A real "science fiction classic"

In all genres of fiction, there are a few novels that are (relatively) widely recognised as classics. Science fiction even has several series of "masterworks" that aims to shoehorn all of these into single published runs. As it takes time to sort the "classics" from the "pulp", these runs are often dominated by novels from the middle decades of the 20th century, with the result that rather anachronistic titles often remain in public view despite the years. One thing that I've frequently found when reading through these latter titles is really quite grating sexism, to the extent that I almost expect it now when reading anything published prior to the 1980s. All of which is to lead into asking where this leaves the 1969 novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, written by an American woman, Ursula Le Guin, and now labelled a "classic of science fiction".

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Set on the glaciated - and appropriately named - planet of Winter, The Left Hand of Darkness is the story of the visit of an envoy from Earth to invite Winter's inhabitants to join the wider galactic community of human societies, the Ekumen. As well as its forbidding climate and extreme isolation, Winter is notable because of its herm- aphrodite human population, in which all individuals can alternate gender to either bear children or to father them. Switching between narrative strands from the envoy, Genly Ai, a member of Winter's nobility, Therem Estraven, and recounted folklore tales and Ekumen field reports, the novel describes the transition of Ai's mission from one of cordial diplomacy to a life-or-death adventure. This switch has its origin in Winter's political division into two mirror-opposite states, and the fears of both sets of leaders that contact with the galactic community which Ai's arrival heralds will utterly change the planet's balance of power.

Ai's first host, Karhide, is a feudal monarchy with a suspicious king who, even after two years of contact, still vacillates on the offer of galactic membership communicated by Ai. Fearful of change, the king makes one of Ai's Winter contacts and supporters, Estraven, an enemy of the state, forcing him onto the run. Ai, now concerned for his own safely, travels to Winter's other major society, Orgoreyn, a socialist bureaucracy that, while ostensibly progressive, is actually corrupt and totalitarian. Though warned by Estraven, who has also travelled to Orgoreyn, Ai fails to comprehend the political machinations of his new hosts, and before long finds himself imprisoned in a labour camp. Steadily ground down by the camp's brutal regime, Ai is only saved when Estraven executes a brazen rescue. But their escape places them in immediate danger, and they reluctantly decide to journey to comparative safety over Winter's ice cap, the Gorbin Ice. This stretches the endurance of both humans, and its culmination back in Karhide is both tragic and hopeful. The long journey also sees Estraven enter kemmer, the sexually active state, which casts a new light on the relationship between the pair as Ai sees the female side of Estraven revealed.

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Now this really is a proper "classic". Bar one minor aspect - which I'll touch upon later - it really doesn't put a foot wrong. The novel sets up an intriguing premise of first contact with a long-isolated society on a hostile planet. It allows the reader to explore its setting via a character who is also seeing and understanding for the first time. Said character is then thrown into a plot full of political intrigue and adventure. And the whole thing is capped off by a brilliant exploration of Winter's not-quite-alien gender balance. This last aspect is probably the novel's strongest point - partly because this is a relatively rare theme in science fiction, but mostly because Le Guin takes it so seriously and treats it so carefully. As the novel progresses, Ai's initial perception of Winter's population as superficially male gradually erodes as he comes to understand the full implications of a hermaphrodite society, both intellectually and emotionally. He also comes to realise that his own unisexualism - and permanent kemmer - is equally alien to Winter's citizens.

But the rest of the novel is uniformly excellent too. From the great field reports made by covert Ekumen observers, through the beautifully described details of life on Winter, to the brilliant bits of invented folklore for the culture, Le Guin really does a superlative job of imagining the planet's society, and making it feel like a living and breathing place. Things do become a little less vibrant during Ai's imprisonment in Orgoreyn, but that's in keeping with his dire situation there. And Le Guin's "two state solution" for Winter is a little too obviously a nod to then-contemporary Cold War politics (did you see what I did there?), but I am saying that with the benefit of considerable hindsight. Overall, while I guess that the slower, introspective pace may not suit readers more in the mood for some laser-and-space-alien action, it's not like there's any real shortage of such novels for those who're interested. This is a much rarer beast, and is all the better for it.

Interestingly, the novel resembles, but largely surpasses, two of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, The Player of Games and Inversions. The former, in particular, has quite a number of parallels with The Left Hand of Darkness including, most significantly, a civilisation in which sexual biology deviates from our own. Banks' novel differs in having a three-sex system instead of hermaphroditism, but it similarly dwells upon the imprint this biology leaves on its society. And the novel's accidental hero, Jernau Gurgeh, undergoes a not dissimilar transformation from guileless envoy to political foil as does Genly Ai here. To be sure, there are plenty of pretty significant differences, and Banks goes on to explore quite different themes, but the parallels are still strong. And as much as I love The Player of Games, it does pale a little in the face of the ambition of The Left Hand of Darkness.

Wearing my geeky Earth scientist hat, another aspect that I really quite liked was the off-handed skill by which Le Guin introduces and explains Winter's climate. Icy science fiction worlds are such a familiar staple that, ordinarily, they never receive - nor seem even to require - a word of explanation. But Le Guin delicately touches on the orbital dynamics of the planet, noting how its seasonality is caused not by planetary obliquity as on the Earth, but by pronounced eccentricity that gives Winter global, rather than hemispheric, seasonality. And there's even space in the novel for some musings on Winter's ongoing ice age, and of its potential transitioning out of it. Neat!

