Question about Pushing Ice (spoil-ish)

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cosmicalstorm
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Question about Pushing Ice (spoil-ish)

Post by cosmicalstorm »

I finished reading the novel Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds the other day and I figured it was pretty good. But there was one thing that I never made any sense of, at one point halfway through the book there is a short quip about a truck driver who begins to drive the same route every day, this makes the alien mechanism that runs the moon annoyed, finally it creates a "strong localized gravitational field" and devours him. Why would the Moon be angered by repetitive actions? Why is this a problem? Does it connect with the general plot in a way that I failed to notice?
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Re: Question about Pushing Ice (spoil-ish)

Post by B5B7 »

I read 'Pushing Ice' about a month ago - I don't recall that there was any explanation for this behaviour by the artificial moon. Incidentally, this book begs for a sequel.
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Re: Question about Pushing Ice (spoil-ish)

Post by Samuel »

One thing I never got was they were unable to confirm the amount of fuel they have in the tanks. Don't they need to know the mass whenever they are accelerating?
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Re: Question about Pushing Ice (spoil-ish)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

There wasn't any explanation, although it could be easily explained, the purpose of the structure was to get different races together, and forcing them not to, say, bunker down, would be logical.
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Re: Question about Pushing Ice (spoil-ish)

Post by Ford Prefect »

The obvious explanation is that the moon is an asswipe.
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andrewgpaul
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Re: Question about Pushing Ice (spoil-ish)

Post by andrewgpaul »

Perhaps that truck driver was driving over the moon's sensitive bits, repeatedly.
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