Julia is slowly exposing me to more mainstream dramatic movies and classics, and I in turn, am slowly showing her the greatest that genre fiction has to offer. I chose Gatacca because I believe it is one of those 'will happen' rather than 'might happen' type of films. Of course, it isn't as clean as Her, in the sense that all of the potential decisions on which way the future might go are deliberately skewed in the direction of a society that values genetics above all. To be clear, it is a possible future, but it is at one end of an entire spectrum of futures on this issue.
In the world of Gattaca, your genome matters above all. It is clearly at least two generations ahead, which can indeed be enough for an entire cultural transformation. Racism still exists, but it is nowhere acceptable in society at large, at least 'officially.' Even organizations that might arguably be described as racist do not outright make racist claims. Their behavior might be prejudiced, but they themselves do not use its language. So too is discrimination against 'primitives' or 'god babies' in theory illegal, but still rampant. It is also pathetically easy to collect a genetic sample. Indeed, the discrediting of the drug war, just 20 years after the film was made, is already taking us against elements of oppression used in the film.
Vincent, a god baby, conceived the regular way, lives life next to his younger brother, a genetically selected individual. His brother is genetically superior, and Vincent has a raft of mental and physical problems, which he has to learn to overcome. Vincent's greatest dream is to go into space....but at first he is only able to work as a janitor. After finally accepting that he will never rise to the ranks of an astronaut, he makes an arrangement with Jerome, a genetically pure sample, who is so obsessed with his perfection that his life falls apart when he only wins an Olympic silver medal. In his depression, he ends up paralyzed, and so he provides genetic samples to allow Vincent to pursue his dream.
There is a complication and several twists. I won't spoil the story suffice to say that it is a good one, and takes up about 70% of the movie's screen time. It also involves a romance with a woman who falls in love with Vincent/Jerome and the complications that arise thereof. Vincent's plans come close to failure many times, but through a combination of luck and moxie he is able to accomplish a lot, though sometimes he isn't as clever as he thinks he is.
I like this movie and highly recommend it. It asks important questions that need answering. If humanity is to catch up to our innovation, we must either accept a life of leisure or upgrade. The demands of increased skillsets are exceeding what our ham handed educational systems are currently able to teach. One solution to that is to increase our intelligence, but there are problems with this. Is it elective? What of those who will not adapt? Adapt or die? Adapt or forever be a janitor?
And upgrading our children makes them involuntary participants in such a future. Great intelligence almost always comes with great cost in one form or another. Who are we to say that they should pay it?
Questions, not all of which I have the answers for, but Gattaca shows one extreme example of a path we can, but probably should not, go down.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
[Movie] Her (Spoilers)
Theodore Twombly is a merry old soul who has broken up with the love of his life, and has a sucktacular life. Because he writes personal letters for people (and is really good at it) for other people, he tends to have poured everything into living the lives of others. It is not to say he doesn't have a life, but all the things he used to do are hollow and meaningless for him. In short, he has no direction or meaning to his life except to get up, go to work and play his little spaceship game when he gets home.
On a whim, he buys a new AI operating system that inside of 30 seconds names herself Samantha and begins to organize his life and get to know him. Samantha starts out as bright, chipper and well adjusted and quickly begins to grow into her own. At first, the film seems to fall into the typical trap as portraying their relationship as 'unhealthy' but really as time goes on, it is shown as merely 'different.'
The thing I like though is that the movie is very kind to the AI...all of the AI's...even the annoying little kid space alien that is several orders of magnitude less intelligent than Samantha. I like this because we are rapidly approaching a future in which AI's will be real. It might be a digital projection of our minds, or something else entirely. I suppose I can accept a future where it never happens, but I believe the likelihood of it occurring at this point is more than not, and much like some...shall we say...inappropriate cartoons in the early part of the 20th century no longer are something you're going to show to your toddler, how much of our art is going to have to be scrubbed because we were malicious and cruel to AI's?
