Embassytown

China Miéville

In Embassytown, Avice Benner Cho relates the events of her life, leading up to and including the radical transformation of Embassytown and its residents. Embassytown, the book's eponymous city where the majority of the plot takes place, is a pocket of human-breathable space on an environmentally hostile (to humans) planet, Arieka. The planet's native inhabitants, Ariekei, are incredible bio-engineers whose language requires two vocal streams to speak - and a single living mind behind it. In order to accommodate communication, the humans on the planet have created Ambassadors: cloned human twins, raised to serve as interpreters to the Ariekei and ostensible leaders of the little colony, linked through empathic implants and kept identical through careful daily physical syncing.

The first third of the book largely concerns itself with the past - Cho's childhood and her relationship with her linguist husband Scile, while the remainder recounts the events following the introduction of an outsider Ambassador, EzRa, who causes Arikei society to fall apart.

I really enjoyed Embassytown.  There are lots of strange new (at least to me) science fictional concepts to enjoy, and I love language, so the sections dealing with Scile and the language of the Ariekei (simply called "Language") were especially interesting.  The format was a little unusual; there was a lot of jumping back and forth during the first third of the book that made it difficult to follow at times, especially given the convention of specifying time spans in hours (such as kilohours and megahours). Ultimately, however, the order of prior events is less important than their facts and consequences.

One aspect of the book that I particularly liked was that it took a relatively tight view of events, a tighter view than the reader realizes at the time, and then provided a twist that expanded that view - twice. This shows a level of world-building beyond the simple aspects of the single story, but also the skill and care to not allow it to bog down the plot.

While there were a lot of new ideas to get a grasp on, I found it more comprehensible than Perdido Street Station, although I have the impression they are set in the same universe. I would recommend it for pretty much any science fiction reader, but particularly those with an interest in linguistics.

Asimov's Science Fiction (August 2008)

I just finished reading the latest Asimov's (well, either I'm a time traveler or their web site is in need of update, because the latest issue on the site is June 2008... ;-) ). I can't really say I was overly impressed with the stories in this issue. They were mostly alright, but nothing stands out to me as has happened with other issues. Sadly, I found the non-fiction to be more interesting. Oh well, on to the reviews (keeping them short & sweet... also, I'm not reviewing ones I didn't read or the poetry):

Reflections: Some Thoughts on the Short Story (essay). Robert Silverberg. Silverberg discusses Edgar Allen Poe's advice that "a short story is a piece of prose fiction in which just one significant thing happens" and H.G. Wells' addendum: "a science-fiction short story is a piece of prose fiction in which just one extraordinary thing happens". Interesting advice with examples and exceptions. Worth the read.

Thought Experiments: The Great Awakening (essay). Rudy Rucker. Rucker lays out possibilities on the future of computing and humanity post-singularity. Some interesting ideas and worthwhile hooks for fiction, though gets a little far-fetched towards the end.

Lagos (short story). Matthew Johnson. Safrat, a poor Nigerian working as a remote intelligence for first-world machinery, discovers that she and those she works with are being used to... Well, you'll have to read it. Interesting ideas, but not terribly compelling for me.

Old Man Waiting (short story). Robert Reed. A trust-funder (or someone with an unending supply of cash, anyway) stalks an old man with Alzheimer's for his amusement. I didn't really care for this story; nothing much happens, the characters aren't interesting or compelling, and I agree with the protagonist's friends: leave the old man alone!

Lucy (short story). J. Chris Rock. The tale of a probe and those who love her. No, wait, that's WALL*E. Elgin and Brad, two scientists, have subcontracted with NASA to send a probe to Titan. Meanwhile, they ponder their lives, their neighbors and their future. Again, not a terribly compelling story, though I do feel for the probe in the end.

Divining Light (novelette). Ted Kosmatka. A suicidal physicist explores the nature of reality and humanity. I like the subject matter and the story was ok, but I think Kosmatka doesn't really understand the double-slit experiment and its results.

What You Are About To See (short story). Jack Skillingstead. An NSA (sorta) spook takes on an alien that can choose its reality - with his help. Nothing to say. Wasn't particularly impressed, wasn't terribly disappointed.

Wilmer or Wesley (short story). Carol Emshwiller. A creature of nearly-human intelligence longs for freedom (more eloquently than most humans could). I liked this story, empathized with Wilmer or Wesley and was saddened at the injustice of his captivity.

Radio Station St. Jack (novelette). Neal Barrett, Jr.. A local DJ/Priest defends his post-war town from marauders (in dresses). I'm a fan of post-apocalypse fiction, and this is close enough to fit the bill for me.

WALL*E (2008)

Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures
Directed by: Andrew Stanton

The Earth, from space. (Surrounded by a thick layer of satellites.)

