consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
So you're not doing the sequel then?
Set A Course For Suck, Mr. Sulu: Let's Read "Warp Speed" by Travis S. Taylor
- Thread starter The Victorian
- Start date
- Books
- Pronouns
- He
Thank God for that.
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Man, imagine writing a story in which Germany, a substantial chunk of the US, Beijing, a swathe of Russia, and half a billion people are wiped off the map overnight, three hypercanes hit the US simultaneously, and actually trying to tell the readers that things are just fine, the stock market is up, and that the president of the US has time to spare for someone's wedding.
Well, with cheap antigravity/orbital launch technologies, which they've got, powersats are now economical. Well, they technically were before in the long run, but now the startup costs are lower. So I guess we've got to give Taylor that at least.
Of course, publicizing the existence of said technologies by using them on a large scale risks revealing the unnatural origins of all the recent asteroid strikes...
Chapter 22
The Victorian
Elven Supremacist
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
All right, people...it's been a long road, getting from there to here, but we're finally at the final chapter!
So this is the famous "face on Mars" located in the Cydonia region:
The black dots are errors in the original transmission, and one of them happens to appear right where the "face's" nostrils would be. Of course, the whole thing is a trick of light and shadow, as shown by later imagery from the Mars Global Surveyor taken in 2001:
You'd expect that our "hero," being such an "epic science bacon 420" type of person, would know all about this and the phenomenon of pareidolia.
He also describes "traversing several canals," and at this point I'm thinking the author is trolling us.
Now, obviously I've never been to Mars, but I'm not sure the "view from Olympus Mons" would be any more spectacular than a view from anywhere else on Mars. You see, OIympus Mons might have an extremely high elevation, but it's so spread out so much that the actual mountain slope is so gradual that you'd probably not even notice if you were climbing it:
This is what you'd see standing at the rim of the caldera:
And here's what you'd see from a kilometre above the surface:
As you can see, it doesn't really look like you're standing on a mountain at all.
Our heroes fly back to the moon, do an inspection of their warpship, and discover that going FTL had no adverse impacts on it, so they decide to go jaunting around the solar system and the Kuiper Belt. They spend some time looking at Jupiter (but not too long, because Tabitha and 'Becca are both pregnant and all that radiation wouldn't be good for them. They explore the subsurface ocean on Europa and discover the existence of alien life, which treated with all the gravitas of catching a particularly large trout while on a fishing trip:
He then flies off to Titan, and is disappointed there aren't any aliens there like in the Heinlein novel The Puppet Masters. Then they head to Pluto, but it turns out to be rather boring. After a short jaunt out towards the heliopause, they head back to the moon and begin working on their warp-powered gravitational
lens. Which leads into a lengthy infodump about how telescopes work, and then we get a glimpse at what's going at Alpha Centauri:
No, not that Alpha Centauri.
Again, this monumental discovery is treated with all the seriousness of finding a somewhat-uncommon issue of Superman at your local comic book store.
They decide to mount an investigation of Barnard's Star, but the journey will take at least three months, and Tabitha and 'Becca are already two months pregnant. Their current warpship is far too cramped for such a journey, so they'll need to build a better ship. There's a lot of blathering on about its design, including how they designed in such a way that one could lower the gravity in the bedroom to make sleeping easier for the pregnant ladies. Tabitha eventually gives birth to a daughter, whom they name "Ariel Eridani Clemons." No, really. Meanwhile, 'Becca gives birth to twins named "Mindy Sue" (not Mary Sue?) and "Michael Ash Daniels."
Meanwhile, they continue to monitor the situation on earth, keeping their eyes on "television broadcasts and the internet." They determine that "nothing dangerous is going on." I must admit, somehow keeping an eye on the entire goddamn internet is no mean feat! While working on their new starship, they use their warp-powered gravitational lens to observe more extrasolar planets:
How much do you want to bet that the moment they uncover intelligent alien life they'll immediate turn out to be a bunch of genocidal maniacs that our "heroes" must exterminate for the good of humanity?
Eventually the starship is completed and christened the Einstein. Anson drops off his kids with his parents, because it doesn't make sense to take them along on a potentially dangerous mission:
Well, Anson, considering you are in a bad science fiction novel, then they ought to feel right on home!
They reach Barnard's Star and enter low earth orbit around one of the planets. Except it can't really be called "low earth orbit," so they decide to call it "Low Anson Orbit."
Of course, when dealing with alien life one can't really make any assumptions. For all they know, those "alien sea oats" might be intelligent creatures. There were several episodes of Star Trek that dealt with this exact theme.
And with that we come to the end of Warp Speed. The final chapter is an appendix that discusses the theory behind the Alcubierre Drive and the Casimir Effect, which ought to convince anyone reading this novel that merely possessing advanced scientific knowledge is absolutely no guarantee of possessing joined-up thinking.
That's really the summation I can think of for this novel. It's easily one of the worst science fiction novels I've read in a while, with only The Watch on the Rhine and Caliphate being more morally repugnant in comparison. The basic idea of the story is fine, but it's buried beneath layers of bad writing, a total lack of editorial oversight, and the author's own deranged worldview. The protagonist is an unlikable self-insert and the supporting characters don't even reach the level of being two-dimensional. Events that should have an enormous impact on characters and the world they inhabit are treated as being completely mundane. Really, I think this book proves that Baen will publish just about anything so long as it passes the spell checker.\
Warp Speed has a sequel titled The Quantum Connection, which I have not read and really have no particular desire to read. Apparently, it's yet another self-indulgent tale about some nerdy bloke who uses alien technology to turn himself into a super-intelligent badass and then proceeds to defeat an alien race that has somehow conquered half the galaxy. Here are some quotes I dug up:
Again, the author's grudge against the medical profession is both bizarre and laughable.
