| To send books for review in this column
email Jacqueline Lichtenberg,jl@simegen.com
for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file. Find these books. Find TV fandoms online Legacy of Wolves by
Marsheila Rockwell, Wizards of the Coast, June 2007 WWW: Wonder by Robert J.
Sawyer, ACE HC April 2011 Echo by Jack McDevitt,
ACE HC Nov. 2010 The Truth of Valor by
Tanya Huff, DAW HC Sept. 2010 Crusade by Taylor
Anderson, RoC HC Oct 2008 Distant Thunder by
Taylor Anderson, Roc HC, June 2010 The Lost Fleet: Beyond the
Frontier: Dreadnaught by Jack Campbell, ACE HC, May 2011 Betrayer by C. J.
Cherryh, DAW HC April 2011 Last month, we looked at Harry Dresden, Hero of Jim
Butcher’s novel, Ghost Story.
I hope you’ve read that by now.
We ended off with this observation about that novel: “Having found his killer by discovering what he’d had
his apprentice wipe from his memory, Dresden must choose between two “doors”
into his future–one dark, the other light.
He chooses to confront the consequences of his actions head on, and
ends up in the biggest, deepest, sourest pickle he has yet been in.
But if you’ve read all 12 previous books carefully, you know he knows
this is Justice. As readers, though, we also know he’ll hack the MUD
and change the world-game.” The “hacking the MUD game” reference was to an
article I pointed you to free online at: We’re looking at the world as a “game” as in
video-game and in the branch of mathematics called Game Theory. I don’t generally recommend Wikipedia as a source,
but it does give you an overview of how those interested in a topic are
thinking. That gives you a
window into the Group Mind focused on that topic.
So take a look at this index:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Game_Theory There are several book publishers that have arisen
after the explosive popularity of Dungeons and Dragons.
Today they are publishing novels that read like that kind of game and
are aimed at players of such games.
They hire many writers to create new stories in well-defined
universes. One of the best I’ve run into lately came to me via
Gini Koch, a writer who is a twitter-friend, and whose books I have
recommended to you. Gini
introduced me at Coppercon in 2011 to a writer who does tie-in novels for
games and TV shows. Marsheila Rockwell.
Her novel #3 in
Eberron The Inquisitives series titled
Legacy of Wolves
is an especially
good example of a Werewolf Fantasy, though it doesn’t have any real Romance
in it. Rockwell has picked up the science fiction writer’s
knack for creating convincing characters who, like James Tiberius Kirk, when
faced with a false Hobson’s Choice, create another alternative.
In War as in Game Theory, the rule is always “do the
unexpected.” Don’t accept any
alternative on the dropdown menu handed you by your opponent.
If someone says, “You have to do this or you’ll be
responsible for people dying,” ask yourself what that person is trying to
prevent you from considering. The old adage, “There’s more than one way to skin a
cat,” is the philosophical principle upon which most science fiction heroes
build their plans. The “Hobson’s Choice” is a choice of “Take what I
offer you, or nothing.” Here is a United Kingdom website that explains the
origin of this reference in the livery stable keeper, Hobson.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hobsons-choice.html Hobson rented horses to Cambridge students in the
order he chose, as a “choice” of “Take this horse, or no horse.”
That’s the Kobayashi Maru choice that Kirk beat by hacking the
computer and changing the rules. In other words, this businessman who had students
“over a barrel” generously provided them with the choice to comply with his
agenda or be deprived of what they needed.
It is the way villains try to gain control over
Heroes. Heroes (at least in
Science Fiction and most of the Fantasy I review here) do not use this
method, and never choose from the villain’s menu, never do business with
Hobson. Of course, no one in real life would ever let their
adversary set their agenda or limit their choices to a menu.
