Using the Tablet S
Sony’s device may be the Pope’s choice, but the first thing Jenny said after she picked it up and had a play with it: “It’s not very intuitive”. She too, is an Apple convert – when I upgraded to the iPhone 4, she received my crummy 3G as a hand-me-down. Despite it being excrutiatingly slow, she’s accustomed to the little niceties of the iOS interface and using Android was a stark reminder of the conclusion I came to in the previous part, that refinement trumps innovation.

But I’m not here to review Android – I’m not nearly qualified enough for that (and the imminent release of Ice Cream Sandwich would render any comments irrelevant very soon anyway). As far as the Sony-specific apps are concerned, they’re trivialities for me. Video and Music Unlimited are interesting, but not services I’d use – even less so because the model I tested doesn’t have 3G access (a model that does support it is forthcoming, I’m told). I’m not a big consumer of music and movies, but I imagine that Sony, as a content behemoth as well as an electronics giant, would have pretty good offerings.

The device is also PlayStation Certified, meaning that it can access the PlayStation Store, and play certain games (currently limited to a selection of PS1 titles). The device comes with Pinball Heroes and Crash Bandicoot. It’s difficult to play with the touch controls on the screen, but a recent software update allows a PlayStation controller to be hooked up to the Tablet, which makes the gaming proposition a lot more attractive.

Features
There’s a reason why I’ve left ’til last to mention the features. It’s because They are irrelevant. This was a difficult concept to grasp for an old school computer geek like me, who grew up using Bytes and Hertz as the primary means of comparing systems. But seriously, when was the last time you cared – really cared – about the core specs of your main computer? Let’s be frank here: modern computers are fucking fast. They’re faster than anyone is likely to need any more, and speed is becoming about as relevant to a computing purchase as whether the unit has a floppy disk drive.

The Sony Tablet S has some stuff. It’s stuff that you’ll find in a lot of other current Android-based tablets. Its sole distinguishing feature is the inclusion of an Infrared port that allows you to use the device as a universal remote for all of the components of your home entertainment system (TV, sound system, blu-ray/DVD player, etc.) Admittedly, this is cool, and it’s surprising that Sony is the first to have it.

Conclusion – overall
My time with the Sony Tablet S gave me a good look over the fence – in fact not just a look, but a good decent trample. Having done so, it’s settled in my mind once and for all: the grass definitely isn’t greener on the other side. Looks like I’ll be staying with the dark side for now, but Sony have encouragingly nudged the bar slightly higher for all would-be players. In that they should be commended.

Recognise this picture from Wikipedia? That's because it's -my- picture. I wrote the Wikipedia article on the Sony Tablet S, yesiree I did!

I’m a recent convert to Apple; I purchased my first iPhone a couple of years ago, and it’s the longest I’ve ever owned any mobile phone – then I upgraded to the iPhone 4. Last year I gave a 21″ iMac as a gift to my in-laws, and a few months ago I bought myself an 11″ Macbook Air to use at work. On the other hand, I’d never so much as held an Android device for more than a few seconds, and know nothing about the platform.

So even though Sony (X) gave me the opportunity to babysit a Sony Tablet S – an Android tablet computer – don’t expect me to gush about it. I did take fairly extensive notes while testing it, which is why I’ve decided to split this review up into two parts. So here goes: an honest review of an Android device by an Apple user.

Design and ergonomics
The unique selling proposition of the Tablet S is its “wave” design. Sony’s departure from your usual thin, sleek slate design is intended to mimic a book or magazine bent backwards, making it easier to hold than other tablet devices.

I learnt about grips from this post on interaction design, so I can sound smart and say that when you hold the S you’re using a “Power grip” (using the palm of your hand for support), whereas with other devices you’re forced to use a “precision grip” (with only your fingertips).

