Capek wrote this play in 1920 in Prague. Contemporary of Kafka, this work was the first to popularize the term ROBOT. This 3=act play wasn't just abouCapek wrote this play in 1920 in Prague. Contemporary of Kafka, this work was the first to popularize the term ROBOT. This 3=act play wasn't just about technology, but also naivety, power, control and economics (capitalism vs human dignity).
Its dialogue appears a bit cheesy now, but it was super influential for science fiction writing. A lot of Philip K Dick and Alasdair Gray's Poor Things feel like decedents. It also feels like it belongs next to Shelly's Frankenstein and Verne's War of the Worlds. With the rise of AI this book also feel s a bit prescient. I see Elon Musk or Sam Altman talking about OpenAI and ChatGPT, or a hedge fund manager/private equity CEO talk about market efficiencies, and it seems to resonate the same strings as R.U.R....more
An updated Flatland. Interesting, but not revolutionary. The first third started great. It lasted a bit too long and the ending kinda went limp. A lotAn updated Flatland. Interesting, but not revolutionary. The first third started great. It lasted a bit too long and the ending kinda went limp. A lot of build-up, but never really broke the tape at the end....more
The original book that 'The Edge of Tomorrow' was based on. Different from the movie, but still excellent. The original book that 'The Edge of Tomorrow' was based on. Different from the movie, but still excellent. ...more
“Scratch a professor and you find a paranoiac, Barlow thought. But scratch a dean and you find a con artist.” ― Paul La Farge, The Night Ocean
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OK“Scratch a professor and you find a paranoiac, Barlow thought. But scratch a dean and you find a con artist.” ― Paul La Farge, The Night Ocean
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OK, things I loved: Tales within tales folded inside tales. Lies wrapped in lies buried under lies. Love covering love uncovering lost love. Middle sagged. Ending was great. An interesting premise. The ability to flip the narrative and begin again was great. What can you expect in a book filled with Futurists and ardent fans of SciFi in the 40s and 50s?
But still the book only floats between 3 and 4 stars. No tide. Absolutely no rip tide. There is a plot, it may be shaped like an Ouroboros, but never the less, it is there, it persists like a bad, but not very scary dream. The movement has little energy to it. It slides forward and backward, up and down.
Anyway, I don't want to knock it too hard. I did read it. A lot of the secondary characters (HP Lovecraft, Pohl, etc) stole the show from the prime non-movers.
Oh, but the Amanda Dewey cover and design absolutely kicks ass....more
"This is how the present worked: we are features of tales we will never be features of." - 11 :::: march :::: 2011
"What was hardest to accept was next "This is how the present worked: we are features of tales we will never be features of." - 11 :::: march :::: 2011
"What was hardest to accept was next morning the clocks kept collecting the minutes inside them just like usual." - 10 :::: june :::: 2015
"When you are inside a tale like that, it never feels like you are in a tale like that." - 29 :::: october :::: 1969
"Who ever imagined tourniquets could feel like tenderness?" - 20::::april :::: 1999
"Memory is the mother of grief." - 2 :::: may :::: 1945
"...it hitting you what a curious condition thinking was, exactly like waking up one day with a French accent." - 8 :::: december :::: 1980
"The Me of Us can sense The Was has entered the God Swirl." - 8 :::: august :::: 1974
'It is just the no no-light strewn with diamond-dust stars suspended in the middle of his reeling mind like an always." - 28 :::: january :::: 1986
"wading farther and farther into the warm dark sea." - 11 :::: september :::: 2001
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"Living forever is tantamount to being trapped inside one's freedom." - 29 :::: october :::: 2072 :::: 10:30 a.m.
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I read this book twice over two years. Bits and pieces never dissolved. Bits and pieces will never be solved. Goddam I loved this book. I'm not usually a BIG fan of experimental fiction or art. I get the need for it, but often something gets lost; the humanity, emotions. But those writers and artists who can push the envelope without losing the thread of humanity are just amazing. This novel is a thread of 9, well, 10 different narratives. Broken. Fractured. Dislocating. Blending. I can't explain fully, but Olsen (who is an absolute mensch btw) manages to maintain the tension and the stories and land them in unexpected ways. I'm sad. But sad in a way something only beautiful, risky, and human can be sad. I don't want to say more. Saying more might give the game away, but if you've never read Olsen give this book a chance, or two.
Also.
