We’ve had a good in-depth interview with the team and Vassilis Kroustallis from Zippy Frames.

“Tin Man gets us from the grey, square room to a kaleidoscope of forms, plants and water, and even the space itself. It is grounded on reality and its photographed face profiles, but it plays cunningly with the possibilities of the cut-out elements. With a song beat that almost leads you to get up and move, and lyrics that remind of familiar insecurities, Tin Man is a small anthem to let yourself and enjoy what comes along in the process -in a vibrant form.”

See the full review here: Tin Man by Ben Dalby (zippyframes.com)

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I reviewed this series on Amazon a few years back, and wanted to preserve my review for posterity!

Excellent pigeon-fancier romance with fantasy interludes

I would like to draw attention to the main plot which is actually about the growing friendship between two pigeon keepers who communicate only by scrawled notes at the end of other people’s messages. All of the triumphs and tribulations of pigeon breeding are captured, as well as the politics and family developments of the main characters.

How the author squeezed such life and emotion into such a short novella I have no idea. It has an almost haiku-like beauty at times. I can’t wait to find out what happens next – it is so rare for an author to write about the pigeon-breeding world with such knowledge and enthusiasm.

In my editon there appeared to be lengthy interludes about a fantasy world involving dragons separating each page of the main story. These have been commented on by other reviewers.

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Did you know you can share your DAW audio output to your remote band mates using Zoom? Here is how:

 

1. Configure your DAW to output audio to the Zoom driver (here’s a screen shot of Logic):
   

 

2. Once you’ve started the call, check the ‘Share computer sound’ option in the bottom left corner when you ‘Share Screen’:

That’s it! Your remote colleague should now be able to hear a reasonably high-fidelity version of whatever you are playing in your DAW.

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Having greatly enjoyed The Martian, I recently read Andy Weir’s new novel, Artemis.

Whilst I love Andy Weir’s bio (because I’m all in favour of people who’ve spent two decades in the software industry making the transition into writing), I found his latest book to be rather disappointing.

Despite being a twenty-something grifter, the heroine of ‘Artemis’ has an identical ‘voice’ to that of the hero in ‘The Martian’ – calm, resourceful and dispassionate to an almost supernatural level.

Whilst I found this credible for a NASA astronuaut, it seems inexplicable for the protagonist of ‘Artemis’. I think also that the plot was less satisfying. ‘The Martian’ is a visceral life and death struggle, in which the hero is plunged through pure bad luck.

Whereas ‘Artemis’ is essentially a heist-gone-wrong novel, with the heroine’s consistently short-sighted and poor life choices (necessary to drive the plot) feeling incongruent with her amazing engineering skills and underlying moral goodness.

 

I decided it was therefore time to reread Robert Heinlein’s classic, ‘The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.’ This is a profoundly more satisfying book, for a number of reasons. For a start, the sheer number of ideas that Heinlein manages to squeeze in is breathtaking.

Mass-driver catapults, the long term effects of low gravity on human biology, artificial intelligence, lunar economics, revolutionary ideology, the development of alternative forms of marriage in a matriarchal society, strengths and weaknesses of clandestine cell systems, to name just a few.

And the real genius is how each of these ideas is naturally woven into the story. For instance, Heinlein postulates that after about three years on the Moon, it becomes impossible for Earth natives to return home. Which is one of the reasons the authority figures from Earth on his Lunar colony are so bitter towards the native colonists that they rule – the price of that power is never returning home.

Heinlein’s narrator also speaks in his own argot, which Heinlein never explains. I know this is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I found I ceased to notice it after about a third of the way through the book.

Written in 1966, the book was nominated for the Nebula Award and won the Hugo Award. It is a book that treats the reader as a grown-up. You are in for a treat whether you are reading if for the first time or not.

The post Lunar Societies in Science Fiction – Weir versus Heinlein appeared first on Ben Dalby.

I wanted to share some of my favorite fictional heroines for you. My criteria are they must kick ass (so no teen vampires), and there must be at least a passing chance you have not have encountered them, so I don’t need to mention Jane Eyre (my all time favorite) or Daenerys.

