DOLSON@USC-ECLB.ARPA (05/20/85)
From: Douglas M. Olson <dolson@USC-ECLB.ARPA> Just finished the new Wilhelm, _Welcome,_Chaos_, and was impressed overall. Well paced, nice conflicts, and styled well (at least, I liked it...). A few mild flaws *** spoiler warning *** in that this seemed like a contemporary spy thriller; like _The_Boys_From_Brazil_ or some such. It is contemporary, had some mis-direction about who were the good guys, the Soviets were involved and events threatened to launch WW III. All ok as far as it goes, but not the kind of book I expected. One other item crept in which bothered me; the main group here had a secret to protect and they tended to kill anybody whose research led in the same direction. This had been successful enough (and somehow unobtrusive enough) to prevent most folks from following up that line. But one of their victims 'was already spending his Nobel money' which seemed strange; how could this research possibly be secret if a Nobel had been awarded on the same lines? *** end-of-spoiler *** This minor point really didn't detract more than momentarily, the book was great. ddo (dolson @ eclb.arpa) -------
RAM@CMU-CS-C.ARPA (05/21/85)
From: Rob MacLachlan <RAM@CMU-CS-C.ARPA>
I found this book to be exciting to read, but was disappointed
when in the end because many of the important parts didn't make a
great deal of sense.
************************ Spoiler Warning *****************************
The basic plot is that there is an immortality formula with one big
catch: there a is 50% chance it will make you dead. The thing that I
find incredible is that Ms. Wilhelm seems to think that given these
odds, everyone will want to take the cure. In this situation, I would
certainly wait at least a couple decades to see if the odds will
improve.
Admittedly is explained a number of times that it kills 50% and there
is nothing that you can do about it, but there is no reason to suppose
that this will remain the case once the entire world scientific
establishment devotes its energies to the problem.
I also find the nature of the cure rather unlikely. It is a substance
fortuitously discovered in a bacteria culture which magically revamps
your immune system. The ways that your body can fail are many and
complex. I doubt that any one substance, let alone a natual one, will
be the answer to "immortality". If substantial life prolongation is
obtained, it will probably be through a large collection of carefully
designed treatments.
Rob