Average customer rating:
- Breathtaking in its scope!
- Good, pulpy SF
- A great start for someone who is new to science fiction
- Contact-lite
- Sawyer at his best!
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Factoring Humanity
Robert J. Sawyer
Manufacturer: Orb Books
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 Sawyer, Robert J.
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Thema, tome 2 : le monde d'aujourd'hui
Thema, tome 2 : le monde d'aujourd'hui
Authors: Collectif
Catalog: Book
Media: Relié
Release Date: 04 October, 2005
Publisher: Larousse
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r Davis, a professor in the psychology faculty at the University of Toronto, has spent a significant part of her career attempting to decode a ten year long stream of obviously structured radio signals that clearly emanate from an intelligent source in Alpha Centauri. Her estranged husband, Kyle, puts in his scientific day on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence research and the development of quantum computer technology. (His pet project "Cheetah" is an APE, a computer designed to Approximate Psychological Experiences. With startlingly realistic responses, Cheetah comes very close but doesn't quite clear Turing's bar of deceiving a human interrogator.) In one of those serendipitous "Eureka" moments, Heather achieves a complete breakthrough decoding the alien signal stream and realizes that the decoded data comprise a blueprint to build an amazing new technology. As she and Kyle stumble through the learning curve associated with manipulating this new alien machine, it becomes clear that humanity's understanding of communication, consciousness and the very structure of the universe will never be the same again! Life and our perceptions of reality will be fundamentally altered as soon as knowledge of this technology enters the public domain.
"Factoring Humanity" contains a parallel sub-plot line in which Heather and Kyle's daughter, under psychological counseling, re-discovers suppressed memories of sexual abuse at the hands of her father, Kyle. Issues such as sexual abuse of children, sexual harassment, Jungian theories of "false" or "suppressed" memories and the myriad social outcomes of accusations of sexual misconduct are dealt with warmly, sensitively and realistically. But, unfortunately, this whole more human part of Sawyer's novel to me seemed artificially contrived and awkwardly shoehorned into the science in order to provide a canvas on which to paint his fascinating hypothesis about the possible nature of human consciousness and communication! The two stories were individually compelling and well-crafted but their integration into a whole was less than seamless.
On the other hand, Kyle's relationship with Cheetah and Cheetah's burgeoning intelligence and unique character provide an absolutely fascinating third facet to Sawyer's wonderful tale that flows much more smoothly into the story as a whole. In a manner reminiscent of Star Trek's Data, Cheetah's ruminations comprise a thought-provoking essay on the nature of sentience and humanity which is at once warm, gripping, humorous and intelligent.
A magnificent four-star combination of the outer reaches of hard and soft sci-fi from Canada's premier author of contemporary science fiction.
Paul Weiss
Good, pulpy SF.......2006-08-11 Previously, I've read Sawyer's "Calculating God" and "The Terminal Experiment", and "Factoring Humanity" is rather similar. The characters are a bit flat and the plot is sometimes ill-executed, but the read is fast-paced and decently entertaining.
The fictional science in the book is rather inconsistent. Sometimes it seems plausible, while still being fantastic enough to illuminate (very) interesting questions. Other times it seems to fall into the uncanny valley of sci-fi, _almost_ (but not quite) plausible, making it somewhat difficult to suspend disbelief.
I do like Sawyer's way of putting a soft sci-fi twist on traditional elements of hard sci-fi.
A great start for someone who is new to science fiction.......2006-06-23 My interest in reading science fiction just began last May, but I only had the chance to read sci-fi three days ago. The first ever sci-fi book that I read was Factoring Humanity, and really, I would consider it as a great opening to the world of sci-fi reading.
Reading would usually take me two and a half days (especially now that school has already started), but I was able to finish this one in a day. I could say that I really had fun reading it, because I didn't notice the pages turning anymore. Even when I was in the company of some friends, I couldn't put it down. I'd rather stay quiet and read about Heather Davis and Kyle Graves than talk. I was so engrossed about their lives that I didn't want to miss them even for a minute.
