Neal Stephenson Week: The Diamond Age

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The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (full title is The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer) is the next novel by Neal Stephenson after Snow Crash. Where Snow Crash dealt with the internet and Sumerian myths, The Diamond Age deals with nano-technology and historical ages. The Han age for the Chinese and the Victorian Age for Europeans are the ones most used, with Nippon (Japanese) and Hindustan (India) referenced as well. The book follows a young girl raised by an electronic, dynamically generated book and her impact on the world.

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Neal Stephenson Week: Snow Crash

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Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is a classic science fiction book. It contains futuristic concepts married with historical ideas. It’s the first Stephenson book that was a hit and was the start of 7 consecutive best sellers. It’s rides the end of the cyberpunk wave of books (started by Neuromancer) and was one of the capstones on that style of book. But most of all, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

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An Imaginary Review

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Today’s review is of a book (actually a comic book mini-series) that never existed, only a proposal was ever created. And the comic book company is doing their best to make sure no one knows it ever existed (except for the Wikipedia page and the sites they haven’t been able to shut down yet). If you ask why, there are suspicions that later mini-series might have copied some of the concepts, but those creators deny knowing about it. So why is the company trying to assert copyright on a proposal? No one knows, but at the end of the day it’s irrelevant why, but we can look and see what if not why.

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Catching up with TV Shows

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Let’s catch up on some of the science fiction(ish) TV shows I’ve been watching this season. I’ve mentioned three before, but we can talk about a couple others as well. It appears that some new science fiction shows will be coming up in the next season, so we’ll have replacements for the ones I’ve stopped watching.

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Wrack and Roll by Bradley Denton

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Wrack and Roll by Bradley Denton (author of Blackburnand Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede) is a fun rock-and-roll alternate history where rock and roll has really changed the world. It’s a political-social satire that centers around the 1980 election in the alternate time-line while dealing with politics, regret, love and the power of music.

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Batman: Arkham Asylum the video game review

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So I got Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC version) this week and have been playing it pretty much non-stop at night. Which for me means about 3 hours a night. I know it’s about 5 months old and everyone’s already reviewed it already. But I don’t have a Xbox or PS3 and my old computer was way, way too old to play it. Since I got a shiny new computer last week, I was finally able to play the game.

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Zot: The Earth Books by Scott McCloud

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Zot by Scott McCloud (author of Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics) was a fun superhero book in the 1980s. Zot is the nickname of Zachary T. Paleozogt, a hero from a nearby dimension which is closer to the 1950s than the 1980s. When everyone else was going grim and gritty, McCloud made a light hearted super hero stroy. There were 10 issues published and then McCloud took a break. He came back and did 26 more issues. But the ones we are focusing on here are issues 28-36, when Zot is trapped on Earth.

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Conspirata by Robert Harris

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Conspirata by Robert Harris (published in the UK as Lustrum) is the sequel to Imperium(review) and the middle book of Harris’ Cicero trilogy. Where Imperium covered the rise of Cicero, Conspirata shows his downfall. And as Cicero’s influence starts to wane, another’s starts to rise, Julius Caesar. Cicero finds himself on the wrong side of history not long after he is celebrated for saving the city.

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Imperium by Robert Harris

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Imperium by Robert Harris (author of Pompeiiand The Ghost) is the first of Harris’ trilogy of Cicero. Cicero is an interesting, but occasionally overlooked historical figure. But what would you expect of someone who lived at the same time as Spartacus, Pompey, Crassus, Julius Caesar, Marc Antony and Augustus. Unlike most of the other famous people from this time frame, Cicero isn’t a military commander, he’s a lawyer and speechmaker. But what a speechmaker he is. Cicero is one of the few people who can control a country by the force of his words alone.

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