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Archive for the ‘End of the World’ Category

Hank Green–An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (2018) [audiobook 2018]

Posted in Aliens, Audiobooks, Death, End of the World, Hank Green, Kristen Sieh, Puzzles, Science, Scientists, Social Media, Technology, The Future, Violence on August 15, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: August 2023] An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

Unlike apparently everyone in the world, I had no idea who Hank Green was when I started this book.  This came recommended to me by Chirp as a fun read an the plot sounded good so I gave it a try.

When I told my kids about it they knew who Hank Green was (they knew him and his brother rom Crash Course).  I also didn’t know who is brother was.  Well, that’s not true, I had heard of John Green but didn’t know they were brothers and I’ve not actually read anything by John.  So, no expectations.

I was immediately hooked by the narrator of the audiobook, Kristen Sieh. I had no idea who she was either (evidently she’s in a ton of things as well as doing audio books).  There was something about the vulnerability she gave to the main character April May, that I just couldn’t stop listening.

So the premise is fairly straightforward.  Except for the way the narrative is structured.  The story is told as if it were all true and the reader knows what happened already.  She is telling a kind of personal version of monumental events.  She even talks about the day she died.  So, what?

But aside from that the story is simple.  April May is an art student who is working a crap job in New York City.  She is heading home later one night when she notices a giant statue in the middle of the sidewalk.  She is about to pass it by, but she decides to call her friend Andy, a fellow art student and filmmaker, to come and film this thing.  He does and they make a goofy video which the post to YouTube.

In the video, April talks about this robot which she calls Carl and asks Andy (as if he is a passerby, what he thinks about this.

It’s all weird and who even know where this thing came from–is it an ad for a movie or what?  They put the video up and laugh about it. (more…)

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Dan Frey–The Future is Yours (2021) [audiobook 2021]

Posted in Aneesh Chaganty, Beer, Cary Hite, Catherine Ho, Dan Frey, Dion Graham, End of the World, Joshua Kane, Kyla Garcia, Marriage Trouble, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Natasha Soujek, Quantum, Ron Shapiro, Technology, Thérèse Plummer, The Future, Vikas Adam on July 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: July 2023] The Future is Yours

I didn’t know much about this book, but the blurb sounded good.

And wow, was it a a well-told future/time-travel story.  I also really enjoyed that whole cast that was employed for the book.  Usually a single narrator is fine, but there were so many different voices in this story that having multiple narrators was great.

I had known Cary Hite from a Mike Chen novel so his familiar voice was great.  He reads the part of Ben Boyce a young entrepreneur who has great ideas for how to get startups to work.  He is best friends with Adhi Chaudry (read by Vikas Adam).

Adhi is a once-in-a-generation genius.  He writes a thesis that postulates creating a kind of time travel machine using quantum computers.  Fortunately, there’s not a lot of hard science here, so you don’t really have to know what they’re talking about (I also have no idea if what they postulate is feasible in reality).  The thesis is so theoretical that Stanford doesn’t want him to defend it because they think it’s more philosophical than computer science based.

Adhi struggles with things a lot (he is bipolar) but Ben is always there for him.  Ben believes in him 100%.  So when Adhi gets a job at Google (and hates it) and Ben has tried a few startups (that have failed), Ben asks Adhi about that thesis.  And what they might be able to do with it. (more…)

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Damian Bradfield / David Sánchez–Algorithmic Reality (2022)

Posted in Corporate skewering, Damian Bradfield, David Sánchez, Dystopia, End of the World, Environmentalism, Graphic Novel, NBM, Outer Space, Sci-fi, Technology, The Future on July 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: July 15, 2023] Algorithmic Reality

I received this book at work with a bunch of other graphic novels from NBM.  I liked the stuff they sent out–anti-corporate and promoting the underground.  And this book fits in with that ethic.

I don’t know David Sánchez’s work, but his style in this book reminds me of Chris Ware and Ted Rall.  Ware in particular because the characters look vaguely the same in every panel (on purpose) with minimal changes between panels.  Damian Bradfield is a British businessman (that’s pretty much all it says about him on the book) and he has written four tales of dystopian technology takeover.

In the first, a man goes to a store to buy a pair of shoes.  He doesn’t buy any but the employee follows him seemingly everywhere to make sure he doesn’t want them.  On the street.  In the grocery store (where the employee has photos of the sneakers).  Then he sees the employee in different outfits everywhere until finally the employee is in his house. The employee is never aggressive, just always there–like your ads on your phone. (more…)

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Sam Ernst–The New Manifesto or The Slow Eroding of Time (2021)

Posted in Arthur B. Johnson, Books about writers, Choose Your Own Adventure, Dreams, End of the World, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Huh?, Humiliation, Sam Ernst, Skiing, Unreliable narrator on July 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: June 1, 2022] The New Manifesto

So I received this book at work and it was my job to catalog it (it has yet to be cataloged by anyone else).  But there was a problem.

The cover of the book says The New Manifesto a novel by Sam Ernst.  But you never trust the cover for the actual title of a book, you trust the title page.  And the title page says The New Manifesto or The Slow Eroding of Time Arthur B. Johnson edited by Sam Ernst.

Now the cover also has an about the author of Sam Ernst (with an author photo of the back of his head).  And the list of books by Arthur B. Johnson don’t seem to exist.  So, clearly, the author is Sam Ernest and Arthur B. Johnson is fictional,  But from a cataloging standpoint, Johnson needs to be acknowledged in some way.  Which is a pain.

Anyway, I decided to see if this book was worth all of the trouble.

I’m not quite sure.

It opens with a Foreword by Dr James L. Vanderworthy of Bradford College (also fictional).  He says that The New Manifesto is the novel that resonates with him more than any other.  The editors preface is from Ernst, he says he had a copy editing position at Smith Ralston Excelsior which led him to meet and befriend Arthur B. (“Artie”) Johnson.  It was this that inspired him to edit Artie’s words in the way we see here.  The Publisher says they didn’t really know what to do with the book, but they thank Ernst for his tireless work on it.

The book is presented in nine parts.  Many are short, but some (like part 2 An Assemblage) are nearly 100 pages.

Part 1 the Prelude is a series of 25 numbered paragraphs

1. He sat down to write
4. He was writing a book.  A book he never finished.  This is a story of failure.
18. Given the book’s title, he was finding it surprising how little manifesting was being done.

Part 2 is written in several much longer sections.  Each one is a hilarious account of the narrator’s life as he does remarkable things and then moves on.

He averts a war between two countries. He speaks neither language but found a letter from one kingdom to the other.  Had the message not gotten through, war was inevitable.  But he rowed for days across the sea to bring the message to the beacon he saw.  He walks to a war torn country and is taken for a doctor (he is not).  Because of a book he had just read, he is able to diagnose a seemingly dying patient, and as he leaves the area he inadvertently participates and wins the 1984 Sarajevo Ski Jump Competition.

After a few more adventures, including one aboard a ship, he gets a job at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he uncovers a brilliant scientific schema because of the box elder bugs that swarm his office window. (more…)

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Toranosuke Shimada–Robo Sapiens : Tales of Tomorrow (2019) [translation] Adrienne Beck (2021)

Posted in Death, End of the World, Graphic Novel, Huh?, Robots, The Future, Toranosuke Shimada on January 3, 2023| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: October 2022] Robo Sapiens : Tales of Tomorrow

I received this book at work and was intrigued to read it (Manga style right to left).  It is a collection of connected stories that form a solid plot.

The premise is fairly straightforward–it is the future and robots are now “cyber-persons” with A.I. brains with their own culture.

The story opens with a robot salvager relating Simon Chan’s case.  Chan was over 120 years old and only called on the main character because the story had to be kept hush hush.

His request was straightforward–find a robot that he has lost fifty years ago. But the realty was more difficult–in the last fifty years it was probably scrapped.  But Chan was insistent–Letitia is still alive.

The back story is that Chan and Letitia were the IT couple of the day fifty years ago.  But when he lost her to an accident, he went into seclusion. A year later he returned to the public eye with a robotic Letitia–this was long before such a thing was accepted.  The story has an interesting twist involving the true identity of Simon Chan.

The second story is one of romance between characters who believe they are robots and are visiting the site of a robotic graveyard, Robot Hill.

