Difference between revisions of "The Wall of Storms"
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| − | '''Liu, Ken. ''The Wall of Storms'' (The Dandelion Dynasty #2).''' New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016. Also available as a Kindle book from Amazon.com and an audiobook from Audible. Goodreads lists other editions and translations.[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18952381-the-wall-of-storms] | + | '''Liu, Ken. ''The Wall of Storms'' (The Dandelion Dynasty #2).''' New York: Saga Press "An Imprint of Simon and Schuster," 2016. Also available as a Kindle book from Amazon.com and an audiobook from Audible. Goodreads lists other editions and translations.[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18952381-the-wall-of-storms] |
| − | The "[[Silkpunk]]" aspect | + | The "[[Silkpunk]]" weapons seen in Book 1, ''[[The Grace of Kings]],'' reappear toward the end of ''Wall of Storms'', but the Silkpunk aspect appears early in the plot: a kind of projector of silent movies and a holographic projector of a politically significant image. See the final section of the book (chs, 53 f., Part 3 of the audiobook download) for development in the Chinese scientific/technological tradition of a number of significant weapons — plus an DARPA-like program, including a full-scale laboratory dedicated to the development of those weapons.[http://www.darpa.mil/about-us/about-darpa] For the Silkpunk aspects, note especially |
| + | * submarines and lighter-than-air combat vehicles explicitly based on the anatomy and movement of fish, whales, and birds (ch. 55; audio 3.12; | ||
| + | * compressed air fire-starting devices (ch. 54; 3.11); | ||
| + | * "machines" and devices of great military significance evolving from temple and street "magic" using "The Silkmotic Force" (title of ch. 55, 3.12): i.e., electro-static energy explained in terms traditional to Dara (the country parallel to early Imperial China), including a theological labeling of what we'd call "positive" and "negative" charges; | ||
| + | * what we would call Leyden jars[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyden_jar] expanded to military importance by using the guts of dragon-like creatures plus the skills of a patriotic street magician, criminals, and scholars (chs. 58-60, 3.16-17). | ||
| + | Note very well the sophisticated expansion of the ideas of "machine" and "technology" and their relations to ways of thinking about a knowable Nature that bring together very literal, material mechanisms, scientific method, engineering as a discipline, poetry, cryptography, and even the formation of logograms — letters? — and ideograms. | ||
| − | [[CATEGORY: Fiction]] | + | Perhaps especially readers in disability studies (or perhaps general readers more so) should note a prosthesis for the leg of a major character who had been struck by lightning: Chinese experience with bamboo and plants with similar flexibility lies behind a kind of spring in the prosthesis that helps the character walk — for a very direct human/mechanism interface. |
| − | {{DEFAULTSORT:Wall of Storms}} | + | |
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| + | RDE, Initial Compiler, 7-15, 25 April 2017 | ||
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| + | [[CATEGORY: Fiction]] {{DEFAULTSORT:Wall of Storms}} | ||
Latest revision as of 17:18, 25 April 2017
Liu, Ken. The Wall of Storms (The Dandelion Dynasty #2). New York: Saga Press "An Imprint of Simon and Schuster," 2016. Also available as a Kindle book from Amazon.com and an audiobook from Audible. Goodreads lists other editions and translations.[1]
The "Silkpunk" weapons seen in Book 1, The Grace of Kings, reappear toward the end of Wall of Storms, but the Silkpunk aspect appears early in the plot: a kind of projector of silent movies and a holographic projector of a politically significant image. See the final section of the book (chs, 53 f., Part 3 of the audiobook download) for development in the Chinese scientific/technological tradition of a number of significant weapons — plus an DARPA-like program, including a full-scale laboratory dedicated to the development of those weapons.[2] For the Silkpunk aspects, note especially
* submarines and lighter-than-air combat vehicles explicitly based on the anatomy and movement of fish, whales, and birds (ch. 55; audio 3.12;
* compressed air fire-starting devices (ch. 54; 3.11);
* "machines" and devices of great military significance evolving from temple and street "magic" using "The Silkmotic Force" (title of ch. 55, 3.12): i.e., electro-static energy explained in terms traditional to Dara (the country parallel to early Imperial China), including a theological labeling of what we'd call "positive" and "negative" charges;
* what we would call Leyden jars[3] expanded to military importance by using the guts of dragon-like creatures plus the skills of a patriotic street magician, criminals, and scholars (chs. 58-60, 3.16-17).
Note very well the sophisticated expansion of the ideas of "machine" and "technology" and their relations to ways of thinking about a knowable Nature that bring together very literal, material mechanisms, scientific method, engineering as a discipline, poetry, cryptography, and even the formation of logograms — letters? — and ideograms.
Perhaps especially readers in disability studies (or perhaps general readers more so) should note a prosthesis for the leg of a major character who had been struck by lightning: Chinese experience with bamboo and plants with similar flexibility lies behind a kind of spring in the prosthesis that helps the character walk — for a very direct human/mechanism interface.
RDE, Initial Compiler, 7-15, 25 April 2017
