Airframe - Michael Crichton

Well, I've been feeling under the weather today, so I went with another re-read. I promise this is the last one for a while!

One of the things I really like about Airframe is that it gives a lot of information about the construction of commercial airplanes, how they're built, how they're tested, and most importantly (for the story) what happens when something goes wrong. It's a fun introduction to field that I would never have explored otherwise.

Crichton does make a number of anti-tv/journalist rants in this book, but personally, I don't know that I disagree. Here's this evening's quote:

"Used to be-- in the old days -- the media image roughly corresponded to reality. But now it's all reversed. The media image is the reality, and by comparison day-to-day life seems to lack excitement. So now day-today life is false, and the media image is true. Sometimes I look around my living room, and the most real thing in the room is the television. It's bright and vivid, and the rest of my life looks drab. So I turn the damn thing off. That does it every time. Get my life back."

That last really echoes with me, and is why I don't watch tv. I just recently broke down and got a tv/vcr combo, but the first thing I did was to neuter it!

First Meetings in the Enderverse - Orson Scott Card

Well, the last Card book for now. This one is three novellas set in the same universe as Ender's Game, including the original novella of "Ender's Game" published in 1977 in Analog. These were all interesting stories, and engaging enough that I lost track of time and was not able to enter my latest entry to Worth1000.com!

I was especially pleased with the first two stories which relate some of Ender, Valentine and Peter's parents. In a series about children, the parents have become some of the most intersting characters to me. They raise their children well, and as best as they can, they allow them to be children. The allow Peter (who becomes king of the world) to think that they were of rather normal intelligence, and giving him is freedom (because they weren't smart enough to see what he was doing). Then in Shadow Puppets, the parents force Peter to realize that they are valuable and useful people, that they are not dense, nor unaware of Peter's actions. And I think perhaps most importantly, they don't let Peter know that he is their least favorite child. Though Ender and Valentine have traveled out of the solar system, largely due to Peter's actions; the parents support Peter to the utmost, giving him what he needs, when he needs it. Facinating characters, and I was thrilled to get to see some more of them, especially pre-children.

A fun quote tonight:

"[...] the universe is statistically more likely to be ironic than not [...]"

Jurassic Park - Movie

This one really has become a classic. I know several people (myself included) that are almost ashamed to admit they like it, but it really is a good movie. I particularly like Ariana Richards who plays the little girl. She is so convincingly terrified in the movie, I often think she must have suffered from PTSD, only to remember that she's acting. I'm a little disappointed that she has been in very many movies, though maybe she'll get more as she gets older.

It's funny how you can come up with new ideas, even on the umpteenth time you've watched something. While they were talking about whether to shut down the system to try for a reboot, it occurred to me that they should have just shot the velociraptors at that point. They didn't know that they would be without power for more than a minute, but they also didn't know if it would work at all. Shooting the raptors would have made for a less exciting movie, but a lot more sense.

I was surprised that I couldn't find out on IMDB.com, but does anyone know what they used to make the various dinosaur noises?

I've read Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, and as is typical, the book is even better. I've also read the sequels, and I have to say the the divergence in quality between the movies and the books only increases. If you haven't read Jurassic Park and The Lost World, you might give them a try, although my favorite of his is Timeline.

Shadow Puppets - Orson Scott Card

A Surprise! I picked this book to read next (thinking it was another re-read) because the cover touted it as "A sequel to [...] Ender's Shadow." I was surprised when major plot points were summarized in the first chapter. I thought, maybe, the story was told with flash backs. By chapter three, I was certain I hadn't read this book, but knew enough of what was going on to be very puzzled. I finally notice the blurb on the back: "Praise for Shadow of the Hegemon." Ahh.. Shadow Puppets is the third book in this series, as opposed to the immediate sequel to Ender's Shadow. It suddenly all made sense.

