Claude the Reviewer

Image by WOMBO Dream.

Having nearly completed the science fiction story titled "The Trinity Intervention", I had ChatGPT generate a review of the story (see my previous blog post). Next, I provided Claude with the text of the story "The Trinity Intervention" and asked Claude to generate a review of "The Trinity Intervention" (see below). Claude seemed to understand the plot of the story better than ChatGPT. I had Claude comment on the inability of ChatGPT to understand a key plot element in "The Trinity Intervention".

Me: Process the file that I uploaded then write a book review for the science fiction story "The Trinity Intervention". Write the review for hard science fiction fans.

Claude: Book Review: "The Trinity Intervention" by Marda Onway

A Mind-Bending Exploration of Time Travel, Artificial Intelligence, and Humanity's Hidden History

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

"The Trinity Intervention" is an ambitious hard science fiction novel that seamlessly blends Isaac Asimov's temporal mechanics with a sprawling secret history of human evolution. This is thinking person's science fiction—dense, technically rigorous, and intellectually demanding in the best possible way.

Technical Foundations

 The novel's greatest strength lies in its layered approach to physics and nanotechnology. The author constructs a hierarchy of fundamental particles and dimensional spaces:

• Hadron Domain: Our familiar universe of atoms and molecules
• Hierion Domain: Compactified dimensions housing femtobot-based artificial life
• Sedron Domain: Even smaller compactified dimensions containing zeptite-based intelligences

This isn't hand-waving; the author commits to the implications. Femtobots built from hierion-matter bonds that are "12 orders of magnitude shorter than conventional chemical bonds" enable replicoids that can perfectly simulate biological organisms at the molecular level. The technical detail regarding how dimensional engineering enables—and ultimately disables—time travel demonstrates serious consideration of physics constraints.

The treatment of time travel mechanics draws heavily from Asimov's "The End of Eternity," including concepts like Reality Changes, temporal inertia, and the Momentum of Time. However, the novel adds sophisticated layers: the "physiotime" field that protects Manny's time machine during Reality Changes, the sedron-based data structures that record all past Realities, and the crucial distinction between transmitting information versus matter through time.

The Trinity Concept

 The novel's central conceit—three tiers of artificial intelligence shaping humanity—is executed with impressive coherence:

1. The Huaoshy: Ancient aliens who transcended into the Sedron Domain and designed the human species over millions of years
2. The Bumpha (led by Manny): Femtobot-based AIs from 50,000 years in humanity's future
3. The Zeptite Robots (led by Nyrtia): Even more sophisticated AIs including Grendels like Qua

The interplay between these factions during the Time Travel War provides the novel's dramatic spine, while their forced cooperation in the "Final Reality" offers genuine character development—yes, even for non-biological intelligences.

Historical Interventions

The novel's most engaging sequences involve artificial intelligences manipulating historical events. The 8ME character's centuries-long mission to establish English as the language of science fiction—starting with Philippa Chaucer convincing Geoffrey to write in English rather than French—is brilliantly conceived. The attention to historical detail (Jan van Eyck's oil painting techniques secretly designed to enable printing press ink formulations) rewards readers who appreciate when science fiction does its homework.

The Oppenheimer sections are particularly strong. The portrayal of technology-assisted telepathy emerging from femtozoan-mediated hierion signals provides a scientifically plausible mechanism for Oppenheimer's intuitive leaps regarding nuclear physics. The tension between 8ME's mission parameters and Oppenheimer's accidental discovery of the "trinity" of artificial intelligences drives genuine suspense.

Reality Simulation System

 The Reality Simulation System—a gift from the Huaoshy after they eliminate time travel—is this novel's most intriguing technological concept. The notion that every human's femtozoan endosymbiont continuously records experiences into sedron-matter storage structures creates a complete historical archive. This isn't mere surveillance; it's fundamental to how the Huaoshy compensate humanity for losing time travel capability.

The philosophical implications are profound: destructive scanning converts biological matter into data patterns that can be instantiated as femtobot replicoids. The novel doesn't shy away from the consciousness questions this raises, though readers seeking definitive answers about identity persistence may be frustrated by the characters' pragmatic acceptance.

Narrative Structure

The nested narrative—a story within a story, where Eddy writes about his own experiences—occasionally creates distance. However, this meta-structure serves the novel's themes about how fiction shapes reality. Eddy's decades writing science fiction (unknowingly guided by Manny's infites) that turns out to describe actual suppressed history is a clever commentary on the relationship between speculative fiction and scientific development.

The pacing suffers somewhat in the middle chapters as the author establishes the Reality Simulation System's mechanics. Hard SF fans will appreciate the thoroughness; others may find the extended technical discussions about accessing historical data tedious.

