tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32020396960111425332024-03-05T18:22:02.197+01:00Speculative LivingA blog about ideas and experiences.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.comBlogger143125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-74184089428525891742012-09-07T15:13:00.000+02:002012-09-07T15:13:00.425+02:00"Tool of the Trade" by Joe Haldeman<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/423099.Tool_of_the_Trade" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Tool of the Trade" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1267317638m/423099.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/423099.Tool_of_the_Trade">Tool of the Trade</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12476.Joe_Haldeman">Joe Haldeman</a><br />
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/404923649">3 of 5 stars</a><br />
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"Tool of the Trade" belongs to a sub-genre of SF that could be called "Simon Says". <br />
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What if someone had the power to make other people do what they wanted, if free will came with an asterisk? This is entertaining source material that's mined over and over again in comic books (here are two examples: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Preacher-Vol-1-Gone-Texas/dp/1563892618" rel="nofollow">1</a> <a href="http://marvel.com/comic_books/collection/17441/ultimate_fantastic_four_vol_9_silver_surfer_trade_paperback" rel="nofollow">2</a>). <br />
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For the story to work, there have to be limitations on the power, a class of people who are immune, or some other reason why life isn't infinitely easy for someone who can just order people to do what they want. This story is no different. It plays with the material, but only goes so far in exploring the limits.<br />
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Haldeman's take on this sub-genre interesting is notable for its Cold War setting, its spy-novel flair, and its ending (which I won't spoil). It's also yet another example of Haldeman's enduring skill as a writer, which lies in taking a slice or two of SF and applying it on a human scale, with both drama and humor mixed in. Even when his subject is the nature of the universe itself (as in "Forever Free"), he still fills his characters with desires, with intelligence, with a sense of humor.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-91024150053444786802010-10-01T09:00:00.067+02:002010-10-01T09:00:02.924+02:00"Dying Inside" by Robert SilverbergYet again I'm surprised and pleased by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks">SF Masterworks</a> series, most recently for introducing me to Robert Silverberg's "Dying Inside".<br />
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"Dying Inside" sits somewhere between Kafka's "Metamorphosis" (in which a man awakes to find himself transformed into a bug) and "The Fermata" by Nicholson Baker (in which a man has the ability to stop time at will). David Selig, the main character of "Dying Inside" is a mind-reader. Unlike the main character of "The Fermata", he cannot bring himself to take advantage of his gift to gain an advantage (by reading stock tips, for example). Instead, in spite of his gift, David Selig struggles through life, vainly searching for some real connection and identification with the rest of humanity. <br />
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We meet him as his powers are waning, as the ability that defines him slips away and leaves him floundering. Even at the height of his power he has not found a connection to the people whose minds he can read, or to another telepath he encounters, or to the rare girl he finds whose mind he cannot read. As his powers fade, he becomes more hopeless until at last something has to give.<br />
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There's something to the phrase "mind reading". The beauty of this book is that as reader's to David Selig's narrator, we are privileged to explore his mind, to have his secrets opened to us and try to understand him. The novel makes us perfect receivers, just as Selig is, but we are powerless to transmit back, just as he is. Without his power, he struggles just as we all must to make a connection with others, and his drama is our drama. This is a great book, and highly recommended.<br />
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Silverberg's "Downward to the Earth" and "Book of Skulls" are also on the SF Masterworks list, I look forward to reading those very soon.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-34391802249937580082010-09-24T09:00:00.010+02:002010-09-24T09:00:05.633+02:00"Pavane" by Keith RobertsYet again, the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks">SF Masterworks</a>" series has delivered another amazing and unexpected book to my reading list. This week's entry is "Pavane" by Keith Roberts, an alternate history of England (in the same sense that<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/07/review-bring-jubilee-by-ward-moore.html">Bring the Jubilee</a>" by Ward Moore was an alternate history of the US). </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> Although England has quite a few turning points to choose from in its history, Roberts starts with the death of Queen Elizabeth by an assassin's bullet, and the conquest of a divided England by the Spanish Armada. From this single point of divergence and its immediate consequences, Roberts brings us forward to the year 1968. In this history, the Protestant Reformation never occurred, and the Church is a second Roman Empire. England and America are both provinces of the Church. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Although electricity, combustion engines, and other relatively modern inventions are known, their use is regulated by the Church as a means of preserving order and limiting opposition. Instead of radio or telegraph, giant towers use mechanical arms to signal in semaphore over vast distances, where scouts watching through binoculars record and relay messages that must travel beyond the line of sight. Metal and fuel are carefully regulated as well, so that freight is hauled by short trains of steam-powered cars that run on dirt paths rather than rails. This is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_steampunk_works">steampunk</a> without the romanticism, a second dark age where the Inquisition still has free reign. Into this difficult time come amazing characters, who fight against and sometimes transcend the limitations of their time. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div>"Pavane" was assembled from a series of six short stories set in the same universe. Two of the stories are standalone vignettes describing some aspect of this altered world. Four of the stories make a longer arc that takes us through three generations and (finally) beyond the long reign of the Church. Each story is compelling and breathes life into Roberts' England . The end of the arc is elegant, fitting, and true.<br />
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A final section ("Coda") accompanies the books, and here Roberts implies that the Church is aware of our world and has limited man's progress to avoid the horrors of World War II and the atomic age. I was recently thinking a lot about the role of a "modern man" in most time-travel novels. It simplifies the narrative, and makes it easier to comprehend. When working in the short form (television, movies), I can understand the necessity of simplifying a narrative in this way. In novels, it gives the author a means of steering the reader's understanding, of inserting an interpretation of the larger meaning of the novel. For whatever reason Roberts chose to use the device, it bothered me.<br />
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There is a similar moment in "Man in the High Castle" by Philip K .Dick, an alternate history in which the Allies lost World War II. In "Man in the High Castle", there is an author whose infamous and contraband book "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy" describes our own world.<br />
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In a key conversation, the author reveals that the novel was written entirely relying on the I-Ching to construct the narrative, and admits that he believes the world he describes (our world) to be the real one. These are characters attempting to peer beyond the edge of the page, looking at the audience, and it succeeds because they don't hold or force the moment. I'm almost glad Dick never finished the proposed sequel in which characters from the alternate present attempt to break into our world. It's better to leave a bit of mystery and room to imagine.<br />
