Subject: (urth) TIDDAOSAOS

From: Fernando Q. Gouvea <fqgouvea at colby.edu>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 13:29:41 +0000

I've gotten myself into doing a short "book seminar" on "The Island of
Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories" at my college. It's six
one-hour sessions, and students get credit just for coming, so it'll be
crucial to make it interesting. I expect a lot of "I don't get it"
comments, so I want to be ready with interesting things to say about the
stories. Any pointers anyone might have to comments on the stories would be
welcome. (I already know to search the Urth archives, of course.)

In the first session, we'll probably be looking at the first three stories,
"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories", "Alien Stones", and "La
Befana". Luckily, these are not as difficult as some of the stories that
come later in the book. 

On re-reading "Alien Stones", I did find myself wondering about one thing:
if the aliens are some form of artificial intelligence, why do they have
star charts that the captain can inspect? Wouldn't any such charts simply
be kept as software? Is this just a slip of Wolfe's imagination (Homer nods
again?) or is there something I'm missing?

Fernando

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Fernando Q. Gouvea                      
Department of Mathematics          Editor, FOCUS and MAA Online
Colby College                      Mathematical Association of America
Waterville, ME 04901               http://www.maa.org
fqgouvea at colby.edu                      
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Discovering the Church is apt to be a slow procedure but it can take place
if you have a free mind and no vested interest in disbelief. 
   -- Flannery O'Connor

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 16:24:03 +0000

> Befana". Luckily, these are not as difficult as some of the stories that

I may have mentioned this in the archives, but I only got the meaning of
the quote from scripture at the end of "Alien Stones" when I re-read the
story following the Clinton scandals.

The woman asks "Where is my husband?"  The alien replies, "What is meant
by 'is'? By 'husband'?"  I didn't properly attend to these statements the
first time, but the "What do you mean by 'is'?" made me laugh the second
time.

So I remembered it when at the end Daw ponders the quote, "Whose wife will
she be in the resurrection."  Which explicates the alien's problem:
Where is your husband if he's dead?  If he's dead, is he still your
husband?  (And it's probably also Daw starting to wonder if/when it's OK
to start putting the moves on her.)

Also, one of my favorite lines in the story: "His religious beliefs
permitted any degree of self-condemnation, though they caviled at the
application of the same terms to any soul except his own," strikes me, now
that I type it, as the sort of thing Chesterton would have said to
criticize "Calvinists" (I use the quotes because Chesterton was prone to
unfairly tarring Calvinists (or his ideosyncratic conception of them) with
a pretty wide brush).

I still don't quite understand who Wad is.  A computer simulation designed
to elicit responses from Daw which are taped to be used later in the
training of a real cadet?  But there seems to be some closer connection.
Is Wad somehow a digitized version of Daw when he was young?  That seems
beyond the technology in the story.  And if the humans have AI that good,
you'd think the idea of a ship run by computerized beings would have been
less foreign.

The best explanation I can think of for the starcharts (and it's not very
good) is that the Alien's "simulation" of the woman's husband might mean
they are in the habit of incarnating themselves in some sort of bodies
which would use the charts.  You have a similar problem with the existence
of hatches and passageways in the ship.

-- Rostrum

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From: Brett M. Grace <bgrace at mac.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 18:05:35 +0000

presumed needs of its crew, for several similar reasons (another example 
is Daw's pointing out the use of guide wires rather than bunks for 
sleeping purposes, which rely on a primate sleeping reflex to keep 
sleepers in place--what's the point?)  Were there any details which 
suggest that the ship really was designed to support AIs?  I can't 
recall at the moment.  If not, I infer that Daw's conclusion about the 
ship is true, that it was originally built by, or for, humans... or 
human-like beings.  Perhaps the cube is a kind of ghost ship, whose 
original inhabitants have vanished, to be replaced by the opportunistic 
visitors.

    I add "or human-like" above because the AIs treat this as a first 
contact.  But perhaps they merely mean a first contact with Daw's 
civilization, as opposed to the other human civilizations that exist in 
this universe.  A corollary hypothesis would be that the AIs simply 
eliminated their creators and masters, the original crew.  (Maybe some 
nice contrasts with the use of AI on Daw's ship here?)

    I suppose the ship could also be an elaborate rat maze to conduct 
tests on the primates who find it, in which case, these difficulties can 
be waved away.  I don't really care for that theory, however.

    Personally I found the story to be a bit unsatisfying for some 
reason I can't quite put my finger on.  Loved "Tracking Song" although I 
understood it less, or maybe not at all!

BMG

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