(If you don't like reviews you can go away)
I just finished re-reading Revelation Space; re-affirming its place as probably my favourite from the contemporary sci-fi/space opera genre. I specify this because it can in no way be compared to the philosophical and psychological impacts of the big three: 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451. It would be like comparing Dan Brown (first writer that popped into my head don't shoot me!) with Shakespeare: I love them both but for different reasons. In a nutshell; RS is the first and best imo from a trilogy of 3 which, together with some other prequels and novellas make up the Revelation Space universe. It's a multi-narrative dramatic novel centred around human colonising nearby space and mysterious extinction of an ancient species on a different planet millions of years ago.
There are many reasons i like Reynolds's works, though i was mainly drawn to his scientific precision. All the futuristic technology he posits is entirely feasible even today, allowing the reader to be more accepting of them as plot devices. One good example is his use of slower than light-speed travel and the effects of time dilation; evidenced in the novella Dilation Sleep which portrays the emotional aspects of two lovers being separated by dozens of light-years of space. Some believe that the cost of this is low character development. In some of his later novels i think this does apply (most notably Redemption Ark (2/3)), although i think he gets it just right in RS. I found myself loving and hating each character, a test of good characterisation; they are very realistic, despite their worlds being far different to our own. From Khouri's bitchy manipulation to Volyova's bad-assness to Calvin and Dan's witty banter; i loved it all! It also didn't suffer the pacing issues that Absolution Gap (3/3) suffered, with the action being nicely spread out. The differences between the different human factions are huge, and i particularly like the space-faring Ultras and hive mind Conjoiners. The enormity of the universe they inhabit is reflected in their psyche's, another area where Reynolds hits the nail on the head (lol).The multi-narrative works very well; because the ways in which the stories converge is less obvious than one might imagine.
Though i think, and having read all his other RS universe material subsequently before re-reading the novel, the one reason i like this book more than the others is because it stands alone. Sure, the expansion of the universe through sequels is great, but RS is great in that it doesn't need the other books. One gripe i do have though is that minor characters tend to die pointlessly and often...but i can forgive that :D
I've been told i should be reading Hamilton, whose style is apparently similar to Reynolds's. I also plan to read more Banks. You shall be kept informed...
Sunday 20 February 2011
Wednesday 16 February 2011
2012 : What We Learned
"I'm not cynical. Just experienced"
(Just walked around central London listening to Blame It on the Boogie by the Jacksons. That is a TUNE!)
This isn't specifically geographic but i just wanted to make a short list of some things we've learned from Roland Emmerich's doomsday epic 2012:
#1 - Destruction always chases you linearly at a speed relative to the means you're trying to escape from it (on foot, by car, or plane), instead of surrounding you all at once.
#2 - If everything around you is imploding and you're the only one with any flight experience, spend as much time as you can arguing about your pilot qualifications - and then navigate a plane sideways through two crumbling buildings.
#3 - "Fancy machines" are no match for the Mayan's thousands of years of foresight.
#4 - You can walk around the Himalayan Mountains in the winter while waiting to be rescued in your LA summer clothes without even shivering.
#5 - If you think your plane is going to fall of a cliff and it doesn't, don't breath a sigh of relief until you're safely out of said plane
#6 - The Universe stops having its shit fest after 26-27 days.
#7 - If the South Pole is now where Wisconsin was, nobody seems to worry about the new meteorological conditions in South Africa and its new position.
#8 - In the brave new world, the exchange rate between young scientists and old politicians is 20 to 1.
#9 - The size of a city is directly proportional to the probability of said city to be hit by a major catastrophe.
#10 - If you need to pick something up, a super-volcanic explosion will wait for you to get it and will not harm you after it goes off.
#11 - Scientists are unable to predict the exact date of the Apocalypse but are absolutely certain that a massive tsunami will reach the Chinese mountains from a precise direction.
#12 - In any foreign country, it is possible to see the national landmark from any window from any building, as characters have decided to buy an apartment opposite to the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben.
#13 - Move to the horn of Africa.
#14 - Caravans can outrun 900mph Pyroclastic flows.
#15 - Mother Nature is allowed to destroy The Vatican, Christ the Redeemer and the Dalai Lama's residence but if she destroyed Mecca she'd be politically incorrect and suicide bombed.
That is all...
(Just walked around central London listening to Blame It on the Boogie by the Jacksons. That is a TUNE!)
This isn't specifically geographic but i just wanted to make a short list of some things we've learned from Roland Emmerich's doomsday epic 2012:
#1 - Destruction always chases you linearly at a speed relative to the means you're trying to escape from it (on foot, by car, or plane), instead of surrounding you all at once.
#2 - If everything around you is imploding and you're the only one with any flight experience, spend as much time as you can arguing about your pilot qualifications - and then navigate a plane sideways through two crumbling buildings.
#3 - "Fancy machines" are no match for the Mayan's thousands of years of foresight.
#4 - You can walk around the Himalayan Mountains in the winter while waiting to be rescued in your LA summer clothes without even shivering.