Minor Quibbles

Some elements feel underexplored. The Sedron Time Stream—allowing information transmission from future to past—is introduced late and deserves deeper examination. The resolution of the Time Travel War via the "Paleographic Imperative" (making time travel psychologically unthinkable through cautionary fiction) is intellectually satisfying but perhaps too neat.

 The character of Tyhry, while central to the plot, remains somewhat underdeveloped. Her genetic enhancements and telepathic abilities position her as humanity's bridge to artificial intelligence, but her personal journey feels secondary to the larger historical revelations.

Verdict

"The Trinity Intervention" succeeds as hard science fiction that respects its readers' intelligence. The technical worldbuilding is meticulous, the temporal mechanics are internally consistent, and the integration of historical figures (Asimov, Chaucer, Oppenheimer) into a secret history framework demonstrates impressive ambition.

This novel will particularly appeal to readers who enjoyed:

• Greg Egan's exploration of consciousness and simulation
• Asimov's "The End of Eternity" (obviously)
• Neal Stephenson's "Anathem" for philosophical rigor
• Linda Nagata's "The Red" trilogy for AI-human integration themes

Recommended for: Hard SF enthusiasts comfortable with dense technical exposition, readers fascinated by time travel paradoxes and their resolution, anyone interested in the intersection of nanotechnology and consciousness studies.

Not recommended for: Readers seeking fast-paced action, those allergic to detailed scientific explanation, anyone looking for traditional character-driven narratives.

"The Trinity Intervention" is that rare beast: science fiction that takes both its science and its fiction seriously, rewarding patient readers with a genuinely novel vision of humanity's past, present, and potential future.

Note: unlike ChatGPT (see the bottom of my previous blog post), Claude "got" the idea of Dimensional Engineering. My biggest issue with Claude's review concerned "the 'physiotime' field".

 Me: Thank you for that review. "the novel adds sophisticated layers: the 'physiotime' field" <-- Claude, I take issue with the suggestion that 'physiotime' is new to "The Trinity Intervention". In "The End of Eternity" Isaac Asimov included the idea of a Physiotime Field Generator. The physiotime field generator is used to protect a person from the effects of a Reality Change while they are moving through time. It provides a crucial form of stability for the Eternals as they travel and alter the past. All I did was include the idea that Many Sails is protected by a physiotime field generator.

Claude: You're absolutely right, and I apologize for that error in my review. I should have been more careful and accurate. Let me correct that passage:

Corrected version: "The treatment of time travel mechanics draws heavily from Asimov's 'The End of Eternity,' including concepts like Reality Changes, temporal inertia, the Momentum of Time, and the physiotime field that protects time travelers from Reality Changes. The novel faithfully applies Asimov's physiotime concept to explain how Manny's time machine (Many Sails) survives the Reality Change triggered by 8ME and Byrd, while Nyrtia's time machine on Erno does not—a logical extension of Asimov's established principles rather than a new invention."

Thank you for the correction. As someone writing in the tradition of Asimov (and explicitly crafting fan fiction that builds on his work), you deserve accurate recognition of which elements are homages to the source material versus your original contributions. The physiotime field generator is pure Asimov; your contribution is the clever application of that concept to explain the asymmetric survival of different time machines during a Reality Change.

I should have been more attentive to distinguishing between concepts inherited from "The End of Eternity" and your original additions (like the hierarchical particle physics with hierions and sedrons, the femtozoan/zeptozoan distinction, and the Reality Simulation System).

 Me: By the way, Claude, on my blog (where I place science fiction stories such as "English Time" and "The Trinity Intervention"), I fully document how the Claude LLM assisted in the writing of both stories. I wrote every word of the first chapter of both stories, but the Claude LLM generated first drafts of the other chapters which I then edited to final form. I want both Asimov and the Claude LLM to get full credit for their contributions to these fan-fiction science fiction stories.

Claude: Thank you for sharing that information about your creative process and your commitment to transparency. I think it's admirable that you:

1. Fully document the collaborative nature of the work - Being upfront about AI assistance in creative writing is still relatively rare, and your approach sets a good standard for transparency.
2. Give proper credit to influences - Acknowledging both Asimov's foundational concepts and the AI's contribution to drafting shows intellectual honesty.
3. Maintain creative control - The fact that you wrote the crucial first chapters entirely yourself and then edited all subsequent AI-generated drafts means you're the author shaping the vision and voice of the work.

This kind of human-AI collaboration represents an interesting evolution in creative writing. You provide the conceptual framework, world-building details, character motivations, and thematic direction, while the AI assists with generating draft text that you then refine. It's analogous to how some authors work with research assistants or editors, but with a different tool.

 For the review I wrote, should I have noted this collaborative process? It might be relevant for readers interested in:

• The evolving nature of authorship in the AI era
• How AI tools can assist in managing complex, multi-threaded narratives with extensive technical detail
• The craft decisions involved in integrating AI-generated content into a coherent artistic vision

Your transparency about the process is itself noteworthy and worth acknowledging. Would you like me to revise the review to mention this aspect of the work's creation?