To touch back onto my opening paragraph, it's difficult to believe that The Left Hand of Darkness was actually written before my personal bête noire of "science fiction classics", Ringworld. Though widely granted "classic" status - largely, I guess, because of its eponymous, and inspirational, artifact - this latter novel is a pretty unreconstructed slice of ripe sexism. Sure, it's not the worst example - science fiction is, after all, a rather male-dominated form ... with all which that entails - but it's easily the worst that I've read in recent years, and pretty shockingly so given the reverence in which it seems to be held. In this context, and in spite of confirmatory cases like Ringworld, Le Guin has certainly upset my default prejudice about mid- to late-20th century "classics". Pleasingly so.

Anyhow, overall a great read, eminently worthy of "science fiction classic" status. Though given the aforementioned company that it finds itself keeping with that label, perhaps it needs to distance itself a bit from some of its fellow "classics"!

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The "minor aspect" is personal to me, and sufficiently tangential to the novel that it doesn't really detract - even for me. Basically, whenever I read of telepathy, I reach for my gun. It's one of those tropes of science fiction that, when presented as a natural phenomenon of otherwise ordinary humans, just ticks my "annoy" box - repeatedly. It's largely just me being a pedantic biologist - our conscious experiences are such a complex and distributed phenomenon that I simply refuse to accept (even in a novel) as decipherable by similar brains. And don't even get me started on the physical nature of the senses that would be required to peer into - and make sense of - the byzantine electrochemical chaos of organic minds. I'm happy to accept that vastly complex - and appropriately equipped - artificial intelligences could peer into and begin to understand the contents of my skull, but another brain like mine, one that's already processing its owner's experiences, no - get out of here. Anyway, nit-picking rant over.

Daffodils

While I've taken the odd movie of phototropism, I've not had a look at flowers before. (Pedants: I am aware that the opening of flowers is not an example of phototropism.) But some cut daffodils that C bought the other day are perfect ...

2012-04-10 daffodil time-lapse a video by Dr Yool on Flickr.

Ready Player One

Though there's a seemingly thriving market in novels based on their intellectual property (cf. Halo, Mass Effect), videogames seem to have otherwise had relatively little impact in other media. Sure, there are rare films like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (massively underrated IMHO), and the occasional tangential appearance in (non-science fiction) novels - Complicity by Iain Banks, for one - but otherwise they're pretty thin on the ground. So Ernest Cline's debut novel, Ready Player One, isn't exactly bursting into an overcrowded scene.

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Set in a near-future US crushed by social, economic and environmental problems, the novel is narrated by teenager Wade Watts, who scratches an itinerant existence in what remains of a trailer park in Oklahoma City. Wade spends as much time as he can hooked into OASIS - the virtual reality simulator that provides much of the world's entertainment, as well as Wade's education. But alongside his studies, Wade - or Parzival as he's known by a handful of friends in the virtual world of OASIS - is engaged in a quest to solve a puzzle left by the creator of OASIS, James Halliday, on his death. Whoever solves the puzzle will gain a controlling stake in OASIS, but several years in no-one seems to have made the slightest of headway. That's all about to change. When Wade follows a few pop-cultural clues left by Halliday and solves the first part of the puzzle, he then finds himself in a race with millions of fellow competitors, as well as corporate participants IOI who have an eye on winning to milk the OASIS cash cow. And in this weak-government, strong-corporate future, IOI are prepared to do more than just cheat in the virtual world of OASIS - a state of affairs that soon has Wade running for his life.

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First of all, it's important to make clear that this is a top-to-bottom geek-a-thon. This novel can - and should - be completely avoided if you have no interest in videogames, virtual worlds, Japanese robots, or the pop-culture of the 1980s. It is simply stuffed to the gills with an extraordinary amount of, well, the stuff that falls into that broad category. And even if you do have an interest in some or all of these things, it may still be worth quickly skimming the first few pages to see if you'll get along with the book. I reckon that, conservatively, at least 95% of the (reading) population will simply be appalled.

Though I am in the remaining 5%, I definitely wouldn't say that I'm a total cheerleader for this book. True, I have an unhealthy interest in videogames, but even I baulked at the sheer depth of trash-culture referencing going on here. However, in spite of this, and in spite of my better judgement at times, I still enjoyed this book - albeit as a totally throwaway read. I'm really not sure who I'd be recommending it to - even fellow videogame players!

Anyway, on the plus side, as well as taking videogames and virtual worlds (semi-)seriously for once, the novel is so full of love for the geeky trash-culture of a particular time (the 1980s) that it can easily carry one along. It's structured not dissimilarly to a videogame, with a succession of progressively harder puzzles to be solved, and passes enjoyably enough with a number of stereotypical gamer characters and a couple of nice setpiece twists and turns. On the down side, it's a little predictable to say the least - there's never seriously any doubt about how it's ultimately going to work out. To be fair, it's not structured as continuous progress to a goal - Wade does wallow quite a while in the various set-backs that he suffers.

