I told a friend I was reading this and he said this his friend described this book as “You know that scene from the Apollo 13 movie? Where they built a air filter out of duct tape? It is basically that scene repeated through an entire book.”

I thought that was funny, and it is a pretty good description of this book. Our intrepid martian is left behind and must use wit, will, and Watney in order to have any chance of a rescue.

I thought it was interesting that Watneys story was told with a “Captain’s log” mechanism, where he is narrating his survival for posterity. Foremost, because it is only a log, you are left in suspense about whether he will ultimately succeed or fail. Furthermore, because it is a log, it is his personal/intimate account; he is honestly not certain anyone will ever recover it. It allows him to be free to show self doubt or conflicting emotions. It feels more like a transcript of what happened and less like a packaged story, which I think was a desired effect. To contrast this, the events occurring simultaneously on Earth occurred with normal omniscient narration. It kind of gave the feeling that we were watching Watney at a great distance, only receiving his logs after they were occurring, while on earth things were happening in “real time.” Interesting.

I enjoyed the sciency stuff, but am not qualified enough to really critic it one way or the other. Having said that, it seems plausible based on my limited understandings. At least there was no unexplained magic.

Anyway, not too much to report here. I enjoyed it, you should read it, I hope the movie coming out soon will be good.

Damn good movie, you should see it, lots of fun. You know that feeling you had as a kid when the circus performer jumps from one trapeze to another? This movie is like that through most of the running time. The bar for action movies has been raised.

There are a number of interesting topics to consider in this movie. The apparent rationality of seemingly irrational behavior given fundamentalist religious belief. The true nature of mankind when resources are scarce. The inclusion of strong female characters who are not trope bounded feminist. The kinematics of putting a ladder on the back of a truck and jumping onto another truck from it... while moving. All important topics worth considering.

However, I am not going to focus on any of those things. Instead, I will be an ass and focus on the one part of the movie that I didn't quite enjoy. The lack of appreciation for Immortan Joe from the film.

Don't get me wrong, Joe is clearly a really bad guy. Slavery. Violence. Rule by Force. Deception. Deification. This guy is no Saint. I am not going to defend him as a man. Morally, he is repulsive.

But so is every other Great Man in history whom we now worship. Caesar, Ghenghis Khan, Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon, you can just go on all day. Most of these men supported slavery. All of them were willing to force the sacrifice of other lives for their own ideals. Many of them either believed in or encouraged their own deification. By the modern measures of a moral human being, these people were all rather awful. And yet, the net benefit of the actions of most of these men ended up having disproportionate effects on our world. Truth be told, we are probably all better off because of the things they did.

I am not saying that the movie should have let Joe "win" (whatever that may be). I am just saying that it would have been interesting if he at least got to make his case for his own rule at least once.

I mean really, it is amazing that anything short of an actual god could perform some of the miracle he maintains on a regular basis. He has built an empire out of nothing but poverty, want and need. He keeps the vehicles running. He keeps the water flowing. He has raised and cultivated hydroponic fields in the freaking dessert. They have a limited but stable food supply. He was evidently able to pump water from below the earth. Joe obviously knows and values good engineering. Joe obviously understands the value of putting the right person in the right job. Joe evidently allows men and women to rise equally up to at least Imperator. There is large, complex, and maintained engineering at the Citadel. Joe has enough control over his society to maintain blood pools for aenemics for gods sake! I mean that is some high level administration. This is thanks to a charismatic and bloody ruthless tyrant like Joe. No arguments about the morality of it; these miracles have a high cost in human suffering (I assume slave labor for fields, raids for fuel), but by God (Joe), he keeps the damn trains running!

Without people like him, without the collective will of empire/civilization, humanity would just slowly dwindle unto death. It takes monsters like Joe to actually unite factious human beings into forces for effective change. Think about it. Every other clan in the film seemed to be just scrapping by, making due on less every year, all are clearly in decline. The Citadel was growing. It was gaining and centralizing power. In a world of dwindling resources, without people like Joe, humanity is doomed.

They never let Joe make an argument in his own defense. It would have been nice if Max had been able to truly see all that Joe had accomplished and asked himself it this was really worth destroying. I also thought it would be interesting if Imperator Furiosa originally worked with Joe because he brought stability and peace (after the violence of conquest), but eventually had come to feel the ends don't justify the means. Maybe the parallels between a character like Joe and Saddam Hussein were a little too close for comfort; so that entire story was scrapped. Still, I think it would have been neat.

Given the choice between a monstrous tyrant who provides stability and a slow death in isolated freedom, I would choose the tyrant every time. Tyrants are only human, they die, but the legacies and foundations they establish can last for thousands of years.

tldr; "Vote for Joe. Everything else is slow death."