The plot thickens though when the adversary portrays him/herself as a
friend, advocate, lover, ally, teacher, servant contractor, or just a
businessman like Hobson. The defining characteristic of the Hero in most of
the novels I review here is the talent for peeling away layers of deception
to distinguish friend from foe – even if that “friend” happens to look
somewhat, well, “alien.” One of the best series in Science Fiction I’ve seen
lately is Robert J. Sawyer’s “WWW” series where the internet spawns a living
consciousness which only one blind girl is able to detect – until Canadian
and USA government investigators find out.
Then the “distinguishing friend from foe” part comes into play, and
their “Hobson Choices” close in on her.
The WWW trilogy is WWW:Wake and WWW:Watch and now finally WWW:Wonder
In the final book of this marvelous
trilogy, the reader is challenged to think of a choice that isn’t on the
menu. Jack McDevitt, in Echo,
gives us humanity’s 8,000 year search for other life in the galaxy –
resulting in finding only one non-human intelligence.
One scientist, possessed by the hallmark stubbornness of all
scientists who have contributed major discoveries to human history, searches
his whole life long for another sentient civilization.
After he dies, others wonder, stubbornly, if he hadn’t actually
succeeded and the result is being hidden – on purpose.
When someone tries to kill them, it arouses their obstinacy.
Guess what they discover!
(oh, read this book!) I’m a particular fan of Military Science Fiction,
especially stories set in space.
Tanya Huff, one of my favorite authors, brings us another
Confederation novel, The
Truth of Valor, about Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr, the Confederation
Marine who discovered the truth behind the war they had been fighting for
generations – and left the corps.
Now as a civilian salvage operator being victimized by “something,”
she discovers yet another truth, and it isn’t the truth on the menu
presented by “Authority.” The Destroyermen Series
by Taylor Anderson is about a WWII Navy ship and other vessels from the
South Pacific conflict, swept into an alternate Earth where some very
non-human creatures have taken over the Islands and maybe more.
As hostilities break out among factions in place, the US Navy brings
1940’s technology and know-how to bear on the problems, creating whole new
choices. These folks knew how to
refuse a Hobson’s Choice. Another series I’ve been reviewing here (everything I
mention here is 5-star) is Jack Campbell’s The Lost
Fleet series. The story
now moves into another phase titled “Beyond the Frontier” and begins with
the novel, Dreadnaught.
This is military SF at its best, just as good as the
Destroyermen series but with technology
light-years ahead of our current world.
Still, the Game continues trying to force a Hobson’s Choice onto our
Heroes and they just won’t budge.
You gotta learn to admire obstinacy to enjoy these stories.
Another slippery Hero who just won’t budge no matter
what moral force is brought to bear on him is Bren Cameron of C. J.
Cherryh’s long running Foreigner Series.
In the 3rd book of the 4th Trilogy,
Betrayer, Bren is faced with an insurgency
around his own estate, the land for which he is personally responsible.
Cameron will keep his employees safe.
He will keep the peace in his neighborhood, even if it means changing
the very shape of Atevi (aliens of the planet where the human colony became
accidentally stranded) society and culture, technology, and geography.
He simply will not accept that he must choose the option provided by
either Atevi or Human authority or custom, or do nothing and watch his
people die. Bren Cameron exemplifies the fact that science is a
creative artform. His science is
linguistics and all the cultural psychology that is behind language.
His creativity is backed up by his intransigent obstinacy, his flat
refusal to accept limits laid down by those who don’t want to be
inconvenienced by his creativity.
It’s a “False Hobson’s Choice” when someone insists
this is your only viable option.
“There are always alternatives,” as Spock pointed out in the Star Trek: The
Original Series episode, Galileo Seven. So what has Hobson’s Choice to do with Justice?
What does the Hero facing a Hobson’s Choice feel about risk?
The adversary (livery stable operator) makes it seem safer to take
what’s offered (a nag). If you
risk trying to find another livery stable in time to get where you’re going,
you must rely on Divine Providence, or the tendency of the universe to
harmonize events into Poetic Justice.
Do you trust the universe to do you Justice?
Do you dare reject Hobson’s Choice? To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg, jl@simegen.com for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.
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The Re-Readable Collection