Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!agate!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hpcvlx!everett
From: everett@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Everett Kaser)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: novel: TWISTOR by John Cramer
Message-ID: <100780003@hpcvlx.HP.COM>
Date: 1 May 89 17:07:27 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA
Lines: 108

I'm posting this to sci.physics, because of the nature of the book, and
many (some?) of the people interested in physics would probably enjoy this
book.

This is somewhere between a short review of the book "Twistor" and an open
letter to its author, John Cramer.  I suspect he may read notes, based upon
his obvious familiarity with MAIL and UNIX systems that is displayed in his
first novel.

The book was recently published in hardcover, and is the story about
experimental physics, the people who "do" experimental and theoretical physics,
plus some commercial and political intrigue, and some good old "exploration-
of-new-worlds" adventure.  Overall, a very good book.  It's one of the best
I've read in the "hard" SF vein, since it contains characters you care about
as well as very well thought out science.

NON-SPOILER:

The plot basically revolves around many of the latest thoughts in theoretical
physics, including superstring theories and shadow matter, as well as warm
superconductors, and throughout the book, a very important plot element is
the use of computers and computer networks.  All of this is very well presented
by someone who is obviously familiar with the subjects. It is very refreshing
to read a book that deals with computers in an intelligent and believable way.
There's none of this "Let's feed all the data into the computer and see what
the problem is!" stuff.  These characters actually write programs to do much
of their work.

I heartily recommend the book to those of you who like hardcovers.  For the
rest, you'll have to wait a year or so, but don't forget about it. It will be
just as good in paperback (it just won't feel as good in your hands :-).


Now, for the rest of my thoughts about the book: SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!
SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!


















SPOILER thoughts:

The concept of six legged animals (especially mammal-like animals) has a long
tradition in fantasy and science fiction, and there are many examples of
creatures in our world with more than four appendages.  Most of them are
insects, spiders, and crustaceans.  After reading this book, I got to thinking
about WHY there are no large six-"legged" animals on earth.  I came up with
two possible reasons: 1) there was one "creature", or a small group of 
"creatures" who were the ancestors of ALL large reptilian/mamallian animals
on earth today, and THEY just happened to be of the four-legged variety, or
2) six legs/arms take 1/2 again as much energy to operate than four legs, and
as such would be a significant survival hindrance for larger animals.  Reason
number 2 seems much more likely to me, and as such would seem to limit the
likelihood of large six-legged "creatures" ever evolving on any world (with a
few exceptions, granted).  I am NOT criticizing the use of six-legged animals
in this book (in case you're reading, Mr. Cramer), I'm expressing the thoughts
that the book generated, and that's one of the reasons for reading, after all.

One thing bothered me about the green "treebirds" that marked their territory
with a ring of rainbow poopoo.  If the tree actually NEEDED these birds in
order to stay healthy, then each tree would HAVE to have one, but if the birds
were as incredibly territorial as depicted, there could only be ONE per tree.
So, what do the young treebirds do for a home?  The treebird population is
effectively "locked" in numbers to the number of trees.  Also, what about
young trees?  One tree would obviously not be able to support one bird, so the
bird would have to live off of several trees.  Anyway, I felt there was
something "wrong" with the definition of the treebirds.  I realize that the
story was about physics, not zoology, and that Mr. Cramer is a physicist, not
a zoologist, but when an element of a story is included by the author, it must
be able to stand with the story.  As I said, not a biggy, but the details
bothered me a little.  (And what about reproduction?  How do the treebirds
get around the territoriality for purposes of reproduction?)

I was surprised by the "twangs" of pleasure I felt each time I read about
an aspect of computers and computing that was either familiar or "felt right".
I'm so tired of "TV computing", the attitude of this "magic box" that is
artificially intelligent.  This book was VERY refreshing in that aspect.

Another thing that bothered me, though, was the statement that charged
particles could not pass through the warp.  Does this only apply to negatively
charged particles? (ie, ones with excess electrons?)  Or does it also apply
to positively charged particles?  Doesn't the human body contain ions?  It
seems that the organic processes in the body (the chemistry) involves
non-neutral molecules.  So how could the people pass through the warp unharmed
when the charged non-organic material couldn't without getting it's charge
nullified?

I realize it's easier to nitpick and criticize than it is to create;  these
are just some of the things I thought about because I read the book.  I still
enjoyed the book a great deal, and will buy the sequel in hardback if and when
it is published.

Everett Kaser, Hewlett-Packard, Corvallis, OR
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