tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86611171007481480702024-03-18T16:36:05.282-07:00A Time-Travelling ApocalypseA blog about writing, science fiction, the future of publishing, books and me. Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.comBlogger490125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-13806895652965727582024-03-18T16:35:00.000-07:002024-03-18T16:35:28.100-07:00Review of Never-Ending Day by Graham Storrs<p><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQAcFhoas7m0l0isjHDCCukVuPpnhWFemYj5yjNw6hZf94oAUDf_XAP2tsbutDQFaYmr3arhQsc2RHU_wYhuQtnGzoQf8YX5FDlI4DGN4yaBAeD6uHMLkXJbRaa7J8Zf-ITh-_y44ISJXJ0PSgwfKuTYQHfbGmFKoZJK2IrKw2fK-QigdpXlnmdbTmgDg/s281/never%20ending%20day.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="178" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQAcFhoas7m0l0isjHDCCukVuPpnhWFemYj5yjNw6hZf94oAUDf_XAP2tsbutDQFaYmr3arhQsc2RHU_wYhuQtnGzoQf8YX5FDlI4DGN4yaBAeD6uHMLkXJbRaa7J8Zf-ITh-_y44ISJXJ0PSgwfKuTYQHfbGmFKoZJK2IrKw2fK-QigdpXlnmdbTmgDg/s1600/never%20ending%20day.png" width="178" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Never-Ending Day is an enjoyable
read. Its title comes from the fact that most of the action takes place in a
Dyson wheel which is a structure built around and enclosing a star, so those
inside always have the star’s light shining on them.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The story is set hundreds of years
into the future where a police officer, Tara Fraser, is chasing a terrorist,
Yuna, across space. Tara comes across the previously unknown Dyson wheel, and
his ship is captured and dragged in. He assumes the same thing happened to Yuna
with her ship, so he goes looking for her, thinking that when he captures her
he will worry about escaping the Dyson wheel. He is a really committed cop.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">He discovers the wheel is inhabited
and stops to ask the natives if they had seen Yuna, using his computer implant
to translate. Instead of helping, they capture him. He now has another problem,
dealing with a treacherous native population.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The story is written in a
light-hearted tone, along the lines of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A
tone I found refreshing after reading a lot of hard science-fiction and
literature. This tone is reflected in the banter between Fraser and Yuna.
Fraser is a stick in the mud, doing everything by the book even though he knows
his employers are not the nicest people. While Yuna loves to break laws and
rules and is prone to impulsive actions. Some of which are successful, others
which are not.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I have read a couple of other of Graham
Storr’s novels in the Timesplash series, which I plan to return to with his
third novel in that series. They are time-travel thriller novels, while Never
Ending Day is more of an adventure novel with plenty of humour.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">I did find the dialogue slightly
disconcerting to begin with, as Yuna and Fraser conversed like they were living
in the late 20</span><sup style="text-indent: 0cm;">th</sup><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> Century. But who knows how people will talk in the
future. I recently listened to a radio program on trends which said that
everything old is coming back in again, so maybe in hundreds of years times it will
be trendy to talk like people in the 20</span><sup style="text-indent: 0cm;">th</sup><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> Century. The dialogue was very
funny at times.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p> </o:p><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">After reading a lot of hard science-fiction,
I enjoyed reading something fun. I very much cared for the protagonists and
really hoped they could come to some mutual arrangement to escape the wheel and
its somewhat suspect inhabitants.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-22649939217820903172024-03-03T19:47:00.000-08:002024-03-03T19:48:08.814-08:00A review of Julia by Sandra Newman<p><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDheRyvc9HXvN3ZmAUCcXEdvwUl-Liud_5YDwDNExUtMPcGp4xefw3QdTustwLW-gtREtAUdGFAM_JQhXzAQHEqOZYKBSLHSxiSKXo7LTCkWHxHZuVPYKgpTmDruUgFhHjxLt1p40F2K0DBE84o4fEEcXfUBtGC4X4yLSpsKHNxCccywwS5suEziaM5Jg/s278/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="181" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDheRyvc9HXvN3ZmAUCcXEdvwUl-Liud_5YDwDNExUtMPcGp4xefw3QdTustwLW-gtREtAUdGFAM_JQhXzAQHEqOZYKBSLHSxiSKXo7LTCkWHxHZuVPYKgpTmDruUgFhHjxLt1p40F2K0DBE84o4fEEcXfUBtGC4X4yLSpsKHNxCccywwS5suEziaM5Jg/s1600/download.jpg" width="181" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">I can’t remember reading a more
harrowing novel than Sandra Newman’s Julia. The novel really had me fearing for
the two main characters and where our society might be heading. Julia is the
story of Winston Smith’s lover from the novel 1984. I read 1984 decades ago, so
I am not sure how much the story in Julia diverges from Orwell’s novel, but
Julia seems to be set in a lot more desolate world than what I remember of Orwell’s
1984.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0cm;">Julia is much more than the story of
her relationship with Winston Smith. We meet Julia as a child of well-off parents,
but then the parents get on the wrong side of Big Brother, and they are
banished to a special area zone. A zone full of proles and labour camps. But
with the help of her mother, Julia manages to get a job in the Ministry of
Truth. She is a mechanic whose main task is to keep the machines running in the
Fiction Department. A department that, among other things, rewrites novels and
poems to make them suit the Big Brother ethos. It is there that she meets
Winston Smith.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0cm;">Julia lives in a rundown dorm with
other unmarried women. It is very basic, just a bunk bed with a cupboard and
surrounded by telescreens to keep an eye on the women. The dorm has no showers,
and the toilets keep getting clogged. It is in a state of decay like the rest
of London, except for the Party areas. Apart from the failure to fix and clean
the infrastructure due to resources being spent on the ongoing war, many areas
of London have been bombed and continue to be bombed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0cm;">Julia is a product of her
environment. She keeps to herself, hardly trusting anyone. She hides her
occasional sexual activity, as unmarried sex is illegal. Like many, she pays
lip service to the plethora of Big Brother rules. She is definitely guilty of Wrong
Think as she pretends to display hate during the daily hate broadcasts. She puts
on a total front to the world. She is a strong woman whose sole aim is survival,
but she is also a victim of the society she lives in. She has no intention of
rebelling against Big Brother.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0cm;">On the other hand, Winston Smith is
full of secret bravo about taking on Big Brother. He seeks the truth and is
looking for a way to fight to achieve it. When they first meet, Julia thinks he
is somewhat naïve. She eventually sees him as someone totally deluded by
thoughts of a successful rebellion.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0cm;">The ending of the novel looked like
it was going to surprise, to leave the reader with hope for Julia, but that
hope is squashed under yet another boot.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0cm;">As I read the novel, I found myself
becoming paranoid about who might be watching me and how much of a performance everyone
is giving to me. That is the sort of effect this novel can have. It is an
excellent read, and really rams home the warning that we should be wary of
ceding our freedom to bright and shiny false hopes like Trump and Putin.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0cm;">I think Julia will be considered a
classic in the not-too-distant future. Either that, or it might be rewritten to
suit the authoritarian government of the day. I also would not be surprised if a
Big Brother of the future recommends school children read Julia so they will fear
the consequences of Wrong Think.</span></p>
<br />Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-31865514317478019772024-02-19T18:04:00.000-08:002024-02-19T18:08:12.300-08:00The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivkGCWRMqvLLR9w5irnqB8ndlJ9gyTHL2Yjl0kbJbxMnPsEDRTXGWO2beYbuuuMKQol4bA6urO6Hg3W9Vl0yJ1Mqv7df0cpdJUQGmVb8Dv2A5k0YpamEg8PtEkBGdM23SbKpd-2NnxAjTXrD3T9lp63CxepWmFJJ-G5CYMiB6iSGlkUL1nSxUUiKwLaCI/s475/264945.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="295" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivkGCWRMqvLLR9w5irnqB8ndlJ9gyTHL2Yjl0kbJbxMnPsEDRTXGWO2beYbuuuMKQol4bA6urO6Hg3W9Vl0yJ1Mqv7df0cpdJUQGmVb8Dv2A5k0YpamEg8PtEkBGdM23SbKpd-2NnxAjTXrD3T9lp63CxepWmFJJ-G5CYMiB6iSGlkUL1nSxUUiKwLaCI/s320/264945.jpg" width="199" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">The Terminal Experiment is a terrific science fiction thriller set in
what was the author’s near future. It was written in 1995 and set in 2011. The
novel has a prologue, so the reader knows that a murder is going to happen, and
a police officer is also going to be poisoned. <o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0cm;">The plot starts with a scientist, Dr Peter Hobson, accidently discovering
the electrical signature of a soul leaving a body. This discovery has all sorts
of implications for society. Some people suicide so their soul can go to a
better place, some go on health kicks as they fear where their soul might end
up. But this is only the beginning of Hobson’s experiments with the human mind.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0cm;">Hobson then teams up with another scientist to conduct an experiment
where copies of his mind are uploaded onto a computer. He alters two of the
copies in different ways and a third is a control copy. The experiments don’t
go as expected, with Hobson’s marital problems having an effect on them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0cm;">As mentioned, the novel was written in 1995, so it is interesting to see
what technology Sawyer has people using in 2011. Obviously, no one uploaded human
minds that functioned as such in 2011. And no one had tracked the human soul in
2011. But, for the most part, the technology is what it actually was like in
