prog | (no subject)

I am really struggling with 3001. Clarke has blown what I first thought was a clever dodge of inconsistent backstory by specifically mentioning the fall of the USSR as it actually happened, thus dropping his own 2010 into paradox. And now he's apparently revealed the Monolith's True Purpose, and it's all wrong. I'm starting to remember reading reviews that felt the same way, when the book was new.

I'll finish it eventually because it's just a short book, but I don't think I'll like it.

After whining about it a lot I continued to read Transmetropolitan, serially borrowing the collected volumes from

rikchik. It does get better, with Spider softening up and becoming more likable to the point of arguable inconsistency with the earliest issues, but whatever. (And while I resemble his tendency to prefer the companionship of women, it would be nice to see him make some male friends too. Oh no he's becoming feminized! Call Bill Maher at once)

Major background-level plot hole that I bet is never resolved: So there exists, in the book's world, a well-known technology to scan a dead but intact brain's neural pattern and flash-clone a new adult body to house it, and yet this isn't used by everyone (or at least everyone who can afford it) as a method of functional immortality (philosophical questions of continuity aside)? I mean, nobody even brings up the possibility? Bzzt

I forgot that I actually succeeded in teaching Battle Line to Ricky last year, and he mopped the floor with me. So I shouldn't sell him short. (It was specifically trying to teach him Go, which I don't know all that well myself, that frustrated him.)