This has been the first Neal Stephenson novel I finished but it won’t be the last. I tried to read Stephenson’s Snow Crash previously but I wasn’t able to get into it before I had to return it.  Now that I’ve read The Diamond Age I certainly want to give it another try. This is an excellent read about a girl and her primer in a future where diamond windows and airships made lighter than air with nano vacuum suspension are easily created. Where nano engineers can design almost anything imaginable and make them available, at a cost, through matter compilers fed by pure streams of molecules. The new economy is based on ideas and where old national lines (although they still try to rear themselves up) are a thing of the past. So without countries what defines which team you’re in? Stephenson suggests that phyles are formed based on common economic goals and principles. The Neo-Victorians, controlling the largest sources for the matter compilers and having some of the best nano engineers is at the top of the stack. In this story, Stephenson chooses to focus on the Vickys as well as their interactions with other phyles.
A Vicky engineer (John Percival Hackworth is one of the best) is commissioned to create a primer for a girl. This book bonds to its reader and transforms itself into the best learning device for her. It is designed to not only pass on knowledge but also to ensure that the reader has ‘an interesting life’. But Hackworth’s desire for his own daughter to have the same opportunity in life, leads him to create an illegal copy of the primer. This copy falls into the hands of the main character Nell, a young, poor and innocent thete (someone without a phyle). The story then revolves around the chain of events this unanticipated act causes.
This book was nearly impossible for me to put down. The ideas were very interesting and the main characters, especially Nell, were incredibly engaging.
This is not an easy book to get through but great works of art often incur a price. This art is very highly recommended and worth it.

Resulta harto evidente que ya no concluyo la Hugolatría este año. Además, de las novelas que faltan por reseñar la mitad no las he leído todavía, así que la cosa puede ralentizarse bastante. Pero bueno, a final de año, esté como esté, creo que prepararé un página especial para la Hugolatría e iré montando un pequeño entramado de enlaces internos para cohesionar el proyecto. Por ahora, vamos con la vencedora del año 1996, la novela de Neal Stephenson: “La era del diamante. Manual ilustrado para jovencitas”.

Los años 90 fueron un período durante el cual no surgió ningún subgénero realmente nuevo ni hubo una corriente dominante. Lo que los caracterizó fue la hibridación, que en realidad venía pegando fuerte desde mediados de la década de los 80. Las viejas divisiones se fueron haciendo más y más insustanciales, hasta el punto en que resulta difícil adscribir cada obra a una categoría bien definida. Lo cual, básicamente, es algo bueno. Nada revitaliza más que una mezcla de cariotipos.

En medio de este ambiente de experimentación, el subgénero estrella de los ochenta, el cyberpunk, se enfrentaba, a la avanzada edad de un lustro, a la decisión de qué hacer con su vida después de tocar techo. Lo de las historias de género negro, con implantes cibernéticos, grandes arcologías, antihéroes, megacorporaciones, realidad virtual y pesimismo existencial se había erigido en un arquetipo tan potente que cualquier historia que lo utilizara se antojaba cansina e incapaz de aportar nada nuevo. Sin embargo, había ahí dentro conceptos muy potentes cuyo potencial apenas había comenzado a explorarse. Albunos autores cooptaron elementos ciberpunk para historias ajenas a su filosofia, hasta el punto que hoy en día ya forman parte del acerbo general de la ciencia ficción y se utilizan sin parar mientes en su origen (el mismo 1996, una de los nominados fue Connie Willis con “Remake”, una historia que adopta no pocas ideas cyberpunk, como la fusión entre la realidad virtual y la física, sin que por ello pueda adscribirse en modo alguno a esta corriente), mientras que otros se dedicaron a derribar sistemáticamente las barreras que lo encorsetaban, invadiendo y asimilando sin rubor cuanto subgénero se pusiera por enmedio. De esta expansión nació el postcyberpunk.

No fue sólo cuestión de rupturismo. La misma filosofía subyacente varió de forma significativa. Sin abandonar necesariamente los escenarios distópicos, el pesismismo asocial cyberpunk mutó en una especie de optimismo de frontera, ni espacial (como durante la Edad de Oro) ni interior (como en la New Age), sino tecnológico. La literatura postcyberpunk preconiza una especie de anarquía tecnológica, un salto adelante tan repentino que los sistemas de control se quedan retrasados y las viejas estructuras (sociales, políticas, culturales…) obsoletas. Se añaden a la mezcla ingredientes nuevos como el transhumanismo y tenemos una panorama nuevo, caótico, extremadamente vital, con infinitas posibilidades que quedan por encima de juicios morales simplistas, donde prima el individuo y las únicas imposiciones son las libremente asumidas (a veces se limita a escoger la mejor mala opción, pero los protagonistas suelen moverse siempre por entre las grietas del sistema).

Uno de los abanderados del movimiento (aunque, a diferencia de su ancestro, el postcyberpunk muy apropiadamente carece de sentimiento de grupo, objetivos o inquietudes comunes) fue Neal Stephenson, quien ya en 1992 había publicado “Snow Crash”, una genial farsa sobre realidad virtual, lingüística sumeria y franquicias-estado.

Con “La era del diamante” refina un poco esta avalancha de anarquía y presenta una sociedad que ha superado la discontinuidad y se ha reasentado en un nuevo modelo. Las naciones carecen de todo sentido y lo que priman son las tribus, asociaciones libres de personas, según criterios étnicos o culturales, de mayor o menor tamaño e importancia, que acatan seguir unas reglas específicas (tanto legales como ideológicas o morales). Dos de los principales grupos son los Neovictorianos (poliétnico de acuerdo con una organización social similar a la de la era victoriana) y los Han (chinos neoconfuncionianos). El facilitador de esta revolución tecnológica es el Compilador de Materia, unas fraguas nanobóticas capaces de construir cualquier cosa a partir de materias primas básicas y las instrucciones adecuadas.

