[REVIEW] Karl Schroeder's Permanence
Sep. 19th, 2003 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldI bought this book--written by a Canadian, incidentally--two weeks ago, after hearing quite a bit of fuss written about it. Already, it has managed to influence many other science fiction universes, with its concentration on brown dwarfs and their planetary systems and the human cultures which have sprung up on their worlds. Read Simon Bisson's excellent review.
evildrganymede is livejournal's local expert on brown dwarfs, published and everything, so he can correct me. Briefly put, brown dwarfs are star-like objects which lack sufficient mass to sustain nuclear fusion for more than a few hundred million years, but which are substantially more massive than superjovian planets, ranging between 15 and 70 Jovian masses. Their importance to would-be interstellar colonizers lies in the fact that, as low-mass objects which form through the same processes of stellar condensation as other stars, brown dwarfs should be relatively more common than main-sequence stars capable of sustaining fusion, since it is easier to accumulate (say) 50 Jovian masses worth of material to form a brown dwarf than 500 Jovian masses. Indeed, one survey suggests that there might be twice as many brown dwarf stars as main-sequence stars
This has implications for a human interstellar civilization, particularly if the interstellar propulsion methods used are limited by distance, for instance like 2300AD's stutterwarp drive. In the 2300AD universe, for instance, within the range of stutterwarp drive from Earth, for instance, there are only five stars--Wolf 359, Barnard's Star, and the three stars of Alpha Centauri. The limited range of the stutterwarp interstellar drive establishes a highly specific astrographic setting, with the only stars reachable being those which lie within range of other stars which are themselves reachable only by stutterwarp. If there were, in addition to the five main-sequence stars already mentioned, ten brown dwarfs located at random within 7.7 light years of Earth, this would drastically open up the volumes of space accessible to human interstellar civilization. Only the most isolated stars could not be reached. More, there could well be suitable targets for colonization in these brown dwarf planetary systems, which did, after all, form like the planetary systems of main sequence stars. Terrestrial-type planets could be terraformed, moons like the Galilean satellites of Jupiter and Saturn's Titan could be colonized by people with suitably advanced technological packages, and asteroid belts orbiting Brown Dwarf #1897 would be indistinguishable (for colonization purposes) from asteroid belts at Wolf 359. Superjovian planets in interstellar space might be more common still than brown dwarfs, but again, the same provisos relating to their suitability as way stations for interstellar travellers and destinations for colonization missions apply. Introducing brown dwarfs and superjovian planets to an interstellar civilization should have the effect, in short, of drastically expanding its volume.
The universe of Permanence is one where, for several millennia, human interstellar travel and colonization have tended to focus upon brown dwarfs and superjovian planets in interstellar space. Rue Cassels, Permanence's protagonist, was born in a deep-space mining habitat loosely associated with the partly-terraformed world of Erythion. Rue has the misfortune, however, of being born at a time when Earth has invented a particular method of faster-than-light drive that excludes brown dwarfs, superjovians, and their worlds and inhabitants from a nascent interstellar economy--only main-sequence stars are massive enough to create stellar gravity wells which can trigger the jump to faster-than-light travel. This would not be a significant problem but for the fact that slower-than-light starships are immensely more massive than Earth's quick faster-than-light craft. Slowly but surely, the numerous civilizations which grew up in the wilderness beyond the main-sequence stars are being cut off from interstellar civilization, as civilizations around main-sequence stars are coerced by Earth to abandon slower-than-light travel and the deep-space civilizations realize that they are not wealthy enough to launch slower-than-light starships of their own. Naturally enough, Rue manages to accidentally stumble upon a key to reversing the deep-space civilizations' decline in a most unexpected manner. (You really should read Simon Bisson's review.)
I suppose that part of the reason I'm so interested in Permanence is because I come from Prince Edward Island, a province of Canada that has suffered from serious relative decline since it joined Confederation. Like the decline of the brown dwarf/superjovian civilizations in the Permanence universe, PEI's decline was probably inevitable, since it was too small (in population, land area, wealth) to survive, and lacked the resources and desire to be a self-contained society. Permanence's cultures, marginalized just like PEI by broad-scale political integration into a society dominated by a transport/communications network that bypasses them as a matter of course, are much more resilient. (Alien technology definitely helps.)