A good book, very much in the same vein as the previous two. We see some really nice character development in Bean (Julian Delphiki) and Peter Wiggins (the Hegemon). In particular, I was pleased to see the developments between Peter Wiggins and his parents. Their relationship had been painfully strained for a long time; and it was good to see some of that blockage cleared and to see Peter grow out of himself enough to recognize his parents as people.. and useful, smart people!

In the Acknowledgements, Orson Scott Card comments:

The second problem posed by this novel was that I wrote it during the war in Afghanistan between the U.S. and its allies and the Taliban and Al Qaeda Forces. Since in Shadow Puppets I had to show the future state of relations between the Muslim and Western worlds, and between Israel and its Muslim neighbors, I had to make a prediction about how the current hate-filled situation might someday be resolved.

And Card does resolve them rather nicely. In fact, the summary of what happened (in this fiction) was what I had chosen for a quote before I read Card's Acknowledgements at the end of the book. [Spoiler ahead:]

"We [Muslims} once ruled the known world, from Spain to India. Muslims ruled in Moscow, and our soldiers reached into France, and to the gates of Vienna. Our dogs were better educated that the scholars of the West. Then one day we woke up and we were poor and ignorant, and somebody else had all the guns. We knew this could not be the will of Allah, so we fought."
"And discovered that the will of Allah was ...?"
"The will of Allah was for many of our people to die, and for the West to occupy our countries again and again until we stopped fighting. We learned our lesson. We are very well behaved now. We abide by all the treaty terms, We have freedom of the press, freedom of religion, liberated women and democratic elections. [...] For a long time we thought of Israel as the enemy's toehold in our holy land. Then one day we remembered that Israel was a member of our family who had gone away into exile, learned everything our enemies knew, and then came home again. We stopped fighting our brother, and our brother gave us all the gifts of the West, but without destroying our souls. How said it would have been if we had killed all the Jews and driven them out. Who would have taught us then?"

This is one of the best logical, hopeful, peaceful, futures I seen envisioned for the Middle East. I would that we could accomplish this without many people dieing, and countries being occupied.. so long as we could come to that peace and be as one family.

And of course, the topic of children and who is real continues on with:

"The only people who think children are carefree are the ones who've fogotten their own childhood."

Ender's Shadow - Orson Scott Card

A parallel novel to Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow covers roughly the same time period, but the main character is Bean instead of Ender. In the foreword, Card uses the term parallax to describe the two books: the same thing, but seen from slightly different view points. {A facinating side note, it's the slight difference between what the right eye and left eye see that acts as parallax for us, and allows us to see things as three dimensions. When you see pigeons or chickens moving their head back and forth, they are using parallax. With only one eye on each side of their head, they have to move it back and forth just a little bit to build up a three dimensional image.} It's exactly this parallax that makes rereading books worthwhile. Every time I reread a book, I am a slightly (or dramatically) different person, so I get something different from the book.

In this case, I've just recently read The Speed of Dark, and that affects what I notice. One of the major themes in TSoD was which people are "real"; do people with autism count as "real" ? or is it only the 'normals'? Are all normal people real? What about the one who goes crazy with jealousy and rage, so that they implant a chip in his brain? Now in Ender's Shadow we come across the line:

"They still didn't think of anything the children did as 'real'."

That same concept again.. who is real? I know I've spent a great deal of my life trying to feel that I was real. And coming to grips with things in my life/experience that were also real. Hell, I still struggle to feel like a "real" adult.

I think one of the best things about my three year old nephew's family, and how they have raised him is that they treat him as a "real" person. His ideas, fears, feelings and actions are all seen as real, as valid, as worthwhile. I've seen so many parents, teachers, and authority figures act as if children and what they do aren't real.. they're just kids. What a disservice we do to our children when we treat them this way. When does the magic switch flip? When do we become real?

Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

Always a real classic for me, I finally got to read Ender's Game today. This book always speaks to be about the power of children when they are not underrated and restrained, as well as the preciousness of a childhood. The first idea is one that I felt keenly when I was a child and teenager; if only they didn't hold me back.. oh what I could have done!

