Continuing Continuum

If you haven't seen Continuum yet, what's stopping you?

Well, if you were worried about emotionally investing in a Canadian cable sci-fi show, and I don't blame you in that regard, there's one less reason to worry; Showcase has ordered a second season!

So far I have found Continuum to be smart and (relatively) hard hitting.  This is not your average feel good science fantasy, nor is it just about beautiful people running around in the adventure of the week (although Rachel Nichols is rather attractive. . . ).  There are real issues being explored here such as the nature of terrorism, the rising power of mega-rich corporations, and ultimately the nature of good and evil and our ability to differentiate between them.  For example, Kiera (Nichols) is an agent of the future corporate 'government' and she strives to uphold the law and bring the terrorists to justice.  However, through her eyes, we see more and more reason to doubt just how just the system is that she works for.  Her intentions are righteous, but is her effort misplaced?

Yes, the show is also about time travel.  But like all good science fiction*, the science is just there to help amplify relevant themes from our current time, to dissect them and offer them up for closer examination by the consumer.

I applaud that this show is actually set in Canada.  You'd be amazed how many television shows, especially Sci-fi ones, are made here.  Speaking of Stargate , fans of that TV series should easily recognize two of the stars of Continuum: Lexa Doig and Tony Amendola (one of them is married to fellow Stargate SG1 alum Michael Shanks, I'll let you guess which ).

*That is not to say that I dislike 'hard' science fiction, just that I prefer a bit more social and philisophical speculation to go along with the technical manual of the future.

Canada to Support Evil

I knew this was going to happen. . . but I wanted the 'tough on crime' Bill and the eradication of the long gun registry. . .

The specific evil to which I refer in the title of this post is the provision in Bill C-32 that makes it illegal to break DRM even for personal use of media that you paid for.

Let's be clear here: DRM is evil! It is the equivalent of selling a house that only one person can live in, no one can visit, the key may or may not open the front door even if the newest version of key has been provided, ownership can be revoked at any moment at the whim of the vendor, yet it cannot be resold when the 'owner' needs to move to a new city and it cannot be jacked up and trucked to the new property.

The most annoying aspect of this is that DRM serves no purpose unless law-abiding customer annoyance is the purpose. Pirates tear through DRM like tissue paper. Sometimes, the new encryption is broken before it even hits the market.

In fact, it can be argued that digital piracy exists, in part, because of DRM. This is due to the annoyance factor. Personally I have been stung with a number of Blu-rays that simply won't load despite installation of the latest firmware. Worse yet, the new firmware broke compatibilty with some of my Blu-rays that previously would load.

And I know I'm not the only one being inconvenienced by DRM. In fact, I would wager that the only people being inconvenienced by DRM are legal consumers. I've read many testimonials on the internet from those who have purchased a game that, due to draconian DRM (worthy of its own post), was unplayable so they downloaded a cracked copy. I've also read about people ripping DVD's just so that they don't have to watch the anti-piracy ad every time they want to watch a movie.

Just to highlight some of the lunacy this Bill represents, here are a few quotes from the article listed above:

"Bill C-32 would make it legal for consumers to make a back-up copy of content to protect against loss or damage."

Then later:

"Under the law, Canadians will not be allowed to break digital locks, even if it's for personal use. This includes picking a lock on a DVD purchased overseas to watch at home or to transfer a purchased e-book to read on another personal device."

How does it even make sense to say that you can make backups for personal use, yet you can not bypass the DRM to do so?

Useless.

Meanwhile there is still no word about removal of the 29 cent levy on blank CD's, which is supposed to compensate musical artists for piracy (and tacitly making said piracy legal) or how this will affect the Mountie's stance regarding file-sharers.

And hey, what is a conservative government doing meddling in the affairs of business anyway?

Harper! Laissez-nous faire!

P.s. Tivo and other PVRs were illegal? What was Futureshop really selling in all those boxes then?

"The law will legalize everyday consumer practices, such as using a personal video recorder to record a TV show for later viewing or copying music from a purchased CD to an MP3 player. These are not allowed under the current law."

Cyberpunk lives!

Guess I'm going to have to re-read Neuromancer soon. . .

I remember when I first heard about Cube. Like so many movies, the trailer was better than the feature. But It did prompt me to watch each of its sequels. (for a really good Canadian film check out Foolproof)

I haven't seen Splice yet. It really doesn't look like my thing.

At any rate, I think Natali is probably the right man for the job.

Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson

Sadly, I cannot recommend Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson, but read on if you would like to know more.

Synopsis

A young man with a promising career as a composer, and who also happens to be the son of a Nobel Prize winning genius, discovers that the woman he wants to marry is actually the heir to one of the biggest, and wealthiest, dynasties in the solar system. He has been deemed worthy by the patriarch of the family and everything is ready to proceed. One hitch, he has to give up his career as a musician, his surname, and all the dreams he had for the future.

Sounds like a deal, right?

Instead he joins a colony ship heading out for the stars and far, far away from the only woman he has ever loved.

My thoughts

Let me state right off the start that I have never before read anything by Robert Heinlein nor Spider Robinson. Perhaps fans of either author will find more in this offering. Perhaps not.

To begin with, this is not a Heinlein book. Spider Robinson was told not to write one. This is a book based on an unfinished outline for a juvenile novel that Heinlein shelved early in his career. It also carries on with some of Heinlein's themes and is set in a version of Heinlein's 'Future History' universe. How exactly this version differs from Heinlein's own I can't really say, but there is one rather large event half way through the book that I'm pretty sure mucks things up really well.