Story three is a nearly wordless story about chromobots travelling through time to caveman days. (more…)

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Valérie Mangin–Yuanyuan’s Bubbles [by Cixin Liu] (Graphic novel #4 2021) [originally written 2004; translated 2021]

Posted in Barack Obama, Bubbles, China, Cixin Liu, Death, End of the World, Graphic Novel, Nicholas Blackburn Smith, Steven Dupré, Supernatural, Talos Press, Translation, Valérie Mangin. on June 23, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: June 23, 2022] Yuanyuan’s Bubbles

This is the fourth of sixteen graphic novels based on Cixin’s Liu’s stories.  This story, originally called 圆圆的肥皂泡, is the most straightforward one yet.

It is full of hope and shows that play is just as important as other scholarly pursuits.

When Yuanyuan was born, the one thing that made her happy was bubbles.  Her mother was a scientist and rather serious.  While her father often chided her mother for being too straight-faced.  But her mother had serious work to do.

Their city–Silk Road City was having severe drought.  If nothing could be done about it, the whole city would have to be abandoned.  Yuanyuan’s mother’s idea was to drop ice bombs with plants in them from a plane.  The project worked–the water helped to keep the seedlings alive.

However, in a rather dramatic early moment, the plane went down and Yuanyuan’s mother was killed.  Yuanyuan’s father was affected by the death of his wife and insisted that Yuanyuan grow up to be just like her mother–serious and thoughtful.  But Yuanyuan had other ideas.  She was still obsessed with bubbles.

Even her teachers noticed her attitude.  But her grades were excellent. Indeed, one of her teachers explained to Yuanyuan’s father that “in this new era, being a  little more relaxed and carefree isn’t a weakness.”

Her father still wants her to take things more seriously, but in the meantime, Yuanyuan has discovered a formula for creating the largest bubble in the world–it’s breaks the world record!

Yuanyuan becomes very successful–her formulas for creating elasticity in bubbles is greatly in demand.  Ultimately, her father asks her for a loan to help keep part of their old city alive.  But she says she cannot.  She is using her funds for her next project–a bubble that can envelope a city.

That’s actually not what she intended, but the bubble does settle onto the city, forcing everyone to figure out how to survive with their oxygen being cut off.  Everyone is furious at Yuanyuan, but she only sees the possibilities–what is she made bubbles that could carry water from he sea to their desiccated city?

No one thinks she can do it.  People make fun of her.  Even her father is disappointed in her.  But she won’t give up.

As with most of these graphic novels, I feel like the story suffers a but from being truncated (I assume it was truncated a lot).  And yet the general tone and tenets of the story come through clearly.  And it’s very cool.  It was translated by Nicholas Blackburn Smith and then written for this book by Valérie Mangin.

The story was illustrated by Steven Dupré and he does a great job creating the images of the bubbles.

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Zhang Xiaoyu–The Village Teacher [by Cixin Liu] (Graphic novel #3 2021) [originally written 2001; translated 2021]

Posted in Barack Obama, Cancer as plot device, China, Cixin Liu, Death, End of the World, Graphic Novel, Outer Space, S. Qiouyi Lu, Set at School, Supernatural, Surreal, Talos Press, Translation, Violence, Zhang Xiaoyu on February 21, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: February 2022] The Village Teacher

This book came to my work and it was quite a challenge to catalog.  Cixin Liu is a Chinese science fiction writer.  These are graphic novel adaptations of his short stories.  But he did not write the graphic novels.  However, I wanted them linked together because there are going to be sixteen of them and they should all go together.  If you put them under Liu, then they go into the Chinese authors section.  But these are American books created for American audiences.  (I wound up making it an American series under Liu’s name).

Anyhow, I had never heard of him before, but these books are blurbed by none other than Barack Obama.

So I decided to take a look at them.

This book is also called The Rural Teacher in translated form.

After the complex intensity that was The Wandering Earth, this story is much more simple.  But it is not less intense.

There are two storylines.  I’m not sure if in the written work it’s less clear that the story lines are at the same time.  It felt like for a powerful effect, they would not be obviously simultaneous, but I’m not sure how he could have done that.