Try another of his more recent novels: My Red Heaven. It is also amazing. Similar and different than this one. Equally built like a Kaleidoscope. Working with small packets, threads, strings wrapped un in various streams of consciousness to produce a picture of a place (My Red Heaven) or a mirror on life, death, and time (Skin Elegies).
I'll come back to finish and review this, but DAMN. Go pick it up and read it.I'll come back to finish and review this, but DAMN. Go pick it up and read it....more
I'll review more later, but I loved it. Felt a bit like John le Carré's heart (obvious since Harkaway is LeCarre's son) mixed with a bit of Neal StephI'll review more later, but I loved it. Felt a bit like John le Carré's heart (obvious since Harkaway is LeCarre's son) mixed with a bit of Neal Stephenson's over-the-top, throw in everything narrative flourish and China Miéville's New Weird characters. All of this with a narrative drive and a quirkiness that is all Nick Harkaway's own. I liked its boldness, funkiness, etc. Doesn't mean it was perfect and there were parts that didn't quite connect. I'd probably give it a 4.5 star if I could divide stars that way without causing a Goodreads blackhole.
I'll review more tomorrow, but for now, it is worth the money and time....more
"How many whales do you suppose God will deign send to swallow you? When does God run out of whales?” - Last Days, Brian Evenson
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note: Figuring o"How many whales do you suppose God will deign send to swallow you? When does God run out of whales?” - Last Days, Brian Evenson
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note: Figuring out what amputation(ish) painting would be appropriate here was an interesting, in not rewarding, exercise. My good friend Keith is pretty sure (on good authority) one of the paintings referenced in the book is an Odd Nerdrum, so I'm going with one of his.
Amazing. Brutal. Funny. Dark. Absurd.
This is hard-boiled horror. Cult Crime. Brian Evenson is writing tomorrow's horror today (well, technically, he wrote tomorrow's horror ten+ years go). Like Philip K. Dick and J.G. Ballard, I have feeling Evenson will be far more appreciated in 50 years than he is today. Right now, Evenson exists as a cult writer; a writer's writer. My first exposure to Evenson was my freshman year at BYU. That was the year the church school removed him. Cut him off. Amputated him for the very same book they hired him for. It was the first time I bought his book and one of my first "literary" horror purchases.
Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't READ Evenson that year. I wasn't ready. Again, Evenson arrived too early. He was there before the worms and the birds.
I'm avoiding directly reviewing the book because I don't want to give the experience away. Let's leave it at the fact it FEELS like J.G. Ballard meets Sam Beckett. The first two members of The Holy Christian Fellowship of Amputation or The Brotherhood of Mutilation we are introduced to seem to possess the dialogue sensibilities and absurdities of Vladimir and Estragon. The book is essentially a short story Evenson wrote called The Brotherhood of Mutilation expanded (or mirrored). A story about one cult becomes a story about two cults. The original AND its schismatic twin. It is a thesis, antithesis, synthesis kinda novel. This is a story that haunts you, but not with chills, but echos and vibrations. I finished this novel, bit of a fingernail, spit it on the floor and went to bed....more
"Nondigital surveillance is weaponized boredom." - William Gibson
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USA has PKD (the Father) UK had JGB (the Son) CAN has WG (the Holy Ghost in the m"Nondigital surveillance is weaponized boredom." - William Gibson
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USA has PKD (the Father) UK had JGB (the Son) CAN has WG (the Holy Ghost in the machine)
I was going to go on a huge riff about Gibson's talent for merging tech with an asthetic sensibility, but realize I wrote paragraphs about the very mood of Agency in my review of Gibson's previous novel The Peripheral. (See my review for Peripheral HERE.)
Agency, like Peripheral, operates in two stubs (times). But Agency is both a prequel (the earlier stub is earlier) and sequel (the later stub is later). And it works. The book hummed along. Part of that dance comes with jumping back and forth in time every couple pages (the 400 page book has 110 chapters). Gibson's stubs takes a bit from multiverse ideas in physics. It isn't time travel. The stubs aren't just one line in time. They might operate in different branches. In fact, the 2017 in this novel is opperating in a branch (stub) where Hillary Clinton won the election and Brexit never happened. This might have been a bit of what delayed Gibson publishing this novel. He might have needed time (we all did) recovering from November 2016.
Gibson's predictive abilities are still fairly on point too. For example, in Chapter 12, Gibson writes:
"The drivers for the jackpot are still in place, but with less torque at that particular point... They're still a bit in advance of the pandemics, at least."