Lord Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw, una de las principales figuras neovictorianas, encarga a su ingeniero más brillante la elaboración de un manual interactivo para la educación de su nieta, capaz de proporcionarle no sólo instrucción, sino formación personal y ayuda para alcanzar todo su pontencial dentro de su entorno. Hackworth, el ingeniero, completa el encargo a la perfección, pero también realiza una copia pirata para su hija y, por medio de un ladrón de poca monta (y sin tribu), una tercera copia acaba en manos de Nell, una niña pobre que se erige en protagonista de la historia.

Superficialmente, “La era del diamante” sigue el crecimiento y educación de Nell por medio del manual (la destinataria original apenas le presta atención). El manual se adapta a su entorno y maximiza su crecimiento, mientras le explica a través de cuentos interactivos diversas cuestiones, como el funcionamiento de una máquina de Turing. Sin embargo, hay mucho más que rascar en una novela compleja, con muchos niveles de interpretación, que trata temas como la pertenencia a un grupo, la separación de clases en un entorno de riqueza propiciada por los Compiladores de Materia, las limitaciones de la inteligencia artificial (toda una subtrama trata sobre la posibilidad de detectar a una máquina de Turing por muy compleja que sea, hasta el punto que Nell tan sólo establece un vínculo fuerte, sin llegar a conocerla hasta el final, con Miranda, la “ractora” o actriz que pone voz a los personajes del manual durante años, que se transforma en una figura materna en las sombras) y la influencia cultural (dados los distintos resultados que ofrece el manual al potenciar aspectos adecuados para el entorno en que viven sus usuarias).

Hacia el final, las cosas se salen de madre, con mentes colmena, huérfanas chinas transformadas en un ejército y, finalmente, en la base de una nueva tribu, algo de criptología (presagiando la escritura del “Criptonomicón”), transhumanismo y nanotecnología desatada. Una sopa quizás demasiado densa, con varios temas que no se llegan a tratar en profundidad o que no alcanzan una conclusión satisfactoria. Quizás sea la esencia misma del postcyberpunk, que veta las resoluciones claras y ordenadas. Se trata de caos semicontrolado, por el que navega el efector humano, auxiliado si es posible por un manual interactivo.

Ya desde el principio se muestra que no es la típica historia cyberpunk. El único personaje que podría adscribirse claramente a este movimiento es Bud, el padre de Nell, un ladrón de poca monta con todo tipo de mejoras cibernéticas, pero Stephenson ya se encarga de ejecutarlo casi al principio, poniendo de manifiesto que “esto es otra cosa”. Incluso el tono resulta más esperanzador que pesimista (cuestión aparte sería si nos gustaría vivir en un mundo como el descrito).

Al parecer, causó cierta controversia en su momento por atreverse a dudar de la sacrosanta Inteligencia Artificial (algo interpretado casi como una traición). Nell estudia y comprende el funcionamiento de una máquina de Turing, hasta el punto en que establece una clara diferenciación entre los personajes puramente artificiales y aquellos cuyas palabras provienen de Miranda, una persona real. Parte de este desengaño, sin duda, debió ser el responsable de que Stephenson abandonara durante más de una década la ciencia ficción.

Existe además un concepto que me impactó en su momento. Es algo muy tangencial, apenas ocupa unas pocas líneas, pero que me resultó muy pertinente, sobre todo en estos tiempos de SMS y lenguaje “tipo chat”. En el futuro de “La era del diamante” todo es audiovisual e interactivo, de modo que se “leen” mediaglifos (algo así como iconos, sólo que animados). En determinado momento, Nell está hablando con su hermano:

—¿Qué es un compilador de materia?
—Lo que llamamos C.M.
—¿Por qué?
—Es así. En letras, supongo.
—¿Qué son letras?
—Como mediaglifos, sólo que son negras y diminutas, no se mueven y son viejas, aburridas y difíciles de leer. Pero puedes usarlas para hacer palabras cortas para palabras largas.

Para concluir, tan sólo quisiera hacer una breve mención al resto de nominados del año, por eso de contextualizar la obra.

Ya he mencionado “Remake” (una obra, en mi opinión, muy menor). Completaban el quinteto “Las naves del tiempo”, secuela oficial de “La máquina del tiempo” de Wells, escrita por un especialista en colaboraciones, el escritor hard británico Stephen Baxter (no la he leído, tampoco es que me llame mucho el experimento); “Arrecife brillante” de David Brin, primer libro de la segunda trilogía de la elevación de los pupilos, una obra un tanto pesada, que funciona mejor como preparación de las dos siguientes aunque sigue desarrollando los temas ya esbozados en “Marea estelar”; y “El experimento terminal” de Robert J. Sawyer, la típica obra del canadiense, que mezcla temas religiosos con técnicos y presenta un gran concepto y una ejecución mediocre (en cuanto a género, se inscribe en la corriente de futuro cercano tan del gusto del autor, aunque también incluye ciertos temas cyberpunk, como la creación de simulacros electrónicos). El premio Nebula de 1995 se lo llevó precisamente “El experimento terminal” (de verdad, no comprendo qué tienen los norteamericanos con Sawyer) y el de 1996 fue para “Río lento”, de Nicola Griffith (otra novela de segunda fila). El Locus de ciencia ficción se decantó como el Hugo por “La era del diamante”, en un año, que como se ve, fue bastante flojo en general (aunque esta novela en particular, sin alcanzar las altas cotas de “Snow Crash”, es justa receptora de cualquier reconocimiento).

Otras opiniones:

• De Luis Fonseca en El Archivo de Nessus
• De Antonio Rodríguez Babiloni en El Sitio de Ciencia Ficción
• De Leticia Bonetti en Reflejo en el Agua
• En Amnesia Compartida

Lloyd explains why Pinker and Gladwell don’t agree, which is partly based upon Gladwell’s new book, What the Dog Saw., a collection of essays that were published in the New Yorker.

The awesome Queensland Writers Centre (did I mention they are awesome) undertook a blog tour recently, asking a number of Australian authors the same questions. I decided to take a crack at answering them myself. For some reason they missed me out, what with this blog not existing then.

Where do your words come from?
I have no idea, but I would like to take a holiday there.

