Sort of back from being sort of away

[kitewithfish]

I am freshly back online from a lovely vacation that involved very little structured time - exactly what I needed!

We visited some friends in southern states, which involved some magnificent fish dishes and some truly excellent BBQ. (After a lovely sampling of available sauces, I have picked a mustardy one that went well on everything, and purchased a bottle to take home.)

Bookwise, I picked up Andy Weir's most recent book, Project Hail Mary, a novel very much in line with The Martian for "smart person does thoughtful science carefully for high stakes and laudable goals." Overall I thought it was a fun and fast-paced read with a character, Ryland Grace, an extremely smart person who is also doing some really interesting things.

I do notice an element from The Martian that has carried over here, which is that Weir is pessimistic about politics and governments functioning together well and quickly in groups when faced with major stakes - in The Martian, this is handled by having all the committed scientists do an end-run around the politicians of their various countries to work together directly, any fallout in their future be damned- and Weir just doesn't really return to that, but it feels relatively natural; in PHM, this is handled by giving one character a 'get out of international law free' card for the scope of the scientific project they are working on, and then pointing out that there will be consequences for their actions later. While I think the second approach might better convey the idea that, actually, it's quite hard to make large groups of people work towards a single goal, no matter how much it's in their own interests, I preferred the first approach. PHM shunts the problem of imperfect authority to one side and says, this single person will make the right call - which is just moving the problem of authority onto one person rather than handling it.

I'm mentioning it here because I'm chewing it over a bit - it's pretty clearly a plot device to let Grace get to the cool science faster with less political discussion and I think it does the job quite well. But, man, if they had picked the wrong person to be the de-facto dictator of the big important science, none of this would have worked at all. 

I'm also reading House of Leaves, which I have started before and put down before - I think this time will be better because I am less freaked out by the horror elements, and I have more time to devote to reading it on this vacation. I'm also letting myself write in the margins a lot, which is a great way of tracking my progress and my thoughts in a book this prone to sending the reader towards the end notes. 

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Interesting discussion of the end runs. I haven't read the books but just posted yesterday about how having wealthy characters allows a lot of handwaving of stuff that would normally be a big problem for people. Some of that is also laws and consequences. But another way is definitely the "distant authorities" option which gives people freedom to act.

[kitewithfish]

Some of that is also laws and consequences. But another way is definitely the "distant authorities" option which gives people freedom to act.

Exactly! Not to get too spoilery, but there's a point in Project Hail Mary where [character] stands in a courtroom and makes a point about how they are able to requisition information, with no regard for copyright or intellectual property, because for this narrow scope of a project, they are literally above international law.

It's not a terribly important scene to the story, honestly, - the character's authority has been previously clearly established - but it has a flavor to me of either being the fulfillment of an author's personal fantasy, or intended as a response to being questioned at length about how he'd handwaved the issues of access to all this propriety information. But then Weir goes on to point out later that there will be "offscreen" consequences for this character after the project is done, and *that* element feels a bit needless. Weir's not interested in that story, and mentioning that it will be happening later seems rather a digression.

Oh, yes, I thought this was a really good point in your post!In general, wealth allows characters to be more influential and to pay for things directly.
When you mentioned this, I immediately thought of that scene in Inception where the team is planning out how they're going to run a heist on a plane, and how many people they'll have to pay off, and then Saito just interrupts to say, "Oh, I bought the airline. It seemed neater." Exactly like in Batman Begins when Bruce Wayne purchases a hotel in order to be snide to an employee. Nolan definitely has a personal fantasy of just being able to handwave his way out of the rules!

Oddly, the other thought I had about this was entirely unrelated to film, but about my husband's experiences. He grew up under what he called "socialism lite," and certain kinds of goods could not be imported or exported - alcohol, sweet things, cheeses and cured meats, etc. Industrially produced versions of these goods were not great and very expensive. So everyone would make something on their farm (because everyone in this area had a little land in addition to their day jobs) and you'd just barter back and forth - and if you were well connected and had a good reputation, you didn't need to have a beehive or a vineyard or extra pig to slaughter and cure - you'd do one of those things and give your neighbors the extra and they'd give you their excess. You'd never have to pay money for those things- your sausages were paid for in the promise of future wine and being a good neighbor. Social capital trumped actual funds significantly, because no one would bother to hold back some smoked sausages to give to the miser down the street who could only offer money in return.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, exactly! It's a "normal life doesn't apply to me" sort of thing where you just skip past the obstacles.

The discussion of social capital in bartering is fascinating, but it makes perfect sense. It reminds me of networking theory where certain people are hubs for information distribution, generally as a result of reputation.