2011. Sawyer had a really good grasp of what the internet might be like. The
one major missing technology is mobile phones, with characters often having to
find a phone to use. Many of the phones did have video screens though.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0cm;">The novel has some wonderful speculations on what uploaded minds might
get up to. It also has some very interesting insights into how police can
manipulate the people they investigate. Sawyer seems to have a keen interest in
police procedures due to the nature of his novels, like Flash Forward.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0cm;">I have not read many “crime” novels set in the future, so reading The
Terminal Experiment was an enjoyable different read for me. It may be the type
of novel that introduces readers of crime fiction to science fiction. It is
very much a page-turner.</span></p>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-2244271811092716442024-02-12T17:34:00.000-08:002024-02-12T17:34:37.189-08:00The Glad Shout by Alice Robinson<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge-LqbH2Fv9q8sahR_Gw_8eRAKGr9Z8GXp-p_smwDw4e6-BfLKxqYMFYl1y3iny5yxWGRJG-z4HWDHtLbbOlVVz2MY16ADjj32PP4ApoJIpCrJQKZcFA_T6_uFo6GLQWE7ic0_ET8-uI-lKDbNjXNFk6RuwskkLEKI3_YgEYXtwwfwRhbPiL2GcP9AgXY/s263/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="192" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge-LqbH2Fv9q8sahR_Gw_8eRAKGr9Z8GXp-p_smwDw4e6-BfLKxqYMFYl1y3iny5yxWGRJG-z4HWDHtLbbOlVVz2MY16ADjj32PP4ApoJIpCrJQKZcFA_T6_uFo6GLQWE7ic0_ET8-uI-lKDbNjXNFk6RuwskkLEKI3_YgEYXtwwfwRhbPiL2GcP9AgXY/s1600/download.jpg" width="192" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">The Glad Shout is a novel that will shake many readers expectations
of their future prospects. It portrays a potential future for many of us,
especially those who live near the coast. The novel is set in 2045 after a
massive storm has flooded Melbourne, destroying much of the housing and
infrastructure, including power.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The story is about one family: Isobel, her three-year-old
daughter Margaret, and Shane her husband. It is told almost exclusively from
Isobel’s point of view. The family have just made their way out of the floodwaters
to higher ground in a sports stadium. It could be the MCG but that is never
made clear. It is supposed to be an evacuation centre but has limited supplies,
limited staff and virtually no communication with the outside world. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The family sets up a tent in the muddy stadium field. They
then wait to find out the extent of the damage to Melbourne and where they might
eventually be relocated to. There is a lot of tension in the camp. As the novel
is set in Australia, it fortunately lacks the American gun and gang culture. No
one tries to take control with guns as would happen in many similar American
novels. For the most part, the survivors still behave like they are part of a
continuing society that has order to it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">In between the story of Isobel and her family’s attempts to
survive, the novel explores her backstory. Isobel and her older brother, Josh,
were brought up by their mother, Luna, a real estate agent. To Isobel, Luna seemed
more concerned about having a house that looked like it belonged in a magazine
photoshoot than being a caring mother. Isobel frequently escaped to stay with
her bohemian grandmother who also lived in Melbourne. Her and Josh also
frequently holidayed at their grandfather’s small farm. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Through the backstory we learn that Isobel has had an emotionally
unfulfilling childhood. She longed for a mother who took more interest in her and
her brother. We also see the creeping effect of climate change, and how it
changed the character’s lives over the years. <br />
<br />
The plight of internal climate change refugees is one of the themes of the
novel. As climate change destroys the environment and the economy, more and
more people are displaced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
The novel is much more than a disaster story. It is about how a woman needs to
take control for her family to survive while exploring her fears, desires, concerns
for her child, and sense of abandonment, as well as her questioning whether she
could have done more to prepare for the disaster and climate change. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The story is written in first person and present tense, giving
it a real urgency. It is very well-written as it immerses the reader in the
main character’s life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is a fantastic novel that should scare climate change complacency
out of many of its readers. It should have them asking if it is even possible
to prepare for coming climate change disasters. It asks these questions while
exploring a woman’s life and the effects of her family on it. </span><o:p></o:p></p>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-17567792643081314882024-01-28T14:30:00.000-08:002024-01-28T18:35:09.551-08:00Review of Saha by Cho Nam-Joo<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXnQXKcMdVAU8CzWqzXepCjdQBT0QfAKdarAWZRYLFUWoUbHMlS8H6pc2ltkY8Vbsd1lpP2pAbxAGo5dcl8yI0Qn997vi8g4-S0Nn6kLEZ8o_72AMYepjZPVgMFdEGyi31tbUEaMoVnSOdIuNdJb_G0EX9b4seBUqHumK0dtLlL4kzKmxoH0jAPZXBThY/s500/978139851000520220719-4-ya8qwb.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="315" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXnQXKcMdVAU8CzWqzXepCjdQBT0QfAKdarAWZRYLFUWoUbHMlS8H6pc2ltkY8Vbsd1lpP2pAbxAGo5dcl8yI0Qn997vi8g4-S0Nn6kLEZ8o_72AMYepjZPVgMFdEGyi31tbUEaMoVnSOdIuNdJb_G0EX9b4seBUqHumK0dtLlL4kzKmxoH0jAPZXBThY/s320/978139851000520220719-4-ya8qwb.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>Saha is a dystopian novel set on a fictious Korean island
called Town. The island is completely corporatised. Everything is run by a company,
from education to health to the government. To survive in Town you have to be a
good corporate citizen. It is the sort of utopia someone like Elon Musk or Gina
Rinehart would idolise. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal">
The story is set around what was an abandoned housing tower complex, Saha, which
is now inhabited by dispossessed squatters. They have set up their own power
source, have a well for water, and a vegetable garden. They are tolerated by
the authorities as they can be used for menial labour. But they have no access
to any services, like medical, social security or educational services.
Charities don’t exist. The squatters are classified as non-citizens who are
left to fend for themselves. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The novel tells the story, in an episodic fashion, of the
inhabitants of Saha. It begins with Do-Kyung waking and vomiting, and then
finding Su dead in a car. We are not told what has happened as he flees. But the
novel is not a mystery. It is an examination of the lives of people who have
been abandoned by a totally corporatised society. A society, from what I have
read, that South Korea is not far from in reality. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Some of the characters have deformities, like the one-eyed
Sara. Some of the characters are fleeing persecution. One of the characters is used
for medical experimentation. Many of them have secrets. All of them hope for a
better life. All of them hope to one day become citizens of Town. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Saha is a novel that questions how the less fortunate are
treated in society and where neo-liberalism is taking us. This could be the western
world of the near future. It is probably close to the China of the present. It
is a brutal novel that could devastate a reader who is yet to realise how
harmful and uncaring capitalism is.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I found the writing good, but a bit stilted to begin with. I
think the style of writing emphasises the uncaring nature of the society and how
the novel’s characters are not able to participate in it. <br /><br />I really enjoyed the novel and will be looking up more of Cho Nam-Joo's writing. I really cared about the characters and what happened to them. I recommend this book to any readers who have a social conscience. </p><p class="MsoNormal">
[Spoiler alert] The ending is ambiguous. I took it to mean that the characters find
no one to attack or blame for their plight, just a faceless corporation. <o:p></o:p></p>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-86321938827819729592024-01-18T19:49:00.000-08:002024-01-18T19:54:18.904-08:00Review of HG Wells' War of the Worlds.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXot1_3F5kEJKaWXPTtWWYtN4WNyKrOJ-bA6xLtz0jH_1Jsm_wFEhuexF5xPpE0TTg2rwP-htAEWVCJej0udue2oMgq4KLbezOHR-S_urmJOGR5vb-CKh8JP3BqLS5y2kRsrNXYLqx4DI4plWSKJO6rVjeTYt2h1JZPwfNw4v2o2CiSTyYQM1_jDuj9M4/s475/80935.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXot1_3F5kEJKaWXPTtWWYtN4WNyKrOJ-bA6xLtz0jH_1Jsm_wFEhuexF5xPpE0TTg2rwP-htAEWVCJej0udue2oMgq4KLbezOHR-S_urmJOGR5vb-CKh8JP3BqLS5y2kRsrNXYLqx4DI4plWSKJO6rVjeTYt2h1JZPwfNw4v2o2CiSTyYQM1_jDuj9M4/s320/80935.jpg" width="199" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal">I read War of the Worlds after seeing it on a list of
subversive novels. It is a novel that attempted to get its readers to question
the British invasion of countries and the way it treated their indigenous
populations. Wells wrote it in part as a response to how the British
slaughtered Aborigines in Tasmania. The War of the Worlds is an allegory of the
conquest of a primitive society by technologically sophisticated colonists with
no respect for the indigenous culture.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The novel is narrated by a philosopher and amateur
astronomer. He is one of the first to notice that something is happening on
Mars, and then the first alien spacecraft lands not far from his house in an English
common. He goes to investigate. At first the spacecraft, which just looks like
a huge cylinder, gives nothing away of what it might contain or its purpose.
People gather to gawk at it and contemplate what it might be. It then opens,
and the war for humanity’s survival gradually begins. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The novel contains a lot of extended war and action scenes,
with small sections of contemplation of what the Martians are up to and why.
