The Boy on the Bridge. By M R Carey.

An often ascribed phrase from Sartre's No Exit is "Hell is other people", in context its meaning is rather complex, but the general interpretation is that sometimes people can occasionally suck, especially when confined to a single room, over a long period of time and also, it smells, damn it. This seems to be a consistent theme in M Carey's book "The Boy on the Bridge" (2017), of course the room in this book is a large multi-tracked vehicle named the "Rosalind Franklin" (think Amtrak Wars, but smaller), on a scientific mission, driving through a  cordyceps zombie apocalypse wasteland (think the setting of The Last of Us, but in Britain) collecting specimens in the hopes of finding a sample without fungal hyphae. The setting of the book is a continuation of the world presented in the "The Girl with all the Gifts" (2013), a book which I haven't read and is now a movie (2016).

Apparently some reviewers who have read "The Girl with all the Gifts" don't consider this sequel to be as good, such as Tasha Robinson (June 2017), but given that I haven't read the first book, or seen the movie I didn't have any preconceptions and enjoyed the book as a tight drama centred around the microcosm of the vehicle Rosalind Franklin (Rosie in the vernacular of the characters of the story), perhaps comparable to "The Hunt for the Red October" in setting. I am now going to ramble on about the setting while not discussing the plot in any real way. M Carey sets the scene in a passive third person tense that reads like documentation which was nice, succinct and also darkly comical.

 The Rosalind Franklin is from an outpost community called Beacon which is governed by a joint council of citizens called the "Main Table" and the remnants of the military called the "Military Muster". The mission of the Rosalind Franklin is this communities version of the Apollo moon landing, all their hopes and dreams go with the twelve individuals who crew this mission, it is a heavy responsibility.

The command structure of the Rosalind Franklin reflects the power structures in Beacon, the twelve crew of this vehicle are organized into a science division and a military escort, with overall command  by Dr Alan Fournier. The military escort is lead by Colonel Issac Carlisle who has by far the greatest experience leading a military expedition but the objectives of the mission are scientific and his appointment serves the objectives of the Military Muster. As M Carey writes on page 13, the crew of the Rosalind Franklin,despite the rhetoric, are not the best and brightest, but were chosen by the ruling bodies of Beacon in an attempt to achieve a balance that would give the community the most plausible shot at survival. The characters tend to be well written and the sense of the crew being a tight knit group of specialists, who all have essential skills and work well as a team (with the exception of one person, sigh) is conveyed. They are listed (on page 12) as

 Dr Alan Fournier  - Chief Scientist                Colonel Issac Carlisle - Military Escort Leader
Samrina Khan      - Epidemiologist                Lt Daniel McQueen     - Sniper/ 2nd Com    
Lucien Akimwe   - Chemist                            Lance Bombardier      - Sniper
John Scaley          - Biologist                          Private Brendan Lutes - Enginneer
Elain Penny          - Biologist                          Private Paula Sixsmith - Driver
Steven Graves      - Nobody is sure.                Private Gary Philips     - Quarter Master

The page I am practically quoting from can be found here. I found the motivations of the characters to be coherent and interesting, sometimes vaguely amusing because the author dwells on how the characters learn and how it influences their actions.

The setting would make a great RPG, possibly the author has used a comparable reflective process that a GM would use, a narrative centered around a journey in a vehicle. An entertaining science fiction thriller and when I get the opportunity to read "The Girl with all the Gifts" (2014), I will.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Currently reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (2011) published by Arrow Books, United Kingdom. It makes me want to go play Skyrim. I may be some time.

6/8/17
Ok, I finished it. It had some interesting points in the type of society it portrayed and the narrator of the first person perspective is relatable, as a male who could do more exercise. Apparently it's now going to be a movie, which is neat.

Walkaway A Novel by Cory Doctorow.

Man. To me the title evokes an aborgine walkabout, "Walkaway" published by Head of Zeus Ltd (2017). The book starts with a scene that introduces a near post scarcity world and some of the main protagonists. The first chapter is titled "communist party", and the setting is a party where the theme is the gift furniture manufactured from 3D printers using surplus manufacturing material, so it gets called a communist party. The chapter title is a play on words, a joke. I disliked the scene intensely, because of its "ist & ism" terminology and its Bret Eston Ellis "Less than Zero" feel. I've met and lived with people who talk using "ist & ism" words and so far they have been mostly bullshit. Strong negative reaction. So I put the book down and did something else.

Later I picked it up again, and got through the first chapter to the second chapter "You all meet in a tavern" and I like "Order of the Stick" and I think I am a funny guy, despite the opinion of others, obviously. So OK, I get what the chapter title is doing and persevere, and it starts to get good.

Its about future hippies (those damn kids, get of my land lords lawn!) an anti establishment movement in a near post scarcity society that relies on uploadable schematics for 3D printers as their source of technology, from building materials and electronics to antibiotics (silver) and clothing. It discusses ideas of ownership and sharing, the language used is a mix of contemporary slang with a futuristic language based around data sharing, using acronyms to describe human relationships. There are action sequences with power suits and militarized drones and plucky outgunned rebels. It dwells on biology and why people do things, page 60 describes drinking a cup of future coffee as "The first cup of coffium danced hot in her mouth and its early-onset ingredients percolated into her blood stream through the mucus membranes under her tongue" (Doctorow page 60 : 2017), so obviously I am going to now google if there are mucous membranes under our tongues.

And apparently there are, they are called the frenulum. Also, perhaps not completely unrelated to the passage described on page 60, there are sex scenes, I mean, you're not going to read the book for the sex scenes but they are there. So, you know, that's, that is nice.

Oh. oh right. Those scenes are not about sex but love, Man, what is wrong with me that it took me so long for me to get that. Ah well, we live and learn.

The book concludes with an epilogue that  presents a particular kind of utopia, that I think is brave, in the sense that it does go against quite strong and rational contemporary values and ideas of what constitutes life.

The Shadow of What Was Lost. By James Islington.

Currently (18.6) reading a fantasy written by an Australian Author, James Islington's "The Shadow of What Was Lost", all in capital letters according to the book cover, the first book of a trilogy. I picked it up because of the marketing features, the evocative title, the art work on the cover, a party of adventurers silhouetted by an orange sun and its description as an "action packed fantasy" by something called BookBag. And I ask you, when has something called BookBag ever been wrong?  It is pleasant escapist fantasy, with enough detail to be light reading and not ponderous. I am over three quarters through and it has some fantasy tropes that are reminiscent of Game of Thrones and The Witcher, which I am not complaining about because those tropes are pleasantly synthesized and gradually developed, or introduced. It is a low magic setting, post an antimage war, where the mages lost and you probably already know where the story is heading by now.

The characters are likable, their descriptions are sufficient to the point you could draw them in "Order of the Stick" lego men detail, and the protagonists who start off as young people leaving a school, more or less act to explore and demonstrate the geology, politics and underlying science of the setting. It's not going to change your world view or anything, but if you're tired of reading about Pug in Raymond E Feist's Riftworld Saga, well the first book of this trilogy is a pleasant, contemporary read.

CiXin Liu's "Deaths End" 死神永生

I have been reading CiXin Liu's "Deaths End", the third book in a science fiction trilogy "The Three Body Problem" translated by Ken Liu from Mandarin. It was originally published by Chongqing Publishing Group in Chongqing, China as  死神永生 in 2010 and according to the blurb on the cover and first page, the author has won numerous awards and the translators short story "The Paper Menagerie" has won a Hugo award, among other awards.

The major setting of the story is that an alien invasion (the Trisolarians) have been fought off and a detente has been reached, with descriptions of cultural change as the story progresses. I have to say, I initially found the protagonists difficult to visualize but overtime derived a sense of the main characters, some more amusing than others. It is a science fiction setting big in scope and ideas that are more shown  than described in theory, he has scenes where people in meetings record alternatives to problems, listing the pro's and con's and it is interesting the type of choices the various groups make. Because this is the third book in the novel, there is a history to the setting and some of the more peripheral characters were major characters in the presceding novels.

The technology of the setting, because this is science fiction, describes gravity wave antenna weapons, hibernation chambers, sub light speed drives and has early on an example of a primitive technology that through sacrifice inspired by romantic ideals is able to achieve objectives beyond the technical capabilities of the milieu. For the human characters deep space vessels are few and far between, the product of massive investment and as the novel progresses there is a sense of economies of scale in the different societies shown.

The universe of the “The Three Body Problem” trilogy is a hostile place where civilizations that achieve an advanced technological capability without the caution of hiding their galactic footprint are quickly exterminated, “cleansed” by more technologically advanced predatory civilizations. Thus aware advanced civilizations tend to hide themselves, creating many “dark zones”, the political theory of the book describes this setting as a “dark forest” scenario.

The differences in the humans and aliens described are tied to major plot points of the novel, the differences are shown instead of described, although that phrase does become problematic in the medium of a novel. It dwells on the necessity of taking a real politic approach to arising situation despite changing values associated with cultural change. There is a kind of literary analysis shown in the book that has interesting ideas. It would be interesting to subject the scenarios and ideas in the novel to a kind of cross cultural comparison, in the same way that 1950’s and 1960’s science fiction and horror movies tend to be seen as reflecting the fears of the public to cold war political events.

Perhaps this is an easy and inconsiderate approach to take, but as one of the points the novel makes, we are products of our time. 

Justin Cronin : The City of Mirrors.

The "City of Mirrors" (2016) is the conclusion to Justin Cronin's "Passage" trilogy and as chapter 14 begins, "behind every great hatred is a love story" it introduces the main antagonist, Timothy Flanning, named Subject Zero using a first perspective flow of consciousness narrative. In this narrative Cronin presents Timothy Flanning's experiences of  University, which feature an outsiders view of lives of privilege and in my opinion he gets the character of Lucessi down just right, right down to the toothpaste. My reading tends to be limited but I try to describe parallels to the small amount of classic literature I have read, Justin Cronin spends paragraphs dwelling on individual consciousness and the constitution of crowds and what constitutes life in a comparable way to Victor Hugo when dwelling on the consciousness of individuals and crowds in "Les Miserables" (1862).

There are scenes of the vast scope of consciousness and creeping scenes of horror that to me evoke Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897), except they are placed in the sunny daylight of a Texas "western" country town. It has the Bram Stoker's obsession with technology, the source of the protagonists strength and weaknesses, agency through technology and the pragmatic solutions that their technology enables. This is significant because the technology and infrastructure are evidence of the social progress and stagnation of the protagonists communities and how the communities solve their issues, which becomes of strategic importance. The protagonists are the main objects of attention and are shown in the setting of immediately after the conclusion of the second book, "The Twelve" (2012) and two decades later as the protagonists societies evolve, adapt and decay. By this way Chronin seems to dwell on the question, what makes communities function?

His description of a crowd in chapter 72 is particularly vivid and echoes with the experience of the modern world, as it is meant to probably.

"As a body they were a statisticians dream, a perfect representative  sampling of the inhabitants of the Great North American Empire. They came from farms and small towns, faceless suburbs and sprawling metropolises, they were every colour and creed, they lived in trailers, houses, apartments, mansions with views of the sea. In their human states, each had occupied a discrete and private self.
They had hoped, hated, loved, suffered, sung and wept. They had known loss. They had surrounded and comforted theselves with objects. They had driven automobiles. They had walked dogs and pushed children on swings and waited in line at the grocery store.
They had said stupid things. They had kept secrets, nurtured grudges, blown upon the embers of regret. They had worshipped a variety of gods or no god at all.
They had awaked in the night to the sound of rain. They had apologized. They had attended various ceremonies. They had explained the history of themselves to psychologists, priests, lovers and strangers in bars. They had, at unexpected moments, experienced bolts of joy so unalloyed, so untethered to events, that they seemed to come from above, they had longed to be known and sometimes were.".

The cadence and alliteration is just great.

The epilogue is satisfying, although I would have preferred hand drawn instead of  modified photoshop images, as a kind of archaeology, I guess. They give it a sense of ecological cycle and the biblical references and structures are pretty obvious and a nice touch.

In all likelihood, I probably picked up "The Twelve" (2012), the first book I read of the trilogy, the second book in the trilogy, before going back to the first book, "The Passage" (2010), looking for a survival story in an apocalyptic setting, but I've stayed with the trilogy because of the scope, mysticism and psychology. I like it when novels I read surprise me, ah, in pleasant ways? I guess.

Found Lars Bronworth's web page "Finding History". It has a lot of interestings digressions including the source for the European term for the Eastern Roman Empire, "Byzantine". Apparently in  1557 Hieronymus Wolf, situated in then the "Holy Roman Empire" published a history of the medieval Greek world that described the then defunct Eastern Roman Empire as "Byzantine". 

24/11/2017

Apparently Michael Duncan was inspired by listening to Lars Bronsworth's "12 Byzantine Emperors : The History of the Byzantine Empire" series (prior March 2007) to do a "History of Rome" series (2007 - 2012) of podcasts. This has grown to become something called Revolutions, which in itself is quite interesting to listen to. I suspect there will be a meta study or critique of all of this at some point, by someone else. Of course.