Since encountering Beyond the Rift, Peter Watts’ second collection of short stories, I have been wholly
engaged. Quality overtaking quantity,
Watts’ day job seems quite good at forcing him to spend time with each story,
writing, re-writing, and ultimately ensuring each rings like a bell. (Ted Chiang’s writing has a similar
vibe.) That being said, I felt Watts’
latest novel, Echopraxia, was a bit
forced—more a tour of ideas than story integrating said ideas, and for certain
fell short of its predecessor, Blindsight. I was thus happy to see that for his next
project Watts was again taking his time (four years), and, striking out in a
new direction. 2018’s The Freeze-Frame Revolution (Tachyon) the result, it’s a far-far-future
locked room that highlights one of Watts’ favorite motifs: the limitations of
the human condition.
Sunday is a worker aboard the space ship Eriphoria traveling vast distances across
the universe, creating wormhole ends and tying them together. Cryogenically frozen and thawed as the ship’s
AI, an entity called Chimp, deems necessary, Sunday passes thousands upon
thousands of year or just a few days between work. Awoken one day for the completion of a wormhole,
Sunday discovers that all may not be well with Chimp. Architectural details in the ship awry and people
missing, it’s up to Sunday and his fellow workers to get to the bottom of the
mystery, and do something about it. If
possible...
Despite the change in setting, FFR returns to relatively familiar territory for Watts. Like Blindsight,
it is a story of a lone ship traveling the universe, the unknown things and
situations encountered there, and the human reaction to it. The details of imagination are singular (the
idea of eons or days passing between cryogenic wakings is the imaginative point
of rumination from FFR) not to
mention the story mode is completely different (locked room mystery vs. space exploration),
yet the end result is somewhat similar to Blindsight. I won’t go into details, but suffice to say
Watts confirms a so-called, hardline view to human limitations and
idiosyncracies. Some may view this as a criticism,
but it is likewise possible to be seen as a baseline to confront, work with,
and potentially adapt to. The more you
know (or, perhaps better stated: the more truths you accept), the better.
FFR takes its
sweet time getting off the ground (a poor idiom given the setting). The ship setting setting floats a touch unclear
at the start, in particular. In a style
not unlike Charles Stross’ far-futurism, however, Watts is clever in his science-ism,
handwavy-waviness. There is some
grounding among the futuristic verbiage.
That being said, the first quarter of the book could have done with a
bit more foundation to give the reader a clearer picture of what they should be
imagining. In the real world of
innumerable science fiction futures, seemingly everything is possible, meaning
a little more effort from Watts would have concretized his vision in the reader’s
mind to more positive effect.
In the end, The Freeze-Frame
Revolution is a story that begins a bit ragged, but congeals into a tight
climax that, Watts being Watts, addresses the inevitably of humans beating their
heads against the very walls that make us human. The contrast between Chimp (har har) and the
human crew is real. A quick read, said wobbling at the outset does
not last long, allowing the setup to swiftly reveal and resolve itself, making
for satisfying reading. I will not say
Watts is back in a way that matches Blindsight
or Starfish, but it’s certainly fair
to say he has successfully integrated story with idea in a manner Echopraxia is lacking, not to mention in
more entertaining fashion and bright spots of prose that prove the four year
break between longer works has value.
Recommended.
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