90's Sci-Fi Two Humans "Unfit" to move to Utopian Plane world work as ambassadors to recruit other aliens
ConversazioniName that Book
Iscriviti a LibraryThing per pubblicare un messaggio.
Questa conversazione è attualmente segnalata come "addormentata"—l'ultimo messaggio è più vecchio di 90 giorni. Puoi rianimarla postando una risposta.
1Emidawg
Sci-Fi I read this in the 90's although the book may be older. I believe I found it in the adult section as a paperback.
Follows a male protagonist, i remember him walking up to a terminal and answering questions it asks, this terminal sends you to an endless plane world where "ready" members of your species can settle and live without future worries. He asks questions instead of answering, and is told he's not ready to go to this place, but he would make a great ambassador.
He is paired with a woman who is also not "ready" and they travel to other worlds to visit aliens and solve problems. On one planet they are visiting the remainder of a population that were not "ready" to move to this plane world. The alien they meet is some kind of doctor going to take care of a pregnant alien. He is described as having a bullhorn like mouth. They end up moving all of the aliens that are left to an empty spot in the plane world to escape some cataclysmic disaster, perhaps something to do with reactivating nuclear power/weaponry.
On another world they visit, they are greeted by aliens who keep asking them who their masters are, and have no concept of not being owned by someone. They notice that some of the aliens have really flashy clothes/vehicles, and some are quite drab. Their guide is drab and when they ask him about this he says that only truly kind masters dont force their slaves to advertise their owners, being drab is good. The aliens cant comprehend how that the ambassadors aren't slaves, because no master would do something on their own, they'd send a slave.
Surprisingly, for all I remember about this book I cant figure out what keywords to search for to find it.
Follows a male protagonist, i remember him walking up to a terminal and answering questions it asks, this terminal sends you to an endless plane world where "ready" members of your species can settle and live without future worries. He asks questions instead of answering, and is told he's not ready to go to this place, but he would make a great ambassador.
He is paired with a woman who is also not "ready" and they travel to other worlds to visit aliens and solve problems. On one planet they are visiting the remainder of a population that were not "ready" to move to this plane world. The alien they meet is some kind of doctor going to take care of a pregnant alien. He is described as having a bullhorn like mouth. They end up moving all of the aliens that are left to an empty spot in the plane world to escape some cataclysmic disaster, perhaps something to do with reactivating nuclear power/weaponry.
On another world they visit, they are greeted by aliens who keep asking them who their masters are, and have no concept of not being owned by someone. They notice that some of the aliens have really flashy clothes/vehicles, and some are quite drab. Their guide is drab and when they ask him about this he says that only truly kind masters dont force their slaves to advertise their owners, being drab is good. The aliens cant comprehend how that the ambassadors aren't slaves, because no master would do something on their own, they'd send a slave.
Surprisingly, for all I remember about this book I cant figure out what keywords to search for to find it.
2DisassemblyOfReason
This sounds like Federation World by James White. (I'd be surprised if it isn't.) (My copy says: copyright 1988.)
The story you remember featuring the alien obstetrician is the last section of the story, which is set on Keida. The 'master'/'slave' one is their first mission after training, on Teldi. The Federation World doesn't initially have a lot of information on Teldi...Keida, on the other hand, was contacted quite some time ago, although there are still people alive from before first contact who are quite opinionated about it.
The Federation World classification system for people comes out 'Citizen', 'Non-Citizen', and 'Undesirable'. Martin, the main viewpoint character, at first doesn't know that 'Non-Citizen' exists as a category separate from 'Undesirable'. Essentially the Undesirables are the really bad types, from the Federation World point of view (generally relatively rare; this would include power-hungry types). The Citizens are ordinary people who just want to live and let live.
The Non-Citizens are OK people but they're the ones who are afraid they'd get bored in a life as Citizens, so they're trained for various specialties that help keep the system running. In the case of Martin and Beth, Martin is a contact specialist, usually first contact, while Beth is the starship handler who works with him and is his partner. There are mentions of people in other specialties at the beginning of the story, but we generally don't see much of them.
