John Wyndham - The Day Of The Triffids

“When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like a Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.”

So begins The Day Of The Triffids, a tale of the end of the world. Our hero is Bill Masen, a biologist who has spent his career dealing with triffids — giant three-legged, walking, poisonous, carnivorous plants, bred in captivity and tapped for their lucrative oil. He wakes up in a hospital bed, waiting for the bandages over his eyes to be removed, only to find that 99% of the human race has been blinded by a beautiful green asteroid shower the night before.

The rest of the book is the story of Bill and his new partner in crime, Josella, attempting to survive through the throngs of recently blinded Londoners. The blind citizens are easy targets for the triffids, who sting and then devour the sitting ducks. Chaos and violence are rampant, and the sighted quickly realize they will need to band together if they are going to survive. The rest of the book is an account of Bill and Josella’s new life in dystopia.

The Day Of The Triffids was wonderful. I was seriously considering calling in sick this morning so that I could finish it. I didn’t want to put it down. I appreciated all the characters and how they dealt with their new realities, whether it was leaving the unfortunately blinded citizens to the mercy of the triffids, or trying to learn to live off the land. It was bleak and yet hopeful at the same time.

I want everyone I know to read this book so I can talk about it with them. I thought it was a well written, smart, realistic book. It challenged me to think about what I would do in the same situation, what chances I would stand against a triffid…

Arthur C, Clarke - 2010: Odyssey Two

Nine years after the events of 2001: A Space Odyssey stranded the spaceship Discovery around a moon of Jupiter and Dave Bowman disappeared under mysterious circumstances, the countries of Earth are mounting missions to rendezvous with Discovery to try and figure out what happened to the ill-fated mission. The Russians, Chinese and Americans are all trying to get there first, and when it is discovered that the Discovery will crash with Jupiter before the Americans can reach it, the Russians and Americans team up. Will they make it to Discovery? Will they beat the Chinese there? What the hell happened at the end of 2001? All of those questions, and many that didn’t need to be answered, are addressed in 2010.

This book was really well written. It is smart and engaging, but for some reason it definitely rang hollow with me. I wasn’t in love with 2001, and I’m not in love with 2010 either. I do feel that it was the better of the two books, but I wasn’t sucked into the story. It wasn’t a page-turner, and I didn’t really care about the fates of any of the main characters. I was hoping that HAL would snap again and try to kill everybody, but that hope was dashed time and time again.

I thought the science in the book was mostly believable until the monoliths started doing silly things and Jupiter exploded. After that, I felt like the fantasy level skyrocketed and it sort of took me out of the otherwise compelling story.

Arthur C. Clarke is a brilliant science fiction author, and I would have to say that if you love his writing, you will probably enjoy 2010. If you like sci-fi with mostly competent science, this is a book for you. There are two more books in the space odyssey series. If I find them cheap at a used bookstore, I will probably purchase and read them, but I will not hunt them down.

1967 - Pierre Berton

Pierre Berton talks about a Canada that seems hard to understand – confident, celebratory, free-spending, looking forward into a limitless future. 1967 marked the year of Canada’s centennial celebrations, the extreme success that was Expo 67, social and political structures about to shift in massive ways. In this book, Pierre Berton discusses that year on the cusp. Politics are about to change with the emergence of Pierre Trudeau. The NHL is about to go from six teams to twelve, and Toronto faced Montreal in the Stanley Cup finals for the last time. Canada is celebrating its first 100 years by building hockey arenas, schools, civic centres meant to bring communities together. Expo 67 brought Canada’s to the world’s attention, and brought the world to Canadians. Quebec is dealing with its place in Canadian society. Hippies are taking over, and parents just don’t understand. Berton goes through it all with his trademark style.

So where does it fit in his repertoire? Well, it was pretty good, but not great. I didn’t think there was a lot at stake.

I have often criticized Isaac Asimov’s later works, saying that someone must have drove a dump truck full of money up to his back door, and that they felt like he was phoning it in. I wouldn’t be quite so critical of this book, but it definitely felt unnecessary. I did find the chapters on Expo 67 and the foundations of Quebec’s sovereignty movement to be quite fascinating, and would have preferred individual books on these subjects rather than the padding of hippies, hockey and crazy Centennial celebrations.

How To Survive A Robot Uprising - Daniel H Wilson

How do you spot a robot mimicking a human? How do you recognize and deactivate a rebel servant robot? How do you escape a murderous “smart” house, or evade a swarm of marauding robotic flies?

In this essential survival guide, roboticist Daniel H Wilson teaches worried humans the secrets to quashing a robot mutiny. From treating laser wounds to fooling face and speech recognition, outwitting robot logic to engaging in hand-to-pincer combat, How to Survive a Robot Uprising covers every possible doomsday scenario facing the newest endangered species: humans.

Earlier this year, I reviewed Daniel Wilson’s Where’s My Jetpack> I think this book was a bit better. The humour was a bit drier, which I liked a lot, and it felt less like a Wikipedia article. Slightly terrifying at times, it reminded me of why we want to make friends with the robots while they are still under our control.