#5 - If you think your plane is going to fall of a cliff and it doesn't, don't breath a sigh of relief until you're safely out of said plane
#6 - The Universe stops having its shit fest after 26-27 days.
#7 - If the South Pole is now where Wisconsin was, nobody seems to worry about the new meteorological conditions in South Africa and its new position.
#8 - In the brave new world, the exchange rate between young scientists and old politicians is 20 to 1.
#9 - The size of a city is directly proportional to the probability of said city to be hit by a major catastrophe.
#10 - If you need to pick something up, a super-volcanic explosion will wait for you to get it and will not harm you after it goes off.
#11 - Scientists are unable to predict the exact date of the Apocalypse but are absolutely certain that a massive tsunami will reach the Chinese mountains from a precise direction.
#12 - In any foreign country, it is possible to see the national landmark from any window from any building, as characters have decided to buy an apartment opposite to the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben.
#13 - Move to the horn of Africa.
#14 - Caravans can outrun 900mph Pyroclastic flows.
#15 - Mother Nature is allowed to destroy The Vatican, Christ the Redeemer and the Dalai Lama's residence but if she destroyed Mecca she'd be politically incorrect and suicide bombed.
That is all...
Sunday 13 February 2011
Drunken Fails - Ben Style
"Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech"
(I need a new prescription in my left contact lens. I'm pretty much Gordon Brown right now.)
It started with an extremely enjoyable party at the Gaardster's where lots of fun(ny) stuff happened (and as usual, mostly not to me; apart from a really long hug with Aryan, long chats with new people and the occasional block (i prefer my girls not drooling/chundering from bingeing)), I went home early (a mistake having heard about all the stuff that happened after) to make sure my bitch hadn't died. Walked home to the comforting sound of Fortismere drunks crying in gutters and made record time! I got in around 12.30. My bitch wasn't dead. All was good in the world once more.
This was when I realised that i wasn't tired at all. I also realised that my room was disgusting. So I went on an alcohol-induced cleaning rampage, which i'm prone to do if you didn't know. First of all i alphabetised my main bookcase. Then my auxiliary bookcase and my secondary bookcase. Then i started the task of sorting through the ridiculously large amount of crap (miscellaneous items, not excrement!) that has been accumulating in my room for the past, i dunno, 2 years maybe? Nearly half of it was doodles and half of the rest was last years work. Anywho, it was around 4am when i got tired and promptly fell asleep into the 8 neatly stacked piles of work/books on my bed (in addition to the 28 covering my floor and desk). I awoke at 8am with my The Duchess of Malfi Act 1 Scene 2 notes uncomfortably stuck to my cheek. Probably the most uncomfortable sleep i've ever had in my life. I could barely move for an hour because my EngLit ring binder was protruding into my back the whole night. My shoulder is also in huge amounts of pain. To make matters worse, as i got up i knocked 50% of my previously neatly stacked work onto 50% of the neatly stacked work on the floor! I also realised that in my drunken haze my bookcases hadn't been "alphabetised", but merely had had all books removed then replaced at odd angles! Spent the whole morning clearing it up.
I think the lesson i've learnt from this experience is to not go home drunk and still have energy. Go home when i'm extremely tired and have expended all energy, to prevent future room-organisation fail. Reasonable huh?
I was thinking for a future post to do something about 2012 and how ridiculously absurd that film is from a geographical perspective.
Anywho...
(p.s. For the purposes of continuity; "my bitch" is my dog Katie. She's awesome :))
This was when I realised that i wasn't tired at all. I also realised that my room was disgusting. So I went on an alcohol-induced cleaning rampage, which i'm prone to do if you didn't know. First of all i alphabetised my main bookcase. Then my auxiliary bookcase and my secondary bookcase. Then i started the task of sorting through the ridiculously large amount of crap (miscellaneous items, not excrement!) that has been accumulating in my room for the past, i dunno, 2 years maybe? Nearly half of it was doodles and half of the rest was last years work. Anywho, it was around 4am when i got tired and promptly fell asleep into the 8 neatly stacked piles of work/books on my bed (in addition to the 28 covering my floor and desk). I awoke at 8am with my The Duchess of Malfi Act 1 Scene 2 notes uncomfortably stuck to my cheek. Probably the most uncomfortable sleep i've ever had in my life. I could barely move for an hour because my EngLit ring binder was protruding into my back the whole night. My shoulder is also in huge amounts of pain. To make matters worse, as i got up i knocked 50% of my previously neatly stacked work onto 50% of the neatly stacked work on the floor! I also realised that in my drunken haze my bookcases hadn't been "alphabetised", but merely had had all books removed then replaced at odd angles! Spent the whole morning clearing it up.
I think the lesson i've learnt from this experience is to not go home drunk and still have energy. Go home when i'm extremely tired and have expended all energy, to prevent future room-organisation fail. Reasonable huh?
I was thinking for a future post to do something about 2012 and how ridiculously absurd that film is from a geographical perspective.
Anywho...
(p.s. For the purposes of continuity; "my bitch" is my dog Katie. She's awesome :))
Monday 7 February 2011
Lighter Torches
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his"
(Pondering...)
