In Six Wakes, The Dormire, a generational ship travelling to colonize the planet Athena, is manned by six clones and an AI. It is the responsibility of the clones, with the help of the AI, to fly the ship, make any needed repairs and keep the cargo of humans, clones and homesteading materials safe. Clones are chosen to man the ship due to the fact that the journey to Athena will take hundreds of years. And, unlike a human crew, when the clones die, the […]
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Anyone remember this gem (for the link-wary, it’s the trailer to the 2001 film Antitrust)? This book is basically that movie, 10-15 years later. They’re both entertaining, just not incredibly sophisticated. It’s amusing that a film based on this book is now set to be released in April 2017, because though The Circle is technically an original property, it reads like a watered-down reboot of a great many superior predecessors. I’ve gotta think that made it really attractive to Hollywood: it’s digestible and familiar, but […]
Secrets are lies. [Also, pizza gif within]
“Secrets are lies” Holy mother of Jesus. I can’t even with this book. I’d been hearing about this book for ages, mostly praise, but I was unsure that I could handle ANOTHER book about “social media = bad” and technology is super duper dangerous. To be fair, the book did not immediately quell my fears. The first part was slow going and had me rolling my eyes slightly at the obvious parody of facegooglespacehoo. Then I burnt my bread. That’s not a euphemism. I’d put […]
The Stand: Not a book you want to read when coming down with a cold…
So my first proper book I’ve read this year is The Stand. To be honest, I can’t believe I haven’t read it before. I tried about ten years ago, when I was probably early on in my undergrad, and… just couldn’t get through it. I think I got stuck on an early Larry chapter at some point (because let’s face it, he is The Worst) and just found I didn’t care enough about any of the characters to go on. This time, though, I was hooked. A […]
In which I project my hypocritical political ire…
Set in an alternate United States, in which Abraham Lincoln was assassinated before taking office, the Civil War was never fought, and slaves were never emancipated, Underground Airlines is the story of a young black man (who goes by various names) working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshal service. His job? Hunting escaped slaves in contemporary America. First, this was a very well-written book. It’s in the style of a hard-boiled detective novel, and the world building by Ben Winters is fairly well […]
“I used to be someone.”
Dramatic irony — simply, the idea that the audience knows something that the character doesn’t — is a common tension-building storytelling device. From the point of view of the audience, it’s oppositional from the “plot twist,” where the character(s) and the audience are both in the dark and they figure out the crucial, shocking bit of information at the same time, and it completely transforms the story, both moving forward and retroactively. There are the stories that play both sides. They don’t explicitly inform the […]
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