He looks mad, doesn’t he? Well, I didn’t want to disappoint Sir Isaac yet again this week, so in the last seven days, I have made six pretty quilt blocks!

My total is up to twenty four blocks. I need twenty eight, and two of the blocks aren’t usable. That means there’s only four more blocks to go. This is exciting. And it makes Isaac happy.

See?

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States of America. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets, where pictures have replaced words because women are forbidden to read. She must lic on her back once a month and pray that the Commander maker her pregnant, for Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable.

Offred can remember a time when she lived with and made love to her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now…

What ever happened to utopian futures? Seems that they went out of style some time before the cold war. *sigh*

This was my first Margart Atwood book. Her Wikipedia article has an entire section about her beefs with the term science fiction, so I will tow party line and say that this novel is speculative fiction, and I would have to say that it fits more into the latter than the former. It is told in the first person by a woman who has seen the transition from the modern world we know and love, to a brutal totalitarian, sexist theocracy. one of the things that I felt shocked by was how easily the propagandists and those in power made the new policies that robbed women of their status bit by bit, how quickly the end of the world came. Offred’s flashbacks to her former life made her current situation that much more heartbreaking.

Somehow, even through all the bleakness, Atwood has managed to make me see the glimmers of goodness in Offred’s life, and that to me is a great skill. This book was wonderful. I think I would recommend it as a gateway drug for my science fiction hating peers, as “it’s not sci-fi” at all.

Geek Love is ours

We’re getting into details now. We finished the wedding website a few days after invitations started arriving, and we got gift registries sorted out and published last night. I have confirmed my makeup and hair people, and Pat Morrison is good to do for ceremony music. We’re making headway with finalizing the ceremony. On Saturday I have an appointment with the person doing alterations on my dress. I’m going tomorrow for attempt number two at obtaining the marriage license.

Last week, we tried to get the marriage license and my passport only to find that my birth certificate is no longer considered a birth certificate. I had to order a new one, which arrived yesterday, so tomorrow I’m going to go try again. The passport people and marriage license require the same identification set and are in the same building, so that’s at least convenient. I have to take another morning off to do it, but at this point I just want it to be done.

The gift registry was harder to do than we wanted. No brick and mortar stores have good online gift registries, and our families aren’t going to be okay with using an Amazon.com registry. Sears had the best online registry, and as a web developer, I have to say that not having an online registry may have been better. It wasn’t tied into their catalogue website at all, but their wishlists are. What is the difference between a wedding registry and a wishlist? The only thing I can think of is adding multiple people’s names to the account, but even then, there aren’t individual log-ins.

I have a feeling some of our guests aren’t going to like the number of items on the registry, but Alan and I had a hard time coming up with the items we have added. We have a full apartment and don’t really have room for more stuff. We’re going to upgrade our dishes and a few small appliances, but other than that, we are good. We have a short registry, but it seems like we always managed to pick the most expensive item in the store when we did add something. I’m going to blame Alan for this, even though it’s probably not his fault.

We have to work on our vows still. Right now Alan’s seem to be lines from an MC Hammer song, and mine involve the robot apocalypse. Think we’re going to have to do a bit better than that.

What other wedding things am I missing guys? What things should be done by 7 weeks before the event?

none! How awesome is that? Not very? Yeah! I know!

But I have a wedding coming up and apparently that means I use by time to worry about stuff related to it instead of making pretty things.

It’s a really good thing Isaac isn’t relying on me to keep him warm.

So I thought I should let you all know how wedding plans are going. Mostly cause I want to know if I’m forgetting about something.

• Date: March 13, 2010, which seemed really far away when we picked it.
• Church: Camlachie United Church. We also have two ministers and Pat Morrison’s going to do music for us
• Photographer: Is shooting with a Canon something or other in RAW format and then giving Alan a disc of the photos for him to play with
• Invitations: 71 were mailed out yesterday. We have about 30 more to go because there were missing bits in their addresses
• Wedding Party: I’ve got three kick ass bridesmaids who all have nice dresses and I’m assuming they will all have been altered by March 13th. Alan’s got three kick ass groomsmen who are bad at getting measurements to him. They may be wearing tuxedo t-shirts if they keep this up. We have a hairdresser booked.
• Flowers are being handled by family friends who own a flower shop nearby
• Reception: Across the street from the church. The UCW is catering. My brother is going to be the emcee and is for some reason trying to think up nerd jokes. The DJ is the hairdresser’s husband.

This weekend we got a lot accomplished. We printed out the address labels and put together and sent out most of the addresses, I got my shoes, and we also picked out our rings. We also managed to get most of the missing pieces in addresses filled in by calling the relatives who are good at organizing and have things like address books. This week I need to confirm that the person who was going to do makeup is on board and talk to our photographer. On Saturday I’m going for another dress fitting.

What do you think? Am I forgetting about something?