GM: Character name?
PLAYER: Kvothe.
GM: Kvothe, I like it. Sounds rural and strong. So where were you raised Kvothe? Where you a blacksmith? Farmer? Shepperd? Squire? What skills have you developed?
KVOTHE: I have skills at just about everything as I was raised by traveling performers. Since traveling performers have such a wide assortment of skills I have become expert at all of them.
GM: Huh. Um, ok. Alright, I will grant that as a travel you probably have woodcraft, lore, performance, and many other skills, but you can’t really be a master of all skills. What about social and abstract skills like court etiquette or mathematics?
KVOTHE: My mother was royalty. She taught me all social and educational skills. My parents are both highly intelligent and well learned, I have had an education that surpasses that of kings.
GM: Huh… Ok. Well, at least you don’t know magic. There is magic in the world I am building, so there will always be more to learn.
KVOTHE: Nope, at one point we picked up a traveling magic guy and he taught me all the basic principles of magic.
GM: Ok. Now listen. Role playing is about discovery, learning, camaraderie. It is the declaration of the characters nature through his actions and choices. But mostly, it is about overcoming adversity through limited resources. It sounds like you have more skills than the next 100 people combined. This really isn’t going to be very interesting if you already have all the skills necessary to handle any real situation. Besides, no one is smart enough to learn every skill they are even slightly exposed to?
KVOTHE: My Intelligence is basically immeasurable. I can learn a new language in half a day. I will pick up new skills in hours that might take others months to master. I can split my mind and think about multiple things at once. I can make intuitive leaps that Sherlock Holmes would envy. I have the mental plasticity of silly putty and the mental strength of steel. Oh, also I have eidetic memory. Furthermore, my will is limitless.
GM: Ok, I hav no idea how I am going to write an adventure for you. I mean, to even start, you would have to have some crazy disadvantages to put you within the realms of the mere mortals around you. No legs and blind for starters, we will have to think of some additional ones.
KVOTHE: No disadvantages, I am perfect in every way.
GM: No, I don’t think you get it. If you have a perfect character, unless you do something really clever, you end up with really boring “Mary Sue” type adventures. I need disadvantages so that your perfect character can face diversity.
KVOTHE: Ok fine. I will take a physical disadvantage.
GM: Glad you are on board! What is it? Leprosy? No arms? Brain in a vat?
KVOTHE: I am only a teenager.
GM: Ok, I was thinking a little bigger than that. The thing about being a teenager is that you don’t stay that way for long. You are still going to grow up and become the greatest man to ever live, it is rather pre-ordained with the characteristics you have given yourself. Lets add some social disadvantages.
KVOTHE: (After some though) I am arrogant and hotheaded.
GM: Damnit Kvothe! Wait, sorry. Sorry. I apologize for that outburst. Ok. Ok. I was kind of just including that by default under the teenager thing. Maybe something a little more defining, an actual fault that can’t be played off as a virtue in many situations. Maybe you have bloodlust? Or are neurotic and paranoid? Oh, maybe you are a coward!
KVOTHE: Nope, I have no social faults.
GM: Are you sure? Ok… I mean maybe it isn’t a social thing, you need more disadvantages.
KVOTHE: (reluctant) OK, fine. I can’t hold on to money. Anytime I amass any amount of funds, I will loose it rather quickly.
GM: Seriously? That’s it?
KVOTHE: That’s it.
GM: This is going nowhere… Ok, lets shelve the mental/skills stuff, lets talk about you physically.
KVOTHE: I am the strongest. I am taller than almost anyone I meet. I have the highest dexterity and coordination possible. I have the endurance of a marathon runner. I am so attractive it hurts. My hands are strong and powerful. I would like you to mention that very often in this adventure, mention my strong hands over and over again, so the other players know just how strong I am. I have a gaze that can stop a man in his tracks. Also, never fail to mention my fair and beautiful skin. Don’t forget my piercing green eyes, which turn gold when I am passionate. My penis is so big that…
GM: By the gods you are an ass.

2 stars? Who does this guy think he is?

Three reasons.

One, this book ends on several different interleaving plots. Having said that, one of the larger plots contains one giant Deux ex machina ending Mellanie Rescorai being a super agent of the SI. I hate these sort of endings. It is almost silly when the Deux in this case are so ambiguously powerful that you don't know if any of this matters. Is anything here really at stake? Is it just a question of whether our Deux will rescue us, not actually a question of whether they can? Substantially less tension because of that.

Two, the whole aspect of immortality and immortal human psychology just seemed forced. In this series humans are effectively immortals as long as they can get body rejuvenation every few decades. Furthermore, they also have digital backups in their heads that they can resurrect from even in the event of body death. So, first of all, seriously, why are there no wireless networks for these backups. Why aren't they backing up every millisecond? It seems like the device of only being able to periodically backup was introduced only to make death more "real" than it would have been otherwise. I didn't like that. Also, maybe it is just me, but although it would be traumatic to be killed, it does not seem it would take me an entire life to get over it when I am restored. Maybe I am wrong about this, but I felt this was sort of forced on as a way of giving death (even temporary death) some gravity. Again, the whole thing was kind of forced.

Third, and this is the worst offender, you have to consider these things from a pleasure / time viewpoint. This book is like 900 pages long. It was 27 hours on the audiobook I listened to. I really feel like this book could have been 600 pages and contained the exact same core of ideas. If this book had been 2/3 the size, I would have raised its score at least 50%; it is now a densely pleasurable book. But if you drag everything out like this, it makes too many parts of the book a bit dull.

So yeah, loose 1 or 2 stars for the first two points and a division of the remaining score because the book just wasn't delivering enough per unit time. 2 Stars. Good book, good characters, mostly good ideas, too damn long.

Everything below this line is super spoilers:

DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT TO READ THE BOOK UNSPOILED!

LAST WARNING!

I couldn't believe that Justine Burnelli actually got the Navy involved with shadowing Kazimir McFoster. I mean, ok, I get it, you don't believe in the Starflier. That is understandable, although a more competent or questioning person might have at least questioned that belief. But why, why do you involve the Navy? Why not just involve Paula Myo and your own private security. Paula was willing to work outside of the Navy as she already knew the Navy had a leak and very strongly suspected that the Starflyer exist. You are rich as hell so clearly have your own security force. Your brother was assassinated by someone with government level tech or better. YOUR FATHER LITERALLY LOOKED AT YOU AND TOLD YOU HE THINKS THE STARFLYER EXIST! WHAT THE HELL JUSTINE! I mean.... I just don't get it. It was so incredibly dumb that I ... I am just confused.

I did enjoy how some characters fundamental beliefs changed over time. Is anyone really the same person they were 50 years ago? If so, what about 200 years ago? Would it really be reasonable to punish people for crimes they committed two lifetimes ago? What if you edit out your memory of a crime, can you really be punished for it?

I also enjoyed that punishment basically involved just taking time from you. No actual "punishment" near as I can tell, you are just deactivated and then reactivated N years later. The real punishment is that life has moved on without you. It is similar to the Greek and Roman idea that the ultimate punishment is being banished.

I didn't really understand what the actual purpose of oOCTattoos was. Were they processing circuitry? Batteries? Amplifiers? Receivers? Transmitters? I mean why do we have these goofy tattoos? Why couldn't necessary electronics/devices just be installed sub-dermally? Why tattoos?

As near as I could tell there were no actual "direct brain interfaces". Even Gore Burnelli, who was one of the most octatted people ever, appeared to be receiving his inputs primarily as additional senses (sense of smell was most often mentioned) or as just visual overlays. It just seemed weird that with all the advantages they had, and the present day state of mind machine interfaces (cochlear implants and bionic limbs) that this far in the future we wouldn't have much more advanced bridges between the digital and the mind.

2 stars? Who does this guy think he is?

Three reasons.

One, this book ends on several different interleaving plots. Having said that, one of the larger plots contains one giant Deux ex machina ending Mellanie Rescorai being a super agent of the SI. I hate these sort of endings. It is almost silly when the Deux in this case are so ambiguously powerful that you don't know if any of this matters. Is anything here really at stake? Is it just a question of whether our Deux will rescue us, not actually a question of whether they can? Substantially less tension because of that.

