Archive for the ‘Books’ Category
A Timely Quote from The Diamond Age
One summer, as he was living in Ames and working as a
research assistant in a solid-state physics lab, the city was actually
turned into an island for a couple of days by an immense flood.
Along with many other Midwesterners, Finkle-McGraw put in a few
weeks building levees out of sandbags and plastic sheeting. Once
again he was struck by the national media coverage—reporters from
the coasts kept showing up and announcing, with some
bewilderment, that there had been no looting. The lesson learned
during the Sioux City plane crash was reinforced. The Los Angeles
riots of the previous year provided a vivid counterexample. Finkle-
McGraw began to develop an opinion that was to shape his political
views in later years, namely, that while people were not genetically
different, they were culturally as different as they could possibly be,
and that some cultures were simply better than others. This was not
a subjective value judgment, merely an observation that some
cultures thrived and expanded while others failed. It was a view
implicitly shared by nearly everyone but, in those days, never
voiced.
Review of Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
Critics are calling it “Singularity Punk” – stories about societies so advanced, even death becomes a lifestyle choice.
Imagine being able to copy, download and store a human mind – to be able to move it around like a computer program and run it inside a simulation that is absolutely indistinguishable from reality — a society where citizens are encouraged to “back themselves up” regularly so they can be resurrected in new bodies if they die.
If you had the power to store individuals in elaborate virtual environments, what would you do with it? Some societies in Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels have decided to create virtual Heavens to reward the faithful. But does a virtual Heaven need to be balanced with a virtual Hell?
That’s the argument at the core of “Surface Detail” – the 9th Culture novel — where these myriad artificial afterlives have divided themselves into pro and anti-hell factions and gone to war. In these vast technological utopias, politics continues after death.
The factions agree to settle their differences with a virtual war, arbitrated by a race of natural referees. But when the anti-hell side starts losing they decide to cheat. First they try hacking the simulation, and when that doesn’t work, they decide to build a fleet of warships and settle the question in Real Space, destroying the hardware that Hell runs on.
The dead come “back to life” and threaten to intrude on mortal politics, while the “Level 8” societies choose up sides. The Culture is determined to stay neutral in this conflict, even if their sympathies tend to lie with the anti-hell side.
Readers will find it impossible to stay neutral as Banks brings us into a virtual Hell and chronicles the depravity in soul-numbing detail. Banks has always been fascinated by the dark side of human nature. He has such a gift for observing and describing human evil, I can only assume he created the Culture as a Utopian antidote, to soothe the nightmares in his own brain.
This flair for darkness, this balancing of perfect good with unspeakable evil is what keeps these novels from descending into Roddenberry territory. The Culture is never too sweet, never too cute, never too simplistic to be overwhelmed by the requirements of mundane reality, even if they have abolished money and turned their society over to a ruling class of benevolent AIs.
The Culture is run by its Minds – artificial intelligences so advanced they are as far above “normal” AIs as a super-computer is from a Commodore 64. The machines are remarkably human — as quirky, emotional and flawed as the humans that spawned them, even if they do have the literal power of gods.
There’s something very Greek about The Culture – a feeling of wry anticipation as machines take on the roles of Athena, Zeus and Aphrodite – alternately tormenting, toying with and rescuing mortals from their folly.
The Minds may toy with their human instruments, but you know it’s ultimately for the best – that all wounds will be healed and all indignities will be rectified, if not quite in the way you’d expect.
Banks’ vision of The Culture is becoming more complex and more organized as his stories progress. What started as a vague technological utopia is becoming more accessible and more “realistic” as Banks nails down the details.
Surface Detail introduces us to a variety of Culture factions, each specializing in a different aspect of alien society; the way branches of the military specialize in different kinds of threats. And just like in a conventional military, inter-service rivalry can be the worst enemy.
Banks rebels against his own sickly-sweet Culture stereotype by focusing the action on the avatar of an Abominator-class warship – a kind of trickster Ares who maintains a core of decency, even as he torments and murders mortals who get in his way.