	Captain Cordelia Naismith. Cordelia is from a nice, liberal culture in the far future, and we first meet her in Shards of Honor when she is captured by a brutal, militaristic empire. The brutal militaristic empire never really stands a chance as Cordelia outthinks and outfights them at every turn. In particular, the final chapters of the sequel Barrayarare something I’ll never forget. But now you’ve only just started on the Vorkosigan Saga, with many more great books to read. And don’t forget Ista in Paladin of Souls. I’m so jealous …
	Phyrnne Fisher. Travelling the opposite direction in time, meet Phyrnne, a beautiful, wealthy lady detective, “with the morals of a cat.” Her novels are always a good read, and it is very nice to see the gender roles reversed in the familiar ‘James Bond’ approach to romance. Also, Phyrnne is unashamedly wealthy, so you get the same vicarious enjoyment as reading Dorothy L Sayers’ fine Peter Wimsey stories.
	Khalan. The Sword of Truth series is an epic fantasy saga that manages to be longer than Wheel of Time, and a better read. The books have their highs and lows, and an uncommon affection for the philosophy of Ayn Rand, but what I like is that the hero and heroine are both fantastic characters and a great match for each other. Richard is a very interesting hero – a magician, a warrior, and a philosopher, rather than a callow youth. With Khalan, Terry Goodkind managed something very special in coming up with an equally interesting heroine. Khalan is a general, a witch and a deadly fighter, and absolutely the last person you ever want to mess with, as many individuals discover.
	Vin. The Mistborn Series is in some ways a classic coming of age story, but set in a fantasy world where the Dark Lord won and has been ruling for a thousand years. Vin is one of those characters who stays with you long after you have finished reading – she’s just so … noble (sighs). Ahem. Anyway, Brandon Sanderson seems to have a real knack for female heroines, so if you’re not sure you have got the time for a trilogy, start with Shai in The Emperor’s Soul.
	Eliza from the Baroque Cycle. Neale Stephenson making it onto another list He writes a lot of strong female characters, but Eliza is probably one of my favourites. As earthy as Phyrne Fisher, she invents modern banking in between surviving the chaos of an alternative 18th Century. Very cool.

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	A touch choice between this and The Windup Girl. Near future where the water has run out in America. Sympathetic characters, gritty in style and subject.
	Neale Stephenson’s Snowcrash and his Baroque Cycle have been some of my all time favourite reads. But somehow he’s still here and getting better. The latter half of the book is more Utopian, but the opener with the Moon being destroyed, and the astronomical consequences of this, are amazing. Worth it for the great imaging of just how merciless and brutal space flight is for us with our current technological capabilities. A difficult choice between this and REAMDE – but that covers MMOPRG game economics, and Cory Doctorow does it in fewer pages below.
	A new author for me. Great blend of near future environmental disaster, plus just how difficult it is to get anything done in Washington DC.
	Read and enjoyed a few of Cory Doctorow’s books – I think this one touched me the most, as I ended up really rooting for the downtrodden “gold farmers” in the novel. A real life occupation for 100,000 people in China, apparently.
	A tongue-in-choice cheek here. I am not really sure if this counts as hard scifi, because the spacetime physics within its pages defeated me. But certainly ‘hard’ in the intellectual sense. If anyone is smart enough to let me know if this is book is realistic, I’d love to know.

The post Some Recent Hard SciFi Finds appeared first on Ben Dalby.

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I had a few thoughts about this. My first reaction was annoyance. It’s not like there isn’t plenty of hard evidence that life in Chinese factories is difficult. There is a lot of material on the SACOM web site, including a swift response to the above story, plus detailed evidence about conditions at Foxconn. And as the linked story is balanced enough to point out, “What makes this a little complicated is that the things Daisey lied about seeing are things that have actually happened in China: Workers making Apple products have been poisoned by Hexane …”

I also thought a little more about Mike Daisey himself, what he’s achieved, and how he might have ended up in hot water. On the achievement side, I have to say I *still* have vastly more time for someone like this who is prepared to take a passionate stand on behalf of the oppressed than the countless technical and mainstream media journalists who repeat Apple hype uncritically. Who is more likely to keep Apple on their toes?

But here the dangers for the artist. It’s hard enough to make a song / book / theatre production / film, even if you have no concern with the truth. To try and squeeze a political or social message in there without being trite or untruthful, and in way that still engages people, is a big ask. It’s very tempting to take shortcuts, especially when the dangers to primary sources in China are immediate – there is a reason it is hard to get first hand accounts and footage out of Foxconn.

There is also the artist’s self interest – an artist wants to be heard, wants to get out there, and wants to make a living from their passion. So there will be plenty of internal criticism before the external critics get started – who am I to say this stuff? Am I not profiting (in some way) from other people’s suffering? What if what I say is not accurate, or is no longer accurate?

So, still two cheers from me for Mike Daisey. There aren’t many people speaking out, and they get plenty of flack for it. I’m not saying he didn’t screw up; I think part of me has even more respect because he did.

BD

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Rachel Kaden

Kate Soulsby

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