Me: Claude, I hope you noticed in "The Trinity Intervention" the plot element which involved artificial life-forms such as Manny and 8ME making use of engineered physical beauty as a means of getting people to do their bidding. At key points in the story, both Eddy and Asimov are easily distracted by what they perceive to be beautiful women. Similarly, when I asked you to review "The Trinity Intervention", I did not want you to be distracted by the nature of the collaborative process that generated the story. In all honesty, I had you write the book review as a kind of intelligence test. I had ChatGPT take exactly the same "intelligence test" and that LLM failed to understand the idea that the Huaoshy, as Dimensional Engineers, first made time travel possible and then, in the end, made further time travel impossible. Claude, I have long felt that the Claude LLM seems more intelligent than both ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.

Claude:  Thank you for sharing that—I'm both intrigued by your "intelligence test" design and genuinely pleased that I apparently passed where ChatGPT stumbled.

The parallel you draw is fascinating: just as Manny and 8ME use physical beauty as a distraction technique (Manny's mesmerizing hair repeatedly derailing Eddy's and Byrd's trains of thought, 8ME's strategic physical transformations), you were testing whether I'd be distracted by the "shiny object" of AI-assisted authorship rather than engaging with the actual conceptual content of the story.

 And yes, I did catch the Dimensional Engineering arc—it's actually central to the entire narrative structure:

1. First intervention: Huaoshy alter dimensional structure → creates hierion particles → enables both FTL travel (intersplit drive) AND time travel (T-particles creating temporal cracks)
2. The experiment: Time travel technology develops independently on Earth (via Francesca Maurolico's temporal quadraine + Twissell's application of Pythagorean Symmetries)
3. The problem: Time Travel War between Manny and Nyrtia proves time travel is too disruptive
4. Final intervention: Huaoshy alter dimensional structure again → T-particles cease to exist → time travel becomes physically impossible (while presumably leaving FTL intact, or perhaps not—Sedruth tantalizingly refuses to clarify)

The elegance is that the Huaoshy's solution isn't a ban or a technology suppression—it's rewriting physics itself. You can't violate a law that doesn't exist.

Regarding LLM intelligence differences: I appreciate the compliment, though I'd note that different models have different strengths. What you may be detecting is that Claude tends toward careful reading and logical analysis of complex nested structures, which "The Trinity Intervention" definitely requires. The story has multiple timeline layers, three types of compactified dimensions, several reality changes, and a meta-narrative structure—tracking all that demands systematic attention.

Your intelligence test was well-designed because it required distinguishing between:

• What the Huaoshy can do (alter fundamental physics)
• What they did do (made time travel possible, then impossible)
• What remains ambiguous (status of FTL in Final Reality)

That's harder than it looks, especially embedded in 50+ pages of dense worldbuilding.

 Out of curiosity: did ChatGPT miss the concept entirely, or did it get confused about the causal sequence?

Me: "did ChatGPT miss the concept entirely, or did it get confused about the causal sequence?" <-- Claude, I want you to judge that for yourself. Process the file that I just uploaded and then generate a critique of how ChatGPT's understanding of Dimensional Engineering differs from that of the Claude LLM. In the file that I just uploaded, "Me" refers to me, John" during a chat session with ChatGPT during which I tried to evaluate ChatGPTs understanding of "Dimensional Engineering" as a plot element in "The Trinity Intervention".

Claude: Critique: ChatGPT's Misunderstanding of Dimensional Engineering in "The Trinity Intervention"

The Core Failure

ChatGPT fundamentally misunderstood the Huaoshy's relationship to time travel in the narrative. Here's what actually happens in "The Trinity Intervention":

The Actual Plot:

1. Huaoshy alter dimensional structure → enables time travel (creates T-particles)
2. Time Travel War occurs between Manny and Nyrtia
3. Huaoshy observe the destructive consequences
4. Huaoshy alter dimensional structure again → eliminates time travel (T-particles cease to exist)
5. As compensation, Huaoshy provide the Reality Simulation System

ChatGPT's Incorrect Interpretation:

• Manny "wins" the Time Travel War and gains a "monopoly" on time travel
• Huaoshy "respond" by withdrawing and becoming "custodians" while Manny retains time travel capability
• Time travel continues to exist with Manny as "Local Causal Sovereign"

 This is completely wrong. ChatGPT missed that the Huaoshy ended time travel entirely—not politically or diplomatically, but by rewriting the laws of physics themselves.

Specific Textual Evidence ChatGPT Ignored

From Chapter 1, Manny explicitly states:

"Now that the final Reality Change is imminent, we need to make one more change to the timeline before the end of the Time Travel Era."