The ship’s avatar revels in destruction and cruelty the way a child enjoys burning ants with a magnifying glass, but always within the Culture’s benevolent framework.
The ship really is a god in the Greek sense, cheerfully explaining things to his human champion as he fits her with tools, weapons and magical armor for the fight ahead.
That’s what surprises me most about these novels. You’d expect the Culture to be a stagnant society, but there’s a real sense of technological progress here, as the Abominator explains why he’s superior to the poor old Torturer class he’s pretending to be.
Iain Banks is famous for his dark humor, emotional complexity and light-fingered social commentary, but there’s a bit of gadget porn thrown in here too. Who wouldn’t want to live in a world of gelfield suits and intelligent tattoos?
There are plenty of sci-fi tropes in here, but the Culture books don’t read like space opera. They read like mythology, with technology filling in details that used to be described as magic. Surface Detail is an epic novel that actually seems more light-hearted and accessible than Banks’ previous efforts. This isn’t the first Culture novel you should read. (Start with The Player of Games.) But this is a fine sequel to Excession and Use of Weapons.
And yes, I’ll confess to making a little squee sound when I saw the first Mind-to-Mind email exchange in here. Banks may be stingy with the fanservice, but he gets to it eventually, if you wait long enough. He even gives us a solid ending, wrapping up the far flung plot threads in a way that doesn’t seem forced or tacked on.
If humans ever do figure out how to create a technological afterlife, I hope they will remember this book, and leave Hell on the drawing board.
38 Candles with Sarah Vowell
I decided to spend my birthday with Sarah Vowell on Tuesday.
Specifically I went to the Allen Theater and got her to scribble “Happy Birthday” on an issue of GO!
A Sarah Vowell reading in Lubbock turned out to be a great choice on my birthday. The crowd made me feel young. Average age was below 40 but definitely above 35. Grad students in jeans, professors in bow ties, soccer-moms in shoulder pads with sharp Southern cheekbones and one gray-haired man with a pony tail. I think I dropped his English class, many years ago. Or maybe that was the one I passed.
This was not a typical Lubbock crowd. This was like a band of expatriates, huddled together in a foreign land. In Lubbock, Sarah Vowell’s name is a litmus test. Most natives won’t know who she is, but one in five people who hear her name will nod and wink.
These are the NPR people — a dot of blue in a sea of red. We’re working on a handshake.
Read the rest of this entry »
Life lessons from the author of 'Stuff White People Like'
The Internet can’t change your life.
It can’t take an idea you had on a coffee break, lift you from obscurity and make all your dreams come true in six months.
Except when it does.
That’s what happened to Christian Lander, the creator of Stuff White People Like. Lander, an aspiring comedy writer from Toronto, was discussing “The Wire” with a friend from work when the conversation took a turn that changed his life.
He started with an obscure WordPress blog read by 25 friends, then his site got noticed by Comedy Central, creating a media avalanche that turned it into a overnight viral phenomenon.
Christian talked about his success in an utterly charming YouTube video recorded at the Google compound.
Steve Martin, on comedy, loneliness and women
I read his biography first, so I guess that makes it okay.
Steve Martin’s autobiography, “Born Standing Up” is a must-read for anybody who wants to perform, containing lessons that every artist should expose themselves to, even if they don’t entirely sink in.
Steve’s jokes aren’t funny anymore, and that makes it work better. You feel what a terrible uphill climb it was, to be recognized for his comedy, to refine his act in a thousand brutal nightclubs.
Steve can teach you about courage and persistence. You get the impression that Steve was not meant to be funny. He was born to be insanely quirky smart, and comedy was the only outlet he could think of.
I don’t think Steve Martin was born to be funny. I think Steve Martin was born to write books, and that comedy was a 40-year tangent. He was born to write books like “Shopgirl” — a tender, neatly-constructed novella that reads like a love letter to every young woman in the world.
