Life, The Universe and Scifi

Hugo Book Review: Foundation's Edge

2012-02-17T06:57:51Z

The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov is one of the most famous of all science fiction stories of all time, but while it is a series that really does feel as if it has a strong coherence it has a major break both in time and in tone. Having been encouraged by his fans to return to the series Isaac Asimov wrote Foundation’s Edge thirty years after the other Foundation’s book. In addition, Asimov began to connect other series into the books while writing in a very similar style which includes a lot of people talking and discussing ideas.

Taking place about 500 years into the Seldon plan the mule has been destroyed and the Foundation believes that they have defeated the second foundation and are nearly as powerful as the empire was at its peak. Yet one of the Foundation’s senators sees a problem. They are not only on the Seldon plan but far too perfectly on the plan and that perfection shouldn’t be possible especially after the problems of the Mule. This suggests to him that someone is affecting the foundation and he suspects the second foundation was not destroyed.

By bringing this up though he upsets the leader of the foundation and is exiled at least in appearance and unable to actually search for the second foundation because then they would use their mental abilities to stop him. So, he is given an advanced ship and a historian who is searching for earth he begins to search for the second foundation. The second also has its own internal politics though and one of the most powerful of the leaders of that organization is also sent away due to politics creating a parallel between the two and making it clear that there is something else going on.

Connecting in the robot books and even the three laws of robotics into the foundation series is an interesting choice and one that could have worked out badly. But, Asimov is a great writer and he was able to connect the two in such a way that it really did feel right even if it wasn’t always easy. In addition there are a few other brilliant ideas. Gaia is perhaps the most interesting as you find out at the end of the story that there really is something unique about this place and using an idea that is common in science fiction in a different way. And just like Asimov was able to use robots in an interesting way when most others were using them only as monsters he also makes the ideas behind Gaia less scary and far more real at the same time.

It is almost impossible to talk about this book without discussing books which came both before and after it, except to say that while this will be better if you have read all of those stories you really can pick this up and enjoy the story without having read the others since almost everything that has happened before is at least partially explained and most of the characters are self contained in this book. Still if you want the full experience it is well worth beginning with the first of the foundation series or even some of the books such as the robot series which are excellent stories and thanks to these stories connected to this book.

Chuck Series Finale: Chuck Vs. The Goodbye

2012-02-09T23:16:23Z

I hate TV finales, but I also love them. As the saying goes all good things must come to an end. It is in fact those ends that often make the good shows into classics and is one of the biggest advantages that a popular TV show has over a good comic book or even a movie as they can build for years to a real conclusion. Today, I watched the last few episodes of Chuck, a show that I have enjoyed from the beginning, and the emotions as I finished Chuck Vs. The Goodbye were as mixed as they ever have been watching any show.

This season of Chuck has been hit or miss. I enjoyed the first part with a new intersect, but once they resolved that part of the story it didn’t really feel a lot like Chuck. It was more like a generic spy show with a few quirky references. The finale both helped to make it clear why it felt so different and yet made it feel like Chuck again.

The biggest accomplishment of the finale was that it managed to get everything that I loved about the show into a single episode and do them all well. It rekindled the feeling of the first seasons with Chuck’s uncertainty and lack of confidence , had Sarah and Casey more like they were at the beginning and even brought back Jeffster.

Perhaps the best part of Chuck Vs. The Goodbye was the very end. Without spoilers it was able to make it clear that everything was going to be OK without actually telling you exactly how it turned out. If Morgan was right then naturally everything will be good, but if he was wrong, which seems likely, then it might take a bit of time but it will still be OK. That feeling that the story is over, but there is still a story to be told is hard to do, but when it’s done well.

Overall this season of Chuck wasn’t its strongest, but the finale itself really did feel like a great cap to a series that I really enjoyed, making the story feel complete without undermining anything that came before it. So all in all this was a good ending to one of my favorite shows even if the last season wasn’t as good as I would have liked.

Skyrim

2011-11-22T07:46:20Z

I have been playing far too much Skyrim in the last week and a half and to actually review it at this point is a bit absurd. We can all agree that the game is great and move on. Still there are a few points in the game that I would like to address specifically.

Dragon Claw Keys

I can see the value in these. They are likely hard to replicate and even if you did you wouldn’t know the combination. The issue I have is that they put the combination on the bottom of the key. These doors are seriously over engineered with huge turning stones that had to have taken workmen months or years to build. During all of this time someone must have asked the foreman why they were doing all the extra work if anyone who had the key would know how to open the door immediately. Perhaps it was simply a recession in Skyrim and they were so glad to have work that no one was willing to admit that it was pointless work.