Ultimately this leads to the Tablet S feeling lighter and easier to carry than the iPad because you’re using less muscle power to maintain a hold of it. The down side is that the lightness leads you into thinking that it’s cheaply built – which leads us to…

Hardware
In this age of aluminium unibodies and carbon fibre this and that, a device at the price point of the Tablet S (starting at $579) shouldn’t feel quite so… plastic. Call me old school, but still feel that whenever I get a new tech gadget, it should feel like the future. The build quality of the S leaves much to be desired: most notably, the screen isn’t Gorilla Glass and the review unit I received came with scratches on the screen from a previous reviewer (scouts honour!) There are also some obvious seams, e.g. where the plastic “wave” back joins up with the screen there’s a noticeable (maybe 0.5mm) difference in height, into which all manner of gunk found its way – and considering how many people have handled the device before me, I shudder to think what it might consist of. In short, it feels like somebody glued a screen onto a crappy plastic housing.

Conclusion of part 1
Luxury car makers are infamous for spending (wasting) time on details such as making sure that doors have a certain “weight” to them, and that they make an appropriately satisfying “thud” noise when you close them. This is what Apple is known for: the relentless pursuit of perfection in its products, tweaking every little imaginably trivial thing until it becomes just so (if you don’t believe me then check out  this article about making see-through aluminium).

What the Tablet S shows about Sony is that they can do good design, but have yet to grasp the concept that the proportion of refinement-to-design should be in the same ratio as that of the proverbial perspiration-to-inspiration.

At least Brian McLaren is more qualified than most – not in the sense of any religious accomplishment – but for the fact that he holds a Bachelor degree “with highest honour” (summa cum laud), as well as a Masters degree, in English. He also holds a controversially liberal view of his religion, which is the crux of A Generous Orthodoxy – to encourage Christians toward an idealised form of the faith that he describes as being both “neo-liberalist” and “neo-conservative”. Each chapter of the book provides a brief historical context of a particular denomination or orthodoxy, followed by the merits that warrant inclusion in his generous orthodoxy*.

I’d be punching above my weight to pretend that I know my left from my right, and all that religious and political speak other commentators take for granted, but what I can tell you is that I share much of McLaren’s views, except McLaren’s insistence on God. For example, the chapter on “Charismatic/contemplative” speaks out against rampant consumerism:

One acquires more and more things without taking the time to ever see and know them, and thus one never truly enjoys them. One has without truly having.

… which is quite agreeable. It should be enough just to stop here and encourage one to stop consuming beyond one’s means to appreciate that which is being consumed, but he goes on to suggest that the remedy must be in God:

I feel [...] that I am carrying around this hilarious secret: that I actually own all things, that all things are mine-because I am Christ’s, and Christ is God’s, and God allows me to have things in the way that matters most. Not having them in my legal possession [...] but by having them in my spiritual possession.

I despise this kind of forced analogy between the physical and spiritual realms. What does it even mean to spiritually possess a physical object, other than assigning arbitrary moral values to them? It’s this kind of thinking – e.g. disputes about the sacraments – that led to the need to have a generous orthodoxy in the first place!

I feel similarly about the rest of the book – that there are many merits to the existence and efforts of the church: community, co-operation, tolerance, charity, repentance – none of which ultimately requires attribution to God except to use Him as the glue to join all these unrelated parts together in one big liberal ideology.

If you’re predisposed to noticing the faults in religious discourse, you’ll find plenty of fodder in A Generous Orthodoxy. McLaren’s literary background also sadly fails to inoculate him from the usual religious shtick of cheap, meaningless analogies (“Think of the difference between a corpse and a living, breathing body, and you’ll understand the difference between a bunch of words and words vitalized with God’s breath.”) and mangling the language (“What if we were to redefine protestant as “pro-testifying”?)

As usual, my pointed criticism has probably made me sound overly harsh. It’s not entirely intentional. As I alluded to before, the book contains much worth in regards to educating the Christian and secular reader alike about the many and various denominations of Christianity, and what there is to like about each. McLaren is a clear and lucid communicator, and while he’s no C. S. Lewis, this particular work doesn’t bring any discredit to the realm of Christian writing.

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* I strongly recommending skipping past Part One entirely though, as McLaren spends an incredible amount of verbiage apologising for everything from the state of the Christian religion, to his lack of qualifications on the topic, to the very existence of the book itself – towards the end of it he’d almost convinced me not to bother reading the rest.