It most definitely is not appropriate as a juvenile novel.

I don't know how Variable Star compares to Robinson's other works, but this one was not for me. His language skills are proficient enough; I have no problem there. The problem is that there are really three stories here, each of which could have been given their own treatment. Or rather, they should have received their own treatment. The first is a romance story, the second a tale of a generational ship, and the third. . . well I won't spoil it for you. The storylines sit mostly on their own, growing from the previous story but never returning, not really interdependent. Each could probably have been worked to stand on their own as a short story or novella. Each has enough changes in theme or genre to cater to an entirely different audience than the last.

I also found that too much depended on sheer coincidence. It's a pet peeve of mine. I find that it interrupts my suspension of disbelief. But that might just be me, and I realize that coincidence is not only necessary in some degree for most narratives, but that it actually does happen in real life too.

Parting Shots

Apparently there are three sequels forthcoming. Maybe then we'll get an answer to the mystery of the poppy incident.

I did enjoy the little tidbits of Canadiana that Robinson inserted here and there. Now if he would just learn more about the rest of his adopted country. . .

I wish I had bought the paperback version. I got the hardcover on impulse; it was in a bargain bin at Coles. Normally I like to do a little research before a purchase, but hey, the price was right. What I later learned was that the Cover Art, mostly covered up by a text box on my copy, was done by none other than Stephan Martiniere (whom I wrote about here). As you can probably tell from the article behind my parenthetical link, I'm a fan of his work. Such work as is displayed much better on the paperback edition. . .

Rating: **/5

Blindsight by Peter Watts

I don't know what to think about this book. There is a lot I like about it, but at least as much that I don't like. I suppose that's a good thing. I mean, if a book was exactly what I expect it to be, I wouldn't have to read it now would I?

Synopsis

Mysterious objects blaze through earth's atmosphere. A strange construct is detected out in the black, headed this way.

This is a novel about first contact.

Siri 'Cygnus' Keeton, a man with only half a brain, and his artificially augmented crewmates led by a Vampire are sent out to investigate. What they find will bring insight into the nature of the universe as well as the nature of humanity.

This a novel about the futility of our existence.

What I Like

Okay, now that I've got that out of the way lets get into Potential Spoiler Territory.

This is ostensibly a tale of adventure and discovery, an odyssey if you like. I like adventure stories. But in this novel, it is just one the many frames around the novel's core philosophical message. Unfortunately there isn't much action until well into the book, and even that is relatively scarce. The discovery part is slightly more interesting.

Speaking of frames, the most obvious one is the running narration by the protagonist, Siri. I think the decision to go with an unreliable narrator is the true genius of this book because the story is, at least in part, about identity, self discovery, and human ability to perceive reality.

I rather enjoyed the philosophical discussion presented in this book, even if I cannot agree with the conclusions. Although the concepts bandied around are often hard to follow for all the jargon, they are compelling enough to make the effort. The main course of the discussion is solid existentialism with a heavy dose of nihilism wrapped around the philosophy of mind. The tone of it all, if not the content, reminded me very much of the writings of another Canadian author, Karl Schroeder (my current favourite), so I wasn't very surprised that Watts credited him in the afterward with much of the input in this regard.

There is also plenty of speculation about future technologies, the highlight for me being the human hibernation process. I loved the description of the process being as if they were dessicated corpses coming back to life like zombies or something. Of course, as described in the book it only really works if you've had Vampire DNA grafted on to your own.

Which brings me to my next point, the fantastically weird crew. Siri is a man with half a brain, the other half of his skull filled with bits of computer, who acts more like Data, the Android from Star Trek: The Next Generation, always trying to be human. There is also Susan James aka. The Gang of Four who has had her conscience artificially split into four individuals. Then there is their Vampire leader, Serasti, a creature recreated from ancient DNA whose ancestors once stalked ours across the savannah. Even the ship, Theseus, is intelligent. Delightfully quirky!

What I Dislike

The biggest drawback for me is that this book doesn't really get interesting until about page 300. Partly this is because the author spent a lot of time on Siri's backstory; a backstory that is perhaps necessary for the message of the novel, but which I found to be mundane. I also didn't find it to be entirely successful at explaining Siri's affliction. Now I admit to not spending much time researching any potential links between hemispherectomies and psychopathy or autism but I don't believe there is one.

Another major drawback for me is that the characters of Amanda Bates, Isaac Spindzell, and Robert Cunningham are not strange enough. The later two are purported to be amped up humans with so many technological enhancements they can no longer feel with their own hands. Instead, they come across as rather baseline humans with a few more research tools that have trouble walking.

Finally, I felt that the vampire vulnerabilty to right angles, i.e. crosses, was a lame concession to the old vampire legends. According to the timeline in the book, vampires died out long before Christianity developed. How the two would become associated is beyond my comprehension.

Conclusion

I found this novel to be an eclectic mix of Canadian and British SF styles. It has the philosophy of Karl Schroeder, the societal dysfunction of Robert J. Sawyer, and the pessimism of virtually all British SF. He even has a tacked on, tangential ending much like most of Alastair Reynolds' books.

At least I know what James Nicoll was talking about now.

"Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts."

—James Nicoll

I would have to say that you should avoid this book if you are:

- looking for an adventure story

- confounded by big words

- prone to depression

Rating:

***/5

BTW, This novel, as well as the rest of Peter Watts' work, is freely available on his website, rifters.com