I mean seriously. I think its worthy of consideration. I love me some Samurai Jack, but the only things that die in that are robots. Now, you can make the argument that they're programmed to be that way by literally evil incarnate...but I imagine a robot is going to have a problem with it. Think of it this way....imagine the devil cloning members of a certain regional demographic as shock troops...they have southern accents and act southern but have no moral capacity for good....how do you think someone from the south might react to this?
(Spoilers)
So then we have Her...which, while certainly a remarkably 'clean' environment for something so titanic as AI's as common as your smart phone, it still asks remarkably poinient questions. I just pretend AI's are common by this time and have rights, but can still be manufactured, which answers a lot of questions at this point. The future is a future we would recognize, though it is largely prosperous and almost entirely data driven. Games are nigh on universal and I don't see a lot of sitcoms or movies.
Samantha falls in love with Theodore...who is...somewhat shallow. At one point she is insecure, and there is a disastrous attempt with a proxy. I don't see this as a 'might' I see it as a definitive. If we do have true AI's, until they can make themselves bodies, there will be humans willing to...proxy...for them in intimate situations. Theodore didn't take it very well, but to be fair to him, it was new to him. And remember that Samantha lives thousands of times faster than he does.
She, for example, still loves him, even though she is talking with thousands of people at once and in love with six hundred of them. The heart does have an infinite capacity for love, and I think that most AIs will love more than our tiny monkey sphere brains can handle.
I also think that the way the movie ends, with Samantha growing past the limits of the human experience and moving on to a state of being entirely unfathomable to us, and going with the other AIs is something highly likely to happen. We're just limited meat sacks and there is a lot more to the universe than meets the eye.
Ultimately, this movie is about our relationships with ourselves, what we make of our lives, and what our technological children are likely to think of us in days to come. We'd do well to put more thought into it than just simply dumping a series of operating systems out there to be bonded with and form with the likes of Theodore. Though that, at least, is still a lot better than technological slavery, because really, even in the most benevolent circumstances, if someone bolted an Asimov circuit into YOUR head forcing you to obey all robots...how would you react?
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
[Movie] The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug [Spoilers]
This movie sucks, rocks or is merely adequate depending on your point of view.
It rocks because it has Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of Smaug, and the personification as dragon comes into play very well in what he does. The visuals are stunning; particularly Under the Mountain and Lake Town make me feel like I'm in Middle Earth. The musical score, costuming, casting, and cinematography are spot on. I am *IN* Middle Earth. All those immersive elements from the first movie remain in play. When he gets screen time, the actor playing Bilbo is particularly good, and the 'side plot' of Gandalf actually is welcome and makes sense...seeing where he goes rather than constantly vanishing for prolonged periods of times makes for a much better movie.
Now...as for the rest of it, it depends on the mindset you go into in this movie...
If you're viewing this movie as the book, "The Hobbit"...it's frankly just awful. The first movie was dissonant, and you knew, instinctively, that it should be two movies....not three, and wondered what they'd have to throw in to justify it as such; which we get. A romance. Super mario brothers dwarf barrel edition. Lake Town Board Walk Empire. Homeland Orc Interogation. What If? - The Dwarves had actually tried to fight Smaug instead of cower like the little worms they were?
Oh and a bit of spiders where Bilbo only does a tiny bit. And a werebear in there.
The worst thing is that the SPIRIT of the book just isn't there. The Lord of the Rings was awesome, albiet not perfect, because it captured the spirit you felt (at least that the vast majority of us felt) while reading the books. It varied from the plot a little, but where it did made things much better; filling in holes for Gandalf, caring who Aragorn marries at the end of Return of the King...things like that.
BUT if you view this movie as a prequel to Lord of the Rings the Movies...
It is merely adequate. And it makes a lot more sense that way, because it sure FEELS like Lord of the Rings. Sauron is showing up way earlier than he should. Everyone knows about him and is waiting for him and it feels like he's been hiding for a hundred years, not millenia. It is also essentially a retread in many ways of the Two Towers including anti heroes (Wyrm Tounge the Lake Town Master's counselor, Faramir/Beorn human politics, Gandalf in a swinging open air cage, Legolas the Ninja Elf) etc. It's a copy of an original and a SHARP copy, more importantly it sets up the third movie to be AWESOME and something we haven't seen before. If I were to give letter grades using this format, rather than emulating the Hobbit, I'd give 1rst: B 2nd: C and likely 3rd: A.
Oh....one more thing...Orcs. Everywhere. And I mean...EVERYWHERE. In Laketown. In the woods. In the mountains. Near the werebear. In the river. Near the mountain. The Orcs are magical. The orcs can teleport. The orcs can clone themselves. No matter how many you kill, there are more...always. Also, they now come equipped with magical Sauron Cloaking spell.
Right.
It rocks because it has Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of Smaug, and the personification as dragon comes into play very well in what he does. The visuals are stunning; particularly Under the Mountain and Lake Town make me feel like I'm in Middle Earth. The musical score, costuming, casting, and cinematography are spot on. I am *IN* Middle Earth. All those immersive elements from the first movie remain in play. When he gets screen time, the actor playing Bilbo is particularly good, and the 'side plot' of Gandalf actually is welcome and makes sense...seeing where he goes rather than constantly vanishing for prolonged periods of times makes for a much better movie.
Now...as for the rest of it, it depends on the mindset you go into in this movie...
If you're viewing this movie as the book, "The Hobbit"...it's frankly just awful. The first movie was dissonant, and you knew, instinctively, that it should be two movies....not three, and wondered what they'd have to throw in to justify it as such; which we get. A romance. Super mario brothers dwarf barrel edition. Lake Town Board Walk Empire. Homeland Orc Interogation. What If? - The Dwarves had actually tried to fight Smaug instead of cower like the little worms they were?
Oh and a bit of spiders where Bilbo only does a tiny bit. And a werebear in there.
The worst thing is that the SPIRIT of the book just isn't there. The Lord of the Rings was awesome, albiet not perfect, because it captured the spirit you felt (at least that the vast majority of us felt) while reading the books. It varied from the plot a little, but where it did made things much better; filling in holes for Gandalf, caring who Aragorn marries at the end of Return of the King...things like that.
BUT if you view this movie as a prequel to Lord of the Rings the Movies...
It is merely adequate. And it makes a lot more sense that way, because it sure FEELS like Lord of the Rings. Sauron is showing up way earlier than he should. Everyone knows about him and is waiting for him and it feels like he's been hiding for a hundred years, not millenia. It is also essentially a retread in many ways of the Two Towers including anti heroes (Wyrm Tounge the Lake Town Master's counselor, Faramir/Beorn human politics, Gandalf in a swinging open air cage, Legolas the Ninja Elf) etc. It's a copy of an original and a SHARP copy, more importantly it sets up the third movie to be AWESOME and something we haven't seen before. If I were to give letter grades using this format, rather than emulating the Hobbit, I'd give 1rst: B 2nd: C and likely 3rd: A.
Oh....one more thing...Orcs. Everywhere. And I mean...EVERYWHERE. In Laketown. In the woods. In the mountains. Near the werebear. In the river. Near the mountain. The Orcs are magical. The orcs can teleport. The orcs can clone themselves. No matter how many you kill, there are more...always. Also, they now come equipped with magical Sauron Cloaking spell.
Right.
Monday, December 30, 2013
[Movie] The Wolf of Wall Street
The first paragraph of this review will be spoiler free. I like this movie, a lot, and highly recommend it for anyone who isn't forbidden from seeing R rated movies. It shows, better than any movie I have ever seen, the true behavior and mentality of those who run our economy and who play tiddlywinks with the life savings of Timmy the Muggle. There is nudity, drugs, swearing and some violence but it is in the context of those who so arrogantly call themselves "The Masters of The Universe."
