The HW/PC Book Club (May-June) ("Thaw's Hammer") is now in session!

I enjoyed reading it, though I'm a sci-fi junkie.

The idea of a highly contagious cancer is intriguing, and discovering it in frozen remains and still viable is a sobering thought. It's one of the issues I had with the original Star Trek series, where they'd just beam down to some allegedly hospitable planet, only to find some awful disease, parasite, predator, or whatever that would kill some and almost take out the whole away team. All too often they took it right back to their ship, usually unknowingly. Their exploration tactics were awful.

The scientists in this story seem to take reasonable precautions, though they were dealing with a type of threat so unforeseen that they didn't know what they didn't know. We explore at our peril, sometimes.

The runaway global warming theme is certainly a matter of current debate. For the purpose of the story it's fine, and I'll leave it at that. I hope this doesn't devolve into arguing about that. There are already too many people on the global stage carrying that argument along.

Something that I really liked about the novel's storyline is its plausibility. That biological remains unfrozen after a long period of time could possibly release dangerous pathogens into the world. There have been actual events in the real world where this has certainly been at least possible.

Every now and then we hear about the remains of a wooly mammoth, mastodon, or such being discovered after 10.000 years in frozen condition in places like northern Canada, Russia, or such. Scientists then proceed to transfer the remains to a museum or something, thawing them out in the process. Knowing almost nothing of paleobiology, I don't know how likely it is that any microbes from such ancient remains might somehow revive and pose a danger, but it at least seems possible.

Or how about the frozen remains if the 5300-year-old "iceman" found in the European Alps in 1991, a possibly even more chilling possibility, since being human he might possibly have been carrying microbes host-specific to humans?

Presumably the scientists in charge of such remain retrievals were well aware of such contamination possibilities, as remote as they may well have been, really, and I don't believe we have ever heard of any such contamination in real life resulting from the thawing out of these ancient finds.

But it would at least seem the possibility is actually there, and this adds to the plausibility, the believability and excitement, of "Thaw's Hammer."

Redwing57 – I liked your reference to the Star Trek contamination episodes (a common plot device for a number of their stories, as I recall) with the common element that they didn't know what they were dealing with. It also sort of reminds me of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds," where the Martians overwhelm earth technologically, but succumb to the simplest of earth's defenders, germs. (Something we had better keep in mind when we eventually go to Mars ourselves and possibly encounter alien microbes there, or else WE may wind up becoming infected like the Martians!)

The conversation is off to a great start here! Who else wants to join in?

After making my post above, I began to wonder to myself "Hey, just what is the oldest documented case of a living organism being in some kind of suspended animation for a long time, and then being revived?"

So some quick searching brought me to this Wikipedia article "List of longest living organisms":

/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organisms

When there, click on sublink: "Revived into activity after stasis."

That brings up a section reporting some truly amazing claims for this phenomenon. For example,

"During the 1990s, Raul Cano, a microbiologist at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, revived yeast trapped in amber for 25 million years."

Followed by the especially interesting comment:

"Cano's work and initial success were achieved with the help of entomologist George Poinar, the scientist whose 1982 paper on reviving specimens influenced Michael Crichton to write his award-winning Jurassic park."

So it looks like the premise of "Thaw's Hammer" is for real!

An interesting issue is the converse: Now that we are cloning a wooly mammoth, a species that has been extinct for 4,000 years, we have to consider the ethics of doing so. Is it humane to do this just for scientific curiosity? Just because we can do it, does that mean we should? This was touched upon in Thaw's Hammer:

pp. 38-39 said...
“If you step this way, you can see the only Gondwanatherians we have been able to clone from tissue samples.”

There were two one-inch long grayish animals with pig-like snouts. They burrowed in and out of the leaf mould and sniffed at some rotting logs. Their cage was made of Plexiglas.

“We try to keep the temperature, humidity and atmospheric composition as close as we can to the Eocene. We’ve been feeding them enriched milk, but we’re not sure what they ate. We’ve tried insect larvae, ants, worms, various vegetables and fruits. So far, nothing. It could be they can’t eat anything that now exists on the Earth. All we can do is keep trying.”

Dierdre looked at the small skinny animals with pity. They ought not have brought them into a world they can’t survive in, she thought.

“Have they accepted humans?” a woman asked.

“Humans are not allowed near them. We know these animals lack immunity to many of the diseases -- bacteria, viruses, and fungi that live in or on our bodies that we are not harmed by or may even be helped by. Contact with us might kill them. All the food we give them is irradiated with gamma rays to kill off any possible pathogens.”

