Arts & Letters

The Unintended Consequences of Spoiler Culture

Arts & Letters, Movies / /

Chuck Klosterman’s recent article over at Grantland (Bill Simmons’ new site) features some interesting musings on twist endings and the spoilers that can (potentially) ruin them.

…could The Sixth Sense exist today?

Now, I don’t mean “Do we still have the technology to make this picture?” because (obviously) we do. We could make it better, probably. I’m also not asking, “Would the twist to The Sixth Sense be spoiled on the Internet?” because (obviously) that would happen, too. It’s simply how the media now works. I’m also not wondering if simultaneously promoting and protecting The Sixth Sense would be a marketer’s nightmare, because that’s undeniable and not particularly important. What I’m asking is this: Are screenwriters now affected by “spoiler culture” before they even begin the writing process? If you know a twist will be unavoidably revealed before the majority of people see the work itself, and if you concede that selling and marketing a film with a major secret will be more complicated for everyone involved … would you even try? Would you essentially stop yourself from trying to write a movie that’s structured like The Sixth Sense?

It’s an interesting premise, but even Klosterman admits that it’s impossible to know for sure. He gives a few examples: the aforementioned <a href="The Sixth Sense“>The Sixth Sense, the semi-recently concluded TV show Lost, and the new TV show The Killing. I think part of the problem with the article, though, is that it lacks some of the context of what makes these particular twists work.

Take The Sixth Sense. Writer and director M. Night Shyamalan, as of right now, is almost comically known for his reliance on twists, but it’s important to remember that back in 1999, Shyamalan was an unknown. The movie was basically a Bruce Willis vehicle, and even then, it was dumped into theaters in August, the month Hollywood releases movies to die. So what does all that mean? Well, there wasn’t much buzz about the movie beforehand – few people were following the making of the movie, thus they didn’t have to worry much about spoilers on the internet (and while it’s probably worse today, there were still plenty of movie rumor sites active back in the day). The only thing the filmmakers needed to do was to ensure that the marketing didn’t give away the twist1… and luckily, the film had other readily marketable elements.

Shyamalan’s problems came later and are mostly his own fault. After the twist ending of Unbreakable, he had pretty much pigeon-holed himself as a twist ending writer. Twists rely on an audience that isn’t expecting a twist. This works in a movie like The Sixth Sense because there were lots of other things going on. The reason the twist works so well is that the film wasn’t asking you to explain anything throughout the film. The ending provided an answer to a question we didn’t realize needed asking. And it did so in a way that didn’t feel cheap or contrived. It just fit. But it probably wouldn’t work so well if you were looking for it all throughout the film.

This is where Klosterman’s point comes in. Once you’re known for writing twists, it becomes much more difficult to pull them off. I readily agree that Shyamalan and Damon Lindelof (of Lost) will have trouble writing a new movie/show that is heavily reliant on twists… but only because both of those writers have abused the twist in their previous work. The same goes for most TV series, especially police procedurals, all of which tend to fall into certain established patterns of red herrings, etc… A while ago, in reference to Hitchcock’s earliest works, I made a similar observation:

…the “twist” at the end of the story wasn’t exactly earth-shattering. These days, we’re so zonked out on Lost and 24 that our minds immediately and cynically formulate all the ways the filmmakers are trying to trick us. Were audiences that cynical 80 years ago? Or did the ending truly surprise them?

In this respect, Klosterman is certainly correct: if audiences are looking for your twist, you’re going to have a really rough time. So writers known for their twists – even if it’s just one big twist – will have to contend with that.

The problem here is that this doesn’t necessarily mean that Hollywood is skewing away from twists… just that writers like Shyamalan and Lindelof are. Nothing’s stopping anyone else from writing a twist ending, and there’s no real shortage of examples, even in the past couple years (I have a whole category devoted to plot twists in the yearly Kaedrin Movie Awards). They just happen to come from movies where we’re not necessarily looking for the twist2.

Klosterman also points out that hiding the twist can also lead to disappointment. His chief example:

Take the 2008 sci-fi film Cloverfield: The marketing campaign was flawless. Without revealing any aspect of the story, the trailers for Cloverfield made it clear that something cataclysmic was going to happen in New York, and that this massive event was some unthinkable secret. Considering how the media now operates, the makers of Cloverfield did a remarkable job of keeping its details clandestine. Yet this secrecy probably hurt the film’s ultimate reception — when people realized it was “only” an updated version of a traditional monster movie, they were often disappointed.

Well, that’s certainly one way to look at it. Another way to look at it was that audiences were disappointed because the movie kinda sucked3. Also, that’s a “twist” manufactured by marketing, not one related to storytelling or anything. In a very real sense, Super 8 has similar issues, though I think that ended up being a much better movie.

Ultimately, I think the “twist” is here to stay. Oh sure, it may go away for a while as the Shyamalans and Lindelofs of the world move on to more straightforward narratives. But the twist will make a comeback soon enough, just when we least expect it. Which is, of course, the whole point of a twist.

1 – This is not a trivial challenge. Terminator 2: Judgment Day provides an interesting example. Watch that film with a blank slate, and you’ll notice that it’s written as if the audience doesn’t know that Schwartzenegger’s terminator is a “good guy” and that Robert Patrick’s T-1000 is the villain. In the absence of marketing, it would be reasonable for someone not familiar with the movie to assume that it’s following the same pattern as the previous installment. When I was little, I was a huge Terminator fan, so I distinctly remember a lot of the marketing surrounding T2… and they gave all of it away. Of course, the reveal happens relatively early in the film, but I still remember finding it a bit weird that they spent so much time trying to obscure what everyone already knew.