Where did you grow up and where do you live now?
Ah. Well I grew up in the South of England, but went to school in Scotland. Boarding school. Military boarding school. Now I live about as far away from Scotland as you can get and still be on Earth (where are those Moon colonies?), in Brisbane, Queensland with my wife and 2.4 children. The .4 is the dog.

What’s the first sentence/line of your latest work?
London. The city I was born in, and the city where I became what I am today. I tremble as I enter this city for the first time in a century. This is the city of my failure. I will not fail again!

What piece of writing do you wish you had written?
It would have to be Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson. We should all have a character called Hiro Protagonist.

What are you currently working towards?
Finishing my novel, currently titled Blood Crossing, and seeking agency representation. Plus I have been sucked in to NaNoWriMo.

Complete this sentence: the future of the book is …
… irrelevant to the future of the story, and that’s where my true interest lies. I love my books, but only for the stories they contain, not for the bulky non-water-resistant objects they are. If I find a better storage medium for stories I write and stories I want to keep copies of, I’ll jump to it. Nothing’s come along yet, but I think we’re getting there.

At The n-Category Café David Corfield is talking about mathematical emotions. This is about ‘emotions belonging to mathematical thinking’, specific feeling related to mathematical intuition, meaning and sense of the rightness. In the end he is referencing to spiritual motivation of mathematics. From myself I add that those thoughts are closely related to the last book of Neal Stephenson – Anathem

This week has been awful. But at the end of it, I dropped my chemistry class, so maybe the rest of the semester will be less awful. Ironically, although I’ve been busy, I seem to have made it through a suprising amount of media works. There’s nothing that I particularly want to promote, or have the energy to write a full review of, so I’ll just give quick reviews here.

Jeff Lemire – The Complete Essex County

Essex County is a stark story expressed in stark style with stark technique. Interestingly, if I had to pick a single phrase to describe it, it would be “a Canadian 100 Years of Solitude comic book.” I don’t want to discuss the story for fear of spoiling it, but the graphic novel spends a lot of time showing what extended periods of lonlieness and solitude do to people emotionally and relating that to the geography and culture of rural Canada.

All of this is rendered in Lemire’s rough, monochromatic ink style, which perfectly illustrates the empty isolation in which most of his characters live. One powerful sequence shows the seasonal transitions on the farm, and we see that nothing changes, whether it is snow as far as the eye can see, corn rows as far as the eye can see, bare furrows…

Another aspect of the comic that I found interesting was the way in which it resembled Southern Gothic literature. This is not a perfect parallel; there is no Canadian analogue to the Civil War and race relations are much different there, yet as in Faulkner the rural isolation, long history, and buried secrets made me feel like I was missing something in every panel I read. I felt like because I am not from Essex County, I couldn’t really understand what was going on. Fortunately Lemire is humane and exposes those relationships (in a very exciting way, no less).

I wouldn’t say it’s perfect, but the story gives plenty to think about and some of the artwork is worth it on its own.

Ned Rorem – The Paris Diary

Ned Rorem was a young, beautiful, gay, American composer who ran around in Parisian expatriate and artistic circles in the mid-1950’s. In short, he was the person that I wish I could be at the time that I wish I could have been. I was surprised to find that he does not talk a whole lot about his work, but there are some personal insights into other composers of the time that I can’t imagine one could find anywhere else, and Rorem’s youthful, neurotic narration is entertaining and provoking in its own right.  I did find the untranslated use of French somewhat annoying (thanks, Babelfish!) and at times I felt like I was intruding into Rorem’s beautiful-people problems (“It’s much harder to maintain one’s reputation for being pretty than for being a talented composer”), but I’m just bitching so that this review doesn’t read as me drooling all over myself.

Arturo Perez-Reverte – The Club Dumas

As I was reading this, I was struck by how similar this book is to Matthew Pearl’s The Dante Club. Both involve clues embedded in the works of historical writers. Both involve brushes with the occult. But Dante is superior in every way to Dumas. It should be mentioned that Dumas was published a full decade before Pearl’s book, but in this case originality does not trump execution. Skip Dumas, read Dante.

Neal Stephenson – Quicksilver

This is my latest stop on my quest to read all of Stephenson’s works. Honestly, the book is just too long for me to feel comfortable reccomending it to anybody. It’s not that I don’t think it’s good (I do!), but at 900 pages (and don’t forget that it’s the first installment of a trilogy), I don’t want to be responsible for wasting anybody’s time. If you’ve liked anything by him before, you’ll probably like this.

The Big Sleep

It was weird watching this; I’ve seen so many neo-noir and parodies of the Bogart drawl, casual sexism and L.A. cool epitomized in this movie that I felt like I had seen it before. It seems to have scared me off of The Maltese Falcon, however. As one of the few people of my generation that has read quite a few of the classic pulp mystery novels, I can tell you that Bogart fits as Phillip Marlowe, but is completely wrong for Sam Spade.

The Exorcist

Meh. I was high and it wasn’t as scary.

]]> http://ubiwar.com/2009/11/07/the-right-to-keep-and-bear-code/ Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:56:50 +0000 Tim Stevens http://ubiwar.com/2009/11/07/the-right-to-keep-and-bear-code/

Slashdot has been conducting a Q&A between readers and Neal Stephenson. Despite his disappointing last novel, Anathem, Stephenson is always worth paying attention to. This is the first question he fielded, with his response:

Q: Do you think that hacking tools should be protected (in the United States) under the second amendment?

A: Such is the intensity of issues like this that I can’t tell whether this is a troll. I’m going to assume it’s not, and answer the question seriously.

I’m no constitutional scholar but I’m pretty sure that the Founding Fathers were thinking of flintlocks, not perl scripts, when they wrote the Second Amendment. Now you can dispute that and say “No, anything that enables citizens to defend themselves against an oppressive government is covered by the Second Amendment.” There might be something to such an argument. But pragmatically, the question is whether you can get nine (or at least five) non-hacker Supreme Court Justices to see it that way. I suspect the answer is no. It’s just too easy for them to say “it is not a weapon.” To me it seems a lot easier simply to invoke the First Amendment.