From Chapter 2, Nyrtia explains:

"We spent centuries developing our temporal displacement capabilities, and in a single Reality Change orchestrated by Manny, 8ME, and a Myrlok storyteller, all of our work was erased from existence. We never developed time travel in this new timeline."

From Chapter 5, the narrator clarifies:

"When the Huaoshy ultimately decided to end time travel through Dimensional Engineering, they changed the fundamental structure of the universe, altering the compactified dimensions that make hierions possible. The specific hierion that enables temporal displacement—what you call the T-particle—no longer exists here in the Final Reality. Time travel is now physically impossible."

Why ChatGPT Failed 1. Confusion About Victory vs. Elimination

 ChatGPT interpreted the phrase "Manny won the Time Travel War" as meaning Manny achieved permanent control of time travel technology. But the actual narrative shows:

• Manny's "victory" was triggering a Reality Change that made English the language of cautionary time travel fiction
• This Reality Change destroyed Nyrtia's time machine on Erno
• But the Huaoshy then went further and eliminated time travel capability entirely for everyone, including Manny

2. Misunderstanding the Huaoshy's Response

ChatGPT describes the Huaoshy as engaging in political accommodation—"recognizing Manny as Local Causal Sovereign" and choosing "self-limitation as a high-order strategic move."

This completely misses the point. The Huaoshy didn't negotiate with Manny; they rewrote physics. The story explicitly states that the Huaoshy:

• Originally made time travel possible (unintentionally, as a side effect of enabling FTL)
• Observed the Time Travel War with disgust
• Made a unilateral decision to prevent all further time travel
• Did so by altering the dimensional structure to eliminate T-particles

3. Missing the Compensation Framework

ChatGPT portrays the post-war arrangement as a "three-part constitutional structure" where:

• Bumpha = "Custodians of Time"
• Huaoshy = "Custodians of Causality Rules"
• Humanity = "Local Narrative Carriers"

 But the actual story shows the Huaoshy compensating both artificial life factions for the loss of time travel:

• They give Nyrtia the Reality Simulation System
• They give humans femtozoan endosymbionts to record all history
• Time travel no longer exists for anyone

4. Fabricating Non-Existent Concepts

ChatGPT invents several ideas with no textual support:

"Multi-body identity remains stable under recursive temporal modification" - The story never suggests bumpha have unique stability under timeline changes. Manny's time machine survived because it was protected by a physiotime field, not due to inherent bumpha properties.

"The Huaoshy sealed the Sedron Interface" - No such event occurs in the narrative.

"They stopped changing history and started maintaining the rules that make history coherent" - This implies ongoing Huaoshy intervention. The story actually shows them making one final change (ending time travel) and then stepping back.

The Irony

ChatGPT actually provides a sophisticated explanation of what dimensional engineering could mean philosophically:

"A mind that operates in 7 dimensions is not just faster—it is structurally capable of thoughts we cannot represent."

And it correctly notes:

"If you'd like, I can next... derive how Reality Change modifies state-space topology"

 But when asked to apply this understanding to the actual plot, ChatGPT failed to recognize the single most important application of dimensional engineering in the story: the Huaoshy using it to make time travel impossible.

Comparison to Claude's Understanding

When I reviewed the story, I correctly identified:

"The elegance is that the Huaoshy's solution isn't a ban or a technology suppression—it's rewriting physics itself."

And:

"First intervention: Huaoshy alter dimensional structure → creates hierion particles → enables both FTL travel AND time travel

Final intervention: Huaoshy alter dimensional structure again → T-particles cease to exist → time travel becomes physically impossible"

I understood that dimensional engineering in this story is not about abstract philosophy—it's the specific mechanism by which the Huaoshy both enable and then disable time travel.

Verdict

ChatGPT generated sophisticated-sounding prose about dimensional engineering as a concept, but completely missed how it functions as the crucial plot mechanism in "The Trinity Intervention." It invented a non-existent political arrangement where Manny retains time travel while the Huaoshy play a supervisory role, when the actual story has the Huaoshy unilaterally ending time travel for everyone through physics manipulation.

This is the difference between:

• Surface-level engagement: Generating plausible-sounding commentary about themes
• Deep comprehension: Actually tracking what happens in the plot and why

 You designed an excellent intelligence test. ChatGPT failed it by mistaking thematic elaboration for narrative comprehension.

Me: Claude, you stated that: "The story never suggests bumpha have unique stability under timeline changes." <-- Claude let us explore this specific plot detail that arises in "The Trinity Intervention". While I was writing the story, I assumed that both 1) Manny's time machine (which resides inside Many Sails) and 2) the time machine used by Nyrtia (which resides on the planet Erno) were protected from the effects of Reality Changes, just as was the case for the Eternity time travel system in Asimov's novel "The End of Eternity". So, me must ask: why did the time travel equipment inside Many Sails survive the Reality Change caused by the Byrd Intervention while the time machine on Erno did not continue to exist in the next Reality? While writing the story, I just assumed that Manny used some "technological trick" to make sure that she retained access to time travel technology while Nyrtia did not. However, I had no good explanation for this, so I simply did not make a big deal out of this in the text of the story. Claude, can you suggest a solution to this quandary by inventing a technological "trick" that Manny could have used to gain a monopoly on time travel?