2 – The first example that came to mind was kinda odd because it’s not very prominent in it’s film (and I doubt anyone would call it out in a discussion of twists), but I always liked it: the last scene in Batman Begins (in the board room, not the action sequence on the train) is wonderful, and I think it did more to cement how much I liked that movie than anything else. It fits very well with the story, and there are even hints about it earlier in the movie. But it’s an action film and the twist was far away from most of the central plot points, so I never saw it coming.

3 – I guess that’s a bit unfair. The film has its merits, but most people who saw it complained about the shaky cam much more than the fact that it was a monster movie. Seriously, even I had problems with the camerawork in that movie making me sick, and I’m normally fine with that sort of thing. The premise is actually the best part about the movie – a monster movie told from the perspective of normal folks fleeing the attack. No spunky scientist teaming up with a hardened military veteran to take down the monster, just normal folks trying to survive. Unfortunately, the execution of this was… lacking.

Tasting Notes – Part 4

2 Comments / Arts & Letters, Beer, Movies, Music, Science Fiction / /

Another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don’t really warrant a full post. So here’s what I’ve been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately:

Television

  • Game of Thrones – The season finale aired last week, and I have to say, I’m impressed. My usual approach to stuff like this is to let it run for a couple of seasons to make sure it’s both good and that it’s actually heading somewhere. At this point, the book series isn’t even finished, but friends who’ve read it think it’s great and they say the books get better, so I gave the series a shot – and I’m really glad I did. It’s a fantastic series, much more along the lines of swords-and-sandals (a la Spartacus or Gladiator) than outright fantasy (a la Lord of the Rings). People talk about magic and dragons and whatnot, but most of that seems to be in the distant past (though there are hints of a return to that sort of thing throughout the series and especially in the last minutes of the season). Most of the season consists of dialogue, politics, Machiavellian scheming, and action. Oh, and sex. And incest. Yeah, it’s a fun show. The last episode of the season doesn’t do much to resolve the various plotlines, and hints at an even more epic scale. Interestingly, though, I don’t find this sort of open-endedness that frustrating. Unlike a show like Lost, the open threads don’t seem like red-herrings or even mysteries at all. It’s just good, old fashioned storytelling. The worst thing about it is that I’m all caught up and will have to wait for the next season! Prediction: Geoffrey will die horribly, and I will love it. But not too quickly. He’s such a fantastic, sniveling little bastard. I want to keep hating him for a while before someone takes him down.
  • Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: Doctor Who – Most of the semi-recently rebooted series is available on watch instantly, and I’ve only just begun to pick my way through the series again. I vaguely remember watching a few of Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor episodes, but I never finished that first season. I’m not very far in right now – just saw the first appearance of the Daleks, which should be interesting.

Movies

  • 13 Assassins – Takashi Miike tends to be a hit-or-miss filmmaker for me. Fortunately for him, he is ridiculously prolific. His most recent effort is a pretty straightforward Samurai tale about a suicide mission to assassinate a cruel and ruthless evil lord. Seven Samurai, it is not, but it is still quite engaging and entertaining to watch. It starts a bit slow, but it finishes with an amazing 45 minute setpiece as our 13 heroes spring their trap on 200 enemies. Along the way, we get some insight into Japanese culture as the days of the Samurai and Shogunate faded, though I don’t think I’d call this a rigorously accurate film or anything. Still, there’s more going on here than just bloody action, of which there is a lot. An excellent film, among the top films I’ve seen so far this year.
  • HBO has a pretty great lineup right now. In the past couple weeks, I’ve revisited Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and How to Train Your Dragon. All of these films have improved upon rewatching them, a subject I’ve always found interesting. Scott Pilgrim, in particular, has improved it’s standing in my mind. I still think it’s got some problems in the final act, but I also think it’s a dreadfully underappreciated film.
  • Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: Transcendent Man – I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, but it’s an interesting profile of Ray Kurtzweil, a futurist and singularity proponent. I don’t really buy into his schtick, but he’s an interesting guy and the documentary is worth a watch for that.

Video Games

  • I’m still playing Mass Effect 2, but I have not progressed all that far in the game. I’ve found this is common with RPGs lately – it takes a long time to get anything accomplished in an RPG, so I sometimes find it hard to get started. Still, I have liked what I’ve seen of this game so far. It’s far from perfect, but it’s got some interesting elements.
  • Since I had to hook up my Wii to get Netflix working during the great PSN outage of ’11, I actually did start playing Goldeneye again. I even got a Wii classic controller, and that made the game approximately 10 times more fun (but I have to say, plugging the Wiimote into the classic controller to get it to work? That’s just stupidly obtuse, though I guess it keeps the cost down). Since I could play it in short 30 minute chunks, I actually did manage to finish this one off in pretty short order. It’s a pretty simple FPS game, which I always enjoy, but there’s nothing particularly special about it, except for some muted nostalgia from the original.

Music

Books

  • I’ve been cranking my way through Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga novels, of which there are many (and I’m actually quite glad, as they’re all great fun). I’ve covered the first few novels in SF Book Reviews, and will probably have finished enough other books to do a Bujold-only edition in the near future. I’m currently reading Ethan of Athos, which seems to me to be a kinda spinoff/standalone novel, but an interesting one nonetheless (and we get to catch up with a character from one of the other books).
  • I also started Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, but have found myself quickly bogging down (it doesn’t help that I have, like, 10 Bujold novels sitting around, begging me to read them) almost from the start. It’s not bad, per say, but there’s something about the style and scope of the book that bothers me. There are some interesting ideas, and Diamond admits that his methods are, by necessity, not that rigorous, but it’s still seems extremely speculative to me. I would normally be fine with that sorta approach, but I’m finding something about this grating and I haven’t figured it out just yet…
  • If you count the aforementioned Guns, Germs, and Steel, I’m down to just 4 unread books from my last Book Queue, which is pretty good! And I’ve only really added the Bujold books and Fuzzy Nation since then. I’m actually at a point where I should start seeking out new stuff. Of course, it probably won’t take long to fill the queue back up, but still. Progress!

