Writing about writing and reading
This is the 8th Culture novel, and the third that I've read, and so far I think it's the most memorable. The story focuses on virtual reality, and mainly the virtual realities different civilizations create for their afterlives. Some of them being hells. With the ability to record, copy and / or upload consciousness, comes …
Continue reading "Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks: A hell of a story"
I saw the new Harry Potter universe movie over the weekend, and although I'm not a big Harry Potter fan, my wife is, and she was literally asleep next to me in the theater. The problem with this movie is a lack of consequence. The characters, though likable, are not in any danger for over …
Continue reading "Fantastic beasts without story are a fantastic bore"
I just finished this post apocalyptic sci fi classic, which takes the form of a few stories over the course of nearly two thousand years. Centuries after nuclear war, society rebuilds itself, regrowing from barbarism, and finding scraps of its ancient past. The story starts with a monk of the order of Leibowitz finding a …
Continue reading "A Canticle for Leibowitz: the forgetfulness of humanity"
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler follows Dana, a black novelist who lives in California, 1978, and is unwillingly transported back to a pre-Civil War Maryland Plantation. This brief synopsis is already probably enough to make you squirm. I was unsure what I was in for going into this, but I'm glad I read it. The brutality …
Continue reading "Kindred: disturbing, embarrassing, eye opening"
Remember when the big movies coming out that everyone was excited about weren't remakes, or reboots, or based on a comic book or video game or brand name or fairy tale or popular book series? Well, maybe this is 80's nostalgia after all... Stranger Things not only has the refreshing attribute of being something new, despite …
Jonas David 