... about programming, growing up in the 1970's and 80's, games, science fiction, working in a charity book shop, films, spending too much time watching television, living in Basildon and Essex, and whatever else emerges from my fevered imagination. If you're reading this, it's your fault you clicked on the link: I am not responsible for your actions.
It's not very often I write anything about the shop these days. I volunteer on Sundays and it's mostly uneventful. However, a few weeks back I spotted a book on the mysterious Voynich Manuscript.
The manuscript purports to be an illustrated book written in medieval times in an encrypted or invented language that no one can decipher. The book details the history of the Manuscipt to date and describes how codes and cyphers work, as they apply to the Manuscript. It looks a good book and it had been priced at £15, which I thought was a little steep.
Last week, the i newspaper (the cut-down version of the Independent) had an article on the Manuscript saying that a Spanish publisher had been given access to the original document with a view to making folio copies for sale at £6K a pop. Nice work if you can get it. I showed it to Mark and had a quick look at the book, which was still on the shelf. Someone had reduced the price to £10, which I think was reasonable, so I snapped it up.
Mark commented that he'd discussed it with Howard, who I've had odd dealings with in the past, but no conversations as such. Mark said that the conversation descended to the point where Howard claimed that he'd been abducted by aliens "near Norwich". Obviously, that's because it's a lot flatter country around there for them to land.
Yus, folks, I'm finally printing out plastic objects (it's called PLA: poly lactic acid):
The object on the left is a chess piece and on the right is what is called a Nautilus Gear, normally used as a demonstration piece for 3D printing, as it's difficult to make any other way. The pieces have a sort of fibrous quality, being made of strands of plastic rather than one piece, so there's both strength and lightness.
I took a video of the printer in operation:
The process is very laborious as it requires me to wipe away surplus plastic from around the nozzle (the seal isn't quite good enough) every five minutes or so. It's also slow, taking about two hours each to create the two pieces.
The series hasn't quite finished as they want to include a cover, but it seems good enough as it is.
This is a broad collection of what I've been soaking my brain in over the last few weeks, a mixture of movies and comics. First up, my latest reads in the comics media.
Descender
Written by Jeff Lemire and illustrated by Dustin Nguyen, this is the story of an artificial boy, TIM, trying to find his human "brother" many years after a cataclysmic attack on the human/alien civilisation by the robotic Harvesters.
Drawn using what looks like watercolours, Nguyen and Lemire have conjured up a fascinating and engaging story of TIM's journey to find Andy (who's since grown up and become a robot bounty-hunter). The style is unusual and, although it doesn't always work for me, I've stuck with it as I like the story and the characters, even Andy.
The Sheriff of Babylon
In the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad, Christopher Henry, a military contractor hired by the administration to train the new police force, tries to find out who has killed one of his recruits.
Tom King (writer) and Mitch Gerdas (artist) have woven a labyrinthine plot of cops, insurgents and other opportunists in a murder mystery set in Baghdad just after the fall of Saddam. King (probably a pseudonym as he's a former CIA officer) has managed to convey the confusion of post-Saddam Iraq where no-one is quite who they seem. Gerdas' art is subtle enough to shock you at the horror of the carnage without distracting from the story. Overall, it's slow going, but it's more than worth the effort and I'm looking forward to the next volume.
Life
A movie, just to break things up a little. This is a biopic of the encounter between photographer Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson) and James Dean (Dane DeHaan) just before the premier of East of Eden and Dean's subsequent fame.
Directed by Anton Corbijn (I've seen quite a few of his movies: The American, A Most Wanted Man and now this), it takes a while to get into. This is partly because DeHaan's voice sounds so dull and flat (the sound quality is generally bad throughout), but also because the pace is slow, building up the frustration that mirrors Stock's as he tries to get the essence of Dean onto film. Stock made the iconic photos of Dean that everyone now knows and that featured in the Life magazine article, making Dean famous, and this lends the film a quiet poetry that makes it worth watching to the end. Recommended, but not for the impatient.
Injection
Authored by Warren Ellis, who lives futher down the Thames Delta, this is illustrated by Declan Shalvey. A team of experts try to create a new kind of artificial intelligence by fusing magic and technology, with disastrous results.
A sort of fusion itself, Injection mingles elements of Hellblazer with Neuromancer and James Bond, but Ellis is good enough to bring off what could have been a real mess, making it a delight to read. The characters are engaging, although the agent character, Simeon Winters, has yet to be significant, as is the logician Vivek Headland. The art is also excellent, combing the mythical with the technological. Ellis is also writing Trees with artist Jason Howard, which I'm also reading, an alien invasion story. His work is always worth reading and he's got an interesting newsletter, Orbital Operations, that I subscribe to.