The Finer Things…

  • I’ve managed to have some pretty exceptional beers of late. First up is Ola Dubh Special Reserve 40, an imperial porter aged in 40 year old Highland Park casks. It’s an amazing beer, though also outrageously priced. Still, if you can get your hands on some and don’t mind paying the premium, it’s great.
  • Another exceptional beer, the legendary Pliny the Elder (currently ranked #3 on Beer Advocates Best Beers on Planet Earth list). It’s a fantastic double IPA. Not sure if it’s really #3 beer in the world fantastic, but fantastic nonetheless.
  • One more great beer, and a total surprise, was Sierra Nevada Boot Camp ExPortation. Basically, Sierra Nevada has this event every year where fans get to go to “Beer Camp” and collaborate on new beers with Sierra Nevada brewers and whatnot. My understanding is that the batches are extremely limited. Indeed, I never expected to see these, but apparently there were a few on tap at a local bar, sorta leftover from Philly Beer Week. The beer is basically a porter with Brettanomyces added and aged in Pinot Noir barrels. This is all beer-nerd-talk for a sour (in a good way) beer. I’m not normally big into the style or Brett, but I’ll be damned if this isn’t a fantastic beer. I loved it and unfortunately, I’ll probably never see it again. If you see it, try it. At the very least, it will be an interesting experience!

And that’s all for now.

Fuzzy Nation

Science Fiction / /

In recent years, Hollywood has been remaking or rebooting nearly every property it could get its hands on – including franchises that are only a few years old. Some have speculated an unhealthy obsession with branding and marketing, others just call it a result of Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy. This sort of thing happens frequently in other forms of art as well. Indeed, it’s a hallmark of Theater – every night, a new remake! You don’t hear people complaining about yet another production of Macbeth, do you? And covering songs is quite common as well. In both of those realms, the remakes are outnumbered by original works (well, maybe not in theater), though, which is probably a good thing.

One area that doesn’t seem to see too much in the way of remakes is literature. Enter John Scalzi’s Fuzzy Nation. He calls this novel a “reimagining of the story and events in Little Fuzzy, the 1962 Hugo-nominated novel by H. Beam Piper.” Not having read the original, I can’t speak to the fidelity or necessity of the remake, but I am confident in calling it a fun, entertaining take on several common SF tropes.

Our tale begins with Jack Holloway, an independent contractor working for ZaraCorp, prospecting and surveying the planet Zara XXIII. ZaraCorp is apparently a company that basically strips down planets for all of their useful materials – metal ores, oil, and a rare mineral called sunstones. Not much time is spent mentioning how planets are discovered, but once they are, a team of specialists attempts to determine if there’s any sentient life on those planets, and if there isn’t, then ZaraCorp (and/or its competitors) are given a license to “exploit” the planet. Holloway, a former lawyer, has just found a huge cache of valuable sunstones. It will take years to exploit and even Holloway’s measly 0.25% share will garner him millions, if not billions of credits.

Not long after that, Holloway goes home and discovers that a small, catlike creature has snuck into his house. These ridiculously cute creatures begin to act suspiciously intelligent (incidentally, while I like the cover art, I have to say that the Fuzzy pictured there does not seem as cute as they do in the book). And from here, I’m guessing you can figure out several of the central conflicts in the book.

I burned through the book in about two sittings, and probably could have read it in one big session if I timed it right. I’m not sure if that’s simply to do with the length of the book (it’s about 300 pages with relatively large type and spacing) or if it’s Scalzi’s knack for page-turning storytelling (something I’ve talked about before). As previously hinted at, there are several common SF tropes at work here (Big mean corporations! Planetary exploitation! Is it sentient?!), and while Scalzi isn’t often breaking new ground or even exploring various ideas very deeply, I think there’s something to be said for a very well executed trope. There are several times when you can easily predict what will happen next, though Scalzi does manage some genuine twists and turns later in the story. It’s clear he’s working in pure storytelling mode here, which is perhaps why the pages seemed to turn themselves so quickly.

I do want to single out one aspect of the story that I think is particularly well done, and that’s the character of Jack Holloway. The story is told mostly from his perspective, and he’s got a certain charisma that makes him a good protagonist, but he’s also kind of a selfish prick. I don’t want to give anything away, nor do I want to give the wrong impression – he’s certainly not an anti-hero or anything, he’s just a fully fleshed out character who makes mistakes with the best of us. Flawed characters can be difficult and often present stumbling blocks to otherwise good stories, but I think Scalzi manages to pull this one off well.

Again, I have not read the original Little Fuzzy novel, but I suspect that Scalzi has done it proud. I’m not particularly looking forward to other reimaginings of classic SF, but I think in this case, it worked well, and I actually think that Scalzi’s choice, while not totally obscure, was old enough that he may be introducing lots of folks to Piper’s original works (I believe there are a few other Fuzzy novels as well). Among Scalzi’s novels that I’ve read, this one is towards the top of the list, though I don’t think it’s his best work. I do think that most of his novels would make good introductions to the SF genre though, and would recommend them. While Scalzi may be best known for taping bacon to his cat, I would argue that he should be better known for his novels! Fuzzy Nation would be a good place to start.

