Light Summer Reading - Agatha Christie and the Uncanny Valley

Just a quick post regarding some light reading over the last few weeks.

Agatha Christie - Sleeping Murder, A Caribbean Mystery
Stephen King - The Gunslinger, Dark Tower Book 1

Yet again I come to Ms. Christie for my light reading. She's a genius at messing with my mind. I can devour one of her mysteries in a few hours, and still want more. Both of the above titles are Miss Marple mysteries, and once again I am struck by how much Christie seemed to love the uncanny wrapped in the mundane.

There is a phenomenon in psychology and computer programming called the Uncanny Valley, in which an artificial representation of a human (like a robot or a CG character) is charming when it is very obviously not human, disturbing when it is a close but imperfect facsimile, and becomes more acceptable again as it closes in on perfect imitation. The "Valley" in the uncanny valley refers to the sudden decline and following rise in positive response from a human observer as the artificial human approaches perfection. Psychologists have wondered whether this is related to a deep-seated human fear of the unknown, or of replacement by an artificial doppelganger.

Hypotheses also exist regarding the evolutionary value of having a negative reaction to someone who is human and by all appearances upstanding but something seems "not quite right". I think Christie's works, in particular Miss Marple, are a perfect example of this. Sensitivity to minutiae in human behavior that seem "not quite right" is what infallibly leads Christie's detectives to uncovering evil. This sensitivity saves lives.

The well-bred gentleman sitting next to you at a party might just that morning have murdered his niece. The young woman combing her hair might be hiding her lover's dead body in the closet. The sweet old lady knitting in the corner might be watching you much more closely than you think.

Happy Birthday Jules Verne!

A big ol' Happy Birthday to Mr. Jules Verne: 8 Feb 1828 - 24 March 1905. To the man who brought us a strange and wonderful vision of technological progress, thanks and way to anticipate!

Guilty Pleasures - Interim Post

I was thinking about guilty pleasures this week. You know, reading and loving reading IS actually becoming a rare and fairly highbrow pleasure in general these days, so it's funny that any reader should have ``guilty'' reading pleasures, but I certianly do. Here are the ones I'm willing to admit:

Comic books - Yes a lot of what I read could be classified as a slightly more high-falutin' ``graphic novel''...but really? I like comic books.

Mystery novels - What is it about a good bloody murder and socially inept detective that attracts so many otherwise sensitive readers? I've read some pretty gruesome stuff, but the consistently popular murder mystery novel doesn't seem to fall under this category for some reason. For example, no one has thought to ban Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie on the grounds of explicit content. I'm not complaining, it's just weird is all.

Fanfiction - Poorly written, completely out of character, and occasionally very entertaining! This pleasure is more guilty and less frequent, but I've done my share of searching on fanfiction.net.

Any guilty pleasures to share? Leave a comment below!
Something more pithy will follow, but this has been on my mind for a while now.

Amazon Kindle: Dusty Shelves Joins the Information Age

Dusty Shelves got a Kindle for Christmas!!! Yes, I know it's a little late to be posting about Christmas presents, but hey, it took a while to get used to it. As my screen name may imply, I do like the feel and experience of cracking a REAL book with pages and all. Being aware of and agonizing over pulp-related tree deaths, I am an avid used book shopper and am firmly convinced that when civilization comes to an end, all that will truly remain to entertain and sustain us will be the old-fashioned printed word. (I also write letters. Yeah I mean like REAL letters with a pen and everything. Despite my budding technophilia, I do like to stage my own gentle version of resistance to over-internetization.)

Not that I wasn't excited to receive the Kindle. Benies include 4G capability and electronic books without those pesky printing costs. This can add up to serious savings for the savvy bibliophile. Have you any idea how many books are in the public domain and thus available to download for FREE?? Neither do I, but it's more than a lot! Also, the unlighted display and large fonts available really do reduce eyestrain, and I would much rather buy books than new glasses. Oh, and if you really want to geek out, keep turning the Kindle on and off to see the screensaver displays. The one in the picture above is a favorite author of mine.