Humanity attempts to fight back but, like the inhabitants of many countries the
English invaded, are totally outgunned by the Martian technology. The narrator
spends much of his time fighting despair as he sees human resistance to the
Martians fail. He is on the run for much of the story. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The POV character changes for a few chapters to the
narrator’s brother who is, along with thousands of Londoners, trying to find
somewhere safe to flee. Only then do some slightly useful female characters
appear. Their main role in the novel is basically to be placed somewhere safe
and out of the way, or to scream. They are not deemed likely of doing anything
productive to defeat the Martians. One memorable line, “He was as lacking in
restraint as a silly woman”, emphasises the role Wells thinks women would play
in such a war. His writing is a product on its time, 1895.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The novel also takes a swipe at religion, where people
hopelessly pray to be saved, rather than try to do some productive to save
themselves. The narrator gets trapped with a curate (a vicar or priest) for a
few days. His religious rants do none of them any benefit.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The novel is written in the style of someone telling you what they experienced
after the event. Wells curiously breaks the fourth wall every now and then by
referring directly to the “reader”. If you were not aware of the outcome of the
novel, this would tell you that the narrator survived. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Overall, with its anti-imperialism sentiment, the novel
appears to be subversive for its time when Royal Britannia wanted to rule the
world, no matter what the cost. I very much enjoyed reading the novel and it
deserves to be the renowned classic of science fiction and literature it is. I
will be reading more of Wells’ novels. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-17530262022451388952023-01-31T17:59:00.013-08:002024-02-22T18:34:53.884-08:00Review of Clarie G. Coleman's Terra Nullius<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvnhX3sr2MbVaU7bQyIkXw_96sBN2AP87fhcs0gdYCHiSMPZTgMbnZioXrUjfrxti-OJIP9LkxONwjIUF_or-sgMrRtteViKAabj1jNaw-i9B2yckkIjK8V24Ywlvx1P5psO72_-QU59gv3l47YkFmh_mhSGd-LFAPkP5nCDMIg2YH72Yck9Yco_iM/s202/images.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="202" data-original-width="136" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvnhX3sr2MbVaU7bQyIkXw_96sBN2AP87fhcs0gdYCHiSMPZTgMbnZioXrUjfrxti-OJIP9LkxONwjIUF_or-sgMrRtteViKAabj1jNaw-i9B2yckkIjK8V24Ywlvx1P5psO72_-QU59gv3l47YkFmh_mhSGd-LFAPkP5nCDMIg2YH72Yck9Yco_iM/s1600/images.jpg" width="136" /></a></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Having read Claire
G. Coleman’s The Old Lie, I knew she was an Indigenous Australian who wrote
science fiction that commented on historical and present-day treatment of
Indigenous Australians. When I started reading her earlier novel Terra Nullius,
I was immediately looking for science fiction elements.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The novel starts as
if set in the outback of 19th century Australia. It has a few main characters
and constantly switches point of view between them. They include Jacky who is
on the run from his "master". Then we have a heartless nun in charge
of a mission. She thinks the “natives”, who have been stolen from their
families and placed under her dubious care, are sub-human and not worthy of her
time. Another character is Johnny, a trooper who has deserted after
participating in a massacre of natives. There are a few other main characters
but describing them will spoil the plot of the novel. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The first half of
the novel really reminded me of the horrors that have been inflicted on
Indigenous Australians by their colonisers including: Indigenous Australians
dying on mass from diseases the colonisers introduced, the stealing of their
land, the use of natives as slave labour, the massacres of tribes, the stealing
of children from their parents and attempts to re-educate them into the white
man’s ways, the introduction of alcohol and its devastating effects on
Indigenous Australians, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It seemed like the
perfect book to be reading on Australia Day, or Survival Day as many Indigenous
Australians call it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As a reader of
science fiction, I was wondering about the lack of descriptions of certain
characters, and the lack of wildlife. The “mounts” the troopers rode as they
chased Jacky were not described. So, I began to wonder where and when the novel
was set. About halfway through the reader finds out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I found the
narrative gripping and emotionally engaging as I hoped that the “natives”, as
the colonisers called them, would survive. But I knew they were no match for
the weapons and other technology of their colonisers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When reading
Australian science fiction my interest always picks up when indigenous
characters appear as they are rare. When in the hands of white authors, they
tend to win in the end. This is probably a result of the guilt white
Australians have about what has happened and is still happening to Indigenous
Australians. Whereas, Indigenous Australian authors view their future, from my
limited reading, as continuing the fight for survival. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The manuscript and
novel deservedly won awards was short-listed for many others, like the Stella
Prize.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Terra Nullius is
one of the best novels I have read by an Australian science fiction author.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><br /><p></p>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-58699206487718571202023-01-15T15:24:00.009-08:002023-03-23T17:56:01.039-07:00Review of Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIKvc4FqYtz63zdCIK92vK6fx37mew-uDevU-KQSM40c5RLp391O0sf49xPBsaKZQKXdsoEeiS6c7X-tOjgiaokNjFrUOFLM46_xUmupJn-Euf3NNaJt2LHNU0w3ZkIqOGlFJ1_3yKji45YMHIU0-BDvAKXXZ_dAcJ64eUqwVoKQ4FF9FYrYCLX-pi/s225/download2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="145" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIKvc4FqYtz63zdCIK92vK6fx37mew-uDevU-KQSM40c5RLp391O0sf49xPBsaKZQKXdsoEeiS6c7X-tOjgiaokNjFrUOFLM46_xUmupJn-Euf3NNaJt2LHNU0w3ZkIqOGlFJ1_3yKji45YMHIU0-BDvAKXXZ_dAcJ64eUqwVoKQ4FF9FYrYCLX-pi/s1600/download2.jpg" width="145" /></a></div><p><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ancillary Mercy is
the third and final novel in Ann Leckie’s award winning </span><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" style="background: black; color: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Imperial Radch series. The novels are about the adventures of
Breq an Ancillary who was connected to a ship that was destroyed. An Ancillary is a
human who has been turned into an AI and has their consciousness connected to a
ship. They can access its data and see and hear what all other Ancillaries are
experiencing. They will do whatever the ship’s captain commands them to do.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
<br />
The third novel starts where the second novel finished. Breq is still the
nominated fleet commander of the Athoek system and is located on its space
station. She is trying to fix the station’s undergarden area which was damaged
in the previous novel, as well as fix the station’s complex politics. She has
to deal with the agendas of an uncooperative system governor and power hungry
religious leader. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; background: black; color: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Her attempts at fixing the station are interrupted
when an envoy from the all-conquering Presger arrives to survey humans and to
see whether they have broken the “treaty” between the two races. The envoy’s arrival
is then complicated by unknown warships appearing in the system. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; background: black; color: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This novel is about Breq’s attempt
to create a more merciful local system where even the AIs, like the Ancillaries, that run the ships and the station, get to decide their own fates. She wants them to have the choices that
she now has as an Ancillary who has been cut off from her destroyed ship. She
also wants the indigenous population of Athoek to control their future. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; background: black; color: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the most intriguing features of
the novels is the fact that Breq cannot differentiate between female and male,
so she refers to every character as “she”, which creates a viewpoint character
who does not bring gender into the power dynamics between the characters she
deals with. Leckie leaves it to the reader to add genders to characters if they
want to. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; background: black; color: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I very much enjoyed this novel as it
attempted to bring the series to a conclusion, but there were still plenty of
loose ends at its conclusion for a fourth novel to explore. It’s probably not as
good as the first two novels, as the first was huge on world building, and the
second was more about Breq attempting to redefine herself, but still an
excellent read. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: white; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p style="background-color: black;"> </o:p></span></p>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-52093138364343908902023-01-03T22:09:00.005-08:002023-03-23T17:46:18.100-07:00Review of Us and Them by Anthony J Langford. <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwilPw7y8ta4_5D5BLAu_RmKoKnyJ9g3u3BbvT1X9fbqWaQlw1w4ZtnaFYizt3FzAvj1MNSi4hjn90BNQMOLc5VSeNb5ELrmEaLD9C7zx1QVV4DtciRmfh8BCONAFPNe_O-v1f-9J-WJO0mAIBgUqqpi-vyAMxBAUc36-OtM6u3fBm0oSaks_M6aOe/s446/US%20&%20THEM-GOODREADS%20WEBREADY-EBOOK-COVER.webp" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="287" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwilPw7y8ta4_5D5BLAu_RmKoKnyJ9g3u3BbvT1X9fbqWaQlw1w4ZtnaFYizt3FzAvj1MNSi4hjn90BNQMOLc5VSeNb5ELrmEaLD9C7zx1QVV4DtciRmfh8BCONAFPNe_O-v1f-9J-WJO0mAIBgUqqpi-vyAMxBAUc36-OtM6u3fBm0oSaks_M6aOe/s320/US%20&%20THEM-GOODREADS%20WEBREADY-EBOOK-COVER.webp" width="206" /></a></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Us and Them is a collection of short stories and poems that
will open up your heart to the lives of others and especially the mind of its
author Anthony J Langford. The collection will have you thinking about how you
interact with others, and had this reader vowing to be more open to what might
be going on in other people’s lives. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">About half of the stories are autobiographical scenes from
the author’s life, giving an insight into events that have influenced the
person he has become. They illustrate his quest for adventure and his genuine desire
to understand other people. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">But among that desire to open up, it is a book of regrets,
of things not said and done. In one story he is haunted by a girl crying on the streets of
New York and his failure to ask her what is wrong, like all the other people