Blogs are harder to write than I thought. I thought that i'd be able to rant for hours about trivial and often uninteresting topics; such as the most interesting national flag or the best value blu-tack brand. More effort goes into writing one of these things than i gave credit for. I'm by no means fazed by the challenge though. I have an aim of at least one blog per week. At least for the time being...
I have a cigarette lighter that looks like a fire extinguisher. I don't smoke, mainly because i know i'd get addicted if i started, but i still buy lighters just for the sake of having them (On a side note I saw a king-size lighter in my nearby mini-mart on the way home, will have to buy to show to friends). I bought this one during my trip to Japan last summer, which was one of my favourite holidays EVER btw. Back to the story, this is an awesome lighter, and i'd put a link to a picture if I wasn't so lazy and ignorant as to how to do so. Recently a friend of mine came over and he was looking at it. Then he realised, to my amazement, that the lighter had a torch on it, at the end of what i thought to be a decorative hosepipe connector thingy (you know what i mean!). Feeling a little embarrassed because i hadn't noticed it prior, i proceeded to spend any time i had in front of my computer, which is quite a bit, playing with this torch.
(I've just realised that this is a stupid/childish story, but I'm so far into writing that i can't be bothered to turn around and change it now)
(I've also realised that because i didn't know how to set font/colour/text size in the first post i'm going to have to make all future posts conform by having them really small in teal and arial bold...melodramatic FML)
Anyhow, I came to the realisation that the colour of your fingers as the light moves under your fingertips is pretty sweet. I thought it'd be a cool art project for someone who did Art or something. I wanted to take a picture of it but the ends of my fingers are fucked up thanks to my nail biting.
In other news...sellotape seraphims
:)
(Pondering...)
Blogs are harder to write than I thought. I thought that i'd be able to rant for hours about trivial and often uninteresting topics; such as the most interesting national flag or the best value blu-tack brand. More effort goes into writing one of these things than i gave credit for. I'm by no means fazed by the challenge though. I have an aim of at least one blog per week. At least for the time being...
I have a cigarette lighter that looks like a fire extinguisher. I don't smoke, mainly because i know i'd get addicted if i started, but i still buy lighters just for the sake of having them (On a side note I saw a king-size lighter in my nearby mini-mart on the way home, will have to buy to show to friends). I bought this one during my trip to Japan last summer, which was one of my favourite holidays EVER btw. Back to the story, this is an awesome lighter, and i'd put a link to a picture if I wasn't so lazy and ignorant as to how to do so. Recently a friend of mine came over and he was looking at it. Then he realised, to my amazement, that the lighter had a torch on it, at the end of what i thought to be a decorative hosepipe connector thingy (you know what i mean!). Feeling a little embarrassed because i hadn't noticed it prior, i proceeded to spend any time i had in front of my computer, which is quite a bit, playing with this torch.
(I've just realised that this is a stupid/childish story, but I'm so far into writing that i can't be bothered to turn around and change it now)
(I've also realised that because i didn't know how to set font/colour/text size in the first post i'm going to have to make all future posts conform by having them really small in teal and arial bold...melodramatic FML)
Anyhow, I came to the realisation that the colour of your fingers as the light moves under your fingertips is pretty sweet. I thought it'd be a cool art project for someone who did Art or something. I wanted to take a picture of it but the ends of my fingers are fucked up thanks to my nail biting.
In other news...sellotape seraphims
:)
Saturday 5 February 2011
4 Cubes
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter"
(If I was writing a novel this would be psychoanalytical auto-biographical teen non-fiction...reference)
I started this first blog post with a goal: To make something worth reading. I didn't want for some random(er), stumbling across this pitiful entry due to a co-incidence of Google-search mishap and blind luck to believe he/she had wasted his/her time in reading what i have to say.
So far this has not happened. I went through several topics; normality and individuality, existence, politics, television, wind-up rats, obesity in Nauru. Do i want to write about those things? Yes! Can I write about them? No! I can think about them though. The discussions themselves are impossible, and i thought it would be pretentious to assume otherwise! And so I've comfortably lead you, my weary traveller, into the light of today's true topic. Argument.
I despise and yet love arguments. Arguing makes me feel ill, like poking myself in the face repeatedly with a wind-up rat until i can't see properly because of the swelling. I don't like having to come up with reasons for my beliefs, whatever they may be. Why should i have to justify why my favourite colour is teal, or that Orwell's 1984 is my favourite book, or that arranging the 4 illusion cubes (Xmas present) on my desk in weird shapes makes me smile? By contrast, arguments fascinate me as they do everyone. Opinion breeds conflict and conflict breeds argument. I admire the ability to argue, and in some ways i wished i'd learnt rhetorical skills from the Greek masters. To argue and persuade is to have power after all, that is the politician's way. It is because of this association of power and argument that i find it annoying. In a world where expression is power, i am at odds. I can't argue to save my life! I prefer to shout something funny/random to change the subject or leave mid conversation. I'll never have the power to do something until i have the means/capacity to express my opinions. This is what i hope to achieve from this blog i s'pose.... I have a feeling I'm not really saying anything...Fuck it I'm off to bed!
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