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I disagree with Roberts' assessment of his England as an improvement, but more importantly, I think it undermines the strength of the book as a whole to spell things out in such detail, even if we're only ultimately talking about two paragraphs in a larger work. Maybe it's just me, I didn't want to know that "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_(Star_Wars)">The Force</a>" is actually produced by "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_(Star_Wars)#Midi-chlorians_and_the_Chosen_One">Midichlorians</a>", either.<br />
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</div>"Coda" aside, this is a great book, and the larger arc is a fine one. I would highly recommend that anyone read this book and make up their own mind about the rest.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-48456741370304441322010-09-17T09:00:00.000+02:002010-09-17T09:00:03.527+02:00"Pygmy" by Chuck PahlaniukIf you were to try to recreate American culture based on the works of Chuck Pahlaniuk, you would get quite an odd picture. <br />
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His characters are individuals, defined by their history, but straining against their limits. The subservient missionary in "Survivor" has been trained all his life to serve, to please people, to do a good job. He's so eager to please people that he mimics a different disorder out of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders" target="_BLANK">Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders</a> each week to give his case worker something to diagnose. He's so wholesome that he erases his own wholesomeness to please others. The main character of "Diary" is a prisoner of her own history, which has been recorded before she experiences it.<br />
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His characters are invariably on their way to find infamy in the crazed world they inhabit, even though that's rarely their goal. In "Rant", characters try to gain literal immortality by creating such a big disaster that they are pushed outside of time. In "Choke", a sex addict attends meetings to hook up with other addicts and get their best ideas. In "Invisible Monsters", a woman unties the knot that holds her life together (her beauty) and embraces the chaos that follows as she travels around the country with people whose lives are similarly unraveling.<br />
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His characters spend their lives tiptoeing around their (and other people's) secrets, only to crash through them all at once. The famed ending of "Fight Club" is only one example. The main character in "Lullaby" is running from the tragic death of his family (for which he was unwittingly to blame). The main characters in "Haunted" are each prisoners of their secrets, which are exposed to the reader one by one, leaving us witnesses to their hidden shame and denial.<br />
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His latest book, "Pygmy", is all of these things and more. "Pygmy" follows the eponymous agent of an unspecified dictatorship (or communist regime) that has trained its best and brightest to infiltrate, undermine, and destroy America. Each of these are planted in a host family through an exchange student program. You don't have to be a spy to detect your (host) family's secrets, but it helps.<br />
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Pygmy's inner monologue reveals nothing but contempt (and humor) as each fresh part of America's underbelly is exposed to him. He is a trained killer pulling his punches during the mock battles of spelling bees and dodge ball. He sees all of us as worthy of punishment, and seeks to live a life infamous enough to merit the punishment "the deity" has already meted out for him. He gains infamy, but not necessarily in the way he seeks, and not without encountering the usual assortment of oddly human characters (and caricatures) found in most Pahlaniuk novels.<br />
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Pygmy is a good example of Pahlaniuk's work and if you can get into the flow of the affected broken English Pygmy uses (which took me a while), it's an enjoyable and darkly humorous book.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-65860425887047038752010-09-10T09:00:00.000+02:002010-09-10T09:00:01.341+02:00"Timescape" by Gregory BenfordI'm nearing the home stretch with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks" target="_BLANK">SF Masterworks</a> series, and it's still full of surprising and great books. The latest example is "Timescape" by Gregory Benford.<br />
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Time travel is a well-explored concept to say the least in Science Fiction. From "The Time Machine" to "The Terminator" to "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQba92LBfHo" target="_BLANK">Futurama</a>", SF fans have read and watched as wave after wave of time travelers travel through time, creating ripples of paradox in their wake. In most works, the time traveler is exempted from paradoxes, and can witness the effects of the changes they make in the full knowledge of how the new world compares to the world they left behind. To name just a few examples:<br />
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<ul><li>In Ray Bradbury's "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sound_of_Thunder" target="_BLANK">Sound of Thunder</a>", a time traveler steps on a butterfly in prehistory and returns to an altered (and diminished) present.</li>
<li>In the "Back to the Future" series, numerous characters change the present by altering the past. The main character fades into a ghostly half-existence when he threatens to undo his parents' marriage.</li>
<li>In the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesterday's_Enterprise">Yesterday's Enterprise</a>" episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", a ship is sent forward in time and (as a result of its absence at a key point in history) encounters an altered future.</li>
<li>In Orson Scott Card's "Pastwatch", travelers from the future make changes in the time of Columbus to ensure that European and American cultures meet as equals.</li>
</ul>Traveling physically through time gives us a narrator who experiences another time with the same sense of wonder and otherness that we (the reader or viewer) do. It gives the author a natural means of describing the world in terms of specific differences from our own world. For the same reason, having the time traveler remain unaffected by the changes gives us someone to identify with and learn from as we try to make sense of the altered world. If the world is worse (as it often is), there's one character who can work to undo the changes and set things right. <br />
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Another good example is the relativistic time traveler, a person from our time who travels close to the speed of light and reaches their destination hundreds or thousands of years in the future. In works like "Planet of the Apes", these characters help bring drama to the story. "Planet of the Apes" would have been a very different work if there were no astronauts from our time involved in the story. We might simply see a cross-section of ape society from the point of view of a chimpanzee archeologist who discovered the ruins of the Statue of Liberty. In the right hands, it could still be dramatic, but it would be a slower-paced and more challenging kind of drama than following Charlton Heston as he bellows, outraged, through the world of the apes.<br />
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These two pillars of time travel works are incredibly common and (on the whole) enjoyable, but after so many variations on a similar theme, it's refreshing to encounter a book like "Timescape" that has something new to offer. The first key difference in "Timescape" is that no one ever actually travels in time. Only information (in the form of tachyon beams) is sent into the past. The right information can change the future, and that's all that's needed to explore the idea of paradox in more detail.<br />
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This brings us to the second key difference in "Timescape", which is the way in which paradoxes are handled. Benford's treatment is elegant and surprising, and evolves naturally as the characters involved (many of whom are research scientists) become aware of the possibilities. I'll avoid going into further detail to avoid spoiling anything for anyone who hasn't read the book.<br />