who walked past her. As he says in one of his poems: It is always worth it, To
reach out, Even if it doesn’t go well. The collection also ponders aging and
its effect on us. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">It is a book about someone looking back at their life and
contemplating what he could have done better. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Collectively, the poems and stories had me contemplating how
well I have lived my own life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></p>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-10032279154642684022022-12-22T02:40:00.004-08:002022-12-22T02:43:17.504-08:00Review of The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, by Richard Flanagan<p><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVqIueSm_U3nmVI1D1iOhbrCP0pn_L5LwPf8SuErO_h0c3H3Ydj3LM5Adql37F7IXhXGoLjR4tJHOXw3FJfd8SwPs4yOQRb-zkMKRD4rn3RHJpHPvrIt2OdnsOeix3XbplBjTkEAy0YuBZ_w-AdgCyUhSvhPaIuVhyvrUR7yLxEnE0hyoo8gp6tqFl/s224/images.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="224" data-original-width="224" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVqIueSm_U3nmVI1D1iOhbrCP0pn_L5LwPf8SuErO_h0c3H3Ydj3LM5Adql37F7IXhXGoLjR4tJHOXw3FJfd8SwPs4yOQRb-zkMKRD4rn3RHJpHPvrIt2OdnsOeix3XbplBjTkEAy0YuBZ_w-AdgCyUhSvhPaIuVhyvrUR7yLxEnE0hyoo8gp6tqFl/s1600/images.jpg" width="224" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The Living Sea of Waking Dreams is about a dying mother, Francie, and the efforts of her adult children to keep her alive, even though she wants to die. The children have lost the ability to communicate with each other, and are out to show they have the power, at least in the case of Anna and Terzo, to keep their mother alive. While Tommy, a failed artist who was looking after Francie, just acquiesces to the will of his other two siblings. </span></span></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The novel is also about our dying planet, particularly from climate change, as animals go extinct We say we care, but do little to prevent the unfolding disaster. The novel is set in Tasmania while bushfires rage throughout that state and the rest of Australia. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">Anna is the main protaganist, a successful architect, who rather than face her mother's pain, her crap relationship with her son, or the raging climate around her, retreats into social media. Frequently forwarding articles she has not read to her friends, showing how she avoids taking responsibility for what is going on by keeping herself uninformed and deferring action to others. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The novel has magic realism elements, which work. Other reviewers have likened it to The Corrections, by Jonathon Franzen, a novel I really enjoyed. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">There is a lot going on in the The Living Sea of Waking Dreams. I was particularly interested in it as I have an elderly mother the same age as Francie, who's mental capacity and stamania has been declining in the past few months after a fall, and I wonder how I would respond if she, like Francie lying in a hospital bed in pain, requested the last rites. Would I have the courage of my convinctions to let her pass. It's a bit how the father with dementia drew me into The Corrections as my Father was battling dementia when I read it. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">But then the climate change and the destruction to the planet, and my feeble attempts to do something about it come to the fore. I hope this novel will get me doing more. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The Living Sea of Waking Dreams is a novel that will get you thinking as it brings to the surface your guilt and fears. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">It is an utterly compelling read.</span></p><div class="big450BoxBody" style="background-repeat: repeat-y; font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><div class="big450BoxContent" style="overflow: hidden; width: 430px;"><div id="review-like" style="float: right; margin-top: 8px; text-align: right;"></div><div id="review-follow" style="margin-top: 8px;"></div></div></div>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-57577498774987680832022-11-19T16:30:00.001-08:002022-11-19T16:39:09.086-08:00Back with more posts soon<p>I haven't posted for a while due to work and before that study and I now have long covid, but I hope to reverse that trend and start posting book reviews once more and information about writing. </p>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-807599490413837492021-02-22T13:50:00.001-08:002021-02-22T13:50:26.955-08:00Quick review of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43263237-the-future-of-another-timeline" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Future of Another Timeline" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1550000245l/43263237._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43263237-the-future-of-another-timeline">The Future of Another Timeline</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/191888.Annalee_Newitz">Annalee Newitz</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3468870212">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Occurs in a universe where there are six mounds of rock that when hit in the right combination allow time-travel througout earth's history. They are well known and time geologists use them all the time to not only view history but edit it. This is different from most time-travel stories where the characters are usually worried about changing history and causing unexpected results. They can't make massive instantenous changes (like killing Hitler) to history, the changes have to be slow, like planting a seed of a thought in a person's mind. In this version of the timeline the supression of women is slowly being increased, but a group of women are fighting back by editing the timeline. Learnt a bit about a few historical figures like Anthony Comstock, a special agent in the 1890's who was allowed to read every suspected liberated women's mail and arrest them for anything he deemed obsecene. The book has a parallel story going of the teenage life (in the 90's) of one of the main characters. The novel did peter out a bit at the end, but overall a good read.
<br /><br /><br />Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-48274377966202190552021-01-05T21:47:00.003-08:002021-01-07T22:12:54.300-08:00Novels I read last year. <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6dir0HHr560LCIvmnzMP4EXmzM-zMRqrVv_nBnx3_0KWd_HQKYvXs51jGp0Y8e2sQwrc5NxeTuGseFcgdjhOgk2Pa7NN6Jgs3Oc-mIVAr7eTDOPaaXH0J1TuJtaRJFqaEd-IqcU_RW-g/s275/download-_3_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6dir0HHr560LCIvmnzMP4EXmzM-zMRqrVv_nBnx3_0KWd_HQKYvXs51jGp0Y8e2sQwrc5NxeTuGseFcgdjhOgk2Pa7NN6Jgs3Oc-mIVAr7eTDOPaaXH0J1TuJtaRJFqaEd-IqcU_RW-g/s0/download-_3_.jpg" /></a></div><br />It has been a while since I posted anything. I was way too busy last year to regularly post (I started up a web design business on March 19 -<a href="http://www.wangwebdesign.com" target="_blank">Wangaratta Website Design Services</a> - and before that I did a six week intensive NEIS course on how to start and run a business). I had many long weeks of work, working late into the night some nights and on the weekends. But I still managed to read 17 novels by setting aside a couple of hours on three nights a week to read. Here's what I read: <p></p><p>1. Purity, Jonathan Frazen </p><p>2. Testaments, Margaret Atwood</p><p>3. The Drowned World, JG Ballard</p><p>4. The Wall, John Lanchester</p><p>5. The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu</p><p>6. The Narrow Road To The Deep North, Richard Flanagan</p><p>7. The Old Lie, Claire G Coleman</p><p>8. Engine Summer, John Crowley</p><p>9. Wake, Elizabeth Knox</p><p>10. Clade, James Bradley</p><p>11. Aurora, Kim Stanley Robinson</p><p>12. The Affirmation, Christopher Priest</p><p>13. The Swan Book, Alexis Wright</p><p>14. Pattern Recognition, William Gibson</p><p>15. Lone Wolf World, Anthony J Langford</p><p>16. Embassytown, China Meiville</p><p>17. All Clear, Connie Willis.</p><p>While many of the books were science fiction written by white guys, there is some diversity in the list. Two of the novels were written by Indigenous Australians about Indigenous Australians - The Swan Book and The Old Lie. The Swan book is a very challenging read as it has a narrator whose life is nearly totally detached from reality. The authors came from: </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Australia (5)</li><li>Canada (1)</li><li>China (1)</li><li>New Zealand (1)</li><li>US (6)</li><li>UK (3)</li></ul><div>The best of the novels were The Three-Body Problem - with its unique take on first contact with aliens, A Narrow Road To The Deep North - a harrowing prisoner of war story that reeked of authenticity, Testaments - Atwoods sequel to the Handmaid's Tale which wrapped up all the loose ends, Affirmation - a ride through what is and isn't reality, Wake - a horror story set under a supernatural dome in a New Zealand seaside township. Embassytown - where language mistakes have bizzare consquences when communicating with aliens, and Lone World World narrated by a delusional psychopath who is full of wit and dark observations about the world. </div><div><br /></div><div>This year, like last year, my aim is to read 24 novels. </div><div><br /></div><div>Good reading to you. </div><div><br /></div><p></p>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-35267159812809567782020-02-29T22:08:00.002-08:002020-03-01T14:58:38.653-08:00Review of Margaret Atwood's The Testaments<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLlOjna3BL3L1xwqiZSnqb8F_axFmcveluusgv_d-zDIrRk0NaV6nNIdWbD0IBL6MSl0m0Jwr9gt2wt0KkLUqeGvwW84ggxI4I6apJQoc-9QQzpUPk9Q4eU1mDIlaLaF6aHnPJf8-LnE4/s1600/thetestaments.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1050" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLlOjna3BL3L1xwqiZSnqb8F_axFmcveluusgv_d-zDIrRk0NaV6nNIdWbD0IBL6MSl0m0Jwr9gt2wt0KkLUqeGvwW84ggxI4I6apJQoc-9QQzpUPk9Q4eU1mDIlaLaF6aHnPJf8-LnE4/s320/thetestaments.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Unless you only get your
news from a Donald Trump authorised news source, you’d <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>know that <i>The Testaments</i> is Margaret
Atwood’s recently released sequel to <i>The Handmaids Tale</i>. I loved <i>The
Handmaid’s Tale</i> when I first read it a few decades ago. It had great world
building and created a believable brutal vision of a right-wing theocracy in an
almost post-apocalyptic US (Gilead). I re-read <i>The Handmaid’s Tale</i> about
a year and a half ago for a university course, where we studied the text in-depth,
so it was still relatively fresh in my mind as I read <i>The Testaments.</i> I
have not watched any of <i>The Handmaid’s Tale </i>television series, so maybe
people who have will have made different connections to <i>The Testaments</i> than
I did, and have different reactions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Testaments</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> takes us back to Gilead 16 years after <i>The
Handmaid’s Tale</i>. It tells the story from three points of view. From that of
a 16 year-old-teenager whose mother escaped with her from Gilead to Canada when
she was a baby. One of the four head Aunts who is complicit in imposing the
