To start this rant, what upset me the most in this Galactic Center series is the abrupt change in gears between volumes 2 and 3. What starts out as an interesting story about first contact (vols. 1 & 2) becomes a Mad Max kind of story of survival of the fittest in a hostile environment. The first half of the book, although mildly entertaining, is just that. There's is barely anything in the way of the science fiction that I came to appreciate Benford for writing. (Then again, I've heard somewhere that the Galactic Center Series is his space opera.)
The story progresses well, meaning that is has something in the way of good pace, but it is really a scenario that has been explored countless times in bad science fiction. (It smells a bit like movies in the vein of Damnation Alley and Mad Max, with the difference that it doesn't happen on Earth.) Even though the setting has aged and been overused, there are a few interesting ideas there, though only a few.
Humanity has scattered around the galaxy in order to survive the confrontation with the mechs, a mechano-electronical, artificially intelligent race. In the planet Snowglade, the survivors had settled in citadels where they did nothing but reuse known technology for all kinds of purposes. That lasted a while until the mechs destroyed most of the citadels putting humans on a constant race of evasion and survival. Humans incorporated technology to extend their senses, to communicate with one another, and even to move faster. There's a little bit of discussion about these technologies, and that kept me interested for a while. I liked the notion of implant-extended brains that store dead personalities recovered from flesh and blood humans before they physically die. I liked the notion of "intelligence" scattered around the components of a mechanical being in some kind of distributed processor or memory. These bits, however, are tiny nuggets of ingenuity in a vast expanse of cliches.
In spite of all this potential, though, the book is not at all what I hoped it would be. It is borderline silly at times (the barking manmech being the apex of bad taste) and has not even a smell of good science fiction. I may continue to read the series due to my obsessive-compulsive tendencies not to leave a story before it's concluded and only when I need brain dead reading material. Besides, from this rock bottom low, it can only get better. Or can it?
Friday, March 16, 2007
Robot Visions, by Isaac Asimov
This book is equal to I, Robot minus the "Susan Calvin framework" plus additional short stories plus some of Asimov's essays on robotics. You could infer from the previous statement that I volunteered an accurate equation, but it is only, at best, a rough approximation. The story "Catch That Rabbit" featured in I, Robot cannot be found in this volume. Sure, you can argue that this was all due to an editorial conspiracy to make you buy both books, but then again, remember that Robot Visions has also the essays!
It is definitely worthwhile to get your hands on this book at least for the stories that complement I, Robot, some of which include or are centered around the robopsychologist Susan Calvin. (I enjoyed very much "Feminine Intuition" and "Galley Slave".) "Someday" is a computer fable, not at all involving robotics, but still it's a sweet and interesting story. "The Bicentennial Man", which has been turned into a movie with Robin Williams that I have yet to watch, is just plainly wonderful and worth the entire book on its own. And have I mentioned the non-fiction essays yet? It's always nice to be able to read the Good Doctor's thoughts outside his science fiction.
It is definitely worthwhile to get your hands on this book at least for the stories that complement I, Robot, some of which include or are centered around the robopsychologist Susan Calvin. (I enjoyed very much "Feminine Intuition" and "Galley Slave".) "Someday" is a computer fable, not at all involving robotics, but still it's a sweet and interesting story. "The Bicentennial Man", which has been turned into a movie with Robin Williams that I have yet to watch, is just plainly wonderful and worth the entire book on its own. And have I mentioned the non-fiction essays yet? It's always nice to be able to read the Good Doctor's thoughts outside his science fiction.
I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
This was probably very first sci-fi book I ever read, back when I was 13 or thereabouts. The time was ripe for a re-read and although I was not as wowed as I was back then, it still a really interesting and satisfying book. This is a collection of stories about the three law robots conceptualized by Asimov, how they were integrated in society, how they evolved, and how the three laws constrained their behavior. In absolute terms, this is great science fiction and only gets better in the Robot novels. If you want to read these short stories, read them in "I, Robot" and not in "Robot Visions" or in "Robot Dreams". Here they are part of the story of Susan Calvin, the first robopsychologist. In other books, you will miss this background thread that gives an interesting context to all short stories.