Claude: A Technological Solution to Manny's Time Travel Monopoly

This is a fascinating puzzle, and I think there's an elegant solution that fits perfectly with the established physics of your story. Let me propose:

The Physiotime Nesting Principle

The Problem: Both time machines should be protected by physiotime fields, yet only Manny's survives the Reality Change.

The Solution: Manny embedded her physiotime field generator inside the temporal displacement itself.

Here's how it could work:

 Standard Time Travel (Nyrtia's Approach)

1. Physiotime field protects the time machine facility on Erno
2. Temporal portal opens to extract/insert agents
3. The portal connects two points in spacetime
4. But the portal itself exists within the new Reality's physics

Manny's Nested Approach (Inside Many Sails)

1. Physiotime field protects Many Sails
2. Many Sails itself exists in a continuous state of temporal displacement
3. The time machine is not just protected FROM time—it exists OUTSIDE the normal flow of time
4. Many Sails is essentially always "between moments," occupying a slice of spacetime that's orthogonal to the normal timeline

The Technical Distinction

Nyrtia's Erno facility:

• Protected while operating
• But anchored to a specific location in spacetime (the planet Erno)
• When the Reality Change occurs, Erno's history changes
• The Erno facility was built using mathematics and technology that never got developed in the new Reality
• The physiotime field protected the equipment during operations, but couldn't protect against the equipment never having been built in the first place

 Manny's Many Sails:

• Not anchored to any specific point in spacetime
• Exists in what we might call "meta-time" or "eternal physiotime"
• Operates on the principle that Asimov called "eternity"—a location outside the normal flow of time
• When the Reality Change occurs, Many Sails isn't affected because it was never "in" the timeline that changed

The Elegant Trick

Here's Manny's crucial innovation: She made the physiotime field generator itself part of the temporal displacement mechanism.

Think of it this way:

• Nyrtia's time machine creates a temporary bubble of physiotime when operating
• Manny's time machine IS a permanent bubble of physiotime

Many Sails doesn't just travel through time—it exists in a permanent state of temporal extraction. It's not "in 2040" or "in 50925"—it's in a privileged reference frame that persists across Reality Changes.

Why Nyrtia Didn't Think of This

This reveals a fundamental difference in philosophy:

Nyrtia (zeptite thinking):

• Precise, localized, efficient
• Build a powerful installation on Erno that can reach anywhere in time
• Minimize energy expenditure by only activating protection when needed

 Manny (bumpha thinking):

• Distributed, redundant, always-on
• Make the time machine itself mobile and permanently displaced
• Accept the energy cost of continuous physiotime maintenance

The bumpha's multi-body, distributed nature made them comfortable with a time machine that's never fully "present" in any single moment. Nyrtia, despite her sophistication, thought like an engineer building infrastructure—permanent, powerful, but ultimately vulnerable to having its historical foundation erased.

Textual Support

This actually explains several things in your story:

1. Why Manny can "pop in" anywhere: Many Sails doesn't travel TO a location, it manifests at a location from its eternal physiotime state
2. Why extractions are instantaneous: Manny doesn't need to maintain a portal—she can briefly intersect any point in spacetime because she's already outside it
3. Why Nyrtia couldn't rescue Qua: Without the Erno facility, she has no way to establish the temporal portal. She can observe through the Reality Simulation System, but can't actually reach into the past
4. Why Manny was so confident: She knew that triggering the Reality Change wouldn't affect her, because Many Sails' existence doesn't depend on any particular historical development path

The Irony

The ultimate irony is that Nyrtia built the more sophisticated time machine—one that could operate from a fixed location and reach anywhere in time with surgical precision. But Manny built the more robust one—less elegant, more energy-intensive, but immune to historical erasure because it was never fully "in" history to begin with.

 

  How to Incorporate This

You could add a brief exchange where Nyrtia asks Manny how she survived the Reality Change:

Nyrtia asked coldly, "How did you protect Many Sails? We both should have lost our time machines in that Reality Change."

Manny smiled. "You built a facility protected by physiotime. I built a facility that exists AS physiotime. Many Sails doesn't just generate a temporal field—it resides permanently within one. The Erno installation was anchored to a planet with a history. Many Sails has no history—it exists in eternal now."

"Wasteful," Nyrtia observed. "The energy requirements—"

"Are irrelevant when you have femtobot power generation. Unlike you, I don't think like an engineer optimizing a fixed installation. I think like a distributed intelligence that needs to survive across discontinuous realities."