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Beyond those two variations, "Timescape" is a solid novel with good characters and story. We follow two sets of main characters, one in a near future in which environmental ruin looms, one in a near past in which a young junior professor struggles to avoid becoming marginalized as he discovers a message from the future hidden in the background noise in one of his experiments. Both time periods are well-rendered and the characters are memorable, even if in some cases they aren't particularly likeable.<br />
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This is a great novel with solid ideas and strong characters, and well worth a read.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-54909640633330186532010-09-03T09:00:00.062+02:002010-09-03T09:00:05.396+02:00"VOR" by James BlishI read my first James Blish novels working my way through the <a target="_BLANK" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks">Sci-Fi Masterworks series</a>, and it's been a pleasure to wander off the path and track down his other works. I found a few piles of Blish novels on my recent trip to San Francisco, and the last of these is "VOR", a short novel about a spaceship that crash lands on earth and its lone inhabitant, the first alien encountered by human beings.<br />
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On balance, this feels like a lesser work for Blish. There's nothing to surprise or stretch the imagination, none of the inventiveness, the philosophy, the scope of his more famous works. Except for the alien, the central character's main arc seems close to "Zero Hour" (the film on which "Airplane" was based, which was released the year before "VOR"), but without the tension or (laughable) melodrama. The ending seems like the sort of pat single twist you'd expect from a classic Trek episode. When it was released, I'd like to think it was better written than most pulp, and held its own with the films and novels of its day. It's not timeless, though, and unless you're a big Blish fan, you'll probably be a bit underwhelmed. <br />
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If you want something a bit more accessible, try <a target="_BLANK" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/02/spock-must-die-by-james-blish.html">"Spock Must Die</a>" if you're a Trekker, "<a target="_BLANK" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2009/08/after-such-knowledge-by-james-blish.html">Dr. Mirabilis</a>" if you're a history buff, and "<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/04/review-cities-in-flight-by-james-blish.html" target="_BLANK">Cities in Flight</a>" if you haven't tried Blish before).Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-27063842577061991892010-08-27T17:38:00.061+02:002010-08-27T17:38:00.304+02:00"House of Suns" by Alastair ReynoldsDuring my recent <a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-journey-to-west.html">journey around the world</a>, I caught up on a lot of reading. I don't usually think of myself as a fan of space opera. I think of it as something I'm not often in the mood to enjoy. Looking back, it seems like I've been in the mood often enough, as I made my way through the works of Ken Macleod (<a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/01/review-star-fraction-by-ken-macleod.html">"The Star Fraction"</a>, <a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/01/review-engines-of-light-trilogy-by-ken.html">The "Engines of Light" trilogy</a> and others not reviewed here) and Iain M. Banks (<a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/02/review-player-of-games-by-iain-m-banks.html">"Player of Games"</a>, <a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/05/review-use-of-weapons-by-iain-m-banks.html">"Use of Weapons"</a>, <a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/09/review-against-dark-background-by-iain.html">"Against a Dark Background"</a>, <a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/10/review-excession-by-iain-m-banks.html">"Excession"</a>, <a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/11/review-consider-phlebas-by-iain-m-banks.html">"Consider Phlebas"</a>, <a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/11/review-look-to-windward-by-iain-m-banks.html">"Look to Windward"</a>, <a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2009/05/inversions-by-iaian-m-banks.html">"Inversions</a>, <a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2009/05/feersum-endjinn-by-iain-m-banks.html">"Feersum Endjinn"</a>, <a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2009/12/algebraist-by-iain-m-banks.html">"The Algebraist"</a> and <a target="blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2009/12/matter-by-iain-m-banks.html">"Matter"</a>).<br />
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I had skimmed portions of Alastair Reynolds' work in bookstores in the past, but was never hooked until I finally took the chance and bought "House of Suns". I wasn't disappointed.<br />
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"House of Suns" tells the story of "the lines", families of a thousand clones of the same individual, who began life with a shared set of memories, and who set out to explore the galaxy. They reunite every hundred thousand years or so to exchange their memories over the course of a thousand nights. The telling takes three years and (owing to relativistic effects and the distances they must cover), it takes ten to twenty years for everyone to assemble. That the equivalent of a family reunion takes ten or more years is a sign of how long members of the line live and the time scale they operate in. These are explorers who plot wide arcs in both space and time.<br />
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Into this already interesting base Reynolds throws familiar but well-handled material such as forgotten civilizations, machine intelligences, conspiracy, treason, and murder. To dwell on any of it in great detail would be a disservice. Suffice to say it's an enjoyable mix of hard Sci-fi and drama and a fairly short read (as space operas go). I found it a good introduction to Reynolds' work and worth checking out.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-50200691130351911662010-08-20T09:00:00.088+02:002010-08-28T18:43:26.977+02:00"Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris StrugatskyI had never read any Science Fiction coming out of the former Soviet Union until I finally sat down and read "Roadside Picnic", one of the few remaining books in the Sci-Fi Masterworks series. <br />
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The Strugatsky brothers describe a world scarred by alien visitation. The central metaphor is of a roadside picnic viewed by the ants, for whom each piece of trash left behind is an artifact of a god-like intelligence. The unseen aliens are the picnickers, and we are the ants. The picnickers left behind scarred, altered places, littered with strange artifacts and dangers. The artifacts bring new discoveries, new technologies, new money to those daring enough to find, study and exploit them. Enter the "stalkers", fortune hunters who brave strange death to retrieve alien artifacts and sell them to those who would study them.<br />
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What makes this book great is that the dynamic it describes is only marginally related to alien technology or even science. "Roadside Picnic" is really a study of how money is exchanged for life. Some sell their lives as a hopeful gesture, thinking that their sacrifice will mean greater things for themselves and their family. Some sell their lives for drink, and smoke, and women, and then risk it all for another day of the same. All are making the same choices that people have made for millenia, and are recognizably human and full of life, love, and fear. Put another way, it's a study of the potential of capitalism, and the terrible costs. <br />
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As with many translated works, the language, expressions, and meter are a bit strained at times, but it rarely detracts from the book. It's a great book, a quick read, and well worth the time.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-63710593795938902952010-08-13T09:00:00.165+02:002010-08-13T09:00:02.926+02:00Three Tales of Immortality: "Welcome, Chaos" by Kate Wilhelm, "Time Enough for Love" by Robert Heinlein, and "The Passage" by Justin CroninWhen I started grazing through the Sci-Fi Masterworks series a few years ago, I had never heard of Kate Wilhelm. Her "<a target="_BLANK" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/03/review-where-late-sweet-birds-sang-by.html">Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang</a>" was a wonderful discovery, a meditation on the changes cloning might have on the nature of individuality. Wilhelm's "<a target="_BLANK" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/09/let-fire-fall-by-kate-wilhelm.html">Let the Fire Fall</a>" reminded me of Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land", with its mix of superhuman potential, power politics, and religion, and recently I happened to read two books on similar topics by Wilhelm and Heinlein within a few weeks of one another. I had planned to compare their takes on immortality, but while mulling things over I read Justin Cronin's "The Passage" (one of this summer's hot reads), and it just made sense to write about them all in one sitting. <br />