AND a couple lines later...
"Hard to imagine they weren't constantly happy, given all they had. Tigers, for instance."
Anyway, like most of Gibson's novels, it was enjoyable. Probably the only weakness, and I'm not quite sure this wasn't done on purpose, was the character I felt the most FEELS for was AI. And maybe, that was the whole damn point....more
"Who we are determines the type of governing we need.” ― Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
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A nice addition to the Hunger Games"Who we are determines the type of governing we need.” ― Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
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A nice addition to the Hunger Games mythos and a great backstory on Snow. Not as fast paced as some of her books, it seems a bit more interested in not just the back story on Snow, but also the backstory on civilization, control, chaos. Collins is interested not just in how Snow was "made", but how the Capitol was "made." I read somewhere that Snow might best be understood as a metaphor for America: a lot of potential, some very noble characteristics, but also some significant need for power and justification. I think that is a useful lens but not a perfect fit. Coriolanus Snow is one more example how the bad guys in fiction are often way more dynamic and interesting than the good guys. Shakespeare understood this. Perhaps, THAT says something about humanity too. ...more
"But for a society built on exploitation, there is no greater threat than having no one left to oppress." - N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky
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Book thre"But for a society built on exploitation, there is no greater threat than having no one left to oppress." - N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky
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Book three in the Broken Earth series turns solid what the earlier books hinted at. You could tell this was a series about race, culture, power, slavery, greed, family, etc., earlier in the series but The Stone Sky hammers Jemisin's themes home. This book had some serious Earth Mother energy to it. And while I was VERY impressed with the series, and I loved it, I still prefer the poetic writing of Ursula LeGuin. I feel like N.K. Jemisin has incredible (10 Ring) potential and while it appears these books came out like they were fired from a 9mm (fast and hard) in 2015, 2016, 2017. Perhaps, it took her longer than a year to write them. If THIS is what she can do in a bit over a year, I wonder what she could do if she refined her prose just a bit. But don't mistake my criticism as being heavy. It is a piece of sand on an eyelash. It is a mouches volantes. And, it may just be something I ate....more
"But just because you can’t see or understand a thing doesn’t mean it can’t hurt you.” - N.K. Jemisin
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Book two in the Broken Earth trilogy, The "But just because you can’t see or understand a thing doesn’t mean it can’t hurt you.” - N.K. Jemisin
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Book two in the Broken Earth trilogy, The Obelisk Gate is reallytwo (well perhaps three) stories woven together. Essun, the primary focus of Book 1 (three stories/narrators in one, perhaps?), and her daughter Nassun This really is one book, but it is a bit like juggling how talented Jemisin is at transitioning voices, perspectives, weaving up/down/forward/backward/in/out and creating a story out of the Earth and out of a mother's need to find her daughter.
If you consider these three books to be one, with one giant narrative arc (which you should) this is the point where the momentum twists, where it seems for a second or forever, like the death of the world will never end. But then the gravity of the series pulls the story back down again and accelerates the reader right into book three....more
“After all, a person is herself, and others. Relationships chisel the final shape of one's being. I am me, and you.” ― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season
[“After all, a person is herself, and others. Relationships chisel the final shape of one's being. I am me, and you.” ― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season
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This year, I'm trying to read more women, more minority voices. One advantage of this book was N.K. Jemisin presents the ability for a twofer. I had heard amazing things. With all things fantasy (or even the fantasy side of scifi, I am always a bit hesitant. I do have biases against fantasy). Reading Jemisin, for me, was like discovering Ursula K. Le Guin for the first time. Jemisin is a genius at world-making and characters. Her set-up is amazing and the reader only grasps what she is carefully unfolding with the three primary protagonists when you are about 4/5 done with the book. She is careful. She is at times beautiful. Her prose, for me, is almost there. She is wholly original. That doesn't mean there is no heredity to these books, but it doesn't mean she isn't confident to make big ideas hers; to bend and fold the genre to include issues on race, sex, gender, sexuality, family, class, community.
