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Finished reading: A Jura for Julia by Ken MacLeod 📚

Short stories by Ken. I mentioned this in my Nineteen Eighty-Four post, since the first and last stories are inspired by Orwell’s novel. The last being the title story.

Both they, and the others, are very good. Ken’s usual concerns are here, of course: the future, politics, Scotland, and more.

Also the cover and internal illustrations are by Fangorn. Highly recommended.

Books 2024, 24

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Conclave, 2024 - ★★★½

When I was a kid, brought up in the Roman Catholic Church, my Mum taught me that, when a pope dies, all the cardinals get together to choose a new one. God guides them so they vote for who He has chosen, and it has to be unanimous.

Whether or not that unanimity requirement was ever really true, I can't say. But that's certainly not how it happens in this film. I imagine this tale is closer to the reality, humans being political beings with preferences and schemes. And God not existing, of course. Or, if 'He' does, certainly not taking that kind of hand in human events.

I enjoyed this story of the events after an unnamed, imaginary pope's death. It's well acted and beautifully shot. It does have one or two moments that tend to the over-theatrical, let's say.

But I have to wonder why the filmmakers chose to tell it, and why now. It's an adaptation of Robert Harris's novel from 2016, and could ask the same question of him: why that story, whey then?

And I guess you tell the story you want to tell, and why not? If other people enjoy it, or get something from it, that's all that matters, really.

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Finished reading: Death’s End by Cixin Liu, Translated by Ken Liu 📚

I laugh gently at my past self, musing that this volume, based on its title, might have a less bleak universe-view.

Reader, it does not.

In fact, that’s the thing I liked least about this whole trilogy, the dark view of the universe, of sentience. The idea that every species that develops intelligence and advances to the point of thinking about space travel and the idea of possibly communicating with other intelligent species; that they would all have a xenocidal1 instinct. Have it, and routinely, casually act on it, by wiping out the star systems of other species they detect.

I’m not saying it couldn’t be so. As one explanation for the Fermi paradox it’s exactly that: one explanation. But it’s just too fuckin bleak for my tastes.

Otherwise, this story, and the trilogy as a whole, is jam-packed with ideas, stuff about relativity, higher and lower dimensions, all sorts of good hard-SF stuff. The characters are kind of blank, undeveloped: I don’t think they’ll be sticking in my memory. But I enjoyed it overall.

Apart from when I was annoyed/disturbed/upset by the dark forest idea.

Your central idea: I do not like it.

Books 2024, 23

  1. The word is Orson Scott Card’s invention, but/and it’s a good one. ↩︎

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It Happened One Night, 1934 - ★★★★

Great screwball comedy. Lots of fun. Don't know why the poster is in colour when it's a black & white film.

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Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, 1988 - ★★½

Daft film about con men. I think I saw it back when it came out, but didn't really remember it.

I'm a week or so behind with posting this.

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Currently reading (and relatively close to finishing): Death’s End by Cixin Liu 📚

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Oh, and Andy Murray’s going to be coaching Novak Djokovic.

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‘Call a General Election’ is trending, with a parliamentary petition. ‘The country can’t stand another four years of this!’ I saw.

But… what is the ‘this’ they’re unhappy about? Labour have been in power for about five minutes, they haven’t had a chance to do anything yet. I don’t understand.

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It’s the middle of November, why is this rose flowering and budding?

A tall rose plant with a yellow-white bloom and three buds, as well as at least one deadhead. Behind it is a wooden fence and a holly bush with berries.
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Watching Channel 4’s Unreported World segment on cocaine smuggling into Spain by mini submarines from South America. And I can’t help thinking, just fucking legalise it. Regulate it, tax it. Take control out of the hands of gangsters. Everyone would be safer.

And not just cocaine, obviously.

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Trumpeting

I was shocked, but not exactly surprised, by the US election result. Or no: I was surprised. I think I had somehow internalised that idea that Kamala Harris would win. It seemed unthinkable that Americans would elect Trump again.

But then, it seemed unthinkable that they would elect him the first time.1

We shouldn’t be too surprised though. Among the presidents in my lifetime, we’ve had Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and W Bush. All of them considered to be dangerous warmongering borderline fascists at the time. And/or comical and incompetent choices, to consider Reagan and W Bush, specifically.

Yet America elected all of them (notwithstanding that the popular vote nearly always favoured their Democratic opponent).

Trump, of course, rolls the ills of all of them up into one great ugly package, and adds narcissism on top. And the times could hardly be worse for women in America in particular, with reproductive healthcare under attack with the overturning of Roe v Wade.

What can you do, though? Life goes on. We’ll get through it, except for those of us who don’t.

