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A review by rossbm
The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts
3.0
(Read a ebook)
What's it about?
There's a spaceship that is travelling around the galaxy building wormhole "gates" for faster than light travel. The spaceship itself doesn't travel faster than light. It is million of years into its journey. It has a crew of 30,000 people. They are mostly in stasis, woken up for short intervals to assist on more complex "builds". As a result, even if million of years have passed, subjectively, only maybe a dozen have passed for most of the crew
Most builds are done unsupervised by Chimp, an AI. Chimp is not a particularly intelligent AI, having been designed with limitations to prevent it from deviating from mission parameters. That is why human crew is needed for more complex builds; also, why Chimp is called Chimp.
Despite millions of years having passed and thousands of gates being built, no contact from Earth has been received. No signal to stop the mission and stand down. As a result, some of the crew members want to stop the mission. However, Chimp puts the mission above all else.
What did I think?
A very interesting concept. Got a decent sense of how strange, weird and wonderful it would be to be on such a voyage. Didn't feel like the "revolution" aspect was fleshed out enough. The interactions and relationship between Sunday, the protagonist, and Chimp were interesting.
What's it about?
There's a spaceship that is travelling around the galaxy building wormhole "gates" for faster than light travel. The spaceship itself doesn't travel faster than light. It is million of years into its journey. It has a crew of 30,000 people. They are mostly in stasis, woken up for short intervals to assist on more complex "builds". As a result, even if million of years have passed, subjectively, only maybe a dozen have passed for most of the crew
Most builds are done unsupervised by Chimp, an AI. Chimp is not a particularly intelligent AI, having been designed with limitations to prevent it from deviating from mission parameters. That is why human crew is needed for more complex builds; also, why Chimp is called Chimp.
Despite millions of years having passed and thousands of gates being built, no contact from Earth has been received. No signal to stop the mission and stand down. As a result, some of the crew members want to stop the mission. However, Chimp puts the mission above all else.
What did I think?
A very interesting concept. Got a decent sense of how strange, weird and wonderful it would be to be on such a voyage. Didn't feel like the "revolution" aspect was fleshed out enough. The interactions and relationship between Sunday, the protagonist, and Chimp were interesting.