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Review: _Template_, by Matthew Hughes
May. 11th, 2008 11:14 amAn exciting SF adventure with a philosophical bite.
The time is far in the future, with humanity spread over The Ten Thousand Worlds. We meet a young man, Conn Labro, in the middle of a sword fight, where he defeats three opponents at once without working up much of a sweat. It transpires that Conn is a master duelist, raised from near birth to excel at all forms of games and competitions. This initial display of both competence and calm immediately creates reader sympathy for Conn. This is good, because at the start of the book, Conn is rather naive and unlikable in many other respects. The culture of his planet is a negatively depicted Libertopia, and Conn believes the tenets of his home to be axiomatic.
But violence and mysteries ensue, which propel Conn offworld. There he discovers that there are many other ways of organizing societies:
Hughes' writing style reminds me of Jack Vance or Cordwainer Smith. He is exceeding fond of multisyllabic utterances, and cares not whether they be archaic, repurposed, or completely original confabulations. This lends the text a faintly alien aura, at once space opera and ancient legend. Readers with small vocabularies, and who fear dictionaries, may want to give this one a pass, but lovers of language will likely enjoy it.
Where Hughes departs significantly from Vance and Smith (in my opinion) is in the clarity of the *plot*. While linguistic and philosophical games are part of the author's intent, he never loses track of the storytelling. Exciting events happen, mysteries are set up and eventually explained. Pacing alternates well between calm and suspense. He kept me wanting to know 'what happens next', and never disappointed on that front. Indeed, I missed my train stop multiple times due to involvement in this book, something that has not happened in years (though my recent sleep-deprivation probably gets partial 'credit' for that). It even has a satisfactory ending, something that many modern authors fail at.
Recommended.
Addendum for the game designers in the audience. Hughes briefly sketches a game which sounds quite interesting, and might be worth trying to implement.
The time is far in the future, with humanity spread over The Ten Thousand Worlds. We meet a young man, Conn Labro, in the middle of a sword fight, where he defeats three opponents at once without working up much of a sweat. It transpires that Conn is a master duelist, raised from near birth to excel at all forms of games and competitions. This initial display of both competence and calm immediately creates reader sympathy for Conn. This is good, because at the start of the book, Conn is rather naive and unlikable in many other respects. The culture of his planet is a negatively depicted Libertopia, and Conn believes the tenets of his home to be axiomatic.
But violence and mysteries ensue, which propel Conn offworld. There he discovers that there are many other ways of organizing societies:
Now Moat Wallader entered the conversation. "My sister and I are preparing a monograph that argues that every society is fundamentally organized around one or another of the cardinal sins."Gradually, Conn learns first tolerance, and eventually appreciation for these other ways of living. By the end of the book, he has discovered the answer to his conundrums, both material and philosophical.
Conn's was not the only puzzled face among the listeners. "I mean," said the Divorgian, "that every culture, whatever ideals it professes, is in practice built around one of the seven mortal iniquities identified in ancient times: pride, envy, and so on."
Clariq chimed in again. On Hauser, society was based on the sin of pride, she explained. Ren Farbuck and his adversary endured severe pain and a certain degree of fear -- after all, the hassenge is occasionally fatal, usually from blood loss or septicemia -- for no other reason than that all who knew them, including themselves, would have held them in disesteem if they had quailed.
"Mud on the name, earth on the grave," Farbuck aphorized. "How can it be a sin for a man to defend his honor?"
Conn ignored the comment. "But neither of them gained anything from the transaction," he said. "Nor lost."
The Hauserian shook his head and muttered something Conn did not hear because Clariq was saying, "They did not view the event as a transaction."
"Yet it must have been a transaction," Conn insisted. "All human interactions are."
"They are to those who are disposed to see them as such," the Divorgian woman said, "but not to those who wish to see them as something else."
"A thing is what it is," said Conn.
"No," said Clariq, "some things are what everyone says they are..."
Hughes' writing style reminds me of Jack Vance or Cordwainer Smith. He is exceeding fond of multisyllabic utterances, and cares not whether they be archaic, repurposed, or completely original confabulations. This lends the text a faintly alien aura, at once space opera and ancient legend. Readers with small vocabularies, and who fear dictionaries, may want to give this one a pass, but lovers of language will likely enjoy it.
Where Hughes departs significantly from Vance and Smith (in my opinion) is in the clarity of the *plot*. While linguistic and philosophical games are part of the author's intent, he never loses track of the storytelling. Exciting events happen, mysteries are set up and eventually explained. Pacing alternates well between calm and suspense. He kept me wanting to know 'what happens next', and never disappointed on that front. Indeed, I missed my train stop multiple times due to involvement in this book, something that has not happened in years (though my recent sleep-deprivation probably gets partial 'credit' for that). It even has a satisfactory ending, something that many modern authors fail at.
Recommended.
Addendum for the game designers in the audience. Hughes briefly sketches a game which sounds quite interesting, and might be worth trying to implement.
"Paduay is not a contest," he said. "The game is about cooperatively opening and closing spaces, theoretically without conclusion. It is unusual in that each player's goal is to prevent the other from being unable to continue."
"And he played this every week?"
"Our current match has been going on continually for almost two years. ...
...the miniature pieces, the grids of straight and curving lines that could intersect each other in a variety of different spatial dimensions, depending on which of several modes the players invoked.