Chaos and Order- Book Review and Discussion

I just finished reading Chaos and Order, which is the fourth entry in the Gap Cycle by Stephen R. Donaldson. From the outset, I can say that this is probably my favorite book in the series so far, which is what I thought about each of the last entries. In other words, this is exactly what you want from a series.

There might be some problems, but they aren't too crazy.

Overall (No Spoilers)

Much of what I enjoyed in this entry was much in line with what I talked about in the last review. The picture of the political landscape was made clearer in that last entry after the incremental buildup of the first two, and the story in this one is more or less a continuation of the third entry. As such, much of what I said in the last entries non-spoiler section could be placed here. This story more or less carries the story along in an immensely competent manner.

The characters are also fascinating, as ever. As we saw Holt's character up close last time in the very beginning of the entry, we get to see Hashi up close in this one, and we get yet another fascinating perspective. Better, I really started to notice differences in the writing from this perspective. Because Hashi is a brilliant scientist, this affects how he describes things and thinks about the events around him, providing an interesting twist on how things were delivered to us. And there is another more subtle thing that happens in Hashi's perspective in the very beginning that both creates some tension and foreshadows events that will happen later in the story. The function of Hashi's opening chapters is quite different from Holt's, but they have an interesting purpose.

We also get a much better perspective on Dios and his plans in this entry. We are more or less in on his schemes, though I am prepared (at least in the abstract) for more developments. His plan is rather bold, and I am excited to see how it goes—and hopefully how it blows up in his face.

I was also right about at least three predictions that I made in the last review with regards to Holt, the Amnion, and Angus, though I will not specify any of them here. I'm giving myself many pats on the back for that. Or I should say "these" to emphasize that it's plural. Multiple correct predictions. Look at me, so clever.

I think the battle sequences at the very end of the book were incredibly well-earned. Donaldson seems to understand that the best battles are the ones with serious limitations built in, not necessarily the ones with unlimited escalation. At the same time, escalation can happen, but only within certain bounds.

Additionally, the conflict had multiple parties involved, which allowed for more unpredictability, as the characters do not know the allegiances of all the other players, nor do they know the number of players on the field in the first place. There is nothing more exhilarating than a battle sequence where the characters knowledge of the events and their circumstances are constantly being forced to update over time.

Another thing worth mentioning is political side of the equation. As far as it seems, there are two plotlines in this story that are loosely connected. There is the main plotline involving the original three main characters, and then there is the secondary plotline involving the higher-level political maneuvering. As the events on the ground unfold, there is also the politics, and we finally see the end point of one of the key political movements that was set in motion in the third entry. I loved the way in which this was presented. Things seemed to pan out one way, and technically they do land in one direction, but all the seeds are sowed for something to happen in the last entry. Even if I delved into spoilers, I would not be able to say anything specific; I would only be able to speculate. This is the best kind of development.

We also get a hilarious end to a character, maybe two. Either way, I quite simply laughed.

Finally, I thought that there were some problems in the series that are also beginning to crop up. There were a lot of missed opportunities, and while some of them might be addressed in the last entry of the series, I still think that the story would have been augmented if these various complaints had been addressed earlier in the story.

Conclusion

Overall, I thought the story was amazing, the best in the series so far. I will give it a 9/10.

Spoilers

Hashi

In this entry, we get a closer look at Hashi, and what we see is something more complicated. He is certainly his own man, and he is not sycophantic in any way. He is willing to lie and send half-truths to Dios in the aftermath of Thanatos Minor exploding (and in general, I'm sure).

In the very beginning, we see Hashi operate so freely that it really looks like he has his own ends in mind. He acquires information by his own means, reasons his own way to conclusions, and even takes drastic action in the face of his conclusions—and he does this all behind the back of Dios. He literally orders the deaths of all the occupants of Trumpet because his is startled that Morn had somehow survived.

This actually leads to another point worth mentioning, which is that Dios never told him about his plan to have Morn survive. Hashi is not wholly in the know, either. And Hashi's reaction helps flesh out his character by showing that he is not sinister in his motives (in relation to Dios); he actually wants to helps Dios, he just thinks that he knows better and can help from behind the scenes. This is further shown in the Council meeting where the bill was finally proposed by Vertigus. It is obvious that Hashi wants to help Dios based on his reactions to the situation. He even saves the day, which I did not expect; I thought he was about to yeet himself out of there, haha.