Link Dump

Link Dump, Neal Stephenson / /

Doing a bit of belated Spring Cleaning and computer upkeep this weekend, so not a ton of time. Thus, links:

  • The clapper for Inglourious Basterds was very creative – Funny behind the scenes clip. Strangely, there appears to be a method to her madness…
  • The Magic On/Off Box – It starts off amusing, then things escalate. Excellent choice of music.
  • Pendulum Waves – Mesmerizing.
  • Radio Controlled Superhero – Looks surprisingly real.
  • China used prisoners in lucrative internet gaming work – Sadly intriguing:

    Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for “illegally petitioning” the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do.

    The process of grinding out credits in online gaming is referred to as “Gold Farming” and there’s a surprisingly large black market for this sort of thing. Don’t want to actually work to get up to Level 70 in WoW? Just buy a character! Interestingly, the subject of Gold Farming looks to be a big part of Neal Stephenson’s forthcoming Reamde… (hat tip Haibane.info)

  • US & UK Covers Unveiled for Neal Stephenson’s Reamde – Speaking of which, the covers for Reamde have recently been released. A close look at the US cover and the way the letters in Reamde are colored indicates that it is indeed a play on the frequently used computer filename, readme (the icon on the US version also helps). I rather like the minimalist nature of the US version, but the UK version is… awful. I’m not entirely sure why the US version feels the need to triple-hyphenate the name “Stephenson”, but whatever.
  • Tips on Using the Toilet – I’ve created a special delicious tag for videos like this: “idontknowwhatthefuckisgoingoninthisvideo” (In this case, it’s not disgusting or even really that weird. It’s just, like, too earnest. Or something.)

That’s all for now. Have a good holiday.

How Boyd Wrote

Arts & Letters, Culture, Military / /

I’m currently reading a biography of John Boyd, and in light of Sunday’s post, I found a recent chapter particularly interesting. Boyd was a Fighter Pilot in the Air Force. He flew in Korea, made a real name for himself at Fighter Weapons School (which was later copied by the Navy – you may have heard of their version: Top Gun), and spent the latter part of his career working on groundbreaking strategic theories. He was an instructor at FWS for several years, and before leaving, he made his first big contributions to the Air Force. He wrote a tactics manual called Aerial Attack Study. Despite the passage of Vietnam and the Gulf War, nothing substantial has been added to it. It’s served as the official tactics manual all over the world for over 40 years (actually, more like 50 at this point).

And Boyd almost didn’t write it. Robert Coram (the author of the aforementioned biography) summarizes the unconventional manner in which the manual was written (on page 104 of my edition):

Boyd could not write the manual and continue flying and teaching; there simply wasn’t enough time. Plus, the idea of sitting down at a desk and spending hundreds of hours writing a long document brought him to the edge of panic. He was a talker, not a writer. When he talked his ideas tumbled back and forth and he fed off the class and distilled his thoughts to the essence. But writing meant precision. And once on paper, the ideas could not be changed. …

Spradling came up with the solution. “John, don’t make this a big thing. We have some good Dictaphones. Why don’t you just dictate the damn thing?”

It’s a subject I didn’t really cover much in my last post: the method of communication can impact the actual message. The way we communicate changes the way we think. Would Boyd’s work have been as great if he didn’t dictate it? Maybe, but it probably wouldn’t have been the same.

Incidentally, I don’t normally go in for biographies, but this is an excellent book so far. Part of that may be that Boyd is a genuinely interesting guy and that he was working on stuff that interests me, but I’m still quite enjoying myself.

Reamde

Neal Stephenson / /

Back in March, I posted about Neal Stephenson’s new novel:

Not long after the release of Anathem, it was announced that Neal Stephenson’s next novel was due in 2011 and would be titled “Reamde”. The computer geeks among Stephenson’s fans (which is to say, most of Stephenson’s fans) were quick to wonder if the title was really supposed to be “Readme”, a common name for help or pre-installation files on computers, but everyone insisted that it “wasn’t a typo”. Well, a couple of days ago, I see on Tombstone that HarperCollins has now listed the book on their site… as Readme. So was it a typo all along, or are the new listings (also on booksellers like Amazon) the actual typo?

Well, as it turns out, the new listings actually were a typo. I don’t know when it was corrected, but the book is now listed as Reamde everywhere. Also, on another Harper Collins site, there’s a plot synopsis:

Four decades ago, Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of an Iowa family, fled to a wild and lonely mountainous corner of British Columbia to avoid the draft. Smuggling backpack loads of high-grade marijuana across the border into Northern Idaho, he quickly amassed an enormous and illegal fortune. With plenty of time and money to burn, he became addicted to an online fantasy game in which opposing factions battle for power and treasure in a vast cyber realm. Like many serious gamers, he began routinely purchasing viral gold pieces and other desirables from Chinese gold farmers— young professional players in Asia who accumulated virtual weapons and armor to sell to busy American and European buyers.

For Richard, the game was the perfect opportunity to launder his aging hundred dollar bills and begin his own high-tech start up—a venture that has morphed into a Fortune 500 computer gaming group, Corporation 9592, with its own super successful online role-playing game, T’Rain. But the line between fantasy and reality becomes dangerously blurred when a young gold farmer accidently triggers a virtual war for dominance—and Richard is caught at the center.

Fans of Stephenson will notice tons of overlap with his previous work. Gold, virtual money, virtual worlds, etc… The blurb isn’t exactly a barn burner, but if Stephenson is writing it, I’m reading it. It seems to have also been pushed back to September 20. It can’t come soon enough.

