Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 22:04:43 +0200 From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG The Fortunate Fall To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU The BDG book for October is _The Fortunate Fall_ by Raphael Carter. Let's start with saying that I liked it, that I couldn't put it down (especially the second half), that for once I didn't mind the Cyberpunk 'attitude' (which I usually strongly dislike) and that the questions posed intrigued me. Some questions on the book: Do you think that Maya made the wrong decision in leaving Keishi 'in the prison camp beneath the ocean, with the ruined mind of the new Iscariot and the body of the whale'? Why is Maya unhappy in the end? Guilt, loneliness, because she realized she loved Keishi after all? What do you think of the different positions on love of Maya, Keishi and Voskresenye? I cannot find the exact quote right now, but somewhere in the book Voskresenye makes a statement about why the horrors of the Unanimous Army made such a small imprint on general consciousness compared to the Holocaust. Can you help me out on this? What do you think about it? Did you understand Greyspace? This hunting technique somehow connected with looking? I didn't. I had difficulties accepting the emotional importance of the whale to people in the whole world. What do you think? What do you think about the conflicts between principles and humaneness presented in the novel? What do you think about the homophobia of the presented society? Did it convince you? There are 2 stories in this book. Maya's personal one and the 'historical' one of Voskresenye. In your opinion did the two story lines match? Did you figure out how the African technological advance came about? What are these 4 African 'gods'? His Majesty-in-Chains, etc. Where were your sympathies? Did you have any for Keishi and Voskresenye? My own answers? Here, it's already late. More in a few days. Petra -- Petra Mayerhofer p.mayerhofer@web.de Website of Book Discussion Group on feminist sf www.geocities.com/bdg_volunteers/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 13:03:04 +0200 From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG The Fortunate Fall - Online Ressources To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Quotes and excerpts from online resources on _The Fortunate Fall_: Postviews http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews/past_c-d.html#fortunatefall " What also feels right is the pervasive technology. Again, it is not always convincing (especially the part about live broadcasting of telepresence, which seems unnecessarily risky to me beyond any rationale) but contains much that is clever and memorable. Particularly noteworthy is a section that contains perhaps the most perceptive (and maybe the only decent) depiction of artificial life in SF. Although only a sideline to the main story, this has some clever vignettes like an computational ecosystem in which a creature that has evolved to blind its prey by flooding the system with millions of "look" requests. The book does have faults. The setting and story get somewhat congested towards the end, with a very protracted climax. The length of resolution is probably due to there really being two plots, Maya's personal problems and the story she is chasing. At points the story protests at the tension between these two and to a certain extent both just happen to her. But these complaints are visible largely in retrospect, and compensated for by the distinctive voice of the story: " Christina Schulman http://www.epiphyte.net/SF/fortunate-fall.html "Maya has run afoul of the current regime before; her libido and ten years of her memory have been suppressed by an implanted chip. (I find it interesting that the popular SF belief of the 50's and 60's that psychology will be able to fine-tune the human mind has given way to the belief that computers will be able to do the same.) Most of the final third of the book consists of the characters revealing a barrage of secrets at each other, which is a bit wearying, but on the whole the pacing and suspense work well. The story shows only brief glimpses of its most interesting ideas: the ecology of grayspace, the Unanimous Army, and especially the African technocracy. There are also wonderful tidbits such as sanctimonious rental cars, the world's most polite police force, nanobugs that run on Vodka, and a gratuitous Kibo reference." Michael Rawdon http://surfin.spies.com/~rawdon/books/sf/carter.html "The Fortunate Fall is another book about the "wired world" in the future, but unlike some of the other such books I've read recently this one takes place almost entirely in the physical world, and only briefly in "cyberspace". Since this effectively forces the novel to focus on how people use the technology, rather than the nature of the technology itself, I found this made the novel more viscerally enjoyable. [...] (The Army is reminiscent of Star Trek's Borg, and the Comprise from Michael Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers.) [...] The book's themes focus mainly on the efforts of Maya (and others in society, more generally) to preserve their privacy, and on Voskresenye's notions of intellectual and personal freedom. And in the end, another wrench is thrown in the works when Keishi is revealed to be the virtual persona of Maya's late lover. (This last seems a bit unnecessary and disingenuous, I felt.) Much of