There is one last thing that is worth mentioning that I quite liked with regards to Donaldson's writing. In the first Hashi chapter, we see him drum up a theory based on the knowledge that Sorus' ship is the former Gutbuster, which was the ship that killed Morn's mother. Basically, Morn wanted revenge on the ship. But the reader knows that this is false, if only because Morn is not aware of the nature of this ship.

The reason I appreciate it so much is (1) because it's another example of a character making reasonable inferences from likely assumptions that turn out to be false, and (2) because this actually foreshadows Morn's eventual realization of this truth that happens later in the story. I've mentioned the first reason in other entries, and the fact that there is another factor rolled up with it just makes it all the better.

Dios

The main thing that can be said about Dios is that his plans have more or less been revealed to the reader. The scheme behind the scenes was to use Milos to spread the idea of an immunity to the Amnion in the hopes that they will commit an act of war in an attempt to stop Nick and Angus from escaping with the information and sharing it with the rest of humanity. The idea is that desperate action from the Amnion like this will not only make them look bad, but also make them easier to beat in the short term. Dios will be able to crush them in the short term and put them on the backfoot, instead of letting them build up their forces and attack on their own terms. Dios used the words "psychological retreat," suggesting that they would have to regroup in the aftermath of their failure, and that they would have to renegotiate for the long term.

This is obviously only the first step. Dios only reveals this much. I can't really judge the efficacy of the plan until I see the whole picture, but I do have some questions that I think are worth asking. Namely, how certain is Dios that things will go the way he thinks. My first thought, and I think I mentioned this in the last review, is that the Amnion might be provoked to go all the way right from the outset. By exposing them to the immunity drug, they might hurl themselves into conflict all at once; in other words, this act of war will only be part of a herculean attack that might just destroy both sides. Sure, the Amnion will be destroying their own chances; they likely won't win their ultimate aim; but Dios will have attained a kind of Pyrrhic victory. In other words, they both lost.

I just have real skepticism toward plans that expect particular responses like this. His plan seems to assume that the Amnion will be in "psychological retreat," when that might not even happen. And how similar are they? What is psychological retreat? Does that compute in the Amnion mind?

This is not a critique of Donaldson (at least not yet). We only have a picture of the plan in mind. And he might even have Dios fail for these very reasons. We will have to see.

In my notes, I have something written about Dios seeming to know about the source of the kazes. I cannot remember the specifics of his comments, but I did ask some questions, namely what purpose they served. The kazes seem to hurt Dios and help Holt, so that obviously points to the latter as the culprit. Unless Dios is trying to frame Holt. But who knows? To make matters more complicated, Hashi also seems to imply that Dios is in on this, despite the effect of the Kazes overall. I really don't know what to make of this.

Another interesting thing to mention is that Dios still trusts Hashi, even understanding his lying and Dios' inability to detect his lies. To be fair, this is bounded by Dios' options, which are not optimal—he can't just replace Hashi—but it shows that their relationship is very complicated.

Something that took me off guard was how honest Holt was about his suspicions toward Dios. I had the idea that Holt was now clued in and was going to strike back. But he still seems on the fence, if a little bit, and he tells Dios to his face that his mother thinks he is scheming against Holt. That caught me off-guard, and I'm not really sure what to make of it.

Finally, I was right about Holt using the Amnion in the hopes of living forever. Pats pats pats on the back.

Angus and Morn

In this entry, we get to see the first serious interactions between Morn and Angus. And to say that it is tortured is an understatement. Angus still seems to take their bargain at the beginning of the series seriously, and Morn recognizes that; and Morn has a new moral code that puts off a desire for revenge, and leads her to stand up to him, but also eventually help him. The dynamic that is emerging is rather interesting, and I hope Donaldson takes this in an interesting direction for the final entry. As for what that direction might be, I have no idea.

I also got another major prediction correct, though I admit this is pretty obvious. Angus is able to edit his datacore in this entry, and at the behest of Morn even. Apparently, the general idea is that you add a filter that can block out certain parts of the code; however, you construct the filter so that there is physical resemblance to the datacore itself, so that the filter cannot be seen and is effectively invisible. The datacore is so effective because it records any changes made, but with the filter, it basically blends in with the physical structure and cannot be seen. In any case, we see Angus finally escape his constraints, and we see it at the behest of Morn of all people, as she chooses to trust Warden Dios.

This leads to the final thing to mention in this section. Morn is given control of Angus by Dios with secret coding he provides after being ordered to give control to Nick Succorso. And she realizes that he has plans up his sleeve. More importantly, she decides to trust Dios, as she thinks that he is moving against Holt, the man at the very top. She takes the risk by freeing Angus. Finally, it is also implied that Dios does expect Angus to be released from his datacore, as he knows that Angus can edit it. We saw that in the second entry.

