OK, so I happened to be at the computer and trying to figure out which assignment to tackle next. Then I realised I hadn’t done much of anything for a while—university students need a lot of bum glue, which I’m unfortunately in very short supply of. What I do have in surplus is toe jam, but let’s not attempt to link the two.
It may surprise you that I’ve been reading. And gaming. And reading some more; not nearly enough of Lodish et. al.’s Molecular Cell Biology, the latest pain in the not-seated-enough bum. Here are hundreds upon hundreds of pages proclaiming the glory of God, and for all its invaluable worth it now occupies a role as a distinguished paperweight on my telephone table. My other textbook, Berne and Levy’s Physiology, is only faring slightly better.
I use it as a very nice-looking coaster.
Six modules. One week to catch up. And I don’t even know where to begin.
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How about here? Or here? I’ve written before that we should indeed submit to earthly authority… except where such would specifically disobey the word of God. Even if they have decidedly different priorities from us, or put political expediency over the Right Thing to do. What are governments, councils, and other authorities doing barging into the faith of a seeker and her caregivers?
I’ll let the relevant parties sort that one out—I may have more to say if the issue develops, but I figured we’re impoverishing ourselves if we refuse to acknowledge what is indeed happening to our brothers and sisters throughout the world.
Keep them in your prayers. As our Lord said to Christians in disturbingly similar circumstances: “I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.” (Revelation 3:11)
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I’ve always been curious about British science fiction writer Brian Aldiss—then again, British SF has that odd thrill to it. Take Anthony Horowitz’s thrillers, Warren Ellis’s work in comics, for instance—or even George Orwell’s powerful novel 1984. I’ve been meaning to read Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta for some time, compare it with the movie… just another one of those Things I’ll Get Round To When I’ve The Time. Into the drawer it goes with scuba diving, advanced guitar lessons, working on new SF novels, editing an old one, and trying the food at a ton of restaurants I haven’t been to in years.
But I can review one of Aldiss’s books Right Now, especially since it seems so relevant for our time. His 2007 novel Harm imagines a British Muslim imprisoned by the Evil Western Authority writers these days love to attack.
(The hatred and intolerance of many places in Africa and the Islamic world seems to have gone out of fashion.)
The hero’s crime? It isn’t much of a spoiler to reveal; a satirical novel he writes is translated and favourably reviewed by a known terrorist, and it is on this pretext that the Western Armed Alliance (probably a veiled reference to NATO) decides to have him arrested and tortured. In his dreams he’s a very different person; a settler on a distant planet in the future that is sliding towards totalitarianism. The novel cuts back and forth between both parts of the prisoner’s consciousness, and both the realistic and SF portions are handled with the skill Aldiss has honed over a near-lifetime of writing.
But I was hoping for a novel that treated the very real subject of torture of the innocent; I fully agree that the truth and basic humanity of your cause is crucial. When you force information out of somebody you’d better make sure you have the right man. I hoped for a novel that combined informativeness, compassion and a sense of genuine justice.
Harm, disappointingly, is not that novel.
The plot about a Muslim whose heritage is mocked as he’s beaten up and insulted day in and out by guards ostensibly fighting a “war on terror”, and a world where freedom of speech and religion are smashed in the name of destroying radicalism… but I don’t know where in the West such a trend is taking place—if anything, freedom of speech is quashed in exactly the other way. “Hate speech” is defined and stamped out as anything critical of Islam as a religion; yet far worse things are said about Christianity. The Western—especially the British—position is exactly the opposite of what Aldiss imagines it to be. I have never seen any indication of the Muslim ‘persecution’ Aldiss warns about in his book; the fact that many inmates remain in ‘torture prisons’ around the world has been stressed to not have anything against their Muslim faith per se.
At first I read it as an actual satire, what practices in the Islamic world would look like if transported to a near-future Britain. Aldiss actually does an excellent job of vividly bringing out life in prison for crimes you didn’t commit; where the slightest excuse and the wrong heritage combine to make your life a hell of injustice.
Then he smashed all my expectations in an interview with his publishers. Indeed he had written it about the Evil, Almost-Totalitarian West. Tony Blair and President Bush simply crave Power. The war in Iraq is a Disaster. Our Freedoms are Being Taken Away. In answer after answer Aldiss simply repeats the same politically-correct condemnation of the West for militarily defending itself; and he hopes that the Democratic Party, having taken power, will resolve the situation. But rarely, if ever, did alternative courses of action against radical Islam emerge from the Bush-bashing. Coming from a writer of Aldiss’s stature, it’s very likely some of his readers will come away with a skewed picture of political reality. The landscape is far more complicated than he portrays, and in simplistically casting President Bush as the Big Bad Guy and the Democrats as the possible saviours of the day he does his readers no favours. I think Harm is a fictionalised sermon of the Right Way To Think, not the great SF we’ve come to expect from Aldiss and other writers in the field.
An addressing of all the issues is too big a topic to cover in this review, but the fact that Aldiss wrote so well about a non-existent situation kind of spoiled the novel for me. Were it to stand on its own I might have enjoyed it more; but his interview answers that accuse the US and Britain of the very things theirs, and our, enemies do on a daily basis was simply a show of ignorance. Not once is there a mention of Christian persecution, the death sentences in Afghanistan for such acts as asking questions about women’s rights and translating the Qu’ran into a local language, and many other acts of barbarism that go on daily.
Oh, and Islamic terrorism claimed a Singaporean life in Mumbai last year. That will be hard to forget, especially for us and the hundreds of other families who lost loved ones that terrible day. So don’t get me wrong; Aldiss’s finger is very well, and vividly, pointed. I’d recommend Harm if it could just have been pointed in the other direction…
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Oh, and here’s a sample of what I’m talking about: http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14812&size=A
In church we prayed for the area last week, and prayed for God Himself to aid governments against the Taliban scourge. Basically, it’s bad. Very, very bad.
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I bought a joystick not too long ago—I was having a terrible time playing Blazing Angels 2 on an Xbox 360 gamepad. Don’t even get me started on the even worse time you’ll have playing a flight action game with a keyboard and mouse—this setup is for shooters, not whipping a plane around the sky. They’re completely unsuited for it; it’s like drinking cream soup with a knife and fork. Even if you do master it, which is entirely possible, you’ll still wind up not drinking very much and looking stupid in the process.
And I just got another reminder from Ubisoft Romania that yes, the $80 or so I spent on a Logitech Force3D Pro was money very, very well-spent. The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 have long had the Ace Combat series, some very well-made games that let you fly detailed real-world planes over fictional settings. I’ve never forgotten the trailer I saw; a flight of F-15s and F-16s attacking a giant flying ship that resembled an Imperial Star Destroyer, or something right out of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
It’s OK if you don’t get the references. Just read: really, really cool.
Anyway, for a long while the PC was the home of big, realistic flight sims with manuals as thick as the phone book and needing mountains of time and patience to play. On the other hand you could pop an Ace Combat DVD into your console, throw aerodynamics to the wind, and fly a world-saving mission in 20 minutes. Even the PSP had Afterburner: Black Falcon. Us PC players without the blessings of loads of time and IQ points were missing out on an entire genre.
The PC’s now got its own answer to Ace Combat, and that’s the reason I’m so thankful for the joystick. Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. blew me—and an entire Saturday—away.
(But please, please Ubisoft Romania, make it easier to remap the joystick buttons to the controls by not making the stick inputs so sensitive. It’s bloody irritating when I’m trying to map target-designation to a thumb button, jerk the handle ever so slightly… and start switching targets like mad when what I want to do is jink right.)
Don’t let the fact it’s set in the real world fool you. HAWX—an acronym for High-Altitude Warfare: Experimental Squadron—is still far more flight arcade game than simulator, and in keeping with such conventions you never have to worry about fuel, g-forces or rules of engagement; those “minor” things that consistently bug real-life jet pilots. Which means planes all carry more than 200 missiles, an infinite number of cannon rounds, and the ability to effortlessly pull tight turns that would rip anything burdened by our physics apart. Even the F-117 Nighthawk and A-6 Intruder bombers sport 9-G capability, enough anti-air capability to rip whole enemy squadrons apart, and said infini-cannons.
But even though realism has been completely chucked out the window, such silliness actually works. By stripping out the mundane, the dangerous and the infuriating, and keeping us busy with a level-up system that unlocked better and better planes and loadouts, Ubisoft has grasped what makes the formula really take off and then executed it. Not flawlessly, of course. But think of it; no more taking off and flying ages to the combat zone, or limping back with a plane full of holes, one engine out and the stick almost dead. True, I miss games like that. Though what’s come in their place is still a blast, there’ll always be a place in my heart for the realistic combat sim. If and when a developer with the know-how, budget and ear for fun comes along and does it right, I’ll definitely take notice.
In the meantime though, you can’t go wrong with HAWX; as a game it just clicks and is a blast to play, in spite of the ridiculous storyline, physics and weapons. It doesn’t pretend to be realistic, and it’s a shame about its use of the Tom Clancy name, which until recently (yes, Rainbow Six: Lockdown, I’m looking at you) was associated with rigourous, realistic depictions of military ops of the near future. HAWX is the beginning of something great, but insofar as the Tom Clancy universe is involved, it seems to be taking a giant step in the wrong direction.
If it’s all the same to you, ignore the plot entirely. Plug in a good joystick, and you’ll be having too much fun to pay close attention to the story anyway.
