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\title{\underline{Mother of Storms}: An Exploration}
\author{David Golombek}
\date{\today}

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\section{Introduction}

\underline{Mother of Storms} begins innocuously enough, seemingly an
``End of the World'' novel, but quickly broadens in scope to cover
topics ranging from the definition of humanity to the scalability of
human consciousness.  Underlying these global themes are a strong cast
of characters and a well thought out scientific backing for the main
theme.  Far more than just another environmental catastrophe novel,
\underline{Mother of Storms} (henceforth MOS) is an exploration into
several deep themes and a possible future.  Excellent writing and
interesting characters round MOS out into a very memorable novel.

\section{Major Themes}

In MOS, John Barnes is aiming to raise much larger questions than the
immediately evident "what if giant storms started forming around the
world."  Although he covers a wide variety of topics, he goes into
great depth with three of them in particular.  The deaths of Louie and
Carla and their subsequent ``lives'' as disembodied intelligences
raise many questions about the definition of humanity and the dividing
line between man and machine.  The role of ``XV'' in both causing the
Second Global Riot and leading people to sit calmly through their own
deaths leads to questions about the essential differences between
reality and virtual reality.  Finally, Louie's ponderings into the way
his mind works and grows as he acquires greater processing power lead
to questions about the scalability of human consciousness and the
comprehensibility of alien minds.

Although the concept of human minds stuck into computers is by no
means new, Barnes's coverage of the theme is not trapped in any
cliches.  Louie's decision to kill of his physical body brought up
several very interesting moral questions which could have been covered
in far greater detail, but was waived off with ``Four minutes --- a
bit over twenty-two brain-years --- after the death of his body, he
has made as much philosophic peace as he figures he'll need with the
idea.''  I would have enjoyed a fuller examination of this topic,
although given that Louie was able to create new bodies from scratch
by the end of the novel and could presumably insert his mind into
them, it becomes a moot point.

The reasons that brought Louie to his sacrifice are very
understandable though; the human body is incredibly slow compared to
computers, very fallible, and otherwise very poor at the things at
which computers are good.  By merging the two, Louie creates an entity
(for lack of a better term) which has the mental flexibility of a
human, but the speed and memory capacity of a computer.  But is this
entity still a human?  By the end of the story, Louie and Carla claim
they are no longer human (``We're very glad glad we were once
human''), and I would agree, on the grounds that their thought
processes have changed enough by that point that the human origins are
no longer easily identifiable.  A couple points lead me to this
conclusion.  First, Louie is beginning to experiment with parallel
thought, first caused by his merging with the ``wiseguy'' versions of
his personality that had been on the processors in the catapult
launches.  Parallel thought is distinctively nonhuman except for a few
cases, all regarded as mental illnesses.  Next, Louie is effectively
immortal due to his electronic nature, and his outlook on the world
has changed dramatically.  Although I believe it's possible to
immortal and still mentally human, Louie doesn't fall into this
category due to his changed nature of the passing of time.  Louie's
progression from human to near-deity poses many questions about when
he stopped being human and begs for a definition of humanity.

There is something about TV that grabs human attention despite all the
obvious deficiencies of the medium.  The average TV has pitiful
resolution, a cheap sound system, and a limited range of colors.
Nonetheless, where TV's are available, people watch them for hours
daily.  XV fixes these deficiencies and more, adding the thoughts of
the original viewer to the scenes and spoken commentary.  The
couch-potato tendency of many TV watchers to sit back and become a
passenger of life is will be strengthened as interaction is seemingly
increased.  For a risk-avoider, virtual reality offers the perfect
sanctuary; even as you see yourself walking into a raging firefight,
your body is safely at home in a couch.  And as Barnes points out
several times in MOS, in XV you can have ``the back-of-the-mind
contact with a wilderness poet, a naturalist, an activist, and a
shaman.''  An instant expert on everything, and gone are all feelings
of inferiority or weakness.  Yet its only the original actor who
actually has these feelings; they are only injected into the mind of
the viewer.  Once the tape is finished, only memories are left with
the viewer, not the thought processes that were present in the mind of
the original actor.  Thus people who eagerly watch Synthi flee from
the hurricanes sit calmly as they themselves are killed by it.

As Louie builds more processors on the moon and merges with them, his
effective intelligence grows exponentially.  However, despite his mind
being made up of many distint processors, Louie still uses them in a
linear fashion; he effectively experiences time passing at a much
slower rate than a normal human.  By the end of the book, Louie is
experiencing over ``20,000 brain-years per-day'' --- in other words,
during the course of one year, Louie has been thinking for the
equivalent of over 7 million years!  The concept of experiencing time
at a slowed down pace was a very interesting handling of the increased
intelligence problem.  Namely, it is amazingly difficult for a human
to write about superhuman intelligence, and thus most writers are
forced to cop out.  Louie's core intelligence remained within human
comprehension, he merely had lots of time to devote to problems,
perfect memory, and amazing concentration.  This combination allowed
Barnes to have Louie design new rockets, conduct long philosophical
discussions, and begin to plan out humanity's future.  Even more
importantly though, it allows the reader to continue to vaguely
comprehend Louie's thought process.

