Capacity, by Tony Ballantyne

I noticed that Patrick Rothfuss had a list of authors he enjoyed, so I meandered over to our online catalouge and reserved a few books. Granted, I pretty stuck to the sci-fi genre. So sue me. =)

Capacity is set in 2252, but the concepts are a lot more advanced than that, I think. Personality Constructs that can mimick real life so well that the personality (or personae, or person) cannot tell it is living in a digital world. Not only that, but some great "Transistion" now ensures that all such Personality Constructs are given full human rights.

Lots of interesting things going on in this book. The explosive advancement of Artifical Intelligence is amazing in scope and breadth, such that some supposed super-AI (codenamed the Watcher) is supposedly on par with sovereign, god-like powers, and as such, some folks think this Watcher entity is merely a myth, while others believe it to be the Creator. There is a fantastic questioning of what is free will? Do we actually make any choices that are completely independent of external factors by the force of our own minds, or are we merely a link in a long chain of natural (yet complex) reactions to stimuli? I consider this kind of question good because we take so many things for granted, and questioning helps us uncover truth.

The actual nuts and bolts of science fiction in this piece is also very good. I really enjoyed the deep, hard-core sci-fi of the hypership (so wrapped up in enigma), the plant life that feeds on intelligence, and the afore-mentioned mushrooming AI element. Ballantyne had too much emphasis on the role of sex in an otherwise philosopic context; is this the author's true color shining through as he tries to impress us with hard hitting ideas, or did he just dump it in there to attract a wider audience? Not sure what was going on with that.

I enjoyed the book. I reminded me a little of Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep" mixed with the esoteric, almost-wackiness of William Gibson. A relatively quick read, I am interested in checking out his next book ("Divergence"), and possibly his previous book ("Recursion").

Disappointed with sci-fi themed games

I have read this sentiment in many other places. The developers over in Russia have a strong offering of space-sims; EVE, which I love/hate, Tarr Chronicles and Dark Horizon, etc), but they do not quite fit the bill. I am looking for a new Homeworld. EVE would have been perfect, if only..... I downloaded SEGA's "Space Siege" demo; the cinematic is awesome, loved it to pieces! But the gameplay... ylech! And a 15-minute demo at that, not even enough time to enjoy blowing things up with little Seth Walker. All these games have excellent cinematics; I really dig the big fleets battling each other, and even the side that has overwhelming technology - love it! I like to see how massive the scale is, little fighters panning alongside a gigantic cruiser. Starcraft really screwed up scale in a big way. *grin* I would love to see a game that is hybrid RTS/FPS, able to switch from the cockpit to the fleet HQ, and throw in some RPG to give some sense of accomplishment. The space-sim games out now focus so much on flying around in a impossibly strong, agile and fast single little fighter that can take out every single enemy known to man. DarkStar One was an interesting twist on this allowing your ship to grow (the RPG element hard at work here), but it so repetitive it was sad. I mean, here was an otherwise good game (great graphics, great execution), but it was like "go warp to system x and destroy all enemies", over and over again. Yes, I am simplifying and there are elements in that game that add to the story (and a fairly good story), but I could not shake the bad parts.

Another kicker is that the teasers and cinematics have such groovy, hard hitting soundtracks. Mass Effect was actually low on the totem pole for me, but had some very catch sci-fi sounding soundbytes and tracks.

If only EVE had a single-player element. Yet if I had that, I would want more out of EVE.... If only I could write games (I suck).....

At least our fantasy RPG and RTS games are good. Strange.
Funny how much like Warcraft Quake 3 is turning out to be. Ooops.