Anyway, I highly recommend Permanence. read it at the library, or better yet buy one. Schroeder definitely deserves to be rewarded.
evildrganymede is livejournal's local expert on brown dwarfs, published and everything, so he can correct me. Briefly put, brown dwarfs are star-like objects which lack sufficient mass to sustain nuclear fusion for more than a few hundred million years, but which are substantially more massive than superjovian planets, ranging between 15 and 70 Jovian masses. Their importance to would-be interstellar colonizers lies in the fact that, as low-mass objects which form through the same processes of stellar condensation as other stars, brown dwarfs should be relatively more common than main-sequence stars capable of sustaining fusion, since it is easier to accumulate (say) 50 Jovian masses worth of material to form a brown dwarf than 500 Jovian masses. Indeed, one survey suggests that there might be twice as many brown dwarf stars as main-sequence stars
This has implications for a human interstellar civilization, particularly if the interstellar propulsion methods used are limited by distance, for instance like 2300AD's stutterwarp drive. In the 2300AD universe, for instance, within the range of stutterwarp drive from Earth, for instance, there are only five stars--Wolf 359, Barnard's Star, and the three stars of Alpha Centauri. The limited range of the stutterwarp interstellar drive establishes a highly specific astrographic setting, with the only stars reachable being those which lie within range of other stars which are themselves reachable only by stutterwarp. If there were, in addition to the five main-sequence stars already mentioned, ten brown dwarfs located at random within 7.7 light years of Earth, this would drastically open up the volumes of space accessible to human interstellar civilization. Only the most isolated stars could not be reached. More, there could well be suitable targets for colonization in these brown dwarf planetary systems, which did, after all, form like the planetary systems of main sequence stars. Terrestrial-type planets could be terraformed, moons like the Galilean satellites of Jupiter and Saturn's Titan could be colonized by people with suitably advanced technological packages, and asteroid belts orbiting Brown Dwarf #1897 would be indistinguishable (for colonization purposes) from asteroid belts at Wolf 359. Superjovian planets in interstellar space might be more common still than brown dwarfs, but again, the same provisos relating to their suitability as way stations for interstellar travellers and destinations for colonization missions apply. Introducing brown dwarfs and superjovian planets to an interstellar civilization should have the effect, in short, of drastically expanding its volume.
The universe of Permanence is one where, for several millennia, human interstellar travel and colonization have tended to focus upon brown dwarfs and superjovian planets in interstellar space. Rue Cassels, Permanence's protagonist, was born in a deep-space mining habitat loosely associated with the partly-terraformed world of Erythion. Rue has the misfortune, however, of being born at a time when Earth has invented a particular method of faster-than-light drive that excludes brown dwarfs, superjovians, and their worlds and inhabitants from a nascent interstellar economy--only main-sequence stars are massive enough to create stellar gravity wells which can trigger the jump to faster-than-light travel. This would not be a significant problem but for the fact that slower-than-light starships are immensely more massive than Earth's quick faster-than-light craft. Slowly but surely, the numerous civilizations which grew up in the wilderness beyond the main-sequence stars are being cut off from interstellar civilization, as civilizations around main-sequence stars are coerced by Earth to abandon slower-than-light travel and the deep-space civilizations realize that they are not wealthy enough to launch slower-than-light starships of their own. Naturally enough, Rue manages to accidentally stumble upon a key to reversing the deep-space civilizations' decline in a most unexpected manner. (You really should read Simon Bisson's review.)
I suppose that part of the reason I'm so interested in Permanence is because I come from Prince Edward Island, a province of Canada that has suffered from serious relative decline since it joined Confederation. Like the decline of the brown dwarf/superjovian civilizations in the Permanence universe, PEI's decline was probably inevitable, since it was too small (in population, land area, wealth) to survive, and lacked the resources and desire to be a self-contained society. Permanence's cultures, marginalized just like PEI by broad-scale political integration into a society dominated by a transport/communications network that bypasses them as a matter of course, are much more resilient. (Alien technology definitely helps.)
Anyway, I highly recommend Permanence. read it at the library, or better yet buy one. Schroeder definitely deserves to be rewarded.