the book's emotional power comes from the fact that Maya is largely a pawn in Voskresenye's and Keishi's plans, and the largely isolated environment in which Maya lives (there are no major characters other than these three). This might be unbearable were Carter not so adept at expressing Maya's thoughts and feelings, which opens up the book's world a lot more than might otherwise have been. [...] Given that it is so strongly rooted in the contrast of different philosophies, I think it suffers somewhat from the rather abrupt ending (all plans of the characters are set in motion, but we see nothing of their results and aftermath)." Strangewords http://www.strangewords.com/archive/fall.html (Allyson Zipp) "Maya's simultaneous pursuit of external Truth and flight from suppressed personal history are revealed in a montage of flash-forward, flash-back, flash-sideways vignettes. The narrative threads through time and space, building in intensity and maintaining a tight but twisted internal logic for much of the book. Unfortunately Carter has problems negotiating a finish and the end of the tale unravels in a bizarre whale sequence. However, this is a first novel and its virtues far outweigh its somewhat unsatisfying conclusion. Indeed, although its structural flaw is more serious than the any weakness in China Mountain Zhang (also reviewed in this issue) The Fortunate Fall is a far more significant book." Richard Horton http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton/fortfall.htm "Carter pulls off a number of exciting, brilliant things. The nature of this new world and its history are carefully and slowly revealed, along with Maya's own past, and the resolution is well integrated, the tragic ending is both a surprise and not a surprise, and is "earned". The technological and social details of life in the FHN are wonderfully well realized. In many ways, this book is reminiscent of Sterling in the way future tech and future society are densely integrated with the narrative, and seem so possible. The terminology (Postcops, Weavers, greyspace, etc.) is intriguing, and is introduced in such a way as to seem natural (there are very few lectures), but also be part of the mysteries which are slowly revealed. The realization of the how "mindlink" technology might really affect the world, and also the images of cyberspace, are believable and original. [...} The book falls slightly short in a couple of areas (mere quibbles, really). Much of the second half of the book is a long narrative by the interview subject, and this method of telling the story seemed to me to create a bit of disconnectness. The story really has two protagonists, Maya and Voskrosenye (the interviewee), and their stories are well integrated, but still there is a slight slackening in that the two stories (Maya's personal one, and the story of the nature of Maya's world, which is mostly told through Voskrosenye) don't quite end in synch. Also, the Guardians are a bit stock as villains (though to be sure they are not the only villains). And I thought Maya's original crime was, well, not likely to be such a crime in the 23rd century. But I could be wrong about that. This book really provokes thought. One virtue is that much is implied and never told, and we have a sense of a whole fascinating underpinning to this world (such as what the African culture is really like) which is hinted at but not explained." Booklist http://www.ala.org/booklist/v92/33a.html#Carter (Carl Hays) "Carter's vision of a twenty-fourth century dominated by intelligence-enhancing microchips and twisted political ideologies is as breathtakingly imaginative as the accompanying story line is gripping. A mind-boggler than ranks with Gibson's Neuromancer and Stephenson's Snow Crash as one of the best novels about virtual reality." Publisher's Weekly http://bookwire.bowker.com/bookinfo/review.aspx?2423 "Like many first novels, Carter's suffers from occasional problems of pacing and structure. Even so, this highly literate, grim and gripping example of latter-day cyberpunk counts as one of the most promising SF debuts in recent years." Paired Reading Page http://www.steelypips.org/paired/fall_playrv.html (Kate Nepveu) "Both novels [_Fortunate Fall_ and _Passion Play_ by Sean Stewart] are narrated by a female protagonist looking back upon the events of the novel. Explicit reflections on the events and their consequences are generally restricted to the beginnings and endings of the books, creating a framing effect. This format allows the plot to be foreshadowed in the Prologues, but keeps the powerful emotional impact of the novels' endings. The stories are also subtly foreshadowed in the way the narrators present their stories. For example, Maya's early statement, "the poor camera, who can reach out to another mind only with mute eyes and vague bludgeoning words... well, it's like being an amnesia victim, coming home a stranger to someone who's loved you all your life" (14), applies equally to her professional and personal relationship with Keishi, though the reader doesn't fully notice this until the end of the novel. The novels' societies have some elements in common as well. Both possess more restrictive moral norms than contemporary America or Russia, norms which are enforced by the government and the media. Both protagonists aid this enforcement: [...] Maya unintentionally as a media figure, particularly a media figure with a suppressor chip. Both will eventually