One aspect that really did tire me after a point was its total reverence for 1980s videogames, and even then for a particular subset of them. Having revisited the games that I played back then from time to time, I've come to realise how hopelessly simplified most of them are relative to modern titles. With a few exceptions - Damocles being a personal favourite - it's just not possible for games that sat comfortably within a RAM space of 64KB to provide anything near the broad experience of something that occupies 1GB. Sure, some eminently satisfying titles are sufficiently simple that they simply don't need such resources - Dropzone springs to mind - but they're rare beasts. So, eventually, Wade's unending enthusiasm for 1980s title after 1980s title seriously began to grate on me.

Anyway ... it is absolutely safe to say that with such a premise this book will only ever appeal to a small minority of readers. And then, once this small population starts to read it, it will likely appeal to an even smaller minority of them! But I did enjoy it's overbearing enthusiasms, its sappy love story and its predictable ebbing and flowing. But I'm deleting it from my memory right now.

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Finally, I just have to say that, while totally geeky myself, I simply cannot see the slightest interest in Japanese robots. WTF?

Blah ... Rebus ... Blah

Number 7 in Ian Rankin's series of Inspector John Rebus "adventures", Let It Bleed starts with a fatal set-piece on the Forth Road Bridge and culminates with Rankin's gruff hero gruffly accosting hitherto untouchable authorities. I read this quickly, completely enjoyed it - as usual - and then have largely forgotten it. Which is not at all a reflection on either Rankin in general or this novel in particular. It's just that it is yet another well-written crime yarn that continues to flesh out Rebus. I've actually gotten a little tired of singing Rankin's praises - each novel is more or less as good as, or better than, its predecessors. Arguably better, since Rebus' world becomes more and more complete each time.

The Holy Machine

Now, this one, The Holy Machine, by UK social worker and lecturer Chris Beckett, didn't at all go where I expected.

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Set in a future in which nation states have collapsed into religious barbarism, the novel is centred on George, a citizen of the city-state of Illyria, the sole refuge for rationalism in the world. Unsuccessful with women, and still living with his virtual reality-obsessed mother, George feels thoroughly disconnected from his secular haven. Lonely, he turns to Lucy, an android sex worker, and slowly discerns that her artificial mind is developing complexities and an awareness that is prohibited by Illyria's authorities. To avoid her shutdown, George flees the city with Lucy, hoping to pass her off as human in the superstitious Outlands.

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What surprised me about this novel was how, except for a few dalliances, it spends relatively little time considering either sentient machines or the eponymous Holy Machine. The latter, in particular, is dealt with quite cursorily, and doesn't at all live up to its thematic promise. Instead, and it's not at all unwelcome, the novel focuses on Illyria's hardline anti-religious stance, and on the relationship between George and his mother.

Rather than being a secular paradise, Beckett is keen to show Illyria spiralling toward the same intolerance that it detests in the surrounding Outlands. It may have started as the last best hope in a world self-harmingly shedding rationalism, but Illyria's leaders are shown to enforce a conformity that undercuts the progressive spirit in which it was established. I read this as Beckett responding to the earnest rejection of religion by the so-called New Atheist movement. Although I can understand this - I, too, think Dawkins is often a dick - I found myself tut-tutting at Beckett's throwing out of the baby with the bathwater. And it's not helped by Beckett soft-pedalling at times in the Outlands. But it was still good, and pleasing, to be challenged this way.

The sections that deal with George and his mother are much more unexpected. At first she just seems to be a peripheral character, present only as a placeholder to emphasise the growing disconnection between people in Illyria. But as the novel continues, her descent into a cosy, virtual reality infancy appears to be Beckett articulating fears about our latter-day absorption by virtual worlds and social media. (Fears that I'm sure he'd think I'd personally realised!) I actually found this a very interesting and satisfying theme, and Beckett explores it to a surprisingly moving conclusion.

All that said, the juggling of these two major themes with infrequent forays into machine sentience is unequal to say the least. Beckett doesn't entirely neglect the latter, but I was left thinking that he didn't give it its dues. He clearly thinks that it's interesting, and has a few really good scenes in which he explores it, but then he largely drops it for most of the novel. It might actually have been better if he didn't have artificial intelligence in the novel at all, and instead stuck with his two major themes. That could definitely have worked fine, and it might have avoided the somewhat unsatisfying mix in the finished novel.

However, overall, I enjoyed The Holy Machine. Largely because Beckett took me places I'd not been expecting. But I just wish he'd given AI, and Lucy, the attention they deserved. And he really did miss a trick with the Holy Machine itself. But there's always his next novel ...

A (boring) Week in December

A great big disappointing "meh". I came to Sebastian Faulks only relatively recently, but quite enjoyed the two books of his that I've read (here and here). And this one, A Week in December, sounded good and got off to a pretty promising start. Basically, one of those state-of-the-nation novels, with a diverse cast of characters, that tries to span the whole of society while saying something zeitgeisty. That's my reading of what I think Faulks was up to at any rate. Where I think he went off the rails was to cram together stories and characters that are a little too diverse, with the result that the novel is less than the sum of its parts. Individually the stories are interesting, and actually are quite zeitgeisty (drugs, terrorists, bankers), but they're simply too disparate, and the attempts to tie them together just fell flat for me. And it certainly doesn't help that the characters are generally unsympathetic and occasionally annoying.

