Nitpicking Shadows Live Under Seashells
Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years, 1 month ago to Books
I finished Shadows Live Under Seashells last week. Most of it was a frighteningly believable description of future technology and a future authoritarian government. I wrote about this in a review on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/review/R38XCKK2RMQ...
I wanted to ask nitpicking questions here of anyone who's read the book.
Nitpicking Questions:
-People in this story get married at fifteen years old. They are also forced marriages. Why so young?
-What bit of recorded dialog did they use for the trumped up charges against Elliot's wife? It didn't seem like she said anything questionable. Maybe that's the point.
-Why do they subject gays and bisexuals to forced reeducation or sex correction? It it just flat-out homophobia?
-The story mentions ozone depletion at least three times. Is the author unaware that this problem was solved years ago, or is he suggesting it might come back in the future?
-What's up with the gov't giving Elliot as a young man pictures of five young women and letting him pick on who they'll make sleep with him? Do the young women just have a really low usefulness rating so the gov't pimps them out, or does the gov't tell everyone when to sleep with someone?
-Ergonomics comes up several times, usually with people complaining that the ergonomic features are not very ergonomic. What's that about?
-Elliot figures any wife should be thrilled to talk about her husband's prestigious job, even if she doesn't understand what her husband actually does. Has sexism increased dramatically in the future?
-There are a few questionable scientific things. The biggest one is that the gravity on Mars in the story is 86.1091% of earths. It's actually less than half that. Why so many decimal places on a number that's completely wrong? The other scientific issues are minor: 1% of 115 miles being 115 feet; there being little gravity 600 miles above earth's surface; early moon missions having reached the moon in less than nine hours. None of those affect the story, but the Martian gravity things sounds intentional.
Notable Quotes from SLOS (not nits)
-There was a time when people took a fierce pride in making decisions for themselves, sink or swim, rise or fall. It's the stifling atrophy of a managed existence that's slowly killing the creative spirit of mankind.
-Earth society, with the Administration's Coalescence Laws, in its desire to protect and preserve the human race and foster a universal social harmonic, had sacrificed something intrinsically and exceptionally human.
I wanted to ask nitpicking questions here of anyone who's read the book.
Nitpicking Questions:
-People in this story get married at fifteen years old. They are also forced marriages. Why so young?
-What bit of recorded dialog did they use for the trumped up charges against Elliot's wife? It didn't seem like she said anything questionable. Maybe that's the point.
-Why do they subject gays and bisexuals to forced reeducation or sex correction? It it just flat-out homophobia?
-The story mentions ozone depletion at least three times. Is the author unaware that this problem was solved years ago, or is he suggesting it might come back in the future?
-What's up with the gov't giving Elliot as a young man pictures of five young women and letting him pick on who they'll make sleep with him? Do the young women just have a really low usefulness rating so the gov't pimps them out, or does the gov't tell everyone when to sleep with someone?
-Ergonomics comes up several times, usually with people complaining that the ergonomic features are not very ergonomic. What's that about?
-Elliot figures any wife should be thrilled to talk about her husband's prestigious job, even if she doesn't understand what her husband actually does. Has sexism increased dramatically in the future?
-There are a few questionable scientific things. The biggest one is that the gravity on Mars in the story is 86.1091% of earths. It's actually less than half that. Why so many decimal places on a number that's completely wrong? The other scientific issues are minor: 1% of 115 miles being 115 feet; there being little gravity 600 miles above earth's surface; early moon missions having reached the moon in less than nine hours. None of those affect the story, but the Martian gravity things sounds intentional.
Notable Quotes from SLOS (not nits)
-There was a time when people took a fierce pride in making decisions for themselves, sink or swim, rise or fall. It's the stifling atrophy of a managed existence that's slowly killing the creative spirit of mankind.
-Earth society, with the Administration's Coalescence Laws, in its desire to protect and preserve the human race and foster a universal social harmonic, had sacrificed something intrinsically and exceptionally human.
I'll each point if you still want to know.
Control. Note, neither male or female has very much choice in the matter.
-What bit of recorded dialog did they use for the trumped up charges against Elliot's wife? It didn't seem like she said anything questionable. Maybe that's the point.
Not sure I should go into that here since there are those who have just bought the book and have yet to read it. The reason is clearly stated by the Judge.
-Why do they subject gays and bisexuals to forced reeducation or sex correction? It it just flat-out homophobia?
Not homophobia (which is a BS label if there ever was one), it points out the hypocrisy of "utopian" enlightened government.
-The story mentions ozone depletion at least three times. Is the author unaware that this problem was solved years ago, or is he suggesting it might come back in the future?
A problem that carried forward, carbon damaging the ozone. Today we have climate change.
-What's up with the gov't giving Elliot as a young man pictures of five young women and letting him pick on who they'll make sleep with him? Do the young women just have a really low usefulness rating so the gov't pimps them out, or does the gov't tell everyone when to sleep with someone?
Again, I can't go too into this because others haven't read the novel yet. Suffice it to say, its a process. Its control."
-Ergonomics comes up several times, usually with people complaining that the ergonomic features are not very ergonomic. What's that about?
A personal gripe, I find them very uncomfortable, particularly when its not my choice to use one.
-Elliot figures any wife should be thrilled to talk about her husband's prestigious job, even if she doesn't understand what her husband actually does. Has sexism increased dramatically in the future?
I think you project here. Her mom said it all. Prestige and perks of status?"
-There are a few questionable scientific things. The biggest one is that the gravity on Mars in the story is 86.1091% of earths. It's actually less than half that. Why so many decimal places on a umber that's completely wrong? The other scientific issues are minor: 1% of 115 miles being 115 feet; there being little gravity 600 miles above earth's surface; early moon missions having reached the moon in less than nine hours. None of those affect the story, but the Martian gravity things sounds intentional.
"Mars in this novel is already in the process of terraformation - the science doing so is real, the number entirely determined on how far along I wanted Mars to be. Distance and time variants reflected values on projected technology. An elevator moving at rocket speed wouldn't be an electric powered elevator and gravity would be a key factor in acceleration. Liquid fuel would go against the eco-mantra and would require much more than comfortable seats and a luxury environment. In contrast, the elevator descent to the Martian surface."
Literally everything in that story is of substance and has purpose.
Hope it helps
"A problem that carried forward, carbon damaging the ozone. "
Carbon does not affect the ozone, so I couldn't suspend disbelief on that point. Mention of a problem that has already been solved in my time interrupted for me the illusion of the future setting.
" the number entirely determined on how far along I wanted Mars to be. "
I could not suspend disbelief on the idea that terraforming would change the gravitational field of a planet.
None of this affects the main point of the book:control.
The only reason the technical nits stand out is that the story gives such a vivid tour of the future that rings true, and not just about the control, but also the mundane realities of life with future technology. All of this makes the abuse way the authorities deal with suspected dissenters really stand out. They have all this amazing technology, but people abuse one another in ghastly ways just as they always did.
I had some ideological problems, also. I just glossed over all of those in my published reviews. It is easy to criticize. I accepted this as an inspired work, not an engineering proposal.
I just reviewed my criticisms. I noted that he had people in weightlessness but none of them were farting the way people in zero-g really do. It is probably just as well. The story would have suffered. And it was a good story.