Category — Books

To be fair, this is old news, but I had to mention it because I’ve been reading through the Wheel of Time again and can’t stop thinking about awesome it’ll be to finally have some closure on this series! Any self-respecting Robert Jordan fan is probably already aware that Brandon Sanderson has been picked to finish the series. I’ve read a couple of his books, and I’m pretty happy with the choice. Mr. Sanderson has spent most of his career writing fantasy that doesn’t fit the traditional humble-beginnings-to-greatness mold, so it’ll be interesting to see how he treats a more traditional work like the Wheel of Time.

The big news, however, is that the final book, originally titled A Memory of Light, is so massive that it will be split into three volumes, each approximately the length of the longer books in the series.

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It’s rare that I bother to see a movie while it’s still in theatres, and even rarer that I go to a movie while there’s still a buzz and a crowd to speak of.  The last movie I remember seeing within a week of opening night was Snakes on a Plane, and as with everything surrounding that movie, my enthusiasm was at least a little bit ironic.  So when I lined up (LINED up!) to see Watchmen and it was still fresh enough in the theatres to attract cosplaying geeks dressed up like Rorschach, it was an occasion! (and before anyone asks, it was far too cold for anyone sane to attempt a Dr. Manhattan ‘costume’)

I could attempt to review the movie outside of the context of the book, but what would be the point?  This film will only stick in the minds of those who’ve read and loved the original; as a film it doesn’t stand so strongly on its own merits that casual moviegoers will tumble head-over-heels into Watchmen fandom.  The movie certainly has its high points, and does some things very very well, but overall it had the feeling of being stuck in the middle, as if the producers were caught between replicating the book in its every detail and appealing to casual movie-goers.  I didn’t hate it, and I didn’t love it.  A few moments gave me the fanboy shivers, and others had me wondering if the scene director was attempting a parody.  Keep reading for a more in-depth assessment of the movie’s faults and triumph’s.

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For fans of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy, check out these simulated animations of what happens when a space elevator breaks.  It doesn’t quite live up to imagery depicted in Red Mars, but still pretty cool.

Last week, I had the privilege of hearing one of my favourite authors speak. Neal Stephenson was in Toronto promoting his latest book, Anathem – another gargantuan effort on his part.  The event was organized by This is Not a Reading, and I really have to thank them because it’s refreshing to attend events like these where the author does more than just read a passage from their latest book, and maybe answer a few questions.

Neal Stephenson is one of those authors that got pigeonholed early: his first novel to draw a lot of critical acclaim was a brilliant work of cyberpunk.  Ever since, his books have been shelved in the Sci-fi section, even though many (myself included) would argue that his last few books are so expansive in scope that they defy any attempt at categorization.  I suppose they have to go somewhere, but anyone who’s read Cryptonomicon or (especially) The Baroque Cycle will tell you that his work doesn’t fit very neatly onto any particular shelf; his work is truly baroque, in the sense that it displays a rich amount of detail (some might say an excessive amount) and draws from many sources and traditions all at once.  Anathem bucks this trend a bit, landing definitively between Sci-fi and Fantasy, but is still far wider in scope than most traditional entries in those genres.  For myself, I loved it, and if I can find the words to properly encapsulate all the ideas presented in the story, I’ll try to write a full review.

Upon entering the auditorium, I immediately noticed the music being played; it sounded like Gregorian or Byzantine chants.  This seemed appropriate, as there’s a monastic group of theorists portrayed in Anathem that uses this type of music to extol their appreciation for the beauty and order they perceive in the mathematical and philosophical ideas they devote their lives to studying.  Only later in the evening did I learn that the music was from a CD made by a musician friend of Mr. Stephenson’s who’d taken the musical concepts from the book and applied them to some of his favourite mathematical concepts.  One chant encoded the decimal expansion of pi, another was generated using cellular automata, and a third described a quantum spin network of some kind.

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