Michael Capobianco

review of
William Barton & Michael Capobianco's Iris
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 1-8, 2020

For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/1263993?chapter=1

To anyone out there who pays attn to my reviewing. my not having reviewed a single bk in 2020 until now, during the 3rd mnth of the yr, might seem like unprecedented sloth. In actuality, a member of my family died at the end of 2019 & I've been occupied w/ my role of 'responsible adult' ever since. Added to this that I've been reading 4 other bks, at least 2 of wch I've found exceptionally tedious but I'm nonetheless determined to finish them, & the reader may find that I place the reading of Iris in a particularly trying time. In short, it's hard for me to not just dismiss the bk by saying that I hated it — but, no, that wd be too oversimplifying. There were ideas in it that I found interesting enuf.. but, still, I felt like I was in the presence of the gentrification of science fiction.

What on Earth cd I mean by that?! Most people are familiar w/ the idea of gentrification as referring to changes wrought on a neighborhood or a city by an influx of wealthy people whose above-average prosperity becomes catered to to the detriment of the poorer people in the area who had previously constituted the norm. As such, rents become unaffordable for any but the rich, snooty restaurants only wishing the patronage of the rich push out more egalitarian establishments, culture becomes swayed in favor of the often mediocre tastes of people w/ more money than intelligence (despite self-delusions to the contrary). Lifestyles of Yuppies become the preferred subject matter of readings. People w/ more varied experience of life need not apply. Welcome to the currently changing face of Pittsburgh, where I live.

In the past, the term "co-opting" might've been used to refer to culture emulated but robbed of its virility by the rich, who never tire of exploiting the poor. In my not-always-very-humble opinion, jazz has been co-opted by well-to-do young white New Yorkers who have the chops but, dare I say it?, not the soul. Instead of saying "co-opting", I'm currently inclined to say that the process is gentrification. A young white musician studies w/ an older black one. The young guy starts a big band w/ black & white & asian members. In pictures of the group, the white guys are either absent or minimized. It's bad PR, you see, it makes it look like a white guy's leading the band, wch he is, & there's less money in that, it's politically uncomfortable, it's bad business. That's gentrification. Anyone who's witnessed the Art Ensemble of Chicago in African costume & make-up performing their robust music or Sun Ra's Arkestra in full theatrical splendor will probably agree that 4 middle-class white guys w/ generic appearance & shirt-tails out standing still while they produce university-trained imitations, no matter how skilled they are at it, just doesn't cut it. Bleach not only whitens, it wears the fabric thin.

So how does this relate to Iris & to its authors? Maybe it doesn't, maybe I'm just an embittered guy who isn't gettting laid enuf who doesn't fit into the 21st century.

I love the writing of Mack Reynolds. He wrote from 1950 to 1983. The "About the Author" section in his Commune 2000 A.D. informs the reader that:

"A true adventurer, he once crossed the Sahara to Timbuktu and on the way was captured by the Tuareg (The Forgotten of Allah, and the so-called Apaches of the Sahara). Another time in the tropical jungles of Mexico he was bitten by a vampire bat and had to be treated for rabies. During his travels, Mack Reynolds has been in more than half a dozen wars, revolutions and military revolts, ranging from being shot at by the Huks in the Philippines to being bombed by anti-Castro Cubans." (Commune 2000 A.D., p 182)

Now cf that to the bios of Barton & Capobianco:

"William Barton is the information systems manager for Health Sciences Consortium, a nonprofit medical/educational publisher."

[..]

"Michael Capobianco is a founding partner and C.E.O. of Not-Polyoptics, a software company specializing in orphan computers." - p 403

Ok, my bad attitude is showing: I'm a bigot, a bigot against C.E.O.s. So what do the authors do to put a little wild world spice into their privileged authors story? Lots of sex. LOTS of sex. So much SEX that, for me, it became quickly very tedious. Again, maybe I'm just not getting enuf. Instead, tho, I feel like I wandered into a Nxivm (pronounced "Nexium") Wonderland, 50 Shades of Greys [plural intended].