Overall, a thumbs-down from me.

A dose of Asher

A return to Strange News' pulp science fiction favourite, Neal Asher. As usual, we're back in Polity territory, but The Technician sees Asher doing another of his one-off tales in his fictional universe. In the past, these have been among the best of his books (which may not be saying that much for most people), and I'm pleased to report that this one is no exception. Though a one-off, it actually returns to Masada, location to one of the main sequence of Polity novels, The Line of Polity, but picks up a largely new cast, and throws completely new light on some of the fallout from that earlier novel.

As usual, Asher jumps around a generally violent set of plot lines populated by noble Polity agents, nefarious rebels, cryptic aliens and wryly amusing AIs. But he actually centres the book on Jeremiah Tombs, a leading theocrat responsible for oppression in the previous novel, and someone the Polity thought was dead, a victim of Masada's shockingly horrific top predator. However, for a reason the Polity only dimly perceives, Tombs survived this encounter, but with mental "scars" that might not entirely be damage. Keen to discover their meaning, Tombs' Polity jailers release him to explore a changed Masada with the hope that it shocks him back into sanity and elicits some bean-spilling. But alongside its hostile ecology, Tombs' past actions have made him plenty of other enemies on Masada, and the Polity has its work cut out for it if it is to spare Tombs and reveal the reason for his survival.

Overall, another fine pulpy romp from Asher. While the novel is a one-off, it returns to his long-standing quest to tie up loose ends in his fictional universe. This has annoyed me a little bit in the past, but here I actually found its mystery-busting a whole heap of fun. Similarly, while Asher makes Tombs another of his "bad guy" rehabilitation projects, again, I didn't mind at all. Though Tombs starts the novel as someone that you'd be happy to turn into Gabbleduck fodder, Asher actually does a good job of gradually making him less reprehensible as he comes to understand his former crimes.

So, though pulp, not bad at all.

The Pile

"The Pile" has grown well passed the 10 book stage. Its accumulation started in 2011 (hey - is it my fault that New Vegas and Liberty City were so compelling?), and it now teeters at the edge of vision whenever I'm seated in front of our computer. A long overdue purge is required to get me back to writing up books when I read them rather than prevaricating for months, mesmerised by the daunting size of the stack. This isn't going to be pretty, it almost certainly won't do some of them justice, but let's see how many I can get through today.

Thanks be to Tumblr

Thanks to continued interest from the good folks at Tumblr, C's photograph has today crested 1K hits and is comfortably (possibly forever) the most viewed item in my Flickr collection.

Destination Docklands

DSC02807B, a photo by Dr Yool on Flickr.

While at the Planet Under Pressure conference this week, I took a bit of time out to explore the dockland surrounds of the ExCeL Centre. It's built on the northern margin of Royal Victoria Dock, and while a lot of the original buildings have been swept aside for expensive-looking condos and hotels (one of which provided my digs), there's still quite a lot of the older stuff to see. And, what with it juxtaposed with various modern buildings, there's plenty of photo-ops going. Which, needless to say, I was unable to resist. My full set of photographs can be seen here.

The Earth Hums in B Flat

Overlooking "the pile", I thought I'd turn to my most recent read, The Earth Hums in B Flat, by the Welsh novelist Mari Strachan. Based, in part, on my initial impressions of it, C has picked it for her book group in April, so I thought I'd better get recording my own thoughts before they get melded or overwritten by those of a rival blog ...

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Growing up is never easy, but Gwenni, a dreamy twelve-and-a-half year old, is making particularly heavy weather of it. At night, she dreams of flying over her village, and spends her days trying to fly while awake and obsessing about releasing the soul of the fox fur wrapped around a neighbour's neck. Constantly surrounded by the gossipy, close-knit community of her small Welsh hometown, her candidly outlandish tales, told to all and sundry, are making her mother, already twitchy, even more so. Her older sister, with whom she shares a bed in their cramped home, is entering adolescence and is tired of Gwenni's childish fantasies. And her best friend, formerly a source of companionship, has begun to notice boys and to view Gwenni's obsessions as "queer". Against this backdrop, the father of two young girls that she babysits suddenly disappears, and Gwenni, devoted to his wife who allows her to borrow books, sets out to solve the mystery. But her meddling draws further unwelcome attention to Gwenni's otherworldliness, and unearths hints of a family secret that imperils her mother's uneasy grip on sanity. Buffeted by her mistakes, as well as revelations about her family and her community, Gwenni begins to dimly perceive the complex adult world that she is soon to enter.

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First of all, I have to report being pleasantly relieved that the novel's early promise - upon which hangs the enjoyment of C's book group - was ultimately fulfilled. Of course, it might yet go down like a bomb with the group's seasoned readers - it certainly wouldn't be the first time that something that I've liked has been cast out of the temple. But I can at least say that my early hopes for The Earth Hums in B Flat panned out nicely.

Comparison is probably not the fairest way to write up a novel, but I was most reminded here of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. And not primarily because of the plot device of a central mystery. While Gwenni isn't as unique a narrator as Christopher in that novel, The Earth Hums in B Flat shares the earlier novel's skilful framing of events by a mind not (yet) at the same wavelength as that of the characters that loom large in her world. This does, of course, mean that Gwenni can be annoying at times, particularly in her obstinate obsessions, but it's in the service of capturing a child's askew view of reality, so fits the novel perfectly.

