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Aug. 6th, 2012
Hey,
So the other day I finished up vN by Madeline Ashby. In this case vN stands for von Neumann machine (a self-replicating machine) and the vNs in this book are all androids. Amy is the daughter of a vN/Human couple (although Mom did all the work). One day her grandmother, Portia, attacks her mom and Amy saves her life by eating grandma. She then discovers that she doesn't appear to have the built-in failsafes that keep vNs from harming humans. A long chase ensues.
The book has that problem where it makes me ask questions that it doesn't really want to answer. I know, I should be more focused on the characters and their story, but as details about the vN come out, I immediately have questions about the whole set-up and the story breaks down. If the story had been more meticulous in its world-building or a bit more hand-wavy it could've gotten away with inconsistencies. Call it an "uncanny valley" effect.
Here's what I'm talking about: these vN's need to eat and they need to eat on a fairly regular basis. It's possible for them to go without, but they get hungry. Further, vNs don't eat people food, they eat plastic laced with the various metals and elements they need. They can scrounge through garbage or purchase specially prepared food.
There is not a single machine you own that works like this. True, they all require a source of energy, but that's clearly not what the food here is doing. True, as a self-replicating/self-repairing machine they could consume raw materials and fabricate replacement parts for themselves, but the process would be much more pragmatic and certainly not as regular as described in the book. Further, as these machines reproduce, their demand for metals and plastics will grow as well and there's some suggestion of a scarcity problem in the world.
This feeding process ties into their reproductive cycle. A vN eats a lot for a long period of time and gestates an iteration of itself which it then gives birth to. So far as I can tell, eating a lot of food is the only requirement for a new iteration. This is an insane idea. No one would build a machine that works like this. And, in fact, one of the characters is a "serial birther" who creates lots of iterations and drops them off everywhere. There's never any sense of a check on this process.
I know, I know, the idea here is to make vN seem more human to make certain analogies work, but the whole ramshackle scaffold just blows over in a light wind. And it's too bad because there's quite a bit of good stuff in there when you aren't wondering why the author keeps trying to explain how things work because they only dig themselves in deeper every time.
later
Tom
So the other day I finished up vN by Madeline Ashby. In this case vN stands for von Neumann machine (a self-replicating machine) and the vNs in this book are all androids. Amy is the daughter of a vN/Human couple (although Mom did all the work). One day her grandmother, Portia, attacks her mom and Amy saves her life by eating grandma. She then discovers that she doesn't appear to have the built-in failsafes that keep vNs from harming humans. A long chase ensues.
The book has that problem where it makes me ask questions that it doesn't really want to answer. I know, I should be more focused on the characters and their story, but as details about the vN come out, I immediately have questions about the whole set-up and the story breaks down. If the story had been more meticulous in its world-building or a bit more hand-wavy it could've gotten away with inconsistencies. Call it an "uncanny valley" effect.
Here's what I'm talking about: these vN's need to eat and they need to eat on a fairly regular basis. It's possible for them to go without, but they get hungry. Further, vNs don't eat people food, they eat plastic laced with the various metals and elements they need. They can scrounge through garbage or purchase specially prepared food.
There is not a single machine you own that works like this. True, they all require a source of energy, but that's clearly not what the food here is doing. True, as a self-replicating/self-repairing machine they could consume raw materials and fabricate replacement parts for themselves, but the process would be much more pragmatic and certainly not as regular as described in the book. Further, as these machines reproduce, their demand for metals and plastics will grow as well and there's some suggestion of a scarcity problem in the world.
This feeding process ties into their reproductive cycle. A vN eats a lot for a long period of time and gestates an iteration of itself which it then gives birth to. So far as I can tell, eating a lot of food is the only requirement for a new iteration. This is an insane idea. No one would build a machine that works like this. And, in fact, one of the characters is a "serial birther" who creates lots of iterations and drops them off everywhere. There's never any sense of a check on this process.
I know, I know, the idea here is to make vN seem more human to make certain analogies work, but the whole ramshackle scaffold just blows over in a light wind. And it's too bad because there's quite a bit of good stuff in there when you aren't wondering why the author keeps trying to explain how things work because they only dig themselves in deeper every time.
later
Tom