The Amnion and Soar

Calm Horizons and Soar are the two ships that managed to survive the destruction of Thanatos Minor. And because Sorus is bent to their will, she is forced to chase after Trumpet as it flees from the planet.

Sorus is more or less known for her dealings with the Amnion, and we get to see why that is. Basically, she has been given a slow acting mutagen that she can indefinitely delay by taking a drug that the Amnion give her. As long as she is compliant, she must submit to them. Not only is this a good explanation, but Donaldson also manages to tie this in to the plot when she uses this drug to control Ciro.

We also get to see our first? reference to the hive/mind from her perspective, with hints at how the Amnion function. And this is supplemented by the ancillary reading that Donaldson provides later in the entry. Basically, humanity has no idea how the amnion work, though they do know that the aliens communicate in ways that go beyond speech. One theory is that there is a literal hive/mind, similar to ant colonies, while others think it is metaphorical. Unfortunately for the first explanation, the introduction of the machine for instantaneous communication seems to imply that they aren't all interconnected like a hive. Unless space complicates that. Either way, I can sense something looming in the last entry that could change everything.

Finally, there is the death of Sorus. She comes up with this clever little scheme where she would help Punisher destroy Calm Horizons, so she can take her needed drug and escape their control. But she assumes that Calm Horizons would use their proton cannon to attack Trumpet. Of course, they don't. They just kill Sorus. Bye bye. Lol.

Problems

I also had some problems in the story, though they aren't that devastating.

Valdor Cometh

The Valdor system seemed to have been introduced out of nowhere. I just got major "make it up as you go" vibes from it. This isn't heresy, to be sure. People add elements to their stories as they go all the time. But the way that Donaldson had set up Thanatos Minor made the existence of the Valdor system seem unlikely. First, it seemed that all illegals went to Thanatos almost exclusively, but now many go to Valdor too?

It is too obvious that Valdor was introduced to have a place where the Amnion could be drawn into committing an act of war, where that could not have been done at Thanatos Minor, given that the latter was in Forbidden Space.

But that leads to another few related points. I was also a bit blindsided by Angus' lack of knowledge of Valdor. It's apparently because he doesn't have gap drive? As I write this, I'm only more confused. I thought he did have one, but that no one knew. I'll have to read the first entry again, because I know I must have missed something.

And this all makes less sense, knowing that the lack of a gap drive somehow explains Angus' lack of knowledge. The Valdor system is simply too far away for anyone to reach without a gap drive, right? But it's still in Human Space. But Thanatos Minor isn't? I guess this isn't impossible, but the geography of it all is still weird enough to make me ask questions.

Sib Lost in the Vacuum

Part of me thinks that Sib should have died off screen. The rest of the crew have no idea about his end. They think he either got sucked into the black hole, lost air, or was killed by Nick. This should have been the case for the reader, as well.

Nick Succorso is . . .

I was a little let down by Nick's end. In retrospect, it has grown on me. The man basically goes mad with the desire for revenge. At the same time, I had guessed that he had gotten aboard Soar and was waiting to kill Sorus at the end there. I was hoping for something more impactful. But he just dies and . . . well, I guess he's just gone. As I said, in retrospect, he did have an impact, as he took out the proton canon—so this is less a problem than it was before.

But there is a bigger problem. The whole time I was predicting his return, it was on the basis that we still did not know his real name. He took on Nick's name after being taken advantage of by Sorus. I thought this was setting up something in the future. Unless Donaldson has some posthumous twist, this went nowhere.

Another problem is the execution. Sorus does not know Nick as "Nick." He took that name after her betrayal. So why does she refer to him as "Nick," especially if he means nothing to her? And the fact that this name change was apparently never meant to be a great reveal only makes this more a problem. I think Donaldson made a slight execution mistake.

Proto Trans Woman

In this series, we see the forced-birth of Davies, which leads him to having the mind of his mother—a woman, no less—and a male body. Setting aside the interesting connections to modern politics, I thought that Donaldson could have done more to explore this idea. I don't think he had trans people in mind when he wrote this. Or, if he did, then it feels more like a "check the box" kind of inclusion.

But trans inclusion is not the point. What matters to me is that I got more telling than showing when it came to the occasional references to Davies being a woman on the inside. Or being anyone else. I never really felt it. And I had an idea of how it could have been done. Basically, get more personal. Specific memories should have been included from intimate points in Morn's life. Davies should have had recollections of things like Morn losing her virginity. This would have been quite impactful to Davies, not simply because she is his mother, and because of the extreme intimacy, but because of the sexual nature. The idea of a man remembering sex as a woman is profoundly disturbing, and the feeling of sexual dysphoria would be so profound.