strict regime of oppression on the women of Gilead is the second storyteller. The
final storyteller is a teenager who has grown up in Gilead and flees an attempted
arranged marriage to wind up joining the Aunts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The story has a plot,
which is not fully explained by the author. Atwood leaves it up to the reader
to work out why some things happen rather than have one of the characters tell
the reader why she is doing something. For example, I wondered why the Aunt chooses
a particular courier to secretly transfer documents out of Gilead. A reader looking
for plot holes might think they had found one as it took me a while to figure
out the reasons that particular courier was chosen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The novel switches back
and forth from each point of view, but unlike many novels that use this
technique, I wasn’t regretting the frequent change of viewpoint as I was keen
to find out more of that person’s story. This indicates that all the story lines
were equally important and not dominated by one main story line with interrupting
subplots. The plot cohesively enveloped the whole novel. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I found the novel a
real page-turner and read its 400 pages in five sittings, which is very quick
for me. I particularly enjoyed discovering more about how Gilead came into
being and the origins and motivations of the original Aunts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Testaments’</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> words flow off the page. Atwood is very much a writer
who writes for readers. She would rather impress with her ideas, themes and story
than with the cleverness of her word usage. I have read four of her other
novels, including the excellent <i>Maddaddam</i> trilogy, so she is one of my
favourite authors. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Testaments</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> has a much more definite ending than the somewhat
ambiguous ending of <i>The Handmaid’s Tale</i>. Overall, I think <i>The
Testaments</i> is an excellent end to the world of Gilead, but it is not as
good as <i>The Handmaid’s Tale</i> as it created Gilead and the belief system imposed
on the people there. I think <i>The Handmaid’s Tale</i> would have been a more
worthy winner of the Booker Prize. But <i>The Testaments</i> is still a great
novel, from a great writer of speculative fiction. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-49375653397108150012020-01-26T01:11:00.000-08:002020-01-26T16:02:55.013-08:00Review of Jonathan Franzen's Purity. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzclNQ2Gf8XbmE6uOCZORxraF1r4mr5AhJWcNbJ0DYKlIF5VP88qyftPMTqhsj5OTgk-ypUVhPlB75RWljICjYzBCVgVO3SllnkN8v7Lnr-2EDL1GiWVMdBYXeIZq5FGS4Es3ZazRYGv0/s1600/purity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="832" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzclNQ2Gf8XbmE6uOCZORxraF1r4mr5AhJWcNbJ0DYKlIF5VP88qyftPMTqhsj5OTgk-ypUVhPlB75RWljICjYzBCVgVO3SllnkN8v7Lnr-2EDL1GiWVMdBYXeIZq5FGS4Es3ZazRYGv0/s320/purity.jpg" width="208" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Although this blog is mainly about science fiction, I sometimes read pure literature just to see what the other side is up. Jonathon Franzen is one of my favourite non-genre authors and here is a review of Purity, which I just finished reading. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Purity is literature with a plot. The plot revolves
around secrets with the two main secrets being Purity’s search for the
identity of her father, and the cover-up of a murder. The novel follows four
main characters: Purity, Andreas Wolf, Tom and Leila. Purity is a recent
university graduate in search of journalism job. She was raised by a controlling,
but loving, mother who always got her own way and would argue for
hours about the most trivial matters. Andreas Wolf is modelled on Julian
Assange, complete with his own version of Wikileaks. Wolf was raised in East
Germany and was a reluctant escapee when the wall came down as East Germany
was a seemingly perfect place to keep his secrets. Tom is the owner and editor of
an investigative journal. While Leila is a hard-nosed reporter who works for Tom. They are lovers, even though she is married. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When Pip is offered a job by Wolf that requires her to relocate
to his secret base in Bolivia, the lives of the four main characters go from
circling each other to intermingling. But each of them is so caught up in their
own sense of what is morally right they find it hard, in some cases impossible,
to share their lives with others. While Franzen's critically acclaimed novel <i>The
Corrections</i> was all about people trying to hide their true selves from the
world, in <i>Purity</i> the characters, for the most part, are controlled by secrets. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As usual, Franzen divides the novel into lengthy sections
told from one of the four character’s points of view. So Franzen spends a lot
of time in the heads of his characters as they attempt to justify what they are
doing while reminiscing on what they have done. I particularly found Andreas
Wolf’s life as a church councillor in East Germany compelling as he tried to
keep under the radar of the Stasi, even though his father was a high ranking
East German official. When Andreas "escapes" from East Germany, his secret ensures
he is never free. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But the story revolves around Purity and her search for
the identity of her father. Her strict upbringing by her mother and lack of a
father leaves her longing for a father figure. This leads to a desire for a
relationship with older men, be it the older married man living in her share
house, or perhaps Andreas Wolf, or... While searching for her father and love,
she leads an otherwise aimless existence ruled by cynicism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I very much enjoyed being in the heads of the main
characters. Their search for an ethical meaning to life had me often contemplating my own
machinations on life. As I read, I pondered the possible consequences of their secrets being
exposed and was frequently surprised with what happened. While not in the same
class as <i>The Corrections</i>, <i>Purity</i> is a very entertaining and thought provoking
read. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-64057029602606968262020-01-06T19:14:00.015-08:002021-01-05T23:03:04.162-08:00I'm back.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMpO2eSzcFHJEqvOAVmX9H7xxCEsUj_oL1v-VUls5mDqxY_FtucGlJvBpq58bsb0wzhme1vNGZX4lrNNUSyF4sItsxtNi-P66xb01tJWR5R3Y73AbgMw0PX6qHSnedwPP91DDf_cxsKKU/s720/blackbannerfacebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="720" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMpO2eSzcFHJEqvOAVmX9H7xxCEsUj_oL1v-VUls5mDqxY_FtucGlJvBpq58bsb0wzhme1vNGZX4lrNNUSyF4sItsxtNi-P66xb01tJWR5R3Y73AbgMw0PX6qHSnedwPP91DDf_cxsKKU/s320/blackbannerfacebook.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p class="MsoNormal">Hi everyone,</p><p class="MsoNormal">It’s been a while since I posted, I have been busy, sick and slack. I plan to
write a few more blog posts this year. As usual they will be mainly about
writing and science fiction, concentrating on apocalyptic and time-travel
fiction. But first a bit of a summary of 2019, my annus horribilis.<br />
<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">
2019</h4><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br />
2019 started with my finishing three very challenging years of study with a BA
in Internet Communications in early March. The degree was easily the hardest
study I had done. Way harder than my Master of Creative Writing. I think its
difficulty was due to the combination of doing web-design subjects, (I had
virtually no knowledge of even html) and getting used to the “Arts” way of
thinking, with its huge emphasis on well researched and argued essays. Due to
the nature of the degree, I also had to learn many software packages and web
platforms, like video editing software to create video mashups for assignments.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
I should have been happy when I completed my degree, as I did extremely well,
getting distinctions or high-distinctions for all of its 24 subjects. But, unfortunately
I had developed a health problem over the three final months of my degree
called diabetic lumbosacral plexopathy (what an imposing name). Basically, I
had neglected my diabetes due to the degree being full on, with no breaks
between 13 week study periods for three years.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
I had managed to keep up my extensive exercise regime (well I think it was
extensive), which included swimming 3ks three times a week, weights three times
a week, 5k walks four times a week, exercises four times a week. But my blood
sugar had stayed high due to neglecting my diet and sleep (lack of sleep raises
a person’s blood sugar) while doing the degree. As a result, the plexopathy
caused my right knee to give way without warning while standing or walking on
five or six occasions. I had lost a lot of weight, mainly in the form of
muscle, like my bum (the biggest muscle in the body, I think) shrank, even
though it was not that noteworthy beforehand. My weight dropped to 72ks. But
thankfully, after a neurologist set me on a course of immunoglobin infusions,
and I started exercises from a physio, as well as getting my blood sugar under
control, I am not falling over anymore and regaining my strength. My
neurologist said I was one of the quickest to recover from the condition.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
During the months it took to be diagnosed and then heal, I was concerned the
left leg would suffer the same fate as the right and then I wouldn’t be able to
walk anymore. I was using a walking stick for months and walking very stiff
legged and slowly. I also was not sleeping, with worry about my health
combining with totally stuffed up sleep patterns from my degree (I had
frequently worked into the early morning at night.) So, the first three
quarters of 2019 was one big health problem.<br />
<br />
Eventually I improved. I am now starting to set up my own web-design business,
another big challenge. I am currently working on the website for it, and on
proposal for a website for a potential client, having already submitted a
proposal for another website for the same client. I am also set to do a NEIS
course, starting next week (bushfires permitting), where I learn a bit about
setting up a business and I am subsidised by the government for its first nine
months. <br />
<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">
Reading in 2019</h4>
<br />
During my degree I read a total of four fiction books, and all were for some
writing electives I had done. Otherwise all my reading time was taken up with
hundreds of research papers and a few text books. But once my degree finished
in March, I started reading fiction again. A total of ten novels for the year,
nine of them were science fiction, with the best being The Windup
Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, set in a near future Thailand in a world lacking
traditional energy resources and suffering from climate change and famine. The
Thais were trying to prevent the destruction of their traditional food sources
from multinational genetic food corporations. The title of the novel refers to
