superhighway, except that ... it is like driving a car through a blizzard without windshield wipers or lights, and all of the road signs are written upside down and backwards." --Dave Barry From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Aug 10 12:40:31 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!news.solace.mh.se!news.xinit.se!nntp.se.dataphone.net!fci-se!fci!masternews.telia.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: DARWINIA by Robert Charles Wilson Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 27 Jul 1998 15:37:37 -0400 Organization: none Lines: 62 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2058 DARWINIA by Robert Charles Wilson Tor, ISBN 0-312-86038-2, 1998, 320pp, US$22.95 A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1998 Evelyn C. Leeper In S.M. Stirling's ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME, the island of Nantucket is hurled back to the Bronze Age via a mysterious "Event." In Greg Bear's DINOSAUR SUMMER, the lost plateau of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's LOST WORLD is real. In Robert Charles Wilson's previous book, MYSTERIUM, our history took a different course and Gnosticism prevailed. DARWINIA seems to be a combination of parts of all four, but ends up very different from all of them. In 1912, the "Miracle" happens, and Europe as we know (knew) it vanishes, replaced by a primeval continent with virtually identical geography and geology, but different plant and animal life. Apparently it is from a timeline where evolution took a different path. As a result, the history of the world is very different from that point on. For starters, it's hard to have a World War based in Europe when all the inhabitants of Europe no longer exist. Guilford Law signs up with the Finch Expedition to explore neo-Europe, or Darwinia, as it is called. This leads to some confusion, as the term "Darwinian evolution" refers specifically to the evolution of the life-forms on Darwinia, not evolution as described by Charles Darwin. Not only does the expedition run into various natural and man-made dangers, but several members are haunted by strange dreams that we recognize as being related to their possible lives in our timeline, and Law gradually becomes aware that the struggle is not merely global, but cosmic. However, this is not so much an alternate history as an analysis of what might cause an alternate history, because in addition to everything else, this is connected somehow with the Archive, a record of all history created by the far future. Wilson uses interludes to try to explain this, but it is such a departure from the main action, at least at the beginning, that it feels very jarring--which is probably the idea. Even though the basic situation is mysterious, the reader *thinks* she understands somewhat what is going on and then Wilson pulls the rug out. John Clute seems to feel that DARWINIA, along with Wilson's other work, expresses a feeling of "apartness" that comes from Wilson's being Canadian. While there is a sense of apartness and isolation, I think it is more universal than Clute perceives it as being. There is also a thread reminiscent of Harry Turtledove's BETWEEN THE RIVERS and its echoes of Jaynes's bicameral mind. I realize at this point that it sounds as though DARWINIA is a real hodge-podge, but it isn't. Wilson has taken several themes that have appeared elsewhere recently, but woven them into a tapestry all his own. I definitely recommend DARWINIA. %T Darwinia %A Robert Charles Wilson %C New York %D June 1998 %I Tor %O hardback, US$22.95 %G ISBN 0-312-86038-2 %P 320pp Evelyn C. Leeper | eleeper@lucent.com +1 732 957 2070 | http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824 "That's how things are--you open the door to a possibility and the next thing you know, an actuality has you by the throat." --Russell Hoban From rec.arts.sf.reviews Sat Jul 31 15:06:34 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!arclight.uoregon.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snf1!news.gtei.net!news.ums.edu!haven.umd.edu!hecate.umd.edu!sipb-server-1.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: "Aaron M. Renn" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 28 Jul 1999 13:29:43 -0400 Organization: GNU's Not Unix! Lines: 54 Sender: wex@basil.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: basil.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2408 Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson Review Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron M. Renn Conclusion: Recommended It's almost a truism that expectations play a huge role in how we judge a book. I actively dislike the alternate history subgenre so was prepared to hate Darwinia. As it turned out this was more than your regular alternate history, and I really liked it. But I can't shake the feeling that had I gone in with higher expectations I wouldn't have liked it nearly so much. In 1912 the Miracle happened and Europe was transformed in a single night. All traces of humanity were destroyed and the entire continent was replaced by what was quickly dubbed Darwinia - a wilderness from some bizarre alternate evolution. Guilford Law was a photographer on an expedition to sail up the Rhine on a mission of exploration of this wondrous new continent. At this point, Darwinia seems a combination of your standard alternate history and an exploration adventure story. However, the story rapidly changes to something far more. I can't say much without spoilers, but let's just say that it involves good vs. evil, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, the heat death of the universe, love, physical transformation, ghosts, secret societies, immortality and more. This book is a Hugo nominee and I couldn't help but compare it to Factoring Humanity, a nominee by fellow Canadian Robert J. Sawyer. The two books are similar in a number of respects. Both are fairly short. Both include a large number of themes and elements that are not fully explored, leaving the reader wanting to know more. For example, in Darwinia, we actually get to do little exploration of the transformed continent itself. Both have a healthy dose of spiritualism. Family relationships play a big part in both as well. But where Factoring Humanity never clicked with me, Darwinia did. I just found it a much more enjoyable read. I will say that Darwinia started a lot better than it finished. Once the stage was set, the ending was never in doubt. Did you really think the bad guys were going to win? Nevertheless, I liked it and recommend it. I'd never read a Robert Charles Wilson book before, but I'll definitely be reading more in the future. %A Wilson, Robert Charles %T Darwinia %I Tor %D 1999-07 (original publication 1998-06) %G ISBN 0-812-56662-9 %P 372 pp. %0 mass market paperback, US$6.99 Reviewed on 1999-07-25 -- Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Nov 10 23:36:48 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: "Aaron M. Renn" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Bios by Robert Charles Wilson Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 08 Nov 1999 15:08:35 -0500 Organization: GNU's Not Unix! Lines: 45 Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2498 Bios by Robert Charles Wilson Review Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron M. Renn Conclusion: Should have been a novella I greatly enjoyed last year's Hugo nominee Darwinia, so was eagerly awaiting the latest novel from Wilson. Unfortunately, Bios disappoints. Wilson really only had one good idea in this book, and it wasn't sufficient to carry a novel length work, even a short one like Bios. This one should have been done as a novella. In the future, humanity is ruled by an interconnected set of megacorporate Trusts and a handful of aristocratic Families. Only a few scattered settlements in the Kuiper Belt remain nominally independent. Earth is poor, life is depressing. Against this backdrop, humanity is exploring the world Isis. Isis is a planet of a reasonably nearby star system that has a rich amount of life, extending all the way up to the nearly sentient level. Unfortunately, this life is uniformly deadly. The evolution of this planet followed a much more competitive path than ours, and humans simply can't compete. Any exposure to the air and the microbes will do an almost instant ebola on your ass. Zoe Fisher gets sent to Isis in order to test out a new type of enviro-suit that might be able to replace the bulky and unwieldy models now used. As with Darwinia, there's a world out there that might be fascinating to explore, but we actually get to see very little of it. That's in spite of the book being subtitled "A Novel of Planetary Exploration." Wilson only uses the world as a prop to develop his ideas about the nature of consciousness. The characters mostly aren't very well drawn or very interesting. The mysteries and conspiracies weren't very impressive either. I personally got the impression that Wilson was merely beefing up a novella in order to get it up to the bare minimum length needed for a novel. At $23 for a hardcover, the price performance just isn't there for this one, though it might be worth picking up in paperback. %A Wilson, Robert Charles %T Bios %I Tor %D 1999-11 %G ISBN 0-312-86857-X %P 208 pp. %O hardcover, US$22.95 Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/