Peace by Gene Wolfe

With some books I take my time reading and this was such a book. Peace by Gene Wolfe I found to be an exciting exploration of a person's life through memoir but with an interesting twist: Den, the protagonist and narrator, has a concept of time that is all encompassing, the past and the future are all explorable as one event. Though time seems to pass linearly throughout the novel, it jumps between three points in his life: his childhood, his adulthood and his golden years. The narrator is able to control where his consciousness is during these times and in some instances he will accidentally shift from one to another. In this the novel creates it's own temporal existence separate from conventional reality

This may sound a bit confusing but Wolfe's delivery and style make it work. Through the novel we see that the need to force the reader to follow the story from childhood through death is not only unnecessary but possibly harming to the narrative (if not many narratives).

But, like with Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series, we cannot trust all of what the narrator tells us. This creates an undercurrent of events that are never explained in the novel but are shown to a careful reader though the reaction of the narrator to certain stimulus, making this novel worthy of multiple readings (the sign of a true piece of literature).

The novel takes place entirely in the town of Cassionsville, where Den spends his entire life, and there he tells us of his experiences with his family and in his business. The undercurrent of unexplained events is what causes much of the tension in the novel, whether due to Den's ignorance or insecurity in confronting the subject in front of the reader. His writing starts as a way to help with a stroke he suffers when he is old but as the novel progresses we notice him writing it at different points in his life. The novel is split into 5 separate episodes tied together with his experiences as an old man.

There is one problem with my experiences with Peace. For some reason this book is labeled "fantasy" by the publisher. I have absolutely nothing against fantasy (in fact I enjoy it quite a bit) but this book is not a fantasy novel (which does not detract from it either). I'm not really sure why they labeled it this way except for one reason: Gene Wolfe is famous for writing fantasy. This book is probably labeled as such the same way that Stephen King's Dark Tower Series is label "horror", in some bookstores, though it is clearly not. Peace is much less tied to a genre than Book of the New Sun is but because Wolfe wrote it we find it labeled Sci-fi/Fanstasy and placed as such in stores, when it should be found in the general fiction category.

Though I understand why a publisher would do this (gets more of an author read by a single customer) it keeps a book like this from reaching the mainstream public and getting the praise it deserves (and it very much does deserve it). Either way, Peace is a great novel and a must read.

loss of time

A strange thing has happened to me in the last couple of days: I thought this week was next week. This has been going on for the last few days.

I know this does not sound at all groundbreaking (it really isn't) but it is very strange to me (but probably not to anyone else). Why is it so effecting of a circumstance? Usually when one is mistaken as to where they are temporally it is usually a few hours off and usually does not last very long. I've been off by a week for a few DAYS.

This is also important (to me) because a lot is happening at the end of next week:
1) My work is having an inspection a week from this Monday.
2) There is the Black Hat Conference next weekend (http://www.blackhat.com/) and I'm super excited for it.
3) My lease is up at the end of next month and I'll have to start looking for a new place (though I may have found one already *fingers crossed*)
4) I have a fishing trip with my father that needs to come together in August or the first of September.
5) Next month is either a wedding I'll be having to attend or PAX (both on the same weekend)

I have a lot of stuff to get taken care of for next month. "So what? Minus the conference and the inspection that's all NEXT month." Well yes it WAS next month, now it's next month PLUS one week! The anticipation appointments were becoming as stressful as the appointments themselves.

Essentially, I have an extra week. Its like getting a bonus to your paycheck without knowing--at first you're excited then your realize you don't know what you're going to spend it on (assuming you have all you really need at the moment). Or its like having a college paper moved a week when you've already been working hard on it (probably the better example, but I'll leave the bad one there anyways).

So what does one DO with a free week? That's what I'm trying to figure out. I plan to do more writing, but I've been saying that for the last two weeks with no change in my output. I thought about traveling somewhere, but I have to paint my parent's house this weekend and next week we do have to prepare for this inspection. But because I feel like is have this "gift" I feel the need to use it.

I guess I, technically, have a week to figure this all out.

Neuromancer

Neuromancer, by William Gibson, is a SciFi novel that I've been meaning to read for quite some time. I finally was able to pick up this book a few weeks ago at a Powells in Beverton (using some gift certificates my sister had gotten me for gifts) and was very happy to dive into it this last week.