Of course, in spite of me getting hooked up, I began to see some faults in this work. I was consequently looking for the climax until I read the last page. I knew there was a climax somewhere in there, but I didn't think it was enough to make me see the whole point and where the happenings would all lead. When I was reaching the final 60 pages or so I was preparing myself for the great turning point but I wonder where the corner had gone? It was not as exciting as I thought it would be. I thought the story would show how it affected all of humanity but the "factoring humanity" part only involved Heather, Kyle, and their daughter Becky. And the ending, well... I hate to say this but it was a bit corny. It's not really how I expected it to end. And I hate what happened to Cheetah. Even though he (or rather, "it") was just a program, you would feel "its" pain... if such thing ever existed in "its life".
I'm not going to say that this is a bad book, because it's really not. If you're new into the science fiction genre, this is a great start. It would really keep you interested in the field of science, and it would also make you think about the possibilities of extra-terrestrial beings living in this universe, which for me is really worth thinking about. And of course, I really liked how this book showed the complexity of the human mind. It's not just about science, it's also about considering other people's thoughts. It's really nice because it's entertaining and thought-provoking at the same time.
Contact-lite.......2005-01-05 This is the third R.J. Sawyer book I've read recently (the others were Calculating God and End of an Era). Obviously I liked the others enough to keep going. And this was my favorite of the lot. I rated them all at 3 stars, but this one is really more like 3.5 or 3.75, but the rating scale is of limited resolution.
So too is the science in his fiction. Sawyer does not write "hard SF". It's more like hard SF-lite. This one borrowed heavily from Sagan's "Contact" (which was hard SF, par exemplar, and also had great character development and deep philosophical implications on several levels, but I digress..) and dabbles a bit in 4 dimensional geometry, quantum computing and cosmic consciousness. The characters are sort of ill-defined (except for the AI who seemed deeper and more human than the homo sapiens), which seems a hallmark of the 3 Sawyer books I have read, but the plot keeps things moving, also a Sawyer hallmark. I think if you expect Sawyer to be the next great writer in hard SF you are in for a disappointment. But if you want an enjoyable light read that has just a bit of science in the fiction, Sawyer is your guy for plot-driven page-turners. I will try at least a few more of his.
Sawyer at his best!.......2004-10-07 Each Sawyer book I have read seems to outdo the previous one. This is no exception. It has a little of everything including family drama, unethical medical practices, alien messages, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, the collective human "overmind," with a few consortiums of individuals that are trying to "buy off" scientific discoveries, being thrown into the mix. . Sawyer has a talent for presenting complex scientific theories in an interesting fashion. Each book seems to hint at answers to the most perplexing human questions such as what is the meaning of life, do we have a soul, how did the universe start, and are there extraterrestrials?
I remember the Arthur C. Clarke book "Light of Other Days" in which humans are able to view any event in history, therefore eliminating secrecy and privacy. This book shows another way of accomplishing the same thing. However, Sawyer's tale seems a lot more probable.
The book begins a little bit slow, but once you have read about 50 pages you will read the last 300 in possibly one sitting. Sawyer is starting to convince me that he is the best scifi writer out there!
Average customer rating:
- Great Concept Poor Execution
- What if you could live 2 minutes in your own future?
- A challenging thought experiment!
- Weird....but not bad
- Fundamentally flawed
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Flashforward
Robert J. Sawyer
Manufacturer: Tor Science Fiction
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Sawyer, Robert J.
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ASIN: 0812580346 |
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What would you do if you got a glimpse of your own personal future and it looked bleak? Try to change things, or accept that the future is unchangeable and make the best of it? In Flashforward, Nobel-hungry physicists conducting an unimaginably high-energy experiment accidentally induce a global consciousness shift. In an instant, everyone on Earth is "flashed forward" 21 years, experiencing several minutes of the future. But while everyone is, literally, out of their minds, their bodies drop unconscious; when the world reawakens, car wrecks, botched surgeries, falls, and other mishaps add up to massive death and destruction.
Slowly, as recovery efforts continue, people realize that during the Flashforward (as it comes to be called) they experienced a vision of the future. The range of visions is astounding--those who would be asleep in the future saw psychedelic dream landscapes, while others saw nothing at all (presumably they'd be dead). But those who saw everyday life 20 years hence have to come to grips with evidence of dreams forsaken (or realized). Soon, the physicists who caused the Flashforward are struggling to help the world decide whether the future is changeable--and whether the experiment is worth repeating. Robert J. Sawyer has captured a truly compelling idea with Flashforward, and he fully explores what such an event might mean to humanity. Fans will find this to be his best work to date,
Dictionnaire de l'informatique et de l'Internet 2001
Dictionnaire de l'informatique et de l'Internet 2001
Authors: Collectif
Catalog: Book
Media: Broché
Release Date: 31 January, 2006
Publisher: Micro application
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the world, awake or asleep, experienced a full two minute blackout. But what they also saw was, apparently, a crystal clear vision of a two minute segment of their own future twenty years ahead.
As people blackout for two minutes, the immediate mayhem and destruction is almost beyond imagining - car crashes, botched surgeries, people falling down stairs and off ladders, burns as people collapse into their hot stoves, planes falling out of the sky, fires as people drop the lit matches that happened to be in their hands. But, as the dust of the immediate disaster settles, the magnitude of what happened sinks in and people begin to coordinate their two minute peeks into a consolidated vision of the world's future twenty years hence. Sawyer's fertile imagination simply runs riot as he presents us a with a humorous, lucid and very personal peek into his version of how the world might look twenty years from now. I howled with laughter; I nodded in agreement and I cringed in disagreement and dismay at some of the snippets he hypothesized.
Take a gander at just a few examples:
"In 2017, at the age of ninety-one, Elizabeth II, Queen of England, died. Charles, her son, at that time sixty-nine, was mad as a loon, and, with some prodding from his advisors, chose not to ascend to the throne. William, Charles' eldest son, next in line, shocked the world by renouncing the throne, leading Parliament to declare the Monarchy dissolved."
"In 2019, South Africa completed, at long last, its post-Apartheid crimes-against-humanity trials, with over five thousand people convicted. President Desmond Tutu, eighty-eight, pardoned them all, an act, he said, not just of Christian forgiveness but of closure."
"Ozone depletion was substantial; people wore hats and sunglasses, even on cloudy days."
"Despite bans on their hunting, sperm whales were extinct by 2030."
"George Lucas still hadn't finished his nine-part Star Wars epic."
"The 2029 World Series will be won by the Honolulu Volcanoes."
"The President of the United States was African-American and male; there had apparently yet to be a female American president in the interim. But the Catholic Church did indeed now ordain women."
As people ponder the ramifications of what they've seen and experienced, the world becomes a global forum for a heated debate on the issues of determinism, free will and destiny. Social pressure quickly builds for a repeat of the experiment under world-wide controlled conditions and Sawyer treats us to a realistic, shocking example of cultures clashing in the forum of the United Nations.
Sadly, it's been my experience with Sawyer's novels, and this one doesn't break the pattern, that he has difficulty resolving a plot line and providing a satisfactory ending that is up to the incredibly high standard set by the rest of the novel. In a problem that is reminiscent of Hybrids, the ending to Flashforward, while it might be perceived as thought provoking to some people, is just a little bit too over the top Hollywood and, in my opinion, reduces a potentially great novel to a good one.
Keep `em coming, Robert. I'm a fan and I'm still looking forward to the next one!
Paul Weiss
Weird....but not bad.......2005-06-22 This was the kind of book, that you had to really concentrate on to understand what is going on. I found that i had to go back every now and then to keep up with the character. Good reading and a good book to take with you on a long flight or sitting in a waiting room.
Fundamentally flawed.......2005-01-05 Flashforward aspires to be hard science fiction. Hard SF has one requirement above all others -- the science MUST be internally consistent. Sawyer's novel fails that test.