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Justin Cronin's "The Passage" follows the outbreak of a virus which both prolongs human life and turns humans into unthinking monsters. These "virals" are destroyers of life, and despised and feared by the few remaining humans, who struggle to enjoy what little time they have on Earth amidst the horror of their world. We follow one of the last colonies as attrition slowly grinds it away, and a handful of adventurers who look for a last bit of hope in a long trip across the shattered remains of America. Their story provides the same mix of ordinary people and extraordinary times, natural and supernatural that made Stephen King's "The Stand" such a great book to read many years ago.<br />
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In <a target="_BLANK" href="http://www.bookpage.com/books-10013261-The-Passage">an interview with Trisha Page over at BookPing</a>, Cronin likens immortality to "steal[ing] the future from our children", and this philosophy is borne out by the book. He finds the desire for immortality misguided, the costs too high, and thus his take on immortality is bleak, a nightmare world.<br />
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"Welcome, Chaos" tracks the accidental development of an indefinite life-prolonging treatment during the Second World War, and its threatened exposure to the public in the midst of the cold war. The immortals Wilhelm depicts are also resistant to disease and radiation, and so become a kind of nuclear deterrent that could prompt each side to start a war before the other can protect their people. <br />
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In addition to the struggles of world powers to control and use longevity as a political tool and a weapon, Wilhelm focuses on the effects of longevity on personal identity. Wilhelm's immortals are full of life and energy, but are also less hurried, more willing to simply enjoy each day and work towards even the most important goals on a longer scale. They have the time to get to know and love each other along the way. Wilhelm's take on immortality is cautious, but hopeful. Immortality has the potential to destroy humanity, but also the potential to free humanity from death and old age, to let people enjoy life for as long as they care to.<br />
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"Time Enough for Love" takes this second idea to its extreme. It's a lusty tale that follows Lazarus Long, who, through a combination of breeding for longevity and artificial rejuvenation techniques, becomes the longest lived human. Immortality is the secret province of a select few families, who live the equivalent of dozens or even hundreds of normal human lifespans. These immortals are living during a pioneer period, in which humanity is peopling the stars.<br />
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Heinlein's is the most positive take on immortality by far. Human society is expanding to other worlds, so even if everyone were immortal, there would be no overcrowding, no lack of resources, no exploitation of the younger generations. No matter how long Heinlein's immortals live or how far they go, time is longer and space farther still. The immortals are still constrained, just on a much larger scale. Heinlein's immortals keep going as long as they can still live in the moment, as long as they can find ideas, challenges, friends and family to keep them engaged and, almost literally, alive.<br />
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All three are great books for different reasons and highly recommended.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-5405677737217510822010-08-06T09:00:00.012+02:002010-08-06T09:00:03.518+02:00"Camouflage" by Joe HaldemanI just finished "Camouflage", another quick and fun read from Joe Haldeman, author of "Forever War", "<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/01/marsbound-by-joe-haldeman.html" target="_BLANK">Accidental Time Machine</a>" and "<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/01/marsbound-by-joe-haldeman.html" target="_BLANK">Marsbound</a>". Joe Haldeman fills his book with thinking characters, outsiders who succeed because they take leaps of faith, outwit or just outluck the problems they encounter. His characters are self-aware, but not navel-gazers by any means. They are pragmatists, survivors, but also tend to have a sense of humor gained through hard experience in the absurdities and harshness of life.<br />
<br />
The main characters in "Camouflage" are immortal aliens with the ability to mimic humans. Think of it as "Highlander", but with much less romanticism and simplicity, and a lot more alienness. They may pretend to be human, but they are much more than long-lived humans. They can change identities, changing their apparent age, sex, race not quite as easily as we change clothes, but easily enough that they can move from life to life, career to career as they live through our history.<br />
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For most of the book we follow the more naive of the two aliens, the changeling, who has emulated a shark and other sea creatures for millions of years, and one day emulates the sailors it has seen and wanders ashore. Thus begins its journey from being only slightly more than animal to being more than human. Although life is nasty and brutish at times for the changeling, it's not short, and this makes all the difference. "Camouflage" is one of three books I read during my trip that deal with the challenges and advantages of a very long life. Stay tuned for a double-bill comparing "Welcome, Chaos" by Kate Wilhelm and "Time Enough for Love" by Robert Heinlein.<br />
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As with "Accidental Time Traveler" and "Marsbound", this is a short book, a fun read, and highly recommended.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-85202108546291873162010-07-30T09:00:00.002+02:002010-07-30T09:00:06.238+02:00"Midsummer Century" by James Blish"Midsummer Century" is the last of the small treasure trove of James Blish novels found in several used book stores in San Francisco during my recent "<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-journey-to-west.html" target="_BLANK">journey to the west</a>".<br />
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When I first started reading Blish (with "<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/04/review-cities-in-flight-by-james-blish.html" target="_BLANK">Cities in Flight</a>"), I thought of him as a long-format author. Now I realize that he actually writes in fairly short form, and that it took four of his novels to add up to a compilation as long as single books like "Mockingbird" by Walter Tevis or "Grass" by Sheri S. Tepper (review coming soon on that one).<br />
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"Midsummer Century" is another of these short novels. It's scarcely half an inch thick, and it flew by almost before I picked it up and started reading. With a novel this short, it's hard to even give an approximation without spoiling things. I'll stick to what's on the dust jacket.<br />
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Suffice to say this is another in the long tradition of Science Fiction novels that send a modern man into the future ("<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/01/accidental-time-machine-by-joe-haldeman.html" target="_BLANK">Accidental Time Machine</a>" by Joe Haldeman, "<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2007/12/review-farnhams-freehold-by-robert.html" target="_BLANK">Farnham's Freehold</a>" by Robert Heinlein and "Word Out of Time" by Larry Niven are good examples). This variation on a common theme is uniquely Blish.<br />
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The main character journeys not in body, but in mind. His struggles in the new world are largely psychic rather than physical. The ultimate empowering of the hero comes from visualizing the nature of consciousness and enlightenment. This visualization is described in loving detail, I think I spent longer trying to sketch that out than reading the rest of the book.<br />