"It was 2097 and now humankind was irrevocably changed. Those manifestations of the physical world that had entertained and ravaged people were ebbing away, becoming less important. Reality had become an eerie technological ocean, and mankind a frenzied swimmer in its electronic deeps. Only a little more than a generation before, an easy and acceptable means of plugging human minds into the already vast information processing and retrieval networks had been invented. Its ramifications were universal and its tendrils extended into virtually every phase of human endeavor." - p 2

So it (almost) begins. Ever since Cyberpunk began such a setting has become generic. However, this was published in 1990 so it's early enuf to not really be riding the wave of prefabrication. You see? Maybe I've been too harsh. There's a neologism:

"Astronomy itself had changed from the early days of randomly scattered observation into a rigid and systematic cataloging of the heavens conducted almost entirely from a single great multi-observatory on Luna's farside. It had changed so much that it had a different name: asterology." - p 9

Apparently, "asterology" hasn't caught on yet b/c a search for it online only yielded "astrology". There's still another 77 yrs to go.

I almost always respond to musical references — esp ones made to favorite composers:

"The air seemed to change. What had been "Trois Gymnopédies" gave way to a gurgling roar that was being transmitted through the structure of the ship. The ion drive was firing, allowing Deepstar to fall along a parabola around Iris." - p 20

Note that an "ion drive" is evoked. A review on the front cover claims that this is "A virtually perfect blend of diamondhard scientific extrapolation and stylistically brilliant narrative." I didn't, personally, find the science to be such a big deal — but, then, I'm not a scientist. I also didn't find there to be anything particularly "stylisitically brilliant" about it either — I mean we're not exactly talking Nabokov here. There is a fair amt of tech-talk:

"Brendan said, "You handle OdP pretty well."

"Tem looked at him, expressionless. "Is that so surprising? I have a higher influx potential than Ariane, you know."

""Yeah, but I rode after her with a GAM-and-Redux subplot until she'd been down all the essential pathways. You can't have done that—we both know that Luna's access to Comnet is strictly limited . . . unless you've lied about never having been to Earth."

"Tem smiled, showing a flash of teeth through the curly overfall of his untrimmed mustache. "Nope, Lewislab—and old Maggie herself—trained me pretty well. Monitoring experiments like the Mini-null-omega Research Torus is, for the most part, like controlling Deepstar. Our tools aren't all that backward" - p 24

One of the more interesting ongoing issues about space travel, for me, is not so much the tech how-to but the psychological problems resulting from separating humans from what is, after all, a pretty nice place: viz EARTH. Regardless of how much humans pollute the environment & generally act in exceptionally unpleasant manners, Earth is fantastic & I'm glad I live here. This is, after all, my HOME. No nation is my home but this planet definitely IS.

"The years flowed into decades and the colonies of the inner Solar System began to complain of unexplained torpor. Low gravity, the experts said, no exercise, poor diet, even Weltschmerz. . . . Odd diseases and neuroses appeared, and colonies did not do well. Children died or grew up "weird," and people had to go home, if they could. The future of space began to look endangered." - p 37

I think it was probably in 1973 when I was a research volunteer at the Johns Hopkins Phipps Clinic in Baltimore in a simulated space station environment funded by NASA. The purpose of the research was to experiment w/ controlling the limited space in such a way that the 'astronauts' (me & 2 friends) wdn't succumb to "unexplained torpor". Behavior modification routines assured proper exercise, both physically & mentally, & limited socializing helped the 'astronauts' maintain interactive skills & pleasures. The study was only for 15 days but at the time I thought I cd've gone on for 6 mnths. The imagined future of space travel has humans being born off-Earth, on the moon for starters. That strikes me as a bit of a curse, a deprivation similar to the class-imposed strictures in effect on Earth itself thanks to socio-political manipulations.

We read alot about "Brendan Sealock", a boxer & a technical genius — how his brain stays undamaged & highly functional despite all the beatings he's involved w/ is never explained. In other words, the combination seems unlikely &, therefore, is one of those ficitional 'ideals' that make for exciting characters. As w/ most or all of the characters we get tellings of much of his life, including his childhood.

"That room they were in was part of a therapeutic program that the school had designed, geared like everything else around here to producing sensible, cooperative citizens who could eventually be shipped back into the collective-effort society of the Deseret Enclave Complex. Ten terribly antisocial little boys lived in the room, allowed to maul one another's emotions and form the naturalistic pecking orders common to such groups, while sociobiological technicians used carefully designed behavior-mod pressures on them. It usually worked." - p 48

""Let's start at the beginning. All my life I've seen people sitting in judgment of one another. People place themselves in a hierarchical relationship with others, and society is driven by the resulting pain. That's what's always been wrong with the way people conceive their roles.["]" - p 53

That's John talking, the ultra-wealthy composer/sound-artist who's created this project of colonizing a planetary body where no known humans have ever set foot before. Technology changes faster than human nature even if human nature is changing along w/ it.