  1. For some reason I couldn’t find that post when I wrote this, so I said, ‘I’d link to my post from back then, but apparently I didn’t make one. Only a couple before the election and this general one in early 2017. Sometimes it’s all too much to write about.’ But I did write about it, and used the same title as on this post! Oh dear. ↩︎

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Finished reading: The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu, Translated by Joel Martinsen 📚

This is somehow much less obscure and strange than the first one. I don’t know how much that is to do with it having a different translator, but it’s possible. The third one is back to Ken Liu, who translated the first one, so maybe we’ll see.

The other odd thing is that when I added this to Micro.blog’s Bookshelves feature, it came up with a subtitle I’ve never heard of before: ‘Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2’. On the book’s title page, and in any other discussion I’ve heard of, it’s always referred to as ‘The Three-Body Trilogy’.

Getting to the story itself: perhaps the least believable thing about the whole thing is the idea humans could be convinced to believe that an alien invasion force was on its way to Earth and would arrive in 450 years. To believe and act toward resisting the force or ameliorating the situation by escaping or anything else.

I mean, in the real world we can’t even get people to believe in, get governments and businesses to act on, the climate emergency, and its effects are visible day by day.

The climate is largely ignored in this book, as well, though in the latter part, set two hundred years after the start, we see some extreme desertification in China.

It’s pretty bleak in places, in its philosophy, this one; especially as regards the Fermi paradox, or a solution thereto. But it leaves us at a point where I’m thinking, ‘Where now? That feels like a decent ending.’

But Death’s End (great title, and potentially a much less bleak philosophy, if it matches the title) is sitting waiting, all 700+ pages of it. Why does each volume of a trilogy tend to be longer than the one before?1 So we’ll see where that takes us.

I enjoyed this. There’s a lot of telling, and the characters maybe aren’t very clearly differentiated, but it’s full of ideas.

Books 2024, 22

  1. Not the ur-trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: a large part of The Return of the King was appendices, making it the shortest of the three. ↩︎

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Oh, America, what have you done? How has this happened?

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000 - ★★★★★

An early showing at the BFI IMAX at 11 am on a Sunday! But the chance to see this incredible film on a giant screen was too good to miss.

I first saw it a year or two after it came out, probably on DVD. So twenty or more years ago; and pretty much all I remembered was the spectacle: the fighters running up walls and flying over rooftops and so on.

I had exactly zero memory of the story. Which is strange, because it's a pretty good one. That 'Sword of Destiny' is actually cursed, in my opinion, but you know: there's always going to be some youngster coming after the greatest gunman; someone trying get the Elder Wand from its current owner. That kind of thing.

I'm giving this the coveted five stars because I don't really see how it could be better than it is. That puts into the group of 'One of Martin's favourite films,' and that's fine, because I think it belongs there.

Panel discussion afterwards with a group of women who work in action films in the UK in various ways, including a couple who are stunt performers. That was good too, though people need to be more conscious of their microphone technique in a big space like that.

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Persepolis, 2007 - ★★★★

Great animated film about a girl growing up in Iran through the revolution and overthrow of the Shah, the war with Iraq, and the start of the Islamic regime. As such it's pretty horrific in places.

She escapes in part by being sent to live in Vienna with a friend of her mother, who kicks her out after a few days. Various places to live and experiences ensue before she goes back to Iran as a young woman.

And gets more shit from the Islamic regime before leaving for good to live in Paris.

Autobiographical, based on Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel, and adapted and co-directed by her, too.

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Watched the Channel 4 documentary about Hope Not Hate’s undercover investigation: Undercover: Exposing the Far Right. Very good, compelling viewing, and important.

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Just booked to see Fucked Up on Saturday. I saw them back in 2011. I haven’t paid that much attention since. But since they’re playing at Oslo, Hackney, just down the road, it would be rude not to go.

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Finished reading: The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu , Translated by Ken Liu 📚

Spoilers below.

This is a really strange book. I know it’s probably cultural differences in storytelling style, and what have you. But there is something deeply odd about the way this is told. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is (and at least part of it will be to do with the translation).

At a plot and character level, one thing that surprised me is that when someone starts seeing unexpected visual effects — specifically, a countdown timer superimposed on the world around them — they don’t ever seem to think that the explanation is they’re actually in a simulation. That would seem like the logical first attempt at an explanation, given the recent history of SF and indeed discussions outside of it.

We never learn what was meant to happen at the end of the countdown. And (not connected to that) the character we’re first sympathetic to betrays all of humanity!

I liked the early parts about the Cultural Revolution in China. They linked surprisingly well into my recent Nineteen Eighty-Four deep dive. Which is amusing because not long ago I read something about someone encouraging someone else to read this, where they said you just had to get past that part to really start enjoying it.

I did enjoy it, mind. I went right out and bought the sequels and have started The Dark Forest. I just find it weird. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

This is actually a reread, but it’s nearly a decade since, and I only remembered two scenes.

Books 2024, 21

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The local parakeets basically live in our garden now.