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What I'm Reading: "The Future Shock" - An Epic Prank And Alternate Reality Game... For One Man...
Ever heard of a good prank? How about a perfect, epic prank?
Have a look at Kolin Pope. He was like any other gaming-loving teen until someone came to his doorstep, claiming that he was from the future...
"The Future Shock" tells a story of an epic prank, 3 years in the making. It started simple enough when a group of guys decided to look up the details of an online user named "Velocity Gnome", who, like everyone else, has left all his details about him online. They decided to make an entire mythology about his online alias and deliver him a scrapbook "from the future" about his heroic life.
But it didn't end there. The entire thing grew into an adventure that had him sent packing on a plane to save the future, and even grew even more. How much more did it grow? Does the phrase "Rock Opera" say anything to you?
If you have the time, you need to check out the full reading at http://www.thefutureshock.com/. It's just completely epic on what these guys put this one singluar person through for three years...
What I'm Reading: Drood by Dan Simmons
I just finished Drood by Dan Simmons, best known for his Hyperion Cantos cycle of four books, which begins with the Hugo award winning Hyperion and concludes with The Rise of Endymion. Drood presents a fictionalized account of the last 5 years of Charles Dickens life. The story is told in the first person of William "Wilkie" Collins, friend, protege, collaborator and rival of Dickens, as well as being an extreme opium addict. The story begins the day Charles Dickens is involved in a near fatal railway accident and follow through to the day he dies, exactly 5 years later. On the fateful day of the railway accident, Dickens encounters a ghoul of man named simply "Drood", who becomes and ongoing obsession for the author, who drags his friend Wilkie into the mystery. In the ensuing years, the mystery grows darker and deeper, taking a toll on the health and perhaps even the sanity of both men.
Inspired by the intriguing events surrounding Charles Dickens last years (dying 5 years to the day after escaping death in a railway accident) and the fact the Dickens left behind an mystery novel, Simmons draws engrossing biographical sketches of both Dickens and Collins. And using them as both eyes and tour guides, takes the readers into the awful underbelly of 19th century London that are only hinted at in the romanticized novels of Dickens.
This is definitely a "door stop" book, topping nearly 800 pages, as are most of Simmons books. But like his other novels, the destination is worth the journey and the journey is the thing. Simmons is a highly literate author, who frequently uses classical sources for both structure, theme and even characters of his novels. These are not light weight pulp, but neither is Simmons a pretentious writer who insists on using an obscure 5 syllable word when a common 3 syllable word will do.
Drood isn't my favorite Simmons book; I'd have to reserve that honor for the Ilium & Olympos duology. But it is fine thriller, which gives insight into a London much darker than we could have imagined it, as it struggled to become a modern city.
