Wednesday, September 26, 2007
I just don't know what to do with myself. It's weird. Studying is a bore, writing is a chore (when it shouldn't be) and reading, well, there just isn't anything worth wasting the time on... So instead I'll bore you to tears with book/movie/game reviews.
YAY.
Sooooooooooooooooo... (there are seventeen 'o's in there. Count 'em)
A review of: William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) as compared to M. John Harrison's Light (2006)
Both books have copious amounts of the three things that have permeated hard SF for the past, oh, two decades plus a bit. Sex, drug use and weird body modification (and profanity). That however does not make them both good books, there is clearly a good one and an awful one. I shall be totally biased based on my own (highly-esteemed) opinion.
Alright, synopses shall follow.
First, Gibson's prime work.
We follow a hacker named Case, told in rigid 3rd person omniscient. He was at the top of his game when one employer decided to mess up his brain with some nerve toxin, thereby rendering his hacking ability moot because he couldn't 'jack in' to cyberspace. (This work formed the basis of many events that happen in The Matrix.) He lives in the slums, smokes several packs a day and is hopelessly addicted to stimulants that are causing his pancreas to die an early death. He likes sex.
He somehow winds up in the employ of this mysterious guy named Armitage (hotel?), who gets him surgery to repair his brain, pancreas transplant etc. And there's a girl, Molly, who's got 'enhancements' to her eyes (permanent shades, yo, and they're reflective), muscles and the works. She's an assassin/bodyguard. But she can't go into cyberspace and fight the stuff there, that's Case's job. Yes.
Long story short, lots of techno-jargon, sex, blood, death, and sex later, Armitage kills himself and Case finds out he's working for an Artificial Intelligence. Oh did I mention sex? Said AI breaks free of human imposed chains with Case's help and escapes into the net, happy ending. Case has more sex and then Molly leaves. There was lots of profanity but you don't need to know that.
The End. Simple, elegant, believable, not too much techno crap. Basically Case is like Mr. Keanu Thomas 'Neo' Reeves Anderson without cool kung fu powers and bullet stop ability (push head to stop .22 cal). He feels awfully real because he gets high, gets horny and gets hurt, I empathize. molly is cool, she has knives for fingernails. She kills people. And the AI's are called Wintermute and Neuromancer. Cool names. Armitage dies. W00T.
This was one of the first books that introduced the concept of the Internet as a Matrix, a network of components. It also introduces the rights of AIs showed how the main character sometimes didn't know whatever was going on because he didn't need to, like most of us in real life. The storyline went along at a brisk pace and there was lots of unusual imagery and innovative ways of looking at things. Stuff that is obvious once you think about it but you never would under normal circumstances. Left me thinking - 'Yes that was a good read.' .
Now for the 8 hours of wasted time that was Light:
There are three separate storylines that converge three chapters from the end. One follows a psycho serial killer who's also a physicist. Next is a psycho woman who is part of a spaceship. Third is a psycho junkie who... he's just psycho.
All three of them have lots of sex, except the second one, who can't, 'cos she's part of a spaceship. But she thinks about it a lot.
Psycho physicist serial killer (Michael Kearney) kills people because he thinks he's being chased by this thing called The Shrander. Killing people may or may not appease said pursuer, he does it anyway. He only kills women. He has lots of sex with his wife (yes, he's married) and thinks about killing her. They run around England and the Eastern USA. Turns out he's the one who enables human space travel, because his psycho physicist brain came up with the equations for some sort of engine. Wow.
Spaceship girl (Seria Mau Genlicher) flies around, running away from the people she stole the ship from. She's carrying a box they want. The box can't be activated and keeps asking for a 'Dr Haends'. She likes blowing stuff up. Turns out she remembers what it's like to be human, but she can't go back because in order to become a spaceship she had to sacrifice her human body. Wow. Oh and she's the psycho junkie's sister.
