Blind Lake

Tom Alaerts writes "I discovered Robert Charles Wilson because of the curiosity-inducing Slashdot review of his previous novel, The Chronoliths. I had read a lot of SF in the past but over the last 10 years I drifted away from the genre. The Chronoliths sparked my interest again, and this was largely because Wilson, next to an interesting story, gives a lot of attention to the character development. I really liked the deliberate pacing of the book (I can understand that some might find it slow), following the characters through a carefully constructed story. It made me curious about his other works such as Darwinia or the short story collection The Perseids. And now Wilson's new novel Blind Lake is available." Read on for his review. Blind Lake author Robert Charles Wilson pages 399 publisher Tor rating 8/10 reviewer Tom Alaerts ISBN 0765302624 summary A book about alien contact and the difficulty of interpretation

Blind Lake takes place in a close future and deals with alien contact and the difficulty of interpreting alien behavior. If you don't want to read further (but I will not include real spoilers, only the setting of the book), I can already summarize as follows: if you liked The Chronoliths or Darwinia, then you will like Blind Lake.

In the book, Blind Lake is one of two locations with an ultra-advanced telescope. This device doesn't work optically, and in fact nobody really understands exactly how it works (there is some amusing technobabble in the book about infinite complexity, adaptive self-programming and the like -- you know the drill), since it was invented accidentally. Anyway the result is that with this telescope, scientists can examine the surface of very far planets in great detail, they can even track an intelligent alien being through its daily life. The book follows Marguerite, a team leader at Blind Lake, her ex-husband, her young daughter (who suffers from a mild personality disorder), and a team of journalists. Marguerite leads a team of "interpreters," which leads to plenty of interesting discussions on how difficult this work is -- it is almost impossible to write the life story of the alien, since we tend to map what we observe to our own habits. Is the alien admiring the view or is he enjoying the air pressure? Etc, etc. Already from the very start of the story, Wilson injects a thriller element: Blind Lake goes into quarantine, with robot drones guarding the perimeter. Nobody knows why. Did something happen with the other telescope? Why are all data streams blocked?

Blind Lake is written with the same attention to detail as The Chronoliths, and the characters are equally well developed. There isn't much adventurous action in the book; it is built rather like a mystery novel with thriller elements, interjected with several interesting ideas. The pacing is similar to that of The Chronoliths. Wilson takes time to flesh out his characters and various background details. I like this thoughtful approach. Towards the end, various new ideas are introduced which are bigger in scope than the original storyline.

While I liked the almost metaphysical (even somewhat new age) concepts introduced in the later chapters, I actually preferred the original storyline (I had the same feeling with Darwinia, which evolves from an alternative history novel into a totally different story). Still, this is only a minor issue and most SF readers will experience a great deal of satisfaction with this book.

I would score Blind Lake 8/10. As a comparison with other Wilson books: I think it's as good as The Chronoliths, while I would rate Darwinia as a 7/10.

Interesting links

• Author's homepage
• Interesting reviews of Wilson's books
• The Blind Lake page at Barnes&Noble has interesting other comments (maybe even already a bit too much info if you haven't read the book yet).

You can purchase Blind Lake from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Skyshadow's Late Summer Reading List

[Skyshadow]

I always look at the book review forums as a good place to pick up on authors I haven't read yet (other than the one actually reviewed), so I usually post this thread to get things started. Please feel free to add onto it; this is what I'd recommend reading right now.

On reflection, I've spent most of the summer reading nonfiction for a change...

Jarhead by Anthony Swofford
Swofford was a Marine sniper during Gulf War I, and this book talks about that experience and his experience in the Corps. It's an extremely good read, and unlike most "military" theme books it is neither "pro" nor "anti" war, but instead lays the whole deal on the table with a tremendous amount of honesty and self-awareness from one grunt's somewhat nihilistic point of view.

Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
I know what you're thinking: I only read the book when the movie came out. You're right. That doesn't change the fact that this is an extremely interesting read, which is especially impressive given the lack of embellishment and the attention to historical detail. If you just saw the movie, you're missing out -- some of the most interesting parts of the book come as Hillenbrand sets up the reader's understanding of 1920-30's horseracing and introduces the people around Seabiscuit.

Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact on Today's World by Karen Armstrong
This is a bit more challenging than my previous two selections, but is more than worth the effort. Just after the second anniversary of 9-11, the vast majority of Americans still have no understanding of the history of east/west emnity (which probably explains how Bush Jr. can paint the whole complex affair in simplistic terms of good and evil without getting laughed at). This book covers the root causes of the Crusades and follows the results all the way to modern day. Written in 1988, this book seems almost eerie today in predicting the renewal of this ancient conflict. Armstrong takes hard history and makes it approachable without talking down to the reader -- she's one of those rare authors who can really get your brain in gear with an understanding of complex events rather than just awareness of them. As I mentioned, this book is somewhat of a challenge to read, but the understanding it will impart will leave you much more capable of understanding our modern world.