The book is a genre defining Cyberpunk novel. Gibson's ingenuity and imagination are beyond comparison and took be by surprise. Where Gibson seems the most strong are in scenes where the protagonist Case, a hacker everyman, encounters a chaotic situation. Gibson drags the reader along with Case for a ride where neither we nor Case understand exactly what is going on, letting us guess where to put the pieces together to form a coherent picture. Some people might consider this a boon, but because is left as confused as the reader, it only adds to the experience.

This is a must read for any lover of literature, especially for those that love Science Fiction. There is a reason that people recommend this novel and why it won a Nebula and a Hugo. If you don't know why, its about time you find out.

Moon (movie)

I went with my friends Woody and Jake to the movie Moon, playing at the Bijou movie theater, on Sunday night. I had seen a preview for it earlier in the year and when it hit the normal theaters a few weeks ago it was strangely quickly taken away (even though it has a rating of 89% on rotten tomatoes). We all went in expecting it to be a good movie and we were not disappointed.

Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, an employee of Lunar Industries, who is under a three year contract to take care of a mining station on the Moon, with only the assistance of GERTY, voiced by Kevin Spacy. The station gathers a material called helium-3 (likely some sort of high-density helium deposits mined similarly to our modern corn harvesting methods) and sends back to earth to be used as fuel. But Sam Bell's mission takes a turn when he encounters another Sam Bell.

This is a great surrealistic, psychological movie. Sam Rockwell plays off himself pretty well and even though he is playing technically the same characters, we are aware that they have slightly different personalities. This clashing of two similar personalities is what makes much of the action and suspense of the flic, so the entire performance rested on his shoulders.

This is a must see, but because it is unlikely to be found in most theaters, people will have to wait til it comes out on dvd/bluray/whatever.

Google Chrome OS

This made me just dance for joy:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

Why?
Because it feels like a breath of fresh air into the OS market. We seem to only see a few types of OS out in the market:
1) Windows
2) Mac OS
3) Windows and Mac OS clones (hello Ubuntu, Red Hat)
4) Obscure, underused other OS (slackware, anything using Solaris)

It seems that instead of directly competing with Windows or Mac OS (so no better-Windows Chrome OS), Google seems to be doing a bit of their own thing. Doug Rushkoff sumed up my feelings about his pretty well (from boingboing):
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/08/rushkoff-googles-war.html

I really can't wait to try this out and look forward to any possible beta of this before next year's launch date.

The Left Hand of Darkness

I finished this book yesterday. I have a large pile of books stacked in my room that I’ve been meaning to read for a while, but hadn’t due to school and work. Now its summer, so I have more time on my hands to get at these. This has been sitting at the very top for weeks now and I finally got the chance to explore Ursula K. Le Guin’s planet of Winter.

Many people told me that The Left Hand of Darkness is one of the best Science Fiction novels out there and I wasn’t disappointed. Though there is not a serious amount of action in this book, it maintained a pace of its that definitely kept the pages turning with rapture.

The ecology of the planet Winter (yes, odd name) reflected its inhabitants. At first glace you see the people as cold and sterile, but as the story rolls on we, and the narrator, see them just as human beings, not merely the hermaphroditic aliens we were first introduced to but more the pure combination of the two halves of humanity (almost making them better than the rest of humanity). Many of the themes in the novel involve certain kinds of prejudices due to preconceived notions. The narrator assumes that the character who he should trust the most is untrustworthy and he also goes to a country that he assumes would be best for his quest. There is also a focus on foretelling and the importance on not what questions a person should ask, but what questions are just unanswerable (which when discovered would remain unanswered).

But the ending left me feeling oddly disappointed. The ending seemed to be heading to a bitter-sweat-leaning-towards-tragic but ended up in the final chapter kind of cyclical. But I think that the confused reaction I got at the end were intended and maybe necessary because the main character seemed to have the same distance and confusion that a reader could experience at the end. As if he is thinking “Is this really all tied up? I guess we’ll find out.”

Either way, even though a Nebula and Hugo winning book should scarcely be ignored anyways, this book is a must read for any lover of literature. This book gives a reader a lot to think about (which is my definition of a good Sci-Fi), so make sure to actually READ it and give it some time let your brain digest it.