Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!agate!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hpcvlx!everett From: everett@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Everett Kaser) Newsgroups: sci.physics Subject: novel: TWISTOR by John Cramer Message-ID: <100780003@hpcvlx.HP.COM> Date: 1 May 89 17:07:27 GMT Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA Lines: 108 I'm posting this to sci.physics, because of the nature of the book, and many (some?) of the people interested in physics would probably enjoy this book. This is somewhere between a short review of the book "Twistor" and an open letter to its author, John Cramer. I suspect he may read notes, based upon his obvious familiarity with MAIL and UNIX systems that is displayed in his first novel. The book was recently published in hardcover, and is the story about experimental physics, the people who "do" experimental and theoretical physics, plus some commercial and political intrigue, and some good old "exploration- of-new-worlds" adventure. Overall, a very good book. It's one of the best I've read in the "hard" SF vein, since it contains characters you care about as well as very well thought out science. NON-SPOILER: The plot basically revolves around many of the latest thoughts in theoretical physics, including superstring theories and shadow matter, as well as warm superconductors, and throughout the book, a very important plot element is the use of computers and computer networks. All of this is very well presented by someone who is obviously familiar with the subjects. It is very refreshing to read a book that deals with computers in an intelligent and believable way. There's none of this "Let's feed all the data into the computer and see what the problem is!" stuff. These characters actually write programs to do much of their work. I heartily recommend the book to those of you who like hardcovers. For the rest, you'll have to wait a year or so, but don't forget about it. It will be just as good in paperback (it just won't feel as good in your hands :-). Now, for the rest of my thoughts about the book: SPOILER WARNING!!!!!! SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!SPOILER WARNING!!!!!! SPOILER thoughts: The concept of six legged animals (especially mammal-like animals) has a long tradition in fantasy and science fiction, and there are many examples of creatures in our world with more than four appendages. Most of them are insects, spiders, and crustaceans. After reading this book, I got to thinking about WHY there are no large six-"legged" animals on earth. I came up with two possible reasons: 1) there was one "creature", or a small group of "creatures" who were the ancestors of ALL large reptilian/mamallian animals on earth today, and THEY just happened to be of the four-legged variety, or 2) six legs/arms take 1/2 again as much energy to operate than four legs, and as such would be a significant survival hindrance for larger animals. Reason number 2 seems much more likely to me, and as such would seem to limit the likelihood of large six-legged "creatures" ever evolving on any world (with a few exceptions, granted). I am NOT criticizing the use of six-legged animals in this book (in case you're reading, Mr. Cramer), I'm expressing the thoughts that the book generated, and that's one of the reasons for reading, after all. One thing bothered me about the green "treebirds" that marked their territory with a ring of rainbow poopoo. If the tree actually NEEDED these birds in order to stay healthy, then each tree would HAVE to have one, but if the birds were as incredibly territorial as depicted, there could only be ONE per tree. So, what do the young treebirds do for a home? The treebird population is effectively "locked" in numbers to the number of trees. Also, what about young trees? One tree would obviously not be able to support one bird, so the bird would have to live off of several trees. Anyway, I felt there was something "wrong" with the definition of the treebirds. I realize that the story was about physics, not zoology, and that Mr. Cramer is a physicist, not a zoologist, but when an element of a story is included by the author, it must be able to stand with the story. As I said, not a biggy, but the details bothered me a little. (And what about reproduction? How do the treebirds get around the territoriality for purposes of reproduction?) I was surprised by the "twangs" of pleasure I felt each time I read about an aspect of computers and computing that was either familiar or "felt right". I'm so tired of "TV computing", the attitude of this "magic box" that is artificially intelligent. This book was VERY refreshing in that aspect. Another thing that bothered me, though, was the statement that charged particles could not pass through the warp. Does this only apply to negatively charged particles? (ie, ones with excess electrons?) Or does it also apply to positively charged particles? Doesn't the human body contain ions? It seems that the organic processes in the body (the chemistry) involves non-neutral molecules. So how could the people pass through the warp unharmed when the charged non-organic material couldn't without getting it's charge nullified? I realize it's easier to nitpick and criticize than it is to create; these are just some of the things I thought about because I read the book. I still enjoyed the book a great deal, and will buy the sequel in hardback if and when it is published. Everett Kaser, Hewlett-Packard, Corvallis, OR !hplabs!hp-pcd!everett everett%hpcvlx@hplabs.hp.com