If you are familiar with Jordan Belfort, there are no spoilers. If you are not, you should be, and this movie will educate you. But I will give you the crib notes version. The most important line of the movie is when the tiny tiny little FBI man who thinks he is doing justice goes after the admittedly semi sociopathic Belfort, and Belfort tries to bribe him by saying he knows where the bodies are on wall street and talks about unregulated commoditized real estate...and he is ignored. Belfort is not a hero. He is barely an anti hero. You see the good things he does, Capone-like, in changing the lives of the people he helps. At first, nothing he does is illegal, just immoral. He shows the ethos of con men from Nigera to Colorado Spring, who take "suckers" who want to get rich with no effort, and then views his efforts around government rules like IPO's as justified.
Is he wrong? The government in this movie is set to let Belfort go if he goes through a few theatrical motions of stepping down from power at his firm. As Belfort himself complains, his crime as prosecuted is not that he cheated Timmy the Muggle, but that he went after Draco Malfoy the trust fund brat...and got him. Tiny FBI Guy isn't getting anywhere until Belfort lets go of the deal offered by the SEC and is told,"he's back in the ocean, Happy Fishing."
The real lesson, well hidden but still there so even Timmy the Muggle can understand it, is not that this is some morality tale like Greed or most other movies that portray Wall Street, but a slice of life documentary drama that just happens to focus on the most hilarious aspect of our culture. Some folks went to jail, but Belfort does only 18 months in a minimum security facility and ends the movie performing sales seminars to rooms full of Muggles. Muggles who all want to be like Befort.
Belfort's entire crew were Muggles taught by a master. The fancy guys who dress up in suits and play tiddlywinks with Timmy's 401K call Timmy's money dumb money. Why dumb? Because Timmy thinks Tiny FBI Guy is going to protect Timmy's money. But at the end of the movie Tiny FBI Guy is just riding the subway home with the rest of the muggles. Tiny FBI Guy never GETS near the real Masters of the Universe because he is leashed and muzzled.
If you are familiar with Jordan Belfort, there are no spoilers. If you are not, you should be, and this movie will educate you. But I will give you the crib notes version. The most important line of the movie is when the tiny tiny little FBI man who thinks he is doing justice goes after the admittedly semi sociopathic Belfort, and Belfort tries to bribe him by saying he knows where the bodies are on wall street and talks about unregulated commoditized real estate...and he is ignored. Belfort is not a hero. He is barely an anti hero. You see the good things he does, Capone-like, in changing the lives of the people he helps. At first, nothing he does is illegal, just immoral. He shows the ethos of con men from Nigera to Colorado Spring, who take "suckers" who want to get rich with no effort, and then views his efforts around government rules like IPO's as justified.
Is he wrong? The government in this movie is set to let Belfort go if he goes through a few theatrical motions of stepping down from power at his firm. As Belfort himself complains, his crime as prosecuted is not that he cheated Timmy the Muggle, but that he went after Draco Malfoy the trust fund brat...and got him. Tiny FBI Guy isn't getting anywhere until Belfort lets go of the deal offered by the SEC and is told,"he's back in the ocean, Happy Fishing."
The real lesson, well hidden but still there so even Timmy the Muggle can understand it, is not that this is some morality tale like Greed or most other movies that portray Wall Street, but a slice of life documentary drama that just happens to focus on the most hilarious aspect of our culture. Some folks went to jail, but Belfort does only 18 months in a minimum security facility and ends the movie performing sales seminars to rooms full of Muggles. Muggles who all want to be like Befort.