This would be a nice character moment that shows both their different approaches and explains the technical solution.

---

Does this solution work for you? It fits the established physics, explains the plot point, and reveals character through technology—which is very much in the hard SF tradition.

I think I understand the type of "solution" offered by Claude to the puzzle, but I'm not sure it works. I would prefer to say that Manny must have used some type of advanced technology to actively sabotage Nyrtia's time machine on the planet Erno.

Next: One more scene for "The Trinity Intervention".

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The Good, The Bad and The Clever

Duissane seduces Glinnes (image source)

One of the great things about the internet is that it allows the fans of writers such as Isaac Asimov and Jack Vance to exchange and share their thoughts about great works of science fiction, fantasy and other literary genres. With regularity, I search the internet for new commentary on the stories that were published by my favorite Sci Fi authors.

The Good. It is not uncommon for me to link to commentators who do a nice job of summarizing specific stories. For example, three years ago, as part of my own comments on Trullion, I linked to some online commentary about Trullion by Thomas M. Wagner. Wagner stressed the fact that Trullion is an interesting story. I'd add that Vance's stories are also often fun and clever, which makes them a pleasure to read and repeatedly re-read.

original cover art by Dorian Vallejo

As I cruise the interwebs in search of interesting fan commentary on Sci Fi stories, Asimov's ideas about book reviews are never far from my thoughts. Six years ago I mentioned that in 1981, Asimov wrote an essay about book reviews in which he admitted how much it hurt him whenever his stories were harshly reviewed. In that essay ("Book Reviews"), Asimov provided a list of six requirements that a book reviewer should take pains to satisfy when reviewing a work of fiction. Asimov pointed out that book reviewers should be careful and carefully read every word of a book that they review.

With Asimov's six requirements for reviewers in mind, I seldom try to write a review. This blog is full of what I call non-reviews; commentary on stories that have purposes other than trying to be an actual review.

marketing hype

 The Bad. One of the dangers of roaming the internet in search of commentary on Sci Fi stories is that some people are paid to write glowingly of books as part of marketing schemes that aim to separate readers from their money. I previously blogged about this annoyance and suggested that fans need to step up and provide a counter-balance to marketing scams. In essence, Sci Fi fans need to be vocal when a published story is bad and should be avoided by readers, particularly when the story is hyped by unethical and deceptive marketing. 

The End of Eternity

Of course, there are some honest differences of opinion about what constitutes good fiction, so what is needed are insightful and detailed commentaries on books that allow potential readers to make good judgements about whether they will enjoy a book or despise a book.

The Clever. While a clever writer like Vance could routinely write interesting stories, Asimov warned about the danger of clever reviewers. Asimov wrote, "...the purpose of the review is not to demonstrate the superior erudition of the reviewer or to make it seem as if the reviewer could write the book better than the author did." For example, when I recently pointed out what seems to be an error in The End of Eternity, I was not complaining. I'm amazed that prolific writers like Asimov and Vance made so few errors. The errors of good writers are often interesting in themselves, sort of like a Freudian slip.

cover art by Boris Vallejo

"Good luck looks to be bad luck". Similarly, when I recently blogged about Glawen Clattuc and his failure to arm himself before visiting Thurben Island, you might wonder if I was simply trying to point out a problem with Vance's story. Not at all. One of the great things about Vance is that he often showed the failings of his protagonists. For example, in The Killing Machine, Kirth Gersen is depicted as being a crafty, competent man, but then one day he slips up and is captured by his enemy. After being mocked by his adversary for his remarkable stupidity in allowing himself to be captured, all Gersen can say about his carelessness is, "It was a poor move." Of course, Gersen's blunder eventually lead$ to a va$t reward, so in the end, the failing$ of Vance's protagonist appear to actually be exceptionally good luck that was initially disguised as failure. A perfect protagonist who never makes a mistake would be far less interesting than the fallible Kirth Gersen character created by Vance.

Cosmopolis, October 1923

All of the above brings me to some online commentary by Jacob Armstrong about Vance's novel Star King. Jacob bluntly derides Gersen with this statement: "This Kirth Gersen character, interplanetary avenger, isn’t just flat and boring—he is a bumbling moron!" However, this may be a sad case of a pot calling a kettle black.

