Destination: Void

Although we have a limited setting and a small cast of characters, this isn’t to be mistaken for a diorama. Our characters aren’t very fleshed out, and we never really get inside their heads – this is a screen on which to project artificial intelligence. To borrow a metaphor from the book, this is tossing ink on a spider’s web.

From a hard science fiction point of view, the plot here is a little silly – a project based on the Moon is sending out ships full of clones that will be destroyed if they get too close to unleashing something terrible upon humanity? That’s either a colossal waste of resources, or, if the resources are as cheap as the book seems to imply, a colossal waste of time, since if the resources are practically infinite, why bother? One could argue that the development of AI is so important that the researchers involved are willing to throw these resources at it even though they themselves, nor anyone on Earth, will ever benefit, but even that generous reading strains credulity, given what we see in the prologue.

What Herbert does best (as he does in Dune) is the contrast between internal and external dialogue – unfortunately, even with the deception and lies of omission there, there really isn’t a large amount of tension (and that’s with one of the crew being a potential traitor). Secondly, the problems the makeshift crew have with piloting and navigating the ship never seem to rise to the level of critical – Herbert attempts to convey the stress caused by sitting at the bridge, and how some problems simply can’t be diagnosed with the equipment they have on hand, but it never seems quite right, and while the stakes are represented as high, the behavior is not.

The behavior of the crew isn’t necessarily what would be expected, either, given the circumstances. The action begins in media res, with three of the six original crew members dead. They choose to wake only one replacement from the hibernation tanks, in a decision that isn’t really too deeply touched on. There’s also a weird thread of sexual undertone running through the novel, which almost makes it seem as though Herbert cut a more fully formed romantic subplot when he updated the novel (for developments in the field of psychiatry, but what author can’t be tempted to edit what didn’t work?)

I probably would recommend this – even with the problems above, and an ending that feels tacked on (like Dune), this is a fun ride. Is it perfect? No. It works better as an adventure story than a parable or a warning, and after Dune, I don't feel compelled to seek out the sequels.

Dilvish, the Damned/The Changing Land

Dilvish the Damned was not written as a novel; it’s a collection of linked stories featuring the same protagonist. The framing device reads as episodic, as we skip what would be major plot points in another novel. 

Each “chapter” of Dilvish, the Damned begins in media res – since these are all linked short stories, we get a “novel” with the device of significant events being elided. One story will be looking towards overcoming a particular obstacle – and then the story afterwards will be set after the obstacle has been overcome. It’s less a novel than a linked series of vignettes. It works, but it’s not quite a unique enough device to not make me wish that the story was more conventionally told.

The Changing Land is set as a sequel to Dilvish, the Damned, and is written as a novel, so it’s a little less frustrating to follow. It’s essentially a dungeon crawl, which is both kind of cool and, given Zelazny’s inclusion on the recommend reading list to the initial Dungeons & Dragons, unsurprising.

Dilvish is your typical Zelazny protagonist – hypercompetent, wisecracking, notorious. If the first novel hadn’t grown out of short stories, I’d question whether he really needs two novels devoted to his arc. Not that the novels aren’t fun – they certainly are, even if they’re markedly different in tone and pacing.

The ending of each book is a little disappointing, and almost makes me wish that Dilvish hadn’t gotten a resolution, and that Zelazny had continued to flesh out the world.

2016 Reads that I did not write up

Roger Zelazny - Dilvish, the Damned, and The Changing Land
Frank Herbert - Destination: Void
Matt Ruff - The Mirage
Rebecca Skloot - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart


 I'll try to get to all of these in the upcoming weeks.