Belfort's entire crew were Muggles taught by a master. The fancy guys who dress up in suits and play tiddlywinks with Timmy's 401K call Timmy's money dumb money. Why dumb? Because Timmy thinks Tiny FBI Guy is going to protect Timmy's money. But at the end of the movie Tiny FBI Guy is just riding the subway home with the rest of the muggles. Tiny FBI Guy never GETS near the real Masters of the Universe because he is leashed and muzzled.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
[Book] Night of Revelations by Fiona Skye
This novella is pretty neat. Ever want to be there when the big moment went down historically? I mean, do you think the Turks knew the significance of the cannon when they used it on Constantinople? I'm pretty sure they did. The English certainly knew that the Longbow was a game changer at Agincourt. Hell, we've experienced a few world changing moments in my life time...9/11...the fall of the Berlin Wall...the Space Shuttle Colombia.
But I think the Berlin Wall falling was a big one. The biggest. It isn't because it was the one of these big events that stay with me the most emotionally, though I did feel glad it happened; but because it changed everything. There are some things you can only go so far with in imagination...and growing up under the Bomb, even in the 80's...it was always there in the back of your mind. I mean, God knows they're still around, but not like the cold war. A crazy with a suitcase isn't the same as knowing two guys in bunkers on opposite sides of the world have their thumb on the button waiting to kill each other....and everyone else.
I view Urban Fantasy worlds the same way. We love Urban Fantasy because it turns our own beliefs into a fictional reality. All but the most banal of us at some time or another wonder if there really are unknowable things out there in the shadows; Vampires, Werewolves and Witches are just the easiest. Now, personally, while I am open minded about the supernatural; I'm very very very confident there aren't these critters out there; not like we portray them anyway.
Its one reason I also like Kim Harrison's Hallows books that just throws the whole idea out the window...like...40 years in the past. Its a whole alternate timeline. There is no wondering, "Well why didn't they catch that with a cell phone?" Or "Why didn't that show up on the internet?" At some point, stuff starts to get in the way, and the little logical questions your mind starts asking make things too much for the imagination to overcome with comfortable ease of passage.
The neat thing about Fiona Skye's story is that you get to be there, as it happens. So, first let me say that she hits the 'action/mayhem' style of the spectrum and does so right from the start. Her fight scenes are well choreographed and her writing style is clear, vivid and full of evocative imagery. There are lots of authors that do that, but the thing I like about her protagonist is that she isn't the strongest or the smartest or the fastest...but she is there for her friends. In fact, when it comes to fighting she mostly sucks, but still manages to do well.
The thing that sets this story apart from other Urban Fantasy that I've read though is that...I believe it. "The Moment" that is. You see I've been around enough places that fall apart, when all things go to hell in a hand basket. Her protagonist, on deciding to reveal herself, only does a tiny bit of soul searching but in the end does a "What the hell, why not" moment. The great conspiracy is really just a culture of privacy that surrounds vampires, so it isn't formally enforced by some great hidden council or anything...and honestly? I find that more believable. People are chaotic, disorganized and the like. An impromptu press conference, a mess that has finally gotten to big to clean up thanks to some idiots...and they finally say, "You know what? Let's just spill."
And it works beautifully. It captures the moment, more importantly, it captures the moment well enough that you actually want to go, "So...now what?"
But I think the Berlin Wall falling was a big one. The biggest. It isn't because it was the one of these big events that stay with me the most emotionally, though I did feel glad it happened; but because it changed everything. There are some things you can only go so far with in imagination...and growing up under the Bomb, even in the 80's...it was always there in the back of your mind. I mean, God knows they're still around, but not like the cold war. A crazy with a suitcase isn't the same as knowing two guys in bunkers on opposite sides of the world have their thumb on the button waiting to kill each other....and everyone else.
I view Urban Fantasy worlds the same way. We love Urban Fantasy because it turns our own beliefs into a fictional reality. All but the most banal of us at some time or another wonder if there really are unknowable things out there in the shadows; Vampires, Werewolves and Witches are just the easiest. Now, personally, while I am open minded about the supernatural; I'm very very very confident there aren't these critters out there; not like we portray them anyway.
