Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley

Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley

This book is a sequel to the science fiction novel, The Quiet War. The three powers led by Greater Brazil have successfully conquered the Outers colonies on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Supposedly they have stopped the democratic and transhuman changes occurring to the colonists.

However, the aftermath of the conquest leads to some unexpected changes. Some of the outers have fled to the moons of Titan. My favorite character is Macy Minnot one of the outers who is on Titan. There is also a transhuman colony on Titan. This makes for an interesting story.

Also the ideas of democracy and technology from the Outer colonies are starting to seep into the cultures of the Pacific Community and Greater Brazil. This causes revolutionary change. It is a case of a less advanced society taking over a more advanced society.

There is a lot of interesting technology in the story. The author is a botanist and is very interested in technological change. He writes a lot about building ecologies for survival in space as well as using genetically engineered plants to harvest sunlight, minerals, and produce air. He also has some very interesting descriptions of people being genetically engineered as spies, to live in space, or to live extremely long lives.

I enjoyed the politics and technology in the story. There were some problems with the continuity of the story. The author broke the book into six sections which are slightly broken up in time. The last section called Everything Rises Must Converge felt more like an epilogue than a section.

This book would have been better as a trilogy. There were parts of the story which did not seem fleshed out well enough. The change which Sri Hong Owen the gene wizard uses to make her become transhuman as well as create the habitats orbiting the sun are not very clearly described.

I liked reading the book. I thought the continuity could have been done better, and that duology would have been better as a trilogy. It is worth reading for the ideas.

Daily Thoughts 3/27/2010

The Geographer 1668-69 oil on canvas; 53×47 cm Steadelsches Kunstinstitut Frankfurt, Germany, Jan Vandermeer. This makes me think of the atlas stand where I work. We do not have a large map collection. Many libraries do.

Daily Thoughts 3/27/2010

Today has been a relatively quiet day. They are working on shifting books in the storage area to make more room. I finished weeding the fiction in the storage area. Now, it is more of a job of moving things around. I still have weeding to do in the oversize books on the main floor.

I am also planning days to do collection development meetings. One of the days, I would like to focus on special areas like government documents, maps, the job information center, different areas of genre fiction: urban fiction, mysteries, romance, inspirational fiction, science fiction, and other categories.

I learned from one of our library patrons there is a Kids Comiccon on April 10, at Bronx Community College. Bronx Community College holds a kids comic con free for kids under 18 -- April 10 in Bronx, New York http://www.kidscomiccon.com/ It looks kind of interesting.

I finished reading Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley tonight. It is the sequel to The Quiet War. Like most very interesting science fiction or literature there will be very mixed reactions to the story in this book. It is very much a book about biology, ecology, and society in the terms of hard science fiction; not so much physics. This makes it a different kind of hard science fiction.

Daily Thoughts 3/26/2010

Desk of german author Hermann Hesse in Hermann Hesse Höri Museum in Gaienhofen Creative Commons Attributions Share Alike Attribution 3.0, Photo taken by Dierk Andresen , 2004

Daily Thoughts 3/26/2010

Today has been a quiet day. I have a number of books waiting for me to look at, The Value of Nothing by Raj Patel, How Philosophy Can Save Your Life 10 Ideas That Matter Most by Marietta McCarthy, Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley, A Better Pencil Readers Writers and the Digital Revolution by Dennis Baron, The Crucible of Empire by Eric Flint and K.D. Wenthworth, and Other Lands by David Anthony Durham.

We got our first shipment from BWI. There were a few interesting titles including R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis Illustrated, and Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks edited by John Curran. On the cover it says the book contains two previously unpublished Hercule Poirot stories which is intriguing.

I went around and checked the displays, putting a few new books in a display of folklore books from storage, and making sure the new books were in order. I picked out several books for the book mobile. Mainly, they were biography titles, large print, and popular fiction which many older readers like.

I read the first chapter of How Philosophy Can Change Your Life. It is on the concept of simplicity in life. The author describes how Epictetus believed the simplest pleasures are the lasting pleasures. She draws a parallel between zen and stoicism which both focus on simplifying ones life to the point where the simple pleasures become profound. It is a philosophical counter to excessive materialism. She gives numerous examples at the end of the chapter on how to simplify ones life.

I also started reading Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley. It is the sequel to The Quiet War which is about war between two branches of humanity, the outers who are on the moons of Titan and the earth triumvirate led by the Alliance of Greater Brazil.