Science fiction has sometimes been accused of having few memorable characters. John C. Wright does a survey, based on his own list of 50 essential science fiction authors. My favorite observation, simply because it’s so true:

Heinlein’s protagonists tend all to be the single archetypal Heinlein character: the eager young boy who grows into a wry but all-competent jack-of-all-trades and eventually into a wry and crusty old man, usually marrying a lusty jill-of-all-trades nudist redhead somewhere along the way. Asimov’s protagonists are much the same, but with less wryness and no redhead. Van Vogt’s protagonists are much the same, but with no wryness at all, sometimes with amnesia, and he evolves into a superhuman rather than a crusty old man.

Not surprisingly, characterization has improved over the years.

Everyone of a certain age has heard of Shogun, by James Clavell, because it was a massively popular mini-series back when network mini-series still meant something. I was in high school at the time, and gave the book a try; and I found it interesting and confusing by turns. I decided to give it another try, with the benefit of thirty years of additional life experience, and it’s amazing how much it has improved!

The book takes place circa 1600 AD, in Japan. At this time, the Portuguese (and a very few Spaniards) are the only Europeans with regular contact with the Japanese. The Catholic Church has been planted in Japan, and many Japanese lords (daimyos) have converted. The Portuguese are also responsible for most of Japan’s trade with China, including the all-important trade in silk. However, many daimyos dislike the Christians and would like to see their influence limited.

Shortly before this time, Japan was united under a powerful leader, known as the Taiko. He died, leaving a young son as his heir, and Japan under the control of a council of regents. As usually happens in such circumstances, the regents are jockeying for position; and the goal is the shogunate, absolute rule (in the name of the emperor) of all Japan.

Into this mix comes a Dutch ship piloted by an Englishman, John Blackthorne, the Anjin-san—the first Englishman to come to Japan. In those days, given the state of the art of navigation, you couldn’t simply decide “I want to sail to Japan.” It was a difficult thing, and you had to know the way. Blackthorne makes it pretty much by accident. And he is immediately of great interest to Toranaga and the other regents, because he is a skilled pilot, and because, being Protestant, he is not under the thumb of the Portuguese or the Jesuits. Much politics ensue.

Clavell does an excellent job of showing us Japanese culture through Blackthorne’s eyes; and, eventually, European culture as well, as he reflects on the differences between the two. I found it fascinating, much more so than when I was in high school.

There are a few places where I think he misses the mark. The remains of his Dutch crew are presented as little better than animals compared to the Japanese; I think he overdoes this. And his history is occasionally suspect, as when Rodrigues the Portuguese pilot equates the Inquisition with “witch hunts”. The Spanish Inquisition wasn’t looking for “witches” (but that’s another blog post).

I think the main reason I had trouble with this book those thirty years ago is that it isn’t really about John Blackthorne. It’s really about Toranaga, and his attempt to become shogun. Blackthorne is simply one of the pieces on his chess board, or, as Toranaga himself would put it, one of the hawks to his hand. Back then, I read the book as quickly as possible trying to follow the Anjin-san’s story, and missed the very things that would have made it make sense.

Anyway, highly recommended; but be aware that the Anjin-san’s response to the difference between Japanese and European sexual mores is one of the major themes in the book. The Japanese of that era were considerably more frank about sex than Europeans, and naturally this is reflected in the text.

Wow.

A couple of days ago, I gave John le Carré a “wow” for A Perfect Spy; today I’m giving Ted Chiang a “wow” for pretty much his entire output.

Here’s what I know about Ted Chiang. He’s a science fiction writer. He writes short fiction (his longest published piece is a novella). He knocks my socks off.

He’s written three books: Stories of Your Life and Other Stories, The Lifecycle of Software Objects, and The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate. I’ve read the latter two, and about half of the first, it’s all been smart, moving, deeply, deeply human, and a little bit geeky (in the best possible sense of the term). He has a knack for taking a single scientific or technical idea, extrapolating from it, and then writing a story about the idea involving living, breathing human beings. The story isn’t simply an idea story with good characters; it isn’t simply a character story with good ideas. The two facets of the story build on each and require each other.

I suppose I had better give some examples, though I have to be careful: I don’t want to tell you too much, I simply want you to go read.

“Division by Zero” is about mathematics, and the early 20th century quest to prove that mathematics is complete and consistent. Kurt Gödel showed that it wasn’t complete, and that it couldn’t be proved to be consistent. In Chiang’s story, a mathematician proves that math isn’t even consistent, with drastic effects on herself and her family.

In the Nebula-winning “Tower of Babylon”, Chiang shows us the real Tower of Babylon…but in Chiang’s version, the universe really is as described in Genesis. There is the earth below and the firmament above, and the sun, moon, and stars whirling in between. The Tower has nearly reached the firmament…and our story follows the miners who have been hired to ascend the tower and dig a path through the firmament to heaven beyond. It’s a genuine science fiction story; it’s set in another world with different rules, but it plays fair with those rules. And it has truly important things to say about the relationship between God and His creation. (I have no idea what Chiang’s views on religion are, by the way.)

In the Hugo-winning “The Lifecycle of Software Objects”, he posits a company that build “digients”, software constructs that live in a virtual world called Digital Earth. They are designed to mimic human consciousness, indeed seem to genuinely learn, grow, and love. What does it mean for software objects to be conscious? What does it mean to be human? I have philosophical reasons to think that software objects cannot be truly conscious even in principle…but if they were, would they be human? And would digient morality be the same as human morality?

Julie has mentioned Ted Chiang several times; the first time I was interested, and went to Amazon to look for his book Stories of Your Life and Other Stories, and nearly choked. His books are published by a small press in limited editions, and can easily run hundreds of dollars. I said, “He might be good, but he’s not that good.” But he came up again recently, and I looked again…and all of Chiang’s work is available at reasonable prices in Kindle format. Woohoo! And you know…now that I’ve read most of his work, maybe he is that good.