“Like the boy in the bubble,” Dierdre said, remembering her history books.

“They might need some probiotic bacteria to digest food, but we have been unable to find any viable bacterial DNA in the intestines of the parent clone.”

They all looked pitiably at the tiny creatures, and filed back to the bus.


"Just because we can do it does that mean we should?"

Exactly the point made in Jurassic Park:

/www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PLvdmifDSk

Well, Redwing57, Tall Allen and I had a good, fun conversation a couple of days ago about "Thaw's Hammer" and some related issues suggested by the novel's storyline. I bet it would have been even more fun if more had joined in.

Looking at my notes I see that about six or seven of us (excluding Redwing57 and TA) had expressed an interest in taking part in this June discussion. If you are one of those, but for various reasons you'll have to decline participation this time, that's fine. But if you are still interested, please do make a post, even if it's just to say "hi," or to ask a question.

But apparently there is some interest in this thread, since as of this morning it has gotten over 250 views.

To encourage a little more participation, here are some topics for discussion. Look them over, and if any of them inspire you to post a comment or raise a question, please do so. All comments and questions are welcome.

Are the characters developed enough? Which was your favorite character in the story and why?

What about the pace of the story? Did you think the pace of events was good? Too rapid? Too slow?

What do you think was the most exciting scene in the story? What made it so for you?

Well, it's starting to look like the book club's June discussion may turn out to be a short one.

Redwing57, Tall Allen and I had a good conversation a few days ago, but, since then, despite the invitation for others to join in, as well as questions suggested for discussion, the response has been somewhat underwhelming.

I've taken to bumping the thread every few days or so, in case someone may see it and be inspired to want to come to the thread and post, but if there is no response over, say, the next week or so, maybe that's it.

I still think that "Thaw's Hammer" is a well-written and entertaining novel , especially if one likes sci-fi, and, yes, the fact that our fellow forum member Tall Allen is the author of it was a factor in my suggestion of the book for discussion.

Maybe the timing was bad. We all do lots of things all the time, and maybe some of us right now are dealing with enough other stuff that's really important to us, and taking up our time, that posting on the forum book club thread has not been an option. .

In any case, I'm going to keep doing a regular book club reminder bump until maybe mid-month or so, and then, as the club rules specify, start putting out feelers for a new book to be considered for the next club cycle (July-August). (Assuming there is still an interest in a forum book club at that time).

But, hey, there's still lots of time for anyone to drop in on the current thread to say hi and discuss, or even just ask questions about "Thaw's Hammer." Don't be shy.

Redwing57 -

That idea certainly works for me, as something to discuss.

One interesting thing about "Thaw's Hammer" is that it does suggest or allude to a number of issues, social, ethical, etc., like what you mention, that would likely arise and need to be dealt with if something like the Blue Cancer really did happen.

Redwing57's idea is indeed interesting! Anyone want to comment on it?

Jack, that's quite plausible. The one holding the cure would have to anticipate that, to make some countermeasure against it. Or could they license it to a government entity?

On the other hand, I'd hope that some kind of altruism could happen, that a dire and widespread need would appeal to some sense of "humanity" overriding the profit motive in such an extreme case.

In Thaw's Hammer, governments turn to military law to deal with the crisis. So while our laws, as well as those of most democracies, guarantee such rights as habeas corpus, in times of national emergency those rights can be suspended. Whole cities are effectively imprisoned without individual recourse to judicial remedy. We saw this during the recent Ebola epidemic - there were towns where no one was allowed to enter or leave, and religious freedom was suspended because burial rites spread the disease. A new Ebola epidemic may be beginning now, God forbid.

Even where there is no government restriction, people take it on themselves to ostracize the afflicted and those they believe to be responsible for the outbreak. In the early 1980s, when the HIV epidemic was beginning, some doctors and nurses would not treat people with HIV, and some schools kept children with HIV out. Gays became personae non grata in many places, and some ministers declared it God's judgement. During the Black Death in the 1300s, when nearly half the population of Europe was killed, Jews, who were relatively less afflicted in their segregated and often more hygienic communities, were massacred and burned alive. Over 500 Jewish communities were wiped out. People of faith have also been responsible for saving the sick and lepers when no one else would go near them. Disease seems to bring out the best in us and the worst in us.

Just got the book. I read a lot of sf/fantasy, as long as it's not too nasty. Mass extermination is borderline ok (as long as the characters are decent), but people hurting dogs is not. Go figure. Will chime in again later.

I'll let you know......😉