So as for my next Let's Read, I'll just say three things:
- It's a YA fantasy novel
- The author's novels have the most cliched YA fantasy titles imaginable
- It was recommended by a coworker...who said I'd probably hate it.
So this is the famous "face on Mars" located in the Cydonia region:
The black dots are errors in the original transmission, and one of them happens to appear right where the "face's" nostrils would be. Of course, the whole thing is a trick of light and shadow, as shown by later imagery from the Mars Global Surveyor taken in 2001:
You'd expect that our "hero," being such an "epic science bacon 420" type of person, would know all about this and the phenomenon of pareidolia.
He also describes "traversing several canals," and at this point I'm thinking the author is trolling us.
Now, obviously I've never been to Mars, but I'm not sure the "view from Olympus Mons" would be any more spectacular than a view from anywhere else on Mars. You see, OIympus Mons might have an extremely high elevation, but it's so spread out so much that the actual mountain slope is so gradual that you'd probably not even notice if you were climbing it:
This is what you'd see standing at the rim of the caldera:
And here's what you'd see from a kilometre above the surface:
As you can see, it doesn't really look like you're standing on a mountain at all.
Our heroes fly back to the moon, do an inspection of their warpship, and discover that going FTL had no adverse impacts on it, so they decide to go jaunting around the solar system and the Kuiper Belt. They spend some time looking at Jupiter (but not too long, because Tabitha and 'Becca are both pregnant and all that radiation wouldn't be good for them. They explore the subsurface ocean on Europa and discover the existence of alien life, which treated with all the gravitas of catching a particularly large trout while on a fishing trip:
He then flies off to Titan, and is disappointed there aren't any aliens there like in the Heinlein novel The Puppet Masters. Then they head to Pluto, but it turns out to be rather boring. After a short jaunt out towards the heliopause, they head back to the moon and begin working on their warp-powered gravitational
lens. Which leads into a lengthy infodump about how telescopes work, and then we get a glimpse at what's going at Alpha Centauri:
No, not that Alpha Centauri.
Again, this monumental discovery is treated with all the seriousness of finding a somewhat-uncommon issue of Superman at your local comic book store.
They decide to mount an investigation of Barnard's Star, but the journey will take at least three months, and Tabitha and 'Becca are already two months pregnant. Their current warpship is far too cramped for such a journey, so they'll need to build a better ship. There's a lot of blathering on about its design, including how they designed in such a way that one could lower the gravity in the bedroom to make sleeping easier for the pregnant ladies. Tabitha eventually gives birth to a daughter, whom they name "Ariel Eridani Clemons." No, really. Meanwhile, 'Becca gives birth to twins named "Mindy Sue" (not Mary Sue?) and "Michael Ash Daniels."
Meanwhile, they continue to monitor the situation on earth, keeping their eyes on "television broadcasts and the internet." They determine that "nothing dangerous is going on." I must admit, somehow keeping an eye on the entire goddamn internet is no mean feat! While working on their new starship, they use their warp-powered gravitational lens to observe more extrasolar planets:
How much do you want to bet that the moment they uncover intelligent alien life they'll immediate turn out to be a bunch of genocidal maniacs that our "heroes" must exterminate for the good of humanity?
Eventually the starship is completed and christened the Einstein. Anson drops off his kids with his parents, because it doesn't make sense to take them along on a potentially dangerous mission:
Well, Anson, considering you are in a bad science fiction novel, then they ought to feel right on home!
They reach Barnard's Star and enter low earth orbit around one of the planets. Except it can't really be called "low earth orbit," so they decide to call it "Low Anson Orbit."
Of course, when dealing with alien life one can't really make any assumptions. For all they know, those "alien sea oats" might be intelligent creatures. There were several episodes of Star Trek that dealt with this exact theme.
And with that we come to the end of Warp Speed. The final chapter is an appendix that discusses the theory behind the Alcubierre Drive and the Casimir Effect, which ought to convince anyone reading this novel that merely possessing advanced scientific knowledge is absolutely no guarantee of possessing joined-up thinking.
That's really the summation I can think of for this novel. It's easily one of the worst science fiction novels I've read in a while, with only The Watch on the Rhine and Caliphate being more morally repugnant in comparison. The basic idea of the story is fine, but it's buried beneath layers of bad writing, a total lack of editorial oversight, and the author's own deranged worldview. The protagonist is an unlikable self-insert and the supporting characters don't even reach the level of being two-dimensional. Events that should have an enormous impact on characters and the world they inhabit are treated as being completely mundane. Really, I think this book proves that Baen will publish just about anything so long as it passes the spell checker.\
Warp Speed has a sequel titled The Quantum Connection, which I have not read and really have no particular desire to read. Apparently, it's yet another self-indulgent tale about some nerdy bloke who uses alien technology to turn himself into a super-intelligent badass and then proceeds to defeat an alien race that has somehow conquered half the galaxy. Here are some quotes I dug up:
Again, the author's grudge against the medical profession is both bizarre and laughable.
So as for my next Let's Read, I'll just say three things:
- It's a YA fantasy novel
- The author's novels have the most cliched YA fantasy titles imaginable
- It was recommended by a coworker...who said I'd probably hate it.
- Pronouns
- He
And it would be so easy to change the line to something about a childhood dream, even when his mind knows that it's not possible.
With how many shoutouts have been done, I'm surprised he didn't go for something like 'the chances of anything coming from the stars are a million to one, he says.'
And goodbye and good riddance to this.
- Location
- Busan Metropolitan City, Republic of Korea
Man, my abortive attempt at Post-apocalyptic Mars was more accurate than that, and it literally had magic and extradimensional aliens.
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I love how the main character shows vastly more enthusiasm and care for apocalyptic weaponization of warp technology than about discovering alien life.