Russell Atkinson's Blog, page 122
September 5, 2014
Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It took a while for this very different sci-fi book to grow on me. The setting is a distant planet called Eden, where some marooned astronauts landed and began a new society. Of the five humans who landed, four men and one woman, three were rogue astronauts who decided to try flying through some sort of wormhole and two were the Orbital Police who were trying to stop them when they involuntarily got taken through the hole to what turned out to be Eden. The policewoman and one of the astronauts stayed behind to populate the new planet while the other three set off to seek rescue from Earth. The story begins five generations later, with a small “Family” all descended from the same pair, and showing various inbreeding mutations. It is a hunter/gatherer society on a sunless planet that derives its only light from stars and glowing lantern-trees. The story is told from the viewpoint of several different characters, but at least keeps in chronological order, which makes it easy to follow.
The language threw me off at first. It is very stylized to represent what the author imagines English could become in such an isolated society detached from Earth not only distance but also by any experience with a modern society of any kind. To emphasize words, especially modifiers, they repeat them, as in “it felt strange strange to be doing …” and other corruptions like “veekle” (vehicle), Secret Ree (Secretary), etc. abounded. I almost gave up on page 2 because of this, but after a few dozens pages you fall into the rhythm of their speech. It was refreshing in a way.
The plot had its holes, but I’ll refrain from spoilers and leave it at that. The main character, John Redlantern, is reminiscent of Ayla in Jean Auel’s Earth Children series, in that he and one other character seem to invent (or reinvent) all of modern society’s major achievements in a period of days or weeks – a yearning for exploration, animal husbandry, shoes and other clothing, homicide, to name a few. Despite these flaws, the story had me drawn in from the beginning and enabled me to lose myself in this strange, imaginary world.
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IMPACT by Douglas Preston
Impact by Douglas Preston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’m not sure how libraries or others classify this book, as science fiction or spy thriller, but it is a bit of both. The lead character, Wyman Ford, is a James Bond-like figure, quite over the top, but good fun if you accept that going in. The plot is imaginative and the action scenes superb. The author appears to have done a good deal of research on astronomy and seamanship off the Maine coast among other things. The story bordered on the plausible at all times. The characters are really too one-dimensional, either good or evil, and the good ones impossibly smart and knowledgeable about virtually everything, which makes this disturbingly close to comic-book quality, but I enjoyed it. I listened to the CD version. At first I didn’t like the reader as his voice is a bit coarse, but he turned out to be a good actor and did the book justice. My one big complaint is that the language and characters were unnecessarily crude throughout much of the book, with numerous racial and sexual epithets and descriptions on top of the usual obscenities.
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September 2, 2014
Democracy and IQ – WuMo
Image courtesy of Wulff and Morgenthaler (WuMo)
August 24, 2014
Our Ignorant Newsies – It’s “Temblor”
You’ve all heard about the earthquake in Napa by now. If you’ve seen any news coverage at all on TV you’ve probably heard someone call it a “tremblor” or “trembler”. There are no such words. It’s “temblor.” Got it? Good.
August 21, 2014
Anji
I thought you might enjoy this video I made a while back.
August 19, 2014
Anagrams on the News
FERGUSON, MO = GUN FOR SOME
EBOLA SPREADS = SLEEPS ABROAD
GOP AND DEMS = SPEND DOGMA
ROBIN WILLIAMS = A SWIRL IN LIMBO
August 14, 2014
Don’t Make an ‘S of Yourself
It’s time for a language lesson – that bugaboo of so many: the possessive s.
Let’s start with the worst offender: its. Notice that there is no apostrophe. None of the personal pronouns use the apostrophe in their possessive forms. We don’t write hi’s, her’s or our’s, so don’t write it’s for the possessive. What makes it confusing is that, unlike the other pronouns, “it’s” is a valid word. It’s the contraction of “it is” or “it has,” like the first word in this sentence. Got it? Good. It’s reassuring to know that you understand its rule.
The standard rule for nouns is even simpler. Add apostrophe S to make the possessive of a singular noun, e.g. a dog’s life. If the noun is plural ending in s, then the apostrophe goes after the S, e.g. dogs’ lives. If the plural ends in another letter, like children, treat it like the singular and add apostrophe s (Children’s Hour). Nearly everyone gets this right. Where the trouble usually begins is with nouns that end in S, especially names. Like mine. This blog is not Russ’ blog. It is Russ’s blog. That’s right. Even as I am typing this, the Firefox spellchecker is marking Russ’s as wrong and Russ’ as right, even though it should be the other way around. In short, the correct way is to treat words ending in S the same as all other words.
The only exception is for those rare words that end in two successive pronounced S sounds, like Jesus or narcissus. One easy way to think of this is to think how you pronounce the word. The possessive of Russ is pronounced differently from the singular Russ, i.e. it rhymes with trusses, not truss. You pronounce an extra S sound, so it is spelled with an extra S after the apostrophe. But the possessive of Jesus is pronounced the same as the word Jesus, i.e. in Jesus’ name we pray. So Jesus just take the apostrophe without the extra S. Take another example. Suppose you had a friend named Jones. If you wanted to visit him you might say “Let’s go to Jones’s house.” You wouldn’t say “Let’s go to Jones’ house” because that sounds like you’re saying “Let’s go to Joan’s house.” In other words, you pronounce the possessive S, so it takes the apostrophe S. And if Jones had a family, you might say, “I see the Joneses.” There is no possessive and no S; it’s just the plural. But if you visited them, you might say I went to the Joneses’ house.” Notice that you pronounce the plural possessive the same way you pronounce the simple plural. So you just add on the apostrophe without another S. In short, if you pronounce the plural with an extra S sound, you must add the extra S after the apostrophe. If not, no.
August 9, 2014
Our Ignorant Newsies – Chris Jansing Edition
Pearls from the mouth of Chris Jansing, the Barbie doll-like White House reporter for NBC news, all in one 5-minute report today:
“The administration acknowledges that they underestimated the ability of the Iraqi security forces to protect against ISIS…”
(Since the Iraqi security forces utterly failed, she meant they overestimated their ability).
Speaking of the President…”You could see his palpable reluctance …”
(“Palpable” means something you can feel, not see. It’s like saying you could smell the sound of his voice.)
“He reiterated once again…”
(Reiterating is saying once again).
I don’t think she was chosen for the job for her IQ. It is a visual medium. Just sayin’.
August 6, 2014
Stars and Stripes Forever
Another video worth reposting:
