Kirks Review of Mindscan by Robert J Sawyer

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Kirk

Mindscan is a Science Fiction book set in the not too distant future when a corporation called Immortex discovers how to copy the human consciousness from your mind into a robotic body. Essentially creating an exact replica of you that can live for centuries. A guy named Jacob Sullivan, who was born with a terminal illness, is among the first people to undergo the procedure. After which his original self gets shipped off to a retirement home the far side of the moon and his Mindscan self meets another Mindscan, Karen Bessarian, who is an incredibly wealthy writer. Her son decides to sue her claiming that she isn’t in fact his real mother. Which I suppose she isn’t because his real mother dies on the other side of the moon where they send all the original people to live in a sort of utopia retreat once they have had their mind scanned. The remainder, or rather the majority, of the book deals with the trial that ensues.

I like that Robert J Sawyer is trying to address the ethical, moral and legal dilemmas that may arise in a futuristic society as technology constantly opens up new opportunities not available to us in today’s world. I also found this book flowed quite well and I read it in about three readings which is rare for me because I’m a slow reader. I loved the beginning and the trial was intriguing, but my favourite part was probably the last 50 pages which filled me with more sense of wonder than the rest of the book put together because that’s when something’s actually happening.

My main grievance with Mindscan was that so much of it is based around the trial. It was still interesting to read but let’s face it if I’ve just woken up and found out that I’m a sentient copy of a person in an almost indestructible body that doesn’t need to sleep, I’m going to be doing just about everything I can think of that no human has ever done before (insert your own imagination here). Also I do wonder how many people would actually have a Mindscan done in real life if the option were available, when really it’s not prolonging your life at all but rather creating a brand new sentient being with your memories and experience that will live for centuries in your place while you go away to the moon waiting to die, never seeing your friends or family EVER AGAIN… Can’t say I’d be tempted.

Overall: 72%

A good read with a great ending that left me wanting to read more Robert J Sawyer but ultimately I think Science Fiction should be more about the unknown than a court room drama.

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Tara’s Review of Stone Junction

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Tara

Stone Junction is a book that delves deep into obsession- how it develops, where it is created, and what effects it can have. Daniel Pearse, like his mother before him, and like many of the mentors he meets through the alliance of magicians and outlaws is drawn, not be an aversion to uniformity, but to exclusivity, expertise and otherworldliness. The plot line proves to be allegorical of just how far we can fall and the repercussions when we do, while still maintaining just enough illusiveness to allow the reader to be speculative. It is a novel about self-control and lack thereof.

Dodge’s prose is well suited to the dialogical and his tone is as varied as his cast. His pace moves quickly without losing focus, though at times there seems to be a disconnect between characters. I can only assume it was Dodge’s aim to unite all characters at the end, but the ending seems more an afterthought then reconciliation. It seems Dodge himself became too engrossed in his own stone junction to be able to exit it as masterfully as he had developed it.

Despite the misgivings, Dodge’s work echoes that of Kerouac with enough punches of reality to keep the reader centered in a world of magic and seeming impossibility. More often than not, his story is well crafted, only lacking luster in its conclusion.

7.5/10

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Kirks Review of Stone Junction by Jim Dodge

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Kirk

I’ve just finished reading Stone Junction, the first of the books on our reading list, and I loved it.

It’s about a boy named Daniel Pearse who is raised as a member of the AMO – the Alliance of Magicians and Outlaws after his mother is killed in a bomb blast. The first part of the book is all about the characters he meets and the training he receives by the various members of the AMO. The second part of the book he is taken under the wing of Volta, the leader of the AMO, who trains him for the theft of a diamond, all the while searching for the truth behind his mother’s death.

The story is engaging and easy to follow, even though I did have to look up a word in the dictionary every so often. I loved that it is set in the real world where you can believe the characters are real and you really want to believe an organisation like the AMO actually exists. The author certainly knows how to tell a good story and I have to keep reminding myself, as I do with all good stories, that such an interesting plot and array of characters is from the imagination of one person. He manages to create what I believe every good work of fiction should have; that ability to remove you from the real world and transport you into the story right alongside the characters so you feel like you are part of the adventure. This book reminded me of that feeling of wonder I would have as a kid when I would dream about packing my bags and take off travelling, looking forward to exploring what the world had to offer and who I would meet along the way.

I usually find stories with lots of characters quite difficult to follow but with Stone Junction Jim Dodge did an excellent job of creating so many different interesting characters with memorable names such as Smiling Jack, Mott, Wild Bill, Volta and Bad Bobby each with their own persona, so I didn’t have to keep flicking back through the pages to find out who they are like I usually have to in books with more than about four characters.

I quite like the quirkiness of things such as the chapter names in this book, I found out early on when I was trying to reach the end of the first chapter, there are only four in the whole book – Air, Earth, Water and Fire. I also love it when the author manages to impart pearls of wisdom within the flow of the story, even better when they include quotes I can take from it. A few of my favourite in this book are:

“Outlaws only do wrong when they feel it’s right; criminals only feel right when they’re doing wrong.”

“Just because everything’s different doesn’t mean anything has changed”

“Why sweat the little shit when deaths got your address”

I can’t really think of anything I didn’t like about this book. A couple of times I expected the plot to have a twist when it didn’t but there’s nothing wrong with that. If I absolutely had to pick a criticism of the book I would be scraping the bottom of the barrel but I would have to say I wasn’t blown away by the ending. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the ending but I always find when I read a really good book, I almost don’t want it to end and when it does it’s never quite the ending that I had in mind. Or maybe it’s just me wanting to find out more about the people left behind. But I guess that’s what sequels are for. Now I can’t wait to start reading next months book.

