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Me as me, by request
Feb. 29th, 2016 10:40 pmPaul asked, so here I am.
I've been reading the Long Earth series, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. I'd been putting it off, because, you know, this is the last of the scumble, but you can't do that indefinitely. I'm on the third volume, and there's a lot to like here (two Doctor Who references in one chapter, followed brazenly by a mention of the programme just in case we missed the namedrops) and I'm enjoying it...
...but I'm really getting tired of That Character.
You'd know her if I named her. She's an extreme example of a type of character that's becoming more and more prevalent in stories, or so it seems to me. They're hard. It's their defining characteristic. They think, or rather they know, because they're far too sure of themselves ever to just think anything, that being hard and cold is the right way to be, and they look on the rest of us with barely-concealed contempt. They have all the answers to all the important questions, and if they don't happen to have an answer then the question obviously isn't important. They have no capacity for emotional perception or expression and call it "intelligence." They are studiedly offensive to people around them and call it "honesty." And they can always be recognised in a crowd, because the author is behind them jumping up and down and waving a placard saying S/HE'S RIGHT YOU KNOW. That's the most annoying part, really; that the story is invariably stacked in these characters' favour. They are never wrong, never embarrassed, never taken down the several pegs they so richly deserve.
And in the Long Earth series, people like that (there are several, and they're all the same) are the next stage in human evolution. I wasn't aware that arrogance and egocentrism were survival traits, though perhaps in our society we have made them appear to be so.
This character has a clear line of descent from, e.g., Heinlein's Grumpy Old Genius types, who also sounded much the same from one book to the next, but Heinlein managed to make his mouthpieces tolerable and even sometimes endearing. I don't know which half of Praxter was responsible for the ones in Long Earth, though I have my suspicions, but I am hoping (though not very much) that in the final book they will be shown up as the immature, self-deluded posers they truly are.
The next stage in human evolution will be human. It will have all the passions and desires, hopes and dreams, that humans have now, though maybe more highly developed. It will not be infallible, and if it makes fewer mistakes than we do it will not be because it has cut out half of its nature and thrown it away. And it will have empathy, because that is the greatest part of what makes us human, and it is only when we knowingly discard empathy that we become less than human.
In other news, I'm still here, and I owe heartfelt thanks to a lot of people who have helped me. I hope they will forgive my dilatoriness in rendering such thanks.
How are things with you?
I've been reading the Long Earth series, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. I'd been putting it off, because, you know, this is the last of the scumble, but you can't do that indefinitely. I'm on the third volume, and there's a lot to like here (two Doctor Who references in one chapter, followed brazenly by a mention of the programme just in case we missed the namedrops) and I'm enjoying it...
...but I'm really getting tired of That Character.
You'd know her if I named her. She's an extreme example of a type of character that's becoming more and more prevalent in stories, or so it seems to me. They're hard. It's their defining characteristic. They think, or rather they know, because they're far too sure of themselves ever to just think anything, that being hard and cold is the right way to be, and they look on the rest of us with barely-concealed contempt. They have all the answers to all the important questions, and if they don't happen to have an answer then the question obviously isn't important. They have no capacity for emotional perception or expression and call it "intelligence." They are studiedly offensive to people around them and call it "honesty." And they can always be recognised in a crowd, because the author is behind them jumping up and down and waving a placard saying S/HE'S RIGHT YOU KNOW. That's the most annoying part, really; that the story is invariably stacked in these characters' favour. They are never wrong, never embarrassed, never taken down the several pegs they so richly deserve.
And in the Long Earth series, people like that (there are several, and they're all the same) are the next stage in human evolution. I wasn't aware that arrogance and egocentrism were survival traits, though perhaps in our society we have made them appear to be so.
This character has a clear line of descent from, e.g., Heinlein's Grumpy Old Genius types, who also sounded much the same from one book to the next, but Heinlein managed to make his mouthpieces tolerable and even sometimes endearing. I don't know which half of Praxter was responsible for the ones in Long Earth, though I have my suspicions, but I am hoping (though not very much) that in the final book they will be shown up as the immature, self-deluded posers they truly are.
The next stage in human evolution will be human. It will have all the passions and desires, hopes and dreams, that humans have now, though maybe more highly developed. It will not be infallible, and if it makes fewer mistakes than we do it will not be because it has cut out half of its nature and thrown it away. And it will have empathy, because that is the greatest part of what makes us human, and it is only when we knowingly discard empathy that we become less than human.
In other news, I'm still here, and I owe heartfelt thanks to a lot of people who have helped me. I hope they will forgive my dilatoriness in rendering such thanks.
How are things with you?