Evolution, by Stephen Baxter
Feb. 23rd, 2004 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanithryudoSo I ran out of interesing manga to read on Sunday when I dropped by the bookstore... So I grabbed the first book whose backcover summary looked vaguely interesting and started flipping through it. I think that Baxter did a pretty good job, given it's a topic that is so widely misunderstood by the media and the masses, and even a lot of learned people.
Obviously, this means that if you're a Creationist, don't bother reading the book. Religion isn't actually villified or actively proven wrong in the story, it's not even marginaalized... it is, however, wholly and entirely irrelevant to the topic, irrelevant to the plot, irrelevant to the story, and thus entirely ignored and not even given a half-second's consideration. Which is how it ought to be, really. ^_^
I also have to admit that I didn't read the entire book. I read the first major section (which covered a time era from the Jurrassic to the end of the Cretaceous - when a certain meteor rang the death knell for the reign of the dinos), and IIRC most of the last major section (which consisted of the future, from 2031 to the end of the world - Sol going nova). But I skipped over a lot of stuff in th middle there.
Quite frankly, I think that in his efforts to create a subtle impression of the relative time scales and important though little-known-to-the-masses periods of hominid development, the story was forced to sacrifice a lot of the normal devices of attractive and compelling storytelling for the pre-historic facts that must be explained to the common reader. The story read like a paleontology/anthropology textbook at times, and some of the attempts at making the prehistoric past more... "dramatic"... seemed kind of awkward. Though, in retrospect and careful consideration, I think Baxter did manage to use it to convey what he wanted to convey, which is enough, I think. I mean, sure, we know that early hominids didn't speak in perfect-grammar English, and the earlier primates didn't think thoughts in terms of human-understood words... But using the human words, Baxter saves us from pages of tedious "Ooog, aaagh... Tarzan, Jane" (j/k :p) and so forth, and instead lets the *terms*, roughly translated to English, stand for the ideas behind them. It's a crude method, but better than most alternatives. Narratively, though, I think I would have preferred a consistancy of not-so-dramatic facts to the sporadic bouts of anthropomorphism.
Regarding his future scenario and the "end" of the story... I find it to be slightly depressing, purely on the level of a human/emotional response to the portrayal (and strong probability in real life) that, yes, humanity for all our ego is just a blip on the evolutionary time scale. Life goes on before we came, despite our prescence and legacy, and after we're gone for one irrelevant reason or another. Evolution is a book that portrays evolution as it is (in the definitive sense, not the temporal), even if it means that modern civilization/humans feature in less than 1/10th of the book. And really, I think Baxter did try to soften the blow (so to speak) with the assurance that Life, at least, will go on as always, and even after human civilization has disappeared into the earth after a few million years or so, at least our genetic legacy will be around in some gene pool(s) in the world. And even after the eventual end of the solar system, the remnants of biological matter (bacteria, proteins, etc.) that would fly off on chunks of broken space detrius might on day bring life on some other planet out there.
Oh, and I think Baxter's side-tangent with the legacy of mankind's technology in the absence of their long-gone masters and his whimsical depiction of the colonization of Mars gone awry is somewhat amusing. Baxter's treated science with respect, and he hasn't neglected technology either. These ain't the borg or other sci-fi robotic horrors we're talking about.
Overall, while I found the book simply too dense to read through entirely, I did enjoy the parts that I did read. If you're looking for good sci-fi and you're very interested in paleontology or anthropology fan (or even interested in dinosaurs), I'd suggest this book for a serious read.
Obviously, this means that if you're a Creationist, don't bother reading the book. Religion isn't actually villified or actively proven wrong in the story, it's not even marginaalized... it is, however, wholly and entirely irrelevant to the topic, irrelevant to the plot, irrelevant to the story, and thus entirely ignored and not even given a half-second's consideration. Which is how it ought to be, really. ^_^
I also have to admit that I didn't read the entire book. I read the first major section (which covered a time era from the Jurrassic to the end of the Cretaceous - when a certain meteor rang the death knell for the reign of the dinos), and IIRC most of the last major section (which consisted of the future, from 2031 to the end of the world - Sol going nova). But I skipped over a lot of stuff in th middle there.
Quite frankly, I think that in his efforts to create a subtle impression of the relative time scales and important though little-known-to-the-masses periods of hominid development, the story was forced to sacrifice a lot of the normal devices of attractive and compelling storytelling for the pre-historic facts that must be explained to the common reader. The story read like a paleontology/anthropology textbook at times, and some of the attempts at making the prehistoric past more... "dramatic"... seemed kind of awkward. Though, in retrospect and careful consideration, I think Baxter did manage to use it to convey what he wanted to convey, which is enough, I think. I mean, sure, we know that early hominids didn't speak in perfect-grammar English, and the earlier primates didn't think thoughts in terms of human-understood words... But using the human words, Baxter saves us from pages of tedious "Ooog, aaagh... Tarzan, Jane" (j/k :p) and so forth, and instead lets the *terms*, roughly translated to English, stand for the ideas behind them. It's a crude method, but better than most alternatives. Narratively, though, I think I would have preferred a consistancy of not-so-dramatic facts to the sporadic bouts of anthropomorphism.
Regarding his future scenario and the "end" of the story... I find it to be slightly depressing, purely on the level of a human/emotional response to the portrayal (and strong probability in real life) that, yes, humanity for all our ego is just a blip on the evolutionary time scale. Life goes on before we came, despite our prescence and legacy, and after we're gone for one irrelevant reason or another. Evolution is a book that portrays evolution as it is (in the definitive sense, not the temporal), even if it means that modern civilization/humans feature in less than 1/10th of the book. And really, I think Baxter did try to soften the blow (so to speak) with the assurance that Life, at least, will go on as always, and even after human civilization has disappeared into the earth after a few million years or so, at least our genetic legacy will be around in some gene pool(s) in the world. And even after the eventual end of the solar system, the remnants of biological matter (bacteria, proteins, etc.) that would fly off on chunks of broken space detrius might on day bring life on some other planet out there.
Oh, and I think Baxter's side-tangent with the legacy of mankind's technology in the absence of their long-gone masters and his whimsical depiction of the colonization of Mars gone awry is somewhat amusing. Baxter's treated science with respect, and he hasn't neglected technology either. These ain't the borg or other sci-fi robotic horrors we're talking about.
Overall, while I found the book simply too dense to read through entirely, I did enjoy the parts that I did read. If you're looking for good sci-fi and you're very interested in paleontology or anthropology fan (or even interested in dinosaurs), I'd suggest this book for a serious read.
