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(em português → sol2070.in/2024/10/livro-semiosis-sue-burke/ )

It's been harder to read science fiction, for some reason. Or rather, it's not been easy to find books I like in the genre. In the last few weeks, I've abandoned three well-recommended ones. So “Semiosis” (2018, 336 pgs.), by Sue Burke, was a find.

The story covers the first century of a small human settlement on the planet Pax, roughly the year 2200, after the complete collapse of civilization and the environment on Earth. The plan is a reboot of humanity, with values that don't point towards compromising the environment and self-destruction. Pax has a biosphere similar to Earth's — already with vegetation and animals — but as it is a billion years older, its members have evolved in an unexpected way. The species with the most sophisticated intelligence and communication is a plant, and humans have to learn to deal with it, among other factors, such as loss of technology, population decline and environmental hostility.

It's a gripping, conflict-ridden story that also reflects fundamental questions about ethics, society and non-human sentience. It has small flaws, which can even be seen as qualities. The depth of the scientific dive into world creation is ideal — any more than that and it would be too hard sci-fi for me. However, people with a more rigorous scientific bent may be disappointed by some of the details, since the focus is on human and non-human relationships.

It's the first volume of a duology that will be completed with “Interference” (2019), already in my reading queue.

(em português → sol2070.in/2024/10/conto-spill-cory-doctorow/ )

‘Spill’ (2024, 111 pgs.) is a contemporary cyberpunk novella set in the universe of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother series.

As a fan of the trilogy(1), I was delighted to have hacker-activist Marcus back, as well as protest organiser Tanisha, a character from ‘Attack Surface’ (2020), the third volume.

Over the course of the series, Marcus grows up - the first two volumes are aimed at young people, and in the third, he's already an adult. In ‘Spill’, in his spare time between freelancing as a digital security consultant, Marcus sets up a mighty personal server in a hacker friend's datacenter, which ironically ends up hacked and hijacked as a vector for ransomware attacks.

In a parallel story that intertwines, a civil disobedience movement protesting the fossil fuel corporations wreaking havoc in California is being accused of terrorism and cyber-attacks, suffering brutal violence and repression.

It's a page-turning thriller about activism, climate emergency and hacking, intelligently, engagingly and inspiringly reflecting the dystopia we're entering.

Read online: reactormag.com/spill-cory-doctorow/ Buy: torpublishinggroup.com/spill/

(1) In addition to the Little Brother Trilogy, there are three other smaller stories that I haven't read yet: Lawful Interpetion (2013), Force Multiplier (2020) and Vigilant (2024).

(em português, com links → sol2070.in/2024/10/utopia-ursula-le-guin-always-coming-home/ )

"Always Coming Home" (1985, 640 pgs.) is Ursula K. Le Guin's most ambitious novel, which took her five years to complete. The format is a collection of documents, illustrations and anthropological studies on the Kesh people, inhabitants of valleys in northern America thousands of years in the future. The complete edition was even accompanied by a cassette tape, as if they were recordings of Kesh songs and ceremonies.

In this future, the current civilisation was lost so long ago that it has been almost completely forgotten -- all that remains are sparse myths and legends about environmental catastrophes (the effects of which are still being felt) and self-annihilation.

The Kesh people are presented both through the reproduction of their own literature (biographies, novels, poetry...), art and religion (a kind of natural pantheism), and in the description of the elements of their culture by a visiting anthropologist. It is implied that the Kesh culture is exotic and isolated, compared to the people of this anthropologist narrator and the supposed readers of the study, who seem to have a sensibility not very different from ours.

As in the more harmonious societies of Le Guin's other stories, these people are free in the anarchist sense: there is no authority or hierarchy, but rather the self-organisation seen in nature itself. There is some high-tech here and there -- including AI -- but overall it's a fairly low-tech and natural society.

For those who appreciate the work of the visionary writer, it's a feast, as it describes in detail the most complete utopia she imagined.

The plot part is in the autobiography of a woman, whose name changes throughout her life, divided into three parts, in the chapters referred to as ‘Stone Telling’. The character is linked to an aggressive invading people, and her dramas revolve around her conflicting alliances. It's a gripping and grand story, spanning a lifetime, that can be read independently of the rest -- it takes up half the book.

The other parts of the book, on the other hand, greatly expand the understanding and appreciation by detailing the entire cultural context of this other world. There are things as minute -- but significant -- as, for example, the explanation of why the Kesh don't know the meaning of the word ‘pets’, using ‘commensal’ instead; or how the concept of ‘person’ is not restricted to humans.

I confess that I haven't read 100% of this extra material -- Ursula herself writes in the introduction that the appendices are optional. I followed Samuel R. Delany's (another acclaimed speculative fiction writer) tips on the essential parts of the book, which he commented on at the time of its release in 1985. An extract from his effusive review:

“Always Coming Home is a slow, rich read, full of what one loves most in her work: a liberal utopian vision, rendered far more complex than the term ‘utopian’ usually allows for by a sense of human suffering. This is her most satisfying text among a set of texts that have provided much imaginative pleasure in her 23 years as an author..”

For me, although it wasn't her most engaging book, it was the most fascinating and profound, requiring re-reading in order to be better absorbed.

"Limite de Caracteres – Como Elon Musk destruiu o Twitter" (Character Limit, 2024, 488 pgs.) é um livro-reportagem sobre o X/Twitter, focado em sua tomada por Elon Musk, escrito pela dupla de repórteres de tecnologia do New York Times, Kate Conger e Ryan Mac.

