Oryx and Crake is getting more interesting by the chapter. The cause of this apocalypse, seems to be some combination of human greed (the usual) and genetic engineering. But not, engineering of a virus (boring) or monster (less boring but still lame) but of new and improved humans. What would happen if we tried to …
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
I found myself inspired by the end of this book. The final sentence really wraps it up, and I liked the color it gave to all the preceding (and proceeding?) stories. It's not really a spoiler, but it goes something like this: "Your efforts will be nothing but a drop in the ocean!" "What is …
Nested narratives
I'm about 3/4 done with Cloud Atlas and am starting to see the design of it. And it's really great. At first I thought that the first three, maybe even four narratives had no relevance to the final two, where the action and interest really kicked off. But now, as I begin to see how …
I cog it
I am nearing the end of Cloud Atlas, and the current viewpoint character has a very foreign (to me) dialect. The character is Hawaiian, but in a far future 'we forgot technology' situation. Perhaps some of this way of speaking is familiar to Hawaiians, but it's not to me. And this is not just dialogue, …
Voices
Sometimes I'm reading and I think 'I could stand you forever', and other times I want to toss the book aside from waiting for the character to change. But each character, and narrator, should have their own unique voice. Because, the narrator isn't 'you'. You are an actor playing the part of the narrator--and the characters--when …
Jonas David 