I just got done reading Accelerando by Charles Stross and I'm gonna talk about it! Since I actually like the book, I'm not going to give any spoilers. Or I think I won't.
It's a big, sprawling post-cyberpunk novel about three or so generations of post-humans. That's the big thing with modern science fiction writers - post-humans. Y'know, what's left of humanity after we've used biotechnology and cybernetics to move ourselves well past the limitations of our flesh, and the new sentient species that will develop in such an environment, AIs, uplifted animals, things like that.
The characters are generally interesting, if not always likable, and enough happens to keep a body interested. One of the problems a lot of science-fiction writers have is that characterization is often fairly irrelevant to the book, but Stross' characters are people and he spends a fair bit of time developing relationships in believable ways (albeit with technology that is nigh magical).
Stross' language is very high brow. I actually had to look up a couple of words, which is pretty rare for me at this stage of the game. Accelerando is also written in the present tense. This makes his language a fair bit pretentious - but it's mitigated by his generally straightforward grammatical structure. Yeah, he uses a lot of big words and everything is present tense, but otherwise his writing style is pretty tight which makes it readable - perhaps even a little good, at least the big words part, because it projects competence.
It is also a book that is about a lot of things and then, curiously, nothing much at all. This is, alas, a big problem with science-fiction.
First, the book is crammed with ideas. Part of the book addresses the Fermi paradox. One day some folks were talking about the possibility of superintelligent alien life and Enrico Fermi chimed in, "Then why haven't they come around for a visit?" It's a false paradox. It's superficially easy to imagine why superintelligent aliens haven't stopped by for a visit - the universe is a big place being at the top of the list. Others include, y'know, "They have, we just didn't notice it. Or we don't believe the people who have seen it." But it's something that, when projecting oneself into the future, mentally speaking, as a science-fiction writer must often done, sounds intriguing. Why haven't superintelligent aliens come by, lately?
The second big idea that he tackles is the idea of a technological singularity. It's simply a fact that the rate of technological development has skyrocketed in the past, say, couple hundred years. People who believe in a technological singularity believe that at some point the speed of technological advance will become so rapid and deep that it is impossible to really imagine what they'll be doing with it. (Whether or not this is true depends on a great deal; I, myself, don't know if it'll happen because I don't think we have enough information to meaningfully talk about it, but it's called science-fiction for a reason, right?) What will happen to people, to humans, if a singularity hits?
There's a lot of other stuff, too. Like . . . future shock! It goes on and on.
Second, the book is full of weirdness. Which I like. The future is likely to really weird. Cavemen wouldn't understand the least little bit about our society, and it's commonplace that barbarians do not understand advanced technical civilizations - you can see the future shock in Mongol armies faced with Chinese civilization in the 13th century. They didn't understand what the Chinese were doing, and it was seriously suggested that they kill all the peasants to lessen their profound future shock. So, it's probably impossible for a science-fiction writer to write something that's "too weird". Even if they get the details wrong, and they will of course, the weirdness will probably be about right.
Third, the book is full of superhuman intelligences. Indeed, it's full of vast, inscrutable intelligences.
So, what comes out of this? The book is frantically paced. Stross keeps hitting you with weirdness and ideas, interleaved with personal melodrama, and its easy to be staggered by it all.
But, in the end, I'm not sure that the book ended up being about anything at all. Sure, a lot of ideas were touched on, but at the same time about a trillion plot threads were still in the air. And, ultimately, despite being about these post-humans, while things were weird, Stross is trapped by being a human trying to imagine things smarter than he is - smarter than anyone is. Despite the weirdness, and despite assertions of futurism, the big ideas are actually all pretty modern - stuff like anarcho-capitalism, which has been a staple of science-fiction since the first days of the cyberpunk movement (and has its roots back in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, though at the time the term anarcho-capitalism didn't exist it's clearly what they've got on Luna). But, really, what could you expect? Stross is, himself, just a human, like the rest of us.
He also seems to lack the courage of his convictions. When you have transcendentally intelligent beings, described as being "weakly godlike", it's . . . absurd for the humans to even remotely guess what they're doing. The comparison is between a human's intelligence and a tapeworm's intelligence. I don't imagine that a tapeworm goes around accurately assessing what humans are doing, but some of that goes on, too, in Accelerando.
That said, the book is smart and has interesting characters. And while, perhaps, I'm a little less future shocked than many of my peers and find many of the ideas in the book passe - for crying out loud, try to imagine a future society that isn't anarcho-capitalism! - the book is going to provoke thought from anyone who has even a passing interest in futurism. So, if you're in for a weird future in a smartly written science-fiction book with strong, if not stellar, characterizations, you should take a look at Stross' Accelerando.