Also, remember that there might be unwanted side effects to classifying code as weapons. In the U.S., where the right to bear certain weapons is written into the Constitution, it might seem like a clever way to secure access to such code. But authorities in other countries might say “look, even the U.S. Government defines this string of bits as a weapon—so we are going to outlaw it.”

It’s difficult to form an intelligent opinion on issues like this without doing a lot of work. One has to learn a lot about the issues and then think about them pretty hard. I haven’t really done so, and so I’m inclined to trust people who have, like Matt Blaze. At crypto.com he has posted some interesting material that is germane to this topic.

See http://www.crypto.com/masterkey.html and especially http://www.crypto.com/hobbs.html.

To make a long argument short, what I have learned from Matt’s writings on the topic is that (1) it’s not a new issue, (2) it’s a First Amendment issue, and (3) it’s best in the long run, for all concerned, if vulnerabilities are exposed in public.

A really interesting interview. Read Neal’s thoughts on the Beowulf/Dante novelist dichotomy, Gibson-Stephenson deathmatches, the Singularity, programming, money as constant not variable, data havens, spaceflight and publishing models. Best quote award goes to:

My thoughts are more in line with those of Jaron Lanier, who points out that while hardware might be getting faster all the time, software is shit (I am paraphrasing his argument). And without software to do something useful with all that hardware, the hardware’s nothing more than a really complicated space heater.

This book could be considered the fourth book in the Baroque Cycle, although it was actually written first. One character features across all four books, but telling you who would count as a spoiler, so I won’t.

Cryptonomicon takes place partly in World War Two, partly in the 1990s. Two stories, each gripping in their own way, gradually connect on the Philippines in a search for Japanese war gold, looted from Asia and hidden away for decades.

As you might expect from the title, a lot of the World War Two action focuses on the codebreaking efforts of the allies, as they race to decode German and Japanese transmissions while also hiding from the enemy their successes.

As with Neal’s other books in this cycle the research has been meticulous and every location is describes briefly, but with incredible authenticity. From the Philippines of the 1990s to Sweden in World War Two, each location becomes almost a character in its own right. I love Neal’s writing so this book was a real treat for me. Highly recommended, along with the three Baroque Cycle books.

Apologies for not updating for so long, mostly due to personal reasons. The group has been continuing to meet regularly and is still going strong, with the October meeting due on Tuesday 27th from 6 to 7pm in the usual venue of Henderson’s on Hanover Street (we’re usually right through at the back of the downstairs restaurant section). The book for this month will be near-future Interface by Neal Stephenson and Frederick George.

Jake Karlsruher

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away….

Neal Stephenson: Who would win in a fight: Raven or Anakin Skywalker?

Sci-Fi aficionado Jake “Kar-El” Karlsruher: Let me first say that a fight of this epic-nitude could tear a hole in the Universe….or the Metaverse…or the Galactic Republic.

God: I’ll allow it.

Jake:  Good.  Then let me tackle the question, Neal. Now I have to ask, which Anakin?

Neal:  Well phrased.  Let’s use yellow-eyed, slay-all-the-younglings Anakin.

Jake:  Fair.  Well, Anakin’s got the whole Midichlorian thing going for him.  Allow me to level the playing field.  We’ll set the battle in the Mustafar Region, in a scene similar to that of the closing duel in Revenge of the Sith.

George Lucas: Granted.

Jake:  That way, Raven can get his surf on and Anakin can demonstrate both poor gymnastics and bad acting (“Don’t try it Anakin, I have the higher ground!”  “You underestimate my power”)

Neal: Mr. Kar-El, please stop free-associating and stay on topic: the fight, sir.

Jake: I apologize, I digress.  But, before we get to the fight, we need to examine each character’s motivation; a fighter is only as strong as his desire to win. Both Raven and Anakin are filled with passion.  Raven hates America, and wishes beyond all else to see its destruction.  Unfortunately for him we are in the Mustafar Region, not America.  However, he also feels a strong loyalty to his cause, the one that saved him from his troubled ways.  Skywalker, on the other hand, feels no special allegiance.  Throughout all of the new movies, Anakin is generally confused about his purpose (or maybe that’s just Haden Christiansen).

Haden Christiansen:  Heard that.

George Lucas: Can’t argue with facts, Haden.

Jake: If I may continue, George *he sulks*, I was going to get to the fight.  Raven will quickly find that his glass knives are useless; they will melt from the heat of the lava. Limited to only his spears, Raven quickly loses any advantage he held.  I’m going to give the edge to the guy that can move stuff with his mind.  After a couple triple back flips and poor dialogue, I see Anakin lopping Raven’s head off… and then the nuke goes off.

Neal: Uh-Oh, probably should have seen that coming

George Lucas: F#@!

Haden: Huh?

God: Wow, I am so flooding you guys.

Hi. This blog is mainly for my amusement (and, just to warn you, I’m easily amused). More specifically, it’s about books, authors, reading, writing, and my obsessions with all of the above. We’ll see how it goes.

So let’s get into it, shall we? One of the books I’m currently reading is Neal Stephenson’s Anathem. For those unfamiliar with Stephenson’s work, it can be … er … challenging, to say the least. His latest epic is science fiction with what appears to be a healthy dose of philosophy thrown in. I write “appears to be” because I’m only about 10% into this nearly-1000 page beast. I’ll have more to say about it as I get deeper into the novel.

This is a good time to note my overall approach to this blog. I’m going to be pretty casual here. I’m not trying to barf out scholarly reviews or graduate schoolworthy critiques. Reading should be fun (among other things), and blogging about reading should be equally fun. The “reviews” you’ll find here will probably be closer to general reactions, impressions, and thoughts about the books I’m reading as I read them. I’m not a fan of reviews which consist only of a plot summary with a brief comment that “it’s good/bad, the end”, so I’ll try to avoid that here. I tend to read multiple books simultaneously, and some may find my reading speed glacial (I like to absorb every word and rarely skim something I’m reading for pleasure). Bottom line: I want this to be casual and fun with no hard and fast rules.

So back to the program… Stephenson’s books are often dense. There’s a lot going on, a lot of detail and description, but the ideas are usually pretty interesting. Sometimes, it’s too much for me to take, but Anathem is doing a good job in the early stages of keeping me engaged in its strangely familiar yet alien world.

