Oh, and the Weave, if you're out there and need my help. I recommend that you read it and discover for yourself. I found myself setting the book down for long stretches to avoid yelling at it, "Mankind has been fighting for the entirety of recorded history, you jacka$$!" or "Good grief, have you never seen a boxing match or watched a football game? Humanity LOVES violence! That's why action movies make ten times the money as art flicks! (or symphonies- a fact of which you might expect a music professor writing one to be cogent.)ĭoes Will take his blinders off? Does humanity join the fight? Do we get wiped out because one college professor (who doesn't even friggin' TEACH!) can't keep his mouth shut when he's in over his head? While the book is well-written, particularly when it shifts to the point of view of the Amplitur, who really believe they are doing the right thing, Dulac's insufferable arrogance made wading through the rest of the book a chore. Well, Willie, considering that the people in question actually went interstellar and participated in the conflict while you sat safely on earth writing music, I'd have to argue that they are a lot more likely to persuade people like me than you ivory-tower morons living in the theoretical. Whose influence was most likely to persuade, theirs or his?" (Chapter 15, electronic version) The so-called recruiters the aliens intended to use consisted of an old drunk, an ignorant fisherman, and some poor boys literally taken off the streets. Not Will: "After all, he was a professor, an educated, sophisticated man. Anyone without the monstrous ego of a college professor would consider the decision whether or not to get humanity involved in an interstellar war would be a LITTLE above their pay grade. Will Dulac has no right to make decisions for us as a species. I'm sure we can all agree that one pacifistic music professor- currently not teaching and on sabbatical- speaks for each of the six billion humans on earth, right? Somehow I was lucky enough for advanced alien species to contact ME, and therefore I am going to interject my personal prejudices and bias into their perception of humanity, and potentially GET MY WHOLE FRIGGIN' PLANET DESTROYED BY THE AMPLITUR BECAUSE *I* DON'T LIKE VIOLENCE SO OBVIOUSLY NO ONE ELSE DOES, EITHER!" We don't want war any more, and we certainly don't want any part of an interstellar conflict!" can be boiled down rather simply to: "I am a music professor from New Orleans who is suffering from writer's block. His petulant insistence that "Humans are peaceful. Somehow I was lucky enough for advanced alien species to contact ME, and therefore I am going to interject my personal prejudices and bias into their perception of humanity, and pot Will Dulac needs to be punched in the mouth, repeatedly. Will Dulac needs to be punched in the mouth, repeatedly. Will tried to convince the aliens that Man was fundamentally peaceful, for he understood that Human involvement would destroy the race. What he found instead was a group of alien visitors, a scouting party for the Weave, looking for allies among what they believed to be a uniquely warlike race, Humans. Will Dulac was a New Orleans composer who thought the tiny reef off Belize would be the perfect spot to drop anchor and finish his latest symphony in solitude. And fight it did, for thousands of years. But the Weave's surprising unity also gave it the ability to fight the Amplitur and their cause. When the Amplitur and their allies stumbled upon the races called the Weave, the Purpose seemed poised for a great leap forward.
But the Weave's surprising unity also gave it the ability For eons, the Amplitur had searched space for intelligent species, each of which was joyously welcomed to take part in the fulfillment of the Amplitur Purpose.
For eons, the Amplitur had searched space for intelligent species, each of which was joyously welcomed to take part in the fulfillment of the Amplitur Purpose.