While the "mystery" plot does unfurl nicely - though tragically - there were a few parts of the novel that didn't quite work for me. One was the resolution, of lack thereof, of the fox fur subplot (to misname it). Perhaps I just missed something, but I thought that the fate of the fur's owner was a little under-explained given what actually happens. Of course, maybe there was something in the novel that was supposed to be obvious to an adult reader but not to a child? If so, d'oh! There's also something odd with a character who "likes" Gwenni but who gets summarily drummed out of the plot rather oddly. Either this is a quasi-realistic version of how one's romantic interests come and go while very young, or a clumsy bit of plotting. I'd like to think the former, but while reading it felt like the author was simply "tidying" an unhelpful plot strand while wrapping up.

One aspect that worked particularly well for me was the novel's brilliant job on conjuring up the gossipy nature of small towns. While the details obviously differ [*], the novel chimes perfectly with my own experience of growing up with half-heard and wholly-speculated tales about other people in my home town. More generally, of being raised in an insular community where everyone seems to know everyone else - sometimes going back generations - and, more importantly, where trading idle gossip in other people's business is the norm. Interestingly, the gossiping in the novel sits alongside a pivotal strand about its opposite, the burial of family secrets. Which of these competing adult approaches to introducing children to the world is to be favoured isn't something that's entirely resolved in the novel, but concealing painful secrets is clearly a bad idea.

On that note, I'll be interested to hear what C (et al.) make of the novel's treatment of mental health. The gossipy characters clearly stigmatise it, as one should probably expect for the 1950s, but Gwenni's family is a lot more sensible and modern about her mother's fragile state. It's also interesting that the medical profession - and intervention - of the time is presented so positively. They're clearly invested in chemical treatments, but these seem to be gratefully received by Gwenni's father and grandmother. My immediate thought was that drugs were much more of a blunt instrument in those days.

In passing, one thing that I didn't clock till quite a few pages in - of which my late realisation amused me afterwards - was that the novel is set firmly in the past. Probably reflecting an unconscious prejudice borne out of my own upbringing in a small Scottish town (he says, getting his excuses in early), I at first mistook 1950s rural Wales for something much closer to the present day. In my defence, this is at least in part because Gwenni's reporting of the world is from an age at which it's more easy to imagine a lack of interest in consumer goods and mobile phones, but I'm clutching at straws here. That said, I had something of a similar experience with the Wales-set film Submarine, which, though set in the somewhat-more-recent past, also seems somewhat timeless (and is similarly told from a young adult's perspective).

Overall, my complaints are too minor to detract from my enjoyment of The Earth Hums in B Flat. I've enjoyed other book group books more (here, here and here, for instance) but I'd still rate it pretty strongly. I'd say an easy 7/10, but given that I might wind up being its only defender, I'm going to bump up a bit to 7.5/10 (I think that I'm allowed half-marks aren't I?). And I will be looking forwards to hearing what praise (or punishment) is dealt out later this month. Unfortunately, I can't make it to London that day, so this will have to stand as my testament to the book.

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[*] Though not entirely. In my own life, one of my highschool teachers tragically killed himself after a short spell in our local "funny farm". Even now I can remember the morbid fascination with details of his death, which was pretty unpleasant, and with the subsequent speculations about the state of his marriage. It may well have just been my family and my peers, but I seriously doubt it. Looking back on these events now makes me a little less displeased that I live in a more atomised manner now, largely separated from my immediate community. Sometimes a bit of distance is a good thing.

ROAMing with MEDUSA

Finished (well, printed) my poster for next week's international Planet Under Pressure conference today. It makes use of my recent (and surprisingly quite successful) simulation of MEDUSA-2.0 under RCP 8.5 forcing from one of the UKMO's IPCC runs. After a bit of a graceless start - largely down to disequilibrium caused by the carbon cycle's initial condition - MEDUSA managed to knuckle down and start behaving itself by the middle of the 20th century, and became nicely acidified by year 2100. The run has one acidification feedback in it (calcium carbonate production), so there were some moderately interesting points to pull out of the run in the end. EKP has spotted a few features of the run's Arctic performance that she's not especially happy about, but we might be stuck with those because of the forcing we're wedded to. We had enough trouble getting that to give us sensible ocean circulation, so I'm not confident about finessing NEMO's physical performance.

Just the actual conference to look forwards to now. It promises to be one of those strange marriages between science and politics, so I'm not holding my breath. But, as such, it'll at least be quite different from the usual run of the mill. There are a number of big political names down to speak or to host, but given the lack of urgency with which the body politic deals with environmental concerns, it may just be more talking the talk.

Anyway, given that I may be returning to no job after the conference, my lofty scoffing might be entirely academic. It'll be difficult to be quite so environmentally scrupulous if I find myself sans employment.

And it's not even mine

Courtesy (probably) of the chaotic intricacies of the interweb, this past week has seen this photograph ...