SF Book Review, Part 7

Science Fiction / /

Continuing to make some progress through my book queue… and, of course, adding new books to the queue as I go along. This time, it’s Lois McMaster Bujold’s fault, as I enjoyed Shards of Honor so much that I went out and read the next two books in the (apparently long running and loosely connected) series. I’ve now got about 10 more of her books in the queue. If the first three are any indication, I’ll probably move through them pretty quickly… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’m going to start with one from the actual queue though: Timothy Zahn’s Cobra Trilogy. I’ve been listing it as one book, but it’s technically an omnibus edition of Zahn’s first three Cobra novels, and I’ll review each separately below. As a side note, Zahn is currently in the process of writing another trilogy set in the same universe (the second novel was published this year, with a third tentatively planned for January 2012) and plans a third trilogy at some point in the unspecified future.

  • Cobra by Timothy Zahn – Though this is not Zahn’s first novel, it is among his first, and it shows. It is certainly not bad and you can see flashes of what he would grow into, but it is quite unusual. The pace of the novel, in particular, is rather strange. It starts off in rather standard military SF fashion, with a youth signing up for a war against an invading alien race. Of course, young Jonny Moreau gets assigned to a new, elite force of guerilla super-soldiers, packed to the gills with concealed weaponry. You get the standard training section, then you’re off to war. But the war lasts approximately one chapter, and we’re back in civilian life, but Jonny’s powers (which cannot be removed) are causing problems. He’s having trouble fitting back into civilian life, an interesting perspective, to be sure, though something that’s been covered a lot, even in military SF. But then, even that section of the novel doesn’t last, and Jonny is sent off on other adventures. The conflicts that arise are reasonably well done, but the solutions often leave a poor taste in your mouth… but then, that seems to be the point of a lot of it. This is an interesting approach, but Zahn hadn’t quite reached the height of his storytelling powers just yet, so it reads a bit stilted. I think if Zahn had attempted something similar later in his career, it may have been a bigger success. It’s a fine read, but nothing particularly special, except insofar as it gets you to the later books in the series.
  • Cobra Strike by Timothy Zahn – This book picks up about 20 years after the first, and follows the next generation of Moreaus (though Jonny also plays a big supporting role) as they attempt to cope with living in an isolated trio of worlds. A new threat appears, and the Cobras are sent to investigate. I won’t go into too much detail here, as this book is a little more cohesive, telling one story from start to finish. I’m not entirely convinced about the conflict or the ultimate solution, but it’s definitely an easier read, and you definitely see more commonality with Zahn’s later works. A worthy sequel and indeed, an improvement on the original.
  • Cobra Bargain by Timothy Zahn – The last book in the series, and probably the book that most resembles Zahn’s later success. It’s not quite as accomplished as his later work, but it’s up there, and it’s the one book in the series that really had me turning the pages. This one jumps us forward another 20 years. Jonny has passed away, but his sons have established themselves in planetary politics and the third generation of Moreaus are becoming Cobras. This time around, we follow Jasmine “Jin” Moreau, the first female Cobra, and one of the more engaging protagonists in the series. Of course, things never go as planned and Jin is quickly caught alone in enemy territory. Things have changed there over the last 20 years, but it’s still a dangerous place, and she finds herself in an uneasy alliance with certain members of the enemy. Quite entertaining, and the pages turned themselves more in this final novel than in either of the previous two. Indeed, I read the last 150-200 pages in one sitting. Is it worth reading the first two novels to get to this point? Maybe for fans of Zahn, but it’s certainly not something I’d recommend folks start with. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn’t count it as one of my favorites, even amongst Zahn’s other work.
  • Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold – This book picks up right after the end of Shards of Honor, with Cordelia Naismith marrying Lord Aral Vorkosigan. And as it turns out, Aral has taken up a rather important position in the Barrayaran government – one that involves lots of behind-the-scenes politics and intrigue, betrayals and conspiracies. The book starts out a bit on the slow side, establishing all the players in the coming civil war. Things come to a head in the second act, and our protagonists take the initiative in the final act. The mixture of high technology with old-school Machiavellian duplicity is an intriguing one, and Bujold masterfully weaves a web of cunning and deception throughout the plot. Cordelia is a wonderful protagonist, and her outsider’s perspective provides the perfect lens through which the readers can get a look at Barrayar and it’s odd mish-mash of traditions and ceremony. Near as I can tell, this is the last book in which Cordelia is the main character, and if you’re interested in reading these, I recommend starting with the omnibus edition, called Cordelia’s Honor (which contains Shards of Honor and Barrayar). Highly recommended.
  • The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold – With this novel, Bujold shifts the protagonist from Cordelia to her son, Miles Vorkosigan. Without getting into too much detail about the previous books, Miles was born with various physical impairments – in particular, his bones don’t develop normally. So physically, he’s somewhat frail (and very diminutive), but he more than makes up for that with his mental acuity and cunning. This book starts with Miles’ failure to gain entrance into the Barrayaran military academy (he couldn’t pass the obstacle course without breaking his leg), after which he must find something to do with himself. The rest of the novel plays out like an old “Adventure on the High Seas” type of story (but in space!) Indeed, Bujold has mentioned that her series is modeled after the Horatio Hornblower novels, which partially explains the mixture of past and future present in the books. Miles makes for a great protagonist, and I love the way his predicament escalates so quickly… and how he somehow manages to hold things together. I read most of this book on my way to (and returning from) Las Vegas, and very much enjoyed it. I was a little hesitant at first, and at first I was a little worried that Bujold was taking too obvious a path, but she manages several twists on the formula later in the novel that really turned things around for me. Indeed, the novel ends very much on a political bent along the lines of Barrayar. Very entertaining novel, and I can see why this is a popular starting place for the series (apparently most of the novels in the series are about Miles). I’m very much looking forward to exploring more of this series (and I have about 10 new books on my shelf now).

