Kelson Reviews Stuff - Page 36

This isn’t a review so much as it’s a collection of comments I made while reading the book back in August 2018, originally posted on one of my Mastodon accounts. I’ll probably fix it up into an actual review at some point.

Chapters 1-2 and Silent Spring

I find it bizarre that a book that criticized excesses of capitalism would have been characterized as counter-revolutionary, capitalist propaganda.

But of course both capitalism and communism are quite capable of environmental destruction. Rapacious state, corporation, or individual, it’s a universal human failing, like the image of an iceberg in the ocean that Wenjie imagines, independent of ideology.

I would not at all be surprised if Silent Spring was actually portrayed this way, particularly knowing China’s environmental record.

I also did a double take on the idea of banning teaching relativity for ideology…but then I remembered we’ve got the same problem with people trying to block teaching evolution here in the US.

One more thing I have to wrap my mind around to read a story set during the cultural revolution.

It’s a weird mindset to imagine, and it’s interesting to compare to the more familiar present-day culture in the next few chapters.

Chapters 5-7: The Game

The mystery, the questions about the nature of fundamental laws of physics (i.e. are they actually fundamental?), and the countdown have all been fascinating.

I’m up to the introduction of the VR game that lends its name to the title, and for the first time I feel like the story is getting bogged down.

I know it’s symbolic. I figure it’s a way to get ideas across to the players without discussing them openly. But it’s still dragging.

Leveling Up

Now that I’ve gotten through another cycle of the VR game story, it’s become more intriguing. Presumably we’re going to work through a bunch of cosmological models as it goes on.

I love the idea of using NPCs to simulate a computer in-game. It reminds me of the working CPU models made in Minecraft with redstone, except more creative because NPCs aren’t designed for circuitry.

I also like the way the author mixes up the narrative structure, with documents, a personal statement, and of course the game interspersed with the regular narration.

And I’m really curious as to how the trick with the cosmic background radiation is supposed to have been managed.

And of course, is the countdown really leading to something, or is it, as Shi suggests, just a way to mess with Wang’s head?

Chapter 22

I don’t quite buy the game as a recruiting tool.

They’re supposedly all about replacing human society with the aliens’ (one way or another), but the game doesn’t tell you much about that society except that it’s persistent, can hibernate for eons, and coming for us.

It conveys key facts about their environment and biology, but doesn’t present a culture to emulate. Unless it’s in the chapters Wang misses?

Or is the vagueness itself part of the appeal? Anyone dissatisfied with the world as it is can project their own ideals onto the aliens?

Final Chapters

I’m seriously impressed by the concept of the sophon. It’s one of the most overpowered pieces of impossible tech and yet it’s a simple extrapolation from string theory – and making use of known quantum effects gives it a lot of other abilities that handily explain the mysterious happenings early in the book.

Some of the catastrophes, I can go with. But one big enough to create a new moon? The planet would have basically been sterilized.

I also wondered about the secrecy of incoming communication with Red Coast 2. Surely other SETI projects would have picked up the signals, whether they could decode them or not.

I’m not big on audiobooks, but I picked up a DC Comics-related Humble Bundle a few weeks ago and I “read” The Flash: Stop Motion by Mark Schultz. It’s kind of odd listening to a “Graphic Audio” adaptation (A movie in your mind!) of a prose novel based on a character who usually appears in visual media, but the full cast, sound effects, and music help to make up for the lack of actual visuals that I’ve found tends to hamper prose stories about superheroes.

I read the book when it came out in 2004, and I’d forgotten enough for it to be more-or-less “new.” It’s set during the Wally West/Keystone City era when the Flash’s identity was still public knowledge and he worked with Detectives Chyre and Morillo. A super-speed killer has been attacking people in the Keystone/Central area. Not only is it faster than the Flash, but every time it strikes, bits of other universes bleed into our own. Wally has to discover the nature of this “superluminoid,” its surprising connection to the West/Allen family, and unlock a potential beyond the speed force in order to stop it.

The familiar characters are handled well, and the concepts behind the superluminoid, quantum warriors and the Seventh Singularity are intriguing. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from Grant Morrison or Warren Ellis as they take on super-speed, the metagene, the speed force and quantum physics. The ideas still hold up, and I think it would be fascinating to explore them further, though in the long run they would unbalance the Flash’s already over-powered abilities.

There are a few continuity issues that bugged me at the time I first read it. A lot of the story hinges on Iris and Wally being blood relatives, for instance, which they weren’t pre-Flashpoint. Those don’t bother me anymore, partly because continuity has been remixed so many times and partly because I’ve mellowed on that sort of thing. Though I still have trouble with the opening scene where the Flash is treading air to “fly” with the JLA. (And then there are oddities like the fact that the entire Justice League is in several scenes, but only Wonder Woman gets a detailed description. Hmmm…)

The audio adaptation works well. It’s got a full voice cast and sound effects in addition to the narration. Some of the voices work better than others, and some just don’t fit my head-voice for the characters. (Chyre, for instance, sounds more gravelly and world-weary in my mind than this version.) They really make use of effects and music in the battle sequences, though some of them might work better with headphones than listening in a car. I found it hard to pick out the words in the action scenes because there was so much going on. And some of the conversations that work in print go on way too long in audio.

The novel is worth reading, and the audio is worth listening to. Now I’m curious to hear how Graphic Audio adapted Infinite Crisis, 52 and Final Crisis.

I think I’ll skip Countdown, though.

Update 2020: None of the DC Comics adaptations are available on Graphic Audio’s site anymore. I’m guessing the license expired or something.

The sequel to Lock In is a fast read with an interesting mystery, fun characters, and intriguing concepts. More than the first book, it fully explores the societal impact of both large scale lock-in and the technology used to deal with it.

It continues with the POV of locked-in FBI agent Chris Shane, this time investigating the death of a locked-in athlete.

In this near-future, 10% of the world’s population have been locked into their brains by a pandemic. Virtual reality and remote robot piloting enable them to interact with the world, and there are even specially designed “threeps” (named after a well-known droid) for different tasks. Among them: the battle threeps used for a sport more violent than could be played with real human bodies.

Hadens spend most of their lives interacting through simulations or mechanical avatars, which changes a lot about identity presentation, travel, location, disability and prejudice. It’s the kind of thing that might be nodded to in another book that wanted to focus on the technology, but all these implications are woven throughout the story and key to a lot of it.

I read this when it was new, and thought it had some interesting ideas and was a fun trip down memory lane. But over time I kept seeing people point out problems, and I’d think back, and realize, yeah, there’s not a whole lot of substance there, and it’s got some serious issues.

Didn’t bother with the movie.

Back then, the nostalgia and scavenger hunt were enough for me. Now, not so much.

Solo isn’t high art, and it’s got some rough edges, but it’s a fun ride. Star Wars movies from The Phantom Menace onward have been trying to be serious with a side of adventure and comic relief, not trying to be adventures that also have something to say.

That said, I liked The Last Jedi more than The Force Awakens, so YMMV.