Here in the mediaography I list films, books and music as I experience them.
Each work is rated out of five stars under the headings 'art' and 'fun'.
If these categories are not self-explanatory, you can go stick your head in a pig.
Two and a half stars in either category denotes that I regarded the time
spent watching/reading that work as worthwhile.
| Moab is my Washpot, by Stephen Fry |
December 2000 |
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| Media: | Autobiography |
| Year: | 1997 |
| Art: |   |
| Fun: | |
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A cheeky, delicious, and frequently hilarious depiction of the life and
loves of Steven Fry as an insufferable small boy and despicable adolescent.
Beautiful in its frankness and honesty, and betraying Fry's delightful
mastery of the English language.
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| Flatland, by Edwin Abbott Abbott (really!) |
December 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1884 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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A Romance in Many Dimensions, as the subtitle puts it, is beautifully
embellished by those 19th century turns of phrase, such as chapter titles
along the lines of "19 - How, though the Sphere shewed me other
mysteries of Spaceland, I still desired more; and what came of it."
The author was a noted Shakespearian who's hobby was the study of
mathematics. This is evident in these tales of a two dimentional
square being, thrust into the adventurous world of three dimensions.
This story is heavily colored throughout by the biases and predjudices of
our polygonal protagonist, namely his despising of the lower classes
of society who only have three sides and angles, his rapturous
adulation of the higher classes of many-sided shapes.
The observations and experiences of this square are later extrapolated
to predict the reactions of a three dimensional being (such as ourselves)
upon being confronted with spaces of four dimensions, or higher.
Implicitly, we are asked to consider our own provincial three-dimensional
biases, such as those based on gender, skin colour, social status and the
like.
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| The Masks of Time, by Robert Silverberg |
November 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1968 |
| Art: |  |
| Fun: | |
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Calling himself Vornan-19, the man from the distant future throws the world
into disarray with his egotistical and authority defying tour of the world in
the year 1999, or at least 1999 as Silverberg imagined it would be from back
in 1968. Some nice moments, but ultimately dissatisfying in both style
and content, especially when contrasted with Up the Line (below).
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| Up the Line, by Robert Silverberg |
October 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1969 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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I really, really liked this. Rampant escapist nonsense, of course, but
marvellously crafted. Jud Elliot, circa 2059, joins the Time Service,
to escort wealthy tourists on viewings of historical events. Such trips
are zealously controlled by the Time Patrol, who protect all of humanity
by ensuring that inadvertant changes to the past are not allowed to propagate
down the line to cause catastrophic alterations to the present. Jud is
well-intentioned and conscientious, but he falls in with a troublemaking
fellow Time Courier, the mad Greek Themistoklis Metaxas. As a consummate
showman, Metaxas boldly leads his own tourist charges through the middle of
pivotal historic events, fecklessly leading them to participate in riots,
sacking mighty cities, and, as he puts it himself, "You haven't lived
until you're laid one of your own ancestors." His impeccable skill as
a Courier lets him get away with it. Young Jud's initially careful trips
into the past soon start to slide into minor transgressions,
eventually upping the pace into a frantic minute-by-minute flipping
back and forth through time to undo the terrible mistakes he makes.
There's only one way it can end, and I'm glad to say that it's with
tears. Yay!
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| Who Can Replace a Man? by Brian Aldiss |
October 2000 |
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| Media: | Anthology |
| Year: | 1965 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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As noted elsewhere, the title story is a corker, but the rest is mediochre.
Weak science and incoherently self-indulgent weirdness.
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| The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman |
September 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1974 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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Well this is bloody marvellous. Follows the fortunes of William Mandella,
from grunt to General,
as he participates in an interstellar war against a mysterious alien enemy.
The book derives its title from the relativistic effects that cause
spacefaring troops to age mere months, while decades pass back on Earth.
Due to this, each individual platoon leaps into the future whenever it
travels to and from a battle, causing the war to cascade down the
centuries. Draws obvious parallels with the author's experiences in the
overly-prolonged Vietnam war, and produces a fascinating and thoughtful
story. Unfortunately, there is an ending, and even worse, it's a happy one.
However, given the rest of the novel's appropriately downbeat nature,
I'm prepared to overlook this.
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| Antipatterns, by William H. Brown et al |
September 2000 |
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| Media: | Textbook |
| Year: | 1998 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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I had high hopes for this, as it purports to complement the modern
software engineering classic Design Patterns. Alas, this
riding of the coat-tails should have been a give-away. There is little
here of much value to an experienced developer, and what content there
is is diluted by the separate contributions from each of the many authors.
