Interstellar Pig

Interstellar pig / William Sleator.—New York : Dutton, c1984.

197 p. ; 22 cm.

ISBN: 0-525-44098-4

1. Board games – Fiction. 2. Science fiction.

813.54

The beach house Barney’s parents have rented for two weeks is too far from town for him. There’s no one for a sixteen-year-old to hang out with. He’s been staving off boredom by re-reading his old science fiction books, but then the landlord stops by and tells them that people used to say that the house was haunted, but before he finishes his story he rushes off to greet the new tenants of the house next door – tenants that were extremely disappointed when they learned that the house Barney’s staying in was already rented.

They make quite a favorable impression on his parents, who think that Zena, Manny, and Joe, are older and more sophisticated then Barney does; he thinks they may be college students. They’re all in excellent physical shape, but all they seem to want to do is play a board game called Interstellar Pig. It’s a science fiction role-laying board game. Each player is dealt a card with an alien character, you might be an arachnoid nymph from the planet Vavoosh or a species of carnivorous lichen from Mbridlengile, or an octopus-like gas bag, or a water-breathing gill man from Thrilb. Once you have your character you travel from planet to planet until the timer signals the end of the game, collecting cards for laser guns or for hyperspace drive, or a card to boost or lower your intelligence, or to force you to land on a poisonous planet. But the most important card is called the Piggy, and if you don’t have it in your hand at the end of the game, your planet is sucked out of existence and your species exterminated. It’s a cool game, with a very realistic board, by Barney doesn’t understand why his new neighbors are so obsessed with it, that is, until they all take a day trip to a nearby island and he finds a small box containing a small pink object. On it is carved a smiling face with one eye. “The vertical iris, inlaid in bright silver, gave the eye a piercing alertness. Crude as it was, the thing seemed alive. And it was the brutal wrongness of it, the mouth smiling with such placid idiocy, noseless, under the solitary eye, that made the face so repellent.”

Interstellar pig is a deliciously creepy read, like the chill you might get from an ice cube drawn down your sunburned back.

Azumanga Daioh

Azumanga Daioh / Kiyohiko Azuma.— The omnibus.— Houston : ADV Manga, c2007.

677 p. : chiefly ill. ; 23 cm.

Translated from the Japanese.

1. Female friendship – Japan – Comic books, strips, etc. 2. Graphic novels. 3. High school students – Japan – Comic books, strips, etc. 4. Teenage girls – Japan – Comic books, strips, etc.

741.5952

First let’s demystify the title. The author and illustrator added a syllable to his surname to make a personal brand of manga, to which he then added part of the title of Dengeki Daioh, the magazine where the strip was first published from 1999 to 2002. Azuman+ga+Daioh = Azumanga Daioh. The comics became the basis for an extremely popular anime series of the same title in 2002. The omnibus edition collects the entire print series in one volume.

It’s a humorous, episodic tale of a group of girls going through the trials, tribulations, and embarrassing moments of getting through three years of high school in Tokyo. The girls have very distinctive characteristics: the boisterous Tomo, her clear-headed friend and antagonist Yomi, the daydreaming Osaka, the athletically competitive Kagura, Chiyo, the prodigy, who enters the first year of high school at age ten, and the tall, shy and athletic Sakaki who adores cats, but is promptly bitten by nearly every feline she encounters. The biting cats are one of a number of running gags in the strip as are the obsessions of the girls’ teachers, Yomi’s passion for sweets, and Chiyo’s pigtails. Azumanga Daioh is not a collection of laugh out loud jokes. But the cumulative effect of Asuman’s off-beat humor quickly catches up with the reader making for a very enjoyable read.

Zero : the biography of a dangerous idea

Zero : the biography of a dangerous idea / Charles Seife ; drawings by Matt Zimet. – New York : Penguin Books, c 2000.

vi, 248 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.

ISBN: 014-029647-6

Includes bibliography: p. 231-238 and index.

1. Zero (The number). 2. Infinite. 3. Nothing (Philosophy).

Starting with the Egyptian and Greek geometricians Seife relates the history of a number with very peculiar properties and its polar opposite, infinity. That makes this a book about nothing and everything. He uses it to mathematically prove that Sir Winston Churchill was a carrot and includes instructions on how to “make your own wormhole time machine.” For the most part he uses drawings rather than mathematical formulae to illustrate concepts, making this a very accessible book for the non-mathematicians among us.

Master of space and time

Master of space and time [electronic resource] / Rudy Rucker; read by Scott Grunden.— [Ashland, Or.] : Blackstone Audio, Inc., 2007.

ISBN: 9781433285257 (sound recording : OverDrive Audio Book)

Title from: Title details screen.

Unabridged.

Duration: 6 hr. 3 min.

Requires OverDrive Media Console (file size: 84.8 MB).

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Text first published in 1984.

1. Inventors – Fiction. 2. New Jersey – Fiction. 4. Science fiction. 5. Space and time – Fiction.

Joe Fletcher’s business gets back on its feet when an infinite number of insect-sized versions of his former business partner Harry Gerber appear floating above the dashboard of his car. Harry (who’s just back from the future) want Joe to encourage him to build a “blunzer,” the machine that will allow him to travel in time and bend the laws of physics to his will, in other words, to become the master of space and time. He also needs Joe to lend him the money to buy the equipment and the very expensive gluons needed for fuel. But, Joe can be assured that the investment is safe, because the fact that all the tiny Harrys are there proves that the blunzer works!

Professor Rucker weaves Joe and Harry’s wild ride through space-time from equal parts of modern particle physics, cosmology, and the folktale of the person given three wishes as a magic boon. And he’s stuffed it full of mind bending paradoxes and LOL science-fiction clichés. He’s also given it the slapstick pacing of a Keystone Cops film. It’s quite a trip.