I’ve never been a young girl, and neither has Steve Martin, but his portrayal of a lonely young woman named Mirabelle has a wonderful poignancy and ring of truth to it. I’ll confess that although I’ve written extensively on the topic of male loneliness, I don’t know much about the female equivalent.
Female loneliness feels different, the way he writes it. Softer somehow. While men tend to burn out, lash out and melt down, women just kind of…suffer. Quietly, delicately, until loneliness makes them do something stupid. Usually that “something stupid” is a man.
I’ve barely cracked the cover on this book, barely stepped in to Mirabelle’s world, but Martin has already defied my expectations and taught me something. We all know that young women who enter into relationships with older men are signing up for a kind of devil’s bargain, but Martin reveals that entering into a relationship with a young man is a devil’s bargain, too.
Each case involves giving up something, risking and sacrificing in hopes that emotional needs get met, praying that boys can put aside their natural selfishness and blindness, just long enough to be real and human, if only for a couple hours at a time.
“Shopgirl” is a wonderful book — using intelligence and insight to tell us about ourselves and explore the fundamental nature of romance and compromise. It’s a mature book, looking back on youth with adult eyes, analyzing things that most people just live.
Maybe some people would be happier not analyzing the mechanics of loneliness and youth, but so far, it’s been worth the trip.
Dumbledore is gay. Does it matter?
I'm late to the party on this one. Scott Slemmons already covered this in his Hero Sandwich blog but the Internet is still buzzing about it, and I wanted to weigh in.
First, it's not a publicity stunt. Rowling doesn't need more money and she didn't invent this overnight. These books were planned out years in advance, and J.K. left out more detail than she put in. Check out any random interview and you'll see her reveal fascinating story bits that weren't quite important enough to make it in print.
So when she says Dumbledore is gay, I believe he's been gay from the beginning. This revelation actually explains a lot and fits with the character. The biggest mystery in book 7 is how could Dumbledore be blind to the influence of a villain who started as a close friend. Now we know.
He was blind because he was in love, a situation that anyone with half a heart or half a brain can relate to.
The usual suspects are furious, of course. Bad enough that HP promotes Satanism and Witchcraft, now reading it can give your kids The Gay!
I'm delighted to see Rowling throw this curve ball into our national debate. A big chunk of the world population thinks homosexuality is evil, and we need to confront that. We need to talk about it and deal with it.
I think 20 years from now, prejudice against homosexuals will seem just as shameful and old-fashioned as the Jim Crow laws seem today.
Of course the Bible denounces homosexuality, but the Bible has been used to justify all kinds of crazy prejudices throughout history. Biblical interpretations fall in and out of fashion just like anything else.
In the 18th century, Bible verses were routinely used to justify slavery. Those interpretations fell out of fashion as the culture changed, and I believe the 20th century prejudice against homosexuals will vanish as well.
Religious movements establish culture, but they also respond to culture, and once society starts to accept homosexuality as natural and normal, the message from the pulpit will change as well.
This is a debate we need to have and Dumbledore's outing is a step in the right direction.
Harlan Ellison vs. Janna St. James
I could write a hundred entries about the dangers of Internet romance, about the dangers of mixing in too deeply with people you've never met. I could write those hundred entries or I could just link this one, which is like a hundred awful Internet fables rolled into one.
You know those urban legends about people getting their kidneys cut out in bathtubs? This is the emotional equivalent.
The funniest part? In this emotional horror story the day is saved by Harlan Ellison. Scifi fans know Harlan as the smartest, meanest, toughest hombre who ever put pen to paper, but imagine how much fun that is when he's on your side.
Mass Effect and the Objectivity of Cricket Bats
This lovely bit of dialog has been floating around my circle today, originally posted by resipisco.
It's not about the Internet, it's about writing and politics and our perceptions of both. If you're interested in writing or punditry, keep reading, and if you're not, go check out this Mass Effect trailer. It's bloody awesome.
HENRY: You're all bent.
ANNIE: You're jealous.
HENRY: Of Brodie?
ANNIE: You're jealous of the idea of the writer. You want to keep it sacred, special, not something anybody can do. Some of us have it, some of us don't. We write, you get written about. What gets you about Brodie is he doesn't know his place. You say he can't write like a head waiter saying you can't come in here without a tie. Because he can't put words together. What's so good about putting words together?
HENRY: It's traditionally considered advantageous for a writer.
ANNIE: He's not a writer. He's a convict. You're a writer. You write because you're a writer. Even you write about something, you have to think up something to write about just so you can keep writing. More well chosen words nicely put together. So what? Why should that be it? Who says?
HENRY: Nobody says. It just works best.
ANNIE: Of course it works. You teach a lot of people what to expect from good writing, and you end up with a lot of people saying you write well. Then somebody who isn't in on the game comes along, like Brodie, who really has something to write about, something real, and you can't get through it. Well, he couldn't get through yours, so where are you? To you, he can't write. To him, write is all you can do.
HENRY: Jesus, Annie, you're beginning to appall me. There's something scary about stupidity made coherent. I can deal with idiots, and I can deal with sensible argument, but I don't know how to deal with you. Where's my cricket bat?
ANNIE: Your cricket bat?
HENRY: Yes. It's a new approach. (He heads out into the hall.)
ANNIE: Are you trying to be funny?
HENRY: No, I'm serious. (He goes out while she watches in wary disbelief. He returns with an old cricket bat.)
ANNIE: You better not be.
HENRY: Right, you silly cow-
ANNIE: Don't you bloody dare-
HENRY: Shut up and listen. This thing here, which looks like a wooden club, is actually several pieces of particular wood cunningly put together in a certain way so that the whole thing is sprung, like a dance floor. It's for hitting cricket balls with. If you get it right, the cricket ball will travel two hundred yards in four seconds, and all you've done is give it a knock like knocking the top off a bottle of stout, and it makes a noise like a trout taking a fly… (He clucks his tongue to make the noise.) What we're trying to do is to write cricket bats, so that when we throw up an idea and give it a little knock, it might … travel … (He clucks his tongue again and picks up the script.) Now, what we've got here is a lump of wood of roughly the same shape trying to be a cricket bat, and if you hit a ball with it, the ball will travel about ten feet and you will drop the bat and dance about shouting 'Ouch!' with your hands stuck into your armpits. (Indicating the cricket bat.) This isn't better because someone says it's better, or because there's a conspiracy by the MCC to keep cudgels out of Lords. It's better because it's better. You don't believe me, so I suggest you go out to bat with this and see how you get on. [quoting from the play] `You're a strange boy, Billy, how old are you?'`Twenty, but I've lived more than you'll ever live.' Ooh, ouch! (He drops the script and hops about with his hands in his armpits, going `Ouch!' ANNIE watches him expressionlessly until he desists.)
ANNIE: I hate you.
HENRY: I love you. I'm your pal. I'm your best mate. I look after you. You're the only chap.
ANNIE: Oh, Hen… Can't you help?
HENRY: What did you expect me to do?
ANNIE: Well…cut it and shape it…
HENRY: Cut it and shape it. Henry of Mayfair. Look – he can't write. I would have to write it for him.
ANNIE: Well, write it for him.
HENRY: I can't.
ANNIE: Why?
HENRY: Because it's balls. Mary's part is the least of it – it's merely ham-fisted. But when he gets into his stride, or rather his lurch, announcing every stale revelation of the newly enlightened, like stout Cortez coming upon the Pacific – war is profits, politicians are puppets, Parliament is a farce, justice is a fraud, property is theft… It's all here: the Stock Exchange, the arms dealers, the press barons… You can't fool Brodie – patriotism is propaganda, religion is a con trick, royalty is an anachronism… Pages and pages of it. It's like being run over very slowly by a travelling freak show of favourite simpletons, the india rubber pedagogue, the midget intellectual, the human panacea…
ANNIE: It's his view of the world. Perhaps from where he's standing you'd see it the same way.
