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Jul. 10th, 2006 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribI recently finished reading Donald J. Bingle’s first novel, Forced Conversion. It’s a well-written SF action book, but unfortunately I found the ending unsatisfying. The basic premise for this near-future yarn was that everybody on Earth was being forcibly “converted” – uploaded into a virtual reality matrix. The logic was that, since the virtual denizens were vulnerable to physical interference, and resources were limited, society couldn’t let the isolated few run amuck.
I had two problems with the story. First, and somewhat of a minor point, there is a situation where a character who’s been uploaded can’t be in two VR worlds at once. I didn’t understand this – once you convert something to a binary stream, you can replicate it anywhere.
My second problem is that, in the end, all the action of the story was for naught, which is all I can say without spoiling the plot. Overall, well-written but not terribly satisfying.
I had two problems with the story. First, and somewhat of a minor point, there is a situation where a character who’s been uploaded can’t be in two VR worlds at once. I didn’t understand this – once you convert something to a binary stream, you can replicate it anywhere.
My second problem is that, in the end, all the action of the story was for naught, which is all I can say without spoiling the plot. Overall, well-written but not terribly satisfying.
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Date: 2006-07-15 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-15 06:45 pm (UTC)Author Explanations
Date: 2006-07-19 08:37 pm (UTC)Thanks for reading Forced Conversion. I ran across your posting re the book and thought I would give you my author's explanations re the things that troubled you, not so much as to convince you or change your comments, but just to let you know that I had thought about such things. It is probably best for you not to post this, since it has spoilers, but I will trust to your editorial discretion if there are parts you want to reference.
First the minor comment: I agree that once you digitize something, you can duplicate it endlessly. Indeed, there have been a few stories about virtual existence that deal heavily with this issue. My thought wasn't that it couldn't be done, but that it wasn't allowed to be done. The prevention of spreading of viruses is a good excuse, but the prevention of domination of all the virtual worlds by those who seek power is the real thought behind this restriction. The ConFoes want the virtual worlds to be desirable and limiting entry to any particular virtual world to those that want to be there and only there forever is one way to give people comfort on that score. Perhaps I should have explained a bit more in the book, but the characters don't necessarily have the big picture on all things.
Second, the ending: If it helps any, my original pitch for the book had the ending as totally ambiguous and that still holds some attraction for me. The scene at the Very Large Array occurs and Derek realizes he can never know for sure if he is in the real world. Readers of the early drafts, however, and comments I kept seeing about book editors and their frustrations, convinced me that not being definitive would hurt my chances of being published and disappoint readers. One thing that warmed me up to adding to post-VLA scenes was being able to bookend with a scene reminscent of the start and give a nod to what I regard as one version of hell--having the worst imaginable experience and then realizing just near the end of it that it is going to repeat infinitely. I ran into that kind of thing running some Timemaster scenarios (a time-travel rpg that my company owns). The game system provides that characters loop if they ever return to a time they have previously been in, repeating their life from that point forward until they loop back again--while others can pull you from a loop, you can never do it yourself. Some guys at GenCon had totally botched a mission to the Battle of Borodino (going after the battle to gather info, then before it to try to do what they needed to do) and ended up being chased, grievously wounded, trapped between enemy lines at the beginning of what they knew would be the largest sustained cannon barrage in the history of mankind, and separated from their chronoscooters. Just as we were about to finish the round, one of them moaned in dismay: "Oh, crap, we're going to loop in twenty hours and there's not a thing we can do to stop it." Anyhow, that stuck with me and the book ending allows for the same. The sentimentalist in me also liked Derek being able to help Katy, but for her to never know what happened to him and what cost he ultimately paid.
Anyhow, more on stuff I'm writing at www.orphyte.com/donaldjbingle, including a listing of a bunch of anthologies I have stories in, gaming info, old movie reviews, links to book reviews, and the like. I am also currently trying to find an agent or publisher for my latest book, GREENSWORD, a darkly comedic environmental thriller about global warming. It has the subject matter of State of Fear or An Inconvenient Truth, with the tone of Office Space or Thank You for Smoking, or at least I think so.
Donald J. Bingle