come to question this role over the course of the novel. The other major common element is the ability to touch another's mind, either by extrasensory powers or by technology; this capacity is the key catalyst of the plots and conflicts of the novels. These common starting points develop into novels of different scope and emphasis, but they still retain a common theme, which is best expressed in Passion Play as "abstractions can be rough on people" (166). While the attempt to balance people and principles is hardly an original or uncommon theme, it is still the obvious basis of all the major conflicts of the two novels. For instance, the crimes of The Fortunate Fall are all committed by individuals who are willing to pursue their image of humanity at great cost to humans. Some of the goals are more admirable than others, but they all use less than admirable means to try to achieve them. The Guardians murdered or imprisoned their undesirables; the Army fought back by possessing the minds of millions of civilians; the Postcops use cups of tea and the Weavers use brain viruses to tailor the social makeup of their society. Voskresenye is also guilty of this, and acknowledges it: That is what it means to be a Guardian.... The greater good is everything--and a greater good not to be measured empirically, but ideologically. Isn't that what I have done? I have sacrificed others to my own conception of what the world should be--a conception that, if it does anything at all, will bring nothing but unhappiness to most of Russia for decades to come. (244) This was Keishi's crime as well: her entire plan, from her death to her various resurrections (including the final one when Maya recognizes her), was entirely designed to advance a certain ideal of humanity, without regard to its effects on Maya. Keishi failed to balance her goals and their consequences carefully enough for Maya, and so Maya rejected her: "Maybe if you had spent your time thinking of me as a person, and not a variable, things would have been different" (287). However, that was not the only reason Maya left Keishi--she was also pursuing a certain image of humanity. Throughout the novel, she rejects Keishi's model of emotional intimacy via cable, and tells her, "People swapping souls on the first date. Once you've done that, what the hell do you talk about for the rest of your life? Nothing, that's what" (157). Keishi's final proposal that Maya host Keishi in a section of her brain inevitably contradicts Maya's beliefs too strongly, and she refuses, telling her, "You're crazier than Voskresenye.... You've forgotten what human emotions are like" (285). She has defended her conception of humanity, at the price of Keishi's survival. All of the characters in the novel have justified their actions as necessary in the pursuit of their ideals. Voskresenye, however, adds another factor. He argues that the one fact separating him from his enemies is that he intends to embrace the blame for what he has done. According to him, the wise man, when forced into evil, makes a scapegoat of himself.... He knows what must be done; he does it; and then he makes sure that the people he has benefited will revile him, because only that can prevent his crime from being repeated. (249) The concept of the scapegoat is useful in looking at one of the more interesting questions of the novel: did Maya, like the other people in the novel, become too much like what she hates in her sacrifice of Keishi? And does Maya think that she did the right thing? It is at least of passing interest that the last words of the novel seem to indicate regret or shame: And what I most want to conceal from you, you've always known: That I went up into the world and left her there, in the prison camp beneath the ocean, with the ruined mind of the new Iscariot and the body of the whale. (288) It is not entirely clear from the text of the novel whether Maya is attempting to make herself a scapegoat for Keishi's destruction, but it is an interesting possiblity. As for the morality of Maya's actions, there are ultimately cases to be made for all sides of the argument; however, it is a strength of the novel that Maya's motivations are ones a reader can sympathize with, if not necessarily agree with. [...] Thus, in these two novels, future forms of morality and empathy mix with the ideas of Humanity, Justice, and the scapegoat to produce devastating effects on the protagonists. The Fortunate Fall covers continent-wide conspiracies, while Passion Play covers one murder, but the impression the reader brings away from the novels is ultimately the same: abstractions can be, and in this case most definitely are, rough on people." FACT SF Reading Group Discussion http://www.crimeandspace.com/reading/sep97.html "Although many of us had grown tired of cyberpunk in recent years, we found this story to be interesting and well-told. The characters, especially the narrator, were well-developed and the prose style was eminently readable. Carter's speculations on the future of the Internet were well-conceived and plausible, and worked well as story elements. There were a few problems. Some of us found the constant use of 20th Century popular culture references distracting and confusing, and we were worried that it would date the book. As Wes Dunn put it, "I don't have a lot of connection with current culture." And while the political climate in this near-future book was interesting, many of us couldn't