This book was my first experience with writing by Kurt Vonnegut. His writing, at least in this book, is very original and unconventional. The “Timequake” according to the dust jacket is an event where on February 13th, 2001, everyone is thrust back to February 17th, 1991. Vonnegut treats this as a contraction of the Universe, not simply time travel in the traditional sense. In many time travel stories, the characters look for ways “to put right what once went wrong,” a la Quantum Leap. Vonnegut doesn’t give the characters in this story that opportunity. Everyone is forced to live their lives on autopilot, doing the exact same things they did before, but with the knowledge of what was to come.

I found this angle quite troubling at first, because how boring would it be to have to live almost 10 years all over again without free will? Vonnegut does quite a bit with it by adding a few more twists. In the prologue, he explains that one of the main characters, Kilgore Trout, is his alter ego. Apparently, this character shows up quite a bit in his writing, however in this book, Vonnegut is a character as well. To top it off, the book supposedly started out as a first draft that was scrapped then rewritten to be finished in the final form. I’m not certain if that really happened, or was just part of the book. Confusing right? He covers this in the prologue under the guise of explanation, but looking back I think it was just a successful attempt to keep me off balance.

The final part of the book is about what happens when free will kicks back in. Can you imagine being a puppet with yourself as the puppet master suddenly able to do whatever you want? Kilgore Trout is one of the few, if not only, people that can cope with the situation. Most people freeze up, not able to decide what to do next. So that is the basic plot of the book, all laid out on the dust jacket and the first couple pages that make up the prologue. What is the point of reading it then? For me, the story really didn’t seem to be the focus of this book. It was just a framework for Vonnegut to use as a way to talk about random topics ranging from why semicolons suck, how electronic books don’t measure up to physical ones, or why Chicago is better than New York.

A lot of these observations are just thrown in randomly, confirming my belief that Vonnegut’s goal is to keep the reader off balance. For example, chapter 43 begins with this:

Question: What is the white stuff in bird poop?
Answer: That is bird poop, too.

With himself as a character, the lines between fiction and real life were sufficiently blurred. I really didn’t know much about Vonnegut, so I found myself looking researching at random points to see what was fiction or what was real. The other characters were interesting as well, but I found myself fascinated by how Vonnegut used Trout poke fun at himself. I didn’t realize until writing this review that this was actually the last fiction novel written by Vonnegut. I’m not sure that was the best way to get exposed to a new author, but I’m definitely interested in reading more by him, so it worked out for the best after all. I enjoyed this book, and would highly recommend it. If you’ve never read anything by Vonnegut, it wouldn’t hurt to start with this one.

Nobody is sure when exactly Isaac Asimov was born due to poor record keeping. January 2nd, 1920 was the day Isaac Asimov decided to celebrate his birthday. Along with creating the Three Laws of Robotics, Asimov also unintentionally coined the term robotics. It was first used in print when his short story “Liar!” was published in 1941. He was constantly writing in just about every area of literature. I have primarily read his Science Fiction, but he has done textbooks, humor, mystery, non-fiction, and more.

My first exposure to Asimov’s writing was when my father gave me an old worn out copy of I, Robot. I tucked the book away for a few years and eventually got around to reading it. I was so enthralled with the robots that I eventually read every robot book by him and other authors. This naturally led me to read the Foundation series which I also enjoyed, but I’ve always preferred the robot series. The Robot and Foundation books make up the biggest reading project I have ever completed. Aside from those, I’ve read a bit of his autobiography and plan on sampling some of his other writing in the near future.

By the time I discovered Asimov, he had already died. I wonder how much more he could have written had he not contracted HIV from a blood transfusion he received during heart surgery. He died of myocardial and renal complications on April 6, 1992, but the true cause of his death wasn’t publicized due to the stigma of HIV/AIDS at the time. His work has greatly influenced my love of Science Fiction, and for that I am thankful.

For more information on the life of Isaac Asimov, please visit the official Wikipedia post

A couple days ago I was able to visit with some friends I haven’t seen in a few years. After one of them cracked open a bottle of wine, we eventually ended up talking about gaming. One thing led to another and one of my friends asked, “Have any of you heard of Mazes and Monsters?” In mere moments we were watching one of the most horrible acting performances I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t sure if I should be shocked or amazed. In retrospect, the alcohol definitely enhanced the experience. We ended up adding our own commentary, MST3K style. About half way through I regretted that we didn’t start recording our comments to dub in later on. My friend actually had the recording equipment to do it too.

The movie starts out with a scene with a bunch of police cars and fire trucks responding to a missing persons report. A university student got lost in some caverns in a game of Mazes and Monsters that got out of hand. I was battling with trying to figure out if this was supposed to be some type of spoof or just an anti Dungeons and Dragons flick. After watching it all, despite how close it comes to seeming like parody, I think they were actually serious. In the midst of all the no-name actors this guy by the name of Tom Hanks shows up in one of his first roles. I’m sure if you ask him about it today, he’ll try to deny any involvement with this feature.