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
In the future, there are zombies - notes on Dead Space
I just got done playing Dead Space on the PS3. Dead Space, for those of you who do not know, is a third person shooter video game from Electronic Arts that takes place, largely, on a mining ship whose crew have been turned into zombies. The main character - Isaac Clarke - goes around dismembering them with power tools. My favorite is the remote industrial saw.
First . . . Isaac Clarke? Sheesh. Neither Isaac Asimov nor Arthur Clarke wrote horror! I think a better name would have been H. P. Bradbury. Oh, well, they didn't ask me, hehe.
Second, the consistent message from video games is that the future will bring with it zombies. Be in Halo, Half-Life or Dead Space, it appears that zombies are our future. Who knew?
Third, to get to something resembling a review . . . Dead Space is Resident Evil 4 in space. No, really! If you liked RE4, you'll like Dead Space - and a lot of people liked Resident Evil 4 so I figure this game will be pretty popular. But just about everything is taken from RE4, except the setting. The character goes around at normal speed, or running, you can't fire like that - to fire, you have to get into your firing stance, raise your weapon, which all have laser sights to tell you where you're going to hit. With your weapon raised, you move and pan slowly and your field of vision narrows. So none of the run and spray tactics that most shooters have - you generally select a position, fire, and then run to a new position if you need to.
The horror in the game is . . . well, it's pretty typical. All horror shooters just really crank up the gore, they have moody music, and Dead Space isn't any different in that regard. The sound is good. All the weapons are jarring to use, loud and sudden.
The game - like I said, a clone of RE 4 in many ways - also has monsters jump out at you from all over. While it's true that startling isn't the same as horror, there's a reason so many horror movies startle their audiences. Dead Space is an almost constant series of startling events. Monsters are constantly jumping out, jumping down, popping out from behind you. Constantly.
For me, there was a little too much jumping out. The game is clearly designed for the "hard core" set.
An aside: the people with the greatest tolerance to stress out of all professions are professional video gamers. They handle stress better than air traffic controllers and trauma physicians. So, by inference, even non-professional hard core gamers are pretty inured to stress. They don't much feel it. Which is why hard core gamers will dig on the monsters jumping out at them - they aren't startled in particular.
I'm not hard core, so after a while it was a little . . . wearing. So wearing that I decided to finish the game on the easy setting because the game is quite good at making every moment feel like it might be your last. A little too good for me.
Also, like most games that are pure shooter, there gets to be a little monotony, which combined with the constant startling nature of the game, the constant need to have your character scan the environment for enemies - the fact that nowhere, not even rooms with save points in them, are really safe - can get slightly numbing. Something other than just shooting might have been nice.
Still, the game did have nice flourishes. They do have some interesting zero gravity things, jumping around from surface to surface - but even then, maybe especially then, it was an opportunity for zombies to come at you in new and interesting ways. You had even more possible places that they can come at you from. The game also offered a few puzzles, but they were a tiny fraction of the game. It's mostly a shooter.
The game also has an inventory system. You have to choose between healing resources and ammo. I wasn't thrilled with that, any more than I was thrilled with it in Resident Evil 4. I don't think detailed resource allocation is horrific. Or even interesting. Yes, it's unbelievable to be able to carry around fifteen weapons and a million rounds of ammo and a dozen health packs. But you know what else is not particular realistic? Zombies. Zombies are not realistic. Indeed, at this juncture, they're becoming a little trite.
The game is also attractive. It has a grim, blood-splattered, moodily lit sci-fi setting. The game is also claustrophobic, reminding me of Alien - which is probably what they were trying to go for.
And, lastly, and perhaps most amusingly, other than the message that in the future there will be zombies, the game also teaches that Scientology turns people into zombies. Oh, excuse me, Unitology. I was amused at the Scientology turns people into zombies angle.
All said and done, I give the game a B. It's a well-executed game, but to get a really high mark a shooter has to have more than shooting in it nowadays. Dead Space is a little too much one note, and the stress levels on the game are outrageous which might lend a horror aspect to it but makes the game draining.
First . . . Isaac Clarke? Sheesh. Neither Isaac Asimov nor Arthur Clarke wrote horror! I think a better name would have been H. P. Bradbury. Oh, well, they didn't ask me, hehe.
Second, the consistent message from video games is that the future will bring with it zombies. Be in Halo, Half-Life or Dead Space, it appears that zombies are our future. Who knew?