Two, the whole aspect of immortality and immortal human psychology just seemed forced. In this series humans are effectively immortals as long as they can get body rejuvenation every few decades. Furthermore, they also have digital backups in their heads that they can resurrect from even in the event of body death. So, first of all, seriously, why are there no wireless networks for these backups. Why aren't they backing up every millisecond? It seems like the device of only being able to periodically backup was introduced only to make death more "real" than it would have been otherwise. I didn't like that. Also, maybe it is just me, but although it would be traumatic to be killed, it does not seem it would take me an entire life to get over it when I am restored. Maybe I am wrong about this, but I felt this was sort of forced on as a way of giving death (even temporary death) some gravity. Again, the whole thing was kind of forced.

Third, and this is the worst offender, you have to consider these things from a pleasure / time viewpoint. This book is like 900 pages long. It was 27 hours on the audiobook I listened to. I really feel like this book could have been 600 pages and contained the exact same core of ideas. If this book had been 2/3 the size, I would have raised its score at least 50%; it is now a densely pleasurable book. But if you drag everything out like this, it makes too many parts of the book a bit dull.

So yeah, loose 1 or 2 stars for the first two points and a division of the remaining score because the book just wasn't delivering enough per unit time. 2 Stars. Good book, good characters, mostly good ideas, too damn long.

Everything below this line is super spoilers:

DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT TO READ THE BOOK UNSPOILED!

LAST WARNING!

I couldn't believe that Justine Burnelli actually got the Navy involved with shadowing Kazimir McFoster. I mean, ok, I get it, you don't believe in the Starflier. That is understandable, although a more competent or questioning person might have at least questioned that belief. But why, why do you involve the Navy? Why not just involve Paula Myo and your own private security. Paula was willing to work outside of the Navy as she already knew the Navy had a leak and very strongly suspected that the Starflyer exist. You are rich as hell so clearly have your own security force. Your brother was assassinated by someone with government level tech or better. YOUR FATHER LITERALLY LOOKED AT YOU AND TOLD YOU HE THINKS THE STARFLYER EXIST! WHAT THE HELL JUSTINE! I mean.... I just don't get it. It was so incredibly dumb that I ... I am just confused.

I did enjoy how some characters fundamental beliefs changed over time. Is anyone really the same person they were 50 years ago? If so, what about 200 years ago? Would it really be reasonable to punish people for crimes they committed two lifetimes ago? What if you edit out your memory of a crime, can you really be punished for it?

I also enjoyed that punishment basically involved just taking time from you. No actual "punishment" near as I can tell, you are just deactivated and then reactivated N years later. The real punishment is that life has moved on without you. It is similar to the Greek and Roman idea that the ultimate punishment is being banished.

I didn't really understand what the actual purpose of oOCTattoos was. Were they processing circuitry? Batteries? Amplifiers? Receivers? Transmitters? I mean why do we have these goofy tattoos? Why couldn't necessary electronics/devices just be installed sub-dermally? Why tattoos?

As near as I could tell there were no actual "direct brain interfaces". Even Gore Burnelli, who was one of the most octatted people ever, appeared to be receiving his inputs primarily as additional senses (sense of smell was most often mentioned) or as just visual overlays. It just seemed weird that with all the advantages they had, and the present day state of mind machine interfaces (cochlear implants and bionic limbs) that this far in the future we wouldn't have much more advanced bridges between the digital and the mind.

I enjoyed 'Ex Machina' as a idea more than as a movie. I enjoyed it specifically because it gave me a narrative framework to understand an idea that I had always previously found difficult to grasp.

The movie was a cautionary tale about avoiding the error of anthropomorphizing things.

At this moment in human history this isn't really a problem. The thing most commonly anthropomorphized by human beings are other animals. Although it can be individually dangerous to assume human characteristics of a wild animal (a tiger that I feed is also my friend), it is not a danger to society as a whole.

But the future is coming. Soon we will have robots who are externally indistinguishable from human beings. Even assuming no advances in AI, we will still soon have machines that can pass a normal exterior examination as human. It will be very tempting for human beings to want to treat these machine servants as human. It will possibly be difficult to teach children that the robot nanny is a machine, not a human being. I think human beings want to anthropomorphize the things around them. The more human something looks, the more difficulty we have in separating human from non human.

Caleb mad the mistake of assuming that because he sacrificed for Ava, that she would reciprocate for him. Reciprocation is a fundamental human emotion. I have a hard time screwing someone over in general, I have a really hard time screwing someone over who has done something for me. A machine will not necessarily have those compunctions. Reciprocation is probably something built into our genes. It probably served our ancestors extremely well. You can be fairly sure that anywhere you go, most human being you meet probably have a sense of reciprocation. On the surface, it was extremely foolish for Caleb to assume that a machine will share his genetic hangups.

In Caleb's defense, this was a pretty smart machine. That is the real danger. Currently, the only risk we really face is the possibility of machines that look so human that their appearance fools us into pretending that they are human. It may mean awkward changes in society, like men who want to "marry" their robot wives. However, without true AI, there is little danger of these robot wives taking over the world. Without AI, it still takes a willful act of self-deception for a human to convince themselves that a machine is human. If machines are built to look human, that might be a problem for many individuals, maybe even somewhat of a threat to society, but it is not a threat to our species. There will always be some people who simply refuse to anthropomorphize a machine, regardless of how human it looks.

Deception, as practice by Ava, requires intelligence. When machines are smart enough to know how to act in order to be perceived as human, then we have a genuine threat to our species. I say threat because these machines would be smart enough to act human when they want to, but quit acting whenever it suits them. Most human societies and social structures depend on the shared underlying genetics of group and interpersonal relationships. Machines will have none of that built in. What is intrinsic to us is just a 0/1 switch to them.

I just want to close by saying that I am not suggesting that machines can't be sentient, that they don't have any feelings (they may or they may not), or that they must be immoral/amoral. Simply stating that just because something has the ability to mimic human emotion does not mean that it actually experiences them. I feel that this is something that humanity may have trouble with in the future. Don't attribute human characteristics to something that is not human.

GM: Character name?

PLAYER: Kvothe.

GM: Kvothe, I like it. Sounds rural and strong. So where were you raised Kvothe? Where you a blacksmith? Farmer? Shepperd? Squire? What skills have you developed?

KVOTHE: I have skills at just about everything as I was raised by traveling performers. Since traveling performers have such a wide assortment of skills I have become expert at all of them.

GM: Huh. Um, ok. Alright, I will grant that as a travel you probably have woodcraft, lore, performance, and many other skills, but you can’t really be a master of all skills. What about social and abstract skills like court etiquette or mathematics?

KVOTHE: My mother was royalty. She taught me all social and educational skills. My parents are both highly intelligent and well learned, I have had an education that surpasses that of kings.

GM: Huh… Ok. Well, at least you don’t know magic. There is magic in the world I am building, so there will always be more to learn.