I’m pretty sure that anyone that has played classic DnD would be amused by this movie. Just watch it with a few friends over a few drinks, and I am sure everyone will have a blast. Here is a clip, it doesn’t contain any real spoilers.

If only the Emperor somehow was able to save Padme as well, Darth Vader would have been a little less grumpy!

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Vader

I’ve been meaning to read Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott for some time now. I’ve seen it lying around the house here and there for many years. My wife actually acquired this book as part of her required reading for a “Sensation and Perception” course in college. I ran across it again when packing up my Asimov collection to bring up to my sister in Minneapolis. It was a short read, which was refreshing after some of the longer books I’ve been tackling recently.

The main character, and narrator, is a Square in a 2D world dubbed Flatland. The basics of Flatland society are laid out in a rather matter-of-fact way that bleeds of satire. Essentially, the higher up in society, the more sides you have. Women of course are just lines (actually just VERY skinny squares), and the leader of Flatland is very nearly, but not quite a perfect Circle. In addition to the number of sides, the symmetry of angles is of utmost importance. It was amusing to read of dangerous operations that parents would subject their children to in order to correct some not so optimal angles, even though they could be fatal. The parents figured it would was best to be dead than “irregular.”

Utilizing humor and social satire, Abbot clearly explains the workings of this odd 2D world. I found myself coming up with questions about how such a world would work, then just a page or two later found them explained. He goes through the Square’s vision/dream of a land called Lineland, and again of Pointland. Soon after this, the Square is approached by a very peculiar circle that calls itself a Sphere from Spaceland. It tries to convince Square that he comes from a land of three dimensions.

It seemed natural that the logical progression of explanation could follow past to the fourth dimension and beyond. Abbot briefly extrapolates from previous explanations to touch on higher dimensions, but it seemed very hard to grasp. I think one of the main points of the book is to demonstrate how easily it is to understand lower dimensions, and also how hard it is to contemplate anything above our current experiences. Overall, I was very pleased with this book. The chapters are very short and well organized. I’d highly recommend this for any reader, especially those that like geometry.

If you read my last post, I was a bit disappointed now that Battlestar Galactica is over. I’m glad I’m not the only one!

I guess we’ll all have to wait until the new content comes out.

News story link

I think that one of the best ways for a fan to express themselves is through a personal license plate. I have an Isaac Asimov themed plate, and my wife has one dedicated to The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. Yesterday my mother-in-law was riding in her car when her husband spotted one of the coolest license plates ever with a decal above it to match. AT-AT is the perfect license plate befitting a true Star Wars fan. She promptly posted it on her blog, which was forwarded to me by my wife via StumbleUpon. I had to get the full story from the source, and when I did she said she’d send me all 3 pictures. Here they are…

The brilliant minds over at The Onion have answered this question. I just ran across this video and it gave me a good chuckle. I hope you like it also.

In The Know: Are We Giving The Robots That Run Our Society Too Much Power?

I’m sure that everyone has seen a zombie movie at some point or another, whether having classic zombies such as Night of the Living Dead, or fast moving zombies in 28 Days Later or I am Legend. The classic portrayal of a zombie is that of a slow moving mindless killer. But what if there was something more?

What kind of life, or death for that matter, do zombies experience? Are they aware of their nature, or do they mindlessly seek out human flesh to feed on? Do they know they are zombies, and if so, do they know how they came to be? Is there anything left of the person they once were, or are they transformed into a new flesh eating monster? What are a zombies thoughts on death? Do they experience emotions?

Isaac Marion eloquently explores these questions and more in his short story, I am a Zombie Filled With Love. The story is very well written in a sort of dry matter-of-fact humor. While there is plenty of humor involved, there are many philosophical insights discussed as well. Are living humans really better off than zombies? Follow the link and read the story, then you decide.

I will first review Starship Troopers directed by Paul Verhoeven as a movie, then compare how it stands up against the novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein. The Hollywood movie opens up with some political propaganda films trying to get the public to join the Mobile Infantry, saying “Service guarantees citizenship.” Various soldiers are shown saying “I’m doing my part!” then the camera zooms in on a little kid in uniform saying “I’m doing my part too!” The only way to earn the right to vote and become a full citizen is to join the military for a term of service.

The movie’s premise is that Earth is under attack by aliens from Klendathu. This is described through a series of TV style news clips. The “Bugs,” or “Arachnids,” are hurling meteors at Earth, which have been intercepted for the most part by the space Navy. The obvious solution to Earth’s survival is the extermination of the aliens. The scene jumps to some news coverage on the Arachnid home world of Klendathu during a huge battle.

