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Rohit Bhagat rohitbhagat55bcf4 — The author mentions in the dedication that the Hibernian Empire/Westland alternate reality is part of a collaborative fantasy of which he was a part. The resolutions of conflict and recollections of historical parallels form an interesting supplement to what is partly an adventure story. I tend to reread this about once a year. I like most of James White's work, and I would have liked to hear more about the Hibernian/Westland empire in other stories--and of the rest of the world. I did feel that Oceania was somewhat neglected, for example. So I would like to see a book on this subject, as well. The action in this book takes place in three segments: on an Earth where, through the actions of a second-century BC Irish bard who brought a steam engine from Alexandria to Ireland and sparked an industrial revolution that early in Ireland, and where, through the actions of the Healer Orla, and where, through the voyages of Brendan the Navigator, the Hibernian/Westland Empire is the most powerful and richest conglomerate; (2) Aboard the starship Aisling Gheal (Bright Hope in Gaelic), a fusion-powered sleeper ship developed by all the peoples of the Earth, built over two reigns of Ard-Rhis, and launched early in 1492 (Brendan The Navigator, in our world and this one, traveled during the 6th century AD); and (3) On the New World, where the deliberately marooned troublemaking colonists from the starship engage in an odyssey to try to reunite with the main colony. Unlike other books that come in this sort of 3-in-1 format, however, there's no clear separation into books. Characters in the book tell stories as illustrations of particular points, or just as entertainment during rest breaks, or as part of a plan to educate the colonists' children in Earth history through oral recitations... The uniting figure is Healer Nolan. As the only male healer, the only non-ecclesiastic crewmember, and a non-Hibernian (he's from Iceland, which, apparently, was settled by Hibernians rather than Vikings in this world), he was already suspect as a dissident from the start. But when he awakens the only female crewmember Healer Dervla (also celibate by custom) to help save the life of one of the colonists (the illegally married Westlander Golden Rain), and they figure out the secret plot the Hibernian clerics have developed to Christianize the colonists, the shipboard leader of the conspiracy (Monsignor o'Riordan, the ship's Healer of the Mind (psychiatrist), decides to maroon Nolan with the other potential troublemakers. Which turns out to be their salvation, because although the marooned party of about 40 men and two women are all skilled and well-trained at the processes of forming a colony, they didn't have much training about how to live off the land in alien and previously unexplored ecosystems--and Nolan did. So Nolan becomes the de facto leader of the trek, with the lander pilot as his navigator and lieutenant. But, as he repeatedly points out, the expedition isn't a democracy OR a dictatorship. The dissidents are all skilled specialists, who have a lot to contribute to the colony--but with only two females, they can't set up a separate colony, even if the women are willing to select from the marooned group. So Healer Nolan insists that he and the women go on, whoever decides to stay behind. One thing that worried me that's not dealt with. In all the observations of the New World, did anybody pay attention to typhoons and other tropical storms? On a world that has no axial tilt and no moon, if there weren't particularly fierce tropical storms, the planet would become zonally striated, so that the tropics would become unsurviveably hot, the arctic zones unliveably cold, and the temperate zones probably wouldn't be very habitable, either. Just saying--a meteorological office wouldn't go amiss. There are several unexpected contingencies in this book--or at least, unexpected by people not familiar with White's work. One of them, indeed, is unprecedented in White's work, and affects the ending. I won't tell that part--I'll just say to pay special attention to the splint--the Cardinal-Captain certainly does. One thing they should have brought more of, by the way, or should have learned to make, was rope. People teaching survival skills tend to argue that anyone who has a rope and a knife can make a good run at survival, and can last almost indefinitely with these alone. But I might add that metal cans and plastic wrap would be useful, as well. In places where there is little or no surface water, metal cans and plastic wrap can be used to reclaim water, at least on Earth. And if photosynthesis works the same way on the New World (and it seems to), the process will probably work there. What's needed is to put leaves in sunlight on a can lined with plastic wrap. Photosynthesis both uses and releases water, and the net water gain is large enough that enough water for drinking, at least, can be obtained. One point about language: White was NOT a racist--but his language might lead people to conclude that he was, if only by inference. The language use sounds quite racist to Americans, because White innocently uses terms like 'redman' and 'squaw', not aware, apparently, that such terms are considered quite offensive by many. If he'd had converse with people who explained to him WHY the terms were considered offensive in themselves, regardless of context, he might not have used the language he did. This is not to call for a revision of the text. On the other hand, I do think that calling one character 'Golden Rain' might have been deliberately catty. One thing I do find worrisome is the implication that people in the main colony on the New World tend to isolate themselves into enclaves based on things like nationality and language. I hope that the arrival of the marooned group would shake that up a bit, and that the people who have learned each other's languages, stories, etc would not just marry people from 'their own people', but would marry, say, the sisters and cousins of people they got to know along the trail. As to what sort of weeks the colony will establish...Maybe they'll have a week of fourteen days, since the Ull apparently reckon in fourteens. Or maybe they'll have two-week 'months' of 14 days, since there's no moon circling the New World. Both would have problems, but there's no real need to conform to Earth standards, especially since menstrual cycles have rarely been exactly a month long, anyway. A note on edition: in this edition, there are quite a few instances where typos are left uncorrected, apparently because of an overreliance on spellcheckers. About once a chapter there's a word that's a perfectly good word--just wrong in context. I can't say if this is true in other editions, as I'm pretty sure I've only read this one.

Kisa Ci kisarah — B23760901F

Hassan Eltobby letoeltobby — Rereading this, I was most struck by (1) how absurdly funny and delightful Austin's prose is ("a specialist in the sui generis"; "we can insincerely promise to give a donkey a carrot", "we may seem to have armed ourselves with two shiny new concepts with which to crack the crib of Reality", etc. etc.), and yet (2) how weirdly legalistic most of this book is. And I'm left really wishing that Austin would have given an example illustrating how "the truth or falsity of a statement depends not merely on the meanings of words but on what act you were performing in what circumstances". Obviously the truth of a statement depends on the circumstances, but how does the truth of a statement depend on what act you were performing? Moreover, he says a statement IS a kind of (illocutionary) act, so how could the truth of an act depend on what act you were performing with it?