Story Check

This week I read Reality Check by David Brin.

(Link)

Description:
"Do you ever get that sense of deja vu...a feeling that you've experienced something before? As computers get more and more complex, they are able to replicate the nature of reality in ever finer detail. How would we recognize if we were living in a computer simulation – a highly accurate world of virtual reality? Perhaps this isn't your first time..."

I am having deja vu, because this is the plot of The Matrix. Even the deja vu part is from The Matrix. So, I'm just going to skip the middle-man and review The Matrix.

Neo is a lonely computer hacker in the year- HOLY SHIT 1999 WAS A LONG TIME AGO! Now THAT will make you shit a brick.

Alright, so this story isn't really that much like The Matrix. It's basically just musings about why we haven't found extraterrestrial life and why that might mean we're all in a dream we have constructed out of the boredom of being eternals.

Basically mortals died out in the year 21-fill-in-future-numbers-here, and humans passed into immortality et cetera et cetera.

That's about it. Sooooo........

Ratings:

Was This a Story?: 5 out of 5. This "story" has no real beginning, middle, or end, no characters, not much of a plot, no emotions, no climax--basically nothing that any other stories have. That being said, it was supposedly published in Nature, and it is a piece of short fiction. OR IS IT!? As I said above, it's basically some guy's musings written down. They are mildly interesting, and there are some big words, so I use the word musings instead of rantings. Still, it's not a huge step from this to publishing the ravings of that guy who ran for governor of Idaho Harley Brown.

Harley Brown, and his beautiful teeth.

Two Dashes Does Not Actually Make an Emdash: 5 out of 5. Now I know what you're thinking. "You just fucking used two dashes in the paragraph above this." Yes, that's true, but I'm fucking lazy. If you are publishing something on Amazon, especially if it has been published before, you should change those bitches to emdashes. I wouldn't be such a hypocrite about this, but seriously this is a great example of what's wrong with independent publishing. If you constantly publish unedited shit, we have to wade through that shit to find anything good. I think this blog illustrates how not worth the effort it is to try to find that gold nugget among an eternity of turds. Please, PLEASE polish your turd!

Actually, that's not the only problem. 50% of it is also that the only thing you can find on Amazon is niche fetish erotica. Come on, is there REALLY that big of a market for 50 Shades of BDSM? That's a REAL title I see EVERY time I look for something to review.

Muse if You Must, But at Least Muse Originally: 5 out of 5. There was literally nothing said in this story that hasn't already been thought of by like every single person on the internet. It was kind of weird though, because the author seemed to realize that and start using it as a reason that you should doubt your fictional reality. "Only so many combinations of notes exist" he repeats as if it's deep, then tells you to ask why. Yes, why INDEED, sir? The answer didn't really make me shit my brain out into my pants as was intended.

Overall: 3 out of 5. This story wasn't bad. It wasn't great, but it was short and it reminded me of some philosophy I pondered fucking 15 years ago. SERIOUSLY 1999 WAS A SCARY AMOUNT OF YEARS IN THE PAST! Sorry. It's pretty obvious from this post what generation I am from. But still, if one thing blows your mind today, let it be that.

If you want to have other parts of your body blown, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.







Wait! No! That's not what I meant! Please don't solicit me for sex!