A Thriller of a Twitch-worthy Read

One has just finished reading Upgrade by Blake Crouch, an XMAS gift from Grannie A, and I found it to be a reasonably enjoyable techno-thriller worth a 3 star rating.

What I did love about it was the way it made me think about all the upgrades it proposed and their consequences. Which left me with several perplexations and frustrational feelings.

First is several times throughout proceedings where it seems highly implausible that acting faster can give the advantages the protagonist enjoys. For example, and I may be incorrect here but, I don't think being fast would mean one could fire twelve shots from a pistol within 1 second, surely the mechanical parts of the pistol would put a limit on such shenanigans? 
One believes this is a case of the author erring on being too specific here in order to push the upgraded nature of the protagonist, i.e. compare and contrast:

• I squeezed off 12 shots within a second before they could react
• I squeezed off 12 shots before they could react

The big one that got to me throughout the story is that it so totally buys in to the belief that everything we have ever experienced is saved in our brains in perfect 3D HD detail with surround sound and smellovision but is locked away somehow.
Now One could easily have accepted that "perfect" memory was achieved by the eponymous Upgrade and from that point onwards, but found it constantly irritating that the beliefs on memory ran so counter to current research that has memory being akin to storing a series of dot points about events that we update and change every time we review the memory.

The second big one involves the ending so spoilers ahead.

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(highlight to read)

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The Epilogue has several issues to it. Firstly there is the fact that we were earlier told his rapid upgrade would burn him out and kill him and yet here he is 3 years later all fine and dandy and overseeing the "correct" upgrade to humanity.

Secondly is the un-ironic (as far as I can read into it) horrific ending whereby he is force upgrading humanity, not with intelligence that will still leave people doing evil, which was the "wrong" way, but with empathy for all of humanity not just your closest 150ish people. The horror being that this is most likely going to leave humanity in empathic paralysis as they consider the impact of everything on everyone.

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Apparently hone of his other books - Dark Matter - is a currently a TV series (but not the good Canadian sci-fi Dark Matter series). One wonders whether it will also cause one to twitch throughout proceedings.

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The Sportsball Traditions

One's past fortnight has been punctuated with sportsball traditions.

The first was the annual ANZAC day watching at one's residence, with Sneaky Pete, and The Great Sandro putting in their traditional appearance at the event. Salsa Girl also continued her tradition of recent years of watching alongside and, dare I say it, getting caught up in the parochial tribalism along with the rest of us.

While a drawn result is a fine tradition that one believes belongs in the sport, one was left feeling a little flat, and even Salsa Girl was questioning - "is that allowed?!?"

One's other brush with footy tradition was this Friday past. It was, however, a change in tradition, with circumstances and work weariness resulting in only Salsa Girl and oneself partaking in watching the traditional rivalry in a quiet, laid back comfort of our own lounging room. The relaxed atmosphere did not last for very long with the resultant match keeping one on edge for most of it's duration - including a point with nary 4 minutes to go when one's racing heart was audible to the room!
In the end things did calm down when a true and just result was reached.

This weekend did also continue another long-standing tradition with One making the traditional regular journey to the ancestral home to make adjustments to Freeloading Mum's printer.

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A W in the Second Decade

No this is not about One's very own A W aka Hulk in her second decade - it is instead about entering Decade the Second of one's A to Z of Unread SciFi and Fantasy Authors endeavour, and how One has completed the read of the 'W' tome.

This one had spent many years staring at One from the unread books shelf at home.

The tome in question is The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks, the first of his Night Angel Trilogy.

I found it an enjoyable enough read and will likely get around to the other two volumes in the coming years. It did dabble in a bit of predictable fantasy fare, however it has been a while since one dabbled so it seemed a fun 3 and a half star read.

For those wondering about the letters missed in One's... interlude,

U was eventually skipped and put in the too hard basket,

V was the Planet of Adventure omnibus by Jack Vance

Next in the AtoZ series will be an X , or more likely, another skip as it does seem likely to be another troublesome letter, but we'll see.

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But the Tales Came Back, the Very Next Year

So, it has been a year to the day of hiatus for The Tales. This has been a long enough span for one to have a garnered a sense of their lack, with the conclusion that one shall once again be regaling you with regular Cautionary Tales.

Now, to catch everyone up, here are the high mid and lowlights of the missing year, in more or less chronological order:

• One's place of prominence in the nuptials of Pirate Dave and LED - particularly in the karaoke vows scene
  
  
• One’s ongoing stressful tussles with printers
  
  
• Farewelling Piggy with BestFriendSincePrep, Uncle Col and various other high school alumni
  
  
• The second annual hosting of Mt Disappointment at StumpyRudolph's since it restarted - it seems this is becoming an annual event much like The Tales
  
  
• One’s becoming a permanent fixture at the new workplace after three and one half years living on the crumbs of rolling contracts
  
  
• Further stressful tussles with printers
  
  
• The addition of Harvey to our family after a years wait on the production of this new hybrid wonder.
  
  
• An annual visit down South to My Guitarist
  
  
• A dodgy knee issue of One’s resolved by this new thing called an exercise regime
  
  
• Catching up with Mr Gates after some 30 odd years
  
  
• The continuing saga of stressful printer tussles
  
  
• The stressful journey to a Magpies premiership
  
  
• A bout of shingles brought on by unknown stress factors
  
  
• Freeloading Mum celebrating her 80th milestone
  
  
• Attending the NYE fireworks (early version) in the city with Hulk and Salsa Girl
  
  
• Yet another holiday week on the Berm
  
  
• A busy work schedule with new libraries, major upgrades, and, of course, printers
  
  
• Handy Dad miraculous coming out of a fall through the patio roof with naught but a few scratches and bruises, and maybe some lessons learned about capabilities of older gentlemen on ladders, and roofs. Maybe.
  
  
• Sportsball season starting again far too soon.
  
  
• New varieties of stressful printer tussles

So there you have it, the foundation for the restart of regular Tales posting. Only time will tell if One will be able to maintain this punishing ambitious annual publication schedule.

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