juushika

Title: The Capture (Animorphs Book 6)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Published: Scholastic, 1997
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 288,800
Text Number: 943
Read Because: reading the series
Review:

"I can't believe we are actually going to practice a morph," Marco said. "We never practice. We just do it, and when it's a huge disaster we try and deal with it then."

The conflicts in these frequently rely on coincidence, but they're still fascinating intersections of horror, worldbuilding, and personal conflict; Jake's predicament here is fantastic. The cast is also unexpectedly competent, and I wonder if that will persist and/or if it was only possible because much of it occurred offscreen—stupid decisions still creates narrative tension, and I imagine that'll never entirely go away, but this was a delight regardless, particularly in the second half of the book. How satisfying!


( The Stranger (Animorphs Book 7) )


( The Andalite's Gift (Megamorphs Book 1) )



( The Alien (Animorphs Book 8) )


A moment to consider heteronormativity, here established to be so universal as to apply even to symbiotic brain worms who seem only to live fully when embodied in a host—how does gender work in that situation? What is embodiment-as-gender/-in-sex like for a Yeerk, given that they appear hate their host species? The book doesn't mean to raise these questions, obviously; heteronormativity is just the unconscious result of when it was written and for what audience. But it makes me wonder what fandom has done with Animorphs xenobiology.

(In The Android (Book 10), it's confirmed that Yeerk rarely communicate with each other while in the pool in slug form, verifying that embodiment is central to Yeerk social interaction.)


( The Secret (Animorphs Book 9) )


( The Android (Animorphs Book 10) )

I've recently run into a lot of stories about robots, androids, and artificial intelligence, an umbrella of tropes in which I am ridiculously invested. Here's a few of them, with thoughts about how they explore the trope. Lots of them are short form and super accessible!



"Everyone Will Want One," Kelly Sandoval
Young woman unable to successfully socialize with her peers is given an intelligent artificial pet that analyses socialization and prompts her to act in personally beneficial ways. There's a lot going on here: social normativity (with a sidenote of neuroatypicality), toxic socialization, companion animal tropes, the effect of social media and technology on socialization, and a bit of a cop-out ending; but it's a ridiculously effective combination of companion animal and personal assistant AI feels.

"Eros, Philia, Agape," Rachel Swirsky
Woman purchases an AI companion with malleable programming which is able to adapt itself to her desires as it matures; falls in love with the AI, and gives him the ability to control is own maturation. Intelligent sex robot involved in mundane family drama is well-intended but not always successful—the erstwhile normalcy, while set up as intentional contrast, is so normal as to be boring. But! these AI brains! they're brilliantly imagined. Toggleable malleability is a lovely speculative concept: relatable enough to function as commentary, alien enough to be mind-broadening; the formation and ownership of consciousness is taken to some unexpected places.

"For Want of a Nail," Mary Robinette Kowal
A small technical difficulty with a family's recordkeeper AI snowballs into a family drama. This AI isn't conceptually groundbreaking, but it's so well integrated, from the archaic search for a hardwire to the internet-outage-writ-large metaphor of unconscious dependency. This AI is simultaneously viewed as human and machine, both by character and narrative, and the violation and unreliability of programmable consciousness is at the core of the story.

"Ode to Katan Amano," Caitlín R. Kiernan
Summary is effectively a spoiler, oops oh well: An android in an abusive relationship with a human explores a similar power differential with a life-size doll. The sliding scale from subservient entity to autonomous intelligence is what makes AI so compelling, both as thought experiment and wish-fulfillment—like companion animals, they are intriguing because they have the potential to be the perfect companion, slightly less than us, created for our use; but they carry the threat of sapience. (I've discussed this conflict before.) Kiernan's story is a pointed look at the power imbalance of manufactured companionship; it's intimate and unsettling.

Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie [future Juu: and sequels!]
Previously a ship with dozens of subsets and hundreds of potential physical bodies, able to interact independently but forming a cohesive conscious whole, this AI is now reduced to a single human-bodied instance. This is one of the most mind-broadening AI I've encountered, literally: to learn to think laterally, to engage the multi-instanced, tiered-but-united, pseudo-omniscient first person narrative, is a rewarding bit of mental gymnastics. It raises questions of identity and then integrates them into the plot: which level or aspect of a multi-instanced entity is "self"? Is self ever static, ever united, regardless of form?

Wolf 359, Gabriel Urbina
Hera is simultaneously a personality, part of the crew, and a piece of technology, inseparable from the ship as physical object. She's a restricted omnipresence, programmed for availability, vulnerable to physical tampering and injected code; the show's emphasis on communication and interpersonal relations gives voice to that experience. 1.11 "Am I Alone Now?" is one of my favorite first person AI narratives (and reminiscent of the honestly in Cortana's disintegration in Halo 4): "It's so funny when you ask if I can hear you. Every single time. I don't think you've ever fully understood that I hear everything." Her voice gives her personhood, a personhood which her crewmates value and fight to defend.

Spoilers! also character death and suicide and existential horror; but what you should really worry about is some aggressive spoilers for a good game.


( A Machine for Pigs sidenote )


( SOMA isn't horror (and that's good!) )


( SOMA timeline )


( Responses to Catherine in other people's LPs )

Please help me, I am forever so behind on these, & what I do not record I will forget forever.


