Embracing the New and I Robot

I have been reading quite a bit lately. But quietly.

Work had managed to kill everything else for about a month. Work gives me infinite peace of mind, but it also manages to completely exhaust me of energy after it is done. I don't even feel like watching a movie at times. Consider that, at all other times I have an infinite appetite for movies, even for the silly or boring kind.

This time, I just managed to scroll through some books and some other online reading. I just felt that I should mention something about the latter. Embracing-the-New was suggested to me by my roommate. It is a beautifully crafted piece of work by Benjamin Rosenbaum. It is also a clever piece of writing. In its core, it asks me how much of Me exactly is present in myself. We are products of our past, our context and a small bit of pure original ourselves. How much of this original is right now left in you? Are you enslaved to your past? This is applicable to the whole of Humanity as well. Is our ways of thinking bound by our history, language etc? My room-mate actually suggested this story as a comment on my blog entry about the "Protector", in which a human being transforms into a higher intelligence being called the Protector. The first thing that comes to his mind is "I have been very Stupid!". :)
The story makes a delightful reading even if you don't think much over it. It is about a race called GodCarvers, who can actually live for ever, as all their memories can be passed on to others through a "Ghennung". Saying anything more might be spoiling the fun.

Another story I read was Cory Doctorow's I, Robot. Does the name ring a bell? Yes, I, Robot is still the famous collection of robot stories by Isaac Asimov. I read somewhere that Cory wrote this one purposefully borrowing a lot of ideas from Asimov's Robot world and the nightmarish dystopian world of 1984 by George Orwell. He did it in protest of Ray Bradbury's remarks against Michael Moore. (Moore's recent movie "Farenheit 911" has borrowed its name from Bradbury's classic "Farenheit 451") I read it just for the fun of pure fiction. It reads much like a Hollywood movie. It is very interesting how he manages to merge the greatness of both worlds, yet develops a completely different plot successfully.

Another foray was The Witch's Hand by Patrick O'Leary. It is a very simple and short story which might make you smile at the end. (It made me smile, anyway) The latter two are featured at Infinite Matrix, which is a place I lurk in search of good online short stories.

And, Sorry for not posting regularly. I wish there is more will to write.