Fred's Blog

Category: Literary

  • What went wrong with the Alchemy of Souls season 1 finale

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    Fred Rothganger
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    Alchemy of Souls (AoS) is an awesome fantasy K-drama on Netflix. If you haven’t seen it yet, do that first before reading the rest of this article. I really like the writing in AoS. Characters and setting are epic. In each episode, important things happen which move the plot forward, and subsequent episodes keep building…

  • Foundation

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    Fred Rothganger
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    Apple TV recently put out a show loosely inspired by Asimov’s Foundation books. I was really excited and subscribed for a few months specifically to watch it. In general it is interesting TV, but it does not follow the original material, nor even respect the underlying philosophy of Asimov’s work. We’ll get to that later.…

  • Theology of the Quran

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    Fred Rothganger
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    I recently read a translation of the Quran (reviewed on Amazon). The main motivation was to better understand how Muslims think. Partly this is background for a character I’m writing. Partly I just want to know whether Islam really teaches the kind of violence we westerners have come to associate with it. Based only on…

  • Dune

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    Fred Rothganger
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    Just watched the new Villeneuve version of Dune. In addition to being an A-grade scifi epic, it accomplishes the nearly impossible: clarity. The screenwriter actually understood the novel and boiled it down to its most basic elements. Brilliant work. I’ve previously watched the David Lynch version and the Syfy version. The reputation that Dune is…

  • I Am Not A Robot

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    Fred Rothganger
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    I’m always on the hunt for a good robot story. For some reason, these seem hard to find. US and European artists tend to veer towards dark stories, where AI tries to take over the world and kill off humans (Robopocalypse) or where robots get abused (Westworld, Humans). On the other hand, Asian artists tend…

  • Humans 2.0

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    Fred Rothganger
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    The second season of Humans is now available without extra charge on Amazon Prime. Yeah! Binge watched this week. Like the first season, it was an engaging story with interesting characters and problems. Here a few of the things it did right: Working out the relationship between humans and technology — This is really the…

  • Half-Broken Music Box

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    Fred Rothganger
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    Recently I mentioned watching Plastic Memories. Another anime with similar theme is “Kowarekake no Orgel” (“Half-Broken Music Box”), though only about half an hour long. It’s the story of a guy who finds an old gynoid that has been thrown away. He tries to take care of her and make her happy, but she is…

  • Plastic Memories

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    Fred Rothganger
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    Just finished watching “Plastic Memories”, a real tear-jerking robot love story. Imagine a nice version of “Blade Runner”, full of supremely innocent romance and deep love, and the inevitable loss that comes with limited lifespan. “Happily ever after” can be a very short time indeed.

  • Bubonicon, the day after

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    Fred Rothganger
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    Bubonicon is over. Throughout the conference, successful authors sat on panels discussing various literary topics. Many of them were quite smart, the kind of people you would enjoy talking to as a friend. And some had a real warmth in their artistic outlook on life. I felt a bit jealous of their success. The truth…

  • SuSAn flyer for Bubonicon

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    Fred Rothganger
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    Next weekend is Bubonicon here in Albuquerque. In addition to skulking around in obscurity, I will put free copies of “SuSAn” on the book table and place a stack of fliers. A preview is attached.