The book opens, as you've recalled, with Martin (and later Beth, whom he first encounters a little way in) going through the intake/testing process, which as you've remembered is via computer interrogation on screen. (It comes out that while the computers *could* be set up for voice input/output, the fact that the vocal inflection of the output wouldn't be quite right makes the text I/O system preferable.)
The Federation World itself isn't exactly an 'endless plane' but I can see why you'd remember it that way: very, very big and does give that impression when seen from ground level. It's actually a modified Dyson sphere: a hollow shell built around a star, with the inner surface of the shell covered with soil as needed and turned into living space. (That's my best shot at a description, anyway.)
Teldi, the master/slave setup, sounds at first to Martin like an obviously bad system, with the Masters as obvious Undesirables. Not surprisingly for a James White story, there's more to the situation than Martin at first realizes.
Keida is a different challenge, and that's the part of the story where Beth gets to be a more active player, and comes along with him for once, as it's not a *first* contact situation. Since she's the starship handler rather than the contact specialist, she's not usually on the ground with Martin, but on board ship doing her job (and keeping him from getting killed a time or two or three). The Federation World personnel make a point of beginning a first contact with some very blatant displays of technology, always including removing any nuclear weapons from the culture they want to contact, by matter-transmitting them far underground. Unfortunately, there's an Undesirable Keida politician who has made a project of trying to retrieve some of them in a seismically active area. You've remembered a lot about how badly that turned out.
The story you remember featuring the alien obstetrician is the last section of the story, which is set on Keida. The 'master'/'slave' one is their first mission after training, on Teldi. The Federation World doesn't initially have a lot of information on Teldi...Keida, on the other hand, was contacted quite some time ago, although there are still people alive from before first contact who are quite opinionated about it.
The Federation World classification system for people comes out 'Citizen', 'Non-Citizen', and 'Undesirable'. Martin, the main viewpoint character, at first doesn't know that 'Non-Citizen' exists as a category separate from 'Undesirable'. Essentially the Undesirables are the really bad types, from the Federation World point of view (generally relatively rare; this would include power-hungry types). The Citizens are ordinary people who just want to live and let live.
The Non-Citizens are OK people but they're the ones who are afraid they'd get bored in a life as Citizens, so they're trained for various specialties that help keep the system running. In the case of Martin and Beth, Martin is a contact specialist, usually first contact, while Beth is the starship handler who works with him and is his partner. There are mentions of people in other specialties at the beginning of the story, but we generally don't see much of them.
The book opens, as you've recalled, with Martin (and later Beth, whom he first encounters a little way in) going through the intake/testing process, which as you've remembered is via computer interrogation on screen. (It comes out that while the computers *could* be set up for voice input/output, the fact that the vocal inflection of the output wouldn't be quite right makes the text I/O system preferable.)
The Federation World itself isn't exactly an 'endless plane' but I can see why you'd remember it that way: very, very big and does give that impression when seen from ground level. It's actually a modified Dyson sphere: a hollow shell built around a star, with the inner surface of the shell covered with soil as needed and turned into living space. (That's my best shot at a description, anyway.)
Teldi, the master/slave setup, sounds at first to Martin like an obviously bad system, with the Masters as obvious Undesirables. Not surprisingly for a James White story, there's more to the situation than Martin at first realizes.
Keida is a different challenge, and that's the part of the story where Beth gets to be a more active player, and comes along with him for once, as it's not a *first* contact situation. Since she's the starship handler rather than the contact specialist, she's not usually on the ground with Martin, but on board ship doing her job (and keeping him from getting killed a time or two or three). The Federation World personnel make a point of beginning a first contact with some very blatant displays of technology, always including removing any nuclear weapons from the culture they want to contact, by matter-transmitting them far underground. Unfortunately, there's an Undesirable Keida politician who has made a project of trying to retrieve some of them in a seismically active area. You've remembered a lot about how badly that turned out.
