"This Alien Shore"
I'd been avoiding reading anything by C. S. Friedman, for some reason. The fact that her novels looked like doorstops may have been a contributing factor. Somehow, though, her This Alien Shore wound up on my to-get list, and I finally got around to reading it earlier this month.
The plot of This Alien Shore is not particularly new: a secretive organization holds a monopoly on space travel, and there are movements afoot to disrupt the status quo; a plucky heroine escapes the destruction of her home, and finds within herself exotic talents by which she evades her enemies; a cyber-augmented hacker races to stop a threat to his kind; etc., etc., etc. That's not what I want to talk about.
In a preface, Friedman acknowledges a debt of imagination to Cordwainer Smith, and her debt is evident in several places. Stylistically, there is no comparison; no-one but Smith ever wrote like Smith. But there are a few bits of... borrowing may be too strong a term. Most obvious, and least important, is her use of the phrase "the up-and-out" for space; Smith, of course, used the phrase in, IIRC, "Scanners Live in Vain", and perhaps in some of his less memorable stories. Her model of space travel, within the ainniq, is reminiscent of Smith's "The Game of Rat and Dragon", although the way in which her pilots deal with it is quite different. Also, she deals somewhat with the concept of speciation within humanity, as did Smith. (He's better known for the Underpeople, but it's clear that humanity has undergone speciation in, e.g., Norstrilia.)
More interesting is Friedman's acknowledged debt to Oliver Sacks and Temple Grandin. Her heroine suffers from an extreme form of Multiple Personality Disorder, which turns out to be a strength. On a broader scale, she introduces us to the society of Guera, which accepts what our society would call mental disorders and provides them with niches where they become valuable. (One of the viewpoint characters appears to be high-functioning autistic, for example; there is, in Gueran society, an acknowledged role for such people, where their ability to concentrate is an asset and their social disabilities are minimized.) Other SF authors have played with this idea - Fritz Leiber's "Poor Superman" comes to mind, as do such Bujold characters as Konstantin Bothari and Mark Vorkosigan - but Friedman's treatment of the issue is more extensive, deeper, and somehow more humane. I would be quite interested in learning more about the Guerans.
Although Friedman's prose is not particularly memorable and her characterizations are less dense than they could be, she has constructed an intriguing world - enough so that I intend to continue reading her work.
The plot of This Alien Shore is not particularly new: a secretive organization holds a monopoly on space travel, and there are movements afoot to disrupt the status quo; a plucky heroine escapes the destruction of her home, and finds within herself exotic talents by which she evades her enemies; a cyber-augmented hacker races to stop a threat to his kind; etc., etc., etc. That's not what I want to talk about.
In a preface, Friedman acknowledges a debt of imagination to Cordwainer Smith, and her debt is evident in several places. Stylistically, there is no comparison; no-one but Smith ever wrote like Smith. But there are a few bits of... borrowing may be too strong a term. Most obvious, and least important, is her use of the phrase "the up-and-out" for space; Smith, of course, used the phrase in, IIRC, "Scanners Live in Vain", and perhaps in some of his less memorable stories. Her model of space travel, within the ainniq, is reminiscent of Smith's "The Game of Rat and Dragon", although the way in which her pilots deal with it is quite different. Also, she deals somewhat with the concept of speciation within humanity, as did Smith. (He's better known for the Underpeople, but it's clear that humanity has undergone speciation in, e.g., Norstrilia.)
More interesting is Friedman's acknowledged debt to Oliver Sacks and Temple Grandin. Her heroine suffers from an extreme form of Multiple Personality Disorder, which turns out to be a strength. On a broader scale, she introduces us to the society of Guera, which accepts what our society would call mental disorders and provides them with niches where they become valuable. (One of the viewpoint characters appears to be high-functioning autistic, for example; there is, in Gueran society, an acknowledged role for such people, where their ability to concentrate is an asset and their social disabilities are minimized.) Other SF authors have played with this idea - Fritz Leiber's "Poor Superman" comes to mind, as do such Bujold characters as Konstantin Bothari and Mark Vorkosigan - but Friedman's treatment of the issue is more extensive, deeper, and somehow more humane. I would be quite interested in learning more about the Guerans.
Although Friedman's prose is not particularly memorable and her characterizations are less dense than they could be, she has constructed an intriguing world - enough so that I intend to continue reading her work.