by Jane | Dec 2, 2016 | Write Here Write Now
Black Mirror is a Netflix show from Britain, which Time magazine calls “a Twilight Zone for the digital age.” There are thirteen disturbing views into the near future, each of the shows involving technology in some fashion.
In the premiere episode, a British princess is kidnapped and the ransom asked for her safe return is for the Prime Minister to have sex with a pig on live television. The powers-that-be want to keep it secret, but it hits social media, which then guides the direction of the story.
In another episode, a woman discovers an app that recreates her dead husband’s personality, so that she can talk to him. But what is the next step, and is it everything she hopes it will be?
Black Mirror is an interesting series, and I will continue to watch it. It’s not exactly The Twilight Zone — it’s twice as long and doesn’t keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time. There’s also no real shock ending as there was in most of the TTZ episodes. It’s more of a low level of unease throughout. Watch it. It can be pure entertainment or a horrible prediction of where we’re heading. Your choice.
by Jane | Nov 29, 2016 | Write Here Write Now
The Last of the Firedrakes is the first in a series entitled The Avalonia Chronicles by Farah Oonerbhoy. It follows the adventures of 16-year-old Aurora Darling, who is currently living with the family of her adopted father’s brother. Picked on at school, even by her vicious cousin, she is very unhappy and thinks things can’t get any worse. That is, until she is pulled through a tapestry into a magical land and thrown in a dungeon. But all is not lost. She is rescued by a man known as the Black Wolf and discovers she is heir to the throne of Illiador. Unfortunately, she also finds out that her parents were killed by her aunt Morgana, who is trying to kill her as well.
The Last of the Firedrakes has magic, elves, winged horses, handsome rakes, and several silver-haired mentors for Aurora to follow (but only when she wishes.) There is even a school of magic where Aurora can learn to use her natural talents and makes an enemy she must foil (sound familiar?).
The book is published by Wise Ink, a partnership publisher who did an excellent job on the publishing. The paper and binding are excellent, and there is not the usual rash of typos and grammatical errors often found in self-published novels.
The writing was pretty good and the plot had some merit. The only problem I had was with some lapses of plot connectivity. I found myself looking back once too often to see how something was able to happen as it did. Also, I found Aurora a bit reckless, even for a fantasy book protagonist, taking actions that bordered on stupid. With just a little more writing, I believe the author could have gotten Aurora into the situations she wanted her in without making her appear as such.
Still, if you can overlook Aurora’s naivete, The Last of the Firedrakes can be an entertaining read. Just don’t expect too much.
by Jane | Nov 21, 2016 | Write Here Write Now
Hybrids by Robert J. Sawyer is the third book in a series entitled The Neanderthal Parallax. The premise of this series is that there is another universe where Neanderthals, not Homo sapiens, became the dominant series. In the first book, Neanderthal Ponter Boddit opened a portal into our world and the two civilizations made contact.
The crux of Hybrids seems to be that Porter and Homo sapiens geneticist Mary Vaughn are in love and trying to plan their life together, including marriage and children. Conceiving such a child is, of course, problematic since the two species have different number of chromosomes. So, they must go to the Neanderthal universe and find a banned machine that can manipulate DNA.
This is an interesting concept, one that has played out on the TV show Sliders, for instance, with Cro Magnons instead of Neanderthals. However, I do have some issues. It bothers me how often alternate universes are seen as idealic compared to ours. The Neanderthals have none of the problems of civilization that we do — overcrowding, depletion of resources, pollution, etc. In fact, they are more far-reaching that us. Seriously? We humans may have messed some stuff up, but why would another universe have it altogether, with no problems to be seen?
Another strange element is that all of the Neanderthals are bi-sexual, spending only four days a month with their opposite-sex mate and the remainder of the time with their same-sex spouses. It’s hard to fathom that an entire species would be bi-sexual.