The Big Bad Dragon

Do I really fear Holt at this point?

No.

I get the threat in the abstract. I understand the influence he has and the control he flexes for, but in all the appearances on screen, we only see his vulnerabilities. Donaldson always mentions the fluttering of his eyes and the shaking of his hands. I get that these are defining motifs, but they make him appear weak, if anything. I still don't get the sense that he is doing anything in response to Dios, either; maybe the kazes. The fact that he is so honest to Dios about his suspicions is yet another reason he does not feel as sinister as he ought to.

Why did he let Dios go ahead and hire Koina? Shouldn't that be a red flag? He ought to be flexing more influence than just giving Angus over to Nick (which gets subverted anyway). I hope Koina turns out to be a Holt plant, but the odds of that are very low.

Donaldson's Ideology

I talked a bit about Dios' ideology in the last review that I wrote, and I had some confusions about what he was trying to achieve. I am now going to operate off the assumption that Dios is a reflection of Donaldson's own ideology. I think I disagree with the ideology, so I want to talk a little about that in this review.

To start, my understanding of Donaldson's ideology is as follows:

(1) The Amnion are the main justification for piracy. They are the forbidden entity that pirates sell their product to.

(2) The UMCP is justified by the Amnion, as the former are against the piracy that the Amnion create.

(3) The UMC's power is maintained by keeping the Amnion alive, namely by suppressing the immunity drug.

(C) So, making the immunity drug public will lead to the destruction of the Amnion, which will also cause the UMCP to lose relevance, which will cause Holt to lose power.

(4) He also believes that the UMC can then be replaced by different institutions run by people of better character, and that this will make the world a better place: "The borderlands needed men and women with the force to extract safety and order from the conflict—and the goodness to do their jobs without becoming just another kind of guttergang." Min Donner and Morn Hyland seem to be the people of goodness.

My first objections, which I mentioned in the last review, were with respect to assumption (1) above. I just did not get why piracy was being tied to the Amnion to the degree that Donaldson seemed to be implying. After all, we have piracy in the real world, and there are no aliens to my knowledge. But I think the main point Donaldson is making is that they cannot negotiated with or appeased by some benign system that could set up economic relations that would destroy all incentive for piracy. And this is possible in the abstract, if all parties are human.

That lets me highlight the what I think the actual point of contention is, then. I think it comes down to (4). The political theories that I adhere to are the one's closer to game theory, like the one put forward in The Dictator's Handbook. What matters is that game theory supposes self-interested action (if not psychology) from the individual actors; and The Dictator's Handbook supposes that all leaders care first and foremost about acquiring and maintaining power.

And this contrasts with Donaldson. He seems to think benign institutions arise from men and woman of "goodness," or moral character. It is a kind of virtue ethics. And the fact that Dios is selling his soul is another thing to consider. He is acting for the good of the world, but he is doing many awful things, and will almost certainly come crashing down with Holt in the end.

And I think that character is almost always irrelevant to determining what a benign institution is. My assumption is that leaders care about acquiring and maintaining power first and foremost. And the reason is rather straightforward. These people are selected for over time. Those who don't prioritize power are more likely to lose it; the opposite is the case for those who do. Instead, you make an institution "benign" by orienting the incentive structures so that leaders maintain power by appeasing as many people as possible. Hence, democracy. If your power depends on millions of voters, then you will have to appease them all with helpful policies, if only for pragmatic reasons.

The reason this matters is that Donaldson is skipping over the most important part by giving the wrong answer. Men and women of character exist, but they don't hold on to power for very long. Either by design, or for reasons that I mentioned here.

The process of setting up these institutions is also incredibly messy. And that will lead to piracy. Unless the power of the UMCP sans the UMC is universal, and unless they have some neat little economic order to disincentivize piracy, that piracy will exist. The vision of progress is all downstream of establishing something benign in place of Holt, and it is not "men and women" of character.

We can't just have a self-sacrificial wrecking ball like Dios to pave the way for people of character, but an empire building tyrant too. And like Holt shows, this undermines the system of incentives that would mold rulers into "nice" people that we would need them to be in the end. Look at the West, particularly America, today.

Conclusion

Overall, I liked the book. I will give it a 9/10.

Video: https://youtu.be/CwmVcFzunoU