But it's the preciousness of childhood that speaks most to me these days. I spent almost two decades in therapy, patching myself and my life back together after an emotionally and sexually abusive childhood. And now... now I yearn for that lost innocence of childhood; and I feel very strongly about letting children be children. I have very little patience for parents telling me, "But my child is my best friend!" It's not appropriate for your children to be your friends. You might be one of their friends, but don't saddle them by treating them as adults. Get your own friends, someone(s) who is your peer.

Which brings us to my quote for today, as one of the children in Ender's Game bemoans the loss of that innocent childhood:

"I can't do a weekly column," Valentine said. "I don't even have a monthly period yet."

Puppet Masters - Robert Heinlein

Well, the old and familiar reading spree continues. This one does have quite a bit of "Bob's" sexism present... though most of it is in the "pretty good, for a girl" manner.

Wednesday and Thursday I also watched the movie Titan A.E. Both the movie and Puppet Masters deal with humanity fighting for survival against non-terristial races. Most often, in movies and books with this theme, humans win because the are more mentally flexible than the enemy. Actually, this might be only a Western hemisphere trait, as I've also seen this theme (x wins by being more flexible) in stories where the "bad guys" are Asian or communists or just about any other non-American.

Two quotes from this book, the first one relates specifically to my news boycott:

"My [...] mind has never been able to interest itself in the daily news; for my
taste this dinning into the ears and eyes of trivia somewhere over the horizon
is the bane of so-called civilization and the death of serious thinking."

For me, it is largely an emotional defense, I get depressed and have an overblown sense of personal responsibility, when I expose myself to media. But this dinning of the ears is a sentiment I also agree with.

My other quote from this book is:

"The ratio of damn fools to villains is high."

... Thanks "Bob"

Sixth Column - Robert Heinlein

I had a serious anxiety attack yesterday, so when I came home, I wanted something old and familiar.. obviously, it was time for "Bob." Actually, my first choice would have been Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow, but I must have sold those.

Robert Heinlein was the very first author that I read as an author. Before that, I just read books that looked interesting, I couldn't tell you the title, let alone the author, of most of them. But in the 9th grade, I accidentally read two books by Heinlein fairly close together. And thus began a long relationship.

Sixth Column was perfect for my mood. Simple, straightforward, clear right and wrong, and right triumphs. I like Heinlein's books, but often his stories about women rankle me.. I was definitely avoiding that last night.

The Speed of Dark - Elizabeth Moon

My friend Sheryn was reading this, and looked interesting, so I picked it up. The basic premise is that a man with autism (Lou) is living in the near future where an experimental procedure has become available to "cure" him.

I really liked this book, it was carefully considered, took some risks, well written, and with a great ending. Unfortunately, the author wrote another two chapters after that perfect ending.


[Spoiler ahead:]
In the end, Lou decides to take the treatment. He cleans out his office at work, prepares his home for an extended absence, and ends with a perfect line. That's where the book should have stopped... Moon, however, gives us a chapter to summarize his progress in treatment, as well as an epilogue of how much better he is now. I thought the book would have been better if she had left that unknown. It was a real disappointment, because the rest of the book dealt fearlessly with leaving things unknown, and the unknown was really a major theme of this book. So to have the results spelled out for us, was worse than anticlimactic, it did a disservice to the rest of the book.

My quote from this book is long:

"I do not think G-d makes bad things happen just so that people can grow spiritually. Bad parents do that, my mother said. Bad parents make things hard and painful for their children and then say it was to help them grow. Growing and living are hard enough already; children do not need things to be harder. I think this is true even for normal children. I have watched little children learning to walk; they struggle and fall down many times. Their faces show that it is not easy. It would be stupid to tie bricks on them to make it harder. If that is true for learning to walk, then I think it is true for other growing and learning as well.
G-d is supposed to be the good parent [...] G-d would not make things harder than they are."