KVOTHE: Nope, at one point we picked up a traveling magic guy and he taught me all the basic principles of magic.

GM: Ok. Now listen. Role playing is about discovery, learning, camaraderie. It is the declaration of the characters nature through his actions and choices. But mostly, it is about overcoming adversity through limited resources. It sounds like you have more skills than the next 100 people combined. This really isn’t going to be very interesting if you already have all the skills necessary to handle any real situation. Besides, no one is smart enough to learn every skill they are even slightly exposed to?

KVOTHE: My Intelligence is basically immeasurable. I can learn a new language in half a day. I will pick up new skills in hours that might take others months to master. I can split my mind and think about multiple things at once. I can make intuitive leaps that Sherlock Holmes would envy. I have the mental plasticity of silly putty and the mental strength of steel. Oh, also I have eidetic memory. Furthermore, my will is limitless.

GM: Ok, I hav no idea how I am going to write an adventure for you. I mean, to even start, you would have to have some crazy disadvantages to put you within the realms of the mere mortals around you. No legs and blind for starters, we will have to think of some additional ones.

KVOTHE: No disadvantages, I am perfect in every way.

GM: No, I don’t think you get it. If you have a perfect character, unless you do something really clever, you end up with really boring “Mary Sue” type adventures. I need disadvantages so that your perfect character can face diversity.

KVOTHE: Ok fine. I will take a physical disadvantage.

GM: Glad you are on board! What is it? Leprosy? No arms? Brain in a vat?

KVOTHE: I am only a teenager.

GM: Ok, I was thinking a little bigger than that. The thing about being a teenager is that you don’t stay that way for long. You are still going to grow up and become the greatest man to ever live, it is rather pre-ordained with the characteristics you have given yourself. Lets add some social disadvantages.

KVOTHE: (After some though) I am arrogant and hotheaded.

GM: Damnit Kvothe! Wait, sorry. Sorry. I apologize for that outburst. Ok. Ok. I was kind of just including that by default under the teenager thing. Maybe something a little more defining, an actual fault that can’t be played off as a virtue in many situations. Maybe you have bloodlust? Or are neurotic and paranoid? Oh, maybe you are a coward!

KVOTHE: Nope, I have no social faults.

GM: Are you sure? Ok… I mean maybe it isn’t a social thing, you need more disadvantages.

KVOTHE: (reluctant) OK, fine. I can’t hold on to money. Anytime I amass any amount of funds, I will loose it rather quickly.

GM: Seriously? That’s it?

KVOTHE: That’s it.

GM: This is going nowhere… Ok, lets shelve the mental/skills stuff, lets talk about you physically.

KVOTHE: I am the strongest. I am taller than almost anyone I meet. I have the highest dexterity and coordination possible. I have the endurance of a marathon runner. I am so attractive it hurts. My hands are strong and powerful. I would like you to mention that very often in this adventure, mention my strong hands over and over again, so the other players know just how strong I am. I have a gaze that can stop a man in his tracks. Also, never fail to mention my fair and beautiful skin. Don’t forget my piercing green eyes, which turn gold when I am passionate. My penis is so big that…

GM: By the gods you are an ass.

I have always maintained that most men have at least one (and probably only one) "tournament" fighting anime in them. I am sure that the Japanese have a name for this sort of anime, where basically almost every single episode really centers on a fight between our protagonist and his enemies (or are they?). The story arc of these series involve out hero getting stuck in some sort of tournament where they have to defeat a sequence of lower baddies in order to face the big bad guy who is .... You get the idea.

This genre of anime is extremely repetitive. This genre is repetitive. Repetitive. Often a single fight pairing will take up the entire episode. A tournament will often involve 20 or so of these sequential fights. At the end of the tournament, our hero will usually either discover that this whole fight was just a scam for some even larger tournament he will have to fight in; wash cycle repeat. Over and over.

Oh, did I mention the monologues? This genre of anime absolutely-freaking-loves their monologues. People will stop a fight to give 3 or 4 minutes of verbal exchanges. Each contestant daring the other. Revealing some tiny (and usually insignificant) detail of the heroes quest. Baiting the hero with some hint about where the princess is hidden. You get the idea. If Shakespear were alive today, he would shake his head and walk away at the length and pacing of some of these monologues. Hamlet, long winded? My friend, he was an amateur.

You might think this repetition and wordiness would mean this genre is unpopular; you would be so very mistaken. It is fantastically popular with teenage boys and young men. I couldn't really put my finger on exactly what these series are tapping, but it is something primal, almost hypnotic in its repetition. It has something to do with a desire to be challenged, to prove yourself to others. I think it may have something to do with the young mans wish that there was a formal way of defining yourself as an adult. It is part of adulthood (at least in modern culture) to realize that there is no "rite of passage" or "trial by fire" to becoming an adult. You become an adult through a gradual process of accepting more responsibilities, not because some villain stole your childhood sweetheart and now you need to gather your friends and go save her. Sad but true.

Most people in the West think of Dragon Ball Z as the classic fighting anime. It's 7 year ~300 episode run attest to just how popular this series was. It was a bit before my time so I never watched it. For myself, I was weened on Flame of Recca. I thought it was soooooo coooool. I remember going on #animefiends and #animesync (IRC) and downloading the newest fansubbed episodes every week. I waited with batted breath for those episodes to download off our families slow internet connection. While waiting for the broadcast and subsequent fansub every week, I would sometimes imagine what the next episode would be about. I don't even remember a whole lot about the series anymore, but I remember that I was obsessed about it at the time. I think most men (into anime) experience something like this at least once. Later in my life, as I attended university, everyone around me got into Fullmetal Alchemist and Bleach. This was interesting to me, as I had already experienced a tournament fighting anime and was effectively immune to them. I just couldn't get into them as I would have been able to had I never experienced them before. It is like Chicken Pox, once you have had it you probably won't get it again.

Ok, enough amateur psychology and history. How was Kill la Kill? In a word... Excellent.

As I said in the beginning, I think every man can get excited at least one time over a tournament fighting series. Most men will experience it once, get incredibly excited about it, eat sleep and dream it, and then slowly but surely move on. Future "tournament" anime series will just not be attractive to them in the same way that their first one was. Eventually, you accept that these sort of series are in fact juvenile. As you get older, the desire for easy answers and clear rites fades, life is nuanced and more complex than that.