The premise is interesting. For reasons unknown (at the start of the book), everyone on Earth experiences a "flashforward" of themselves, 10 years later. Everyone, that is, except for an unlucky few people, including our protagonist, because in 10 years, they will be dead.
Or will they? The book's fundamental question is whether the future just experienced is inevitable, or subject to change. Was the world of 10 years hence a world that had, 10 years earlier, experienced a "flashforward"? Or was it a hypothetical world that would have been, if flashforward had not occurred?
In the course of the book, Sawyer squarely answers these questions. But the book's climactic scene, which deals with our protagonist's efforts to escape his inevitable(?) death, rests on a premise that cannot be reconciled with Sawyer's answer. Sawyer is guilty of sloppy thinking, or sloppy writing.
Average customer rating:
- Tastes just like chicken; to me (You'll understand when you read the book).
- Fascinating concepts
- An admirable continuation.
- Excellent installment
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Fossil Hunter: Book Two of The Quintaglio Ascension (The Quintaglio Trilogy)
Robert J. Sawyer
Manufacturer: Tor Books
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- End of An Era
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ASIN: 0765309734
Release Date: 2005-02-10 |
Book Description
Fossil Hunter is hard SF in the tradition of Larry Niven about a world inhabited by the Quintaglios, a dinosaurian species that has evolved a human level of intelligence and culture.Toroca, a Quintaglio geologist, is under attack for his controversial new theory of evolution. But the origins of his people turn out to be more complex than even he imagined, for he soon discovers the wreckage of an ancient starship -- a relic of the aliens who transplanted Earth's dinosaurs to this solar system. Now, Toroca must convince Emperor Dybo that evolution is true; otherwise, the territorial violence the Quintaglios inherited from their tyrannosaur ancestors will destroy the last survivors of Earth's prehistoric past.
Customer Reviews:
Tastes just like chicken; to me (You'll understand when you read the book)........2007-04-29 Fossil-Hunter
Fossil-Hunter is the second book of Sawyer's Quitaglio Ascension. Sawyer brings back the fascination to Science Fiction that I haven't experienced since I was a young teenage boy reading Norton and Heinlein.
In Fossil-Hunter Sawyer borrows elements from real History to add bits and pieces to his characterizations. In this one he borrows bits and pieces from Shackleton's Antarctic exploration, a little Charles Darwin, a blind Sherlock Holmes (I realize that Holmes was fictional), and a little David and Goliath and even a little Rocky Balboa ( another fictional character). This time the characters include not only Afsan, but also, his children, Toroca,et al.
In this book, Sawyer introduces the Watcher, a character that is even more important in his book Calculating God.
Next comes Foreigner, Oh, Joy.
I strongly recommend this book and am looking forward to the next one. Can you tell?
I immediately orderred "Iterations" to see what Sawyer's Short Stories are like. You might want to,too. This guy is good!
Fascinating concepts.......2007-04-24 I never dreamt that I would read a book about intelligent dinosaurs and not only enjoy it but find it thought provoking. Robert Sawyer certainly is the best science fiction writer today. Though I often don't agree with his ideas, the concepts are compelling and make you think. Sort of like Juan Rico in Starship Troopers who said his History and Moral Philosophy professor in high school had discussions that would wake you up in the middle of the night and make you think: What did he mean by that?
The problems of leadership and acceptance of differnt ideas are central to the Fossil Hunter. Sometimes you can avoid death by standing still after studying the enemy. It is a terrific set up to the conclusion of trhe series. I highly recommend the entire Quintaglio series.
An admirable continuation........2006-06-03 I love Sawyer's novels, if only because they are precisely what I've tried to write in my own novels. This one could have done without one particular point of view in the story, but otherwise is a very entertaining read, and a good follow-up to Far Seer. I am not a fan of generational fantasy, in which the
Fast Wings : Anglais, 4e, niveau 2, classeur Itinéraire
Fast Wings : Anglais, 4e, niveau 2, classeur Itinéraire
Authors: Fiona Morel, Martine Bélorgey, Graham Bushnell
Catalog: Book
Media: Broché
Release Date: 13 September, 2000
Publisher: Belin
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nosaurs? It's not just dinosaurs, it's pyschology and family and thinking outside the egg. Loads of fun and lots of thought in this terrific read.
