Michael R. Underwood — Speculative Fictionero
Posts tagged review
Noise by Darin Bradley — Abhorrent & Fascinating
01 year ago
One of my recent reads was Noise, by Darin Bradley. This book got lots and lots of buzz when it came out (at least online), but it wasn’t until last month I picked it up, as my original response was ‘that sounds like I’d hate it.’
Turns out that response was correct, just not in the way I’d expected.
The book is all filtered through the perspective of one disaffected youth, with his life-long BFF at his side. These guys grew up playing D&D, playing boffer swordfighting, and learning survival skills in scouts. So when the digital changeover leaves a gap of frequencies that pirate broadcasters hijack to share their apocalyptic warnings, the boys listen. They start planning, preparing, assembling their own ‘how to survive the apocalypse’ manual, a manual that assumes violence. Not just violence to survive, but lots of violence, as a primary tool of obtaining what you want.
Noise is a book about the ways that personal mythology can be used to completely transform your thinking, and how cultural narratives and groupthink can be used to justify all sorts of horrible acts.
The book is far easier to understand just by reading it. I found that as much as I deplored what was going on in the book, it was compellingly told, and I could imagine that there would be no small number of people who, in the event of a collapse as described (sketchily, I’ll add — either viewable as a bug in the book or a feature if you think that the main character doesn’t really care about the collapse, just the response), would go off the deep end like that.
It’s not an easy book to read, and it is not a clear condemnation or valorization of geeks, boy scouts, or anarchists. It is, instead, a fascinating character study of how a pair of suburban boys try to transform themselves into the kind of people who can survive and thrive in an apocalypse and post-collapse world.
Inception
21 year ago
This post will be in two parts — the first part will be a spoiler-free review, the second an essay of in-depth thoughts and reactions based on a complete, spoiler-laden perspective on the film. Be warned.
Previews and trailers for Christopher Nolan’s Inception have been atmospheric, vague, and beautiful. Marketing copy and later trailers give a vague sketch of the plot outline: DiCaprio is the leader of a group of corporate espionage experts who are tasked to implant an idea inside someone’s dreams.
From the preview materials, the formula seemed to be as such:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind + The Matrix + Dark City. Which had me well-sold right there. The actual result is a science fiction heist movie and psychological thriller, which is even better. I’m a fan of Nolan’s work, especially Memento, The Prestige, and his Batman films.
DiCaprio plays Cobb, a world-class extractor (a thief who goes into people’s dreams and steals their secrets), is part of a crew of dream thieves that include Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, showing good action hero chops), Nash (Lukas Haas) and then later Ariadne (Ellen Page), Eames (Tom Hardy), and Yusef (Dileep Rao), assembling a dream-team (pun-tastic!) to pull off an Inception. Where extraction involves taking information from a dream, Inception is the process of putting an idea into someone’s dream in such a way that the subject thinks the notion is their own — the idea becomes a meme, replicating itself in their subconscious and then filtering back into their conscious thoughts — Inception, while difficult, can make a change substantial enough that it re-defines a person’s life. High stakes? Check.
The film is visually brilliant (the coolest thing for me was the spinning room, which I hear tell was a practical effect with a full rotating set — major awesome), with shifting and crumbling dreamscapes, unrelenting and powerful music from Hans Zimmer, and nuanced performances from the impressive cast.
This is the kind of movie that you need to see unspoiled, then go outside the theatre with your friends and discuss for two hours. And I love those kinds of movies. Inception is my vote for best movie of 2010 (so far).
And now, the spoiler-tastic bits:
Review: Stargate Universe “Air Part 1&2″
12 years ago
I watched the Stargate film back in 1994 when it came to theatres, and then when Stargate: SG-1 came around, I didn’t bother watching it. I watched a season-and-a-half or so of Stargate:Atlantis, and was usually amused. But I have many friends who swear by various parts of the Stargate-verse, loving SG-1 and trashing on Atlantis, loving-but-criticizing-Atlantis and not caring about SG-1, etc.
So when I saw that there was a new, supposedly stand-alone Stargate series, I took notice. The casting of Robert Carlyle in the lead went a long way towards getting my attention, as did the concept.
For those not already in the know, here’s the breakdown: Stargate Universe is about a group of people who get trapped on an ancient spaceship made by a predecessor species only known as the Ancients. The ship was designed to tour the universe, and from time to time opens up a dimensional portal (the Stargates, natch) to a habitable planet in the surrounding galaxy. The Stargate remains open for a finite amount of time, and the ship is on auto-pilot, preventing the heroes from taking control of its route. Using the gate to get back to Earth or to get from Earth to the ship (called the Destiny) is tremendously-plot-says-don’t-do-it difficult. The tone seems to be substantially darker than previous Stargate series, prompting people to dub it Stargate Galactica or BattleStargate, likening it to the critically-acclaimed 2004-09 Battlestar Galactica.
The overall formula seems to be (Stargate + LOST) x (Sliders + Battlestar Galacatica) = Stargate Universe — which is certainly not a bad mixture of inspirations.
A more detailed and spoilery review follows: