Conference noted::sf

TIM,

I really tried to get into Helliconia Winter, but it seem to be very
hard to get into.  Granted, I only read about the first 3 chapters
and its been a while since I tried.  I got as far as the young man
making it to the city and joining what seemed to be a ruling religous
order.  

Does it get any better father on in the book?  I look forward to an 
update.

						Thanks,
						John M.

  My fiance' tried to read Helliconia Spring.  He couldn't stay with it 
long enough to get hooked.  I'll probably give it a try anyway.  He didn't
get hooked by Dune, whereas I've made it through 2 or 3 times.  I'll probably
have better luck than he did.  I'll let you know if I ever manage it.

tlh

re .1
I muddled through "spring" hoping it would get better
but it went on and on at the same level of incompleteness
leaving me unsatisfied with what was done with a good idea
 hal clement i feel did a much better job and needed no "gossies"
while he was at it

giorgio

    I trust Helliconia was terraformed or seeded or in some other way
    got its life from Earth?  If Freyr is that big and bright, it won't
    last more than a few million years, so there shouldn't be much in
    the way of highly evolved indigenous life.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    			-< Cosmic Collision >-
    
    Helliconia orbits Batalix at a distance large enough to make Helliconia
    very cold. In recent past (cosmically speaking) Freyr captured Batalix
    and its attendant planets.
    
    Balders
    

    re .5:  No, actually, Batalix is the local sun, a revolution around
    which constitutes the "small year" of 480 days (of 25 hours each).  I
    forgot what is the astronomical classification of this kind of star,
    but it is old and is cold compared to the more distant Freyr.  Life
    evolved on Helliconia before Freyr came along and captured the Batalix
    system (and also kicked the former moon of Helliconia out of the
    system).  The phagors were the masters of Helliconia before Freyr came
    along and humans evolved to become their rivals.  Hence the name Sons
    of Freyr, as the phagors called the humans.
    
    I thought it highly improbable that an independently evolved lifeform
    on a star system 1000 light years away would be virtually identical to
    human beings here on Terra.  But this is SF and you have to go along
    with the premise.
    
    Phagors and humans are really symbiotic in this system.  Neither would
    survive without the other, and the master-slave relationship flipflops
    as the seasons change in the "great year" (comprising 1825 small
    years).
    
    There's an Observation Station from Earth, named the Avernus, in polar
    orbit around Helliconia.  Its sole mission in life, and the mission of
    all the Earth humans aboard who live there generation after generation,
    is to observe all that's going on down there and to beam back to Earth
    all the data.  To make a long story short (and doing it injustice) Gaia
    makes contact with her distant sister, the Original Beholder.
    
    To return to the beginning of the trilogy, which started with the
    story of Yuli.  I don't know whether this was meant to be a long prolog
    (some 90 pages), or whether it was originally written as its own short
    story or what, but I thought it ended sort of abruptly.  The rest of
    Helliconia Spring was about Embruddock/Oldorando, and its protagonist
    was a descendent of Yuli's.  The story ended with the destruction of
    Oldorando by the phagors at the vernal equinox of the great year.
    
    In Helliconia Summer (which I haven't finished yet) the story takes
    place in the more southerly kingdom of Borlien.  The king divorces his
    queen in order to make a political/religious alliance by marrying the
    Oldorandan princess.
    
    Interspersed between the major narrative of what goes on on Helliconia
    is a smaller story of what goes on on the Avernus.  Personally, I'd
    just as soon focus on Helliconia.  Others may disagree, but I don't
    really understand the point of Avernus, or even what's happening back
    on Earth.  I thought it a perfectly good story without that artifice.
    
    Helliconia Winter (which I finished reading before Helliconia Summer)
    is in terms of my own enjoyment, perhaps the best story of the trilogy,
    if I ignore all that extra stuff about the decline and death of the
    Avernus and the post-Nuclear Winter Earth.  The story is set in the
    northern continent of Sibornal.  The Oligarchy is trying to fight the
    inevitable Fat Death which transforms human beings (those who survive
    the Fat Death) into a more compact form for the long winter.  Young Lt.
    Luterin Shokerandit flees from the clutches of the oligarchy and
    eventually kills the Oligarch, but it's all in vain of course as the
    Oligarchy lives on.  The story ends with the hero shouting "Abro Hakmo
    Astab!" -- a foul curse that probably shouldn't be repeated in a family
    conference.
    
    A comment on the science part of this SF story.  At first I couldn't
    figure out why Freyr should sink lower and lower in the sky as
    Helliconia approached Freyr-aphelion (apastron).  After I figured it
    out, I thought it an incredible coincidence that the axis of revolution
    of the planet is tilted in such a way that the northern polar region is
    in Freyr night all of the great winter.
    
    In Helliconia Spring, I thought that the (re-)development of
    civilization was unbelievably swift, taking place over the span of just
    a few generations.  I also thought it was somewhat forced, how quickly
    Shay Tal and her academy quickly rediscovered astronomy.
    
    For an author who debunks religion and deities, it was interesting how
    much gossies and fessups and dead phagors played a part in the story.
    I guess I don't understand the concept of the Original Beholder, Gaia,
    and other kindred planetary consciousnesses.
    
    --Simon