And then Kill la Kill comes along. Kill la Kill repackages the excitement you experienced with your first tournament series. Tongue firmly in cheek, it turns the dial on this genres attribute to 11. Clearly aware of the ludicrousness and naive simplicity of its inspirational material, it pokes fun at it every chance it gets. To my mind, Kill la Kill would actually make less sense if you have not seen a tournament fighting anime before. It's plot is ridiculous, it just roles with it. Overly talkative characters, other characters comment on monologuing. It pushes the boundaries but never actually breaks the fourth wall. Even the fan service is done in a way that pokes fun at the obsessive amount of fan service in anime, while embracing it completely.

Simply put, this is a great anime to watch after you have already experienced on genuine "tournament" anime series. It deconstructs everything that you though was so honest and important in these original series, but does so with such good nature and humor that you don't actually mind.

Eden of the East is responsible for introducing me to the notion of NEETs. At many points in my life, I guess I would qualify as a NEET myself. NEET is a person who is "Not in Education, Employment, or Training". The term evidently originated in the United Kingdoms, but really took off as a talking point in Japanese culture and politics.

Anyway, the anime.

Overall, it was enjoyable enough. The plot is basically that a young man has a "genie" phone that grants wishes. The thing is, he is supposed to be using this power to make Japan Great Again. There are a total of 12 characters with said phones. The series is basically a pretty obvious mystery concerning who is doing what, and why did I do it.

The art is of high quality, with an interesting character design that bordered on making people look like "comic strip" characters. I mean seriously, one of the characters had these pink flaps where his cheeks were supposed to be. Made me think of Charlie Brown.

SPOILERS I thought it was interesting to have imply say that the best way to revitalize Japan would be to put it through another calamity. One of the 12 characters is just obsessed with bombing japan back to the point that japan would have to pull off another "Japanese miracle" similar to the rebuilding post WW2.

As an American, it is similar to the question some ask of "Can we continue to be a leading nation without the expenditures and expeditions of our armed forces?" A large military is clearly not a good thing; it cost a lot, it is rather inefficient, it gets us in trouble around the world, and it also sometimes does basically evil things. On the other hand, it drives technology, it drives construction, it consumes huge amounts of resources and services (driving consumption), and it provides us unparalleled soft and hard power around the world. Also, a continuous state of war in America has kept most Americans comparatively patriotic, causing a surprising degree of unity considering how non homogeneous our population is.

Too long. My point was that both Japan and the United States have a choice of continuing with the status-quo or embracing radical change. In this anime, it is implied that the change they want to see is a destruction of that which was built and a leveling of the playing field. There belief is that something better may be rebuilt. In the United States, it would probably be a reduction of our Armed Forces as one of the larger drivers of our society. Perhaps the resources saved from doing so might be used more effectively elsewhere. Both ideas are risky propositions. They may very well be misguided. Still, I was impressed that an anime would at least be willing to touch them.

I like ideas, even if they are poorly thought out.

Silly thoughts:

Why did no one just ask the phone to "Make a list of propositions and their price for making Japan Great again, I will select one of them."

What did Saki do other than "believe in" Akira?

You have a phone app that can identify people visually. I think you should be applying for VC funding, not playing house in your club room.

World Computer was a dumb and almost unused concept? Why?

So you have a sort of super AI Deux Ex Machina wish grantor.... Alright, I will let that slide. Goofy though.

The reasoning for needing to clear his memory was pretty darn weak.

I really liked the Watchmen movie, I was already a fan of the comic book beforehand. However, post movie, I could definitely see how the movie might not be as appealing had I not read the source material. Baccano! is based on a light novel series that I have not read. The anime felt like it was eliding over the source material. I enjoyed it, but had some real problems with the plot.

This anime had more loose threads than I could count. Almost none of the stories had a beginning or end. I get that the anime was going for that exact device, but it isn't personally something I am fond of.

Maybe if you read the source material the plot makes more sense. I hope so.

I think animes like this may actually illustrate a dividing lines between narrative fandom. People like myself just can't help thinking about things like plot, logical sense, rational behavior, character intelligence, backstory, etc. I am, for lack of a better word, a mechanical/deterministic kind of guy. Things just have to make sense or I feel unease. Baccano! is more about mood, feeling, excitement, connection, emotion; it does not feel that it has to make sense.

I have a few recomendations.

1. Watch only the first 13 episodes. The last (14-16) are rubbish and practically nonsensical.
2. Appreciate the art and the style that went into this. I was especially impressed by the attention to details in the set pieces and the characters clothing. I liked the outfits a good deal, as they were clearly inspired from the 1930's but actually morphed to be attractive by modern standards.
3. The music is catchy, the opening credit scene is actually well done.
4. Note the fact that somebody built an anime without using most of the conventional tropes of the genre.
5. Might consider reading the novels beforehand. I have not, but I felt I might enjoy the series more had I done so.
6. I watched the sub (arrogant purist that I am), but evidently the English dub is actually quite good. Might be worth giving it a shot.
7. Finally, I watched this series over maybe 10 days, watching an episode or two a day. I would instead recommend watching this over a weekend. There are a lot of characters and interactions all over the place. It can be easier to remember who was what if it is all "fresh" in your head.

Good Movie, executed well enough, just failed to catch me.

I was a bit disappointed in this. I was really looking for something that would catch me on a emotional (maybe even manipulative) level. Instead I got something that felt a little too rounded off, sharp corners removed. I wanted to be fished along by some emotional hook, doing my "Don't cry, that is just a frog in your throat" seat dance.

Don't get me wrong, it was a good movie. But too much of it seemed to be appeasing the "I want to be a princess" aspect, which bores me. I never fell in love with the female lead (though she was charming). I couldn't care less about the Prince (though his acting was fine). I wanted something that as I watch I slowly realize that I have been subtly and insidiously manipulated into caring about. No dice.

Movie was quite decent, but a few things struck out with me.

The cinematography was lazy. I mean not a single really interesting shot. The advanced shots here seemed to be vehicle moving shots and focus switches between foreground and background. Not cool. Also, way way way too many "talking head" shots.

The music was unremarkable. I wouldn't usually make a big deal out of this, but this is a Disney film. I should have something to hum afterwards. I couldn't recall a single song after the film.

I was also bothered that Cinderella didn't have much trouble sticking to her ideals. Where is the great triumph as she sticks to something against all odds? Where is the drama here?

Finally, and this is my patriarchic nature shining through, I didn't like that she had no real effect on the Prince. I am kind of a sucker when a woman is a paragon of some sort of virtue, she meets a man who is perhaps struggling with said virtue, and she strengthens it by associating with him. It is cliched, but I like it. This didn't really have that. Maybe Prince's Father is a commandeering warlord. Prince's association with Cinderella teaches him to value Love and Kindness. Because of her he shows these attributes to the people he conquers; becoming a great King. I don't know, sounds stupid when I say it, but I might have fallen for it.

