Genre Character of the Week: John, the savage

Every once in a while I take the time to read a book off of my “I should really read that” list, which includes a lot of classics, a number of books my wife enjoys and a varied selection from friends and family.  This week I read the 1931 novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and was swept up in the section of the story involving a savage named John who travels to a civilized world.

 

The story (sorry for any mild eighty-year-old spoilers) focuses on the horror of a utopian future, being an ideal place without strife, pain, hunger or fear. It’s interesting because although all of these things are absent in this world, it comes across as unbearably horrible – think of something like The Matrix,wherein everyone is happily living their lives, and they also just happen to be living batteries for (oh wait – mild twelve-year-old spoilers) for a giant computer.

 

In this Brave New World, there are reservations where people live in traditional ways, called savages by the people living in civilization, and one of these savages is a man named John.

 

Here’s what I like about John, he is incredibly well read (or as well read as a man in his situation can be), and he has an incredibly strong moral code. Unfortunately, morals aren’t really needed in a utopian society, so John’s journey is destined to be a hard one.

 

Overall I found the book to be quite readable, and aspects of it reminded me an awful lot of Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan.  Honesty, it is worth the read and it was a pretty fast read as well.

Things I've noticed: I'm a third of the way through Grad School

So last year at this time I was getting pretty excited about going to Library School - the program is designed for a two-year span if you're a full time student and right now, after taking both spring and summer classes, I'm actually a third of the way through as a part-time student.

Am I still excited?

Heck ya!

To be fair there have been assignments that really wore me out and somedays I've felt crazy for going back to school in my mid-30s, but overall I'm loving it here.

Looking ahead to the 2012/2013 school year I'm taking on a bit of a heavier load due to a scholarship I recently got, but right now I can still feel the excitement I had back on that first day when I didn't have any idea about the amount of time/work/fun/exhaustion I was about to let myself into.

A quick list of some of my other favourie thirds

3. The Empire Strikes Back - okay, I'll admit this is the second third, but holy cats was this movie awesome, and when I first saw it I could not get over how creepy it would be to be stored in froze carbonite.

2. The first Reese Peanut cup in the package - just knowing that I still have two more awesome little bites of peanut-butter and chocolate make that first cup the sweetest.

and finally,

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - now for those of you too young to remember (you know, those of you who are still in Elementary school - or are adult-looking clones who are actually only a few years old) this movie was amazing!  From beginning to end it was pretty much a fantastic fantasy/quest film... and the best part?  We had two more of them to look forward to over the next couple of years, yes two-thirds of a whole which added up to complete awesomeness!

Like I think the next two years will be for me!

Bookmonkey
P.S. My first thought for excellent first thrid of something was The Matrix, but considering how the second and the (ugh) third ended up, I didn't even want to tempt fate with the analogy.

Game Review: Assassin's Creed II

This morning I got up early and figured I'd play a little bit more of my latest PS3 game, Assassin's Creed II.  The game has 14 chapters (called sequences) and as I had just finished Sequence 11 yesterday, I figured I would try sequence 12 today and finish the game up next week.

Interesting note about Assassin's Creed II, Sequences 12 and 13 are downloadable content, not part of the main game, so when you finish Sequence 11 you go straight to Sequence 14, the end of the game.

Luckily for me, I wasn't quite finished my latest book for review, so I can now do a game review.

Assassin's Creed II continues both right where Assassin's Creed left off and a few hundred years later.  You still play Desmond Miles, but instead of inhabiting an Assassin during the Crusades, you instead inhabit an Assassin during the Renaissance in Florence, Venice and ultimately the Vatican.

Like the previous game the set up is that you are a guy in the near-future who has been kidnapped and put in a machine (kind of like The Matrix in reverse) and are living the life of an Assassin in the past to discover stuff about the future.

The game is sandbox style, which means that while there is a main story line to follow, it has a large number of side quests and areas to explore.  It feels kind of like the Grand Theft Auto games in that way.

The visuals are great, the music is fun, and in one particularly interesting set of side quests you have to make your way through a number of ancient tombs to find secret seals (items not mammals) which feels an awful lot like Tomb Raider or Uncharted.


In the end the game was fun, worked for me for about a month and a half (remember, I only play on weekends) and definitely has me interested in continuing through the series if I can find the discs for a good price ($20 or less).

Genre Character of the Week: A Square

Have you ever wondered if there was more to our world than just what you could see? Ever since I saw the film The Matrix, the idea that my world was not necessarily the same place I assumed it was has haunted me. It's kind of funny, because that idea, that there is more to perceive if we only knew how to look has been around for a pretty long time. Take for example, this week's genre character, A Square, from the 1884 novel Flatland, by Edwin Abbott Abbott.

Basically the plot goes as follows; living in a two dimensional world (length and width, but no depth) our main character, A Square, describes his world to us. Basically he explains how the social system works, why circles are better than squares which are better than triangles, etc., then one day he is visited by a creature from another dimension – the third.

This visitor, (called simply – A Sphere), tries to explain to our narrator how his view of the world is limited and just how much is available if you only look for it.

The book itself is a satire on society in the Victorian era, but for the modern fantasy reader, the concept of a three dimensional being visiting a two dimensional world is pretty cool all on its own. What I like most about the Square is his sense of wonder as he begins exploring the different dimensions throughout existence.

The book itself is pretty short, basically an afternoon’s read, and as far as fantastic fiction that also gives an education on mathematic principles, it’s pretty darn cool.