Blast from the Past

For those of us who didn't have the luxury of playing Space Invaders as impressionable young children, either because we couldn't afford Ataris or because we were just twinkles in someone's eye (or floating around somewhere in the ether) in the 1980s, this game seems like a creepy retro psychedelic nightmare drug come to life. It starts off innocently enough, with you as the sickly green, crude machine tank looking thing shooting at bizarre beings resembling mushrooms monsters, squids, and flashdancing waterbugs from outer space.

The game quickly descends into delightful terror, however, once you get past the second or third level when suddenly the music turns outrageously devlish, your heart starts to race, and you swear that someone or some thing is staring at you from the corner of the room you're in while you sweat uncontrollably and attempt to keep your eyes from bulging out of your head during your tumble into madness.

Thanks to somebody somewhere in Germany, newbies and hardcore Space Invaders addicts alike can stay up till all hours of every night of the week and play this game until their fingers fall off.

Wherever you are, whatever you do, if you have any concern and care for your sanity, you must not click here.

BOOK REVIEW: "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson announces in his acknowledgments in the beginning of Anathem that his latest novel is "a fictional framework for exploring ideas that have sprung from the minds of great thinkers of Earth's past and present." He then goes on to list some of these great thinkers for us, as if we were students in a college freshman philosophy class, hinting at the somewhat pompous tone of his book. Young students make up a majority of the characters in Anathem, endlessly expounding on scientific and philosophical points, all with words and terms that Stephenson made up (and that require a glossary) to emphasize the fact that the book is set on an alien planet. Anathem seems to attempt to do what other writers, most notably Umberto Eco, have already accomplished with far more success. Eco is a masterful storyteller and a true academic, and his books are elegant and mysterious stories packed with history, science and philosophy, told without condescension and without seeming as though he was the one to discover it all.

Stephenson does do an impressive job of creating an interesting alien world and culture. He's imagined a rich world that is compelling and fascinating. The mysteries of the plot take too long to play out, though, and not even the central characters ever become little more than mouthpieces for the pseudo-philosophical discussion that ultimately overwhelms the book. There are brief flashes of excitement, in the few places where real action related to the plot takes place, including an evocative and vertiginous spacewalk passage. But at over 900 pages, Anathem is a shockingly overindulgent book. If Stephenson had edited himself and whittled his story down to under 300 or so pages, he may have had a thrilling and interesting novel.

--Matthew Podsiad
imagineatrium.com


Anathem is available now.

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BOOK REVIEW: "The Black Tower" by Louis Bayard

Louis Bayard's novel, The Black Tower, is like a roller coaster; it builds slowly but before you realize it, you've hit the peak of the hill and the action is moving fast. The first few pages of this book contain a timeline and genealogical charts to help explain the historical context: revolutionary-era France and the family of Marie-Antoinette. During the early chapters I found myself continually referring back to the charts, frustrated at the names (especially the multiple Louises and Charleses!) and family connections tossed around. Once I gave in to the pure enjoyment of reading The Black Tower, though, the novel rewarded me with an unpredictable outcome on the heels of a series of plot twists that I didn't see coming but made sense in the rearview mirror.

The story follows Hector Carpentier, whose financial missteps have left him and his difficult mother running a student boarding house and whose academic pursuits are less than successful. Carpentier unwillingly joins with a notorious French crime fighter to investigate a murder, and the investigation ends up leading them through the story of the lost son of Marie Antoinette and the difficult moral choices faced during revolutionary times. As the plot progresses we also see Carpentier and Vidocq, the inspector, expand into fully-developed and fascinating people, alongside other memorable characters. Bayard creates sympathy for his very flawed protagonists and allows them to carry the story through to its conclusion. The final sequence of events, though rushed and possibly unbelievable, feels right in the context of the entire book.

For readers who enjoy a mystery, or well-imagined history, this will be a pleasure. Aspects of both genres are well-developed and thoughtful, and Bayard's voice is intelligent and enjoyable to read.

---Katy Wischow
imagineatrium.com

Put your brain to the test.

If you think you're so smart, put your brain to the test with the BBC's Senses Challenge. It's annoyingly, frustratingly fun. Click here to take the test.

BOOK REVIEW - "The Geography of Love: A Memoir" by Glenda Burgess

A memoir of a life stuffed full with love and of losing someone special---someone so close you wonder if you’ll be able to breathe on your own once they’re gone. The first 100 pages or so read like a Harlequin romance, complete with stifling sentimentality and rose colored glasses. The writing feels class-practiced and hyperbolic - Glenda tells us that her lover turned husband looks like Gregory Peck and has the wit of Mel Brooks – and descriptions of nature and good wine are shared like intimacies but leave the reader limp and disengaged in this deep and narrow world of love supreme.

But things change for Glenda and her husband, Ken. 15 years into their happy marriage and family life Ken is diagnosed with cancer, first thought to be lung cancer, then abdominal. Ken is still described in larger than life terms by his loving wife but now the descriptions seem to better fit the man. Ken is on a collision course with a death force, and although the statistics are against him he dives soul first into the battle. Glenda too becomes more present to the reader now, we see her courage, her grace as a caretaker, and understand her desperate need for science or God to explain and reverse Ken’s fate. “Closing my eyes I prayed for a miracle. Prayer..A song in the face of loss”.

The book also deals with other sides of Glenda and Ken’s lives: her mother’s cancer, his vindication in his previous’ wife’s murder, and his relationship with his troubled daughter Jordan. Glenda’s love for Ken, however, is her focus, and his struggle with cancer is the story she tells best.

---Niamh Bushnell
imagineatrium.com



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PARTICIPATE IN THE BIG READ!

The Big Read, an annual initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture, is coming to your community!

Aimed at addressing the steep decline in literary reading among Americans, this national, community-centered event will take place in cities and towns across the United States. Each community chooses one book as their "Big Read," promoting the novel city-wide with book readings, discussions, film viewings, and festivals.

Currently, 208 communities are encouraging literary reading through The Big Read programming from September 2008 through June 2009. To find out what city or town near you is participating, visit The Big Read's web site.

If you're in the New Jersey/NYC area, consider attending Jersey City's Big Read kickoff for Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 on September 13. Visit http://www.imagineatrium.com/ for more info.