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Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

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Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#31

Post by pavel_lishin »

disssonant wrote: post #5

Oh, but the polygonal "analysis" overlayed on that circular splotch with the drip marks as an alien's "handwriting" example is corny beyond words. Correlating an arbitrary set of points on splashy drippy smears, and eureka! It's a symbol for the global landing sites across seven continents? Yeah right. That leap in counter-intuitive conceptualization is on the level of bat shark repellant, or Roland Emerich's super c…

> Roland Emerich's super computer viruses for alien spaceships

A (unfortunately) deleted scene explains this; our computers are based on reverse-engineered alien technology. We're both effectively running the same architecture.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#32

Post by david-given »

crdb wrote: post #29
extr wrote: post #8

If anyone hasn't read the short story that Arrival is based on, definitely check it out, it's called "Story of Your Life". Ted Chiang is a fantastic SciFi writer and I was very excited (worried?) that this particular story was chosen for a film adaption, as it doesn't seem to lend itself well to the medium. But based on early feedback I'm optimistic. Not sure how closely the movie follows the short story's plot, but…

I disliked the story for the same reason I dislike a lot of modern SF (and arts generally): it is nihilist and depressing. The craftsmanship is good , although not great (the split structure feels a bit forced, for example). To use one's skill like this is... sad. The grandmaster of depressing SF was PKD. Story of Your Life left me with the same feeling of hopelessness and sadness as Ubik, which itself demonstrates g…

Ooh, I have a treat for you!

Peter Watts, known in the science fiction world as 'The Antidote for Optimism', has some of his novels online. I would strongly recommend his multiple award winning Blindsight:

http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

...because it's fascinating first contact novel; crazy, well researched, aliens that are genuinely alien, and not quite as bleak as his other books. (Still quite bleak.) There's a sequel, Echopraxia, that is also awesome, and will introduce you to Portia Labiata, the most intelligent spider in the world.

Also, space vampires.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#33

Post by ricree »

david-given wrote: post #32
crdb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disliked the story for the same reason I dislike a lot of modern SF (and arts generally): it is nihilist and depressing. The craftsmanship is good , although not great (the split structure feels a bit forced, for example). To use one's skill like this is... sad. The grandmaster of depressing SF was PKD. Story of Your Life left me with the same feeling of hopelessness and sadness as Ubik, which itself demonstrates g…

Ooh, I have a treat for you! Peter Watts, known in the science fiction world as 'The Antidote for Optimism', has some of his novels online. I would strongly recommend his multiple award winning Blindsight : http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm ...because it's fascinating first contact novel; crazy, well researched, aliens that are genuinely alien, and not quite as bleak as his other books. (Still quite bleak.)…

While those books are fairly good, they seem like a poor recommendation for someone sick of nihilistic sci-fi.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#34

Post by crdb »

david-given wrote: post #32
crdb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disliked the story for the same reason I dislike a lot of modern SF (and arts generally): it is nihilist and depressing. The craftsmanship is good , although not great (the split structure feels a bit forced, for example). To use one's skill like this is... sad. The grandmaster of depressing SF was PKD. Story of Your Life left me with the same feeling of hopelessness and sadness as Ubik, which itself demonstrates g…

Ooh, I have a treat for you! Peter Watts, known in the science fiction world as 'The Antidote for Optimism', has some of his novels online. I would strongly recommend his multiple award winning Blindsight : http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm ...because it's fascinating first contact novel; crazy, well researched, aliens that are genuinely alien, and not quite as bleak as his other books. (Still quite bleak.)…

I was going to say two recent great first contact novels (showing you can still, in our era, do first contact in an original and intelligent manner) are Cixin Liu's Three Body trilogy and Peter Watts' work. I also think many of Charlie Stross' novels fit in there. For example, what they find on the other side of the wormhole modem in Accelerando counts as a "first contact" of sorts... and it is definitely original.

Clearly we're on the same page. Any other recommendations?

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#36

Post by xenophonf »

Luc wrote: post #35

What's going on with all these ROT13 comments? I've never seen that before. Is this a bit of culture carrying over from another website or something?

It's how one posted spoilers in the beforetime. (I'm not sure if HN has a special spoiler markup like you get on Reddit or similar.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROT13

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#37

Post by llasram »

crdb wrote: post #29
extr wrote: post #8

If anyone hasn't read the short story that Arrival is based on, definitely check it out, it's called "Story of Your Life". Ted Chiang is a fantastic SciFi writer and I was very excited (worried?) that this particular story was chosen for a film adaption, as it doesn't seem to lend itself well to the medium. But based on early feedback I'm optimistic. Not sure how closely the movie follows the short story's plot, but…

I disliked the story for the same reason I dislike a lot of modern SF (and arts generally): it is nihilist and depressing. The craftsmanship is good , although not great (the split structure feels a bit forced, for example). To use one's skill like this is... sad. The grandmaster of depressing SF was PKD. Story of Your Life left me with the same feeling of hopelessness and sadness as Ubik, which itself demonstrates g…

I had a pretty different reaction to "Story of Your Life." I can maybe see the description of "nihilist," but only in the sense of "positive nihilism" -- nothing outside of conscious life defines value, so it's up to us to define it and find it ourselves. The fact that life ends doesn't make it less valuable: it just frames the urgency of finding meaning within the small window we have.

I find that this is a theme which runs through a number of Chiang's stories. If you haven't read it, you might find "Exhalation" interesting: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/ . You may also find it nihilst, but makes the positive, celabratory element even more explicit.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#38

Post by crdb »

llasram wrote: post #37
crdb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disliked the story for the same reason I dislike a lot of modern SF (and arts generally): it is nihilist and depressing. The craftsmanship is good , although not great (the split structure feels a bit forced, for example). To use one's skill like this is... sad. The grandmaster of depressing SF was PKD. Story of Your Life left me with the same feeling of hopelessness and sadness as Ubik, which itself demonstrates g…

I had a pretty different reaction to "Story of Your Life." I can maybe see the description of "nihilist," but only in the sense of "positive nihilism" -- nothing outside of conscious life defines value, so it's up to us to define it and find it ourselves. The fact that life ends doesn't make it less valuable: it just frames the urgency of finding meaning within the small window we have. I find that this is a theme wh…

> so it's up to us to define it and find it ourselves

That's the part I didn't get from the story. In fact, there was a strong sense of "the future is already written so you might as well not try to get out of it". Life is short so let's just drift along whatever little we have of it passively kind of thing.

I'll keep in mind Chiang's other stories (already bought them long ago) but to be honest there are many books ahead of it on the reading list.

spoilers below

The only positive interpretation I can think of the story is a fairly complex critique of the heroine (and through that human nature) as wanting the safety of knowledge even at great personal cost (25 more years of sadness than she was supposed to have). She did have a choice: she could have forgotten how to read the language and through this regained agency in her own life (or at least hope). This is an example of the cognitive bias of picking suboptimal options because we are familiar with them. She did not pick that choice, although you could argue that knowing she did not pick that choice, she did not pick that choice (return to nihilist square one, the only square).

Asimov's The End of Eternity deals much better with time travel and information about future timelines. IMHO.

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