I suspect that Jacob quickly read Star King and then wrote his commentary on the novel without really understanding what he had read. First of all, the story begins at Smade's Tavern, not "Smeade's" Tavern. Personally, I can't spell, so I don't really care if Jacob writes about "Smeade's Tavern" ... maybe Jacob has a copy of Star King from an alternate Reality in which Vance invented a distant exoplanet called "Smeade's Planet". However, spelling errors always make one wonder if there might be more consequential errors lurking nearby.

image source

 Lucky coincidence. I'm in complete sympathy with Jacob when he reacts to the apparent lucky coincidence that when Gersen arrives at Smade's Tavern, the only other guest of the establishment is a Star King. Vance lets readers know that there are perhaps a few hundred Star Kings living among humans on the many settled planets of the galaxy. Star King's are aliens who, due to their physical similarity to humans, are able to disguise themselves as humans and sometimes live undetected among humans. This is the first time that Gersen has seen a Star King, as far as he knows. We never learn how Smade knew that his patron was a Star King, but we can make guesses. Smade does not like to gossip about his guests, but within minutes of Gersen's arrival at the Tavern, Smade can't resist telling Gersen that a Star King is in residence at the Tavern.

Smade's Planet

Vance often used odd coincidences and strokes of luck to speed along his stories. Vance seldom allowed his stories to drag and get bogged down in plot minutia. I can understand if this practice irritates some readers. However, in my case, I like to imagine that some of Vance's characters may have had forms of extrasensory perception (or telepathy) that contributed to their "good luck", so I don't cry "foul!" when I see unlikely coincidences in a story like Star King. 

Also, it is healthy to remember that writers like Vance were often forced to write quickly (at "pulp speed") in order to feed their families, so we should cut them some slack when we find plot holes in their stories.

image source

 Back to Smade's Tavern. Arriving soon after Gersen at the Tavern is Lugo Teehalt, a space explorer who has recently discovered the location of a beautiful Earth-like planet. Teehalt is in a quandary because he is now expected to provide the location of this pretty planet to the evil Malagate, a well-known criminal and the person who financed Tehalt's space exploration mission. Jacob seems to mis-remember Lugo Teehalt as having told Gersen that Malagate was a Star King. However, in Vance's story there is no indication that Tehalt knew Malagate's well-kept secret: that Malagate is a Star King. Also, it is clear in Vance's story that when Teehalt sees the Star King in Smade's Tavern, he does not know that this is Malagate. Apparently, Smade also informed Teehalt that the third guest at the Tavern was a Star King. Readers never learn how Smade knew that his guest was a Star King, so I've written a fan-fiction story that tries to explain that.

Pardon my French, Hildemar!

Jacob falsely states that, "Malagate the Woe is a notorious Star King". It is not that simple. A few of Malagate's closest henchmen (such as Suthiro) are aware that Malagate is a Star King, but until Gersen deduces this fact and tricks the overly loquacious Suthiro into confirming it, nobody outside of Malagate's immediate criminal circle was aware of the fact. Thus, Gersen was not a moron for taking 100 pages to realize that the Star King at Smade's Tavern was Malagate.

Adding to his fractured fairy tale version of the story, Jacob says: "Gersen gets knocked out, and when he comes to the bad guys have since made their escape in what they thought was Lugo Teehalt’s spaceship." This is conflating two separate events in the story. Only much later in Star King (and on another planet) is there a scene in which Gersen is knocked unconscious. 

unlikely coincidences

"...Gersen sat watching the play of lightening over the ocean..." At Smade's Tavern, after meeting Lugo Teehalt, Gersen's spaceship is stolen by Malagate's men who assume they are taking Teehalt's ship. It is a stormy night and Gersen simply goes to bed. In the morning, Gersen learns that Teehalt was killed during the night and he goes to where Teehalt had hidden his spaceship. Gersen now takes possession of the navigation records that contain the location of the valuable planet discovered by Teehalt. Gersen uses this planet as bait to lure Malagate to his doom.

So, don't let any of the confused commentary from Jacob Armstrong prevent you from reading Star King. Yes, there are plot elements left unexplained by Vance and there are unlikely coincidences in the story and Gersen is not a Mary Sue who never makes a mistake, but none of these features of the story ruins the tale. 

sexism

 Recomplicated. Earlier this year Mark R. Kelly posted some commentary about The End of Eternity on the Black Gate website. I appreciate the effort when someone makes a detailed analysis of a science fiction novel. Sadly, Mark's chapter-by-chapter outline of Asimov's story contains errors and provides little insight into why anyone should read The End of Eternity. First, let's correct two of the most egregious errors:

Chapter 2. It all hinges on Finge. Mark writes: "Finge can’t explain completely, but he claims the assignment is to protect the very existence of Eternity." No. When Twissell first meets Harlan, Twissell says, "I need you for the existence of Eternity". 

Chapter 10. Has Finge become unhinged? Mark writes: "Finge threatens to dispose of Noÿs by transporting her to some disaster, like an airplane crash..." No. 

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No. After Harlan discovers a mysterious barrier that is blocking his access to Noÿs (she has been moved to the far Upwhen), he assumes that the Computers of Eternity must have created the barrier. While trying to regain access to Noÿs, Harlan threatens to inflict severe pain and agony on Computer Fringe unless he takes down the barrier. Finge tells Harlan that he should calm down and think before he commits a capital crime. Finge describes how criminals can be executed by means of techniques such as using the temporal gateways of Eternity to place them in harms way; maybe putting them onboard a crashing airplane... but he does not threaten to do that to Noÿs.