What I haven't figured out how to do on it yet is how to find particular passages in much-loved books that do not include tables of contents. Many of the books I have downloaded so far don't seem to have that feature, and the ``search'' function does not actually appear all that searchable or functional.

Some experimental features are available as well, including access to the internet. Not exactly what you'd call user-friendly yet, but it's nice to be able to pull out this slim little thing for a quick look at email. You know what would help, Amazon? A touch screen.

Great for travel too. It's lightweight, doesn't tear when stuffed in a carry-on, and can hold charge for many days. Just no reading for the user before your plane reaches 10,000 feet. Nevermind, though, that's what SkyMall is for. Anyone need a 7' statue of Anubis for $2,000? I didn't think so, but if I had a mansion with a three-story library, I might consider it. After, of course, a few choice first printings, and a special little nook for the Kindle.

So what do you guys think? Is the printed word on it's way out, and if so, where is it leading us as an information-dependent society? Already, newspapers are converting more and more of their printing expenses into making material available online. Leave comments, and don't forget to click the ``follow'' button if you like this blog! --->

Bridge of Birds

Back after a long hiatus. This is an update regarding a friend's book suggestion: The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox. It's a collection of three books by Barry Hughart set in the ancient China of folklore and legend. I am now reading the first book, Bridge of Birds, in which Number Ten Ox meets Master Li and a whole bunch of freaky shenanigans go down with dancing ghosts, invisible Hands of Hell, tiger-masked despots, misers, monks, and a woman of limited beauty but immeasurable charm who wraps every man she sees around her finger simply by smiling at him.

I am thoroughly enjoying the humor and grace with which the stories are told, the style being more reminiscent of a fireside folktale than that of your typical epic fantasy. From the moment Master Li Kao slops onto the scene in a drunken stupor, and recovers enough to say, ``My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character. You got a problem?'', I fell in love. Add to that the fact that a beloved friend read me the first four chapters aloud to get me started, and what resulted was complete enchantment!

Which brings me to the real point of this post. Read out loud, and find someone who will read aloud to you. The exchanges that result are magical! Better yet if you can find a read-aloud partner with a good voice.

(Cover copyright: Kaja Foglio, 1998. Source: fantasticfiction.co.uk)

H.P. Lovecraft

So, I've been reading a lot of Lovecraft lately. Particularly curious to me is the pantheon of Old Ones: powerful extraterrestrial beings who ruled the earth in its prehistory and who were occasionally worshipped as gods, and who the very thought of can drive a student of the enlightenment completely insane.

I'm having trouble keeping all of their various attributes and roles in the end of days straight. Basically they are devoid of comprehensible morals, desires, and such...save the one desire to return to the earth, subjugate all life, and bring about a new era of badness for humanity.

In an effort help myself remember who all these guys are, I have composed the following, to be sung to the tune of ``The Farmer in the Dell''

Lovecraft’s Dream of the End
(to the tune of ``The Farmer in the Dell’’)
The Howler in the Void
The Howler in the Void
His name is Nyarlathotep
The Howler in the Void

The Howler finds the Gate
The Howler finds the Gate
The Gate is kept by Yog-Sothoth
Who also is the key

The Gate is opened forth
The Gate is opened forth
Cthulhu wakes and walks the earth
The Gate is opened forth

The Old Ones stomp around
The Old Ones stomp around
Shub-Niggurath stalks all the woods
And has a thousand kids

Cthulhu takes tribute
Cthulhu takes tribute
Dagon eats a lotta folks
Cthulhu takes tribute.

Azathoth he reigns supreme
Azathoth he reigns supreme
From his black throne of madness
Azathoth he reigns supreme

The Shoggoths get away
The Shoggoths get away
From their icy prison neath the ice
The Shoggoths get away

The innocent are food
The innocent are food
Worthy victims of the sacrifice
The innocent are food

Eventually it ends
Eventually it ends
The best thing `bout the Universe
Eventually it ends.