Meh.

Here is where I feel they really went wrong. They failed to connect me to the characters. Throughout the film, I had to be like "Oh, father/son, that is a relationship template . Oh, thick and thin best friends, I will fill that in for you." It was tiresome because if felt lazy, like your are just relying on relationship conventions rather than SHOWING me the relationships.

Here is what they should have done instead.

Start the movie from Ed Harris' point of view. He is the hero. He is a crime lord. He is a loving husband and generous with his friends, but also a ruthless bastard. He is hard as nails with everyone, maybe even a little too hard with his son, who is a punk but is only trying to impress him. The only soft spot he has is his looser buddy Liam Neeson, who he will always help out and will never put down. People wonder why he is soft for Liam, everyone knows it has something to do with the past, but no one dares ask. Despite their completely different lifes, lifestyles, and demeanors Ed and Liam are best friends. Their kids played as children together. Ed still visits the bar where Liam drinks; talking for hours. On holidays, Ed still has Liam over as a family guest.

Same plot pretty much all the way to the point that Liam shoots Ed's kid. Suddenly we switch Perspectives, this movie is now Liams movie. At this point, we really like Ed, we kinda question the wisdom of the friendship he shows Liam. As the past 30 have shown the one sided history rise of Ed's life, the next 30 minutes show the history of the one sided fall of Liams. The last hour is the point where the two basically have to kill each other, and now we have real drama. We first met Ed. We like Ed. We first saw Liam as a undesirable. Gradually we grew to understand Liam. We know they are both going to die, but will they re-connect before they do? Will they recognize the outcome is unavoidable, but still love each other as brothers?

Would have been better, all I am saying.

Wow, this was good.

First, lets get this out of the way. The animation is a turn off initially. You think it is cheap, but it is actually akin to impressionist art. They are opening up options by moving away from realism. Even if you don't like the art style itself, you will start to notice the framing, the transitions, the surrealism, the switches in style. It becomes obvious that it wasn't done this way because it was easier. It is more that the animators chose to forgo realism because they wanted the options that a more limited animation style would open up. This is true of all animations of course, they are abstractions of reality, but this series takes it so much further.

The music was also quite good. I don't take much notice of music usually, but this was of high quality and well synched to the different moods of different scenes.

The characters are what really makes this a masterpiece. It is rare to see a series that charts the interactions and progress of four to six characters so well. Every single one of these characters is believable. Every single one could walk into the real world without seeming out of place. Every single one of them is interesting in their own right. Every single one, even the ones you sometimes don't like, is worthy of your attention. They make animated characters seem more complete, complex, and real than most live action performances. This is what animation is about.

Just. Excellent.

I know next to nothing about Spongebob et all. Previous to this, the most I had seen of this series was a few minutes at a McDonald's as I was waiting for my order.

The movie was funny. Filled with puns, visual site gags, play on words, sometimes just charming idiocy.

The movie was innocent and starry eyed, I liked the characters. I liked the world.

I think the most impressive thing about the movie is how sharp an edge they kept between the adult humor and the child humor. By adult, I don't mean that the humor was ever crude, I simply mean that it probably isn't something that a child would find funny. I like the idea of a child watching this with an adult, and the adult laughs at something. The child ask what is funny. The adult would explain that it is a play on words or something. The child still wouldn't get why it is funny, but they would probably laugh because children tend to imitate the adults around them. I appreciate children's movies that have adult humor that can always be explained to children without some lame "I will tell you when you are older" nonsense. That sort of thing always bothered me when I was a child. Much better to have humor that can be explained, and kids may still not get it, but at least they grew a little in terms of understanding the adult mindset. It is a shared experience that way, not just a one sided joke.

Movie was much better than I expected. I mean, it is still a juvenile movie, but kept me well entertained for its 90 minute running time.

Martin is some sort of programmer/hacker. He discovers a file that lets him manipulate reality. We will accept that without question. Fine.

I just couldn't accept the characters.

I am a programmer, many of my friends are programmers, almost everyone I know is either a programmer or engineer; Martin is no programmer.

There are personality traits and characteristics that (broad strokes here) go with being a technical person. Martin seems to exhibit none of these. If I were to pigeonhole the character, I would say he is more of a Gamer than a Programmer.

The characteristics he had seemed strange. Indecisiveness, rashness, reactionary nature, a flair for the dramatic, a desire to be the center of attention; none of these tend to be characteristics of technical people. This is forgivable, perhaps he is just a jacked-up-alpha-male version of a technical person. Still, they should have spent some time explaining why he was technical and had all these particular characteristics.

The characteristics he had seemed odd, the characteristics he lacked seemed downright bizarre. He spends no real time questioning why the file exist. He just tries things without even setting up controlled experiments first. He never really made any real sense of time travel. Never even trying to go back in time to warn himself not to commit bank fraud. Instead just deciding that because he hadn't been warned that it was impossible ? His lack of curiosity about his own environment was peculiar. I don't need my characters to spend their entire day naval gazing, but even superficial characters should have some level of introspection. It was really disturbing to me how little he though or planned before he acted. Worse was how he never seemed to question the things he observed. It was very peculiar, only the stupid or indoctrinated have so little concern about their surroundings.

The remaining characters are so shallow as to be above criticism. How can you fault someone you barely know?

Martin felt like a vehicle that needs to be driven by the plot. I can't imagine any part of his history, and I couldn't predict any part of his future. His character was so inert that it seems like he would sit there unchanging if the plot didn't move him along.

A great deal of the tech stuff was pure nonsense, even from the magical point of view of the file. I am not going to make a big deal out of it though, as this is really a fantasy magic novel with a technology plating.

tldr; Read "Ready Player One" instead.

Odd. I was actually quite engaged throughout the entire movie. And yet, the lack of a climactic ending left me somewhat unfulfilled. It is funny. You can enjoy every moment, but if it is missing certain pieces, your memory of things will be one of disappointment.

SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOILERS The climax of having Elyes Gabel shoot himself was not much of a climax. The real ending was like "Ok, now we have the money because you have been squirlling it away. Thanks dear. Fin." It just wasn't that resolute or interesting an ending. Expectations of gangster movies are that there will be a giant shootout or something at the end. That never happened. Even though it was good, I was a bit of a let down.

I think the scene I liked the most was the one of Elyes running down the bridge tower stairs. It filled me with a real sense of dread. As he heaved and lumbered down the stairs, letting momentum carry him more than self force, it was like watching a frightened animal work itself deeper into a trap. I kept thinking that someone was going to be waiting on the next flight. Tense, well done scene.