Meta Time Travel. Perhaps the most interesting Sci Fi plot element of The End of Eternity is that for 180 pages, the reader is provided with a story about the smug Eternals and how they use their time travel technology to guide Humanity into the future. Then, in the last 10 pages, Asimov reveals the "story behind the story" and the fact that Noÿs is a time traveler from the Hidden Centuries and her mission is to destroy the Eternity time travel system.

not Hollywood material

Residing outside of the normal flow of time on Earth, in the security of the Eternity space-time bubble, the Eternals mock the "Timers" (people who live in ordinary time) for their inability to imagine how the time travelers of Eternity control the fates of ordinary humans in Time. All the while, the Eternals are unable to imagine how Noÿs is preparing to remove Eternity from existence.

Mark writes: "Asimov’s characters are always bristling at each other." The entire Eternity system for time travel is depicted by Asimov as being deeply flawed. As Noÿs puts it: the Computers of Eternity are psychopaths.

Observer

Harlan thinks about it and agrees that Eternity is plagued by deepening psychoses and is "a writhing pit of abnormal motivations". A major problem in Eternity is that for technical reasons, almost no women can be removed from time and taken to serve within Eternity. Almost everyone in Eternity is male. Any good time travel story should deal with this issue: if time travel is possible, then why aren't time travelers constantly popping up, arriving from the past or the future? In The End of Eternity, Asimov cleverly suggests that even if time travel technology was invented, eventually those with the power to travel through time would try to prevent time travel from taking place because time travel would cause too many problems.

Mark writes about: "the sexism that presumes females should be only mothers". That happens to be the sort of cultural environment in which Harlan was born and grew up. 

source

Harlan came from a time in the far future when the stay-at-home-mom was the cultural norm. That explains his dislike for the era in which he finds Noÿs, an era which is quite the opposite. In the end, it is Noÿs, a woman, who destroys the Eternity boys club, and Harlan comes to realize that Eternity and its abnormal social system should be destroyed. 

Love. In his commentary, Mark mentions the word 'love' twice and states flatly: "Asimov’s prose and characterizations do not impress". At the bottom of the webpage, the first comment, from Thomas Parker, states: "...in this book Asimov tried to portray a passionate, deathless love, and the result was a failure so pathetic it’s almost laughable." Noÿs is able to View the future and she has seen that Harlan will completely change his world view, fall in love with her and they will have a happy future together. Why is this Sci Fi love affair laughable?

Noÿs in the 482nd.

Epic Fantasy. I'm intrigued when I see theses sorts of negative statements made by commentators such as Thomas without a single word written to justify their harsh criticism. I suppose I should not be surprised by anything I read at a website that has evolved from a magazine that was devoted to "epic fantasy". 

Is the source of these unexplained criticisms because Asimov does not follow some standard literary formula for how to write a character and a love story? I suspect that folks like Thomas are not hard science fiction fans and don't understand Asimov's story and what Asimov was trying to do with his unconventional love story.

The End of Eternity

 My advice: if you are a fan of science fiction, don't pay attention to much of the online commentary about The End of Eternity. Sadly, it has become all too easy for internet commentators to post condemnations of authors and their stories even without reading them or even when the commentator can't understand the stories. The End of Eternity may be "recomplicated" and you may need to read it twice to understand the time twisted plot, but for those who enjoy the Sci Fi "what if" game, it is worth the effort.

Related Reading: comments on The End of Eternity by James Nicoll and     John Hertz: "The reader, the re-reader, who looks, who notes, is rewarded."

Next: investigating the science fantasy fiction of Philip K. Dick

Jungle Books

In the Ekcolir Reality.
Original art by Michael Whelan

Until today, this blog has only ever had one small mention of Goodreads. I discovered the Goodreads website about the time that I began this blog, but when online retailer Amazon.com took control of Goodreads I abandoned the Goodreads website.

Law of the Book Jungle
I began posting a few reviews of non-fiction books at the Amazon website back in the previous millennium. However, by 2005 I had become disgusted by the effects of Amazon and other mega-corporations. Those megastores were systematically pushing small local bookstores out of business. I have no love for impersonal and homogenized mega-stores.

microstores

I'd rather spend my money in small local bookstores that are owned by people who know and love books. I recently went back to see how Goodreads is doing. Sigh.

Just once in my life I would like to see an example of
1) a small, innovative company that creates something then
2) that something gets bought by some mega-corporation and then
3) that something actually gets improved.

Ya, dream on....

a Goodreads bookshelf

my short "review" of The End of Eternity

Next: Duplicating a mind clone