On Thu, 7 Dec 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Spoilers. Big ones. With Nasty Sharp Pointy Teeth.
> I just finished reading this book. It was pretty good, except that
> I keep getting flashes that Vinge, through Nuwen kinda agrees with
> the hyperevil Tomas Nau on a lot of things. Also, as in _A Fire
> Upon the Deep_, Vinge's characterizations of aliens seemed much too
> anthropomorphic for my tastes. Perhaps that was intended, given the
> Focused translations.
Er, well, yes.
This wasn't working well for me either, until we saw the Spiders from
a human point of view -- the amiable, human-like characters we'd become
accustomed to, meeting in their large and spacious auditorium, became
creeping multi-legged *things* in a dark steep-walled hole in the ground.
The translation was *everything*, and I don't just think it's because
Vinge can't write good aliens; the Tines, and to a lesser extent the
Skroderiders, from _Fire_ show that he can. This was a major point.
It may not have *worked* for you, that's fair enough, but it was
certainly and obviously intended.
--
Andrea Leistra [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"If you can keep your head while all those about you are
losing theirs, perhaps you have misunderstood the situation."
-- Daniel Keys Moran, _The Long Run_