... shoot up the popularity charts of my Flickr account. Prior to last week, it was sitting on only a handful of hits, but something happened on the 15th March and since then it's sky-rocketed to 720 viewings (the "second best" photograph in my Flickr collection is sitting at 298 viewings) ...

It's all calming down now, but along the way the photograph has also been "favourite-ed" 30 times by a slew of Flickr members I've never met before (thanks, by the way).

So, what gives? The clue [*] seems to be in the appearance of Tumblr in the referring website list. While I'd only faintly heard about this site before, a perusal of one of the referrers reveals it as some sort of recycler of images, where people can repost things they've seen and liked into a stream of (visual) consciousness. Or something.

Anyway, it looks like this image of Skógafoss has been sucked up into Tumblr and passed around various of its members, many of whom have kindly visited the original and bumped up my Flickr viewings count (not that I'm counting, OK). But, like the epidemic of an infectious disease, this surge has now run its course, and the photograph can probably now pass into oblivion once more.

The worst bit is that it's not even one of my photographs (... as is probably obvious from the fact that I appear in it).

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[*] It can only reasonably be described as a "clue" by those, such as me, who are generally clue-less about social media sites such as Tumblr. Everyone else would just view that as an indication of the bleeding obvious.

Metrics of redundancy

The end is nigh. Almost. Earlier this week we received our classifications as either support or "leading" scientists, as well as the appropriate pro forma that accompanies this diagnosis. I'm in the latter (though most of what I do is grunt-work) so my fate dangles uncomfortably on my publication record and the clawing in of cash. The former is a perfectly acceptable metric to judge a scientist on, the latter, while not terrible, can miss the point a bit in our organisation since we're largely supported by core funding that (largely) obviates the need to apply for cold hard cash. Needless to say, while I have been flailing about unsuccessfully for money, it hasn't been a priority for me.

Anyway, as part of this pro forma I've been cobbling together stuff on my less-than-stellar publication record. The Web of Knowledge has a subsection to help with this so yesterday I set myself up with a profile and linked together my ISI-recognised list of papers. This lets me calculate something called the "h-index" for myself (14, apparently), and produce a whole load of faintly interesting graphs about my work.

This one shows how I'm accumulating citations since I burst onto the "scene" back in 1998 (Lamarck and prions). At first glance it looks pretty good. But even a cursory second glance makes it look like I've peaked - and am possibly on the way back down! :-)

This second one shows where I'm being cited, or, rather, what keywords are associated with the places I'm being cited. Interesting that oceanography comes in second, but I guess that some of the journals I'm published in (e.g. GBC) aren't strictly ocean-only. I've no idea why my work is quite so appealing to geology, but I'll take citations wherever I can get them. Especially at this point!

Anyway, our pro forma summaries have to be in by the 12th March (perfect timing given I'm off on holiday until then), and then the judging process begins. D-Day for our fates is the 28th March (again, perfect, since I'm at a conference then). Just in time for Easter and the resurrection of "the departed" into glorious new careers. It's going to be a bad month whether I survive or not.

Jupiter, the Moon and Venus

DSC02920, a photo by Dr Yool on Flickr.

A nice line-up of planets and the Moon this evening. It got a little hazy before I could snap this one off, but such is life.

Oscars 2012

I've not seen enough of this year's Best Picture nominees to make a good stab at the winner - or my preferred winner - this time around. Unlike last year, where we'd actually seen 7/10 of the nominees by the time the awards rolled round (and we've now seen 9/10), this year we've struck out at only 3/9. In part because some haven't had much of an opening in UK cinemas, and in part because quite a few aren't all that appealing.

That said, none of the unseen 6/9 are really jumping out to be seen to my mind, so I'm going to call it anyway based on the three that we have seen. The Descendants, while a perfectly enjoyable film, just doesn't cut it for me. Midnight in Paris, while easily Woody Allen's most enjoyable film in a while, is just too slight a film to win. But The Artist has much more to recommend it. True, it's largely a light comedy that flatters Hollywood, but it does it so cleverly, so affectionately and with such wit that it's a shoo-in for me (as already noted).

I guess I'll find out how prescient I've been when the radio clicks on first thing tomorrow morning.

Battlestar Galactica

Finally wrapped up Battlestar Galactica this evening. It's been a long while coming, and while the series hasn't been all sweetness and light, overall I think that we both enjoyed it. Which comes as a little bit of a surprise given: (a) science fiction is basically pulp to C; and (b) how religious the series has gotten as time has passed - by the end it's all but introduced The Supreme Being as an on-screen character.

But any uneasiness with this latter aspect of the show is at least partially offset, for me at any rate, by the presentation of said heavenly presence in strictly deist terms. While the humans have an arcane, polytheist religion prescribed in a hokey book, the real deal is revealed in very non-specific terms. In fact via little more than various vague, but fulfilled, prophetic dreams and a handful of quasi-angelic characters. And - in an enjoyable twist - this religion is much more in line with the beliefs of the Cylons than those of their human oppressors-turned-oppressed. A nice touch indeed.

In terms of how the series was finally wound up, I thought there were a few other nice touches. Per my earlier missive concerning favoured themes, I was particularly pleased by how, in the end, the robotic Centurian Cylons, a group looked down upon by both humans and humanoid Cylons alike, finally won their freedom. And we both really liked the closing, far future coda that returns to the inevitability, or perhaps otherwise, of historical cycles.