For a taste, here’s a video featuring Stephenson reading the opening few pages of the novel:

I’ve rarely heard Stephenson read before, and it was nice to hear his “official” pronunciation of names and terms in the book. Even more interesting was the audience’s reaction to certain sections. Stephenson has a unique sense of humor, but it sometimes gets lost in the details and enormity of his stories. Hearing the audience reaction served as a good reminder of why I keep coming back to Stephenson’s books.

For example, in the opening scene, the narrator indicates that “Orolo had asked me along to serve as amanuensis. It was an impressive word, so I’d said yes.” Stephenson likes to use words I don’t know (amanuwhatsthis?), and I had to laugh as I could relate to the narrator’s situation. Judging from the audience’s laughter, I wasn’t the only one amused by this.

I can’t imagine how many hours it would take to narrate this book unabridged, but part of me thinks it would be worth it to experience the novel in this way surrounded by an audience … at least until personal hygiene issues on the 12th day of reading became unbearable.

The LA (and actually the whole world) of Snow Crash is a place where people are separate from each other. America is not so much a melting pot as it is a chess or checkerboard–once, people mixed, but now, they all have restrictions on where and how they can move. “…Hiro is black, or at least part black. Can’t take him into New South Africa. And because Y.T. is a Cauc, they can’t go to Metazania. (Stephenson, 83)” Even jobs have taken on the characteristics of traditional ethnic groups–Taxi drivers speak Taxilinga, and accept no one into their ranks who does not also speak it; and as Y.T. says, “…the longtime status of skateboarders as an oppressed ethnic group mean[t] that by now all of them [we]re escape artists to some degree. (Stephenson, 77)” In short, everyone in LA has an identity, based on their genes, jobs, skills, house (or lack thereof) and these things dictate who they speak to, where they can go, and how the Snow Crash drug affects them. Coming from Hawaii, I couldn’t really identify with his depiction of race; true separation of ethnicities is something that is hard to imagine on the island chain (though I will admit it was both a plausible and scary thought). I will say that skin color automatically identifies you as one of three things: Native (which really just means you COULD be native–Filipinos, Samoans, and Micronesians, for example, certainly didn’t colonize the place like the Hawaiians did), Asian (of which there are two classes–Islander Asians and FOBs, the Japanese tourists who are very, very easy to identify), or Haoli (aka, white. Haoli, which means foreigner, is often used to somewhat familiarly but condescendingly describe mainland culture, white tourists, and activities seen as ‘white’). These stereotypes are known everywhere and there are many jokes and assumptions that go along with them. More than once, I have been mistaken for a tourist when out shopping with my mother, even though I’ve lived on Oahu all my life, but it’s never bothered me; rather, I take it as part of the harmless Haoli stereotype. Races mix in Hawaii like they do nowhere else. Ask almost anyone what their race is, and they’ll give you a list that most likely encompasses at least three or four different ethnicities. It’s hard to explain, but back home, race is something that you’re proud of and yet doesn’t matter. “I’m Chinese/Samoan.” “I’m Hawaiian/Indian/French.” “I’m Okinawan/Irish/Korean.” We poke fun at each other’s ethnicities, with those identifications of skin color and race, but they’ve never gotten in the way of a friendship. The total segregation present in Snow Crash was a scary thought. If it was there, I wouldn’t know half the people I do, and even more of them would never have existed in the first place.

Gender depictions in Snow Crash seem a lot less scary. The two main female characters, Y.T. and Juanita, are very different women, and like today’s women, show that you can either accept or reject the notions society gives you about what you should be. Y.T. is very much a product of her society; she sees nothing morally wrong with the way men look at her, or even with the fact that Raven desires and sleeps with a 15 year old girl. She is a girl of the street and goes to jail, breaks out, escapes mad taxi drivers, and makes deliveries as a Kourier, navigating the world of the franchises with ease because that is her world–she was born into it and she embraced it. Juanita, on the other hand, has rejected the traditions now present in franchised-LA. She is a true and devout Catholic when the Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates have turned Christianity into a franchised chain, complete with neon Elvises; and she is, in essence, her own person–working on Metaverse facial designs when no one else believed it would go anywhere, divorcing Da5id, despite his success, money, and power, and even discovering the Snow Crash plot–Juanita is her own person, thinking outside the box and using her knowledge and skills to save the world (if only “for a while”). I identify with both women–Juanita, strong, smart, independent, and Y.T., also strong, smart, and independent, but youthful, and headstrong where Juanita is wise and careful. They’re very different people, at different times in their lives, with different backgrounds and responses to the world they live in, but parts of them fit my image of myself; I think everyone can agree that we feel both influenced by society (like Y.T.), but that we also reject parts of it and stand apart (like Juanita). And they show that in Snow Crash, there are many paths you can take, no matter your sex.

Dacia

by Theo Dentchev

Video games today are the closest thing we have to a commercially available virtual reality like that in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. Lord of the Rings Online is in many ways quite similar to the Metaverse. You have an avatar, you can interact with other avatars of real people in real time, and you can even have houses in various neighborhoods. Of course, all of this is much more limited that in is in the Metaverse; your avatar is only customizable within the confines of the pre-made models and features (you can’t code your own), interactions with other players are much more limited in terms of facial expression and body language (sure you can type “lol” and your avatar will laugh, but your avatar can’t be made to mimic your real life body and face movements), and while you can change the furniture in your house you can’t do much about the structure of it.

And you can also fight. The true core of any game is the gameplay, with everything else, no matter how detailed or flushed out, being simply shiny accessories. In LOTRO, whatever else it may have in its vast universe, is at it’s core a PvE (player vs environment) game where the player fights all sorts of monsters in his various quests. The core of the Multiverse gameplay is to mimic real life, but without the limitations, but you can still have sword fights in it, thanks to some nifty code by Hiro Protagonist. In LOTRO you have a great deal of control over your avatar when fighting. I happen to be a champion, so I know a thing or two about virtual sword fighting. I can decide what kind of attacks my character will use and when. If I time it right I can fit in special attacks in between auto attacks, or I can have two special attacks in a row. I can heal, and I can run away (sort of).