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| Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, by Brian Aldiss |
August 2000 |
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| Media: | Anthology |
| Year: | 1960 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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Eight wistful tales of distant tomorrows, charting the helpless, hopeless
futures of the human race. Some parts are downright poor, stretching the
suspension of disbelief, but my memories of the book
are dominated by the more powerful sections, such as the classic
Who Can Replace a Man?
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| The Advent of the Algorithm, by David Berlinski |
August 2000 |
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| Media: | Non-Fiction |
| Year: | 2000 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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An irritatingly egocentric review of the various mathematical developments
which lead to the concept of the algorithm, and hence to the modern day
implementation of programmable computers. Having said that, the narrative
is competant, informative and though-provoking, spanning many
centuries, interweaving all the key players and ideas, from the lambda
calculus, Godel's incompleteness theorem, the halting problem and
Turing's hypothetical machine. If only we could lose the autobiographical
air. |
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| The Player of Games, by Iain M. Banks |
July 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1989 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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A second reading of this extremely enjoyable piece.
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| X-Men, directed by Bryan Singer |
July 15 2000 |
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| Media: | Movie |
| Year: | 2000 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
| Link: | IMDB |
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After much trepidation, I was pleased to find that
it was actually pretty darn good. Who'd have thought it? Yay!
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| Breakfast of Champions, directed by Alan Rudolph. |
July 14 2000 |
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| Media: | Movie |
| Year: | 1999 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
| Link: | IMDB |
|
Starring Bruce Willis as a wealthy car salesman, disillusioned with the empty
consumerism of his life and on the brink of suicide. Based on the novel of the
same name by Kurt Vonnegut, which Willis had long wanted to see made into a film,
this rendition serves as a disappointingly incoherent reminder that some books
simply cannot be filmed. The only highlight is Albert Finney's portrayal of
Kilgore Trout, the perennially unsuccessful science fiction author, who Vonnegut
came to openly identify with himself in his later novels. Oh, and Nick Nolte in
a dress.
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| Bringing Out the Dead, directed by Martin Scorsese. |
July 14 2000 |
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| Media: | Movie |
| Year: | 1999 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
| Link: | IMDB |
|
I should probably clarify right off the bat that this movie exemplifies a feature of my
rating system - that the 'fun' rating doubles up as an score for 'enthralling'. As
you would expect, Scorsese directs a very dark, powerful film, and although it is
engrossing, "fun" is not the word. Nicholas Cage as a desperately overworked paramedic,
haunted by the ghosts of the hundreds that he fails to save.
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| The Star, by Arthur C Clarke. |
9 July 2000 |
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| Media: | Short Story |
| Year: | 1955 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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Quite simply one of the all-time classic works of the science fiction genre.
It ably demonstrates the kind of thought provoking ideas which are the lifeblood
of SF, and uses them to evoke such emotion that it moves me to tears every time
I read it, a feat which is all the more astounding considing that it is only
four pages long.
In fact, in the interests of copyright infringment, here's the entire text of the story,
right here for your edification.
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| Space, by James A Michener. |
9 July 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1982 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
|
After 815 pages, it irks me that by far the most memorable passage of
the book is the very first one, which describes a gripping Pacific naval
battle of the second world war. Michener relates the advances
in rocketry during and after the war, leading to the formation
of NASA and the Gemini and Apollo programmes. However, this is unashamedly
a work of fiction. The longest description of any mission is given over to
the entirely imaginary Apollo 18, while significant events such as the
first moon landing and Apollo 13 are mentioned only in passing. Compounding
this, the personal lives' of the fictional characters are examined in great
detail, along with those of their wives, their wives' friends, and their
wives' friends' tennis partners. I can't escape the feeling that this could
have been a brilliant 150 page book.
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| Chicken Run, from Aardman Animation. |
8 July 2000 |
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| Media: | Movie |
| Year: | 2000 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
| Link: |
IMDB |
|
You already know all about it. In the same style as previous Aardman
outings, the atmosphere of 'The Great Escape' is pleasantly evoked.
Sadly this later degenerates into a series of
pointless
movie references. Overall though, very endearing and extremely funny.
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| Mission Impossible 2, directed by John Woo. |
June 2000 |
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| Media: | Movie |
| Year: | 2000 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
| Link: |
IMDB |
|
For the purposes of this review, I hand over to an email I recieved
from an old friend:
2 hour head and shoulders ad for tom cruise.
fuck off tom you're shite and boring.
john woo piss off back to Hong Kong.
verdict: 1/10 (and the 1 is for the babe, wouldn't you give her one?)