a much abused clone. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8661117100748148070/6405702960260696826">I
reviewed it in a previous post. <br />
</a> <br />
The second best was This is How the World Ends, by James Morrow, which is
part of the Masterworks series of classic science fiction novels. It’s a weird
Phillip K. Dick type novel, set after the world has been destroyed in a nuclear
war, where six survivors are put on trial for their part in causing the war in
a court made up of people from the future who never lived due to the war
(huh?).<br />
<br /><h4 style="text-align: left;">
Writing in 2019</h4>
<br />
I did very little writing during my degree, but my word count increased after I
finished it. It is still nowhere near enough. I am currently about two-thirds
of the way through the second draft of a apocalyptic science fiction novel that
is just getting bigger and bigger as I get wrapped up in exploring the inner
thoughts and fears of my main character. I am going to have to cut, slash and
obliterate in the third draft as it risks ballooning out to 200,000 words.<br />
<br /><h4 style="text-align: left;">
2020</h4>
<br />
I plan to do a lot more writing this year as well as reading and fill this blog
with insightful reviews of the novels I have read as well as tidbits about
science, science fiction and writing.<o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><br /><p></p>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-55242057956606504322019-09-08T23:58:00.001-07:002019-09-08T23:59:02.210-07:00Review of A Refugee's Rage by Anthony J Langford<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0CPYF_G1FN-ZFMIrN4Huw479NLfLBV33AXIFWM_QTr-0sTuZCcrAWfHbTMUVEVetzuWdheEvF9eAaW6L8L678xw2M-j1dC-QYhcElluTkVj_cZO9tSmTGQ3Pn_AQaHPx2OhyphenhyphenuYwOKqrA/s1600/a+refugees+rage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0CPYF_G1FN-ZFMIrN4Huw479NLfLBV33AXIFWM_QTr-0sTuZCcrAWfHbTMUVEVetzuWdheEvF9eAaW6L8L678xw2M-j1dC-QYhcElluTkVj_cZO9tSmTGQ3Pn_AQaHPx2OhyphenhyphenuYwOKqrA/s1600/a+refugees+rage.jpg" /></a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2961369315">4 of 5 stars</a><br />
<br />
I very much enjoyed being challenged in my thinking by the two novellas in this collection. It contains two very different stories: Caught Between Love and Loss, and the title story, A Refugee’s Rage.<br />
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Caught Between Love and Loss<br />
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This story starts out as if it is going to be a story about Richard, a guy who buys a block of land in the bush and decides to build a house on it, but then gradually becomes a story about his girlfriend, Rachel, as she struggles to define what her relationship with Richard is. Is he just a lover? Perhaps a potential long-term boyfriend? Is she in love with him? Or is she just in love with the idea of building a house and living in a beautiful rural Australia setting? The house becomes a metaphor for their relationship as the reader wonders whether it will ever be complete. The story tugs at the heart as you hope they can find a way to really connect. <br />
<br />
A Refugee’s Rage<br />
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In contrast to the first story, A Refugees Rage is a very angry story. It is the story of a sixteen-year-old Romanian refugee, Alexlandru, in Rome. He has had to look after himself for most of his life and will do anything to survive. He is a volatile character who readily resorts to violence to survive. The story is written in the first person so the reader sees the world almost exclusively through the eyes of someone who is not only a refugee in a foreign land, but in many ways a refugee from society. One day he meets a Syrian refugee, Ara, and the story revolves around their attempts to survive and whether his desire to survive will allow him to develop a relationship with her. <br />
<br />
The linking factor between the stories is, I think, that both main characters are searching for a place in life. The writing is excellent and frequently poetic (Anthony J. Langford has authored a few books of poetry). <br />
<br />
I thoroughly recommend the stories in this book as they will engage the reader while taking them out of their comfort zone. <br />
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3425850-graham-clements">View all my reviews</a>
Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-41344295325140193582019-07-28T19:14:00.000-07:002019-07-28T19:14:10.626-07:00Quick review of The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6597651-the-windup-girl" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Windup Girl" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1278940608l/6597651._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6597651-the-windup-girl">The Windup Girl</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1226977.Paolo_Bacigalupi">Paolo Bacigalupi</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2823903084">5 of 5 stars</a><br />
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Amazing world building, peopled with very flawed characters who are mostly looking out for just themselves. The novel is set in a future Thailand in a world that is near apocalyptic as it deals with climate change and rising sea levels, running out of fossil fuels, and famines caused by diseases attacking genetically engineered crops. Thailand is a holdout from food conglomerates who want to introduce their genetically engineered crops into the kingdom and get access to the Thai seedbank which the Thai's have used to create crops that are disease resistant. Add to this mix are windup people or clones, servants that have been create with jerky movements, hence the term wind-up. The plot has four main strings, a battle between the trade ministry, who want to open up Thailand to the overseas food conglomerates, and the environmental ministry who don't. The second plot revolves around a conglomerate agent's attempts to access the seedbank. A third plot is the plight of a windup girl who has been abandoned to degrading work in a brothel and her attempts to escape her predicament. And the final plot is that of a Chinese Malay who escaped slaughter in his own country and is attempting, through dubious means, to survive as a despised foreigner in Thailand. All the stories intertwine and the novel comes to a satisfying conclusion.
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Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-28144251756470437592019-03-03T18:11:00.005-08:002019-03-03T18:13:37.131-08:00Quick review of When the Floods Came.<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28210888-when-the-floods-came" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="When the Floods Came" border="0" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1450187306m/28210888.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28210888-when-the-floods-came">When the Floods Came</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/167306.Clare_Morrall">Clare Morrall</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2737357355">3 of 5 stars</a><br />
<br />
Very well written, and an imaginative take on a future and how people might behave. It is set in England where a virus has wiped out most of the population and a few people live in isolated pockets using technology that is slowly running down. The main focus is a family that lives by themselves in an large apartment block. The story is told from the POV of a twenty something female. Children and people that age are rare. The story centres around her waiting for her finance (who she has never meet in real life, all their interactions have been on the web) to arrive, by bike - there are no cars or pods still running, while a mysterious stranger turns up, is he good or evil? The plot is not fabulous, but the story is more about how a family that has been cut off from physical interaction with others copes with this new worldly stranger and the world he introduces them too.
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Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-21492925528577534232017-07-29T16:10:00.002-07:002017-07-29T16:11:34.851-07:00<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
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<i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcFimxKi52Kc7YVPHwE3GfI9ali8jHqeW8xLh_QIeHbRfancmKhM3d9yiyU0MWOGERJHyidGX8VPgjKVClZ3RKwhTifJc0mlI1Yae9Cu80-fQCoKdJhcd_CGc6Ssde4_bOKde3OSdByA/s1600/1984.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcFimxKi52Kc7YVPHwE3GfI9ali8jHqeW8xLh_QIeHbRfancmKhM3d9yiyU0MWOGERJHyidGX8VPgjKVClZ3RKwhTifJc0mlI1Yae9Cu80-fQCoKdJhcd_CGc6Ssde4_bOKde3OSdByA/s1600/1984.jpg" /></a></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b><i>A personal essay I wrote for uni about the influence two books, 1984 and Stephen Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane, had on my reading and writing. </i></b></span></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The best
books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In my mid-teens, George
Orwell’s novel <i>Nineteen Eighty-Four</i>
told me what I already suspected. It confirmed my thinking that everyone I knew
– my iffy school mates and more definite school hates, as well my teachers and
my parents – were all just like me, desperate to fit in because they were too
scared not to. <i>Nineteen Eighty-Four </i>was
also full of ideas about how society could be manipulated, and had me thinking
what our future world might be like. A few years later I escaped to university
and found myself surrounded by outsiders. One of them shoved Stephen
Donaldson’s <i>Lord Foul’s Bane</i> into my
hand. It had a very flawed hero who I identified with. Both of those books had
a great effect on my future reading as I searched for more stories that had
flawed outsider characters exploring ideas about future societies. I soon found
science-fiction novels and magazines were full of such characteristics. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In an introduction to <i>Nineteen
Eighty-Four, </i>Professor of Politics and Contemporary History Ben Pimlott claims
most of its characters are only two-dimensional. As a teenager, with a limited
experience of life, I can’t remember thinking the characters needed to be more
fleshed out, they seemed real enough to me. Pimlott goes on to claim that
without its political ideas, <i>Nineteen
Eighty-Four</i> is just an adolescent fantasy “of lonely defiance, furtive sex
and deadly terror”. I really identified with the “lonely defiance”. Winston
Smith seemed to be a lot like me, someone who didn’t fit into the world, but
unlike me, he resisted the pressure to fit in. His resistance had me questioning
my own desire to conform and accept my allotted space in society. <i>Nineteen Eighty-Four </i>had me wanting to
read more about outsiders who rejected the need to fit in. Outsiders who were
not so much rebelling, more just living their own versions of life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Nineteen
Eighty-Four </i>was much more than a call to defy my peer’s low expectations
for me. It was a novel full of ideas that sparked my imagination, and metaphors
that explained the world. Ideas like Newspeak and how language could be used to
influence and censor thought. Ideas like the Ministry of Truth and how history
could be changed to justify those in power. Ideas like Big Brother and how we
are all under surveillance and being scrutinised. <i>Nineteen Eighty-Four</i> had me wanting to read more idea driven books.
