The style of how Parker-Chan writes all of this is vivid, immersive and striking. She uses a variety of imagery and metaphors that describe individuals, gestures, actions and maneuvers that bring the writing to life. Everywhere, the text is rich in detail.
In Loki’s Ring, the inciting incident that kicks off a series of characters’ journeys and adventures is an artificial intelligence named Ri on board. Ri and her ship have crashed on a ringworld, the titular Loki’s Ring. …
Niccol’s films, almost universally, are obsessed with the idea of artificial realities. This can be a mundane sort of affair … Or it can be something like S1m0ne, where an actress and her whole career and presence, are digital creations. It is notable that Niccol is a cautionary tale sort of director. In each of these, the artificial realities break or are broken, showing the cogs and the gears of what is behind them.
The two books really feel like to me a study and critique of decaying imperial power, and what happens when that eroding power slips to the point where the imperium is visibly decaying, and starts to overcorrect and do truly shortsighted and ill-advised things in the quest to not only maintain the decaying status quo, but to reach back to a mythical golden era before that never really existed in the first place.
Ada Hoffmann’s The Infinite completes the Outside Trilogy, revealing not only the future of the world of A.I. Gods and extradimensional powers, but also, its origins.
Perspective, point of view and what this story really is are at the heart of the book and what it is trying to accomplish, on top of a strong fantasy story and tale.