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This is a very short novel, a popcorn kernel with a bit of philosophy inside. It's not the absolute best of Blish, but it's an incredibly quick read and still well recommended.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-53043469702516342962010-07-23T09:00:00.000+02:002010-07-23T09:00:06.659+02:00"Mockingbird" by Walter Tevis<div>I dropped by <a href="http://www.galaxybooks.com.au/">Galaxy Books</a> in Sydney on my recent trip around the world, and I was pleased to find a few of the last remaining gems from the Gollancz SF Masterworks series. Chief among them is "Mockingbird" by Walter Tevis. "Mockingbird" is a remarkable novel about the loss and rediscovery of literacy, science, culture and simple human curiosity. </div><div><br />
We take a lot of things for granted in a modern society. Very few of us understand how the things we use daily actually work beyond our own limited areas of expertise. "Mockingbird" looks forward to a time where almost no one understands anything about the machines that keep life moving. Has the machine that makes clothes forgotten how to make zippers? Live without them. Are the antidepressants dispensed to you every day slowly killing humanity? Oh well, at least they keep everyone quiet. This is definitely a world that's ending with a whimper rather than a bang.<br />
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Schools have been stripped down to teach the social norms of the day and almost nothing else. Teaching is conducted by simple robots and via video recordings. Everything has been decided and planned for them by the ruling class of robots, including how much they can develop as individuals and how they are allowed to relate to others. They are never taught anything more than they would need to become another harmless, emotionless, ignorant, unquestioning, superfluous cog. To quote the female lead: "they have to deactivate machines to find things to pay us to do". Innovation, creativity, introspection, and even reading itself are almost extinct. People are conditioned not to pay attention to one another, to avoid displaying emotions, and are continuously drugged. This is a bleaker future even than "Brave New World", in which at least people had their pick of diversions and pursued their shallow lives with gusto.<br />
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The story follows two humans and a clone with a synthetic brain who is the last and best of the ruling class of robots manufactured to keep things running. These three are the only individuals with their eyes open, who notice and question the routine existence everyone else accepts. The tension and drama in the book is whether these people can preserve their own bubble of awareness, to teach themselves to fight back the decay and disrepair that surrounds them even as they rediscover basic concepts like intimacy and friendship.</div><div><br />
</div><div>This is a great book, and highly recommended.</div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
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</div>Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-30727734820040821852010-07-18T06:11:00.000+02:002010-07-18T06:11:52.509+02:00"Anywhen" by James BlishI was very fortunate on my recent trip through San Fransisco to stumble on a treasure trove of books by James Blish, whose "<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/04/review-cities-in-flight-by-james-blish.html" target="_BLANK">Cities in Flight</a>" and "<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2009/08/after-such-knowledge-by-james-blish.html" target="_BLANK">After Such Knowledge</a>" series I heartily enjoyed. Over the next few months, I'll be reviewing the books I found in between a few of the remaining books from the SF Masterworks series.<br />
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What I love about Blish is that his characters are driven by their morals and philosophies. The critical turning point in his stories is far more likely to be a change of heart or key realization than a deus ex machina or twist of fate. His stories are a stage on which principles and ideas are given life and pitted against one another. <br />
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In "Anywhen", Blish wrestles with grand ideas such as attitudes towards death ("A Dusk of Idols"), whether deception in service of truth is permissable and sustainable ("A Style in Treason"), and how our expansionist nature might be tested when humanity finds its way to the stars ("Writing of the Rat" and "Some Were Savages").<br />
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I've been thinking a lot about Blish in comparison with Olaf Stapledon. Stapledon's focus in "<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/06/last-and-first-men-by-olaf-stapledon.html" target="_BLANK">Last and First Men</a>" and "<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/01/star-maker-by-olaf-stapledon.html" target="_BLANK">Star Maker</a>" is so broad that there is barely room for recognizable human drama. Blish, on the other hand, is more successful in presenting the higher concerns of individuals in the context of their daily lives. The main character of his most famous series ("<a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/04/review-cities-in-flight-by-james-blish.html" target="_BLANK">Cities in Flight</a>") John Amalfi reminds me of Gino Molinari from Philip K. Dick's "Now Wait for Last Year" (one of my favorite books). Both are the types of great (but conflicted) men that see humanity through times of testing. They make hard choices, and although they bend their morals, ultimately they hold themselves to the ideals of their conscience. <br />
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"Anywhen" is short, but enjoyable, in that it gives us vignettes of a few of these principled characters, and makes us care about their choices and principles. Highly recommended. Stay tuned for a review of "VOR", also by Blish.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-28860307412424027112010-07-05T06:50:00.001+02:002010-07-05T06:52:29.852+02:00Journey to the West, Part 6: AmsterdamMy journey to the west ended where it started, back home in Amsterdam. We've lived here for a year and a half, and this is the longest I've been away in that time. There's a phrase written on the underside of a bridge near Central Station:<br />
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"Terugkomen is niet hetzelfde als blijven"<br />
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I've always translated that as "coming back is not the same as staying put". I'm not sure if it has a double meaning in Dutch, but I feel it can either mean that the journey is worth it even if you end up in the same place, or that being home is something to look forward to as much as travel.<br />
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Even though I've had a great time getting to know my colleagues around the world (and seeing a few old friends along the way), I'm glad to be back in Amsterdam. It's a great place to live even when the weather is bad (and it often is), and I returned to find that summer had finally arrived, the weather was only a few degrees cooler than KL. It was literally a warm welcome, and perfect weather to walk off a bit of jetlag between fits of napping.<br />
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On the way home, I found myself with a little time to spare just as the Brazil-Netherlands World Cup match began. I watched as long as I could (and probably a little longer), and then ran for my flight. The Netherlands was still a goal behind when I boarded, I didn't get to find out until the next day that they'd managed to come from behind to win the game. I'm not much of a soccer fan, but I think it's time to learn. I look forward to watching the next game in Amsterdam, surrounded by teammates, friends who aren't also teammates and thousands of excited Netherlanders. <br />
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Of course, there are always things to look forward to here, which is one of the reasons it suits us so well.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-15022966284312029082010-07-05T06:24:00.001+02:002010-07-05T06:28:18.938+02:00Journey to the West, Part 5: Kuala LumpurThe last stop in my world tour was Kuala Lumpur, where I spent a week with my colleagues at <a href="http://www.customware.net/repository/display/CustomWare/Home" target="_BLANK">Customware</a>. They work European working hours, so it was a college student's dream job: roll into work at 3, leave at midnight. The team is a diverse bunch of smart, enthusiastic, and energetic people, and they went out of their way to be great hosts as well. We usually ate dinner together, and we managed a few lunches and (after midnight) suppers as well. It's hard to cover how amazing the food is in Malaysia, but among other things, while I was there I enjoyed:<br />