figure out how to "get there from here." " Emerald City Review http://www.emcit.com/emcit058.shtml#Minds (Cheryl Morgan) "The Weavers, as they are known, are largely uploaded minds, working at frantic speed in cyberspace. They have to be so to do their job properly. The only trouble is that in making themselves into ideal thought police they may have ceased to be human themselves. Indeed, they may no longer even understand what it is like to be human." Basilisk Dreams Books http://www.basilisk.on.ca/books/reviews/staff/fortunate.html (John M. Kahane) "The main strength of this novel is that Carter has created a world that is rich in detail, but where the reader must piece together the information while at the same time, following Maya along in search of her story. [...] The book is full of symbolism, drawn from such varied sources as Isis and Osiris, Orpheus and the Bacchae, and even Moby Dick. When it comes right down to it, the novel is full of twists and turns, with a complex plot that makes one sit back and digest what one has read." It has nothing to do with _Fortunate Fall_ but it is informative and funny to read: Raphael Carter's "Androgyny RAQ (Rarely Asked Questions)" at http://www.chaparraltree.com/raq/. Don't miss it! Petra -- Petra Mayerhofer p.mayerhofer@web.de Website of Book Discussion Group on feminist sf www.geocities.com/bdg_volunteers/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 21:16:18 -0800 From: Sharon Anderson Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Fortimate Fall To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Why is no one talking about this book? I can't remember all the questions posed, but here are a few of them. Is it realistic to suppose that people will care about a whale? I think people are basically sensation=seekers. The National Inquirer DOES sell, with headlines like "eight year old French girl gives birth to twins who speak Chinese." Their sentiments of caring may not be aroused, but people love curiosities. At the same time, most people are conformist at heart. It's what gives the Right to Life, the Taliban, and the KKK power. "I'm right, and if you believe something different, you're obviously wrong. You are therefore going to Hell. Let me help you pack your bags." So therefore, yes, I do think it's also believable that the majority would turn a blind eye, and let the American McGulag happen. They would nod sagely and say "yes, I suppose that's so" when told that nobody wanted to be a homosexual, and those who couldn't control their own behavior would be happier with a suppression chip. Is it believable that our hero would run out and leave her lover to die with the whale? Yes. Eminently. Throughout the book, she fights to find her own way, to have her freedom, to not be tempted by either side, the good guys or the bad guys. When she recognizes that the woman doesn't really want to live in order to be with her, but only to live for the sake of preserving some kind of immortality, our hero has no choice but to let her go. That isn't love, it's leech-ism. So there. Anyone else have any thoughts? Anyone else read the book? ----s ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 22:35:24 +0800 From: Carol & Phil Ryles Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG The Fortunate Fall To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU I liked this book a lot. The technology blended seamlessly with the narrative. The characters were intriguing, complicated and wonderfully unpredictable. However, I must confess I had to read the book twice before I could attempt to make any comments -- and the second reading was by far the best -- hindsight was definitely an advantage here. Although I still feel there is still a lot I missed. eg, how effective Voskresenye's and Keishi's viruses are going to be against the weavers? At times the prose was exquisite. eg, "When she had finished, she would slide herself into my mind, like a rat into water." This sentence took on a whole new meaning after the second reading ie, Keishi sliding into Maya's mind -- Keishi the opportunist who Maya could never trust. Petra asked: > Do you think that Maya made the wrong decision in leaving Keishi 'in the > prison camp beneath the ocean, with the ruined mind of the new Iscariot and > the body of the whale'? On a personal level, I think not. I think Keishi was manipulating Maya from beginning to end. eg, when Maya is explaining how she got away with doing the Calinschina shoot, Keishi (who is already fully aware of the story), says: "What did you do?" (with a peculiar tenderness). > Why is Maya unhappy in the end? Guilt, loneliness, because she realised she > loved Keishi after all? I think Maya still loves her, but is also aware that if Keishi became part of her, she would become dependant on her superior strength and therefore under her control: eg: p.283. "Wherever you go, I'll protect you. I'll cut you a path through the Postcops, and keep the Weavers from your door. . . etc" Also, Maya first 'saw' Keishi's mind when they were in greyspace together: p.69 "Beside her acres and arches and spires of mind, mine was a mere clot of neurodes." What chance would she have against that? Keishi promises that she would be merely an observer, but Maya has no reason to trust her after all trickery that went on before. >I had difficulties accepting the emotional importance >of the whale to people in the whole world. >What do you think? The extinction of the whales would be a major tragedy, especially in a wired culture where everyone would know exactly what they had lost, ie, an intelligent animal that many people had spent decades trying to save. If one suddenly turned up, I'm sure the whole (wired) world would sit up and take notice -- maybe even see it as a second chance. I'm still thinking about your other questions Petra, but it's getting late. I'll write some more soon, Bests, Carol. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 12:02:44 -0500 From: "S. McInneshin" Subject: [*FSF-L*] Fortunate Fall To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Greetings all. I'm new at posting, so let me know if I've failed to follow some established guideline. Thanks! Now about The Fortunate Fall. The phrase that cropped up when I finished this book is "Knowledge is a social construction." I think Carter displays this quite well, using technology (specifically cyber) as a framework for his discussion regarding the power that controlling knowledge can have on society and politics. I liked that Carter held back on how this world functioned, and let us see it as he built it up from chapter to chapter (especially discovering the histories of the Guardians, the Unanimous Armies, Maya, Voskresenye, etc.). With that in mind, I thought that most of what he was saying through his two narrators (Maya and Voskresenye) was important to how the plot would unravel, so I was a little surprised to see that there wasn't another mention of Katya again after a chapter ending that suggested she could still be alive (and believe it or not, I thought for a while that Katya and Keishi were somehow linked or possibly the same person, mainly because they seemed awfully similar in the way they managed people). Perhaps the parallel was drawn between Katya and Keishi to emphasize potential similarities between Maya and Voskresenye? I think this is interesting because Maya could have been Voskresenye and vice versa, yet Maya ends up making different choices, the biggest one of all being to remove herself completely from an association with Keishi at the end (which I think Voskresenye never does, with either Keishi or the memory of Katya). I did think the two story lines matched because I think they are similar with different outcomes, and that Carter uses these similar (yet dissimilar) lives to show what power can do, and how something that seems simple like love can drive people in different ways. Down with homogeneity, isn't that one of his points? I did find the discussion on love a bit dissatisfying, mainly because I think it was crammed in at the end with other things. I think that Maya made the choice best for her by leaving everything behind at the end. I agree with other's comments about it. Although I wonder how much conditioning and fear had to do with Maya's last decision. Perhaps her constant vigilance against everything around her made her unable to be free, or to take a risk with Keishi, but then again, there's Voskresenye as an opposite example. Maya seemed to be an unhappy character all around. I would have been surprised if she chose a happy ending for herself, or if Carter chose one for her. Perhaps the lesson here is self-reflection is a good thing? (And to deny a part of yourself is not so good?) Regarding the importance of the whale: Well, if the weavers made the impact of the whale less important, or made people feel that way, then it's kind of a moot point about its importance to this society. I tend to lean toward thinking that in this book, people would not have attached much emotional importance to the whale. People would notice for the novelity of it all, but that living in a virtual world removes the urgency of the physical, both the corporeal and nature. Carter's comments on the Net and virtual worlds seems not unlike a metaphor for how current society reacts to inundation of information. Most humans are unable to associate much with those physically near them, let alone thousands of miles away. Mental and spiritual disassociation has become one problematic biproduct of modern society. "I cannot find the exact quote right now, but somewhere in the book Voskresenye makes a statement about why the horrors of the Unanimous Army made such a small imprint on general consciousness compared to the Holocaust. Can you help me out on this? What do you think about it?" I don't remember this but I think it maybe partly because so many people were socketed and brainwashed that they don't remember? And Carter suggests that the Weavers didn't seem so bad even though their actions echoed Guardian actions because they weren't the originators of the horror (and they were more subtle), that is, people were able to digest the horrors better (if there is such a thing). This reminds me of how history uses Nazis and Hitler (THE Holocaust) as the ultimately horror, and we're appropriately horrified, and yet Pol Pot and Cambodia hardly get a blip on the screen (especially in Western societies), or the Armenians in Turkey, or Rwanda... and regarding Bosnia-Herzegovina, we are aware but most of us do little.... not unlike a society with Weavers. I'll think more on the Africa and the four gods and greyspace question. I think it's an interesting one. S. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 21:35:18 -0700 From: Joyce Jones Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG The Fortunate Fall To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU I finally finished the book and have to say that I didn't like it. Maybe it's just because I'm not that interested in virtual reality or artificial intelligence. I liked the movie Tron, back 400 years ago when it came out, but that was visually appealing; reading about greyspace didn't engage me at all. Everything seemed so disconnected that I had a difficult, no impossible, time making a cohesive whole of it. Carol said she had to read the book twice in order to understand it well enough to comment. I think that's probably what I'd need to do, but I didn't like it well enough to take the time. I liked all your comments, obviously the book has merit that just passed me by. Petra asked "Is it realistic to suppose that people will care about a whale?" The whale was the only one I did care about. I can't believe, even as degenerate as he was, that Voskresenye was not only going to kill her but also to rip apart her DNA so that she could never be cloned. My objection to this book was the same, though to a lesser degree, as that to Ash. Ugliness, violence and inhumanity was depicted for no reason. We have to wade through all that torture (did we need to think about cages of people piled together as they slowly died?) to get to the message that homophobia and censorship are bad, the ends don't justify the means, enforcement of one extremist group's view of an improved society is bad for individual growth, perhaps romantic love between two people is less important than freedom for society as a whole? That said, there were some things I liked about it. I liked the idea of sharing a self with a whale, cameras, the warm car, calling Sgt. Pudding, Africa as the pinnacle of civilization, the square miles (though I never understood what they were), the Uniform Army (ditto), polite Postcops, Voskresenye "waking" during a chess game, suppression chips and desuppressing. I liked lots of individual things just not the way they were put together or the glue of ugliness that bound them. I guess there had to be one voice of dissent. Joyce the Faithless (from Door Into Ocean) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 23:11:29 +0800 From: Carol & Phil Ryles Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Fortunate Fall To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Hi, so I was a little surprised to see that there wasn't another > mention of Katya again after a chapter ending that suggested she could > still be alive (and believe it or not, I thought for a while that Katya > and Keishi were somehow linked or possibly the same person, mainly > because they seemed awfully similar in the way they managed people). Yes, I agree. I was extremely disappointed at not learning that Katya and Keishi were the same person. > Regarding the importance of the whale: Well, if the weavers made the > impact of the whale less important, or made people feel that way, then > it's kind of a moot point about its importance to this society. I tend > to lean toward thinking that in this book, people would not have > attached much emotional importance to the whale. People would notice for > the novelty of it all, but that living in a virtual world removes the > urgency of the physical, both the corporeal and nature. Now I have mixed feelings about the whale: At first I thought it would be important to this society because 1) the weavers are only interested in manipulating behaviour that threatens the present (at one stage Keishi tells Maya that the weavers forget things that are no longer important). If there is information about the history of whales on just one person's little electronic encyclopaedia, then maybe it would get out. 2) the extinction of the whales can be looked upon as a kind of genocide -- one of the horrors that weavers are supposed to be preventing. Therefore, having a survivor right there in front of everyone may well cause a stir. And what reason would the weavers have to prevent it? The last surviving whale would be a reminder of the horrors that were perpetrated before deviant behaviour was screened out. Then I moved on to the next question about why the horrors of the Unanimous Army made such a small imprint on general consciousness compared to the Holocaust: I think the answer is in chapter 17 where Voskresenye tells Maya that there are no telepresence accounts of people who experienced the horrors of the Unanimous Army -- there is only Telepresence of people talking about it, which is not the same. The reason there are no telepresence accounts is because Voskresenye claims that the weavers have filtered them out so that people will not hate the Gardians enough to think that the Unanimous Army was justified. I guess whether or not they would want to filter out knowledge about the whales depends on how much they would want people to hate or not hate the past. I liked the idea of the four Gods of Africa: His-Majesty-in-Chains (General sympathy), Only-A-Man (individual sympathy) and calculator-king (law). I once read an article about panocracy, where it was defined as an improvement on democracy -- A logical use of telepresence. But I found the conclusion that the only woman of the four -- the Unknown King -- should be the one who turns away .) I was kind of anticipating that she would be the invisible one, so was disappointed at not having an explanation as to why she should be the one to turn away. Did I miss an important hint somewhere or is this the reason why Maya walked away in the end? Carol.