Science Fiction & Fantasy

The beginning of the new millennium is a great time to reread Arthur C. Clarke's timeless classic, 2001 a Space Odyssey. While revisiting 2001, it is as interesting to note the differences between Mr. Clarke's vision of the future. Although we do not have a station on the moon, and venturing to Mars is perhaps another century away, we've made computer systems and networks that rival HAL.

The Prisoner of Azkaban is a interesting continuation of the Harry Potter series. (To get the most from the series, you really should start with book one--Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone). Once again, we find ourselves in the Hogwarth academy of wizards. Young Harry is in his third year. Yes, he still plays Quidditch, and is more interested in adventures with his friends than school work. Hermione, the brightest straight "A" student ever, takes more classes than is humanly possible--some of them at the same time!!! The cat has a strange dislike for the rat, and brewing in the background is yet another sinister plot to do away with our young protagonist.

My biggest complaint with the work comes in the first chapters. The Dursleys family had taken yet another step from being Mugglishly humorous to being downright mean. Why Rowling would waste ink telling the world how much she despises this family is beyond me.

The Phantom Menace is a good quick read. I believe it is beneficial to occasionally read books based on movies. While you read, you can play the movie scene by scene in your mind. It's an exercise than can help build your reading speed and comprehension. Terry Brooks uses simple language, and follows the dialogue of the script. You pick up a few tidbits of knowledge, not emphasized in the movie.

JK Rowling has given the world a delightful series of books concerning the young wizard Harry Potter. The series begins with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (and you definitely want to read the books in the correct order.) In this story we learn of the origins of Harry Potter,  and witness the day when he realizes that he is more than an unwanted orphan living under the stairs in a broom closet, but is a young wizard, with many secret talents.

As a young wizard, Harry Potter is shuffled away to Hogwarth -- the wizard training school. Here we get to meet a delectable assortment of wizard's, ghosts, unicorns and, of course, one diabolical plot by the evil wizard Voldemort.

The Chamber of Secrets details Harry's second year at Hogwarth. Rowling presents an even more intriguing array of wizards, and magical characters, and we discover that there is yet an even more sinister plot brewing in the tunnels beneath Hogwarth.

I admit, it is a bit hard to classify the work. Stephenson shifts styles several times. The first pages come across as a witty, Douglas Adam's type parody of Hiro Protagonist "the deliverator" crashing through futuristic suburbs, trying to deliver a pizza at all cost. Failure to deliver the pizza on time would not only would be a major media event. It would cause some rather sticky problems with the Costra Nostra pizza chain.

We soon transfer into a cyberpunk metauniverse, created and run by the hacker elite. Avatars wander around in a life like simulation, but only the coolest of the Avatars can make it into the ultimate hacker's hangout - The Black Sun. Before settling into a pure cyberpunk story, we suddenly find ourselves sucked into the political intrigue of mysterious religious cults (the type you would find in Robert Heinlein), then, with little warning, we are in pure adventureland battles - fierce enough to make Dirk Pitt cringe.

The long explanations of the history of religion was a tad tedious. But it is interesting to see how he draws on Richard Dawkins ideas of religion and ideas (memes) behave like computer viruses, with different survival strategies.