I, Lucifer, by Glen Duncan
If you're offended by blasphemy, stay away from this book. If your religious views are more open minded and you feel like a good challenge (even if infinitely more humorous than serious) to your beliefs is healthy, then have fun with this read. The storyline is not complex, but the tone is just insanely funny and ultimately, this is what made the book enjoyable to me.
The basic idea is that Lucifer is offered a second chance before the apocalypse hits us: if he can manage to live the last days in the body of a mortal with a semblance of virtue, then he will be redeemed. The book is narrated in first person by the prince of lies himself. The language is so foul and the subject matter often so profane that even the most derelict reader will at times feel blood rush to the cheeks. Still, I found this book worthwhile for the riotous fun and for the philosophical and the religious themes that permeate the story. Of course, I had to put aside all my religious sensitivities for a few days, while I read it or else I would probably have felt like I was condemning myself to an eternity of suffering in Hades.
The basic idea is that Lucifer is offered a second chance before the apocalypse hits us: if he can manage to live the last days in the body of a mortal with a semblance of virtue, then he will be redeemed. The book is narrated in first person by the prince of lies himself. The language is so foul and the subject matter often so profane that even the most derelict reader will at times feel blood rush to the cheeks. Still, I found this book worthwhile for the riotous fun and for the philosophical and the religious themes that permeate the story. Of course, I had to put aside all my religious sensitivities for a few days, while I read it or else I would probably have felt like I was condemning myself to an eternity of suffering in Hades.
Turing, by Christos H. Papadimitriou
Oh, well... this one didn't meet half the expectations that I had upon discovering it in the Supercomputing 2005 conference. It's a novel, yes, about computation, yes, but it fails miserably at telling a cohesive, engrossing, and entertaining story. The best I can say about it is that it's a novel for the computer science geek, like me, that may motivate one to go hit the books on computability and theory of computation again.
The plot is simple. A romance starts in the Greek isles between a cyberwizard woman and an archaeologist. She leaves Greece all of a sudden abandoning her lover Alexandros, who is compelled to seek her out later on the global internet. In this search, he stumbles upon Turing, who is purportedly, some type of AI program (perhaps one which can pass Turing's test). Turing would have been constructed as some kind of teaching tool to educate people on computation. As the character Alexandros and Turing interact, the reader is presented with many a lecture on computer technology and computation, which fail to advance the plot in any way, shape, or form. The tutorials are very interesting and present concepts in Math and Computer Science with considerable clarity, but then again, I failed to see how they fit in the story. (I find it extremely hard to believe, however, that anyone without a solid background in Computer Science could muster enough interest to get through these lessons.) In the meantime, the other two legs of the love triangle meet, fall in love, and develop a relationship, a plot element that was as exciting to me as watching an egg cook in boiling water.
Arguably, this "novel" would want to fit in the cyberpunk genre and reach a different kind of height than the works of William Gibson, but it doesn't. It seems to me it was only a vehicle for teaching scientific concepts poorly disguised as literature. The romance which develops into a love triangle is insipid, the characters thin, and the resolution of the story anti-climatic.
On the other hand... I enjoyed the discussions on Cantor's diagonalization proof, on Turing machines and the halting problem, and other Math/CS topics. They made me want to go back to my old books and refresh all that beautiful theory.
