GREAT SKY RIVER

Gregory Benford

Bantam Books

New York

1987

REVIEWED BY: Deva Brown

August 1998

Imagine a race of machines called mechs, some intelligent, some not, some with organic components. Imagine humans who have been augmented with shocks, servo-mechanisms, and sensoriums that allow them to send and receive radio and electromagnetic waves. Imagine a planet, once cool and wet and full of humans, now warming and drying and full of machines. Humans are the vermin, the rats in the barn to be eliminated. Now imagine a machine with a great deal of curiosity about humans, an artist who uses his art to explore the gap between organic and mechanical forms, between those who can die and those who are disassembled and then reassembled. This is the world Gregory Benford explores in this book.

It is unclear in this story where the mechs came from originally. There is no indication that they were created by humans. They seem to have evolved on their own, but they have been usurping planets for some time, according to the memories of the people. Some of the mechs are not intelligent but are extremely functional. When the humans encounter these kinds of mechs, they know that as long as they don't disable or confuse the machines too much they are safe. Otherwise managers will show up to fix the problem, and if the problem is people, the managers will kill them. One machine the humans encounter is a renegade -- it had been ordered to be dismantled but had disobeyed, wanting to "stay alive". The concept of not accepting instructions is very foreign to mech society.

Human packs, on the run since their cities were destroyed by mechs, encounter a new kind of mech. Called a mantis, this mech has somehow been able to store its "mainmind" in far flung locations, enabling it to think faster and to be curious. With its "anthology intelligence", it can also "stay alive" when destroyed by humans because it can be put back together by its mindless companions, enabling it to continue hunting the humans it uses in its "art projects". The Mantis is also a renegade of sorts, but much higher up in the level of mech hierarchy, more able to circumvent managers. It could get into real trouble if other mechs found out that it had kept a group of humans rather than killing them.

Eventually three human packs are herded together by the Mantis, who "tames" some of them but also has to contend with a rebellious group who is shocked and dismayed by the "art museum" the machine allows it to see. When these people encounter the robotic equivalent of a dog, complete with barking and other dog-like behavior, they are able to access pre-invasion technology to deal with the Mantis.

I think Gregory Benford did an excellent job of creating an exciting story. His mech society is believable, having as it does intelligent managers, mindless drones, and mechanized humans. Benford writes in such a way that the reader understands the mech society. Because his human characters have so much of the machine technology within their own bodies, Benford creates some confusion about the blending of organic and machine characteristics. At what point can something be defined as human and something else as machine? The art project which the Mantis has created shows the confusion it feels about that very question.

The criteria I use to separate good science fiction from great science fiction is when the writer creates a world where the story he or she tells is totally believable within the context of that world. In my opinion, this is one of those great science fiction stories.

INTERESTING WEB SITES

1) http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/exper/kcramer/aow.html (an interactive introduction to the book THE ASCENT OF WONDER which is about hard science fiction)

2) http://secure.cyberus.ca/sfsite/intviews.htm (interviews with science fiction writers)

3) http://207.25.144.246/set/originals/ (the Hearing Eye Theatre, part of the SciFi Channel’s home page, which presents stories read over the Web. Listen to a nine minute story by Gregory Benford)

4) http://www.scifi.com/ (homepage of the SciFi Channel)