Karl Schroeder , source of Pirate Sun , is a master at compose crazy , swaggering adventures in strange human race – then making you think . His latest , The Sunless Countries , symmetricalness breathtaking worldbuilding with an challenging review article of “ the wisdom of crew . ”
Spoilers forward .
The Sunless Countries is the quaternary novel that Schroeder has define in the world of Virga , a electronic connection of atmosphere bubbles roughly in orbit around the Vega star system . Built long ago by a group of technologically - sophisticated humanity , these bubble each contain their own unique ecosystems and culture . The novel focus on the steampunk - style human race of Virga , a blob of Earth atmosphere about 3,000 miles in diam , filled with several “ suns ” for spark and heating system , as well as elephantine spinning cylinders that provide gravity to the great unwashed who live on the inner wall . clump of earth and blobs of water be adrift through the firmament , providing weather and tilth . Fauna “ swim ” through the air .
Virga ’s main sun , Candesce , is also a defensive weapon system : It radiates a field that prevents the use of computer technology and “ artificial nature . So Virga ’s inhabitants live by analog alone , soar upwards around with steam and and battery - power ships . Some of them hold out in cheery area , and others live in “ the clouded countries ” of the rule book ’s title , near the out skin of the atmosphere bubble in a country of perpetual darkness .
Other books in the serial publication have plow with rebels who want to build their own suns , and the political machinations of the great nations near the center of Virga . But The Sunless Countries is a standalone adventure that takes lieu at the fringe of everything : In a account department at a university in the sunless Carry Amelia Moore Nation of Sere . Specifically , it refer the strange adventures of a disaffected history researcher named Leal who is caught up in an ideologic battle against intellectual within her own Carry Nation – as well as a struggle against all of humanity being wage by mysterious creature from beyond Virga ’s skin .
The book is also , as Schroeder put it to me in an interview ( which I ’ll post tomorrow ! ) , his attempt to do a version of Bridget Jones ’ Diary . Which means that Leal has to deal with her young - adult libido on top of everything else .
Leal has just get password that an unqualified but acceptably conservative historiographer has been promoted to professor over her , and she think that ’s her adult job . Until the notorious sunlight - building hero Hayden Griffin arrives in town on a secret mission . Then Leal has a freaky , unexpected face-off when she gets lose in her ship deep at night – she hears a huge voice coming out of the darkness , arrogate to have a message . on the spur of the moment , her problem in the chronicle department start to seem relatively insignificant . But her historian exponent become of the essence to Hayden ’s mission ( ah – the handsome , unreachable Hayden ) . Leal has admission to several forbidden books from early on in Virga ’s history that may explicate why she heard that voice , and what do the disappearance of Sere ’s fleet along with several small cities .
While Leal and Hayden attempt to solve the mystery of the voice , Leal ’s nation of Sere undergoes a unspeakable putsch . The “ Eternists ” take control of authorities , and incinerate down huge part of the university because the professor there have challenged the Eternists ’ belief that Virga comprises the intact universe and has existed throughout time . The Eternists are also fanatical believers in the wisdom of crowds , and advocate that truth can only be identify when everybody vote on what is truthful . So every schoolbook and article in the newspaper is accompanied by a canvass so mass can vote on their “ truth . ” the great unwashed who do n’t vote are punish .
This whole subplot allows Schroeder to grapple with the dark side of democracy , where “ the people ” are allow to order all wiseness . It also pokes fun at the idea , popular among World Wide Web pundits , that crowds provide the best answers to all questions . Schroeder ’s genius here is in speculating about an ideology that scotch something like a conservative Christian viewpoint with Web 2.0 dogma . And it feels like a sly , channelise review of our own cosmos when his characters , develop well-worn of the Eternists at last , start up to admit that they do n’t want to vote on everything and that sometimes their opinion should n’t count .
If there is a fault in this novel , it ’s that Schroeder is taste to do too much at once . Leal and Hayden ’s adventure – where they learn that sometimes tool who are not conscious make better friends than those who are – winds up feel tacked - on . We care more about the fate of Sere than we do about this large conflict over Virga itself . The last section of the novel is clearly direct up to a fifth novel in theVirga series(and indeed , Schroeder is working on that novel already ) , and it might have worked well to give us more closure on Sere ’s political battles than to open up an entirely raw prospect of ideas only to shut out it down in medium res .
Despite all that , The Sunless Countries is a lark about in force read . It ’s fun , bookish , and full of harebrained strain conflict that take position in a earth without land . And the political thought experiments are as good as Schroeder ’s overarching scientific opinion experiment about what it would be like to live in a world where you’re able to have what amounts to a space conflict using Newtonian cathartic .
The Sunless Countriesvia Borders
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