As mentioned above, Louie also experiments with parallel thought
processes.  This is where he truly begins to enter the realm of alien
thought processes.  The decision process used by a parallel mind could
be so totally different than that used by humans as to be
incomprehensible.  By examining multiple decision trees at the same
time, a parallel thought process could eliminate possible courses of
action far quicker than a linear thought process.  A parallel thought
process could also possibly be doing far more things at once than a
human is capable, even if none of them are related.  Either of these
properties could make an alien unfathonable to humans, yet both seem
fairly basic optimizations on the thought process.  Although MOS never
ventured down this exact path, it's a natural continuation of the
thoughts brought about by Louie's evolution.


\section{Analysis of Themes}

I enjoyed all of the major themes in MOS a lot, and each brought with
it a new set questions in my mind.  The first theme I mentioned, on
the definition of humanity, has recieved much coverage in other
stories.  However, it is a theme that has by no means been worn out,
and Barnes managed to add a few new twists (to me at least) by taking
a human and enhancing him beyond the scope of humanity.  Vernor Vinge
(see Section \ref{SimilarWorks}) has covered the same ground, but
usually the question is dealt with as a robot becoming more human
(``The Bicentennial Man'' by Asimov) or the differences between humans
and aliens (anything with aliens almost).  

The question of Virtual Reality versus Reality is nearly upon us in
real life, and is very much in need of debate.  As the real world
becomes more chaotic, the utter control one can exert over virtual
reality becomes more tempting.  Current technology is approaching the
level of making virtual reality an actuality with the invention of
goggles with video screens and pressure sensitive gloves that turn
hand motion into computer input.  The warnings in MOS about people's
addiction to XV are well founded, and points to be considered before
the technology of virtual reality hits the marketplace.  The two
Global Riots from MOS are all too possible, as evidenced by the Rodney
King Riots.  As news is propagated faster and in greater vividness,
there becomes fewer things that are truly local in scope.  Add the
transmission of emotions along with this (a piece farther from current
technology than the others) and anything can happen.

Louie was my favorite character in MOS, not for his personality but
rather for his development.  I thought the growth model was really
interesting, and was impressed that Barnes managed to keep Louie
comprehensible as long as he did.  After a certain point, I believe
Louie must (and did) become incomprehensible to humans.  However, his
growth until that point was logical and reasonable.  I was a bit
dissapointed in the Dues Ex Machina ending to MOS that Louie takes the
role of god in, but given his powers by that point, it is reasonable.

\section{Literary Appraisal}

\subsection{Critical Acclaim}

MOS is only two years old, and thus there have been few critiques of
the entire novel.  I found a wide variety of book reviews, but none
went into the depth I hoped for.  However, MOS has one extremely
positive review in it's favor --- that of the readers.  It was
nominated for the Hugo award in 1995 for best novel, one of the most
coveted prizes in science fiction.  It lost out to \underline{Mirror
Dance}, but even a nomination is a sign that lots of readers have
enjoyed the book, due to the voting nature of the Hugo's.  

The reviews I read were all very enthusiastic about MOS, although most
for very different than I.  For example, one review \cite{pupzine}
had a review which focused on the disaster novel aspect of MOS,
although also noting the accuracy of the science involved.  Another
\cite{postviews} focused on the similarities to other science fiction
works and praised the characters of the novel.  The other reviews made
similar, but less memorable statments.  It will likely be several years
before serious literary critiques of MOS are released, so for now
discussion with friends is the most valuable form of discussion.

\subsection{Quality of Writing}

The characters and plot of MOS were extremely well written, and each
section of the book was gripping.  However, somewhere in the all the
transitions between characters, the book seemed to drag on a bit.
Certainly with all of the ideas that Barnes was attempting to get
across, a fair amount of long-windedness is to be expected, but it
still detracts from the overall quality of the book.  Also, several of
the descriptions of Diem's wedge sessions seem unnecessarily graphic.
Their content certainly fits with the rest of the novel, and the
warnings they give about XV are important, but it seems that the same
effect could have been achieved in a less graphic manner.  Although I
have no real problems with the descriptions, several friends objected
strongly, and considered the book much poorer for their inclusion.  

Both of these points are relatively minor, and I overall greatly
enjoyed the book.  Barnes does a wonderful job of creating a realistic
future world, developing an interesting plot, and then filling it with
great characters.  This book has now been added to my list of personal
favorites, and will be recommended frequently in the future.