Well that just about covers it. I’ve got some non-fiction to catch up on right now, and while I’m at it, I might as well finish off a couple other non-SF novels that have been sitting around for a while as well, so it may be a while before the next SF book review. Unless I get hooked into the Vorkosigan saga again. Which is probably likely.

Tasting Notes – Part 3

Arts & Letters, Beer, Movies, Science Fiction, Video Games / /

Another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don’t really warrant a full post. So here’s what I’ve been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately:

Television

  • Community is actually a pretty fun show. In a lot of ways, it’s standard sitcom fodder, but the inclusion of the character of Abed redeems most of the potentially overused cliches. Abed is a pop-culture obsessed film student who appears to be aware that he’s a part of a sitcom, and thus his self-referential observations are often quite prescient. The cast is actually pretty fantastic and there are lots of traditionally funny jokes along the way. Honestly, I think my favorite part of the episode are the post-credits sequences in which Abed and Troy are typically engaging in something silly in a hysterically funny way. I’ve only seen the first season, but I’m greatly looking forward to the second season (which is almost complete now, and probably available in some form, but I haven’t looked into it too closely).
  • Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: The X-Files – It looks like the entire series is available. I watched the series frequently when it was on, but I never realized just how many episodes I missed. I was never a fan of the alien conspiracy episodes (in part because it was difficult to watch them in the right order and I never knew what was going on), but I’ve always loved the “freak of the week” style episode, and now that all of them are at my fingertips, I’m seeing a bunch that I never knew even existed. The show holds up reasonably well, though it’s a little too on-the-nose at times (especially in the early seasons). In the context in which the shows were being produced, though, it’s fantastic. From a production quality perspective, it’s more cinematic than what was on TV at the time (and a lot of what’s on today), and it was one of the early attempts at multi-season plot arcs and continuity (technology at the time wasn’t quite right, so I don’t think it flourished quite as much as it could have if it had started 10 years later).

Video Games

  • Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction is a lot of fun, though you can sorta tell that it was a near launch game. I actually mentioned this a while back, and because it was my first Ratchet & Clank game, I didn’t suffer from most of the repetitive and derivative elements (which I gather is what disappointed old fans). Some minor usability issues (constantly changing weapons/tools is a pain), but otherwise great fun. I particularly enjoyed the Pirate themed enemies, who were very funny. I enjoyed this enough that I’ll probably check out the more recent A Crack in Time, which I hear is pretty good.
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops – It’s another CoD game, so I got pretty much exactly what I expected. The single player game actually has a semi-interesting story, though the animators fell in love with the overly-hyper cutting and shaky-cam style that is already overused in film, and which is mostly unnecessary in video games. Don’t get me wrong, the story is kinda hokey, but it’s entertaining in its own way. And, of course, the combat is very well balanced and fun (as every game I’ve played in the series is…) The game ends with one of the most gleefully manic sequences I’ve ever played (much better than, for example, the airline thing at the end of CoD4). The multi-player is not particularly noob-friendly, but I got a few hours out of it and even managed to win a round one time. The kills come so quickly that it’s pretty rare that you’ll escape anyone once they start shooting (the way you can in some other games). This is both good and bad though. All in all, it’s a good FPS for console.
  • I’ve started playing Mass Effect 2 for the PS3. I have no idea what’s going on with the story (I thought there was supposed to be some sort of PS3 intro thingy, but I didn’t see it when I started the game), but I’m having fun so far. It’s not something I’ve been playing a lot though, perhaps because I don’t have a ton of time to dedicate to it…
  • Remember when i said I would play more Goldeneye for the Wii? Yeah, I still haven’t unpacked the Wii from that trip, which is a pretty good expression of how I generally feel about the Wii these days. I guess it’s a good thing Nintendo is announcing their next console soon (though I have to admit, the rumors I’m hearing aren’t particularly encouraging).

Movies

  • James Gunn’s comic book spoof Super continues the trend towards deconstruction of superheroes that’s been going on recently in comic book cinema (though things look like they’re about to revert a bit this summer). As such, it’s semi-derivative at times, but it sticks to its guns (or should I say, Gunns!) and never flinches at its target. It’s also not afraid to embrace the weird (such as, for instance, tentacle rape). It’s extremely graphic and violent, and some of it is played for laughs, but there’s at least one unforgivable moment in the film. One thing I have to note is that there’s going to be a lot of teenage nerds falling in love with Ellen Page because of her enthusiastic performance in this movie. She’s awesome. The critical reception seems mixed, but I think I enjoyed it more than most. I wouldn’t call it one of the year’s best, but it’s worth watching for superhero fans who can stomach gore.
  • Hobo with a Shotgun does not fare quite as well as Super, though fans of Grindhouse and ultra-violence will probably get a kick out of it. If Super represents a bit of a depraved outlook on life, Hobo makes it look like the Muppets. A few years ago, when Grindhouse was coming out, there was a contest for folks to create fake grindhouse-style trailers, and one of the winners was this fantastically titled Hobo With a Shotgun. Unfortunately what works in the short form of a fake trailer doesn’t really extend well to a full-length feature. There are some interesting things about the film. Rutger Hauer is great as the hobo (look for an awesome monologue about a bear), the atmosphere is genuinely retro, it actually feels like a grindhouse movie (as opposed to Tarantino and Rodriguez’s efforts, which are great, but you can also kinda tell they have a decent budget, whereas Hobo clearly has a low budget), and the armored villains known as the Plague are entertaining, if a bit out of place. Ultimately the film doesn’t really earn its bullshit. Like last year’s Machete (another film built off of the popularity of a “fake” trailer), I’m not convinced that this film really should have been made. Again, devotees to the weird and disgusting might enjoy this, but it’s a hard film to recommend.
  • Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: The Good, the Bad, the Weird – Kim Jee-woon’s take on the spaghetti western is actually quite entertaining, if a bit too long and maybe even a bit too derivative. Still, there are some fantastic sequences in the film, and it’s a lot of fun. Jee-woon is one of the more interesting filmmakers that’s making a name for Korean cinema on an international scale. I’m greatly looking forward to his latest effort, I Saw the Devil.

