Chaos and Order
(The Gap # 4)
by Stephen Donaldson
science fiction
copyright 1994
re-read in September 2017
rated 9/10: really, really good
17feb22:
I'm re-reading the series. This one is still good :-)
Perhaps not as good as on my earlier readings... because I am not (now) in the mood for such stressful verbosity. Still I enjoyed it. With some new observations:
Modern day astronauts (so I believe) attach tubes for waste. No one needs to hold it in for days of spaceflight.
Well... the Gap spacesuits are more primitive.
The spacers wear a "shipsuit". Over that they wear an EVA suit. And when they poo -- as do two of the characters -- they fill the suits with poo. Oops.
The writing is verbose.
And you know how you can lose track of who's speaking? When the author omits Joe said, Jill said... etc.
Donaldson'e dialogue is worse.
Occasionally it is not clear who is speaking. Very very often... it is not clear that a character is, in fact... not speaking at all.
There will be a line of dialogue, in quotes, fine.
Or -- very often -- dialogue with no quotes... Which means... the character does not say it aloud. Which causes confusion when the next character makes no response. Did they hear it? No! it was not spoken. Very confusing!
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Okay, looking back, I wrote that the third Gap book could be the best in the series. Nope! This fourth book is even better!
Dark & Hungry followed technology. In particular the effect of technology wedded to humans.
In Chaos the emphasis is on the people. And on their superhuman efforts to resist, survive... overcome... impossible odds. But it's not really "super" human. The major struggles are by "ordinary" people who refuse to give in to extraordinary pressures.
Of course these are not "ordinary" people by our own, everyday standards. Chaos is set in an over-the-top world of extremes. Extreme cunning, extreme honesty, extreme dishonesty, extreme everything. All the major characters... most of the minor characters... are beyond the extremities of our own "real" world. Well, this is a novel :-)
The extremities of this book, however, are in mental, moral & immoral, determination to succeed, despair... It's a book about the mental strengths -- and weaknesses -- of human beings. Being tested to extremes.
Yes, there is still the science fiction technology. Though Donaldson is still a "fantasy" author. The tech is amazing... fascinating... yet is definitely there for a setting rather a focus of the book. Like the average fantasy magic: it gets things done, the real story is about why and what those things are.
As an example -- which does not at all detract from the power of the story -- the space battles are, very much, "close encounters"...
I'm used to battles in the vast emptiness of outer space. Torpedoes are far too slow... even laser beams struggle to drag themselves across the vast distances of space. Donaldson's spaceships fight at far less than 100km apart... and it just does not matter.
Great story! A very human story. Definitely... the best in the series. So far :-)
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Now much more than a clever name for a holiday journal:
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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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"Humanity had been thrown to the brink of extinction by insane men in positions of power following one another, each thinking the others knew where they were going." … Donald Keene, in Shift
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