Third, to get to something resembling a review . . . Dead Space is Resident Evil 4 in space. No, really! If you liked RE4, you'll like Dead Space - and a lot of people liked Resident Evil 4 so I figure this game will be pretty popular. But just about everything is taken from RE4, except the setting. The character goes around at normal speed, or running, you can't fire like that - to fire, you have to get into your firing stance, raise your weapon, which all have laser sights to tell you where you're going to hit. With your weapon raised, you move and pan slowly and your field of vision narrows. So none of the run and spray tactics that most shooters have - you generally select a position, fire, and then run to a new position if you need to.
The horror in the game is . . . well, it's pretty typical. All horror shooters just really crank up the gore, they have moody music, and Dead Space isn't any different in that regard. The sound is good. All the weapons are jarring to use, loud and sudden.
The game - like I said, a clone of RE 4 in many ways - also has monsters jump out at you from all over. While it's true that startling isn't the same as horror, there's a reason so many horror movies startle their audiences. Dead Space is an almost constant series of startling events. Monsters are constantly jumping out, jumping down, popping out from behind you. Constantly.
For me, there was a little too much jumping out. The game is clearly designed for the "hard core" set.
An aside: the people with the greatest tolerance to stress out of all professions are professional video gamers. They handle stress better than air traffic controllers and trauma physicians. So, by inference, even non-professional hard core gamers are pretty inured to stress. They don't much feel it. Which is why hard core gamers will dig on the monsters jumping out at them - they aren't startled in particular.
I'm not hard core, so after a while it was a little . . . wearing. So wearing that I decided to finish the game on the easy setting because the game is quite good at making every moment feel like it might be your last. A little too good for me.
Also, like most games that are pure shooter, there gets to be a little monotony, which combined with the constant startling nature of the game, the constant need to have your character scan the environment for enemies - the fact that nowhere, not even rooms with save points in them, are really safe - can get slightly numbing. Something other than just shooting might have been nice.
Still, the game did have nice flourishes. They do have some interesting zero gravity things, jumping around from surface to surface - but even then, maybe especially then, it was an opportunity for zombies to come at you in new and interesting ways. You had even more possible places that they can come at you from. The game also offered a few puzzles, but they were a tiny fraction of the game. It's mostly a shooter.
The game also has an inventory system. You have to choose between healing resources and ammo. I wasn't thrilled with that, any more than I was thrilled with it in Resident Evil 4. I don't think detailed resource allocation is horrific. Or even interesting. Yes, it's unbelievable to be able to carry around fifteen weapons and a million rounds of ammo and a dozen health packs. But you know what else is not particular realistic? Zombies. Zombies are not realistic. Indeed, at this juncture, they're becoming a little trite.
The game is also attractive. It has a grim, blood-splattered, moodily lit sci-fi setting. The game is also claustrophobic, reminding me of Alien - which is probably what they were trying to go for.
And, lastly, and perhaps most amusingly, other than the message that in the future there will be zombies, the game also teaches that Scientology turns people into zombies. Oh, excuse me, Unitology. I was amused at the Scientology turns people into zombies angle.
All said and done, I give the game a B. It's a well-executed game, but to get a really high mark a shooter has to have more than shooting in it nowadays. Dead Space is a little too much one note, and the stress levels on the game are outrageous which might lend a horror aspect to it but makes the game draining.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Scaramouche review
We watched the 1952 remake of Scaramouche - the one starring Stewart Granger. To fess up, I got it because of the six minute long sword duel between Scaramouche and Monsieur de Maynes which I've heard is the gold standard of swashbuckling cinematic duels. Well . . . hey, it is!
What I found in particular is that while academically aware that Hollywood cinema deeply influenced the Jackie Chan era of Chinese stuntmen and their often mind blowing antics, I haven't actually seen a lot of those movies. But with Scaramouche, I saw the kind of stuntwork that clearly presaged Chinese action movies of the 70s onwards. Not only the actors doing their own stunts, but crawling all over the scenery while swordfighting, swordfighting on narrow surfaces, swordfighting swinging from ropes, the tossing of everything in sight at each other, dropping heavy things from a great height to try to hit the other guy on the head . . . while lacking the kinetic oomph of a Yuen Woo-Ping directed fight, you can easily see all the elements that we'd see again in kung-fu movies. The visual language is clearly the same. So, great going, guys!
So, was there more than a swordfight? Yes! While Stewart Granger played Scaramouche's bemused insouciance to a T, I think that the show was stolen by Mel Ferrer was the villain, le Marquis de Maynes. Ferrer really caught the "it's great to be me" vibe that a viciously murderous wealthy and good looking French aristocrat should have. Obviously, de Maynes loved his life, especially when it involved killing someone, or bragging about killing someone. Even at the end, with a sword to his heart, the actor projected what I felt was perfect for the character - simply amused resignation that his time had come.