""Beth and I . . . well, I was wrong. I thought we would evolve into a model relationship. Instead, she can't get over her fear of intimacy."

""By 'intimacy' you mean submitting herself to your will?"

""Come on! What I wanted to say is that you're the crux of the whole thing. The love relationships focus on you."" - p 54

""It's not just our personal survival at stake. This colony is supposed to last, even if no one ever comes to join us. I've put off bringing the first foeti out of deep freeze; this is just the beginning. . . ."

""And it doesn't seem very likely, does it?"" - p 55

But I'm up to p 55 & I haven't quoted a single sex scene yet. You might begin to think I'm fibbing.

"Suddenly Vana appeared from her compartment, naked, a broad smile on her face. She announced, "Da-daaa!" and the PC hatches sprung open. "It's orgy time!" They all gathered in the center of the room, on a ridge surrounding the exit hatch, coming to cluster together by ones and twos, forming a ragged circle." - p 56

Ya gotta watch those "jagged circles", in circle jerks whole protubernces get sawn right off in the frenzy.

""I'd rather we didn't," said Beth. "I think the time has come to start discussing a few things. John, you know, I remember how eloquent you were about starting this colony . . . back on Earth. Now that we're here, and the time for a real start has come, you sit back and watch. When you do talk, it's all generalities. What's happening to you?"

"The man looked at her and the others in turn. His face flushed. "I'm sorry," he said, looking at the table. "It's true—I had great hopes for this colony. But it's not going to work out that way. We're a failure already, barely two weeks along. All that's here is what we brought. I was wrong to think that something else could be created. I am responsible." He paused, then went on: "We have our chances to fail, now. When the USEC ship comes in a few months, those of us who must go back separately will be able to do so. Maybe we should call it quits."" - p 74

& the novel cd've ended there. But, no, the authors went bravely on.. for another 328pp. Thank goodness they put a swimming pool in there.

""Ah, but did you notice? I hit the water so slowly I didn't impart much momentum to it. Elementary physics."

""Can I climb up on the surface tension? My fullbodies won't absorb the water."

""Try it and see."

"It worked, though it was difficult to present sufficient surface area to support her bare half kilogram, especially since, after a first failure, she was giggling like a maniac. Finally, she was riding dry on the tension of the shiny liquid, cradled in her little dimple like an ungainly water strider." - p 110

Then they all drowned. The End.

"It was then that she'd seen the man who was to become that year's silver medalist: Brendan Sealock, the program said, and New York Free City. She'd watched him savage a series of contenders, earning whistles of contempt from the audience as he smashed his opponents around, obviously intent on injury. How the people cheered when he'd been beaten in the final match by a swift, dark Cuban who was simply too fast for him." - p112

Then he died & this review cd finally be over.

But, nnnoooooooooo, the night is still young, the eternal night of writing this review, & there's still non-human technology to discover.

""You tell me, Brendan. What inert material stays pliable at 43 degrees Kelvin?"

""I might as well be the one to say it this time: alien artifact. This is not our tech."" - p 125

& then they were all sucked into what was tantamount to a cross between a mouse-trap, a toaster, & a fuel tank & turned into fuel for an automatic comedy-writing machine. The End.

For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/1263993?chapter=1… (lisätietoja)

A strangely memorable, but ultimately deeply unsatisfying book. An odd collection of spacefarers encounters a series of problems in what was supposed to be a round-trip visit our nearest stellar neighbor. As they explore the the Alpha Centauri system they come across and explore ruins from a couple of long dead alien societies.

The book includes some interesting concepts, notably some technology ideas and the creatively conceived alien races (one of which became extinct because it thought too much and did too little).

But, the plot meanders and fails to build any momentum. And what plot there is, is overwhelmed by excessive, gratuitous, perverse, and almost constant sex, which many readers would find highly objectionable. Much of the ingenuity that went into the book was focused on thinking about amazing ways for human fetishism to evolve. Too bad it wasn't focused elsewhere, for this had the potential to be a pretty decent read.… (lisätietoja)