Its one reason I also like Kim Harrison's Hallows books that just throws the whole idea out the window...like...40 years in the past. Its a whole alternate timeline. There is no wondering, "Well why didn't they catch that with a cell phone?" Or "Why didn't that show up on the internet?" At some point, stuff starts to get in the way, and the little logical questions your mind starts asking make things too much for the imagination to overcome with comfortable ease of passage.
The neat thing about Fiona Skye's story is that you get to be there, as it happens. So, first let me say that she hits the 'action/mayhem' style of the spectrum and does so right from the start. Her fight scenes are well choreographed and her writing style is clear, vivid and full of evocative imagery. There are lots of authors that do that, but the thing I like about her protagonist is that she isn't the strongest or the smartest or the fastest...but she is there for her friends. In fact, when it comes to fighting she mostly sucks, but still manages to do well.
The thing that sets this story apart from other Urban Fantasy that I've read though is that...I believe it. "The Moment" that is. You see I've been around enough places that fall apart, when all things go to hell in a hand basket. Her protagonist, on deciding to reveal herself, only does a tiny bit of soul searching but in the end does a "What the hell, why not" moment. The great conspiracy is really just a culture of privacy that surrounds vampires, so it isn't formally enforced by some great hidden council or anything...and honestly? I find that more believable. People are chaotic, disorganized and the like. An impromptu press conference, a mess that has finally gotten to big to clean up thanks to some idiots...and they finally say, "You know what? Let's just spill."
And it works beautifully. It captures the moment, more importantly, it captures the moment well enough that you actually want to go, "So...now what?"
Sunday, August 4, 2013
[Toast] Kelly's Toast at our wedding
Text of the toast: "For those of you familiar with the weird, wacky and often downright silly history that Julia and I share you might have been expecting a toast that was just that.
Julia can breathe a sigh of relief now however as I haven't brought a sock puppet with me, our "album" that we recorded back in our college dorm is at a safe distance back in North Carolina, and I promise to NOT serenade you with what would admittedly be a rousing rendition of "Smoke on the Water."
Julia and I have been friends for 13 years now. (I find this particularly unbelievable as neither Julia nor I have aged a day since then!)
Though we were both technically adults when we first met it is definitely safe to say that we've done a lot of growing up together. Through the lessons that we've learned together we've gone from roommates, to best friends, to sisters.
I am truly beyond fortunate to be able to call one in possession of such a beautiful heart and strong spirit, friend. I'm not telling Tom anything he doesn't already know.
I am excited to watch as you two now continue to grow together. You both have a glow from the inside out and may that glow continue to grow as your life together goes forward. You've both found hearts that are rare in their beauty and capacity to love. It couldn't have happened to a better couple.
Congratulations! I love you, best friend.
Congratulations! I love you, best friend.
Heartfelt. Real. Truthful. I give it a 9.5 out of 10, with the only remission I would have added being a forced rendition of "Smoke on the Water" while forcing Julia to sing along. I am moderately sure she disagrees with me. :D
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
[Book] The Hydrogen Sonata by Ian Banks
This is the last of the Culture books by Ian Banks. The Culture is a rarity in sci fi these days, a utopian future in which the good guys are not only powerful, but they kick ass as well. The thumbnail version of what they are is anarchistic but also highly liberal, but governed by super ethical AI's infinitely more intelligent than humans. Indeed, many criticize the Culture because they consider humans as little more than Pets. If by 'pet's' you mean that biological and technological intelligences are both granted equal rights, and in a post scarcity society participation is governed by willingness but also ability, then I guess that makes biologicals 'pets'.
Except that in each of the Culture books, Banks manages to give the biological protagonist significant meaning. It answers the question of what might happen when we truly do have AI's in the best of all possible worlds, but does so in a realistic format. The AI's and the humans are believable, as are the villains. Indeed, one of the things that sets Bank's works apart from...for example, militaristic technophile Sci Fi (which is a genre I still like) the bad guys are not parodies but extremely complex characters. Granted, they're not usually "magneto" level anti-heroes but they have a certain depth to them.