Agreeable conclusion to the trilogy.......2007-03-31 An exciting and interesting conclusion to Robert Sawyer's trilogy about intelligent descendants of the dinosaurs. Naturally in the way that fiction often does, it wraps up the loose ends almost too well. I was interested to discover that this is some of Sawyer's earliest published work. It has been a while since I read any of his more recent work but I think there is a contrast - the protagonists in the Hominids series are not nearly as certain or guaranteed of success.
What actually happens in the book? It would be difficult to say much without giving away a lot of the plot, but from the blurb you can doubtless gather that the Quintaglios discover they are not the only intelligent species on their moon. What they find out about their neighbours leads to very difficult times indeed, and threatens the goal of escape from their doomed home.
A quest for understanding.......2006-01-18 As the concluding work in the Quintaglio series of planetary destruction, this book draws together many elements introduced earlier. Although ostensibly a dinosaur, Afsan's character grows more human with each volume. As a reflection of current Euro-North American society, Foreigner is hard to beat. That reflection may be too vivid for some. Sawyer has a fine talent for portraying reality, whether on an imaginary planet or right next door. This series remains a challenging read.
A trilogy of sub-plots keeps your interest alive through the main theme. The saurians are learning about their own world while striving for the means to escape it. Sawyer depicts the violent mental disruptions of racism with talent. Although dinosaurs mate for reproductive ends, he manages to introduce a new feature of their lives, jealousy versus loyalty. While the accounts of Novato, Afsan's mate and his son Toroca are compelling, it's the relationship of Afsan, the continuing primary character in this series, that renders this book worthy of note. His association with the practitioner of the new therapy of psychology makes hilarious reading. Mokleb, the 'therapist,' is a marvelous rendition of the money-grubbing cockroaches that infest Earth's cities today. She's a Freudian, of course, with all the fanciful ideas of conscious and subconscious ['high' and 'low' mind] and dream interpretation that has bled many a bank account dry during the past century. Her negotiation with Afsan over payment for the therapy sessions is too vividly real to be missed.
If you are new to Sawyer, by all means start the trilogy at the beginning and follow it through this volume. You will learn much about your own world as Sawyer reflects it in Afsan's. The series is a good addition to any library of speculative fiction. The only truly speculative part of Sawyer's works is the 'people' portrayed and their location in the cosmos. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Finally, the conclusion!.......2005-09-14 I've waited years for this, and it was worth the wait. Some people perhaps didn't read Sawyer's Quintaglio series when it first came out, because all they saw were the dinosaurs on the covers. But the fact that his characters are intelligent saurians is almost incidental. This whole series is really a discussion of science and faith, and an examination of what breakthroughs in science would be like if they were really crucially important (what if it was a matter of life and death how the solar system was arranged -- not just for Galileo, but for EVERYONE [the plot of FAR-SEER]; what if the truth of evolution over creationism was the key to a species' survial [that's FOSSIL HUNTER]; and what if a breakthrough along the lines of psychoanalysis was the only thing that would stop a genocide [the current volume, FOREIGNER].) All three are wonderfully told, but FOREIGNER holds the most surprises and twists, not to mention packing the biggest emotional whallop. Bonus: a comprehensive "Quintaglio Concordance," drawn from all three books, at the end. As the cover quote from a Canadian newspaper says, "A fine end to a brilliant series."
Authors:
- Sayers, Dorothy L.
- Saylor, Steven
- Schembri, Jim
- Schiller, Friedrich
- Schjeldahl, Peter
- Schmidt, Arno
- Schmitz, James H.
- Schnitzler, Arthur
- Schuyler, James
- Scott, Melissa
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Authors
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Too brainy, not smart enough.......2007-01-08
