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Eversion 5 - Mimesis and All That
There are some cool animations of the mathematics of eversion of a sphere online (eg 
or 
among others). These clearly inspired some parts of the book, such as the descriptions of the alien craft, and the almost-repetitive structure. Do you think Alistair Reynolds struggled too hard to force this kind of mimetic form onto the book? Were there enough other ideas in the book to round it out?
Comments
I didn't really see the eversion as performing any structural or mimetic function at all. If it was supposed to provide the basis for some kind of insight about identity, Reynolds needed to connect the dots (get it?) more explicitly for me.
And for the almost repetitive structure, I thought it too was a miss. I didn't see how eversion contributed to identity in this story. I've heard that Reynolds is working on a campaign, sorry novel-writing world with aliens, so maybe this is something that will be worked out in a future session, but I didn't see the point of it here.
I think the second eversion above is more like what Reynolds described, with areas of smooth and spiky skin interspersed. I got what he was doing - turning the story inside out in a series of inversions - like the alien ship had everted. I found it quite interesting.
Like @BarnerCobblewood I struggled to really work out the connection between the maths and the story he was telling. I even watched a few videos on it and by the end I could kind of understand the "idea" of it, but couldn't really grasp the specifics. Just not smart enough I guess.
I still don't understand it.