Book report
Jan. 10th, 2005 08:05 amI started reading Contact last night. I got to Part Two, or whatever passes for Part Two, and I already like it better than the Jodie Foster movie. This is possibly because I was able to stay awake for the background-about-Ellie portion of the book, whereas in the theater, I was sleeping until well after they picked up the mathematical portion of the Message. I think I woke up for Hitler.
Anyway, it's pretty enjoyable, in a "better world realistic" sort of way. I mean, I don't know what year it is supposed to be -- in fact, it seems to have taken place sometime on the timeline before now, but in their world, people are a little more advanced. First off, in compliance with 1970s Sci Fi Rule #22, there is a female president. Secondly, and more importantly, there are intelligent fundamentalists (yes, I know this character turns out to be a major problem later, but at first, he's pretty likable for a fundie - none of this Fred Phelps shit). And thirdly, and most important of all, there is a *math channel* on television, which is understood to be part of the normal order of things. Crazy. No one could live at that speed.
In other news, I had dreams about breaking Brian Butler out of prison so that we (we being a team of five or six people who I don't now remember) could engage in super-secret-spy-stuff, which somehow involved swimming across a flooded house (possibly my grandmother's house) and beating the everloving hell out of giant eels with big nasty teeth. Good times. I'm certain that this has to do somehow with the fact that
triadruid is reading The Princess Bride, but I'm not sure exactly how that works. Hypothesis: excess dream material runs downstream from the master bedroom, landing squarely on my brain asleep in the basement.
Anyway, it's pretty enjoyable, in a "better world realistic" sort of way. I mean, I don't know what year it is supposed to be -- in fact, it seems to have taken place sometime on the timeline before now, but in their world, people are a little more advanced. First off, in compliance with 1970s Sci Fi Rule #22, there is a female president. Secondly, and more importantly, there are intelligent fundamentalists (yes, I know this character turns out to be a major problem later, but at first, he's pretty likable for a fundie - none of this Fred Phelps shit). And thirdly, and most important of all, there is a *math channel* on television, which is understood to be part of the normal order of things. Crazy. No one could live at that speed.
In other news, I had dreams about breaking Brian Butler out of prison so that we (we being a team of five or six people who I don't now remember) could engage in super-secret-spy-stuff, which somehow involved swimming across a flooded house (possibly my grandmother's house) and beating the everloving hell out of giant eels with big nasty teeth. Good times. I'm certain that this has to do somehow with the fact that
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