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This book review is part of the series An Atheist in God’s Kingdom.

Since the 80′s, several attempts have been made to restore the Transformers concept back to its former glory, with new additions to the franchise such as Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Armada, Energon and most recently, Transformers: Animated. But sadly, none of them were able to capture the imagination of the newer generations of kids who hadn’t grown up knowing the awesomeness of Optimus Prime. Then came the 2007 movie by Michael Bay, a fairly successful resurrection of the franchise. It wasn’t as strong as it could have been, but it was adequate to rally the fans and get them behind the potential of a live action version.

The second movie though, is a big, loud, lumbering beast, cobbled together by using scraps of mythology from the various franchises and attaching them to the freshly resurrected corpse, in the hope of thwarting the great apathy towards transforming robots. Therein lies a great irony: in their attempt to bring back Transformers, the writers have turned the franchise into something that isn’t about transforming robots any more, and there’s no transforming back. The most disappointing part about that is that the writers are Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who came up with the first movie, and were also responsible for the wildly successful Star Trek reboot. How did two such seemingly talented writers get it so very, very wrong?

Still, the Transformers universe is rich with potential, and as a fan I can only hope that the inevitable sequel won’t try to tempt fate by trying to be another successful failure.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The book is a series of short stories, loosely connected by a plot (if you could call it that) involving the character of Dr. Susan Calvin, who does not appear as a character in the short stories until about a third of the way in.

Dr. Calvin’s passion is robots, and she cares about them much more than she cares for humans. I wonder if Asimov’s personality was similar to Dr. Calvin’s, because he describes robots with greater attention and more passion than he does his human characters. This could have been a failing, but the strength of the book lies in the sheer inventiveness of the philosophy and the scenarios which Asimov creates to present them, without which he could very easily be just another sci-fi hack who uses lots of techno-babble to confound the reader.

So, back to the movie, it’s a telling sign of the strength of the idea that Asimov came up with, and the brilliance in the way that he communicated it, that the writers for the movie were able to come up with something original and yet so faithful to source material.

One other thing that the book shows is that it’s possible to write a larger work by writing several smaller and loosely related works, then tying them together with a narrative later on.

Verdict: not one of my favourites, but compelling argument that the strength of idea can help an author rise above mediocrity.

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Buy I, Robot, by Isaac Asmov

P.S. You may be wondering why I’m suddenly doing book reviews.

I’m sure that an important part of the writing process is reading, and seeing how other authors write, so my reviews will always have a slightly “authorly” bent to them, with an aim of looking at the writing styles and the motivations of the author. With any luck this will help me, and hopefully you as well, to discover what it takes to be a successful writer.

Susanna Clarke is the best bits of authors such as Tolkien, Pratchett, Austen, Gaiman and Rowling all rolled into one – a kind of book geek’s dream team. Her writing style is amazingly lucid and eclectic in the best possible way. As I was reading the book the images flowed so clearly in my mind that I said to Jenny last night “if they ever make a movie out of this, I’m going to die”. Well sound the bells, because I discovered this morning that the movie is scheduled for release in 2010. Every aspect of her writing, from the use of archaic spelling to the thoroughly well-researched depictions of the Napoleanic Wars, is deeply imbued with style and gravitas.

Set in a version of 19th Century England where magic was once prevalent but has subsided with the disappearance of the Raven King, the story revolves around the two eponymous magicians, Norrell and Strange. Norrell is a bookish control freak, obsessed with trying to revive English magic through academic study, whereas Strange is a talented natural magician driven by Norrell’s monopoly on the library of magic books into learning through doing. Working against them both is a malevolent fairy whom Norrell summons during a spell that he casts in a desperate attempt to win influence from the political sphere.

These characters, plus a wonderful supporting cast, all have a rich humanity about them which complements the plot without resorting to stereotypes, and each is attended by an equal measure of success and failure as befits their personalities. Especially sweet is the relationship between Strange and his wife, Arabella.