I like the fact that Abel Malores was only able to be as clean as he was because everyone around him was so crooked. I appreciated the fact that he was faced with a fairly clear dilemma at the end. Either take the money from Peter Forente and be in bed with the mob (and all that entails). Or use his own ill gotten money to fund the legitimate business activity he was interested in engaging in. Either way, by his own means or someone else, he is still engaged in a criminal enterprise. Kind of like the universe is sending you a message there.

Focus was an 80% in most dimensions. Unfortunately, this leaves you feeling that the movie was worse than the sum of its parts.

If a movie has something uniquely good to it, you can often overlook other elements that perhaps fell short. Focus has no obvious shortcomings, it is always on target, it is just that it never hits a bullseye on anything.

SPOIILLLLLLLLLLERS:

One part of the movie I did like was the betting scene for the "Superbowl" (Note. It wasn't THE Superbowl, it was just a thing involving American Football that looked a lot like the Superbowl, damn trademark protection). It seemed silly at first, he took a double or nothing bet with a ~59% chance of payout. That is dumb. His girl pointed out how dumb that is. Will Smith said something along the lines of (paraphrasing) "then we would double it again and bet on something else. He will always take the bet." I had to think about it for a second, but it is true. As long as you have infinite funds and you know the other party will always accept, you will eventually be able to win any double or nothing bet. Just keep doubling and betting, stopping so that you are the last winner; it's that simple. If you have better than 50% odds, then the average number of times between "wins" on such bets becomes smaller and smaller. Will Smith didn't have infinite funds, but he might have had enough to make it probabilistically impossible that they could actually go bust. I thought that was neat.

I also enjoyed (although am skeptical) about the pseudo psychology of priming 55. Or the science of attracting women that Will Smith later espoused. It is a fun idea, but probably isn't nearly as deterministic as presented in the film.

Saw "Black Sea" this evening. Enjoyed it, but am kind of a sucker for Submarine movies.

This movie was a bit shallow (sorry), but it was a fun ride. The story involves recovering lost Nazi gold, Russians, yada yada, you have heard it before. The plot isn't that important.

A good sub movie should leave you with a tense neck and shoulders. It is about just how stressful it can be when in such close contact with other human beings. How frightening the cold and pitch black abyss of the ocean is. How disconnected you are from any hope of rescue or aid. This movie delivered on all these fronts, so altogether, as a sub movie, it was a good sub movie.

Martin is some sort of programmer/hacker. He discovers a file that lets him manipulate reality. We will accept that without question. Fine.

I just couldn't accept the characters.

I am a programmer, many of my friends are programmers, almost everyone I know is either a programmer or engineer; Martin is no programmer.

There are personality traits and characteristics that (broad strokes here) go with being a technical person. Martin seems to exhibit none of these. If I were to pigeonhole the character, I would say he is more of a Gamer than a Programmer.

The characteristics he had seemed strange. Indecisiveness, rashness, reactionary nature, a flair for the dramatic, a desire to be the center of attention; none of these tend to be characteristics of technical people. This is forgivable, perhaps he is just a jacked-up-alpha-male version of a technical person. Still, they should have spent some time explaining why he was technical and had all these particular characteristics.

The characteristics he had seemed odd, the characteristics he lacked seemed downright bizarre. He spends no real time questioning why the file exist. He just tries things without even setting up controlled experiments first. He never really made any real sense of time travel. Never even trying to go back in time to warn himself not to commit bank fraud. Instead just deciding that because he hadn't been warned that it was impossible ? His lack of curiosity about his own environment was peculiar. I don't need my characters to spend their entire day naval gazing, but even superficial characters should have some level of introspection. It was really disturbing to me how little he though or planned before he acted. Worse was how he never seemed to question the things he observed. It was very peculiar, only the stupid or indoctrinated have so little concern about their surroundings.

The remaining characters are so shallow as to be above criticism. How can you fault someone you barely know?

Martin felt like a vehicle that needs to be driven by the plot. I can't imagine any part of his history, and I couldn't predict any part of his future. His character was so inert that it seems like he would sit there unchanging if the plot didn't move him along.

A great deal of the tech stuff was pure nonsense, even from the magical point of view of the file. I am not going to make a big deal out of it though, as this is really a fantasy magic novel with a technology plating.

tldr; Read "Ready Player One" instead.

Goofed around pretty much all day; the post below is pretty much all I have to show for it.

Today I looked up all the theme songs of childhood TV shows that I used to like. I lived in France from 6-8 and so the theme songs from that time are of course in French.

Bioman

I don't remember whether I ever stated it, but I place a lot of value on new ideas. In this sense of the word, Accelerando did fairly well. However, there were problems that I don't feel comfortable going into unless you have already read it. I don't like to ruin books for people, so I will just say read it with the knowledge that every section is probably around 90% as interesting as the section preceding it, but that it is worthwhile book if you enjoy being presented with new ideas.

***** SLIGHT PLOT DETAILS FOLLOW *******

As I remember, the plot was roughly divided divided into 9 sections, 3 groupings of 3 sections each. The first grouping is our immediate future, the second grouping is our protagonists daughter's story, and the third is their further descendants (and his reincarnation... twice... at least [don't ask]). As you might have guessed, the plot is a accelerating mess. Towards the end, I just didn't know what to do with it anymore. In terms of narrative, flow, character, and story, the first third is pretty good, the second is okay, and the third was frankly dull. I actually thought this was kind of funny, as I my progress in this book was slowing down as the singularity was speeding up.

But enough about the book itself, lets talk about the ideas! <Work in progress, I am filling these out as I have the time>

1) I though the scene where manx looses his goggles and literally has no idea who he is or what he is doing was very interesting.

2) Reason we don't observe, and don't deal with alien races is that singularity just means building smart matter, not conquest or anything like that.

3) Economy 2.0 will be about novelty, not power, matter, influence, or anything else.

4) Self aware contracts and corporations.

5) External brains allow concurrent though.

6) External brains allow accelerated though.

7) Sea slug is born in a digital realm, does not understand that there is actually a physical one.

8) Concept of being able to fully model a human being

I actually read this short story on the same day I saw the new (2012) movie. It is a silly story, makes you laugh at the end. Two days previous to that, I saw the Arnold version of the movie based on this book.

If Arnold's version is based on this story, then the 2012 version would at best be "inspired by" Arnolds version. Anyway, that is enough about the movies, they are just fresh on my mind as I just watched them.

The story is fun, a review seems kind of pointless since the entire story is less than 30 pages. Go ahead and read it. It isn't the best PKD by any standard, but it will fill a subway ride. I can't really imagine writing any more about this, so I will stop now.

