tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8049100705786633064.post4352471878742675506..comments2024-01-20T02:06:45.388-08:00Comments on The Political Omnivore: The Politics Of: WOOLUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8049100705786633064.post-77973969946081317862014-11-22T15:03:19.017-08:002014-11-22T15:03:19.017-08:00Got it--thanks!Got it--thanks!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8049100705786633064.post-37622884963108170792014-11-22T13:01:46.209-08:002014-11-22T13:01:46.209-08:00The ultra-low-level doomsday strategy is faintly r...The ultra-low-level doomsday strategy is faintly reminiscent of the backstory Fred Saberhagen set out in his <i>Empire of the East</i> series, though of course the net effects are completely different. In chess, you can't block a knight's check, so if you can't capture it or escape, the only remaining (wildly out-of-the-box) winning strategy is to <i>alter reality itself</i>.<br /><br />By the way, the Senator you reference was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond" rel="nofollow">Strom <strong>Thurmond</strong></a>, if it matters.<br /><br />-- ΩAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8049100705786633064.post-15165575138403291912014-11-22T04:35:04.151-08:002014-11-22T04:35:04.151-08:00I did liken it to psycho-history--but: in The Foun...I did liken it to psycho-history--but: in The Foundation trilogy, psycho-history was like the focal-point of the novels. It was (to my read) kinda 'assumed' for Wool. I'm also not clear on which (exactly) beliefs they were defending.<br /><br />Yes: Western-way-of-life--but only in the broad strokes. Not in the specifics, really (for example, we don't see a super-capitalist wealthy class. They have money but it's clearly a -social- democracy as far as that goes).<br /><br />Certainly Howey has incentive to keep writing these--he's making over 100k a month and I'm sure a 4th book would sell out instantly.<br /><br />-The OmnivoreAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8049100705786633064.post-3616144885663574432014-11-21T20:41:22.002-08:002014-11-21T20:41:22.002-08:00OK, just wrote a long comment that got deleted by ...OK, just wrote a long comment that got deleted by accident (damn delete button). The gist of it<br /><br />1. Thanks for the write-up - good stuff.<br />2. Did you notice/thoughts on parallels to Asimov's Foundation?<br />a. To come up with the Order, you need something akin to psycho-history;<br />b. Knowledge of the future leads to actions from the antagonists/protagonists:<br /><br />In Wool, they kill nearly everyone off in a global reboot, the goal to have their way of life persist rather than the other 'bad guys' who control the kill switch in everyone's blood (though not sure why the other bad guys didn't activate this when the world started dying off, or maybe they did and the silo ppl had antidotes). Sort of an ultimate 'my way or the highway' philosophy - they don't care about human suffering, only that their way of life/beliefs persist.<br /><br />In Foundation, they try to minimize suffering by guiding future events down a pre-ordained path, so instead of ten thousand years of darkness there are only a few thousand. This is a much more 'liberal' outcome than the politics we see in Wool.<br /><br />Will be interesting to see if Howey continues the series with a world-building post-Dust series.Stanleybostitchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00806163739407718704noreply@blogger.com