There are so many more positive things that I could write about this book, but if there is any one criticism that I could make, it is that I wish Clarke or her editor had exercised greater restraint when it came to the liberal use of footnotes. Quite often one will find themselves reading a long, rambling side story footnote which, while intending to enrich the context of the events that are occurring, ends up distracting the reader by breaking the flow of the narrative. Tolkien at least had the courtesy of putting all of his “additional material” into an appendix, and Rowling didn’t bother publishing any of it at all.

Overall, this is a stunning debut novel, and I couldn’t recommend it any more highly.

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* Co-incidentally, the edition I have includes an introduction by Audrey Niffenegger

Buy Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

I came across this after geek hangouts all over the Internet went ballistic over a surprise guest appearance by Felicia Day, singing “Still Alive” alongside Jonathan Coulton at the Penny Arcade Expo. I had no idea who she was or why she was so popular with the fans (other than that she’s a girl) so I looked her up, and that’s when I came across Horrible. It had an impeccable geek pedigree thanks to Whedon, famous predominantly for his work on the Buffy and Firefly TV series, but it also held great promise because of the incredible kitsch potential of its lead, former Doogie Howser M.D. star, Neil Patrick Harris.

He doesn’t disappoint. Harris delivers a pitch perfect Dr. Horrible, with just the right amount of camp to endear us to the character, and his lovelorn alter-ego, Billy. He carries the whole show, delivering a wide-ranging performance that runs the gamut of musical genres from broadway musical to metal/rock. As for the other characters, I thought Captain Hammer (Firefly’s Nathan Fillion) was a bit too over the top, and Day puts in a reasonably sweet turn as Penny, the love interest.

The dialogue and lyrics are very clever, but it helps if you know a bit of geek. Characters casually drop phrases like “B.T.W.” which would probably go over your head if you haven’t spent the requisite amount of time on Internet chats or discussion forums.

The show is split into three acts, with the first definitely being the strongest of the three especially if like me, you’re not very knowledgeable of the Buffy universe. Apparently the cameos are plenty, with various Buffy writers, and even Buffy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, appearing in the final act. It’s pretty short, with each episode clocking in at under 15 minutes, but forty-five minutes is probably about as much of this style as I could tolerate anyway. So while it’s somewhat disappointing when it ends, I still felt satisfied. It was nothing more than the briefest glimpse into the character; any more and it would be too much of a good thing.

IMDB link | Buy DVD from Amazon |

Despite actually being quite epic in length at a bum-numbing 165 minutes, it was quite entertaining throughout, with reasonably interesting if not particularly likeable characters, and of course the beautiful Australian landscape. But the pacing was terrible. My friends and family shared the same criticism, whether they liked or loathed it: the movie seemed to end every 45 minutes or so. Either the movie’s overall story arc was weak-to-non-existent, or else the sub-plots were too complex and elaborate. Or both, I can’t decide – I was too busy enjoying the scenery to be paying attention to things like the story…

It wouldn’t be a Baz Luhrmann movie without movie and music cross-references. In Australia, this is comes mainly from the song “Somewhere over the rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz. After you get over the groan-inducing pun on “Oz”, it’s not a bad fit. As I discovered during some cursory research on the history, it turns out that Oz was released not too long before the events depicted, and would very likely have been at the front of Lady Sarah Ashley’s mind. However, it’s bordering on comical when you have a ship full of Aboriginal orphans all humming the song a-capella as Darwin is bombed. (My wife will probably want me to mention that in spite of this, musically, it was still very beautiful.)

So in summary: don’t watch this movie if you’re expecting a character or plot driven story. Treat it like a scenic bus tour, catching various sights and sounds with the occasional interesting bit, and you’ll enjoy it so much more.

Australia on IMDB

The Anubis Gates chronicles the adventures of Brendan Doyle, an English professor inadvertently caught in the intrigues of a cabal of sorcerers seeking to restore the Egyptian gods to the power and glory that was stolen from them by the Christians. Add a dash of the supernatural in the form of magic and unsolved paranormal phenomena, and a dose of historical fiction provided by a roster of notable 19th century figures including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron and Muhammad Ali (no, not the boxer), and you should have a book that’s brimming with possibilities.