I really don't feel like I have that much to contribute to the discussion here. It was a good book, solidly entertaining. Characters are literally the same for every story. I enjoyed the story, but they were episodic: sitcoms. You could basically read the stories in reverse order (except for the first) and it would make no difference. I was a little annoyed that I could often just guess who was guilty, but it wasn't really possible to actually figure it out beforehand, as information is usually withheld until the very end. Anyway, fun read, good story, but just a read, not really a mystery.

Yeah, I read this book in 4 days.

If you asked me what I was likely to give this book 3/5 through the novel, I would probably have said 5 stars. Unfortunately, the plot sort of bogged down towards the end. It made the resolution phase of the end of the novel less exciting than the discovery phase in the first half of it. I won't ruin anything for you by giving the plot itself away, but things kind of came together in a too tidy fashion for my taste. At some points, our protagonist's group seemed remarkably silly. They allowed variables to run around that could have been very easily controlled with minimal effort. It seemed hard to believe that military people might be so.. well... dumb and trusting. Especially people who can read minds, discover secrets of those they link with, and have a sort of gestalt intelligence.

Oh, there were also some anachronisms that of course look silly. Like the lack of tracking through camera systems, the reliance of paper copies of things, the limited use of cryptography, the rarity of wireless networks, blah blah whatever.

But, really, these are minor quibbles. The big deal was the idea of linking human beings together into a single intelligence. That is a fascinating idea. I usually read sci-fi because I like to expose myself to new ideas: this book delivered in spades. You could almost say that the plot, characters, and all were simply built around the need to explore one idea. From here on in, I will call it gestalt (I think the book specifically mentioned this was not the correct word, but we will use it anyway).

In gestalt, you achieve a immediate intimacy with the person or persons you are gestalted too. You can basically read each others feelings and thoughts, and can also experience each others memories. Lying is impossible in gestalt. It was not clear whether other peoples memories are directly accesible in gestalt, or only the current memory is viewable. It is done with electronics by installing a jack into the back of peoples heads, people connect to a router of sorts, where they enter a gestalt together.

It is addictive. This I would believe with minimal justification. One of our most advanced human traits and quite possibly the main reason for our success as a species is that we are ridiculously social animals. Look at people hunched over their phones, checking their facebooks or whatever. All the time, in all places, we love being connected to other people. People will dedicate substantial portions of their lives for fleeting interaction with other people. Imagine if you were able to truly connect with someone, in a way more intimate than anything else. It is not love, it is not sex, it is simply the merging of two or more people for a period of time. You and they can communicate without speech, you would know someones true character, you could probably even see the blind spots they have about their own self. It would be maddeningly addictive. i don't think any metaphor could really communicate how attractive that would be.

Lets say that this gestalt thing existed, what would the implications be?

Would marriage or even friendship survive? If you can connect in a most intimate (although, to re-iterate not amorous or sexual) way with someone else, would everyone be equally "close" to you? What would a friend mean in that case? I suppose that it might just mean someone who you had been gestalted too a great deal? Or perhaps it would be more like a favorite song? I really don't know.

What would it do to the sense of self? Part of having a self involves having the choice to present your inner vs outer self. The gestalt would seem to reduce these two concepts down to self. On one hand, having no ability to have a inner self might be liberating, but what would it mean? Would people follow Caesar if they knew that Caesar was just a man behind those eyes? I think part of the mystic of leaders is that we feel they are somehow more than us. If we could follow their minds like a script, then could they lead? Is the ability to have a inner and outer self necessary for many human endeavors? Moreover, if we lost that ability to the gestalt, could we still rightly be considered human?

Would you actually be able to hurt someone else? To judge someone else? If you can understand why someone does something, if you can fully see in their mind, would you actually be able to judge? Similarly, if I know the pain that my hurting someone will cause, would I ever choose to inflict pain on others. Finally, would I still be capable of self sacrifice? Would the group ever expect sacrifice of the individual?

Jokes would no longer be funny. I could see the punchline as they are telling the joke.

Would we retain language at all? When I think, I don't usually actually verbally state something in my head. I think. If I can "think" a message to someone else, is there any reason to learn to talk? Would the ability to talk just atrophy in humanity? Chomsky says that language is fundamental to the way we think, what would happen if none of us developed a language? Would we must become a collection of idiots who "emotion and ape action" to each other, without the ability to form the metaphors that language allows? Would that make us closer or further from the notion of the autistic individual?

How much would we loose? What art, poetry, or just depth of human interaction might we loose by having no barriers? There is something attractive in the two lovers, both wanting each other, but not able to actually literally know that the other wants them as well. It is tenuous, it is faith at some level. If you have immediate knowledge of these things, it makes experiences based on uncertainty impossible.

Human beings would probably also rapidly loose the ability to "read" other human beings from their physical appearance. Might forget that tears may mean sadness or rapture, that laugher can be forced, etc.

Ok, enough navel gazing. I thought this book was great, really gives you something to think about. As this is the main reason I read sci-fi, I strongly recommend it. The plot, in my mind, was a little messed at the end, but it hardly matters, the ideas were golden.

This was a good book with a solid story, nothing wrong with the narrative, the characters were interesting, the plot was believable.

So why only 3 stars?

It's complicated. No, I mean literally. This story just jumps right in on the nautical terms. By the end of this book, I had some idea where certain things on a ship might be, and sometimes I even knew vaguely what they did, but it was only vague, as the terms were never formally defined. This is probably well and good, and I don't actually fault the author this. If I knew ANYTHING at all about seamanship, I suppose I would find it very aggravating to have to read through explanations of things that only the most dense land-grubber (<-that term was never used in this book) could possibly be confused about. Unfortunately, I am that land-grubber. I really really wish that my book was annotated in some way, so I could read to the side and figure out what the hell is going on. Lots of the strategy was hard to visualize, as I had no idea what was being manipulated.

If such a thing exist, I would really recommend some sort of supplement for this book's concepts. Actually, what I really recommend is getting a digital copy so that you can highlight terms that you are unfamiliar with, and then look them up without interrupting the story.

So yeah, not much of a review, I just didn't "get it" like I felt I might have. It was kind of like the feeling of watching a foreign comedian. You figure, they probably are funny, but you would have to be in on the cultural nuances and subtleties that make their act. Without the underpinning cultural context, it just isn't as good to you. Similarly, without being significantly more versed in the British royal navy during the beginning of the 18 century, or knowing anything about seamanship, the book felt a little out of reach to me. Still good, but I was just not "in" on it at too many points.