This is a book about power and control. Like all good scifi writing, it tells us, through scifi, hard things about ourselves. I am going to assume since this book (and her next two) won the Hugo that she is able to maintain her control over the next two novels. This amazes me. She is basically writing 400+ page novels in about a year. She is like Vollmann or King. She can write well, while writing BIG. I'm excited to see how the next installment plays out....more
““We are all up to something” - Neal Stephenson, The Baroque Cycle, Vol 3, Book 3
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This is the end. Beautiful end. Assayed. The end. The eighth a““We are all up to something” - Neal Stephenson, The Baroque Cycle, Vol 3, Book 3
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This is the end. Beautiful end. Assayed. The end. The eighth and final book of this series, which also shares the same name as the final volume of this series: (The System of the World). This final book in an eight book series is driven largely by two large and parallel events (the corronation of King George is a mere distraction). First, the hanging of Jack Shaftoe. Second, the Trial of the Pyx (and by proxy, a trial of Sir Isaac Newton). There are other events: the spiriting away of Solomon's gold, the escape of Jack's sons and Dappa (the First mate of the Minerva who ends up caught in a funky antislavery campaign against Charles White (one of the many villians of the book), the death of Roger Comstock (and other deaths ane ressurrections).
are all essentially prequels to: Cryptonomicon. I enjoyed the dance. It might have been one volume too much. Reading Stephenson, some days, does feel a bit like Peine forte et dure. How about just one more volume? That said, I did read all of the diaries of Samuel Pepys, so I am a glutton for the English Restoration period. I found this a fantastic (often literally FANTASTIC) way of examining the period and systems of science and religion and politics during this period. Obviously, much of the specifics are fiction, but many of the things floating like mouches volantes are grounded in facts. Sometimes, the best way to learn history is not to read it, but to play with it a bit; bend it and examine it under unusual lights and in different heats....more
“On the contrary, my lord...there is nothing quite so civilized as to be recognized in public places as the author of books no one has read.” - Neal S“On the contrary, my lord...there is nothing quite so civilized as to be recognized in public places as the author of books no one has read.” - Neal Stephenson, The Baroque Cycle, Vol 3, Book 1
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I can feel the end of this series closing in. The sixth book of this series, nested, like a Russian doll inside of Volume 3 (The System of the World) centers primarily on Daniel Waterhouse. Daniel has been summoned back to England to act as a middle-man (or a narrative bridge?) between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz concerning the invention of Calculus. Someone tries to kill him with an infernal device (mechanical bomb). The book ends with Jack Shaftoe (aka Jack the Coiner) attempting a heist of the Tower of London where Netwon is the "Warden" and later "Master" of the Royal Mint. Newton has been using this role at the Royal Mint to standardize the guinea, but also to to search for Solomon's lost gold.
The book tends to bend easily between swashbuckling adventure and nerdy historical/light scifi fiction. It is dense in parts, but it is hard to not respect Stephenson's ability to weave the real with the almost supernatural and the outrageous. I'm constantly entertained by The Baroque Cycle but the charm is starting to tarnish a bit and I'm ready for this almost literary adventure/ride to end....more
“Our country is big, let us be big.” - George Saunders
This novella is one part Animal Farm, one part Gulliver's Travels. Part parable, part satire, it “Our country is big, let us be big.” - George Saunders
This novella is one part Animal Farm, one part Gulliver's Travels. Part parable, part satire, it is (not to give to much of too little away) a short novella about border disputes, leadership, the media, and standing up to oppression. It was published in 2005 under the GWB administration, but feels (because of global border disputes) more relevant today in 2019 than even it was in 2005.
It is cute, at times funny, quick, and narratively interesting. It just isn't Saunders great. It is a minor moon and not even a planet in his solar system. But still, it is a "lush, full moon" at that....more
"For all his weirdness, he has the old Yankee virtues. He wants to see America great again, and becoming President is little more than decoration on t"For all his weirdness, he has the old Yankee virtues. He wants to see America great again, and becoming President is little more than decoration on the cake." - J.G. Ballard, Hello America
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Ballard has writen as strange, post-globally warmed world, where America has been deserted AND desert-ed (extreme desertification). People have returned to Europe and Africa, abandoning America and its dunes. But America is big. It's impact on the global subconcious is huge. It fills dreams and nighmares. Ballard writes about an expedition returning to America. Pushing Westward again and coming to grips with both the real America and the fantasy that holds so tightly onto the global imagination. Ballard explores New York, D.C., St. Louis, Vegas and Hollywood.
It is funky to think of this book being written in 1981. It is even more strange that President Trump is both missing and imprinted ALL over it. This book seems more relevant today than when it was first written. It seems both prophetic, and a strange trip into the dark corners of the American Dream made real....more
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