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<ul><li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasi_Lemak" target="_BLANK">Nasi Lemak</a>, the national dish of Malaysia.</li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roti_canai" target="_BLANK">Roti Canai</a>, a local interpretation of Indian flat bread</li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otak-otak" target="_BLANK">Otak Otak</a>, a seasoned fish mousse steamed in banana leaves</li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojak" target="_BLANK">Rojak</a>, a sweet salad of fruit and vegetables in a thick brown sauce</li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laksa" target="_BLANK">Assam and Curry Laksa</a>, two noodle soups that are justly famous around the world.</li>
<li>fresh <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popia" target="_BLANK">Popia</a>, tasty uncooked spring rolls filled with vegetables, a light brown sauce, and crunchy treats like peanuts.</li>
<li>fresh <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guava" target="_BLANK">Guava</a> with a little bit of sweet and sour seasoning</li>
</ul><br />
The KL team are really active on Facebook, here's a good starting point to see what we were up to during my trip:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/CrabbyJ#!/profile.php?id=1163331402&v=photos&so=0" target="_BLANK"><br />
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</a><br />
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It was a great visit, long enough to get to know everyone a little, but short enough to make me want to come back and visit again.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-13178988119508188502010-07-04T23:20:00.001+02:002010-07-05T06:32:12.761+02:00Journey to the West, Part 4: SingaporeIn transit from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur, I stopped off to see some old friends in Singapore. It was a short trip, but great. I hadn't seen them in about four years, and it was great to catch up. We did a bit of touring, a lot of shopping, and had some of the best food I've ever had. Fresh Durian, Lamb Satay, Bo bo cha cha and Ais Kacang were among the highlights.<br />
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Here are some photos from the trip:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a target="_BLANK" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/elaineandtony/sets/72157624296710469/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjhBCzQxqK4cjXVrwt7DjHhASoXg-BOSh9ZXNd1o2DHGkRB0zk5J_IusvwrfvkL_xXmYppMi4tczaIKSUHOsqF-2npJphidj9T2cKckiMvqisD_zxmiqhBnHAvOeXPWONKNx2RUhbEZ34R/s320/mosaica0af2b17fecec42392e9878ab0d53ee79ea99eef.jpg" /></a></div>Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-31592681981328093312010-07-04T22:55:00.004+02:002010-07-05T07:09:25.774+02:00Journey to the West, Part 3: SydneyMy journey around the world continued in Sydney, where the home office for <a href="http://www.atlassian.com/" target="_BLANK">Atlassian</a> is located. This was my first trip to the mothership, and it was a blast. I got to meet a lot of amazing people, put faces to names, and have a lot of face to face conversations that would ordinarily take place over blogs and email.<br />
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Although I worked most of the time I was there, I was lucky enough to take a little time to check out the <a href="http://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/" target="_BLANK">Sydney Biennale</a> and a great exhibit at the <a href="http://www.whiterabbitcollection.org/" target="_BLANK">White Rabbit Gallery</a>. My favorite pieces were the video installation at the Biennale in which a couple walk naked through a waterfall, and the installation at White Rabbit in which a van was reskinned with a carefully painted canvas, and hooked up to a pump so that it appeared to breathe in and out.<br />
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I also enjoyed visiting Manly Beach, where I read Walter Tevis' "Mockingbird" from cover to cover (review coming soon). I mistakenly referred to Manly Beach as "Manly Island" when purchasing my ferry ticket, and the ticket vendor corrected me. After a few seconds, I thought it over and said "I guess no Manly is an island". The ticket vendor thought it over for a second, and then made a little eye movement as the pun sank in.<br />
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Before, during, and after work I managed to have some great meals in Sydney. The highlights were the Vegemite and toast at the coffee shop just south of the office, the Laksa on Hunter Street, the pies at <a href="http://www.timeoutsydney.com.au/venue/restaurant/patisserie/central-baking-depot.aspx" target="_BLANK">Central Baking Depot</a>, the pulled pork sandwich at <a href="http://www.fouratefive.com/" target="_BLANK">Four Ate Five</a>, the Pho at the place under Wyndham Station and the Roti Canai at <a href="http://www.mamak.com.au/" target="_BLANK">Mamak</a>.<br />
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Here are a few photos from the trip:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/elaineandtony/sets/72157624420991958/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEjC4UwNBVrLqkrbdNo-tSbNKUfSJZqsQg5P7J_sWEDWUOqBca06MPpNM_3l2OjAX24tOuzcZ4W4-2GkX0cxt0JA5T66kPaQaUAbKH1Jk8hg9mhxlElWFtB3azBZpoCUuZ0knOdME3PMe6/s320/mosaica364948f5c8ead15f9316529a13ba358d340e546.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Here's a video of the ferry trip to Manly Beach:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object height="259" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/q_6Mg5z-too&hl=en_US&fs=1?color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/q_6Mg5z-too&hl=en_US&fs=1?color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></div>Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-45316878874218950672010-06-20T15:32:00.000+02:002010-06-20T15:32:24.472+02:00Journey to the West, Part 2: San Francisco, CaliforniaThe next stop on my world tour was San Fransisco, where I spent a week with my colleagues at Atlassian. Most of them were feverishly getting ready for our annual Summit, but there were still plenty of opportunities to put faces to names and get to know the extended family of Atlassians and ex-Atlassians. There's a love, excitement, and drive common to so many Atlassians that at times it seems less like a job than a life philosophy. It was a blast to meet so many of them at a go, and I gather I'm in for an even bigger dose in Sydney.<br />
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In addition to meeting and talking with so many new people, I was fortunate enough to eat some nice sushi, a sausage biscuit (bliss!), and to have three really great burritos and a bit of Mayan food as well.<br />
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The last day of my visit, the Atlassian Support team in SF had a picnic in Golden Gate Park. Here are a few photos:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/elaineandtony/sets/72157624191108893/" target="_BLANK"><br />
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Here's hoping the rest of the trip is as much fun.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-74217639311888167342010-06-20T14:39:00.002+02:002010-07-18T06:10:39.544+02:00Journey to the West, Part 1: Boulder, ColoradoThe first stop in my world tour was a side trip to see my friend Antranig in his new home in Boulder. <br />
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The city is lovely and so warm after Amsterdam. We did a fair amount of walking around, which is always welcome after a long flight or three. The Boulder Creek was swollen with snow melt after a recent hot spell, it was both relaxing and exciting to experience the rushing water among the trees. Along the way, I was fortunate enough to stock up on books at the excellent <a href="http://www.boulderbookstore.com/" target="_BLANK">Boulder Book Store</a> on Pearl Street.<br />
Afterwards, we went to the <a href="http://www.taikosummit.com/" target="_BLANK">Taiko Summit</a> and heard some exciting drum work.<br />
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We had our last meal together at the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse, shown here:<br />
