Coping in Fragments of a Hologram Rose

-
What stuck with me most about William Gibson's short story, Fragments of a Hologram Rose, is the method of coping one is able to use within a world where sense-recordings exist. It is not particularly healthy to say the least. When the main character, Parker, has been broken up with by his girlfriend he immediately goes to his sense-recordings to cope with this. Sense-recordings are effectively allowing people in this world to dwell on their past even more so than they previously would or were able to and this makes it significantly harder for one to move on or grow. One could even become obsessive over this sort of thing and just live within their old memories and senses. This story actually reminded me a bit of the Black Mirror episode, "The Entire History of You". It is of course not exactly the same in it's premise but the technology in each is similar enough and the negative affect that these sorts of things could have on people is evident in both, though perhaps more strongly expressed in the Black Mirror episode. I very much enjoyed that episode and thus I also enjoy this story. I find the idea of technology that would enable certain sorts of coping mechanisms, good or bad, to be very fascinating - particularly with the bad coping mechanisms as their are already so many of those.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Escapism in Coraline

-
This week I read Neil Gaiman's children's novel, Coraline.  I had previously seen and loved the movie but never sat down to read the book. The thing that struck me about this novel is the same thing that struck me in the film; not the fact that it's pretty scary for a children's book, something Gaiman is now known for, but the sadness of how ignored by her parents Coraline feels. It's incredibly relevant to many people and it just hits you in such a way that you can't shake it. The entire novel then turns into a form of escapism. Coraline uses this alternate world or dimension as a form of escapism from her seemingly uncaring parents. Why else would she just blindly accept another mother and father with buttons for eyes if not for the fact that they are everything she wishes her parents and world to be like? I certainly can't chalk it up to her being a child as Coraline seems to be pretty smart. Despite all of the adventure and horror in this novel, it's
Read more

Annihilation and Anxiety

-
Jeff VanderMeers' novel, Annihilation, does an excellent job in depicting what anxiety feels like and dealing with human-kinds fear of the unknown. It does an especially good job at making you feel perpetual uneasiness by never identifying any of the characters by name, making it even easier for you to project yourself onto them and their fear. Throughout a large portion of the story, the main character, the biologist, takes note on how it feels as though she's being watched even though no one is there and how everything feels "off" or "wrong" but she can't ever really explain why. This is a good representation of what it's like to live with anxiety. Sure, most people experience anxiety in the way that one would before giving a very big important speech to a huge crowd of people, but having an anxiety order is another thing entirely. You experience anxiety over everything. Over nothing, really. You make things up in your head or you just get the sens
Read more

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is not what I expected

-
So for this week I read Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream , and I must admit, I picked it solely for that title alone as it is just so darn relatable. I have no idea what I expected, or if I even had any expectations, but what I ready certainly wasn't it. It took me a second read through to completely comprehend the story, especially given that you start placed right within it without any context, and even then I'm not sure if I've grasped everything. At first I was not a huge fan of the story but rereading it and understanding the complexity of it all has made me appreciate it much more. It truly is a very dark and horrifying story when you get down to it. The idea of AI's taking over, set on destroying and/or enslaving the human race, isn't new by any mean but the way this story handles it - I'm not sure I've seen anything like it before. Almost any other time you see humans manipulated by technology in this way, it is generally at th
Read more