Blind Lake, by Robert Charles Wilson
Blind Lake is an interesting novel.
It has the usual Wilson focus on people, and how they react to a crisis. It also has technology, in this case a combination of quantum computers and genetic programming.
The basic idea behind genetic programming is that instead of writing a computer program to perform a task, you breed computer programs to perform a task. Breeding computer programs takes advantage of the power of evolution, creating computer programs that do what you want them to. The downside is that you're not sure exactly what's going on in them or how they get the results they get.
Quantum computers work by exploiting various strange aspects of quantum mechanics. The layman's view is that the computer actually exists in multiple parallel universes, and instead of the computer running a program in just one universe, it actually runs different versions of the program in different universes. So a quantum computer can come up with a result far faster than a regular computer.
Oh, and Wilson adds in a biological component to the quantum computers, too. The practical upshot of all this in the novel is that the computers work, but nobody is quite sure why and how.
The computers in question are used in the novel as a sort of telescope, to view scenes from another planet. The planet has an alien species living on it, and the computers follow one of the aliens (the Subject) throughout its day. The novel starts with the scientists at Blind Lake observing the Subject, and in a nice bit of irony, the reader observing the scientists.
I'll freely admit that genetic programming is a big interest of mine. While the term genetic programming is never used in the novel, the description of how the programs are evolved is spot on. And quantum computers are also an interest area, although in the novel they're more of a magic item, invoked along with a biological component to make things more mysterious.
So I was pretty excited as I read the novel to see how these technologies would affect the story. And Wilson's characters are as authentic as always, making them interesting and worthwhile to read about as well. There's also a thread through the novel about the validity of cross-species observations, and whether we could actually understand an alien species without two-way communication.
The climax of the story was a bit anticlimactic for me. It might just be because I'd had a greater than normal interest in the technologies used in the novel, but the actual secret of what was happening seemed a bit...well, expected.
Overall, though, the book was still fun to read, even if the initial excitement didn't carry through to the end.
It has the usual Wilson focus on people, and how they react to a crisis. It also has technology, in this case a combination of quantum computers and genetic programming.
The basic idea behind genetic programming is that instead of writing a computer program to perform a task, you breed computer programs to perform a task. Breeding computer programs takes advantage of the power of evolution, creating computer programs that do what you want them to. The downside is that you're not sure exactly what's going on in them or how they get the results they get.
Quantum computers work by exploiting various strange aspects of quantum mechanics. The layman's view is that the computer actually exists in multiple parallel universes, and instead of the computer running a program in just one universe, it actually runs different versions of the program in different universes. So a quantum computer can come up with a result far faster than a regular computer.
Oh, and Wilson adds in a biological component to the quantum computers, too. The practical upshot of all this in the novel is that the computers work, but nobody is quite sure why and how.
The computers in question are used in the novel as a sort of telescope, to view scenes from another planet. The planet has an alien species living on it, and the computers follow one of the aliens (the Subject) throughout its day. The novel starts with the scientists at Blind Lake observing the Subject, and in a nice bit of irony, the reader observing the scientists.
I'll freely admit that genetic programming is a big interest of mine. While the term genetic programming is never used in the novel, the description of how the programs are evolved is spot on. And quantum computers are also an interest area, although in the novel they're more of a magic item, invoked along with a biological component to make things more mysterious.
So I was pretty excited as I read the novel to see how these technologies would affect the story. And Wilson's characters are as authentic as always, making them interesting and worthwhile to read about as well. There's also a thread through the novel about the validity of cross-species observations, and whether we could actually understand an alien species without two-way communication.
The climax of the story was a bit anticlimactic for me. It might just be because I'd had a greater than normal interest in the technologies used in the novel, but the actual secret of what was happening seemed a bit...well, expected.
Overall, though, the book was still fun to read, even if the initial excitement didn't carry through to the end.
posted by Jay | 4:02 AM
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