First Impressions - Zero Point, Neal Asher

(Important - spoilers if you haven't read The Departure, but no worse than those in the blurb on the back of the book.)

Zero Point is the second book in Neal Asher's Owner Series, and continues with the strong - and somewhat unpalatable - themes that he developed in the first book, The Departure. The dedication at the start of the novel really sums it all up: "To all you steady researchers and developer of our technology, for recognising the optimistic road to the future, rather than seeing a slippery slope to doom."

Of course, the Owner Series is about a society that has been on the slippery slope to doom, both societally and ecologically. At the end of the first novel, the protagonist, an anti-hero called Alan Saul, was escaping from Earth on board the Argus Station having decapitated the global bureaucratic dictatorship of 'the Committee' whilst taking the station, and finishing off local controls by dropping their own satellite network on them. The 'zero asset' citizens are freed from Committee oversight, at the cost of the collapse of infrastructure, which potential could lead to their starvation.

This novel meshes three tales together - the emergence of Serene Galahad to reestablish the power of the Committee and the infrastructure of the Earth whilst pursuing a more radical path than her predecessors, the events at the Mars Colony which had effectively declared independence from Earth in the first book, and the events aboard the Argus Station. The plots are brutal, and don't show the nicer side of humanity.

Technology ramps forward without the control of the Committee, as Saul develops his abilities and others have the limits on what they can do released, and the plot twists and turns. Some of the characters - for example Galahad - feel quite two dimensional, but the energy and darkness of the plot drive you forward.

I found that it was quite hard to put down as it draws you in quite effectively, despite finding whole elements somewhat unpleasant. The story goes into areas that few other SF stories do except in the more literary side of the genre (such as The Handmaid's Tale or Nineteen Eighty-Four), with a dark dystopian vision and characters that match. It won't be everyone's cup of hot beverage, but I recommend it for its energy and dark flavour. It directly provides of vision that contrasts technology used for good and for ill, with the difference being the morals of those that wield it.

There's something about (Luc Bresson's) Lucy

 spoiler warning[1]

I watched Luc Bresson's Lucy last night, and whilst it's not the best of his films, it has had me pondering off and on today. Visually, the film is very distinctive, with style that is noticeably Bresson's own; if you've seen the Fifth Element, Leon, or Nikita then you will feel visual echoes as you watch this. The interplay he uses with nature film footage at the start is very cleverly done.

The essence of the story (spoilers hereafter) is a singularity event, but in this case it is not a computer or a machine that is involved. Rather, this is a biological singularity where the eponymous protagonist is caught up in an unfortunate event that results in the unwitting expansion of her mental capacity. The  plot hangs around humans only using 15% of their mental capacity and a drug unlocking Lucy's and expanding it steadily upwards towards 100% capacity, which threatens death as the human body is not built to take this.

Morgan Freeman plays a University Professor who has speculated on the form that such a growth in mental capacity could take plays a kind of mentor to Scarlett Johansen's character as she embarks on a path of revenge and mental development. The story heads away from hard science, bringing in telepathy and increasingly extensive psionic powers, but it works as a fun, but lightweight, thriller.

The bit that has had me wondering is on how this could be used for ideas in a harder SF setting, perhaps with human/machine hybrids. The growth in capability and understanding, and the complications (cranial overheating, the need to provide enough energy to drive the brain) all are nice details to hang characterisation, strengths and vulnerabilities around.

Certainly, it gave me a feeling for what it could be to become one of the Conjoined in Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe. Johansen also does a great job at changing how her character behaves as her mental capabilities ramp up. She becomes colder, yet in some ways desperate to find ways to hang onto her humanity, even though she can see the weaknesses and flaws that it has.

Overall, a enjoyable film that I'll probably watch again (although it does leave me wanting to watch Nikita for the first time in years, as it riffs on the same kind of theme of someone being drawn into a totally different world). The area I felt could have worked better was the ending, which
was a bit flat compared to the build that had been going on. It made sense, but it didn't give the level of satisfaction that the rising tension had suggested was coming. I'm not actually certain that the plot could actually do that, though, as transcendence was really the only way out without the protagonist dying from the biological singularity that she was undergoing.

1 April 2014

Update: And having re-watched Nikita the night after I watched Lucy, I had forgotten just how strong that film is. Naturally, it needs to be watched in French with subtitles rather than dubbed, or you lose part of the fun. I'd forgotten how ambiguous the ending is! If you haven't seen it recently, or even haven't seen it, and you like thrillers, then you must watch Nikita.


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[1]: To be honest, the spoilers are no worse than the back of the DVD box.