\subsection{Similar Works}
\label{SimilarWorks}

Throughout MOS, I was continually struck by it's similarities to
\underline{Earth} by David Brin.  Both novels take place at roughly
the same time and level of technology, cover an ecological disaster,
and jump between several different sets of characters.  That this did
not take away from the value of either novel is testimony to the
ability of both writers, and the amount of material within the covered
scope.  There are so many similarities between the two novels that it
is almost easier to point out ways in which they differed;
\underline{Earth} is slightly farther into the future, doesn't have a
XV equivalent, and less of the world is affected by the disaster
(although it's possible results are far worse than Clem's).

While \underline{Earth} struck me as being similar to MOS immediately,
as soon as I began to think about Louie in depth, I began to see an
amazing number of similarities to \underline{True Names and Other
Dangers}, a collection of short stories by Vernor Vinge.  In
particular, in the ``True Names'' story there are two characters whom
are granted large amounts of computer processing power by the
government to help track down a malicious hacker.  They use this
processing power to grab more and more computer processing time until
they control most of the computers for their own uses, becoming
similar to Louie.  The way that Vinge handles the increased
intelligence is slightly different than Barne's, but similarly thought
provoking.  Vinge's notes in between the stories are also extremely
interesting, particularly his comments on the difficulties of writing
about superhuman intelligence.

One major hint that Barne's has read Vinge's material is the use of
{\bf Singularity} as the name of one of the main sections of the
book.  Singularities are the focus of much of Vinge's writing, and he
defines them as ``a place where extrapolation breaks down and new
models must be applied.''  This certainly describes the end of MOS
and the events that are likely to follow (there is certainly room for
a sequel here).  

The novel that was most frequently compared to MOS was
\underline{Heavy Weather} by Bruce Sterling, published at the same
roughly the same time by one of the foremost cyberpunk authors.  I
unfortunately have not had time to read it, and thus can't do a proper
comparison.

\section{Personal Opinions and Comments}

I really enjoyed MOS, and will keep a copy on my bookshelf for a long
time to come.  The themes covered were extremely interesting and
thought provoking, and the characters were well portrayed.  The
science of the story took something of a second seat, but Barnes
doesn't skimp on giving good technical background for the events of
the novel.  I enjoyed the main plotline quite a bit, although it fell
short of \underline{Lucifer's Hammer} by Niven and Pournelle in
generating the feeling that civilization was ending.  The characters
were all quite well done, and although I didn't identify with any one
in particular, all seemed very like people I could meet at work one
day.  

I was not particularly impressed by Barnes's handling of the
technology behind XV and the heavily related ``jacking in.''  His
explanation was a handwave, more covering the effects than even trying
to give hints towards how it was accomplished.  In sharp contrast, the
calthrate descriptions were very well done, and the weather
descriptions seemed quite accurate.  I enjoyed the brief mention of
datarodents and AIs, being an avid computer scientist, but both seemed
to be randomly thrown in for technical ``color.''  I would have liked
fuller coverage of them, but the book is long enough as is, and the
extra details wouldn't have significantly added to the novel.

\section{Conclusion}

John Barnes's \underline{Mother of Storms} goes far beyond a simple
environmental catastrophe novel, covering a wide range of challenging
themes.  In particular, he concentrates on the definition of what it
means to be human, the social effects of XV, and the scalability of
the human mind.  To portray these themes, Barnes populates his world
with a strong cast of characters and a gripping plot.  His writing is
excellent in most parts, although the novel seems to drag out towards
the end.  \underline{Mother of Storms} is certainly worthy of
reccomendation and a reread later on.


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\begin{thebibliography}{99}

\bibitem{pweekly} Cassada, Jackie.  ``SF Book Reviews.''
\underline{Library Journal} 15 June, 1994:99

\bibitem{nanotech} Morgan, Sean.  ``Nanotech in Science Fiction''\\
{\em http://nanothinc.com/NanoWorld/scifi/mos\_sm.html}

\bibitem{pupzine} Parallel Universe Parking Fanzine.  Omaha, Ne. June 1995\\
{\em http://www.pupzine.com/issues/back/iss13/article/reviews.html}

\bibitem{postviews} Postviews\\
{\em
http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/\~{ }agapow/Postviews/past\_a-ba.html\#motherofstorms}

\bibitem{ppotts} Potts, Paul.  ``Readings.''\\
{\em http://www.frymulti.com/\~{ }ppotts/reading.html}

\bibitem{jterman} Terman, Jim.  ``SF Book Reviews.''\\
{\em http://www.slip.net/~terman/sfbkrev/storm.html}


\end{thebibliography} 



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