Time of Eve, anime, 2010
This has an ideal runtime and microformat. The individual vignettes aren't particularly in-depth exploration of speculative concepts/worldbuilding/the laws of robotics; they're equally fueled by pathos and the human condition, so the short episode length gives room to develop those things without allowing them to grow maudlin—a good emotional balance. The effect is cumulative—not especially cleverly so, it's pretty straightforward "interwoven ensemble with overarching character growth," but it's satisfying. I wish this pushed its speculative/robotics elements further, but, frankly, I'm satisfied with the whole thing, it's engaging and evocative and sweet and I sure do like androids.

( Some long Time of Eve thoughts, crossposted from Tumblr. )

A Series of Unfortunate Events, season 1, 2017
I'm surprised to find I enjoyed this more than the book series—and I didn't love the books, but didn't expect them to improve upon adaptation. The weakness of the books is how much depends on the meta-narrative and how little of that there actually is; rewriting it with a better idea of what that narrative will be, and with more outside PoVs, makes it more substantial and creates a better overarching flow. The humor is great, the set design is great, it feels faithful without merely reiterating, a condensed "best of" the atmosphere and themes; a sincere and pleasant surprise. I'm only sad that the second season isn't out yet, because the Quagmire Triplets were always my favorites.

The Great British Bake Off, series 6, 2015
They finally got rid of the awful, belabored pause before weekly reveals! That was the only thing I ever hated about this series, and I'm glad to see it go. This is a weird season: weekly performances are irregular and inconsistent and vaguely underwhelming; the finale is superb. It makes me feel validated in my doubts re: whether the challenges and judging metrics actually reflect the contestants's skills, but whatever: it has solid payoff and this is as charming and pure as ever. What a delightful show.

Arrival, film, 2016, dir. Denis Villeneuve
50% "gosh, the alien/language concept design is good"; 50% "I really just want to read the short story" (so I immediately put the collection on hold). Short fiction adapts so well to film length that it makes me wonder why we insist on adapting novels: the pacing is just right, the speculative and plot elements are just deep enough to thoroughly explore, there's no feeling of being rushed or abridged or shallow. What makes this worthwhile as a film is some of the imagery, alien design (the language really is fantastic), and viewer preconceptions re: flashbacks as narrative device; it's awfully white and straight and boring as a romance, though—underwhelming characters with no particular chemistry, although I like Amy Adams's pale restraint. If I sound critical, I'm not; I thought this was a satisfying as a 2-hour experience.

Interstellar, film, 2014, dir. Christopher Nolan
I have a lot of feelings, and most of them are terror: wormholes! black holes! water planet! time as a dimension! space, just as a thing in general!—I find all this terrifying, in a fascinated by authentically panicky way. The imagery and plot does a solid job of making these concepts comprehensible and still vast (save perhaps for the fourth+ dimension—the imagery there almost works, but it's so emotionally-laden and interpersonal as to, ironically, make it feel localized, small). But Blight-as-worldbuilding is shallow, and a lot of the human element is oppressive and obvious, which deadens things; I wish more of it were on the scale of Dr. Brand's love or the effects of relativity: private motivations for the characters, sincere and intense but with limited effect on the setting or plot. But as a speculative narrative, one within the realm of the plausible but intentionally alien, distant, and awe-inspiring, this is effectively the space version of the disaster porn in a disaster flick—space porn, is that a thing? It's captivating in a nightmareish way, which, I suppose, is exactly what I wanted.

Legend, complete series, 1995
One of Devon's childhood shows, which he got as a birthday present, so we watched it together. It's honestly not as awful as I expected. The frontier setting is less idealized or racist than it could be, but still has a great atmosphere; the character dynamics are hammy but sincerely endearing; the mystery plots are episodic but decently written. Not a new favorite, shows its age, and the mix of tone and science fantasy Western makes it understandably niche, but it exceeded expectations.

Title: Grail (Jacob's Ladder Book 3)
Author: Elizabeth Bear
Published: New York: Spectra, 2011
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 352
Total Page Count: 158,475
Text Number: 462
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: As the ship nears the planet where they hope to end their thousand-year journey, they discover the worst: the planet is already inhabited—by humans. The divergent human societies can feel insufficiently alien—or, rather, they don't extrapolate well: the clash of worldviews stretches thin when meant to encompass two complete cultures. But when it works (and, here, Bear's headhopping shines), the view of each society from without is creative, refreshing, thoughtful, and sometimes even hilarious. Bear measures perfect balance between high concept and its trickledown to the personal and social. Grail has the large premise and lively plot that Chill failed to create, yet the interpersonal effects are equally important and frequently more affecting. It's a triumphant end; Chill lags a bit, but Dust and Grail are fantastic and the series entire is well worth reading.


A tangential but fantastic quote, for preserving purposes:

What was less ethical than giving artificial intelligence personalities? Than creating—in essence—a slave race: creatures with agency and identity but only the semblance of free will?

Danilaw's people still used smart systems. But they had long since abandoned the horrific practice of making people of them, and then enslaving the people they had made.

Please please tell me other people are making connection between companion animals/bond creatures and AI companions; please pretty please tell me there's media about artificial intelligence as bond creatures out there, somewhere. Because they hella hit the companion animal tropes sweet spot of ideal-friend-means-inhuman/subservient-but-intelligent.