In spite of this, I found the book to be unsatisfying. Whereas every paragraph of Time Traveler’s Wife was an essential part of the story, I found myself thinking several times that certain sections were added just to reinforce the point that there is only a single temporal continuity. Pacing and characterisations were uneven, with some side plots – e.g. the beggar clown-king Horrabin’s quest for power through an alliance with one of the sorcerers – receiving way too many words for way too little pay-off, and the much more interesting character of Jacky, a.k.a. Elizabeth Jacqueline Tichy – who dresses up as a beggar boy to avenge the death of her fiancé – given woefully little space.

I also have an aversion to historical fiction that treats the supernatural as real. For example, while I generally think well of the movie The Prestige, it still troubles me that the cleverness of it stems from what is essentially a deus ex machina plot device (I won’t give it away here for those who haven’t seen it). The book makes much of sorcery as a dying art, probably to do with the waning power of the Egyptians. However, the way Powers describes it, with various occult paraphernalia and constantly iterated explanations about the effects (or lack) of magical power, is to magic in fiction what scientific descriptions about quantum theory and the like are to other books about time travel.

So despite its rambling nature and lengthy descriptions of even the most pedestrian events, Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle still holds the spot as the best “fiction set in historical England” that I’ve read. Oddly, because it’s not one of my favourite genres or anything, I have yet another book in my “unread” pile that’s set in a similar period: Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, my copy of which, I discovered just now, features an introduction by Audrey Niffenegger! God, I’m having another one of those Truman Show moments…

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Buy The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers

This is the first Tomb Raider game I’ve played since the very first one way back when. The consensus from a few internet reviews that I read is that I haven’t missed much. Legend is the first Tomb Raider game produced by Crystal Dynamics, who were given the franchise to resurrect after the supposedly abysmal Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. They took the pre-existing Lara Croft, with her aristocracy and disinterest in anything other than archaeology, and added a new back-story, which is fed to the player a piece at a time by the game’s narrative structure. As one who appreciates game stories as much as the regular variety, I liked the extra depth that this brought to both the character and the game.

While I readily admit that the developers did no disservice to the character design of Lara, I wonder if my wife should be more worried that I’m even more appreciative of the quality and variety of level design, and the attention to detail shown in ways such as the change in Lara’s character animation during the cocktail party scene. I’ve had several “wow, look at that” moments… and not all of them for Lara! I’m only about 1/3 of the way through the game so far, but the experience has been the closest that I’ve felt to being immersed in environments that are believable, and participating in a story that is as exciting and compelling as a movie. The recent Prince of Persia games, which I also greatly enjoyed, had great level design and presented an exquisite fantasy world, but it always felt very dry and sparse to me, and not just because it’s set in a desert, and the Prince is a self-absorbed, narcissistic loner. I can’t think of any better way to describe it, except maybe that the environments lacked soul? Crystal Dynamics have done an excellent job of creating a vibrant, lively world. (I’d also like to give a quick mention to Deux Ex, which features an awesome futuristic Hong Kong.)

The quality of the game is also apparent in the way that I’m choosing to suffer intense nausea just to play it. One of the problems with Tomb Raider: Legend is that the camera often swings around wildly and uncontrollably, making my eyes and inner ear have arguments in my brain about the gymnastics that are(n’t) supposedly happening. On a side note, the Wikipedia article on motion sickness mentions that drinking soft drink helps. Maybe that’s why the stereotype of gaming geeks usually involves a bottle of fizzy somewhere, because apparently, motion sickness is quite common.

Now I just have to try and get through the rest of the game without throwing up. Pace myself, that’s all I have to do. It’s supposed to be a pretty short game anyway. I’ll do a follow-up post if there’s anything worth writing about that I haven’t mentioned already, but I think I’ve already gushed enough!

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The lego figurines (or “minifigs” in the vernacular) are the creations of Justin R. Stebbins. You can find more pictures at his Website, Saber-Scorpion’s Lair.