Adorei a leitura por desmistificar a suposta genialidade desse bilionário. Na biografia autorizada de Musk, de Walter Isaacson, ele é quase endeusado dessa maneira. Já em Limite de Caracteres, aparece como alguém que nutre uma ideia extremamente inflada de si, alienado da realidade, que não admite ouvir “não” e que basicamente não tem ideia do que está fazendo.

Sabe aquela pessoa que imagina estar cercada de idiotas e que a única maneira de fazer algo bem feito é mostrando aos “idiotas” como fazer? A sucessão ininterrupta de trapalhadas narrada no livro acaba sendo hilária porque Musk parece viver 100% nesse tipo de fantasia, sem desconfiar que o idiota talvez seja ele mesmo.

Por exemplo, tendo que mudar um datacenter de lugar, ele não se conforma com os cuidados que precisam ser tomados e o tempo que levaria. Então, decide ele mesmo, com um sobrinho e outros seguidores, enfiar os servidores em caminhões e fazer a mudança. O resultado foi meses de lentidão e falhas no serviço em todo o mundo, até conseguirem consertar a mudança mal feita.

Musk basicamente tenta restruturar o Twitter seguindo a mesma fórmula — de cortes radicais, e ideias espontâneas — com que administra suas outras empresas, “afinal, (o Twitter) é só um site que rola para baixo”. Imagina que seria uma tarefa simples, mas falha miseravelmente, vez após outra. Chega a dar dó de tamanha falta de noção e alienação.

Uma personagem da história também simplifica as empresas do bilionário, dizendo algo como: “A SpaceX é uma questão de física; a Tesla, de fabricação; mas a lógica do Twitter é psicológica e social”. Talvez seja por isso que ele não consegue acertar uma, além do fato de ele mesmo ser um viciado terminal em ficar postando e conferindo reações na plataforma.

Em certo momento, ele não se conforma de que o número de visualizações de cada tweet seu caiu de 20 milhões para seis milhões. Marca reuniões de emergência, demite quem insinua que as pessoas podem estar perdendo interesse nele e termina alterando o algoritmo para que todo mundo que usa a plataforma veja seus tweets. No final, foi mais ou menos para isso que ele pagou o preço inflado de 44 bilhões de dólares — hoje, a empresa desvalorizou 80%.

Uma qualidade do livro é se ater ao formato de reportagem, a dupla de autores evita ficar tecendo comentários. Cada fracasso é descrito de forma até que bastante objetiva, do ponto de vista das pessoas próximas ou que trabalhavam na empresa.

Jamais imaginei que leria uma biografia — muito menos duas! — de Musk. Mas é um personagem tão emblemático da atual distopia — em que existem milhões de fãs de produtos, corporações e até de bilionários — que não resisto.

Li a versão em inglês do livro, cuja tradução será lançada nos próximos dias.

(texto integral com links, em português → sol2070.in/2024/09/livro-playground-richard-powers/ )

"Playground" (2024, 400 pgs.) by Richard Powers was one of the books I was most looking forward to. After all, "The Overstory" was probably the best fiction I've ever read -- I wrote about this last year and it still holds up.

It didn't disappoint. It's magnificent speculative fiction (bordering on science fiction), now forming the author's ecological trilogy, with "The Overstory" (2018) and "Bewilderment" (2021). Instead of the word ‘ecological’, he prefers the term ‘trilogy about belonging to the world’, in the sense that it goes against the dominant narrative that humans, because of a supposed superiority, are practically beyond nature and can then do whatever they want with it. This is at the root of the current environmental emergency. In these books, nature is not something separate, a backdrop or a source of resources. It is the protagonist. Nature doesn't belong to us; on the contrary, we belong to her.

As one reviewer put it, what "The Overstory" does with trees -- many people felt transformed and began to actually recognize nature -- "Playground" does with the ocean. But it's a book with a smaller focus and a less expansive narrative arc, which interconnects four characters (there were nine in the first book).

The plot revolves around the (real) island of Makatea, in Micronesia, a region of archipelagos between the Philippines and Hawaii. Trying to recover from the mining that devastated it last century, and faced with rising sea levels, its small community receives a proposal for re-industrialisation, to build a floating city for a group of techno-billionaires who want to escape regulations and taxes.

Another central theme is information technology and the life of a techno-billionaire. We follow the character Todd Keane from his teenage years in the 1970s to his transformation into an omnipotent Muskian tech-bro. I felt a little divided by the sympathy this billionaire arouses, but on second thoughts, perhaps a humanised portrait of megalomania is worth more than a simplistic condemnation.

As Powers was a programmer before turning to fiction, computers are a constant in his stories. In addition to the biosphere, a parallel and central theme is artificial intelligence. There's no way of commenting too much without spoiling, but I can say that it was one of the best portrayals of this I've seen in fiction, including a bewildering twist.

It's also a book about an intense and touching friendship (practically a ‘bromance’), that of this billionaire with another displaced genius, only more traumatised, a black boy with whom he became inseparable at school.

Although the author wanted to make nature touch the heart in the same way as human drama, I personally felt that people were more moving in this book. Another difference is that the ecological message is less incisive. It's there all the time, but it leaves the initiative to be indignant more to the reader. Perfect dosage.

I compare it so much to the first book because it made such an impression on me. But "Playground" is totally independent, and may even work better for certain audiences, such as young people, due to its more sci-fi feel, and its open-ended conclusion, without a very definite ‘moral of the story’.

Its optimistic tone is also a relief from the apocalyptic tones prevalent in ecological fiction. In interviews, he explained the logic of this optimism, which is far from the naïve Pollyannaism of imagining that everything will end well: humans are not the main characters, life on Earth is the protagonist; this natural process has always coped well, with infinite creativity, even in the face of the greatest planetary catastrophes. In other words, whatever happens to us humans, the greater life will take care of itself, as she always has.