I also greatly like the Ship Minds, the essentially rulers of the Culture, who spit in the eye of the Prime Directive and definitely meddle in the affairs of other species in a benevolent way, while doing so with both ethics and in a manner to allow them to evolve as meaningfully disparate. These ships have names that are snarky jokes but their personalities also show compassion and intelligence far beyond that of all but a relatively small slice of humanity. They're also really broadly speaking just 'cool' and Banks does what I might call a literary 'superman' by carving out a meaningful story despite a society that has technology more advanced than almost any sci fi setting I've read short of 'godlike' as in 'so advanced we don't even bother to explain it.'
The Hydrogen Sonata is about a culture that was nearly part of The Culture, but instead of joining the Culture is now choosing to exit the galactic scene by a dimensional retirement method known as 'Subliming.' The Gzilt (the race in question) are unique in that their 'bible' is actually 100% compatible with science from their stone age through hyperspace bypasses. However, a month before they are going to Sublime, the race that made their Book of Truth, is about to reveal that there are one or two things in it that were lies...and the leader of the Gzilt doesn't want this to get out. So they disintegrate the messenger. The Culture decides that they want the truth protected at the least, and so the story involves a series of murders, chases and intrigues as the lost secrets are sought out across an interstellar stage.
I like these books and I liked this book in particular. Bank's death is tragic on its own but doubly tragic in that there will be no more of these books, which are an excellent mirror of a future that 'might be' without resulting to an unrealistic 'polyanna' feeling that sometimes occurs in other tech heavy utopian futures. Banks had an excellent writing style and his characters, both bio and techno are very interesting.
In short, I highly recommend reading this book. The nice thing about the Culture books is that, like Terry Pratechet, one can read any of them independently without any particular order. Get it as you can.
Except that in each of the Culture books, Banks manages to give the biological protagonist significant meaning. It answers the question of what might happen when we truly do have AI's in the best of all possible worlds, but does so in a realistic format. The AI's and the humans are believable, as are the villains. Indeed, one of the things that sets Bank's works apart from...for example, militaristic technophile Sci Fi (which is a genre I still like) the bad guys are not parodies but extremely complex characters. Granted, they're not usually "magneto" level anti-heroes but they have a certain depth to them.
I also greatly like the Ship Minds, the essentially rulers of the Culture, who spit in the eye of the Prime Directive and definitely meddle in the affairs of other species in a benevolent way, while doing so with both ethics and in a manner to allow them to evolve as meaningfully disparate. These ships have names that are snarky jokes but their personalities also show compassion and intelligence far beyond that of all but a relatively small slice of humanity. They're also really broadly speaking just 'cool' and Banks does what I might call a literary 'superman' by carving out a meaningful story despite a society that has technology more advanced than almost any sci fi setting I've read short of 'godlike' as in 'so advanced we don't even bother to explain it.'
The Hydrogen Sonata is about a culture that was nearly part of The Culture, but instead of joining the Culture is now choosing to exit the galactic scene by a dimensional retirement method known as 'Subliming.' The Gzilt (the race in question) are unique in that their 'bible' is actually 100% compatible with science from their stone age through hyperspace bypasses. However, a month before they are going to Sublime, the race that made their Book of Truth, is about to reveal that there are one or two things in it that were lies...and the leader of the Gzilt doesn't want this to get out. So they disintegrate the messenger. The Culture decides that they want the truth protected at the least, and so the story involves a series of murders, chases and intrigues as the lost secrets are sought out across an interstellar stage.
I like these books and I liked this book in particular. Bank's death is tragic on its own but doubly tragic in that there will be no more of these books, which are an excellent mirror of a future that 'might be' without resulting to an unrealistic 'polyanna' feeling that sometimes occurs in other tech heavy utopian futures. Banks had an excellent writing style and his characters, both bio and techno are very interesting.
In short, I highly recommend reading this book. The nice thing about the Culture books is that, like Terry Pratechet, one can read any of them independently without any particular order. Get it as you can.
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