-dave |
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| This Other Eden, by Ben Elton |
June 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1993? |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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It's not my fault - I was on holiday, and therefore obliged to read some trashy
claptrap to while away the time spent in airports and on beaches. Surprisingly,
Ben decided to write this one about a group of radical environmentalists
struggling against global catastrophe induced by rich bastards and greedy
corporations. How many novels does it take to explore this theme Mr Elton?
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| Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, by P G Wodehouse. |
June 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1974 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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I'm ashamed to relate that this is the first work of Wodehouse with which I have
made myself familiar, and am pleased to report that it consists of superbly crafted
hilarious frivolity from start to finish.
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| Rainbow Mars, by Larry Niven. |
June 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1999 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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Titled to reflect the novel's status as a nodding tribute to other author's
classic legends of Mars, Niven invokes for a second time the marvellous time
machine of Hanville Svetz, circa 3054AD, last seen in a stories penned in the
1970's. By the end of these previous tales, Svetz had figured out that his
time machine slips sideways in time, to alternate pasts. This is used to
great effect in this novel to visit a Mars of several hundred years since,
when Earth was rampant with tales of the Martian canals and the
civilisations that might have constructed them. Struggling frantically to
repair the damage that his multiplying trips to the past induce, Svetz stumbles
across the explanations for the rapid decline of Mars' environment, leading
to the lifeless desert that we see today, but not before he has inadvertantly
unleashed the same fate on planet Earth.
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| Descartes' Error, by Antonio R Damasio. |
June 2000 |
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| Media: | Non-fiction |
| Year: | 1994 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
|
Damasio argues a persuasive case that human emotions are not, as one might suppose,
an impediment to logical decision making, but are in fact absolutely vital to the
progression of the rational thought process. His case is rather circumstantial,
but its diversity lends it strength, drawing on fascinating neurological case studies
of brain-damaged patients, in-depth bioneurological analyses of the brain, and
logical argument. I didn't enjoy the style much, but the topic is important and
thought-provoking.
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| The Business, by Iain Banks |
May 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1999 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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Since Banks is a favourite author of mine, I was expecting great things, but felt this
was strangely flat and uninspired compared to his previous works. An enjoyable read, but
nothing particularly engaging.
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| Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. |
May 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1932 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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A total of eight and a half stars? Egad, it must be a classic! Enlightening and refreshing,
and of course, an ominous warning. I derived a massive amount of pleasure from this,
my first reading. The significance of the novel was reaffirmed for me when I discovered
shortly afterwards, to my horror, that American schoolchildren as young as five years
old are asked to recite the
Pledge
of Allegiance every single weekday. ("I'm glad I'm not a Delta.")
As Huxley himself notes in his foreward, penned in 1946, "[Brave New World was]
projected six hundred years into the future. Today, it seems quite possible that the
horror may be upon us within a single century." |
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| The Elegant Universe, by Brian Greene. |
May 2000 |
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| Media: | Non-fiction |
| Year: | 1999 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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A book of three parts, the first part being quite the best non-mathematical description
of both special and general relativity I have ever seen. This is followed up with a
competant summary of quantum mechanics. The culmination of the book is the third part
which describes the fundamental incompatabilities between the two theories, and attempts
to explain how superstring theory appears to be the last, best hope to bridge the gaps.
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| Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. |
February 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1999 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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Tales of second-world war cryptography juxtaposed with the high-tech jinks of
modern-day geeks. A fascinating fourth novel from the accomplished Mr Stephenson,
who has already created a stir in science-fiction circles with his earlier
works. Invoking real-life giants such as Turing as incidental characters to great effect,
this one is easily a match for any of his previous books, and likely appeals
to a wider audience to boot. Simply brilliant.
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| The Gripping Hand, by Larry Niven. |
February 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1993 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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As a fan of Niven's works from an early age, I received this most eagerly. It turns
out to be a fitting sequel to the earlier classic "The Mote in God's Eye",
although lacking some of the youthful energy and innovation demonstrated by the
earlier book.
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| Longitude, by Sava Sobel. |
January 2000 |
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| Media: | Non-fiction |
| Year: | 1996 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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A bijou tale, recounting the struggle throughought the eighteenth century to devise a
means of accurately determining the longitude of a ship at sea. Very much following
in the style of Simon Singh's "Fermat's Enigma", but without quite the same
turn of phrase, this is an informative and entertaining read.
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| Darwin's Radio, by Greg Bear. |
January 2000 |
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| Media: | Novel |
| Year: | 1999 |
| Art: | |
| Fun: | |
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Bear has written some corkers in his time, but unfortunately this isn't one of them.
Ghastly diseases, virgin conceptions, mutant babies, and the future of the human race.
Enjoyable enough, but lacking in the vitality which drove forward the
adventurous ideas of his earlier works.
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Mediaography