HENRY: Or perhaps I'd realize where I'm standing. Or at least that I'm standing somewhere. There is, I suppose, a world of objects which have a certain form, like this coffee mug. I turn it, and it has no handle. I tilt it, and it has no cavity. But there is something real here which is always a mug with a handle. I suppose. But politics, justice, patriotism – they aren't even like coffee mugs. There's nothing real there separate from our perception of them. So if you try to change them as though there were something there to change, you'll get frustrated, and frustration will finally make you violent. If you know this and proceed with humility, you may perhaps alter people's perceptions so that they behave a little differently at that axis of behaviour where we locate politics or justice; but if you don't know this, then you're acting on a mistake. Prejudice is the expression of this mistake.
ANNIE: Or such is your perception.
HENRY: All right.
ANNIE: And who wrote it, why he wrote it, where he wrote it – none of these things count with you?
HENRY: Leave me out of it. They don't count. Maybe Brodie got a raw deal, maybe he didn't. I don't know. It doesn't count. He's a lout with language. I can't help somebody who thinks, or thinks he thinks, that editing a newspaper is censorship, or that throwing bricks is a demonstration while building tower blocks is social violence, or that unpalatable statement is provocation while disrupting the speaker is the exercise of free speech… Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good any more, and Brodie knocks corners off without knowing he's doing it. So everything he builds is jerry-built. It's rubbish. An intelligent child could push it over. I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead.
No spoilers, please!
I'm so paranoid about having Harry Potter #7 spoiled for me, I have had to resort to radical measures.
I can't surf blogs, I can't view my Livejournal friends page, I can't risk reading reviews. I can't even talk to my friends about it, beyond this quick one-sentence review from my buddy Mack.
“It's really surprising and a bit of a bloodbath.”
In a book where anything can and probably will happen, Rowling has done what few pop authors would dream of. She has established a reputation for killing major characters. She has no reason to carry on this universe past book 7 and quite a few reasons not to.
Most writers keep at this stuff because they need the money. Rowling could buy Buckingham Palace and turn the whole thing into a skating rink, so the usual incentive structure does not apply to her.
I sit here, bookless and frightened, wondering if my imaginary friends are being slaughtered in a bookstore across town.
I'll have the book soon enough. In the meantime, I can't even risk being in General chats on World of Warcraft.
Lubbock Online has put on a full court press for this release. We've got stories, video, galleries, and all kinds of post-Potter coverage coming over the weekend. Pics and features will be trickling in today and tomorrow, so check back frequently and see if you've been Spotted.
All available on a front page near you.
Harry Potter mania sweeps Lubbock Online
;)
Okay, so I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix yesterday. Don't have time for a full review, let me just say — in every film that comes out, the opening logo gets darker and darker. By the time we get to #7 it's going to be jet black and dripping blood.
And it's not just the logo getting darker. Hogwarts is perpetually cloudy and assaulted by thunderstorms. The lighting gets darker with each film. Presumably #7 will be four kids with flashlights, casting spells in a cave. Oh wait, that was Book 6.
Here at the A-J, the online department usually maintains an ironic distance from pop culture events. We don't get excited about lectures, concerts, or your average big-budget movie opening.
But Pottermania has us all going nuts over here. We're a department full of nerds, and we're bouncing off the walls here waiting for Book 7.
We're planning all kinds of coverage for the book release (although I'm still trying to get Mack to dress in costume). Most days work is just work, but events like this make it fun to be in news.
P.S. Yesterday my sock puppet prank attracted a score of anonymous comments. Some people signed my name and posted comments that made me look like a delusional megalomaniac. This characterization is broadly accurate. But then some guy came on and accused me of going to “church camp.” That's a filthy lie.
Michael B. Duff 