The troopers are overcome by aliens and the camera man is killed, dropping his camera for us to see a trooper get stabbed in the leg by a Warrior Bug just before the camera is destroyed. The movie flashes back to a year before, with Johnny Rico (the soldier that was stabbed in the leg) goofing off in his History and Moral Philosophy class. What follows is a brief introduction to the main characters as everyone is preparing to graduate high school.

Everyone seems to want to join up to get their citizenship, and the only varying factor is what type of service they move into. Johnny Rico’s girlfriend Carmen is determined to become a Navy Pilot. He doesn’t have the math scores to be a pilot, so joins the Mobile Infantry instead, partially to impress Carmen. A girl named Dizzy during the graduation dance asks Johnny why they never hooked up. Johnny is obviously not interested in her, but she joins the Mobile Infantry in order to be close to him. Carl joins up and gets selected for “Games and Theory,” essentially command school.

If I had to describe Starship Troopers in just a few words, I would say that it is a mix between Sci-Fi, horror, and comedy. The main plot covers four high school graduates on their journey through the military. Everyone goes their own separate ways; Johnny and Dizzy end up in boot camp, Carmen to the naval academy, and Carl disappears into command school. Eventually everyone, well almost everyone, ends up together on a special mission to capture a Brain Bug which controls the warrior drones.

The special effects are very good for a 1997 movie, and even hold up well 10 years later. The main focus is on the massive amount of Arachnids which swarm the Mobile Infantry. The sliced and diced dead bodies of the soldiers look a bit cheesy, but the feel of this movie is more like a comic book than real life anyway. The humorous news broadcasts spread throughout the movie adds to this feeling. As an action flick this movie does a decent job, but the bumbling style of the Mobile Infantry seems a bit out of place.

(spoiler alert for this paragraph) The cheese factor goes up a notch with the love triangle between Johnny, his girlfriend Carmen, and the jealous Dizzy. Of course things just don’t work out between Johnny and Carmen, as what happens with most long term relationship in movies like this. Dizzy is there to pick up the pieces, but Johnny wants nothing of it. Slowly Johnny starts to warm up to Dizzy until they finally hook up, after which she gets killed in combat, her last words being “Johnny don’t let me go! *gasp* *gasp* *croak*.” (end spoiler alert)

The one thing that offsets the bumbling Mobile Infantry and the cheesy acting is the humorous TV coverage. Director Paul Verhoeven seems to embrace the B-Movie type feel and runs with it. I think that this approach is one of the reasons that Starship Troopers is a movie worth watching. Had the movie lacked this element, the other parts would just look like poor film-making.

With all of that said, I’ll move on to comparing this movie to the novel by Robert A. Heinlein. On the surface the main elements are there; the Arachnids are attacking earth, there are drones controlled by a Brain Bug, and “service guarantees citizenship”. Many of the main characters are relatively intact, but the roles shift around a bit.

My biggest disappointment was that the Mobile Infantry was turned from awesome elite troopers in mechanical power armor to mindless idiots with machine guns. I’ve read that this was due to budget issues. It is a shame this aspect was left out, I think that the mechanical armor would have been awesome on the big screen. Unfortunately, having the mechanical armor would have greatly affected the dynamic of the fighting scenes as the ones in the novel took place in areas many square miles in size.

The character switching was another disappointment. Carmen was never Johnny’s girlfriend, although she did play a small part in him deciding to join the MI in the novel. Johhny’s History and Moral Philosophy teacher is now Lieutenant Jean Rasczak as well, instead of a separate character, Mr. Dubois. This doesn’t really affect the flow of the movie too much, but for anyone that has read the book it will be a bit confusing. A lot of the minor characters are there in some form or another.

Johnny is also not a strong character in the movie. He comes off as a stereotypical Ken doll jock. In the novel he strongly considered resigning from the MI, but never went through with it. In the movie he resigns and is just about to walk out of boot camp when he finds out his parents were killed in an asteroid attack. Only after this does he beg for reinstatement. This radically affects the character of Johnny Rico.

Two of the main themes which stand out in the novel are missing in the movie. The philosophy of “leave no man behind” is very prevalent in Heinlein’s writing, but completely absent in the movie. The whole motivation in attacking Klendathu is to exterminate the Bugs rather than save their comrades which are prisoners of war. Also, the focus on behavior and discipline is barely touched on in the movie. The whole boot camp section of the book, which comprises about 50%, is squeezed into less than 25 minutes. Much of the political commentary is touched upon, but only briefly in hammed up TV news clips.

The movie and the book should both be enjoyed separately. I wouldn’t recommend trying to reconcile the differences between the too, as I have, unless you want a big headache. If gratuitous violence and humor is your thing, this movie is for you. If you’d like to think a bit more and are willing to spend time on an interesting read, check out the novel.