The Embedding

The Embedding by Ian Watson 1975

If you're the sort of person who likes to say, "They're off on a mission to steal a drug-addled Amazonian shaman's brain in order to trade it with aliens for the secret of inter-stellar travel" when asked how the book you're reading is coming along, then this is the book for you. If not, click 'Next Blog' at the top of the page (I did and got some erotic poetry).

The theme of this book is the relationship between language and reality. There are three threads which come together. The first is an institute where children are raised in an enclosed environment, pumped full of mind-expanding drugs, and observed for the effects it has on language. In one of the environments, mirrors and optical illusions are set up to permanently disorient the children (needless to say it doesn't all go as planned). The second story takes place in the Amazon, where a tribe which is about to have its environment destroyed by a huge dam, has been discovered to have a unique language, possibly inspired by a mysterious natural substance. The final, and perhaps weakest thread is that of the discovery, Greg Bear-style, of merchant aliens who trade in technologies and ideas, not the least of which is language. All these three threads have the same ultimate aim, the discovery of a new language form which can manipualte, or at least better describe, reality, although for the aliens the language seems to be a race, the Change-speakers. I'll let them explain it in their own words:

"They are variable entities. They manipulate what we know as reality by means of their shifting-value signals. Using signals that lack constants - which have variable referents. This universe-here embeds us in it. But not them. They escape. They are free. They shift across realities. yest when we have successfully superimposed the reality-programmes of all languages, in the moon between the twin worlds, we too shall be free."

See, simple.

I've often felt that science fiction is a genre and thought form which combines fiction with a particular discipline. This used to be purely science of course, but a book like this I would say was based on lingusitics. Anyone interested in this, particularly the Worfe Hypothesis, that language influences perception, will probably enjoy it. For those who want an adventure story, read Stainless Steel Rat.