I still wonder what happened to the Cylon "plan", however. Even mention of this was quietly dropped from the opening credits sequence. But the piling on of spooky coincidences and (semi-) satisfyingly-resolved prophecies made up for this - or at least distracted me from it. I know there's some TV movie that picks up on this, and we will get around to watching it, but I still reckon that the writers never really had an idea for this at all.

Overall, a recommendable series. It gets lost in the doldrums from time to time, and does wind up being pretty overtly religious in its resolution, but in a surprisingly non-offensive manner. I hope I'm not going soft!

Rom-Zom-Com

Another entry in the unsurprisingly under-populated zom-rom-com genre, Zombieland. This time the action takes place in a US devastated by mad cow disease, rechristened by the narrator as Zombieland. Essentially it's a comedic - if post-apocalyptic - road-trip that plays the zombie holocaust as a backdrop for four characters doing whatever they like. It doesn't manage to quite sustain the comedy as well as Shawn of the Dead, but its well-played by its leads, particularly Woody Harrelson, and it doesn't outstay its welcome. The one part I really didn't warm to, but which I've seen flagged up as brilliant in reviews, is the cameo of Bill Murray playing himself. It didn't seem even half as funny to me as it's been praised, and just served to tip the comedy too far into silly. But it's a short interlude (and is terminated nicely disrespectfully), so was eminently tolerable.

Grade: B (low +2 on the Leeper Scale)

Aliens vs. Predator

As well as offering the enticing prospect of graphic ultra-violence between gruesome extraterrestrial intelligences in exotic extraterrestrial locales, the welcome appearance of the most recent Aliens vs. Predator video-game in my Christmas stocking last year (thank you Duncan, Jennifer and Ava) affords the opportunity to gambol briefly across my videogaming history with Aliens and Predators down the years. Sad to say, this is not an especially short history. A fact that I doubt will come as much of a surprise to those who know me offline.

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Aliens: Seconds away, and we're off to a great start with a primitive - but exceedingly effective - FPS that sees the player guiding a team made up of the cast of Aliens through the Alien-infested colony. Moving room to room, the player pans their smartgun to locate doors and take care of offending Aliens (see picture) and Facehuggers. Though 8-bit, and more than a little spartan, this did a great job - for its time - of turning the player into a jittery wreck every time the motion sensor screamed that a member of the team was in danger.

Aliens (US Edition): A rather more literal take on the film this time, with a series of very different sub-games taking the player through various scenes from the movie. As some were much better than others - the worst being a PACMAN-esque journey through a crude maze - it was hard to get very excited about this title, even if it did let you use a (poorly-rendered) cargo-loader (see picture).

Predator: With titles like this, one remembers the 8-bit days without the encumbrance of rose-tinted spectacles. A side-scrolling journey through the South American jungle whose flimsy connection to the film consists of occasional "therm-o-vision" sections (see picture) and an unconvincing Predator sprite at the end (who I never did manage to kill). But, sadly, not far off the mark for what passed for video-game tie-ins in the late 1980s. And still there are some who insist there's no such thing as progress ...

Aliens versus Predator: Now we're talking. Though its various missions weren't always tied together especially well in terms of narrative (e.g. the Predator's random stop-off on Fury 161), it was easily a quantum leap forwards for titles including Aliens and/or Predators. Much like the very first title above, it's also extremely effective in the fright department, and makes simply excellent use of light effects and sound to turn the player's nerves to jelly. And it marries Alien-action with Predator-action in a way that makes them seem like they were always meant to be together - something the one film that I've seen singularly failed at. Further, it has the singular honour of being the only game I've ever paid twice for - once when it was originally released, and again when Valve released a patched modern version.

Aliens versus Predator 2: A worthy sequel from a different developer, but just not quite as visceral as its predecessor. This time the narrative is much more coherent, with a much more developed plot that even brings the three storylines together at one point. But the combat feels somehow more at arms length, it's not helped by so-so weapons, and it's simply never as frightening. The Aliens, in particular, aren't done half as well as in the earlier game. That said, it does get extra points for beginning the Alien campaign with a Facehugger section that finishes up with you biting through the chest of an unfortunate colonist.

Aliens versus Predator 2: Primal Hunt: Ouch! A seriously misjudged expansion pack that contains some embarrassingly bad new content in places. The central idea isn't a bad one - basically it neatly ties up a number of loose ends from the earlier game. But the execution is pretty weak - particularly where the Predator campaign takes in some local wild life (see picture). Still, as a £3.99 purchase from eBay, I can't really complain too loudly.

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So, after all that, where does the new Aliens vs. Predator release leave us? Nowhere particularly new in terms of Alien and Predator lore. As usual, evil corporate humans are trying to turn the Aliens into weapons, while noble marine humans pick up the pieces. As usual, the Aliens just want to protect their hive, oh, and grab some juicy new hosts along the way. And, as usual, the Predators turn up to clean up the mess caused by the humans and to partake in a spot of hunting along the way. Though it's actually produced by the same developers as the original AvP title, the storyline takes much more of a front seat this time around, and in many respects it feels much more like AvP2. It still isn't quite up to the horrific standards of the original in terms of making the player jump, but it's a definite step up from AvP2 on this point, and it makes none of the glaring mistakes that characterise AvP2:PH.