Overall: 79%

A great adventure I would recommend reading. Had the ending been different it would have been well in the 80’s

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Our first reading list

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Kirk

We picked our first reading list a couple of nights ago and this is what we came up with:

Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
Mindscan – Robert J Sayer
Denial of Death – Ernest Becker
Skipping Towards Gomorrah – Dan Savage
Physics of the Impossible – Michio Kaku
11/22/63 – Stephen King

The only rule we have is that we have to have finished our book by the last day of the month. If this goes acording to plan, in six months time we’ll come up with another one.

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Kirks first post

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Kirk

So here I am making my first post, only 8 months after starting this website up!

You could say me and Tara had a pretty fast moving relationship as we met in March 2010 and we were living together in London with my best friend three months later. Since we got together we have never spent longer than two weeks apart. Now we are going to be apart for the entire first five months of 2012.

We have been living in Tara’s parents basement in Misissauga, Canada since we came over to Canada back in August. At the end of this month (December 2011) we are going back to England for christmas. Last year when we were living in London and we flew out to Canada for christmas so we plan to alternate going forward.

In the New Year Tara will fly back to Canada and I will stay in England to have a second operation on my ear. I had my first operation on my ear back in March of this year and the plan originally was to have the second operation in June of next year after we’d spent a year in Canada. But the day before we were due to fly out to Canada I went in for a check up and the doctors told me they were concerned with what they saw. It turns out I need the second op sooner rather than later so now Tara has to come back to Canada to return to work and I will stay in England recovering from my operation.

It’s going to be difficult but in that time we have decided to start a reading list where we have chosen 3 books each and plan to read one a month. We then plan to write what we thought of it on here. Hopefully we’ll do a better job with that than the original attempt to keep a blog. It suits us because we both love reading but I feel like with all the distractions in todays modern world I don’t read anywhere near as much as I’d like to. Hopefully this will motivate me if I know Tara is reading the same book and have a deadline of the end of the month to finish it.

You can see our first reading list here

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And we continue…

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Tara

Sadly, I warn you ahead of time that what you’re about to read isn’t entirely interesting- it wasn’t very for me, so therefore, for you, a stranger, it should be exceptionally boring. So why bother? Well if you remember in my last post I mentioned how I don’t like to stick to scheduled things….but if I expect anyone to actually read this at any point, they’re not going to be keen on me writing one post and that’s it. I’ll be a one-post pony. Sooo, I’m trying to get myself into the habit of writing a bit every day.

That, unfortunately means that when my dad is rather uneventful, so, too will this post be. This could be a good thing right? I’ll be spurred on to want to sound like I live this thrilling and challenging life and so I’ll actually want to leave the confines of my warm cozy bed in the morning and either be productive or wander out into the big wide beyond. As for now, today was not one of those days. As I teach, I’ve got two weeks holiday which I was quite content to spend procrastinating from the work I should be doing, feeling guilty about procrastinating but not guilty enough to get anything done, and to do absolutely nothing productive with the best of intentions to be productive beyond measure. So here we are on day 4 of lounging in bed, doing a few minimal housekeeping chores, and then trying to look somewhat presentable when Kirk and the housemate arrive home after long strenuous days of work.I don’t feel too guilty though- my job does keep me up way beyond working hours, and even my dream life is devoted to cleaning up after teenagers and trying to persuade THEM to put pen to paper.

So, on my two weeks off, I’m going to take this first week and be incredibly self-indulgent, then I’m going to make a to do list, which I’ll have the best of intentions of completing…but yes ,we’ve heard that before. Life right now is a little of that calm before the storm we call Term 3, before all the commotion of moving out, moving across a country, trying to find a new jobs and a new place on a tight budget as foreigners, and then picking up and doing it all over again next year…So for now I’m trying to find some balance between having something to show for two weeks of time to myself, and reveling in the ability to shove off everything I have to do one more day…

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Barking up trees?

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Tara

What are we about? Well, that remains to be seen for both you and of us. Let’s start off with this…

At this point in time Kirk works in a magazine company and got me a free subscription to the Marie Claire magazine and we spent about an hour last night going through one of hose oh-so-predictable magazine quizzes about unlocking your inner talent. No surprise, we both showed no measurable enthusiasm for sport, but Kirk DID score quite high on the entreprenurial side of things, and me? Well no stand out winners but I’ve got some standing in interpersonal skills and anything of the arts and literature variety. One of the questions they ask of you did spur me into action. I used to love writing- used to crave it. No, I was never one of those diary sorts…and still, I don’t like the pressure of having to write things according to a certain schedule. Yet, I do love words…

Kirk has been the one about the blog from the beginning- he’s always looking for a way to find a niche in the market and thought that due to our situation we may actually attract some readers at some point in time.

To fill you in on our situation, in brief he’s British and I’m Canadian…the plan is to live a year in both of our home countries (We live in England now and are about 4 months from the move to Canada). Then the plan is to move to New Zealand and take it from there. One of the reasons we think we both work well as a couple is because we both have a sense of adventure- he on a more grandiose travel scale…me on the exploring the innards of wherever I am (but we both paint with both brushes when given the opportunity). So, with our adventure and exploration and honest commentary about the wheres we’ve been, the whats we’ve done, and the who’s we have yet to meet…hopefully we’ll be barking up some trees and you might come to enjoy a post or two…

So view this as a log in our efforts to document, critique, and pay homage to some of our favourite places along the way…

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