Ghost Stories

The Colonial Defense Forces (CDF) – the military arm of the extra-terrestrial human government – only enlists recruits of the age of seventy-five. You signal your intent to join at sixty-five, and join at seventy-five. Once you join, they’ll give you a new, enhanced body with a biological age of twenty – which happens to be green – to serve a term of service of up to ten years fighting aliens.

If you sign up join the CDF at sixty-five, but die before joining the service, the CDF will still find use for you. They’ll use your DNA to create a super soldier in the Special Forces, also known to the rest of the CDF as the “Ghost Brigades”.

Jared Dirac is a Special Forces soldier. However, unlike other Special Forces soldiers, Dirac was created to host the soul, or consciousness, of a living person. He is the clone of Charles Boutin, a scientist who faked his own death and is planning for the destruction of humanity in the hands of three alien races

The Ghost Brigades revisits a common science fiction theme – the Frankenstein Syndrome – and the question of what makes us human. Regular CDF troops reconcile their enhanced green bodies with synthetic blood and computer-embedded brain with the fact that they have lived as real humans for seventy-five years. Special Forces troops, however, are created in labs with even more enhancements – including those of alien origin – and sent to combat in as little as two weeks after they are born. They still regard themselves as humans, or of humanity, even if others doubt it.

As we increasingly use technology to modify our own bodies, instead of just the environment and the tools we use, will there be a point beyond which we stop being humans?

The story of Jared Dirac is about choice, and of nature versus nurture. He was created to be Charles Boutin, but when he woke up crying like a newborn baby they regarded him a failed experiment and let him become Jared Dirac instead. However, as the consciousness and memories of Boutin slowly resurfaces, Dirac has to decide who he really is.

John Scalzi impresses me so far with Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades. Let's hope that there are more to come.

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QUICKIE: Don't you just love/hate abbreviations? In my book, SF stands for either science fiction or Special Forces, and oh, San Francisco. A quick search online also gives sacrifice fly (no idea what it is, but apparently from baseball), straight flush (poker), sinking fund (finance), and a whole lot more you can have a look yourself in Wikipedia.

Cosmic Smokescreen

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today – but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all.

Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

My latest order from Amazon arrived today. The main item in this particular order is a hardcover edition of John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades, plus two other books – all military science fiction novels. It's terribly frustrating trying to find the latest science fiction (SF) books at the local bookstores – nobody reads them – so I have to resort to buying online. The Ghost Brigades is a follow-up to the 2005 Old Man's War, which was nominated for the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

As usual, I had the order delivered to the office, largely due to the high regard I place on the Pos Malaysia delivery service at home. Hopefully, I'd be able to start reading the books by the end of the week. As of now, I still have three piles of examination scripts to mark – a total of about 120 scripts. Just looking at them makes me sick; if only I could outsource the whole marking work to some company in Bengaluru.

I wonder if the students could understand what they wrote themselves. Half of the handwritten scripts are barely legible, while some thought that they can get away with not knowing what were actually being asked by dazzling me with whole pages of pure BS. I also found one student (so far) dedicating one whole page of the answer booklet composing a letter of apology for not being able to completely the answer the exam questions. Looking at the scripts, it is hard not to wonder what the students were doing the whole semester. Am I that bad?

Thankfully, there are always the few that tell you that it is all worth it.

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QUICKIE: The Hugo Award is given every year to the best science fiction and fantasy (SFF) works of the previous year by the World Science Fiction Society. The 2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel went to Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. Really cool book, I read it earlier this year in April.

Does Not Work On Foreigners

The most interesting thing I read in the newspapers today is about this Indonesian black magic practitioner by the name Ki Gendeng Pamungkas casting a hex on George W Bush.

Firstly, I strongly believe that no matter how one feel about someone else, casting a hex or a spell – if you believe in such things, anyway – is right. Even if they actually do work, it is like paying some thugs to hurt or kill your enemy, which is in the least cowardly.

In this region at least, most people believe in black magic and supernatural powers. Despite all the advances in medical science people, even highly educated professionals, still visit shamans, witch-doctors, spiritual healers etc for treatment. Others also go to these practitioners for help with their businesses, studies, love, and sometimes, to cast a hex on their enemies.

So, I have been wondering forever why anybody hasn’t cast a spell on not-so-popular figures like Bush.

Some say that such spells don’t work over long distances – something to do with the demons that actually do the dirty work not being able to cross bodies of water like oceans. Others say that possibly, these people are protected by some form of black magic themselves.

Then, this guy Pamungkas says that “Indonesian black magic does not work on foreigners”. Aha, so that’s why! So, he deploys a Haitian-style voodoo (which work on foreigners?) hex on Bush. I guess Haitian black magic is better than Indonesian black magic. And this Indonesian guy in Indonesia is using Haitian black magic against a US President. Welcome to the 21st century, ladies and gentlemen, when even black magic has gone global.

And no, I don’t spend much time thinking about all this stuff. Really.

All In

I hate all the previous James Bond movies for the over-the-top action and ludicrous gadgets. I like Casino Royale.

The plan was to watch Death Note but the show was full, or really, the seats that I want were already taken. Then I saw that Casino Royale was up. So, I guess Death Note will wait.

I think that Daniel Craig is excellent as 007. With the new, more contemporary, direction this latest installment is going, they really couldn't have stayed with Pierce Brosnan.

Farewell to Shah Alam

Yesterday was my brother's convocation at UiTM. Though the biggest university in the country, they have a really small hall, so parents and family members had to watch the ceremony remotely via live video feed. They split the ceremony into seven sessions – my brother's were the sixth – but we still had our asses numb just waiting for all the graduands to enter the hall.

I was quite surprised, though pleasantly surprised, to see that there was no valedictory speech at the end. The only speech was by the Pro-Chancellor. A valedictory speech is a speech [DUH!] , given supposedly by the most outstanding member of the graduating class, at the end of the convocation ceremony. The few valedictory speeches I heard so far were terribly boring and hardly inspiring.

My brother graduated with a degree in Property Management, but now works in Marketing.

Scream

The topic of the day around the house yesterday was a terrifying cry my mother, father, sister, and brother – though he thought he was dreaming – heard early that morning at around 4 a.m. My sister said that the sound – like a woman in pain – was so loud it could have come from just the other side of her bedroom wall. My mother, who was in the kitchen boiling water, said the sound was so scary it sent shivers down her spine, though it didn’t stop her from peering out the window. Me? I went to bed just before 4 a.m., and slept like a log.

Was it a ghost? That would be the more interesting hypothesis. My brother and I thought that it could have simply been some pranksters using the mosque’s PA system.

I hate horror movies (Dreamworks/Yahoo! Movies photo from the movie The Ring)

Drift

The Exam Part 12 by *deaddays on deviantART

The finals for the semester are now over.

Yesterday, a girl – not one of my students – raised her hand:

Sir, I forgot the formula for solving this question.
So?
Can you give it to me?

Students nowadays are something, aren't they? Another girl last week – this time one of mine – had a similar idea:

(Showing her answer script) Sir, is this what the question is asking?
Err... no.
What is it, then?
This is an exam. That's for you to answer.
Can I do this instead for the same number of marks?

Is it just me, or does everybody else get asked the same questions? We really can't blame them for trying, though. One might just get lucky.