And, technically, everything is pretty much in place. Everywhere - and everyone - is rendered well (Alien and Predator butchery possible too well!). The range of environments - whether dusty, swampy or corridory - is broad and well-realised, and all of the combatants look the part. The Aliens, in particular, are much better here than they've been before. And combat is doled out in the usual manner between species. With the marine, you try to keep enemies as far from you as possible; as an Alien, you do the complete reverse; and as the Predator, you chop and change with the foes and what they're packing. The latter species is still probably my favourite, as I like alternating between long-range sniping and close-up wrist-blading. And the game's requisite nods to both film series are all present and correct, and appropriate in their number. So all of the usual tropes make solid appearances - arrogant marines, furious fire-fights, ambiguous androids, tense prey-stalking, malevolent corporates, infamous head-bites, honourable Predators, et cetera. No sign of a cargo-loader though.

However, there are a few issues with gameplay that leave a little to be desired. In the case of weaponry, the smartgun is much lamer and far less satisfying than in previous outings. Gone are the days of satisfyingly severing Alien extremities with a convincing-sounding burst of bullets. And the Predator's pistol and, more significantly, his (or is it her?) speargun have been left behind on the home planet. One of the singular joys of earlier titles was the chance to make decapitating head-shots from afar, and then collecting the spherical trophy on the way passed. Not so much here. The Predator makes do instead with a strange lance-like device, but I found it disappointingly over-effective to use - where's the fun in scoring an easy kill over a carefully-targeted head-shot?

Another deficit lies in the intelligence of the human NPCs - or, rather, its opposite. They're alright once they get into combat (i.e. when you're too busy dodging bullets to notice), but they behave shockingly foolishly when they're being stalked. As long as they haven't been attacked in the last 10 seconds, they wander around seemingly with nary a care in the world - not even being especially fazed by the discovery of the corpses of their friends. Occasionally one will be hard-coded to behave differently - for instance, to do something sensible like run away and hide - but generally they behave like fish in a barrel patiently waiting to be shot. The developer's solution to this is to tool the human NPCs up with weaponry that can make short shrift of careless Aliens or Predators, but that doesn't really compensate for some unrealistically dumb foes.

Ultimately, Aliens vs. Predator is not much more than a refreshing dip back into the violently bloodthirsty world(s) of Aliens and Predators. Bar some improved visuals and changed weapons, it's not radically different from the first AvP title I played all those years ago. In fact, compared to most of the other titles that I've played of late, most notably the likes of BioShock and Fallout 3, it's something of a retro-throwback to the last century. There's very little freedom or incentive to explore and nothing like modern levels of characterisation or storytelling. Within the tight confines of a simple, linear structure (both story and map), you run around and shoot, stab or bite things. And that, basically, is it.

But all that said, taken on its own terms, it does still tick the relevant boxes. If you're looking for a straightforward blast with familiar cinematic foes, this is an enjoyable diversion. And it would, to be honest, actually be quite difficult for an Alien versus Predator title to break out of the mould that's been established over the past couple of decades of films and games. The nature of the series is to orbit tightly around a well-defined core of (faux) sci-fi action and horror, with practically no latitude for deviation from the formula. It's difficult to imagine any alternative format that would simultaneously satisfy fans, stay true to canon and avoid causing the licence-holders restless nights. One could imagine a more sprawling gameplay style - Grand Theft Aliens, perhaps - but neither the films nor the games to date probably have enough story content to stretch out to that. An intense burst of hunting, running, shooting and biting is about all that's do-able.

Judged on that basis, the 10-20 hours of gameplay in this Aliens vs. Predator is perfectly acceptably bill-fitting. Just don't buy it full price.

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P.S. Actually, one angle that none of the games have yet taken, but which appears in both the original Aliens vs. Predator graphic novel and the first film, is that of the humans and Predators uniting to defeat the common Alien enemy. So perhaps there's still life in the old dog?

Viva La Evolution!

Two of the themes that I find most stirring, whether in the real, books or cinema, are "the evil that humans do" and "the freeing of the oppressed".

By the former, I mean that, as a biologist, I'm routinely appalled by our (= humanity's) self-satisfaction, and by the unthinking view that our lives are, without doubt, the most important aspect of the universe. So I derive a modicum of spiteful satisfaction from reports or tales that show us in our true light, probably completely unreasonably. As regards the latter, I suspect I'm a little more close to the norm in enjoying stories, fictional or otherwise, in which the much-put-upon throw off their shackles and reshape the order of things.

So, playing strongly to both of these themes, tonight's LOVEFiLM DVD, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, was right up my alley. And somewhat unexpectedly so since the Apes series, while occasionally thoughtful, hasn't tended in these directions before. But the film's charting of the rise of Caesar from the capture of his pregnant mother in Africa, through to his triumphant escape from San Francisco definitely ticked my boxes. And the film does, for once, good service by the 1968 original, linking to it unobtrusively while also cleverly creating its own backstory as to how and why Earth came to be ruled by apes.

All that said, and even given its themes, it's probably still one that'll appeal most to science fiction fans.

Grade: A- (high +2 on the Leeper Scale)