Alter Puzzles

I have run into a lot of these puzzles in a lot of forms, but in general you have a pillar you have to turn or levers you have to pull in a specific order. The odd thing is that in almost every case the solution to these puzzles is on the wall of the room. Since I assume anyone in Skyrim would figure out these puzzles my thoughts are that these puzzles are the Nord’s way of taunting the Falmer who, being blind, would be unable to solve these puzzles. For everyone else it simply slows them down.

The Way Out

I can understand the value of having a quick way out of a tomb. After all if you’re one of the workmen building these giant tombs you don’t want to have to walk through the entire crypt to get home at the end of the day. The problem is that after having walked through enough of these giant crypts to discover that there was a path that would have taken a tenth the time I begin to wonder that not one of these people left the back door open. Just once I would like to go into a tomb discover that the back way was opened, bypass the hoard of undead grab the one thing I need and leave without incident.

Why don’t these people know me?

I understand that there are a lot of people running around Skyrim and there is no reason for anyone who doesn’t know me to know why I am, but there are times when it can be a bit insulting. I’m the archmage of the college you live in, we fought a dragon together a few days ago and yesterday I spent five thousand gold buying things from you, but now that I show up with someone else you don’t know me. I get it, you’re too good for me. You’ve got to impress people after all and I need you for now, but don’t think I’m going to forget this. When the great purge comes, and it will come, you will be among those who are to suffer and not simply be removed.

Hugo Book Review: Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh

2011-07-21T18:47:44Z

Downbelow Station by C J Cherryh is the type of book that I began to read the Hugos to find. An epic science fiction story which tells the story of Pell’s World which has fought itself caught between two empires. This is the first world which was found to be habitable and while generally unimportant still serves as a jumping off point for other colonization.

At some point later faster than light travel has been created and the control earth has over the colonies is largely breaking down with only a fleet of fifty ships allowing them any real control, a control which is breaking down as those ships are defeated and largely unsupported in the war so that they are losing to a more advanced and growing fleet.

The story begins near the end of that war. One of the earth ships arrives at Pell filled with refugees that put a strain on the bases both because of the cost of resources and because they fear that there are spies among them. Much of the rest of the story deals with these people as well as the captain of the earth ship who is forced to defend them.

While I did enjoy Downbelow Station I never really felt as if there were a protagonist I could like. The ship captain begins the story by doing something more or less evil and it never really feels to me as if she cares about what she is doing. Earth isn’t particularly good as they are both out of touch and trying to hold back humanity, but the others are worse. This is probably more realistic than those books that have a clear good and evil, but not as satisfying.

I can certainly understand why Downbelow Station won the Hugo Award. It is a very smart book with a lot going on and it takes risks that many science fiction books don’t. The aliens are both different from humans and yet not bizarre and the conflicts are smart. In the end though much of this felt as if it didn’t really need to be science fiction and the story became a bit slow at times. So I can recommend this book to those who have the patience to enjoy a book that is a bit slow, but not for everyone.

Hugo Book Review: The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge

2011-07-13T09:21:30Z

The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge tells the story of a world in an empire that has collapsed. The story is set on a world that has a medicine which effectively allows immortality. Very rare it is used primarily by the royalty of this world, but they do not hold that position forever and the world takes place as that is about to change, something the queen doesn’t want.

It is hard for me to read The Snow Queen because separating out the difficulties in reading it is going to be almost impossible from the book itself. I enjoyed the beginnings of this book well enough, but I had technical difficulties twice the second time my Kindle broke and it took days for me to get a new one and then I couldn’t find the exact location I was previously at in the book. Still, I didn’t feel any great desire to return to this story while I was waiting.

The major character of this story is Moon. She is a sibyl which means that she has access to a huge database of knowledge in a strange almost computer like way. This along with the fact that she has a connection to the queen drive the story along with a great deal of politics. This covers ideas like fear of death, the nature of intelligence, the nature of power and even nature vs. nurture.

While there are a lot of great ideas here, but the truth is that I never really cared about any of the characters or entirely bought into the ideas of this story. They just felt shallow and not all that interesting in general.

I want to give this another chance at some point because there are a lot of great ideas in this story, but I never really felt like the plot drew me in and I didn’t care about any of the characters. Still, I can understand why this won a Hugo because the questions and ideas that this sets up are important and not easy to answer and that makes it worth reading even if it isn’t great.

Hugo Book Review: Gateway by Frederik Pohl

2011-06-20T06:16:51Z

Gateway by Frederik Pohl is one of the Hugo award winning novels that I have most enjoyed. This is a story that isn’t entirely about what you expect it to be about and that is part of the reason I enjoy it so much. The Gateway is an ancient space station that has been found by humans who barely understand how any of it work, but know that the technology is far ahead of them and potentially useful and so are exploring that technology.