Even compared to the novel, however, it was pretty fluffy. In the novel, Scaramouche slowly evolves into a revolutionary idealist from a jaded cynic. While in both he's driven by the murder of his friend, in the movie it's all about revenge (and, to be fair, how hollow revenge is, which I liked - revenge is idiotic and I'm glad that the movie, as in the book, the desolation of seeking revenge is made clear). In the novel, well, it's actually about the Revolution, and eventually the Revolution's excesses! The movie doesn't touch on any of that, and wraps it up with a wedding.
And typical for a 50s movie, the female roles are pretty bland. Which I don't like, but it's something you've got to accept in most movies from the 50s onward. There are two female leads - played by Eleanor Parker and Janet Leigh, both talented actresses - but they exist merely as objects of love or lust for the hero. In the end, he chooses the good, pure and high born girl instead of the low born and quick witted woman with experience. Oh, well, I suspect that after the end credits roll Scaramouche would be going back to the actress in about ten minutes after being completely bored with his pure little noblewoman. But, like I said, while I don't like that kind of thing, I've learned to endure it.
What I found in particular is that while academically aware that Hollywood cinema deeply influenced the Jackie Chan era of Chinese stuntmen and their often mind blowing antics, I haven't actually seen a lot of those movies. But with Scaramouche, I saw the kind of stuntwork that clearly presaged Chinese action movies of the 70s onwards. Not only the actors doing their own stunts, but crawling all over the scenery while swordfighting, swordfighting on narrow surfaces, swordfighting swinging from ropes, the tossing of everything in sight at each other, dropping heavy things from a great height to try to hit the other guy on the head . . . while lacking the kinetic oomph of a Yuen Woo-Ping directed fight, you can easily see all the elements that we'd see again in kung-fu movies. The visual language is clearly the same. So, great going, guys!
So, was there more than a swordfight? Yes! While Stewart Granger played Scaramouche's bemused insouciance to a T, I think that the show was stolen by Mel Ferrer was the villain, le Marquis de Maynes. Ferrer really caught the "it's great to be me" vibe that a viciously murderous wealthy and good looking French aristocrat should have. Obviously, de Maynes loved his life, especially when it involved killing someone, or bragging about killing someone. Even at the end, with a sword to his heart, the actor projected what I felt was perfect for the character - simply amused resignation that his time had come.
Even compared to the novel, however, it was pretty fluffy. In the novel, Scaramouche slowly evolves into a revolutionary idealist from a jaded cynic. While in both he's driven by the murder of his friend, in the movie it's all about revenge (and, to be fair, how hollow revenge is, which I liked - revenge is idiotic and I'm glad that the movie, as in the book, the desolation of seeking revenge is made clear). In the novel, well, it's actually about the Revolution, and eventually the Revolution's excesses! The movie doesn't touch on any of that, and wraps it up with a wedding.
And typical for a 50s movie, the female roles are pretty bland. Which I don't like, but it's something you've got to accept in most movies from the 50s onward. There are two female leads - played by Eleanor Parker and Janet Leigh, both talented actresses - but they exist merely as objects of love or lust for the hero. In the end, he chooses the good, pure and high born girl instead of the low born and quick witted woman with experience. Oh, well, I suspect that after the end credits roll Scaramouche would be going back to the actress in about ten minutes after being completely bored with his pure little noblewoman. But, like I said, while I don't like that kind of thing, I've learned to endure it.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Marked Woman review
The little lady and I just got done watching Marked Woman, a Bette Davis/Humphrey Bogart movie directed by Lloyd Bacon (who also brought Knute Rockne to the screen, introducing to a wide audience a certain Ronald Reagan, hehe). The 1936 crime piece is about "hostesses" (read: prostitutes) who operate in a mob owned clip joint. One of the hostesses, played by Davis, gets involved in a murder and initially resists the ADA (played by Bogart) in convicting the mobster - but after the hostesses' sister is murdered she bravely plays ball with law enforcement and brings the mobster to justice. Apparently the movie was inspired by New York's protracted battle against Lucky Luciano.