I’m sorry - I'm gonna go hide under my bed now.

Good Fathers in Horror Stories

NB - THERE ARE SOME SPOILERS IN THIS ENTRY. If you want to read Parasite Eve or play the video game Silent Hill and don't want to know the storylines, read no further!!!

Reading Parasite Eve by Hideaki Sena, and surprised to find that among many subtexts, I found one concerning good fathers. Good fathers of mysterious daughters, in particular. One father in the book is a single man trying to bring up a teenage daughter who is in need of a kidney transplant. This father feels he has failed his daughter because her body rejected the kidney he donated to try and save her. The daughter, Mariko, feels a premonition of evil when she discovers that a suitable donor has been found. Her father is frightened and confused by this, but doesn't know what to do to comfort Mariko.

Another father in the story is the unwilling sperm donor to the eponymous Parasite Eve. His name is Toshiaki. Eve rapes him for the sole purpose of obtaining a sperm sample, because she still carries the memories, though twisted and self-centered ones, of Toshiaki's dead wife who loved him. Eve was sleeping inside the body of Toshiaki's wife, a conciousness controlled by ESP-lke communications within her mitochondria, and now she wants to create a perfect and demonically powerful daughter with the aid of Toshiaki's sperm.

Toshiaki took a cell culture from his wife's liver so that she could, in a sense, live forever. The goulish act was inspired by the mitochondria in Toshiaki's brain cells, also controlled by Eve. In fact, Eve (yes of the very real Mitochondrial Eve) has controlled all of our mitochondria ever since they first entered our cells and created eukaryotic life.

In real life, all plant and animal cells contain modular organelles including the once-autonomous mitochondria. The theory (called the Endosymbiont Theory) is that mitochondria were once bacteria-like prokaryotes that were eventually incorporated into our cellular progenitors. All mitochondria in plants and animals are derived matrilineally, from our mothers' ova. We all contain highly a similar genetic code within these mitochondria, and Mitochondrial Eve is the theoretical human ancestor female to whom we owe that genetic signature.

Parasite Eve in the book is a hypothetical collective conciousness connecting the mitochondria in our cells within our bodies and even between individuals.

Back to fathers: Toshiaki becomes the unwitting father of a daughter with incredible destructive capabilities and a drive to obliterate eukaryotic life so she can free the mitochondria she controls from ``cellular slavery''. He defeats this Eve Daughter's intentions with an expression of fatherly love. As it turns out (and I didn't quite get this part) because Toshiaki's sperm did not unite with Eve's egg in the usual way, some of his mitochondria, over which he has some control, are now a part of his Eve Daughter. This makes her unstable, and she shifts constantly and painfully between male and female, perfectly formed and formless...and Toshiaki in the end tells her that he understands how conflicted she is.
``Share your pain with me...I am your father...I understand''. When she runs to him for comfort, he fuses with her, causing her cells to self-destruct and killing himself in the process.

Another horror story, this time in the form of a PC game that I am too chicken to play, concerns good fathers of daughters that they try to understand and protect through impossible circumstances. In the Silent Hill game series, Harry Mason is the adoptive father of Cheryl, a baby that he and his wife found abandoned in a graveyard. Years later, after the death of Harry's wife, Cheryl disappears into the mysterious and monster-ridden town of Silent Hill. Harry soon learns that his daughter is not at all who she seemed to be, and that she may even have something to do with the horrors that have swallowed the town and turned its residents into monsters. Driven by a love for his daughter that overcomes his fear, he pursues Cheryl in an attempt to save her (quite literally) from herself.

The only thing that I dislike about all this is that these good fathers all have to get embroiled in such terrifying circumstances! I want to find good fathers in books I can share with my own father, and horror is really not his thing. If you can think of a good book with a good father - Les Miserables for example...there's one, please share it in the comments below!

Dad, if you're reading this, I love you!