It also had me thinking whether future societies would be oppressive or
utopian, or something in between. At the time I read it, I was an avid fan of <i>Doctor Who</i> and <i>Star Trek</i> on television, which were shows full of outsiders, such
as the Doctor and Spock, and ideas, such as time-travel and transporters. Those
shows also explored what future societies might be like. Maybe in the future
the world will have one government, like <i>Star
Trek’s</i> Federation. These thoughts led me to reading science-fiction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I soon found that science-fiction novels and magazines
are full of what I was searching for. They are full of ideas, like genetically-engineered
immortality, or living in virtual worlds. They are full of characters who don’t
fit in, such as child maths prodigy Francis Conway in George Turner’s <i>The Sea and Summer</i> or the genderless
clone Breq in Ann Leckie’s <i>Ancillary Justice</i>. Science-fiction suggests
we might colonise other planets, like in Kim Stanley Robinson’s <i>Red Mars</i>, or an outsider scientist might
create a virus that nearly kills everyone, like in Margaret Atwood’s <i>Oryx and Crake</i>. Science-fiction novels
and magazines had me hooked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Three years after I read <i>Nineteen Eighty-Four</i>, I appeared to have escaped the clutches of
Big Brother to live in a residential college at La Trobe University. A fellow
escapee recommended and loaned to me Stephen Donaldson’s <i>Lord Foul’s Bane</i>. In that novel Thomas Covenant is magically
transported from modern day America into a world full of sorcerers, spirits,
giants, demons and humans. Covenant was brought to the land to battle the evil
sorcerer Lord Foul. There was an obvious reason for him being chosen: the
magical power of his white gold wedding ring, but why did they choose such a
flawed human being? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Covenant must be one of the most flawed heroes of
literature. Rejected by society due to his leprosy, he is bitter at his
treatment and hates himself. He still wears a wedding ring in the deluded hope
that his wife might return. Once transported to the other world, a teenager
befriends him, and he rapes her. At the time, he did not think the world was
real, while as a reader I was also trying to decide if it was “real”. Covenant doesn’t
trust himself for most of the novel, yet by the end of the novel this very
flawed character sacrifices himself to save a world that he is beginning to
think might be real. Stephen Donaldson says in fantasy the world is an
expression of its characters, so Lord Foul is an expression of the contempt Covenant
held for himself. Therefore, Covenant is battling himself. This battle within
himself had me identifying with him. On a number of occasions my real-life
emotions and uncertainty mirrored Covenant’s. He was one of the first really
flawed characters I identified with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Lord Foul’s Bane</i>
had me wanting to read more novels with flawed characters. It had me rejecting
a lot of American science-fiction due to its formulaic heroes: alpha males full
of moral certainty. They usually have a token flaw, like an inability to talk
to women, in an attempt to make them appear, what Professor Pimlott might call,
more than just two-dimensional. One such near flawless hero in Ben Bova’s <i>Moonrise</i> infuriated me so much that I
cheered when he died, suffocating alone on the moon’s surface. In my search for
more realistic characters, I found Australian science-fiction full of flawed
characters, such as Spider, a penniless, divorced and unmotivated repairman in
KA Bedford’s <i>Time Machines Repaired
While-U-Wait.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Nineteen
Eighty-Four</i> and <i>Lord Foul’s Bane</i> not
only affected what I read, they also affected what I write. I predominately read
and write science-fiction stories that are usually set in the future and
explore ideas about society through flawed characters. In my writing, many of
my main characters don’t care about fitting in. Like Winston Smith, I hope my
writing will tell many outsiders what they already know. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-64610847440451454882017-04-28T02:46:00.002-07:002017-10-27T00:39:15.136-07:00Whatever happened to the technological singularity?This is a copy of a speech I wrote for a writing subject in my BA of Internet Communications.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitkbhjQCdXdv45IwUzGjvnHFEjHGD3Ge2ismMK8r07AsI4Emlepp0sgHy55YfM5B5LWF_otGAo81yael7puA0Rsgcz9JYMaWfA4NW89DZ7pMH8MG3iqJVdTiGVOq3Vp2yTK3DrNhtsTTo/s1600/the+spike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitkbhjQCdXdv45IwUzGjvnHFEjHGD3Ge2ismMK8r07AsI4Emlepp0sgHy55YfM5B5LWF_otGAo81yael7puA0Rsgcz9JYMaWfA4NW89DZ7pMH8MG3iqJVdTiGVOq3Vp2yTK3DrNhtsTTo/s200/the+spike.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Whatever
happened to the technology singularity?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I am here tonight to ask the
question, whatever happened to the technology singularity</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">? I
ask this question because we don’t seem to be getting any closer to being
dragged into its event horizon. The singularity’s supercharged revolution of
society is something I desperately want to experience. Rather than just writing
about the singularity, I want to live it.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I can remember my excitement
when I first read Eric Drexler’s <i>Engines
of Creation</i>, where he told us of the wonders of nanotechnology. He told us
of a future where nanobots - nano-scale robots - can manufacture everything, molecule
by molecule. Many Star Trek fans would have immediately imagined that replicators
would soon be churning out all the burgers and beer we could ever consume, for
free. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">My excitement about the future
I would live in super nova-ed when I read Damien Broderick’s <i>The Spike</i>. He wrote of a convergence of
technologies that would create a spike in human development, a period of
massive change, where a combination of artificial intelligence, genetic
engineering and nanotechnology would turn us into super-humans. We were
destined to become technological gods. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">While impatiently waiting to
become a god, I read Ray Kurzweil’s <i>The
Singularity is Near</i>. He speculated that artificial intelligence, genetic
engineering and nanotechnology would lead to humans, like you and me, creating
our own starship Enterprise and leaving the planet. You and I were going to the
stars. And humanity would eventually saturate the universe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But, here’s the reality for
those of us dreaming of the technological singularity. <i>Engines of Creation</i> was written three decades ago, while <i>The Spike</i> hit the bookstores nearly two
decades ago. And <i>The Singularity is Near</i>
came out over a decade ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">So how near is near? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Are we ever going to live
lives of leisure and creativity while AI’s run everything for us? Are we ever
going to genetically engineer our bodies so we can live for millennia? Are we
ever going to use swarms of nanobots to strip carbon atoms from carbon dioxide molecules
in the atmosphere and stop global warming</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What have scientists been
doing to ensure the singularity even occurs? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Well, at the molecular level a
few of them got together and used a scanning tunnelling microscope to move 35
atoms around so they spelt IBM, thus creating the world’s smallest logo in
1990. While scientists at Cornell University busied themselves constructing a
molecular scale nano-guitar, which has strings that can be strummed, but we aren't able to
hear it. But other scientists seem more intent on creating something
useful. Nature magazine says scientists have created many nano-scale motors and
propellers. But these very simple machines are a long way from the complexity
needed to make Drexler’s replicators, his engines of creation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But then 3D printers suddenly
materialised, like the Tardis, out of nowhere. We suddenly had a very primitive
Star Trek replicator. Many of you would’ve seen stories about 3D printers, like
their ability to print guns, single shot pistols that tend to explode. Just as
well 3D printers can also print replacement artificial hands</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">One or two of you might
already have spent the few hundred dollars for a 3D printer. I envisage that in a few years, every household
will have one, using them to print replacement screens for dropped mobile phones
or to make a missing Lego block needed to finish a model of Han Solo’s
Millennium Falcon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Think what you could print if
you had an industrial scale 3D printer, like the ones used to print houses in
China. NASA has also used them to print out 75 percent of the parts for a
working rocket engine. In the future, you might be able to print a full-scale
Millennium Falcon, that actually flies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What about genetic
engineering? Seemingly endless trials continue to reaffirm the safety of
genetically modified foods. The US Food and Drug Administration says diabetics
have been using genetically engineered insulin for decades. And many animals
have been cloned including cows, sheep, horses, dogs and cats. But no one has
successfully cloned a human, at least not officially. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">One form of genetic
engineering that seems to always be in the news is stem cell research. H<span style="background: white;">arvard university scientists have used stem cells to
regenerate human heart tissue. They hope a fully functioning human heart will
be created using stem cells in several years. There are also many reports of
stem cells healing paraplegics. The University of California reported using
them to help a car-crash victim regain the use of his hands and legs. While in
Japan, the RIKEN laboratory for Retinal Regeneration used stem cells to stop
the muscular degeneration of an 80-year-old’s eyesight. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What have the computer
scientists been up to? We’re still yet to see an operating system become
self-aware like Samantha in the movie <i>Her</i>,
but machine learning is taking off. As many of you know, machine learning is
where a computer learns to do things using algorithms, rather than being
programed to do those things. Such algorithms allow driverless cars, like
Google’s, to react to all the new situations the car encounters on roads. Data
scientist Jeremy Howard, runs a company involved in machine learning, and he
says deep-learning algorithms have enabled a computer to be better than humans
at recognising the content of images. Not only that, the deep-learning
algorithms enabled the computer to write accurate descriptions of the images.
Howard claims that machine learning will enable computers to soon do most
service jobs that involve writing, reading, listening and data analysis. And
they will do these tasks much faster than humans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Kurzweil says artificial
intelligence is the key to the singularity. Once computers get smarter than you
and me they will not only design smarter computers, but they will be able to
speed up the development of nanotechnology, 3D printing, and genetic
engineering. For those of us counting on fully experiencing the singularity, we
can hope that an algorithm is currently being written that will soon turn
computers into smarter than human AIs. We can hope such an algorithm will be announced
next week, seemingly materialise from nowhere, like 3D printers did. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">If a full on artificial intelligence
enabling algorithm is created soon, many of us here tonight could experience
the wonders of the technological singularity and a post-human universe. A
universe where the only limitation to our massively extended lives is our
imaginations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 142.5pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">References: <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Aldrich,
M. (2016). Paralyzed man regains use of arms and hands after experimental stem</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">cell </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">therapy at Keck Hospital of USC. Retrieved from
https://stemcell.usc.edu/2016/09/07/paralyzed-man-regains-use-of-arms-and-hands-after-experimental-stem-cell-therapy-at-keck-hospital-of-usc/</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">BBC.
(2014). 3D Printed guns of ‘no use to anyone’. Retrieved form<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27634626 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Bernard,
L. (1997). Smallest guitar, about the size of a human blood cell, illustrates
new <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> technology for nano-sized
electromechanical devices. Retrieved from <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/07/worlds-smallest-silicon-mechanical-devices-are-made-cornell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Broderick, D. (1997).<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The spike: Accelerating into the
unimaginable future</i>. Kew, Aust: Reed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Browne,
M.W. (1990). 2 Researchers spell ‘I.B.M.,’ atom by atom. Retrieved from <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">http://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/us/2-researchers-spell-ibm-atom-by-atom.html?pagewanted=print<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Coghlan,
A. (2017). Vision saved by first induced pluripotent stem cell treatment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Retrieved from <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">https://www.newscientist.com/article/2124820-vision-saved-by-first-induced-pluripotent-stem-cell-treatment/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Drexler, K. E. (1986). Engines of creation: challenges and
choices of the last technological<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">revolution.<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span>Retrieved from http://xaonon.dyndns.org/misc/engines_of_creation.pdf<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<em><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Junod, S.W. (2009).</span></em><em><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></em><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Celebrating a milestone:
FDA's approval of first genetically-engineered<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">product. Retrieved from<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">https://www.fda.gov/aboutfda/whatwedo/history/productregulation/selectionsfromfdliupdateseriesonfdahistory/ucm081964.htm<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Kurzweil, R. (2005).<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The singularity is near: When
humans transcend biology</i>. New York: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Penguin.