I really just watch loving Bette Davis act. She's just so splendid. Bogart and most of the supporting cast are also quite good, and at times the actor who plays the gangster, Eduardo Ciannelli, almost steals the show. But the reason to see the movie is, without a doubt, the chance to see Bette Davis act. She plays a wonderfully dignified, street smart call girl and the script doesn't degrade her, nor the other women in it. The thirties in cinema really was the height of this kind of behavior - movies with female roles that weren't just pathetic pandering girl stories of female sisterhood or whatever, banal romantic comedies or the even worse multitude of stories where women are merely victims of appendages of male protagonists. Roles where women could be honestly powerful started to decline in the 40s, and by the late 50s were almost gone altogether. They were gone by the 60s and 70s. Though they've started to return, I am just staggered at the numerous powerful female roles that I see in the cinema of the 30s, before women's role in movies was reduced to nothing but cheesecake victims as it has been much of my adult life. Because of when I was born, I grew up in an atmosphere almost void of powerful female characters. On the rare occasion Meryl Streep or Julia Roberts would make a movie that was a cut above the standard fare even those actresses are generally forced to work with, it was like a small window into a different film making universe where women weren't second class citizens. To me, Bette Davis flings open all the doors to that world - while the movies acknowledge the social reality of woman's powerlessness in a man's world, the movies, themselves, by featuring women in so many fully developed roles have really opened my eyes.
The upshot being, see this movie. And see a lot of movies with Bette Davis in them. Even the bad ones are pretty good. And see how movies were made before female roles in movies were crushed by all those banking interests who didn't want women to get uppity ideas.
I really just watch loving Bette Davis act. She's just so splendid. Bogart and most of the supporting cast are also quite good, and at times the actor who plays the gangster, Eduardo Ciannelli, almost steals the show. But the reason to see the movie is, without a doubt, the chance to see Bette Davis act. She plays a wonderfully dignified, street smart call girl and the script doesn't degrade her, nor the other women in it. The thirties in cinema really was the height of this kind of behavior - movies with female roles that weren't just pathetic pandering girl stories of female sisterhood or whatever, banal romantic comedies or the even worse multitude of stories where women are merely victims of appendages of male protagonists. Roles where women could be honestly powerful started to decline in the 40s, and by the late 50s were almost gone altogether. They were gone by the 60s and 70s. Though they've started to return, I am just staggered at the numerous powerful female roles that I see in the cinema of the 30s, before women's role in movies was reduced to nothing but cheesecake victims as it has been much of my adult life. Because of when I was born, I grew up in an atmosphere almost void of powerful female characters. On the rare occasion Meryl Streep or Julia Roberts would make a movie that was a cut above the standard fare even those actresses are generally forced to work with, it was like a small window into a different film making universe where women weren't second class citizens. To me, Bette Davis flings open all the doors to that world - while the movies acknowledge the social reality of woman's powerlessness in a man's world, the movies, themselves, by featuring women in so many fully developed roles have really opened my eyes.
The upshot being, see this movie. And see a lot of movies with Bette Davis in them. Even the bad ones are pretty good. And see how movies were made before female roles in movies were crushed by all those banking interests who didn't want women to get uppity ideas.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Hancock movie review
Me and the li'l lady and a friend of ours saw Hancock the other day. We were somewhat amused by it. In particular, we liked Will Smith as the cranky, bumbling superhero whose antics were both benevolent and often incompetent. Critiques of the quality of the movie, otherwise, is a fairly weak script and incoherent plot plus mediocre effects. The upshot? If you like Will Smith, see it. If you don't, don't. Since I like Will Smith, I kinna liked the movie.
To me, though, what was really interesting is the PR man who turns Hancock's life around. I was getting a very It's a Wonderful Life feeling from it. In It's a Wonderful Life, one of the subtexts is that bankers do good in a community. Bankers are these benevolent people and crap like - the movie is functionally an advertisement for the banking industry. In a similar fashion, the PR protagonist of Hancock is this committed guy who wants to save the world by convincing corporations to do good deeds. I sort of threw up in my mouth about that. I mean, of all the impossible things I found that the most impossible. A superhero that can fly, bounce bullets off his face and move with incredible speed? That's downright realistic compared to an advertising guy trying to save the world through corporate benevolence! To me, that's the worst part of the movie - how it kisses the ass of corporate America and the praise for the ad industry.
To me, though, what was really interesting is the PR man who turns Hancock's life around. I was getting a very It's a Wonderful Life feeling from it. In It's a Wonderful Life, one of the subtexts is that bankers do good in a community. Bankers are these benevolent people and crap like - the movie is functionally an advertisement for the banking industry. In a similar fashion, the PR protagonist of Hancock is this committed guy who wants to save the world by convincing corporations to do good deeds. I sort of threw up in my mouth about that. I mean, of all the impossible things I found that the most impossible. A superhero that can fly, bounce bullets off his face and move with incredible speed? That's downright realistic compared to an advertising guy trying to save the world through corporate benevolence! To me, that's the worst part of the movie - how it kisses the ass of corporate America and the praise for the ad industry.
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