The story starts on a school in a rural village.  The teacher is teaching the kids about outer space. (more…)

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Christophe Bec, Stefano Raffaele–The Wandering Earth [by Cixin Liu] (Graphic novel #2 2021) [originally written 2000; translated 2021]

Posted in Babies, Barack Obama, China, Cixin Liu, Death, End of the World, Graphic Novel, Jok, Magnus, Olympics, Outer Space, Rodolfo Santullo, S. Qiouyi Lu, Supernatural, Surreal, Talos Press, Translation, Violence on February 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: February 2022] The Wandering Earth

This book came to my work and it was quite a challenge to catalog.  Cixin Liu is a Chinese science fiction writer.  These are graphic novel adaptations of his short stories.  But he did not write the graphic novels.  However, I wanted them linked together because there are going to be sixteen of them and they should all go together.  If you put them under Liu, then they go into the Chinese authors section.  But these are American books created for American audiences.  (I wound up making it an American series under Liu’s name).

Anyhow, I had never heard of him before, but these books are blurbed by none other than Barack Obama.

So I decided to take a look at them.

This second one is also a dark story about the destruction of the earth (actually, all three are).

The story is also more complicated with a lengthy timespan and a few surprises thrown in.

As the story opens we learn that three hundred years ago scientists discovered that our sun was using up its hydrogen and converting it to helium–it was going to explode.  So the scientists began a plan.  Using rockets, they would stop the earth’s rotation and then using those same rockets, they would propel the earth into a habitable part of the galaxy.

Obviously, this would take many generations and would result in the destruction of the earth as we know it.

The book begins with a baby born on the day that the earth had stopped rotating.  We quickly jump to the boy in school learning about everything that happened (a great way of doing exposition).  These students are high-tech and scientifically very smart.  Art and philosophy and everything like it have basically been done with because it’s all hands on deck for saving the planet. (more…)

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Rodolfo Santullo, Jok–Sea of Dreams [by Cixin Liu] (Graphic novel #1 2021) [originally written 2002; translated 2021]

Posted in Artists, Barack Obama, China, Cixin Liu, End of the World, Graphic Novel, Jok, Magnus, Outer Space, Rodolfo Santullo, Supernatural, Surreal, Talos Press on February 16, 2022| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: February 2022] Sea of Dreams

This book came to my work and it was quite a challenge to catalog.  Cixin Liu is a Chinese science fiction writer.  These are graphic novel adaptations of his short stories.  But he did not write the graphic novels.  However, I wanted them linked together because there are going to be sixteen of them and they should all go together.  If you put them under Liu, then they go into the Chinese authors section.  But these are American books created for American audiences.  (I wound up making it an American series under Liu’s name).

Anyhow, I had never heard of him before, but these books are blurbed by none other than Barack Obama.

So I decided to take a look at them.

This first one is a dark story about the destruction of the earth (actually, all three are).

The story opens on an Ice & Snow Arts Festival.  The artist Yan Dong is completely wrapped up in his sculpture which is abstract and wild unlike every other one.  While people are looking at the art, a giant ball comes out of the sky and hovers above the ground.  The creature calls itself a Low Temperature Artist.  It states that only art matters in the universe–everything else is trivial.

It scoffs at the realistic art pieces and says that only Dong’s is worth considering.

Then it says that it will create the greatest ice-based art.  And it slowly begins sucking up all of the water from the earth.  It freezes the water and begins preparations for its installation which will remain in space protected by a membrane that will prevent the ice from melting.

Pretty cool.  Except of course, that soon, the planet is completely dried out. (more…)

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Dustin Bates / Peter David–The Prox Transmissions [graphic novel] (2017)

Posted in Corporate skewering, Death, Dustin Bates, End of the World, Environmentalism, Graphic Novel, Outer Space, Peter David, Sci-fi, Science, Sex, Starset, The Future, Violence on January 15, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: January 15, 2021] The Prox Transmissions

I had recently seen Starset live and decided to check out lead singer Dustin Bates’ books (which I had gotten for my son for his birthday and I think he hasn’t read).

All of the CDs have a theme and the story of the Prox Transmissions is meant to tie into the album called Transmission.

My understanding was that the graphic novel was an adaptation of the novel.  I couldn’t find the novel in his room, but I did see the graphic novel, so I started with that (even though I’m sure it would have ben smarter to read the novel first).

The most impressive thing about this to me was that it was published by Marvel.  Not because I’m a Marvel fan boy but because I just assumed it was self published.  That being said, I think a thing or two was lost in the abridgement.

There are double crosses and possibly triple crosses and seemingly minor characters come to have major roles without a very satisfying explanation.  Basically it feels like a story that has has a lot removed (which it is).

The actual story line is pretty cool though. (more…)

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