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Learning the World: A Novel of First Contact
 
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Learning the World: A Novel of First Contact (Hardcover)

by Ken MacLeod (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Orbit (4 Aug 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1841493430
  • ISBN-13: 978-1841493435
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.8 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 304,176 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description
The great sunliner 'But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky!' is nearing the end of a four-hundred-year journey. A ship-born generation is tense with expectation for the new system that is to be their home. Expecting to find nothing more complex than bacteria and algae, the detection of electronic signals from one of the planets comes as a shock. In millennia of slow expansion, humanity has never encountered aliens, and yet these new signals cannot be ignored. They suspect a fast robot probe has overtaken them, and send probes of their own to investigate. On a world called Ground, whose inhabitants are struggling into the age of radio, petroleum and powered flight, a young astronomer searching for distant planets detects an anomaly that he presumes must be a comet. His friend, a brilliant foreign physicist, calculates the orbit, only to discover an anomaly of his own. The comet is slowing down ...

About the Author
Since graduating from Glasgow University in 1976, Ken MacLeod has worked as a computer analyst in Edinburgh. He now writes full time.

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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews
5 star:
 (5)
4 star:
 (8)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply complicated...?, 10 Sep 2005
By J. D. Ludlow (Reading, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
As a sci-fi fan, I'm often asked what books someone who wasn't a sci-fi fan but wanted to check it out might read. Usually these are books by Anne Macaffery, Kevin J Anderson or David Eddings, mainly because these give you a relatively low-key read. After all, you have aliens and spaceships to deal with - isn't that enough?

For myself, however, I like Alistair Reynolds, Stephen Erikson, or Iain M Banks. These authors are anything but a low-key read. I rarely find a book that can cover both bases at once. Learning The World, however, does just that.

This is a book about meeting an alien species for the first time, and how an unprepared civilisation would deal with that. Humanity has spread to other star systems and met with absoultely no alien species at all. Zip. The Fermi paradox remains intact.

So when a ship names But The Sky, My Lady! The Sky! (yes, someone's been reading their Iain M Banks books, haven't they?) reaches its destination, it discovers an alien species. Meanwhile, the aliens notice a strange object in the sky. This story follows both sides as they observe each other, speculate on each other's motives, values, morals, and, ultimately, interact, as well as how each society deals with the presence of aliens in the same system.

It doesn't really concentrate on the technical or scientific side - descriptions of the ship are deliberatly vague, and the system is simplistic (one planet of each class?). This is all deliberate, because this story isn't about the technology that allows you to travel from system to system, nor is about the planets you find once you get there. It's about two cultures which thought they were alone in the universe meeting each other for the first time.

In places it gets political, especially in the sections covering the ship, but never overly so. It remains humourous, engaging, and thoughtful, and the characters are characters you could imagine actually existing.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who has even a passing interest in sci-fi.

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Decent First Contact Novel, 14 April 2006
By R. A. S. Brown "Raymondo" (Derby, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I like hard sci-fi first contact novels and this is one of them. A human colony ship in the future is approaching its target solar system and discovers and alien civilization already there. The humans then check their laws and rule books to see what they are allowed to do. Much UN style dithering follows. Meanwhile on the alien planet, they work out that a strange object entering their system appears to be powered. Curiousity and mild panic ensues.

It's a strange novel really. The aliens, as another reviewer says, are more human in nature, if not appearance, than the actual future humans. And just because the aliens are far less advanced - early 20th century tech level - doesn't mean that they're stupid and when both sides finally meet, this becomes obvious. It's also interesting to note what the flight enabled aliens think of the flightless humans physical appearance.

To be honest, this wasn't as good a novel as I hoped but it was a good read and not too long.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars First Contact and Colonization, 14 Aug 2005
By Kevin Murphy (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Mankind has been expanding through the galaxy for 15,000 years. We appear to be alone and we've lost track of just how far we've come. There are thousands of human stars and quadrillions of human beings. A generation ship (there is no FTL) setting out from the edge of the expansion finds something utterly unexpected at their destination star: indigenous aliens.

Problem is, they can't go home again, they can't easily go on, and they cannot reasonably stay. Meanwhile, the aliens aren't as dumb as they look.

Both a morality play and a study in hubris, and a new treatment on Heinlein's generation ship concept -- a debt that Ken acknowledges in a most satisfying way.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant idea, well formed and visualized
A favourite inter-species contact novel.
Well thought out and well told
the end all happens a bit too fast and simpl for such a convoluted tale. Read more
Published 4 months ago by CjW

4.0 out of 5 stars Good read - for Sci-fi nubies and old hacks alike
MacLeod foregoes the Eureka moment of the short story and does not trouble with the creation of a grand theme. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Alan Urdaibay

3.0 out of 5 stars A return to form for Macleod
Three stars is a bit mean - make it three and a half. I have found some of his recent work to be rather turgid; however Ken Macleod it at his best when his tongue is in his cheek... Read more
Published on 8 Jul 2007 by P. G. Harris

2.0 out of 5 stars Hard work, persevere and still no eureka moment at the end
I found this title very hard work to finish. I found this title very hard work to begin. I persevered to the end and feel that there was little to no character development through... Read more
Published on 14 May 2007 by monch

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid if not too imaginative
A rather engaging novel, if not too visionary, this is a interesting exploration of the tensions and troubles brought on by impending first contact. Read more
Published on 24 Mar 2007 by drifter

5.0 out of 5 stars Turning RAH on his head
I adore this book - my favourite novel by a favourite author. It is a fine novel of first contact. What bothers me is that none of the other reviews seemed to have noted that it... Read more
Published on 9 Jan 2007 by Lil Shepherd

4.0 out of 5 stars Macleod reinvents the genre!
**** spoilers ****

We all know that the old alien invasion cliche really has been done to death. Read more
Published on 16 Dec 2006 by Cartimand

4.0 out of 5 stars I really do hope that people are this friendly and co-operative in The Future...
A great easy read: well-imagined, and nicely planned, with a unique twist in that much of it is told from the point of view of an alien civilisation. Read more
Published on 28 Nov 2006 by Jeremy Mcgee

5.0 out of 5 stars MacLeod is on top form
I really liked this novel. It adds something new to the old sf theme of first contact between humans and aliens. Read more
Published on 27 Oct 2006 by Nicholas Whyte

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed
Ken Macleod is an exceptionally good writer. Having been lent a copy of his first book, I rushed out and bought all his others. Read more
Published on 9 Oct 2006 by Kiran

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