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We talked a lot about Qin Shi Huang Di, the first emperor of China. I'd been taught that he unified the Chinese writing system. Fans of the film "Hero" will remember the scene in which a rival school of calligraphy is beseiged by the emperor's army. Thanks to Antranig's Droid and data plan, we discovered that Wikipedia does not share that view of history (although I've since figured out that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Dynasty" target="_BLANK">Qin Dynasty</a> entry includes something about the topic). It still made for a good conversation, particularly given the backdrop at the <a href="http://www.boulderteahouse.com/" target="_BLANK">Dushan Tea House</a>, the interior of which was crafted in Tajikistan, disassembled, and shipped to the US.<br />
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Antranig and I have both studied Mandarin, during my visit he showed me the remarkable Chinese learning site <a href="http://www.skritter.com/" target="_BLANK">Skritter</a> on his new Lenovo tablet. It's a paid site, but you can see the amount of polish they've put in to justify the $10 monthly fee. You write a word and pick the right pronunciation, and you get feedback immediately. Words are repeated periodically based on how often you remember them correctly. The stroke recognition is amazing. The whole experience of using Skritter is almost enough by itself to make me go out looking for a tablet PC, iPad or the Android equivalent.<br />
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It was a great visit, and a good start to the trip.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-77835026737425563782010-06-20T14:31:00.004+02:002010-07-19T08:32:04.404+02:00My Journey to the West...For the month of June, I'm traveling around the world on business, hitting the following ports of call:<br />
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<ul><li><a href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/06/journey-to-west-part-1-boulder-colorado.html" target="_BLANK">Boulder</a></li>
<li><a target="_blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/06/journey-to-west-part-2-san-francisco.html">San Francisco</a></li>
<li><a target="_blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/07/journey-to-west-part-3-sydney.html">Sydney</a></li>
<li><a target="_blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/07/journey-to-west-part-4-singapore.html">Singapore</a></li>
<li><a target="_blank" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/07/journey-to-west-part-5-kuala-lumpur.html">Kuala Lumpur</a></li>
</ul><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div>I'll be posting from each of these places and writing about the absolute flotilla of books I'm reading in transit. Stay tuned!Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-56760407091064756352010-06-18T09:00:00.055+02:002010-06-18T09:00:01.452+02:00"Tau Zero" by Poul AndersonI was pleased and surprised to encounter a copy of Poul Anderson's "Tau Zero" at the American Book Center when stocking up on books for a recent trip. This is one of a shrinking handful of books I still haven't read in the <a target="_BLANK" href="http://teknohippy.net/mw/">Gollancz Sci-fi Masterworks series</a>, and I was happy to have found it.<br />
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"Tau Zero" is a novel about relativity, about a generation of astronauts who travel close to the speed of light, reaching other worlds in a few years subjective time (the rate at which people on the ship age), but several decades objective time (the rate at which the Earth they leave behind ages). In "Tau Zero", the idea of traveling close to the speed of light is the main character, and it is explored to the fullest, and with the highest respect for the hard science behind the concept. The technology behind their travel is roughly the same kind of ramjet that the main character in "World Out of Time" uses to circle the universe at relativistic speeds and thus outlive the society that imprisons him, but here it's not just a means to roll the clocks forward on Earth and encounter a new world.<br />
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The 50 astronauts (and potential colonists) in the ship which is the focus of the story must live together for years before reaching their goal and either founding a colony or deciding to brave the trip back home. Many of them have skills that are more useful when they arrive, and must find ways to occupy themselves. Even those of the crew who are busy with its day-to-day maintenance must find ways to keep their spirits up over the long haul even if the mission goes exactly as planned. Of course the mission does not go as planned, and Reynoud (arguably the main character) must play father to the crew and enforce the basic routines that help keep everyone's sanity as things unravel further and further. I won't spoil the ending except to say that it reminds me of the ending of <a target="_BLANK" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/04/review-cities-in-flight-by-james-blish.html">Cities in Flight</a> in its scope, but is more hopeful and amazing.<br />
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I enjoyed the book as a whole. It's hard sci-fi (with real science rather than science as magic) at its best, playing with the best science available at the time to see how it might change the human condition. I also think the drama is handled well enough. The only small thing that bugs me about "Tau Zero" are the characters. As in his "HeeChee" saga, Anderson can't resist the urge to analyze the characters, and adding that to the somewhat stiff way the characters tend to express themselves, the novel on balance feels a bit more firmly an intellectual novel than an emotional one. The same could be said of many science fiction works, and this is definitely one of the better ones. Highly recommended.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-58421867536498693082010-06-11T09:00:00.018+02:002010-06-20T14:10:28.743+02:00"Lisey's Story" by Stephen KingWhen I was 12, I read almost everything Stephen King had ever written. His work was (and is) imaginative, but accessible. He spins a web of simple words, drawn from music, movies, books, but always combined in novel ways. His books were filled with memorable (but flawed) protagonists and sinister, sometimes leering villains. They were a quick and enjoyable read, comfort food, but eventually, I moved on to other reading interests (mainly science fiction, graphic novels, and mainstream literature). <br />
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Recently, on a visit with my mother, she played part of the audiobook of "Lisey's Story" as we drove around. I enjoyed Mare Winningham's narration, and had a kind of itch to hear the rest of the story. I just finished reading "Lisey's Story" from cover to cover, and wasn't disappointed. <br />
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One of my favorite parts in any Stephen King novel is the way he establishes a unique vocabulary. Each character has their own way of speaking, built from their own life experiences. I especially like how words pass between characters in King's writing. Sisters share phrases from their childhood. A husband and wife evolve almost their own private language based on years of using their own pat phrases with each other. When you use the same words, on some level you think the same way. The shared language of husband and wife is really a sign of the depth of their relationship, and the intimacy they share. King also knows how strongly words evoke memories, and Lisey is never more than an uttered (or misheard) phrase away from her past.<br />
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I also like King's shifting narratives. Often, his books cover multiple characters, and we alternate between them (as in "The Stand"). In books like "The Dark Tower" and "Talisman" (with King and Peter Straub), the story is divided between two worlds. "Lisey's Story" is split into four worlds. At first, the story stays firmly in Lisey's present as the recent widow of a famous writer. Over time, we jump back and forth between the couple's shared past and the present alternately. Eventually, the story encompasses another fantastic world, one of imagination. As we start to experience this world, the story moves between the present reality, the past reality, and the past fantastic. At the climax of the book, the story shifts so quickly that chapters are often only a paragraph in a single mode before moving on.<br />
