Omnilingual by H Beam Piper
Aug. 21st, 2012 09:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenI'm posting this here because I fear I will forget what I thought of this book and not add it to my reviews site. I still might forget to add it, but still my thoughts will be recorded here.
I was listening to this book (with the help of http://www.librivox.org) over the past few days.
Good classic SF, though dated. A manned expedition to Mars, looking at the ruins of the Martian civilization. Debates and personality conflicts, the central question being, "How can one translate a language so dead that mankind were doing cave paintings when it was last spoken?"
The most disconcerting and dated bit was the way that so many of the characters were smoking. Two reasons it was disconcerting: the cultural and the practical. Cultural, because I doubt that any manned expedition that was sent out now would allow smokers on board, and practical, in that there they are on Mars, where they are dependent on oxygen generators, and they're wasting oxygen with smoking. I had to consciously let that go, even though it knocked me out of the story whenever it came up.
Two other slight niggles, which didn't knock me out of the story, but which puzzled me a bit.
One was that the expedition would air-seal the ruined buildings and pump them full of oxygen to make it more convenient for the archaeologists to investigate their contents. Surely that would be stupid from a preservation point of view, since oxygen would cause the contents of the buildings to deteriorate at a faster rate than they were before?
The second was that the military were using normal old-fashioned projectile weapons - guns - in the oxygen-poor Martian atmosphere. Surely the guns wouldn't fire, because they need oxygen in order to ignite the gunpowder? Oh well, whatever.
All that being said, I did like this. I liked the way the characters kept on citing archaeological precedents in their debates, I liked how Our Heroine kept on doggedly working on her word lists despite the derision of her peers. And I liked the resolution in the end, which didn't fall back on the "technology indistinguishable from magic" which other authors might have done. Then again, judging from "Little Fuzzy", Piper is more thoughtful than otherwise with his SF. He seems to like a blend of frontier ruggedness with a touch of thoughtful philosophy.
I was listening to this book (with the help of http://www.librivox.org) over the past few days.
Good classic SF, though dated. A manned expedition to Mars, looking at the ruins of the Martian civilization. Debates and personality conflicts, the central question being, "How can one translate a language so dead that mankind were doing cave paintings when it was last spoken?"
The most disconcerting and dated bit was the way that so many of the characters were smoking. Two reasons it was disconcerting: the cultural and the practical. Cultural, because I doubt that any manned expedition that was sent out now would allow smokers on board, and practical, in that there they are on Mars, where they are dependent on oxygen generators, and they're wasting oxygen with smoking. I had to consciously let that go, even though it knocked me out of the story whenever it came up.
Two other slight niggles, which didn't knock me out of the story, but which puzzled me a bit.
One was that the expedition would air-seal the ruined buildings and pump them full of oxygen to make it more convenient for the archaeologists to investigate their contents. Surely that would be stupid from a preservation point of view, since oxygen would cause the contents of the buildings to deteriorate at a faster rate than they were before?
The second was that the military were using normal old-fashioned projectile weapons - guns - in the oxygen-poor Martian atmosphere. Surely the guns wouldn't fire, because they need oxygen in order to ignite the gunpowder? Oh well, whatever.
All that being said, I did like this. I liked the way the characters kept on citing archaeological precedents in their debates, I liked how Our Heroine kept on doggedly working on her word lists despite the derision of her peers. And I liked the resolution in the end, which didn't fall back on the "technology indistinguishable from magic" which other authors might have done. Then again, judging from "Little Fuzzy", Piper is more thoughtful than otherwise with his SF. He seems to like a blend of frontier ruggedness with a touch of thoughtful philosophy.
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 07:15 am (UTC)IS that the story where they use the elements and math as the starting point of the solution, or another one?
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 07:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:15 am (UTC)http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19445/19445-h/19445-h.htm
You are right it is dated, what with the smoking and the "girl soldiers" doing essentially secretarial duties.
Though the bit that caused me to grin was Martha thinking about digging and negating the use of diggers to move the accumulation of dust. Thanks to Time Team, the use of diggers and bulldozers have found a place in modern archaeology.
Assume the guns had been modified to fire in the thin Martian air, or more to a point the projectiles they fire are. If for example the oxygen they need is sealed in the cartridge along with the explosive. or the explosive they use carries its own oxygen.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:43 am (UTC)Yes, that did occur to me, though the niggler said it should have been mentioned if that was the case...
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:21 am (UTC)I agree with all the niggles you pointed out. (The oxygen in the ruins really annoyed me; too much reading of archeological articles and stories, I think. Ack!)
But the unfulfilled linguist in me adored it.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:41 am (UTC)Yes, exactly! 8-)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 08:17 am (UTC)As for guns, the oxygen is actually right there in the gunpowder (or smokeless powder) itself; there's a lot of oxygen bound up in potassium nitrate or nitrocellulose. (A number of explosives are like that, actually; I've heard that some nomads will occasionally burn TNT in enclosed spaces, because it doesn't use up the oxygen in a room like a normal fire would. There are also things like oxygen-generating candles, which actually release breathable oxygen into the air when they're lit on fire.)