--------------F1C8DF1BBCC144A6412782B9
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
I was wondering has anybody read the late 60s(?) S/F pulp(?) novel,
Gateway? I think its by F. Pohl. In this novel a machine is
psychoanalysing a guilt ridden freelance space explorer who struck it
rich and lost his passional assemblage (with a femme) at the same time.
She is caught in the pull of a something like a black hole (called the
ghost star), and time slows down (like Charley Freck) with the ensuing
paradox - if her subjective time is approaching zero then is she still
there in the grips of a terror that can never end? Even though our
hero's time has passed on. V. psychological metaphorically, everything
you ever wanted to know about the wound and the scar but were afraid to
ask. The notion is that the humans discover v. small semiautomated
interstellar spacecraft left behind by another race. The company that
now owns them employs freelancers/prospectors to undertake missions on
these vessels (which only come back about 4/5 times). It's like
gambling. What ensues is a sort of cargo cult set-up a bit like Gibson's
shorty called "Winter Orbit" in which spacecraft orbiting at a certain
distance simply vanish then sometimes reappear with everybody on board
either dead, missing or crazy, but sometimes an artifact from the other
zone. Civilization becomes dependent on these finds, sinking more R&D $
into researching the find than in finding its own indigenous
technologies. A bit like homo televisualus? While I'm thinking of
Gibson, there is another story in Burning Chrome concerning two people
who decide to plug their neural interfaces direct (i.e. not via a
mediatory interface). A variation on the telepathy trope. Everyone says
its a bad idea, but they are in passional love intense. What they hit is
a bad BwO [or the Lacanian Real]. It destroys them.
- Chris
--------------F1C8DF1BBCC144A6412782B9
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
<HTML>
I was wondering has anybody read the late 60s(?) S/F pulp(?) novel, <I>Gateway</I>?
I think its by F. Pohl. In this novel a machine is psychoanalysing a guilt
ridden freelance space explorer who struck it rich and lost his passional
assemblage (with a femme) at the same time. She is caught in the pull of
a something like a black hole (called the ghost star), and time slows down
(like Charley Freck) with the ensuing paradox - if her subjective time
is approaching zero then is she still there in the grips of a terror that
can never end? Even though our hero's time has passed on. V. psychological
metaphorically, everything you ever wanted to know about the wound and
the scar but were afraid to ask. The notion is that the humans discover
v. small semiautomated interstellar spacecraft left behind by another race.
The company that now owns them employs freelancers/prospectors to undertake
missions on these vessels (which only come back about 4/5 times). It's
like gambling. What ensues is a sort of cargo cult set-up a bit like Gibson's
shorty called "Winter Orbit" in which spacecraft orbiting at a certain
distance simply vanish then sometimes reappear with everybody on board
either dead, missing or crazy, but sometimes an artifact from the other
zone. Civilization becomes dependent on these finds, sinking more R&D
$ into researching the find than in finding its own indigenous technologies.
A bit like <I>homo televisualus</I>? While I'm thinking of Gibson, there
is another story in <I>Burning Chrome</I> concerning two people who decide
to plug their neural interfaces direct (i.e. not via a mediatory interface).
A variation on the telepathy trope. Everyone says its a bad idea, but they
are in passional love intense. What they hit is a bad BwO [or the Lacanian
Real]. It destroys them.
<P>- Chris</HTML>
--------------F1C8DF1BBCC144A6412782B9--