The primary way that technology is being explored is by sending people out in the ships that they have found. There are three types of ships at this station. One hold one person, one holds three and another hold five. Though no one really understands why the three person ships seem the most safe and this idea of them guessing about what is safe makes up much of the ship as the main character is trying to find ways to improve his odds of not only surviving a trip on a strange alien ship, some of which never return, but also to find technology of true value so he can become wealthy.

What makes this book different than you might expect is how little the alien technology is really explored. This is about the man and the pain that he feels as well as guilt he feels. The reason for this guilt is one of the few of the major mysteries of this story that is really answered. But even though you don’t find explanations for the technology or solve every problem there is a lot to like about this story because it feels far more real. The technology doesn’t simply make sense because we want it too and the world isn’t a single solution to be found.

In some ways this story could be considered slow. There is a lot of time where very little actually happening besides character development, but the quality of the story telling and the way it is told helped to keep me hooked.

Having moved on to the next of the Hugo novels I did not read farther in the Heechee saga of books so I don’t know how much more is explained, but in truth I liked many of the questions that this story left as well as the fact that the life of the character isn’t perfect or even all that good simply because he has solved some scientific problem. So, if you like good hard science fiction with real character development then this is a good choice.

The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke

2011-06-14T05:36:22Z

Arthur C. Clarke is one of the masters of hard science fiction. His ability to write stories that examine plausible or possible technology makes for stories that are impressive and in The Foundations of Paradise he writes about one of the most interesting and innovative pieces of science fiction technology ever, the space elevator and the introduction of that idea to the masses is almost certainly the major reason that this story won the Hugo because beyond that idea the major story here is a conflict between ancient and modern culture because the only real place that the space elevator in this story can be placed also has a temple that has been there for centuries.

The truth is that while the conflict in this story helps the real story is the space elevator and the difficulties and importance of that technology. What is impressive about this is that many of the ideas that came so early. I don’t know the history of the technologies well enough to know how advanced the ideas were but talking about using carbon wires is impressive because people who talk about the idea of the space elevator now still talk about carbon fibers.

Most of the story is the difficulty not only of the engineering but the politics of creating the most massive engineering feat of all time. This examination of this in the story is vital because of the importance of the idea. This is because the understanding that being able to get easily off the ground of earth opens up the solar system to humans in a way rockets never can. This means that even though it would be difficult and even dangerous to build this the far more dangerous thing is to leave humans trapped on earth.

The truth is that I didn’t care all that much for this story. I didn’t really care about the characters all that much and the story fell flat. That doesn’t matter a lot though because it is the technology that rules this story in my opinion. It is explored in a number of ways from the drawing board, on mars and even in failure and each of them make the idea seem more real and more interesting so if the exploration of technology is what you look for in science fiction this is a great novel, but if story and character are king this isn’t a story you’re going to love.

Hugo Book Review: Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre

2011-06-03T03:05:57Z

Perhaps I am too quick to judge books because Dreamsnake is another of the Hugo nominated books that I did not enjoy much at all at the beginning but soon found myself really enjoying, and while there were still parts of it where it felt as if things went on a bit too long overall and at times I really wanted to just put it down I can understand why this got attention though like some of the others I feel as if it is trying too hard to be important and not hard enough to be interesting.

The basic story is in a post apocalyptic world, but what I like about this world is that it hasn’t simply forgotten everything. People didn’t just suddenly become useless and forget how to do everything and the only real reason you know the world was destroyed is because of radioactive craters and other signs, but by and large people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it, they have better things to do. This is something that a lot of other books could stand to remember.

The main character is Snake, a healer who has had her dreamsnake killed and is trying to decide what should be done next since that dreamsnake is one of the primary tools that she uses in her healing. This leads her on a long trip to a city where she believes she may be able to convince people to help her create more dreamsnakes. As she goes she uses her ability to heal people to survive. This is important to the story because it lets you see the fears and strengths of each group of people and gets her immediately involved in their lives. And really that is a large part of the book, as Snake becomes involved in each of these villages making things a bit better for them by performing generally pretty simple medicine such as inoculations, while other times she does very complex things.

I didn’t love this story and it wouldn’t be high on my list of recommendations, but that is more because it isn’t the type of story that I care for than anything about the quality of the story, so if you’re more interested in character than plot and want a lot of descriptions you’ll likely enjoy this far more than I did, yet there is a fair amount of plot here as well, it’s just how it moves forward that is not the way I prefer stories.

Review: The Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft

2011-05-30T23:40:42Z

Mountains of Madness is H. P. Lovecrafts longest story, and at times as you read the story it certainly feels as if it is the longest, though there are a few others that were much harder to read. This is in fact a very interesting story most of the time, though I could have done with a little less detail in a few points and a good editor could probably make this into a fantastic story.

The basic story is that there is a expedition to the Antarctic by a group from Miscitonic university. This group of professors and grad students plans to check the ice for fossils and other points. Since they are from Arkham this can hardly be expected to go right. After all this is the university that requires every professor to read the Necronomicon before they are allowed to begin teaching.