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"Lisey's Story" is a good book, nuanced and fresh comfort food that's grown up quite a bit. When I stopped reading Stephen King, he was two books into "The Dark Tower" series. After a long hiatus, the series is now a lot further along. I'll have to pick them up soon and continue rediscovering the ever-evolving comfort food that is Stephen King.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-57490822989716983812010-06-03T21:14:00.001+02:002010-06-03T21:14:30.732+02:00"Last and First Men" by Olaf Stapledon<a target="_BLANK" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_Stapledon">Olaf Stapledon</a> isn't afraid to work on a big canvas. His <a target="_BLANK" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2010/01/star-maker-by-olaf-stapledon.html">"Star Maker"</a> spans the life of our universe and beyond. Rather than searching for power, or money, or fame, or even love, the main character in "Star Maker" roams the universe trying to become aware enough to perceive and interact with a higher power. It's a spiritual book in which the universe is revealed to be both sublimely ordered and painfully uncaring. In this epic and amazing work, the life of humanity is a but a single thread, a few paragraphs in the larger story.<br />
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"Last and First Men" is more tightly focused, and follows the development of humanity over the course of some three trillion years. It starts in our own time, and moves forward slowly at first. As is inevitable, Stapledon's ideas about the immediate future date the work, but once modern civilization is safely past, the book hits its stride. Eighteen species of humanity come and go, rising to meet the challenges presented by the universe around them (or succumbing to them). Along the way, Stapledon explores ideas about longevity, higher consciousness, the proper goals of a world society, and imagines that larger patterns of rise and fall (for the world, for the species, for intelligent life in our solar system) might lie far beyond our own history.<br />
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The focus of "Last and First Men" is societies, states, civilizations, and species rather than individual lives. It's only toward the end that we learn the history of the narrator and find the full spiritual center of the book. "Star Maker" on the other hand, begins with the life of an individual and his core quest, and draws us in from the beginning. The later book ("Star Maker") seems more mature and complete as a result. I tend to pick lovingly worn second-hand copies of books in used bookstores, which doesn't always lend itself to reading things in the right order. In this case, I read "Star Maker" (the sequel) some months before "Last and First Men". "Last and First Men" holds up well, but if you get the chance, go through them in order, as the ideals of "Last and First Men" are expanded and played out on an even grander stage in "Star Maker". <br />
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Both "Star Maker" and "Last and First Men" are highly recommended food for the mind. If you find yourself getting a headache from the ultra-wide focus of both books, you could do a lot worse than Larry Niven's "World Out of Time", in which a single individual encounters the distant future (in two discrete chunks). I'd also recommend "Forever Free", by Joe Haldeman, which pans out toward the end to embrace some of the same scope, but keeps its focus more firmly on the individual.<br />
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Yet again I'm indebted to the Sci-fi Masterworks series for broadening my horizons to include Stapledon. Stay tuned for the few remaining installments ("Tau Zero" is coming with me on my next trip).Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-18581595038669264292010-04-23T09:00:00.005+02:002010-04-23T09:00:06.522+02:00"Search the Sky" by Frederik Pohl and Cyril KornbluthHot on the heels of reading "The Space Merchants", I devoured "Search the Sky", another collaborative work between Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth.<br />
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There's a long tradition of stories in which a man whose world (and world view) are close to our own travels through a series of (from our perspective) oddly unbalanced worlds. You could pick half of the plots of any of the Star Trek series as examples ("Ryker finds love on a world where everyone is androgynous and heterosexuality is a crime"). These episodic sketches are the bread and butter of science fiction. Take the world, put it a bit out of balance, give it a spin, and watch it crash down. "Gulliver's Travels" is another wonderful example. A man steeped in the ideas of his age has his beliefs tested as he experiences different societies in his journeys. <br />
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In "Search the Sky", we follow a space traveler (Ross) who travels from a relatively normal (if stagnant) colony and visits isolated Earth colonies in search of answers to his colony's problems. He jumps from one monocultural frying pan to another, testing ideas about age, gender, and diversity itself. He returns enriched, and vows to share that experience with anyone who'll listen.<br />
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Travel tests your limits, shows you different ways of viewing the world and handling even the simplest of questions common to all people ("What's for dinner?" is an example you could spend a lifetime mapping out). This kind of diversity is key to the strength of the human race in "Search the Sky", and I'd like to believe it's the same with life.<br />
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This is a fun book, and a quick read. Highly recommended.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3202039696011142533.post-30795003713361800662010-04-16T09:00:00.076+02:002010-04-17T10:35:03.304+02:00"The Space Merchants" by Frederik Pohl and Cyril KornbluthI'm continuing to work through the Gollancz SF Masterworks series, I was pleased the other day to finally find a copy of "The Space Merchants" by Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth, one of the few remaining books in the series to have eluded me thus far.<br />
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Although there's a bit of corporate warfare and global overcrowding mixed in as well, this is largely a book about a consumer society grinding towards an end in which free space and raw materials can only be found on other planets (Venus in this case). Fittingly, we experience this material world through an advertising man.<br />
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Philip K. Dick wrote a lot about salesmen, both in his science fiction, and in his straight fiction like "In Milton Lumky Territory" and "Mary and the Giant". He focuses on the hopelessness, boredom, powerlessness of junior salesmen at stores, and the isolation of a travelling salesman driving from town to town. These men are a step above serfs in the commercial world. They're the tax collectors who feed money up to their betters and get to hold onto a bit themselves. The focus of "The Space Merchants" is advertising executives, who are much further up the chain. These are the men who craft the campaigns, who travel the world in style in constant contact with a team of people whose job it is to make their whims reality. Like any good royal court, they also fight for power among their peers.<br />
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We follow one of the princes of a major advertising firm (Mitchell Courtenay) as he is stripped of his power and forced to live as a wage slave in the world he helped create. Advertising is everywhere, and products are designed to introduce the consumer to a never-ending chain of addiction (finish a cigarette, have a drink, get a snack, have a cigarette, and so on). In his struggle to regain his power, Courtenay stumbles across conspiracies within conspiracies, which reminded me somewhat of the role-playing game <a target="_BLANK" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)">Paranoia</a>, in which no one is allowed to join a secret society, and yet everyone does. That's a roundabout way of saying the book has a good ear for satire, which is one of many things that make this an enjoyable read.<br />
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I have great hopes for collaborative works like this, as I've enjoyed Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's works (such as "Mote in God's Eye" and "<a target="_BLANK" href="http://tonyatkins.blogspot.com/2008/10/review-footfall-by-larry-niven-and.html">Footfall</a>") in the past. Whether their writing styles are largely compatible, or they review each other's work, or they have a good editor, the net effect is reading a single author with a single voice. I plan to keep following Pohl and Kornbluth's collaborations, I'll be reviewing "Search the Sky" by the same two authors shortly, and "The Merchants War" (the sequel to "The Space Merchants") as soon as I can find it.Tonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434941875745803383noreply@blogger.com0