Books

  • In my last SF book post, I mentioned Lois McMaster Bujold’s Shards of Honor. I really enjoyed that book, which was apparently the first in a long series of books, of which I’ve recently finished two: Barrayar and The Warrior’s Apprentice. I’ll save the details for the next SF book review post, but let’s just say that I’m fully onboard the Bujold train to awesome. I put in an order for the next several books in the series, which seems to be quite long and varied.
  • Timothy Zahn’s Cobra Trilogy is what I’m reading right now. I’m enjoying them, but it’s clear that Zahn was still growing as a storyteller when writing these. Interestingly, you can see a lot of ideas that he would feature in later works (and he would do so more seamlessly too). I’m about halfway through the trilogy, and should be finishing it off in the next couple weeks, after which, you can expect another SF book review post…
  • I’ve also started Fred Brooks’ The Design of Design, though I haven’t gotten very far just yet. I was traveling for a while, and I find that trashy SF like Zahn and Bujold makes for much better plane material than non-fiction. Still, I’m finding Brooks’ latest work interesting, though perhaps not as much as his classic Mythical Man Month.

The Finer Things…

  • The best beer I’ve had in the past few months has been the BrewDog/Mikkeller collaboration Devine Rebel. It’s pricey as hell, but if you can find a bottle of the 2009 version and if you like English Barleywines (i.e. really strong and sweet beer), it’s worth every penny. I got a bottle of the 2010 version (which is apparently about 2% ABV stronger than the already strong 2009 batch) recently, but I haven’t popped it open just yet.
  • My next homebrew kit, a Bavarian Hefeweizen from Northern Brewer, just came in the mail, so expect a brew-day post soon – probably next week, if all goes well. I was hoping to get that batch going a little earlier, but travel plans got in the way. Still, if this goes as planned, the beer should be hitting maturity right in the dead of summer, which is perfect for a wheat beer like this…
  • With the nice weather this weekend, I found myself craving a cigar. Not something I do very often and I really have no idea what makes for a good cigar, but I’ll probably end up purchasing a few for Springtime consumption… Recommendations welcome!

That’s all for now. Sorry about all the link dumps and general posting of late, but things have been busy around chez Kaedrin, so time has been pretty short. Hopefully some more substantial posting to come in the next few weeks…

Upcoming SF

Science Fiction / /

Because my book queue is not long enough*, it seems some of my favorite SF authors are releasing new novels in 2011. Yay**. Here are the three most exciting ones, in order of anticipated publication:

  • Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi – It’s actually been a few years since Scalzi wrote a full SF novel (and that book, Zoe’s Tale, was a sorta rehash of an earlier book), so I’m greatly looking forward to this. I have not read any of the original Fuzzy series by H. Beam Piper, but apparently this novel is Scalzi’s attempt at rebooting or reimagining the series. At some point, I considered going back to read the originals, but I’m confident that Scalzi’s novel will be good as a standalone story, and I’ve really enjoyed all his SF novels. This one is set to be released on May 10, so I’ll probably be picking it up soon…
  • Readme by Neal Stephenson – This should be unsurprising to readers of this blog, as this has long been an anticipated novel here at Kaedrin, even back when it was known as Reamde (still no explanation of that – I don’t really buy that it was a typo…) Details about the novel are still scarce (not even a cover yet, and the publication date seems to have moved back a week), but seeing as though Stephenson is my favorite author and all, I don’t really need much to get in line for this one. Currently set to be released on September 20th, I’m very much looking forward to this one.
  • The Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge – The long-anticipated third novel in Vinge’s loosely connected Zones of Thought series. I really loved the first two books in the series (A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky) and both of them have won major SF awards like the Hugo and Nebula. As such, expectations are high. Again, I’ve been avoiding details about the plot here, but my assumption is that it will only have a passing reference to the previous two novels (both of which only share one character and take place thousands of years apart). This one is set for October 11, so it looks like I’ll have a busy fall, once again.

That covers the major releases that I’m looking forward to. There are, of course, some other books coming out that I might be interested in, but for now, I think the queue is full enough!

Also, just a quick administrative note, I’ll be traveling this week, so probably no entry on Wednesday. I shall return next Sunday. Have a good week!

* Sarcasm!