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Massachusetts
General Hospital. (2016). Functional heart muscle regenerated in</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">decellurized </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">human hearts. Retrieved from http://www.massgeneral.org/News/pressrelease.aspx?id=1910</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">NASA. (2015). </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Piece by piece: NASA team moves closer
to building a 3-D printed rocket<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">engine. Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2015/piece-by-piece-nasa-team-moves-closer-to-building-a-3-d-printed-rocket-engine.html<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Peplow, M. (2015). March of the machines.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Nature</i>,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>525</i>(7567), 18.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Retrieved from <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">http://www.nature.com/news/the-tiniest-lego-a-tale-of-nanoscale-motors-rotors-switches-and-pumps-1.18262<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">TedxBrussels.
(2014). <i>Jeremy Howard: The wonderful and
terrifying implications of </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">computers </i><i style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">that can
learn</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
[Video file] Retrieved from</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">https://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_howard_the_wonderful_and_terrifying_implications_of_computers_that_can_learn</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Walmsley,
H. (2015). World-first 3D-printed hand prosthesis inspired by 1845 design kept
in<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">online archive. Retrieved from<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-17/world-first-3d-printed-hand-prosthesis-inspired-by-1845-design/7032736<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Zhou,
C. (2015). 3D-printed house built in just three hours in China’s Xi’an.
Retrieved from<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">https://www.domain.com.au/news/3dprinted-house-built-in-just-three-hours-in-chinas-xian-20150729-gim4e9/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-34876920204847109942017-02-06T20:21:00.000-08:002017-02-07T14:14:58.644-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_qFUcisqwuxyw-I5LmM9XQwtfFZWeyI7QTQHfWrsmhyZxlPt8Vrq4dmUlOzSbSD5yhyH8UKNgFb8IclxwaabFJsYkk1CrP3Wi_nNfA7IFjtdPjs_ERTR9-RSpU5TdD_q9123aT1q4GQ/s1600/westworld.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_qFUcisqwuxyw-I5LmM9XQwtfFZWeyI7QTQHfWrsmhyZxlPt8Vrq4dmUlOzSbSD5yhyH8UKNgFb8IclxwaabFJsYkk1CrP3Wi_nNfA7IFjtdPjs_ERTR9-RSpU5TdD_q9123aT1q4GQ/s1600/westworld.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hi all, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I thought I better post something just to prove I am still
alive. I have been so busy studying that I have not had time to regularly post
on my blog. In fact, I am feeling guilty
as hell that I am writing this and not taking notes for one of my subjects. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My course did not stop for the end of the year or even
Christmas. I even had an online quiz to complete by the end of Christmas Day,
and got the results for it, when it ticked over into Boxing Day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am currently doing News and Politics, a journalism type
subject, through Griffith Uni and Critical Thinking, at Macquarie. I am doing
well in the latter. For the former, I worry that my latest assignment wasn’t
very good. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I did not have an end of year “best of” of science fiction for
this year as it would not have been very comprehensive. I hardly went and saw
any films and I only finished reading one novel. It was a pretty average year for
science fiction movies anyway, with Arrival probably being the pick of the
bunch. I think the very ordinary last Star Trek movie might end the franchise for a while. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I watched a bit of small screen science fiction though.
<b><i>Westworld</i></b> was easily the best, with immense production values, multiple plot
lines and a <i>Sixth Sense</i> type of revelation at the ending of series one. I am
surprised more people are not talking about it because to me it is science
fiction of Battlestar Galactica quality. Other series I enjoyed were <b style="font-style: italic;">Class,
Dark Matter, Killjoys, Orphan Black, </b>and<b style="font-style: italic;"> Wayward Pines</b>. (ed - forgot to include <b><i>Mars</i></b>, a very good doco-drama.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I did very little writing last year, just a few minutes of
writing on nearly every day so I could continue to call myself a writer.
Currently I am about a third of the way through the second draft of “Branded”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So far this year the writing and reading has failed to pick
up. Perhaps one day I will write for an hour or so, and that night I will pick
up a book and read for half an hour, and then do the same the next day, and the
next, until it becomes a habit. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-66442667042693900642016-10-24T13:01:00.002-07:002016-10-24T13:01:27.924-07:00Advance Australia Fair<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e_ekvjqD9I8/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e_ekvjqD9I8?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The video is a remediation of Advance Australia Fair made for my BA in Internet Communications. The remediation uses the anthem to critique Australian society. </span>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-66568768531044669352016-10-16T16:39:00.003-07:002016-10-16T16:47:56.637-07:00Study, writer's festival.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMpnqbyFUKo38ErByxMvmfYmdXu4MN0C_qHhjDu1IkF6vXwCqiot4deO3fNh0XTuEHY0ZDlJaslRcDYbhYs8FaBLnDk2rHKaxf_atAJ1ExEk_-Yu6MKK3PrCMLkTKniLjpEkflEPY6Yvs/s1600/mirrors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMpnqbyFUKo38ErByxMvmfYmdXu4MN0C_qHhjDu1IkF6vXwCqiot4deO3fNh0XTuEHY0ZDlJaslRcDYbhYs8FaBLnDk2rHKaxf_atAJ1ExEk_-Yu6MKK3PrCMLkTKniLjpEkflEPY6Yvs/s1600/mirrors.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once again its been a long time between posts. Two months at least. My BA in Internet Communications is really eating up my time. I am now in the third period doing my fifth and sixth subjects. One of those subjects is an introductory subject to studying at Uni that everyone who studies at Curtin, at least everyone who does a humanities degree, has to do. It focuses on how to write essays, reflective or critical thinking, working in groups, and we have to give an oral presentation. I am having a bit of trouble figuring out how to do reflective writing, although my tutor said my second practice attempt was excellent. I have always hated working in groups - hey, that is one reason why the independent life of writing appealed. I don't like giving speeches either. So the subject is going to have its challenges.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other subject is about new media, with a focus on participatory culture and remediations. A remediation is changing one media object into another, ie, turning a book into a film. For this subject we have to create our own simple remediation. I plan to remediate the national anthem, make a slide show to its words that critiques Australia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I got the results for my second period subjects recently, a distinction for The Internet and Everyday Life, which I loathed, much of the time I felt clueless with what I was doing. For that, my major assignment was an essay on how the internet enables people with disabilities to effectively advocate. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For Interactive Web Design (a second year subject) I, like with Introduction to Web Design, scrapped in a high distinction. I built a website on disability friendly housing that had a slideshow, interactive tabs (accordions), a menu that moved down the page as a user scrolled down it and tooltips or hotspots where when the cursor moves over an object on the page information comes up. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I went to the Melbourne writer's festival, which luckily started on the weekend between the second and third periods. My primary interest was to see Justin Cronin, author of the superb and critically acclaimed Passage trilogy. He considers the trilogy science fiction - not horror. I saw him in two sessions. The second was him with the creator of the excellent horror/fantasy/sci-fi? series Glitch, made for the ABC. Very glad to hear that they are making a second series of Glitch as it had a huge hanging ending. Interestingly, they both mentioned liking the American series Leftovers, which has as its premise 5% of the Earth's populations suddenly vanishing. It is a very different series, based on novels, and the novels have the characters moving to Australia in the third series, so it is going to be or already is filming in Australia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another memorable session at the writer's festival was with Geoff Dyer. A writer who has written many diverse books, from non-fiction books on yoga and tennis, to biographies to novels. Just about every book he has written has been with a different publisher and different editor. He said he hates the writing process. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Due to the course, I have been doing very little writing. Just a few minutes a day as I redraft a novel. I have not finished reading a novel this year, even though I started reading and was enjoying the third novel in the Passage series on the train back from the writer's festival.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well - it is time to get back to study.</span>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8661117100748148070.post-80835048742720500862016-07-15T04:28:00.001-07:002016-07-15T04:30:11.039-07:00I've been busy.<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just noticed it is about six weeks since I posted anything on my blog. I have been extremely busy with my degree in web design. I am currently building a new website for one of the subjects, and it has interactive elements, ie, things that move on it, like a slide-</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">show of pictures, and hotspots that when rolled over reveal further information. It involves using JQuery and Javascript, both of them I had not used before the course, so it is a steep learning curve. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is a photoshop mock-up of what I am trying to do:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIH20_L8elchRI1MykVqUW1zADQJeCyQFKn_oEy6ICa1oWM82FGoXUIzrFAAlVE63EygSwDF-GpKIB7fFYFvGDV3oYIWNsdXId-kCM2sTvoQlRxFu1vc27CTcnC0HuncW3sdTnoZ7bQPI/s1600/snip+of+home+page.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIH20_L8elchRI1MykVqUW1zADQJeCyQFKn_oEy6ICa1oWM82FGoXUIzrFAAlVE63EygSwDF-GpKIB7fFYFvGDV3oYIWNsdXId-kCM2sTvoQlRxFu1vc27CTcnC0HuncW3sdTnoZ7bQPI/s400/snip+of+home+page.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And that is just the homepage. If you are curious how I am going, the website is under construction at <a href="http://grahamclementsauthor.com./">grahamclementsauthor.com.</a> It needs to be complete in four weeks time.Those little arrows on the side of the slideshow took hours to figure out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have done alright in the course so far, I scrapped in a high distinction for the previous web design subject and a distinction for the other communications subject. Nice to get high marks, but that is not what I am doing the course for, I am doing it to learn to build websites from scratch using code.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have been averaging 40 hours a week studying and after my two hours per day exercising and gardening there is not much time for writing. I do a few minutes every day. In about five weeks my subjects for my degree will change to more theory, so less of spending four hours trying to get an icon to brighten on a web page. Then I hope to have more time to write and read, I rarely have time to read for pleasure these days. </span>Graham Clementshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430135062211828206noreply@blogger.com3