Music plays:
Out there
There's a world outside of Yonkers
Way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby
There's a slick town, Barnaby

Long zoom in. The Earth, circa 2800. The oceans are dry, and no vegetation can be seen.

The zoom continues. Now we can make out towering buildings, teetering slightly.

Zoom in further. The music fades in and out as a tiny speck moves across the screen.

More zoom. They're not buildings, but enormous towers of trash. And the tiny speck is a robot--the last robot on Earth.

For this opening scene alone I would buy the movie when it comes out on DVD.

The robot is, of course, the movie's titular character WALL*E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), the last survivor of many thousands (millions?) of robots designed and built by the Buy'N Large Company (BNL) to clean up the Earth after it had been spoiled by humanity.

WALL*E spends its days compacting trash and collecting the few rare treasures it finds amongst the waste, until a spaceship visits Earth and leaves behind a probe called EVE, which is there to discover whether the planet has become inhabitable again. (And is, of course, the eventual romantic interest for the solitary WALL*E.)

I loved this movie. I knew I would enjoy it from the moment I heard it was from Pixar - how's that for a reputation? - but the film exceeded my expectations completely. From the opening shot described above, to the dance in space, to the cinematography, to the social and political commentary, it's a rare piece of true science fiction in film that's approachable and entertaining. (I read a review that compared WALL*E to Kubrik's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and let me say, while the comparison may be apt in terms of cinematography, WALL*E is a film I will watch again.)

The main themes of the movie are environmentalism, consumerism, conformity/self-identity and, of course, love. Love is explored through EVE and WALL*E - WALL*E's personality has developed through ages of operation, and EVE's slowly develops through its interaction with WALL*E (though there are some hints at it from its first appearance, and also in the other robots throughout the movie). I find it somewhat unfortunate that EVE and WALL*E are gendered (EVE is the aloof exotic, barely even aware of WALL*E, who is the goofy lonester that eventually wins her heart), even though it is fairly minimal overall. I understand, though, that it is done to help the movie be more approachable to a mainstream audience.

Consumerism and conformity are wrapped up together in the surviving humans and their "benevolent" ruler, the Buy'N Large Corporation. By the time the Earth is evacuated, 700 years prior to the movie's setting, BNL has taken control of the entire planet - no service provided is not touched (or offered outright) by BNL. As the refuse problem spirals out of control, BNL constructs vast space ships to carry Earth's population away; ostensibly on a 5-year cruise while the robots clean the planet. It reminds me greatly of the fiction of Frederik Pohl, particularly The Merchants' War.

Modern humanity, of a much expanded sort, continues to live in these space ships; or at least on one, the Axiom, where all needs are tended to by an army of robots as people are rushed about upon hover chairs, drinking the latest Cupcake-in-a-cup and chatting with their neighbors via the chair's screens. Unfortunately, two of these supposedly mindless creatures are pulled out of their chairs and begin to discover the world around them. The concept would be much more terrifying if they didn't, much more impactful, although it does allow the filmmaker to point out the wonders - simple and grand - that everyone else is missing, so I suppose it's not all bad.

Environmentalism is the most obvious theme, of course. The Earth has been ravaged beyond habitation. No plants grow in this wasteland. And yet, this disregard is continued on the Axiom, where garbage is fed into the bowels of the ship, to be compacted by enormous WALL*As before being jettisoned into space (can you tell the ships were designed by BNL?).

This leads me to my biggest complaint about the movie: believability. There were moments when I was cocking my head to one side and saying, "Does not compute!" The physics is not terrible, and most of it could probably be easily explained away, but some of the physics problems were: were does the gravity on the ship come from? Why does everyone fall to the side when the ship turns, exactly like on a sea-faring ship? Where do they get the energy or raw materials for everything consumed by the humans? How can humans - big, fat humans - that have spent their entire lives in their hover chairs stand up and walk at the end?

But the most important believability failure is something I've only just now realized: we are left with the presumption at the end that everything will be all right now: the humans have learned their lesson and will now become the proper stewards they should've been all along. But how? These humans have spent their entire lives not having to think about stewardship and conservation, not to mention several generations before them as well. They hadn't changed when WALL*E arrived, as evidenced by the tons of waste jettisoned each minute. While I will admit the events of the movie are certainly a life-changing experience, I can't believe they could change so drastically so quickly.

However, despite all of these nit-picks, I still highly recommend WALL*E for everyone. You won't be disappointed.

(PS I almost want to call this WALL*E: An Ambiguous Dystopia, because the contrast between Earth and Axiom remind me of Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossesed: An Ambiguous Utopia. But that's probably discourse for another time.)

EDIT:
Please read UniversalCitizen's comment as well; he addresses many other troubling points with the movie.