But after reading Snow Crash I realize just how limited the gameplay really is. In the Metaverse skill is in part determined by how closely you can get your avatar to move the way you would in real life. In many ways it is like a fight in real life; you actually have to pay attention to how the other player is moving, and react accordingly by dodging, blocking, counter attacking. All of those are automated in LOTRO, determined by mathematical formulas and probability. In LOTRO you don’t even pay attention to the actions of your avatar or the enemy you are fighting. If you asked me to describe how a spider in LOTRO attacks I couldn’t do it. That’s because in LOTRO you’re just standing still face to face with your enemy, hacking away, and you’re paying much more attention to the health/power bars in the upper left, and the skill icons in you skill bar (whether they are available yet, or how much cool down time is left) than you are to the actual movements going on. Not to mention the fact that your movements don’t really have much of an effect anyway. I may have just used a special move that slashed my enemy four times, but the enemy will look just the same as it did before. In the Metaverse slashes actually have visible effects, such as severing the arm of an avatar from its body.

Reading Snow Crash makes me realize just how far off games like LOTRO are from achieving virtual reality, despite all the cosmetic similarities. And yet, there are similarities. If you compare LOTRO to early arcade games the difference is huge. We’re making strides, and who knows, maybe another twenty or thirty years from now we’ll have a Metaverse in Reality. In the meantime I’m going to go kill some spiders, and maybe I’ll pay a little more attention to the animations this time.

- TD

Matt Almeida

Snow Crash and LOTRO both include sword and spear fighting, but the different depictions of fighting engage the reader in varying ways. Snow Crash is a book and therefore the action must all be described through words. Not only does Neal Stephenson describe the sword fighting but he goes beyond this with some of the most vivid depictions one can possibly create with words. Stephenson goes on and on about the actions taken as well as the results. He describes the action, its immediate aftermath along with all the details behind the two. He also goes further as he describes the fighters, often Hiro, and the thoughts going through their heads.

When Hiro kills the New South African Man in chapter 40, Stephenson first says “Hiro cuts his head off”(302).  At first the reader may be thinking this can’t possibly be the full description, and indeed it would not be a sufficient one. But rest assured Stephenson continues to not only give a sufficient description but one far beyond it. Stephenson even devotes a full paragraph to describing the blade passing through the man’s neck with ease. This description, although at times intriguing, takes away from the action and excitement of the fight.  A sword fight is supposed to be intense and immediate, and Stephenson completely loses these ideas in his stylistic and wordy descriptions. I suppose one could argue that Stephenson captures the art and style of sword fighting with his lengthy portrayals, but beyond that they do not do much good.

One thing that is most obvious in Stephenson’s sword fighting scenes is the attention he pays to blood, gore, and guts. He doesn’t miss an opportunity to be as gruesome and descriptive as possible. These descriptions add to the intensity and excitement of the fight. It certainly keeps the reader intrigued and entertained, but there comes a point when enough is enough. Initially, I found myself thinking “awesome” when reading about the blood spilling out of characters wounds, but after a while the bloody images were just unnecessary.  

On the other hand, although LOTRO presents a visual image of the fighting it is not nearly as descriptive as in Snow Crash. When fighting in the game, the player is very engaged as video games are an interactive experience. The player must control his or her character and attack enemies. To this extent the game engages the player. The action is very real and present on screen, but there is not much variation to it. There are only so many attacks or moves and the character can only perform these in so many ways. Also, enemies always die in the same boring manner. They go limp and collapse to the floor with very little variation. Unlike Snow Crash, there is no blood or gore shrouding the landscape. Killing a spider and watching him fall to the ground just isn’t quite as intriguing as cutting a man’s head off and watching his blood shoot out.  I guess the game designers weren’t brave enough to go for the mature game rating.

It would seem that neither LOTRO or Snow Crash find that balance between description and engagement. It is easy to get lost in Stephenson’s words but as a reader I often became unengaged by the excessive descriptions. LOTRO on the other hand may initially engage the gamer as well, but the lack of variance and greater detail makes the fighting become rather tedious and boring.

By Aneel Henry

“What the @#$% happened to my tires?” The tires square shape looked unnatural in the fading sunlight. “The tires are slashed that’s what happened you goddamn foreigner.” Two large white guys, both middle aged, far past their physical prime,  and with mullets long enough to pass for rope, walked out from behind a raised red pickup truck. The floodlights on the pickup truck pointed at the car, it’s slashed tires evident in the now ample light. “I think you need to go back to your country.” The man just stood there, accepting their jeers and taunts as they continued to make racial slur after racial slur. The hicks finally tired of the teasing and with one last biting comment about the man’s mother, they left in a roar of over-tuned engine and Kenny Chesney. My father surveyed the damage, calculated the average cost for four tires, and silently drove home, never to speak a word of the incident for another twenty years.

I personally have never had such an intense experience with racism but my father and my mother have experienced horror-story grade racism. The 1970’s and 1980’s are thought of as much more backwards and racially intolerant times in comparison to our current society but the novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson begs to differ. Throughout Snow Crash, the characters run into numerous occasions where racism and racial stereotypes are overtly discussed and maliciously used as if it is the norm to do so. This would not be uncommon had the novel been set in the 1960’s or later but the novel is set far into the future, a future in which mankind and the society created by them was supposed to have evolved. After reading this novel, I was shocked to find that Neal Stephenson predicted racism would not only increase but blow up as time progressed. I was not offended by the use of racism in the novel but rather impressed by the biting social commentary Stephenson put forward in his novel. His novel is a satirical look at the future of mankind, and one of his major points in the novel was that racism is not going to go away.  Stephenson attempts to change that by ridiculing the racism present in this novel, an action that greatly impressed me as a reader. I do not consider myself particularly conscious or sensitive about racism but, being a minority, I found myself pondering why I am not more sensitive or worried about my perception/others perceptions of me. The society I live in today is overflowing with racism, racism that is swept under the proverbial rug. Racism in modern society is kept under wraps and because I have not experienced such overt and obviously malignant experiences, I used to feel as if racism was nonexistent. Now I realize that my hunky-dory childhood was really a naïve take on society. Society is not as accepting as it seems, the racism is just expressed much more subtly than I first believed. I think that after reading Snow Crash, I can only hope to remain more aware of my surroundings and become more in touch with my cultural side so as to truly determine the extent of racism present in my day-to-day life.

Combat is a significant part of both the novel Snow Crash and the game Lord of the Rings Online, but it is implemented in very different ways. Sword-fighting is used in both, but that’s just about the only similarity between the two. In Snow Crash, the combat is like an art form, with both combatants using various strategies and complex movements. In LOTRO, the combat is much more simple, with the character having a smaller repertoire of possible attacks. This makes combat a much simpler affair than in Snow Crash. Another major difference is that in Snow Crash, the characters not fighting in real life, just in the metaverse. This detracts from its intensity somewhat, making it more like a “video game” for Hiro. LOTRO really is a video game, but for my level 6 hobbit, it is a fight for survival as deadly enemies try to end his life.

Also, combat in LOTRO is a more interactive, because you are controlling the character yourself, making you more interested in the outcome of the fight. In the book, you are merely a passive observer, with no vested interested in the outcome unless you want the story to turn out a certain way. However, you are more aware of the medium in LOTRO; there is a low level of “transparency” or “immediacy”. The many icons and buttons, coupled with the awkward turn based combat system, make the player very aware of the fact that he is playing a video game. In the book, the simple interface makes it easier to forget that the story is just from a book.

Combat is certainly a big part of both stories, but I felt it was a bigger part of LOTRO. To get anywhere in the game, you almost certainly have to defeat a few enemies. When I was in the Old Forest and the Barrow-Downs, it felt like the enemies were never-ending and fighting was the only thing I was doing. In the book, the main focus is the plot to stop the virus, with episodes of fighting throughout.

Although combat was interesting for both stories, I personally found it to be more engaging in LOTRO, mainly because you are doing the fighting yourself and it carries much more importance.

- Kashyap Saxena

Before fully grasping the concepts of the Metaverse in Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, I imagined the Metaverse as a simple game with small characters similar to a colorless version of the Super Mario Bros. I thought of the game as cartoonish, bleak, and hardly three-dimensional.

This however, is the beauty of imagination.

Though my thoughts where way off target from Stephenson’s particular viewpoint of his own novel, (and everyone else’s viewpoint for that matter) who’s to say my imagined Metaverse wasn’t a well enough assumption?

No one can! My own thoughts and imagination are just as good as the nerdy kid who sits across from me, who thinks he figured out the meaning of life at age 9. I’m entitled to my own thoughts despite how unsound they may be.

I’ve always considered myself to be a dreamer; so living in an imaginary world is very common for me. Like every teenage girl, I liked to dream up my future down to my kids names and birth dates; it’s a chick thing! This is why reading about combat with swords and spears in Snow Crash, is far more engaging to me than virtual combat in LOTRO.

Now that I understand that the Metaverse is actually more of an outgrowth of the Interent and is a fully immersive three-dimensional virtual world, I now imagine the place more like The Matrix or maybe even like Star Wars. (What, I need some type of reference point!)

I imagine the swards and spears clinking together the way lightsabers do, and everyones characters are made out of a million different numbers. The idea of being able to dream up my own battlefield of the Metaverse is simply far more appealing then playing a game like LOTRO where I am limited to killing one thing at a time, using one weapon at a time, and living in one virtual battlefield that has already been designed for me.

Though it is compelling and engaging to battle in LOTRO, (my little hobbit looks so cute taking on the giant Spider) I would much rather have a battle in my head without any boundaries. I can always throw in some other random characters that aren’t even in the book and out of nowhere start slaying dragons. Because that boys and girls is the beauty of imagination; to read, perchance to imagine – ay there’s no rub!

~Adriana

escritor de ciencia ficción que, sobre todo, escribe acerca de ordenadores y tecnologías relacionadas con éstos, como la nanotecnología, aunque no pertenece a la escuela de escritores cyberpunk, como William Gibson y Bruce Sterling. En ocasiones utiliza el seudónimo Stephen Bury y también escribe artículos sobre tecnología en publicaciones periódicas como la revista Wired.

(Fuente: Wikipedia)

So, I just finished China Mieville’s much hyped Iron Council.  Ehhh.  He has such good ideas, such rich and vivid visuals and generally an intriguing setting – New Crobuzon has its ups and downs.  But, dammit, I just didn’t care two hoots for ANY of the characters in Iron Council.  The story flipped around too much and none of the characters were anything more that two dimensional, I felt.  Just when you would start to get a feel for a character, he would switch to the other setting he was writing about.  Just when you felt like a character was developing some depth, he would stop talking about them. It was a big tease, really.  I found myself in the last thirty pages or so feeling like I really couldn’t care less if I finished it or not.  I did, because I respect the craft, but I didn’t care about it.  Just so damn disappointing.  He’s suppossed to be good, but I haven’t loved any of his books.  Perdido Street Station was great until the cheap deus-ex-machina ending.  The Scar would have been a great idea, if Neal Stephenson hadn’t already written the same book with Snow Crash.  And Iron Council, well, is he getting lazy, riding the coattails of his own success?  I really want to care about the characters I read, but Cutter, Judah Low, Ann-Hari, Ori, Toro?  They were all just…ehhhh.

The one line of the book that stuck with me was this, and I did think this was a powerful observation:

“You don’t get to chose what you remember.”

Did that make the book worth reading?  No.

And now, I am on to Light by M. Scott Harrison.  Another highly touted book and so far, 167 pages into it, I already care about the characters more than I did in Iron Council.  The story hasn’t developed quite yet, but its coming.

I cannot recommend this enough.

Book trailers are no longer novel (that pun’s free of charge). However, they still bear discussion because of their continued widespread use and debatable effectiveness.

I finished Anathem, by Neal Stephenson, about a week ago. Great book. I loved the juxtaposition of cloistered monastic life with raging 21st Century (and beyond, really) culture outside the monastery walls. When I first cracked the cover, I had no expectations of the plot, so it was to my pleasure that it unfolded in ways I hadn’t imagined.

