{"id":10186,"date":"2006-04-04T10:15:20","date_gmt":"2006-04-04T14:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2006\/04\/04\/10186.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:54:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:54:49","slug":"book-report-counting-heads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2006\/04\/04\/book-report-counting-heads\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Report: Counting Heads"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So. It seemed to YHB that Counting Heads was a sort of how-to course in exposition. Perhaps you already know this, Bob, but David Marusek<\/a> seems to have used every trick in the book to create situations where Bob needs to be told, or can plausibly be retold, information the reader needs but that the characters should already know. This has necessitated an entire science-fictional society of Bobs. Or, rather, Mr. Marusek has twisted some of the more common science fictions of the last generation in ways that let various characters in turn play Bob and the Expositor. It’s incredibly clever.\n

Digression: I am assuming that Gentle Readers all are familiar with the “As you know, Bob” idea of exposition. If not, the idea is that in many forms of genre fiction, there are key aspects of the world that all the characters would know without thinking about, and certainly without talking about that readers need explained. Authors who don’t like the (often dull) narrative-voice fill-in attempt to use dialogue for this, with one character telling another something he already knows, or at any rate would never converse about. As you know, Bob, Los Angeles is on the West Coast of America, and thus vulnerable to the sea monsters. As you know, Bob, if the President is incapacitated by the alien virus, the Vice President will assume his powers. As you know, Bob, people use keyboards to input information to their computers. Often Bob is given some reason for not knowing stuff (comes from a different city\/planet\/era, recently mind-wiped by malicious aliens\/virus\/government, is seven\/four\/ninety years old), but this runs the risk of turning Bob into a Watson, a clueless character incapable of driving the story or having any independent agenda. Also, Bob and the Expositors would be an excellent name for a rock band. No, well, but my point is still moot. End Digression.\n

So, I lost track of the number of tricks Mr. Marusek used. There’s the elderly guy whose memory is going. There’s the increasing reliance on subvocal conversations with mentars or whatever they’re called, sentient computers that provide elaborate logistical assistance and exposition. There’s the use of proxies and sims, that allow characters to interact and still have to have stuff explained to them later. There’s the training video. There’s the sales pitch. There’s the nostalgia. There’s the going-over-the-orders-to-make-sure-everybody-knows-them. There’s the prove-you-are-who-you-pretend-to-be. There’s the this-is-all-on-TV. If I’m remembering correctly, there’s even the interpolated news story.\n

Now, it may seem as if YHB is making fun of Mr. Marusek and his novel, but really, it’s impressive. It’s an achievement. And, furthermore, in between all the exposition, he’s stuck in a plot, a little blocky but definitely present, mostly leading up to a nice game of severed head, severed head, who’s got the severed head. Admittedly, I had a bit of a hard time remembering or caring who was where and on whose side and why, but—severed head! In a leaky sack! Talk about author points!\n

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So. It seemed to YHB that Counting Heads was a sort of how-to course in exposition. Perhaps you already know this, Bob, but David Marusek seems to have used every trick in the book to create situations where Bob needs…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-report"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17725,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10186\/revisions\/17725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}