Marijan > Recent Status Updates

Robbie - 3/5
Runaround - 3/5
Reason - 2/5
Catch That Rabbit
Liar!
Little Lost Robot
Escape!
Evidence
The Evitable Conflict

I like the writing so far but it seems to be developing into one of those "local jock starts seeing the pretty-ugly girl and then hides it from everyone because it would hurt his reputation" stories which I really hope it isn't.

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom - 4.5/5 - A story about a world where Prisms, some kind of quantum physics devices, split the universe into two versions whenever they are activated, allowing also communication between the parallel universes (and are available for private use). Deals with the implications of the awareness of such parallel realities on our choices.

Omphalos - 3.5/5 Probably the strangest story in the collection, although wildly imaginative, it's set in a universe where Earth is dominated by religion because there are actual proofs of God having created the Earth some thousand years ago. The problem the story deals with is, what if that creation was an accident and we were not the point and main reason for the act of creation?

The great silence - 4/5 A sad little story about humanity's quest for intelligent life in outer space, told by a parrot, whose intelligent race is being ignored and destroyed by humans, right here on Planet Earth.

The truth of fact, the truth of feeling - 4.5/5 Probably the best of the bunch so far, the most relatable and easy to imagine, it's a story about the introduction of videologging and a new software that enables instant access to videos of your life making all "memory" permanent and infallible (spoiler, there are positives and negatives). Less dystopian version of the Black mirror episode.

Dacey's patent automatic nanny - 3.5/5 A story about an alternate universe where an inventor makes automated nannies in the early 20th century and the effect being raised by a kind of machine has on a person. A stretch but continues with the theme of human contact and interaction as the basis of society.

The lifecycle of software objects - 4/5 Longest story of the bunch, more like a novella, about artificial intelligence in the form of cutesy virtual "digients" and their developing relationship with their carers. I didn't really understand why the AI had the limitations it had or why the Digients continued to have such limited. childlike grammar even when their logic skills developed to that of adult humans.

What's expected of us - 5/5 Very short but powerful story about determinism.

Exalation - 4/5 - A story about a strange world inhabited by machines which run on air. Ingenious.

The Merchant and the Alchemists gate - 4/5 Very engaging story, set in the exotic Middle East of the middle ages, just not sure if the resolution really landed and normally time travel opens more questions than it can answer.

Ah yes. Simple, clear prose with no smug cleverness. Just what I needed.

I need a palate cleanser after the disaster of Emotionally weird.

"‘Stop it now,’ a very vexed Heather said, clapping her hands like a nursery school teacher; ‘this is absolute, gratuitous nonsense.’
And so it was."

"A lot of time passed without anything happening." Yeah I'm pretty sure Atkinson is laughing at us. Why, Kate? :/

What to say about a book where one of the narrators interrupts the other one, who is telling the majority of the plot until now, that it's too boring or has too many one dimensional, throwaway characters {I agree]. Is Atkinson putting us on? Who can last longer reading boring pointless crap? Well challenge accepted Kate!

Another chapter where not much happens. The first 30% of the book can be summarized like this: A student at a Scottish university wakes up at her deadend stoner boyfriend's apartment, goes to a confusing and boring class, goes to the crowded community room, leaves the room and encounters a private detective, takes a ride in his car, not much happens, goes back home, goes to babysit for her professor. Why, Kate? :/

Re-read since I never managed to finish the whole thing a few years ago!

"Like volume to the ancient Egyptians who depicted everything flat, in two dimensions because volume was terrifying unknowability." What? No they didn't, they had plenty of three dimensional sculptures, taking just the sphinx as the obvious example.

I'm starting to wonder if I should quit this book. There's nothing really here to grab my attention, even though there seem to be quite a few characters and scenes devised with exactly that purpose. The nice thing about this book is that it's loaded with references to interesting artists I've never heard about so she's obviously a big art consumer. Dunno...Let's see how this goes...

I really can't believe that Heinlein's expression "grokking" or "to grok" from "A strange in a strange land" actually took hold in american popular culture for a while. It sounds so ludicrous now. I guess people eventually caught on to how ridiculous it sounds.

In honor of the great man's passing. I've only read The right stuff, which is an unqualified masterpiece.

"It’s good. It’s fucked up, but it’s good. It not only has presence as an object, it has actual content, which is rare these days—content, that is, beyond a fragment of a fragment of a simple idea." This is Mr. Cunningham describing something he JUST invented himself.

Someone should put an official ban on people trying to do several types of art at the same time. It's highly improbable that the artist in question will be good enough in both mediums to make it seem believable. Plus it's just so incredibly self-indulgent to first invent something, then ascribe meaning and relevance to it that it really takes me out of the reading experience.

Ok, it has to be said, but it's physically impossible to walk from the Bowery to Battery park in New York during a phone conversation that in reality lasts a few minutes. Google maps says it would take you 50 minutes to walk that distance. GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT MR. PULITZER PRIZE WINNER.

'We were scientists, trained to observe natural phenomena and the results of human activity. We had not been trained to encounter what appeared to be the uncanny.' I'm sorry, what?? Scientists with a task to go into Area X, whose name alone signifies something unusual, let alone that this is the 12th? mission into the area, with ALL of the previous missions having ended up with some sort of bizarre mystery.

Yep, officially annoyed by the "anthropologist" "biologist" "psychologist" crap. Could he not have used Person A Person B Person C if he wanted to keep it impersonal? Stupid idea.