This morning, I did a little search for Anathem to get a feel for some reviews and came across this book trailer:

Alright. Not too bad. Having read the book, I followed the events pretty well and thought they were well represented. I like that there wasn’t any dialogue, just music and images. The quality of action scenes, on the other hand, seem very B-movie-esque to me. I’m not sure if this hurts a person’s reaction to the book or helps. Also, as an avid reader of books, I sure enjoy creating an image of the characters in my mind, without visual prompts. I’m glad I did not see this trailer before reading the book.

I looked forward to Anathem, probably more in anticipation of Stephenson’s storytelling than from anything else. Had I seen the book trailer, it probably wouldn’t have changed anything, but maybe it would have planted ideas in my head as to how things should look as I read them. I have to say that I like the view from my mind’s eye better than what I saw in the trailer.

Is the book trailer thing a response to the availability cheap distribution outlets like You Tube and Viddler (as well as others) or do they really work? I had no idea so I checked around. This post from Latino LA cites the success of Yiddish with Dick and Jane trailer. Janet Reid discusses the merits of Michael Connolly’s book trailer for the Brass Verdict (2008). The reactions to that trailer were mixed. Some were intrigued by it, while others didn’t think it tipped the scales. Build Buzz cites an article in the Wall Street Journal published last year. WSJ finds little evidence that the average book trailer has much impact on sales.

The more crumbs we can throw on the water, the more likely we are to catch more fish or ducks or whatever you catch with crumbs on the water, so in that regard, a trailer probably can’t hurt unless it looks like 1970’s Sasquatch siting footage.

Janet Reid says:

What I do know is there’s a big opportunity here for smart people who know how to put together compelling video trailers for not a lot of money.

The only problem in these well produced, big name star featured trailers is they will effectively eliminate most of the home made book trailers.

I agree with her first point wholeheartedly, I disagree with second because the lines between professional and homemade have blurred considerably over the last three years with the availability of video equipment, editing software and the people who know how to use them effectively. Oh yeah, I didn’t realize that was Corbin Bernsen in the Connelly’s trailer until I went to his website to find out more.

Ultimately, I think a trailer would increase my desire to read a book if it conveys the feel of the story’s world, the tone of the story, that I like. I don’t think a trailer would dissuade me from reading a book in which I was interested, nor do I think I would buy a book solely on the basis of a trailer.

Stephen King - “Tume Torn I: Laskur” “Tume Torn II: Kolm saatuse kaarti”

Stephen Kingi Tumeda Torni raamatud laskurist, kes otsib Tumedat Torni ning on selle nimel tegema kõike, isegi ohverdama oma elu. 7-osaline raamat, millest 5 on tõlgitud eesti keelde, kuulub sürrealismi kategooriasse ning mis kuulub maailma populaarsemate kirjandusteoste hulka.

Neal Stephenson - “Lumevaring” (“Snow crash”)

Raamat uuest ajastust, kus on vastamisi maffia ning religioon. Avastatakse arvutiviirus nimega Snow crash, mis muudab inimeste kõne ning allutab neid kuulama ühte isikut, kes soovib nakatute kaudu maailma vallutada. Raamat meenutab endas mingil määral “Matrixit”, kuid seob endas siiski rohkem reaalsust ning infotehnoloogilisi leiutisi. Peategelasteks on neegeraasialasest  häkker, kelle hobideks on mõõgavõitlus ning tüdrukkuller, kes on üks parimaid rulatajaid. Raamat sisaldab endas veelgi ulmelisemaid tegelasi ning sündmustekäike, mida peab lihtsalt oma silmaga lugema.

Jan Guillou – “Kurjus”

Rootsi kirjaniku poolt kirjutatud raamat poisist nimega Erik, kelle elu täidab vägivald. Ise peksmisest tingitud kasvatus muudab poisigi vägivaldsemaks, kuid seda siiski õnnetute juhuste põhjal. Isa peks on muutnud poissi tugevamaks ning sellega ka kaasa aidanud tulevikusündmustele. Vägivallatu kasvatuse juures oleks poiss mentaalselt ning füüsiliselt palju nõrgem. Erik sattus pidevalt dilemma ette, et kas saada pekstu või olla ise peksja. Poiss vahetas kooli, et alustada elu puhtalt lehelt, elu ilma vägivallata. Kahjuks see siiski nii ei läinud ning ta pidi vastu astuma uue keskkonnaga, kus spordi ja õpingute juurde kuulus vägivaldne õpetamisviis vanemate õpilaste poolt. Vahel tekib tunne, et heal sportlasel Erikul pole midagi muud teha, kui astuda vastu kõigile vägivallatsejatele või vanduda alla kurjusele.

Raamatu põhjal vändati 2003. aastal ka rootsikeelne film “Ondskan” (“The Evil”), mis sai Oskari kandidaadiks.

Erich Maria Remarque - “Aeg antud elada, aeg antud surra” (“Zeit zu Leben, Zeit zu Sterben”)

Raamat sõdurist, kes idarindel võideldes venelastega pole juba 2 aastat puhkusele saanud, kuid lõpuks saadab teda õnn ning ta saab sõita kodu vanemate juurde. Koju jõudes tabab teda üllatus, kui tema kodulinna pommitatakse ning tema kodu on hävitatud. 14 päeva puhkust kulubki oma vanemate otsingutele, puhkuse nautimisele ühe neiuga. Raamatu peategelane saab aru, et Saksamaa on sõda kaotamas, kuid ikka ohverdab oma inimesi nii rindel kui ka kodumaal. Peategelasel Mueleril kaob elumõte ning ainsaks väljapääsuks ongi jälg või järglane, kes jääks temast maha kodumaale, kodulinna teda ennast meenutama. Puhkus möödub ning ta saab teada, et ta vanemad on elus. Temast maha jäävadki neid ja ta vanemad, keda ta enam kunagi ei näe.

Raamatu põhjal on vändatud 1958. aastal inglisekeelne film “A Time to Love and A Time to Die”.