There are also some scientific inaccuracies. The book talks about humans having “defeated” Neanderthals in our world. That implies some sort of conflict. Prevailing theories are that we were more highly adapted to our environment, and more recently, that we simply interbred with them, so that their species failed to exist.
Another issue raised is that humans have the ability for religion and Neanderthals do not. To my knowledge there is no indication of religion found in Neanderthal settlements, nor is there any indication of art. If these two things go together and imply an ability of abstract thinking, Neanderthals should have neither. In this book, they obviously have imagination and the ability for foresight and innovation, or they couldn’t have created their civilization. But although Neanderthals in this book evolved a more sophisticated brain than in our own world, it seems that the two concepts are hard to split. I say, if they have the ability for one, they should have the ability for another.
The story of Hybrids is interesting and somewhat engaging, but for the reasons stated above, I will not go back and read the previous books. I have to believe in the premise before I can truly enjoy a book. In this case, I just don’t.
by Jane | Nov 12, 2016 | Write Here Write Now
Westworld is an HBO series based on the 1973 movie of the same name. Westworld is an amusement park based on the Old West and set in a frontier town and its environs, where paying guests can come and play make-believe for a week or more. Their hosts are life-like robots programmed to interact with the guests to create one of many available storylines. Oh, and the guests can do anything they want to the hosts, including murder and rape, with no consequences. Hosts’ bullets don’t work on guests and the robots’ memories are wiped at the end of a story to begin again.
In the movie, there was a major glitch and the robots started killing the guests. In the TV show, it is more subtle. Some of the hosts are starting to recall some of the things that were done to them and are acting irrationally as a result. Some even recall the laboratory where they are repaired and examined for behavioral problems before being returned to the park. Add to that one particular guest played by Ed Harris, who is brutally torturing hosts in order to gain entry to a new level of the game, and you have the cruz of the show.
The action goes back and forth between the game and the laboratory where scientists, engineers, and administrators work on the robots, and try to figure out any problems that are occurring. They also argue about upgrades and changes to be allowed or not. This section is a bit slow and tedious at times — the real action is in the park — but necessary to the plot and an understanding of what is actually going on.
One thing I find interesting about this show is that, while there was nothing like it in 1973, now I keep comparing Westworld to the holodecks of the Starship Enterprise. The difference, I suppose, is that holodecks can generally be shut down (although there have been some problems with that.) On Westworld, you’re dealing with individual robots spread over many square miles and the human creators and administrators with conflicting agendas.
There’s also the motivation of the guests. Many of them take advantage of the various women offered them, but the main goal seems to be cruelty. Not to the level of Ed Harris’ character, but many of them seem to enjoy shooting and killing the hosts, for no other reason than that they can. So, on that level the show speaks to human nature, or at least, to the type of men who pay to go to Westworld.
In any case, Westworld is intriguing enough that I will continue to watch it. I suggest you do the same.
by Jane | Nov 1, 2016 | Write Here Write Now
Station Eleven is an apocalypse novel of a world-wide devastating plague by Emily St. John Mandel, which operates on two levels. Most of the action seems to concern a combined orchestra/acting troupe, who give concerts and perform Shakespeare. Yet, the thrust of the story revolves around an aging actor named Arthur Leander, who dies of a heart attack during a performance of King Lear the day the plague begins.
Through current time and flashbacks, and through multiple perspectives, we learn about this man’s life and the influence he had on a host of other people, directly or indirectly. One such person in Kristen Raymonde, a member of the troupe, who met Arthur during the ill-fated production of King Lear. Twenty years later, she has learned how to survive in the new world that exists after the fall of civilization.
This book is different from other apocalypse novels I have read. Mandel is an excellent writer, setting the mood of each scene with well-chosen words, and driving the book more through character than plot. While each character is striving to a certain goal, the goal itself is less important than the journey, and the real goal is not safety or warmth or sustenance, but rather character development and the creation of a sense about this world and the effect it has on people.
I enjoyed reading Station Eleven and found it strangely uplifting in spite of the harsh environment in which it is set. It will give you something to think about.