Psycho junkie (Ed Chianese - Seriously... Chianese, GOD! I feel insulted.) was a space traveler, then he got addicted to being jacked into a machine that gives nice virtual reality type dreams. He obviously has to be running away from someone too... why not... these two bimbos he owes money to. He hides out in a circus run by Sandra Shen. He learns how to tell the future using this helmet type thing. Wow. He has lots of sex with two different people.
By one third of the book I already knew that Shrander, Dr Haends and Sandra Shen were semi-anagrams. So obviously these three individuals are being manipulated by the same person. Wow. At the end, turns out that Shrander was trying to bring physicist to deserted planet so he could see the future of man or something, maybe the theme was that information itself is the underlying substance of the cosmos. Dr Haends is trying to bring spaceship girl to deserted planet so she can turn into pure energy and go off and have energy sex and stuff. Sandra Shen is trying to bring junkie to deserted planet so he can take over the spaceship, now without spaceship girl, and explore the cosmic information highway or something like that. The last two words are - THE BEGINNING - in caps like that. Yay.
I couldn't help but say... SO F'ING WHAT! The confusion of a triple storyline does nothing to explore anything new, but mired me in trying to find out what the hell the story was about! There is nothing new at all, the story drags its feet all over and the author only seems to know one sexual position. It did absolutely nothing for me except waste RM36 at Borders. It was bad.
Though of course, any comparison has to have a winner, and IMHO, that one is undoubtedly Neuromancer. Really, the quality of SF/Fantasy in recent times has taken such a downturn I can't bear to be in the SF sections of most bookstores, and then only to find my old staples: LeGuin (Ursula K.), Dick (Philip K.) and the everpresent Tolkien (no first name required). Newer writers seem to like thicker books with less substance, filling them with sex, profanity, and confusion for readers. Plotlines barely lurch along. Perhaps it's just me but most things pre-1990 will TOTALLY PWN todays junk.
Thanks. If you actually read this far, put DARK at the beginning of your tag.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Well, this is the start of a new year (not really, it's halfway through month #1 already) and the start of my new blog. Perhaps I'll post a little more often now that I appear to have more free time (my previous [first] blog only had one post before I killed it). Oh well.
Started going to HELP this year. Taking 4 subjects, like many/most other students: Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Literature. Doo doo doo~. It's been fun so far, but then, it's only been the first week. Got to be class rep for Lit, which means I get to do all the 'working copies' (read:photostating) for my class. First one cost 30 cents each (32 actually but what's two cents anyway? Curiously when someone gives their two cents it means their opinion... Dunno what's up with that, I subsidized them.). Now my wallet weighs about 1 1/2 pounds and is roughly 3 inches thick. I love coins, I hate coins. {Odi et amor}
Phys and chem are easy peasy so far, just reviewing the Form 5 stuff as I'm sure most of you guys know. Maths is great. All the subjects are great, HELP is great. Everythings great. I'm great. I love 2007. It's great. Great great great. Shouldn't have had that great Nescafe/Milo mix this morning. But it was pretty great, even if I do say so myself, and I do, since I made it. Ho hum ho hum.
Finished Star Wars: Republic Commando again. This time on Normal difficulty. I always try it on easy first, cos that's when I want to know the storyline and all that. It's fun to see stuff splattering on your electronic visor. Machine lubricant, lizard blood, bug goo... I love the smell of cordite in the morning. Or in the afternoon, even at night it's not bad, really. And the sound of that gaunlet knife, shunk-shink then the splurch as it cuts through the lizard's face.
Quote from RC-1262 'Scorch' when he was slicing a computer terminal: No terminal can match my l33t hax0r skillz!
Found this site called Speed Demos Archive where people set speedrunning records for games. Can't believe the entire game for Elder Scrolls III took only 17 minutes or so for some guy.
Thanks to all the blogs i referred to (countless) for html code help :) (esp. cyn' and sixseven)
Adobe Photoshop Elements for supernatural abilities
