Modulator

Tuesday's Book

It has taken three days, now, to get a usable surge of energy, i.e., to feel a bit better. And, I haven't read any more books since Tuesday.

Normally I read only one novel at a time. I might have 8, 10 or 12 non-fiction books going at once but only one novel and I'm about 180 pages into the current one: Quicksilver.

Tuesday, though, I could hardly keep my head off the pillow and Quicksilver is just too heavy to hold up where a pillow attached set of eyes could read it. So, I grabbed a small paper back instead. One I figured I could read in a day, even a sick day: Card's Seventh Son.

Both books are historical fiction with Quicksilver covering a period about 100 years earlier then Seventh Son. And both are forms of speculative fiction.

Now, it is not 100% obvious that Quicksilver belongs in this category but the ageless Enoch Root is an early and strong assertion by Stephenson that it does fit. I do hope Stephenson answers the puzzle of Root somewhere in this or the next two volumes.

Right from the opening pages there is no question about Seventh Son's fitting in and Card tells us:

This isn't really "alternate history" in the sense that if someone had made a different choice all of history might really have been changed. Here, the "change" is that the magic people believed in actually works—so it's a fantasy rather than an alternate history. Still, I'm having a great deal of fun twisting up American history and yet trying to be true to the great themes and dilemmas that gave shape to our country.

Card has his own Enoch Root. Taleswapper, nee William Blake, wanders from place to place gathering and sharing stories and, like Root takes an interest in brilliant children.

In the case of Seventh Son the brilliant child is Alvin Maker who appears to be Valentine Michael Smith set down in a magical America of 1800. Alvin grows to only 10 years old in this first installment of what is now a 6 volume series with a seventh and final volume on the way. This brief intro to Alvin intrigued me and I'm eager to read more and to find out how he is different from Smith. And, I'm now curious to see whether there is also a Smith analog in Quicksilver.

There are several other items that struck me as interesting. For instance there is more that intertwines Card and Stephenson. Half way through Seventh Son Taleswapper relates this conversation he had with Ben Franklin:

"Then why doesn't the ground dissolve beneath our feet?" asked Taleswapper.

"Because we have managed to persuade it not to let our bodies by. Perhaps it was Sir Isaac Newton. He was such a persuasive fellow. Even if human beings doubt him, the ground does not, and so it endures."p.94

Yes, just what is the nature of reality? Card explores the reality of the church vs a magical reality while Stephenson explores the reality of the church vs the observed realities of Newton, Liebniz, Hooke and others.

Alvin, too, is a prototype Fullerian human, an anti-entropic entity. His battle is against a force that:

...likes to keep itself secret. It's the enemy of everything that exists. All it wants is to break everything into pieces, and break those pieces into pieces, until there's nothing left at all." p. 127

Alvin makes things, brings order into the world and by doing so holds back the tides of entropy.

My energy is running down again so I'll close off with a note from Card for our legal friends:

"...So just promise me you won't stand between him and schooling, if he wants it, and we'll leave it at that."

"Got my word on that," said Makepeace Smith. "And you don't have to write it down. A man who keeps his word doesn't have to read and write. But a man who has to write down his promises, you got to watch him all morning. I know that for a fact. We got lawyers in hatrack these days."

"The curse of civilized man," said Taleswapper. "When a man can't get golks to believe his lies anymore, then he hires him a professional to lie in his place>" P 234

Seventh Son was an enjoyable read. I plan to pick up the next volume or two later today to read over the upcoming holidays (hmmm, sounds like I may preempt Quicksilver some more.

Posted by Steve on November 21, 2003