Things go well at first and then a small group of the men decide to fly over the south pole. This is important because at the time they really were exploring and people didn’t know what was there like someone with a satellite image might. Anyway, they discover mountains which are thousands of feet taller than Everest and begin to explore.

Inside these mountains they find huge numbers of fossils including some very strange and well descried fossils which appear to be a sort of mix between plants, starfish and a amphibious flying creature. Basically imagine everything mixed together into a weird fossil.

From this point on things do not really go well. The main group is getting wireless communications from those exploring and they discover more and more until finally another group is sent after them as this has become the find of the century. (though the writer of the story is writing it to convince people not to ever go there again.)

From here they find huge amounts of H. P. Lovecraft mythos including the old ones, information about many of the gods, wars and other creatures who have been to earth and a giant city. There are even things that the Necronomicon seemed to assume were not ever on earth and almost all of them either dangerous to humans or at least not all that friendly.

It is hard to really explain this book because the truth is that it is really more about exploring the strange H. P. Lovecraft world than anything else, but the key phrase to me was the idea that humanity wasn’t evolved or created by a loving God, but creating by powerful beings either as an accident or a joke. Either way it probably isn’t good for us. This isn’t really a belief that I hold to, but as an idea for world building it is so different from the general assumptions that it finds huge gulfs of open story ideas that no one else has touched on, and in large part I think that is what makes H. P. Lovecraft so interesting, he isn’t the best writing, and certainly not the best human being, but he has a world view, at least in his fiction that is different from so much else.

I don’t know that I would recommend this to many people who are wanting to jump into Lovecraft mostly because its length means that if they don’t like it a lot they are far less likely to finish, but for anyone who has enjoyed anything of H. P. Lovecraft and wants to know more about the world that he wrote about, or for fans of John Carpenters the thing, the Mountains of Madness is a great story to read.

Medusa's Coil by H. P. Lovecraft

2011-05-28T20:34:36Z

One of the interesting parts of reading through H. P. Lovecraft’s stories in chronological order is that you never know what you’re likely to get. One story will be great and then there will be several that are not as good. Medusa’s Coil is a story that I had heard was not good, yet when I began to read it I was actually enjoying it. The story has a B movie feel to it through a fair amount of the story, but I don’t mind that, in fact I like a good B horror movie. The problem is that the end goes so far off the rails that it makes you wonder if it was done intentionally.

The story begins with a man driving a roadster down a lonely country road. He is trying to find a town in Missouri, Cape Gerardo, which I have been to. This adds something to the story though not enough to overcome the end. Anyway, he finds an old run down home and goes into it to ask for directions, but the directions that the old man in the house gives him are complex and it is getting dark so he asks instead if he can stay there.

The man is surprised because no one would want to stay there, but agrees and begins to tell him the story of his son, who married a woman who among other odd things had coiled strange hair that seemed to move on its own when you were not looking at it. That is right, the story of Medusa’s Coil actually has a character in it who might be Medusa.

The story continues telling a lot of history of the man and the house, but also of a good friend of his sons who is an artist. The artist comes and eventually asks to paint the woman, but won’t let anyone see the paining. He spends months and while he is there the boy she is married to leaves.

This leads into the B movie horror aspects of the story, which are spoilers so if you don’t want them you might want to stop.

So the son returns without warning, sends away the servants, sees the picture goes insane and kills his wife and cuts off her hair. Except that the hair seems to be alive and crawls up the stairs to where the artist is and attacks him. The old man then arrives to see the two dead people and his son insists he burn the paining and the bodies.

Instead, the man buries the bodies and looks at the paining. This is clearly a mistake, but it seems that the hair is actually alive in the painting as well and the man knows that burying it had not stopped it.

The story then cuts back to the present time as the old man asks the visitor if he would like to see the paining. Naturally the man says yes and they go up to it. When the man sees it he is so upset that he pulls out a gun(which had never been mentioned in the story until now) and shoots the painting. This destroys the painting and seems to free the woman and hair.

They flee from the house knocking over a candle as they go and the house begins to burn as the man runs away. This is when you get to the second of the escalating levels of absurdity, moving up from the hair that is crawling across the floor attacking people. The man jumps in his car and rushes down the road talks to a man and discovers that… the house burnt down five years ago.

I have no idea why this was necessary and you may assume that this is as absurd as the story could possibly get, but you still have the greatest horror, at least to H.P. Lovecraft. This one is so completely stupid that you have to read the story because if you understand how awful the final point is and are prepared then it actually has the potential to reach the so bad its hilarious level of writing.

If you can get over the idea of the main villain of this story being hair or if you simply enjoy the absurdity of this then this is a story that is actually fun to read, but if you’re offended by something that someone who has been dead for most of a century wrote then this is a good story to avoid.