The plot is simple. A romance starts in the Greek isles between a cyberwizard woman and an archaeologist. She leaves Greece all of a sudden abandoning her lover Alexandros, who is compelled to seek her out later on the global internet. In this search, he stumbles upon Turing, who is purportedly, some type of AI program (perhaps one which can pass Turing's test). Turing would have been constructed as some kind of teaching tool to educate people on computation. As the character Alexandros and Turing interact, the reader is presented with many a lecture on computer technology and computation, which fail to advance the plot in any way, shape, or form. The tutorials are very interesting and present concepts in Math and Computer Science with considerable clarity, but then again, I failed to see how they fit in the story. (I find it extremely hard to believe, however, that anyone without a solid background in Computer Science could muster enough interest to get through these lessons.) In the meantime, the other two legs of the love triangle meet, fall in love, and develop a relationship, a plot element that was as exciting to me as watching an egg cook in boiling water.
Arguably, this "novel" would want to fit in the cyberpunk genre and reach a different kind of height than the works of William Gibson, but it doesn't. It seems to me it was only a vehicle for teaching scientific concepts poorly disguised as literature. The romance which develops into a love triangle is insipid, the characters thin, and the resolution of the story anti-climatic.
On the other hand... I enjoyed the discussions on Cantor's diagonalization proof, on Turing machines and the halting problem, and other Math/CS topics. They made me want to go back to my old books and refresh all that beautiful theory.
Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
The only bad thing I could possibly say about this book is that it's not American Gods. That aside, though, there are many, I mean many, good things I can say about this engaging, imaginative, well-written, and ultimately fun read.
This is the story of Charles Nancy, an ordinary bloke living in London, engaged to the woman he loves, despised by his mother-in-law to be, and competent at his job, but thoroughly dissatisfied with it. Charles, aka. Fat Charlie, has a father who live across the pond, in Florida, who is quite the insufferable character, according to him. Fat Charlie's memories of his dad are not exactly the best, the worst arguably being a prank he pulled on Charlie on Presidents' Day, when he told Charlie that on that holiday all kids go to school dressed up as their favorite American president. When Fat Charlie's dad passes away, he is summoned to the States for the services and it is so that Pandora's box gets opened. It turns out that Fat Charlie descends from a divinity and that his brother Spider is the one who got to inherit all the supernatural powers. It turns out later that what remains of his family reunites and that really bumpy times follow. The story is written with great sense of humor and with the imaginative force that only Gaiman is capable of wielding today. Oh, yeah, there is one other bad thing I can say about this book: it ends. To make matters worse, it will probably take Gaiman a while to release another book, but I'll be waiting.
This is the story of Charles Nancy, an ordinary bloke living in London, engaged to the woman he loves, despised by his mother-in-law to be, and competent at his job, but thoroughly dissatisfied with it. Charles, aka. Fat Charlie, has a father who live across the pond, in Florida, who is quite the insufferable character, according to him. Fat Charlie's memories of his dad are not exactly the best, the worst arguably being a prank he pulled on Charlie on Presidents' Day, when he told Charlie that on that holiday all kids go to school dressed up as their favorite American president. When Fat Charlie's dad passes away, he is summoned to the States for the services and it is so that Pandora's box gets opened. It turns out that Fat Charlie descends from a divinity and that his brother Spider is the one who got to inherit all the supernatural powers. It turns out later that what remains of his family reunites and that really bumpy times follow. The story is written with great sense of humor and with the imaginative force that only Gaiman is capable of wielding today. Oh, yeah, there is one other bad thing I can say about this book: it ends. To make matters worse, it will probably take Gaiman a while to release another book, but I'll be waiting.
Across the Sea of Suns, by Gregory Benford
This was a really interesting and fun read. As a sequel to the first installment of the Galactic Center Series, this book really hit the spot: it was better written in that the focus became clearer and the story was very gripping. The disappointment I had was not with this book, which ended is a suspenseful and exciting cliff-hanger, but in the volume that follows it in the series. I rushed to buy the next installment hoping for continuity and what I found was a big leap in time starting off at a completely different place in the story, far ahead in the future. I got so annoyed at this reinventing of the whole storyline that I decided to put aside the third volume for a time. When I have managed to dissociate myself for where book 2 ended, I'll be in good shape for reading the rest of the series for what it is and not for what I wanted it to be.
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