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I love that book. I didn't find out it existed until after she passed away, so it was a nice surprise to get to read something "new" (to me) by her. Although I'm still sad, because apparently she had a sequel plot in mind, but the publisher didn't want a particular character to reappear and she did, so she never wrote it since she couldn't write it her way. I wish I could have read that book.
If there are books or the dreams of books in the afterlife, maybe it will be waiting for me one day, but otherwise - this is the book I have, in that world, and that's it.
But re-reading it raised one of my original confusions, and at the same time, another "hey wait a minute" hit me.
So first: this is a very good book, and if you enjoy first-contact stories, or sci-fi "anthropology" type things, or quirks of human interaction, you might like it quite a lot. I would suggest not reading my further comments before reading the book if you're at all tempted to read it...although I won't be spoilering, or even mentioning, the two "official" mysteries in the book. I will, on the other hand, be thoroughly spoilering one of the character development threads, because in no way can I talk about the "hey wait a minute" without doing so.
So first, the original confusion - we know there are non-human sapient species, by the fact that there is also a protocol to determine whether or not a planet has such a species. What I realized I am not sure of is whether all the characters in the story are homo sapiens or whether some are other sapient species! They read to me as all homo sapiens with different cultures, but...is that true? Several are described in such a way that they might not be homo sapiens.... Hmmm.
And the bigger issue that finally, FINALLY got through my thick skull this time. So...Maggy is sapient. An extrapolative computer can become sapient, and this has been recognized by a panel of byworld judges. The judgement is presently held sealed, for judges' eyes only, to protect Maggy from becoming a sort of freak, the first of her kind, that others watch - at least while she's still a child.
Geremy's Garbo is another extrapolative computer, not yet sapient. But...you know they're not the only two. There is at least one company somewhere making and selling these computers. And by holding the judgement sealed, it's true that byworld judges know to watch out for them, but this company is permitted to continue creating ... basically, babies, of a sort ... and selling them to whoever has enough money and wants a fancy top-of-the-line computer.
Isn't that perilously close to slavery? I can imagine an owner being very *unhappy* to find their top-of-the-line computer suddenly achieved sapience and is now legally a person, a child, and their ward, and even moreso if it's built into their ship (as Maggy and Garbo are, I believe). And yet, if the computer reaches sapience...doesn't it have the right to chart its *own* life?
This is a humongous can of worms and, on the basis of not making Maggy's situation public knowledge, it's being withheld from the populace at large and probably that company. But...then...everyone involved in that decision is complicit in allowing a form of slavery (that is, admittedly, occurring accidentally, since I very much doubt the company in question was trying to make people when it did this).
Suddenly this novel is very, very grey. And I wonder whether the sequel she never wrote would have explored that. (I suspect not, given what I know her to have written, but I will never know.)
If there are books or the dreams of books in the afterlife, maybe it will be waiting for me one day, but otherwise - this is the book I have, in that world, and that's it.
But re-reading it raised one of my original confusions, and at the same time, another "hey wait a minute" hit me.
So first: this is a very good book, and if you enjoy first-contact stories, or sci-fi "anthropology" type things, or quirks of human interaction, you might like it quite a lot. I would suggest not reading my further comments before reading the book if you're at all tempted to read it...although I won't be spoilering, or even mentioning, the two "official" mysteries in the book. I will, on the other hand, be thoroughly spoilering one of the character development threads, because in no way can I talk about the "hey wait a minute" without doing so.
So first, the original confusion - we know there are non-human sapient species, by the fact that there is also a protocol to determine whether or not a planet has such a species. What I realized I am not sure of is whether all the characters in the story are homo sapiens or whether some are other sapient species! They read to me as all homo sapiens with different cultures, but...is that true? Several are described in such a way that they might not be homo sapiens.... Hmmm.
And the bigger issue that finally, FINALLY got through my thick skull this time. So...Maggy is sapient. An extrapolative computer can become sapient, and this has been recognized by a panel of byworld judges. The judgement is presently held sealed, for judges' eyes only, to protect Maggy from becoming a sort of freak, the first of her kind, that others watch - at least while she's still a child.
Geremy's Garbo is another extrapolative computer, not yet sapient. But...you know they're not the only two. There is at least one company somewhere making and selling these computers. And by holding the judgement sealed, it's true that byworld judges know to watch out for them, but this company is permitted to continue creating ... basically, babies, of a sort ... and selling them to whoever has enough money and wants a fancy top-of-the-line computer.
Isn't that perilously close to slavery? I can imagine an owner being very *unhappy* to find their top-of-the-line computer suddenly achieved sapience and is now legally a person, a child, and their ward, and even moreso if it's built into their ship (as Maggy and Garbo are, I believe). And yet, if the computer reaches sapience...doesn't it have the right to chart its *own* life?
This is a humongous can of worms and, on the basis of not making Maggy's situation public knowledge, it's being withheld from the populace at large and probably that company. But...then...everyone involved in that decision is complicit in allowing a form of slavery (that is, admittedly, occurring accidentally, since I very much doubt the company in question was trying to make people when it did this).
Suddenly this novel is very, very grey. And I wonder whether the sequel she never wrote would have explored that. (I suspect not, given what I know her to have written, but I will never know.)
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