** Not sarcasm!

Unnecessary Gadgets

2 Comments / Computers & Internet, Neal Stephenson, Science & Technology / /

So the NY Times has an article debating the necessity of the various gadgets. The argument here is that we’re seeing a lot of convergence in tech devices, and that many technologies that once warranted a dedicated device are now covered by something else. Let’s take a look at their devices, what they said, and what I think:

  • Desktop Computer – NYT says to chuck it in favor of laptops. I’m a little more skeptical. Laptops are certainly better now than they’ve ever been, but I’ve been hearing about desktop-killers for decades now and I’m not even that old (ditto for thin clients, though the newest hype around the “cloud” computing thing is slightly more appealing – but even that won’t supplant desktops entirely). I think desktops will be here to stay. I’ve got a fair amount of experience with both personal and work laptops, and I have to say that they’re both inferior to desktops. This is fine when I need to use the portability, but that’s not often enough to justify some of the pain of using laptops. For instance, I’m not sure what kinda graphics capabilities my work laptop has, but it really can’t handle my dual-monitor setup, and even on one monitor, the display is definitely crappier than my old desktop (and that thing was ancient). I do think we’re going to see some fundamental changes in the desktop/laptop/smartphone realm. The three form factors are all fundamentally useful in their own way, but I’d still expect some sort of convergence in the next decade or so. I’m expecting that smartphones will become ubiquitous, and perhaps become some sort of portable profile that you could use across your various devices. That’s a more long term thing though.
  • High Speed Internet at Home – NYT says to keep it, and I agree. Until we can get a real 4G network (i.e. not the slightly enhanced 3G stuff the current telecom companies are peddling), there’s no real question here.
  • Cable TV – NYT plays the “maybe” card on this one, but I think i can go along with that. It all depends on whether you watch TV or not (and/or if you enjoy live TV, like sporting events). I’m on the fence with this one myself. I have cable, and a DVR does make dealing with broadcast television much easier, and I like the opportunities afforded by OnDemand, etc… But it is quite expensive. If I ever get into a situation where I need to start pinching pennies, Cable is going to be among the first things to go.
  • Point and Shoot Camera – NYT says to lose it in favor of the smartphone, and I probably agree. Obviously there’s still a market for dedicated high-end cameras, but the small point-and-click ones are quickly being outclassed by their fledgling smartphone siblings. My current iPhone camera is kinda crappy (2 MP, no flash), but even that works ok for my purposes. There are definitely times when I wish I had a flash or better quality, but they’re relatively rare and I’ve had this phone for like 3 years now (probably upgrading this summer). My next camera will most likely meet all my photography needs.
  • Camcorder – NYT says to lose it, and that makes a sort of sense. As they say, camcorders are getting squeezed from both ends of the spectrum, with smartphones and cheap flip cameras on one end, and high end cameras on the other. I don’t really know much about this though. I’m betting that camcorders will still be around, just not quite as popular as before.
  • USB Thumb Drive – NYT says lose it, and I think I agree, though not necessarily for the same reasons. They think that the internet means you don’t need to use physical media to transfer data anymore. I suppose there’s something to that, but my guess is that Smartphones could easily pick up the slack and allow for portable data without a dedicated device. That being said, I’ve used a thumb drive, like, 3 times in my life.
  • Digital Music Player – NYT says ditch it in favor of smartphones, with the added caveat that people who exercise a lot might like a smaller, dedicated device. I can see that, but on a personal level, I have both and don’t mind it at all. I don’t like using up my phone battery playing music, and I honestly don’t really like the iPhone music player interface, so I actually have a regular old iPod nano for music and podcasts (also, I like to have manual control over what music/podcasts get on my device, and that’s weird on the iPhone – at least, it used to be). My setup works fine for me most times, and in an emergency, I do have music (and a couple movies) on my iPhone, so I could make due.
  • Alarm Clock – NYT says keep it, though I’m not entirely convinced. Then again, I have an alarm clock, so I can’t mount much of a offense against it. I’ve realized, though, that the grand majority of clocks that I use in my house are automatically updated (Cable box, computers, phone) and synced with some external source (no worrying about DST, etc…) My alarm clock isn’t, though. I still use my phone as a failsafe for when I know I need to get up early, but that’s more based on the possibility of snoozing myself into oblivion (I can easily snooze for well over an hour). I think I may actually end up replacing my clock, but I can see some young whipper-snappers relying on some other device for their wakeup calls…
  • GPS Unit – NYT says lose it, and I agree. With the number of smartphone apps (excluding the ones that come with your phone, which are usually functional but still kinda clunky as a full GPS system) that are good at this sort of thing (and a lot cheaper), I can’t see how anyone could really justify a dedicated device for this. On a recent trip, a friend used Navigon’s Mobile Navigator ($30, and usable on any of his portable devices) and it worked like a charm. Just as good as any GPS I’ve ever used. The only problem, again, is that it will drain the phone battery (unless you plug it in, which we did).
  • Books – NYT says to keep them, and I mostly agree. The only time I can see really wanting to use a dedicated eReader is when travelling, and even then, I’d want it to be a broad device, not dedicated to books. I have considered the Kindle (as it comes down in price), but for now, I’m holding out on a tablet device that will actually have a good enough screen for this sort of thing. Which, I understand, isn’t too far off on the horizon. There are a couple of other nice things about digital books though, namely, the ability to easily mark favorite passages, or to do a search (two things that would probably save me a lot of time). I can’t see books every going away, but I can see digital readers being a part of my life too.

A lot of these made me think of Neal Stephenson’s System of the World. In that book, one of the characters ponders how new systems supplant older systems:

“It has been my view for some years that a new System of the World is being created around us. I used to suppose that it would drive out and annihilate any older Systems. But things I have seen recently … have convinced me that new Systems never replace old ones, but only surround and encapsulate them, even as, under a microscope, we may see that living within our bodies are animalcules, smaller and simpler than us, and yet thriving even as we thrive. … And so I say that Alchemy shall not vanish, as I always hoped. Rather, it shall be encapsulated within the new System of the World, and become a familiar and even comforting presence there, though its name may change and its practitioners speak no more about the Philosopher’s Stone.” (page 639)

That sort of “surround and encapsulate” concept seems broadly applicable to a lot of technology, actually.