Arrival Discussion

Ryk has written that this was the first book he wrote, and that it was replaced in his brain with the later events that became the FS. Not sure if he would go back to this era, except as another bridge. Maybe between books 30 and 31...

I recently read Arrival, and I'm not too impressed. Sure, there were some nice tidbits, and the description of a brand new planet added a lot of fascination to the mix. But overall, there were just too many things I couldn't quite accept, for it was too hard to suspend my disbelief. Others were just drawn out way too much.

In my opinion, the crash landing took up way too much space. Seriously, it felt like all the novel would be about was that crash landing at some time. Eventually, it didn't give me a feeling of excitement or anticipation any more. Instead, I was seriously fed up with the endless crash landing. "Can't we finally move on?" was foremost on my mind for quite some time.

The worst thing, though, was the "mutations" occuring in the two guys traipsing through the wilderness. Eating strange genes doesn't change you. First of all, they'd get split up into their components - sugar, phosphoric acid and the three bases. Period. Even the proteins made from these genes get split up that way, down to amino acids.

Even if, despite all odds, some "genes" would pass through the digestive system, they'd not be able to do any harm (unless there's an allergic reaction - which usually happens with proteins, not DNA), there's no way they'd simply change you. They'd have to get into your cells, more accurately into your nuclei - which is something genes cannot do. (Unless you're talking about bacteria, which have no nuclei to begin with. But humans are not bacteria...) Unless said genes are part of a virus. However, viruses don't do well with heat, and cooking water or meat should kill them off. (DNA doesn't do well under heat. Neither do proteins.)

But even viruses need to find an enzyme they can dock at - which is why many viruses infect only one species or a number of closely related ones. Even if an infection on a new kind of organism occurs, said infection usually doesn't spread, unless the host suffers from a double infection involving the "wrong" virus and a closely related virus adapted to said host. That, by the way, is the reason why many new strands of swine flu don't spread (at first). Now, whatever that hypothetical virus may be, it's highly unlikely that it has a counterpart on people (humans!) from a far-away world.

And then comes the cure, deus ex machina. After all, it's a simple matter of having one over-worked and semi-trained scientist, a lead and a couple of hours of work to find a cure. That's why AIDS, flu, ebola, herpes and the like have been extinct for ages. /sarcasm

I'm afraid that this part of the plot seriously broke the whole story for me. 🙁

Melanie, don't you go bringin' "Science" into this here thang. We likes thangs the way they is. 🙂

Seriously, I like the factual approach you take to it. I much prefer my space opera in the hard science vein. In this case, though, this was Ryk's first attempt to write a book, that he just threw out there because he needed some income while setting up the next 15 book series. I'm willing to cut him some slack merely because it is cheap, and I have gone back to look at my own writing. I think I am writing an epic, and then I re-read it and discover I can't put 12 words together without making the dialog sound wrong.

So I agree with your criticism, but I personally cut him slack over this one.

Suspend your disbelief for the sake of happiness. I do that alot. Climate change? Grow old alone? Not be ah good Speellr? Sci Fi ex machina?

Forget what you know, suspend your disbelief Everything the book said was true by virtue of you shutting up and slapping yourself in the face hard enough to remind you it is!

And remember; the world IS upside-down and that when the poles switch, we CAN prove it!

I guess the problem is that I had some science training, mostly biology and physics. And, well, it's hard to go against what you were taught. In great detail, no less.

And I didn't even start on the recorder flute - which I happen to play...

So it looks like the audio version of Arrival will be available for purchase from Tantor Media on July 12th, 2016. This book is narrated by a gentleman named David Drummond. I personally have not listened to any books narrated by David but I have ventured onto audible.com and searched for other works that he has performed so that I could take a sample listen. I understand that a 2 to 5 minute clip isn't really enough to rate a narrator so I won't. Everyone already probably has these links saved to their favorites bar or in a folder of the like so just look past them if you do, but if you don't here is a link to Tantor, and a link to audible so that you can check them out too.

Tantor Media
https://tantor.com/arrival-yk-brown.html

Audible
http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_hp_tseft?advsearchKeywords=David+Drummond&filterby=field-keywords&x=11&y=14

Hey Ryk, I just finished Arrival and I really enjoyed it. Quite different from Frontiers. Pretty cool that you've tied this book into the same universe. There were few questions though that were left unanswered that I wondered if you could comment on. The first question is, who are the blue creatures that are running around. It seemed as though that is what jack was turning into. The book mentions that the creatures dna had mutated. I kept expecting to find out that the blue creatures were from another expedition that was stranded there earlier than the Icarus. Are you able to tell us what your thoughts are on them?

My second question is what actually caused Jack's mutation and why wasn't it happening to everyone else? I don't think you mentioned that he had been wounded by one of the blue creatures. Was he mutating from an environmental factor, or was it from something else? Hope you can provide some insight.
Thanks

Eating the local Food speed up mutation
Eating a certain Herb/root prevented it
The Captain and his Rock Specialist frienemy eat from the land while the Crew ate from hydroponics and stores for longer.

As to the Blue Creatures its possible that they were a mutated native creature or mutated former explorers. (It would make sense for a repressive government to hide the fact they have explored other systems / It would make sense for a mutagen to mutate two different things into a similar (not identical - that was never stated) end product.)

That a local DNA mutation would impact on a foreign DNA doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you subscribe to the idea that Life was implanted on different planets by an ancient advanced peoples to spread life to the cosmos... which could have happened - if they came here, saw the place, were not impressed and accidentally left bacteria behind them when they left... same base DNA - very Base DNA would then be present on two planets in different systems!