Frankenstein

“Did i request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?”

Hello everyone. And if your wondering no I didn't read the book in one day, I just noticed that it was Mary Shelley's birthday to day so thought it'd be apt to dust of my old notes I took back when I did read Frankenstein and edit it a bit so I could cobble together a review, enjoy.

Frankenstein is very different to the classic film. There is no castle, no Igor (who was originally called Fritz) no lightning and no hammy and melodramatic “It’s ALIVE!”. What there is however is a tale about the follies of letting romantic notions about adventure control a man and that unbridled inquisitiveness can lead to disaster.

Victor Frankenstein becomes a brilliant student of sciences (presumably biology) at the Ingolstadt University, were his quest for intellectual prestige fuelled by his sorrow of the death of his very beloved mother, leads him to experiment with bringing the dead back to life. This proves to be a disaster as when he does finally succeed in conquering mortality he finds the creature he creates to be so hideous and big -in order to make the assembly of the body easier Victor made it from parts that were much bigger then the average so that the creature is around 8ft tall and extremely broad- that he immediately panics and flees, this leads to the creature escaping into the wilderness. And since it has the mind of a newborn spends a lot of its time(several years)wandering through the woods slowly learning about life and mankind. Unfortunately due to his grotesque appearance the creature is constantly met with lynch mobs whenever he tried to find companionship and is forced to constantly flee and hide while developing an intense hatred for mankind and his creator Frankenstein.

By coincidence the creature stumbles upon the Frankenstein home and Victors little brother whom in a fit of rage the monster kills and then frames the Frankenstein’s close family friend who is later executed. However in one of his many fits of self loathing -something he shares with his creator Victor- the monster abandons revenge in order to strike a deal with Victor were the beast will leave him and all humankind alone forever if Victor will construct for him an “eve” to go with him into isolation (see bride of Frankenstein).

The deal goes ahead after the monster recounts his hellish life to Victor including the time he spent several years observing a French family through holes in there walls, by doing this he slowly learns French,as well as the concepts of poverty, love and Islamophobia(that is not a joke)before finally being rejected when he tried to make contact with them. However Victor starts having second thoughts or more accurately third or fourth thoughts, he becomes afraid that if he does do what the creature -which he never gets round to naming despite having several lengthy conversations with- wants then he might just procreate and raise an army,(how two collections of corpses could possibly breed is not made clear though to be far there was little understanding of human reproduction in the early 1800's at the time this was published) and ends up smashing the corpse, this enrages the monster when he discovers Victors double cross and he begins a campaign of vengeance on Victor, first by killing his best friend and once again framing Victor for it and then he caps it off by beating Victors wife to death on there wedding day, the combine shocks break Victor mentally and after several nervous breakdowns decides to embark on a journey of revenge himself, and hunts the monster all the way to the North Pole, in a vane effort to correct his lifetimes worth of failures and mistakes. The End....... Or is it?

So there you go one of the earliest giants of the Victorian Gothic horror and one of the earliest pioneers of Scientific Fiction, though the science here is not only made up but also just a catalyst to get the plot going. Victor in one of the few acts of genuine thoughtfulness we actually read him doing in the book quickly destroys his resurrection secrets and refuses when asked to go into specifics.

New Model Army

“We don’t have Democracy, in the world of politics today; we have Oligarchy punctuated by occasional contests to determine who has the most effective control of the media”.

Hello all, been doing a bit of reading before bed in my preparations for moving. And I just realised that many of the books I've read about and "reviewed" are actually pretty old and thus either talked about enough already for everyone to be familiar with. A bit like how we all know that rose bud was his sled in Citizen Kane (still a good watch though).

So I figured why talk about some of thats still relatively new on the shelf of our local waterstones. So here we are New Model Army,(NMA) -not to be confused with the other New Model Army- by Adam Roberts who also wrote the excellent Yellow Blue Tibia and is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors. NMA is one of those 20 minutes into the future sci-fi books so there are no rayguns or teleporters, though they do have superior wiki's and googlemaps and faster internet access.

The main plot of NMA is at first a some what straightforward military diary of the life of Tony Block (hes half Frisian) as he recounts to a mysterious Colonel whom we learn more about as things progress his last campaigns as part of the NMA known as Pantegral. An NMA is a new type army that organises itself Democratically as opposed to the traditional hierarchical or "Feudal" model current nation state armies employ. They get there name unsurprisingly from Cromwell's New Model Army which while nowhere near as egalitarian as these NMA’s, did introduce ideas such as voting for your officers and appointed a number of agitators to ensure the conditions and views of the men were expressed. Leveller Regiments flat out refused to take part in Cromwell's Irish Campaigns as its gaols conflicted with there commitment to liberty for example.

From the very first page its clear that Tony's views on the benefits of direct democracy will be extremely prevalent to the point of a lecture. For me this wedding the idea of Democracy so thoroughly to the narrative was both a strength and a weakness. It was and is refreshing to see a work outside of something found on the Marxism archive point out all the oligarchical tendencies modern parliaments and Senates are riddled with. But on the other hand the NMA characters are so self righteous about how they and they alone are true democrats that the fact they vote on everything alone justifies what ever they do (including maiming unarmed prisoners), this is especially irritating when you take into consideration that the NMA's are ultimately a band of a few thousand soldiers who quite simply can't hack it in civilian life. And essentially all the NMA are, there are no NMA style agri-communes or NMA municipalities, the only thing this global wave of true democracy is capable of doing is bring death and violence. ANd just because the NMA's are independent doesn't mean the people who hire them are either. For example Pantegrals most recent campaign was on behalf of the Scottish government in its bid to oust the British army over the formers refusal to acknowledge the new Kings legitimacy and desire for independence. But how do they know thats what the Scots really want since there was no referendum?

Though to be fair I suspect much of that was intentional. In Yellow Blue Tibia the only other Adam Roberts novel I've read, nearly every character who possesses strong beliefs about anything is made out to be a bit of fool when tripped up by a couple of ideological contradictions. And as the novel goes on there are more paragraphs and arguments made that shine a spotlight on the NMA's absurdities.

Anyway there was one other flaw that marred my enjoyment of it slightly. And thats the military side of it, the actually combat segments while not bad and possessed of professionalism don't quite gel. The NMA's are made out to be this big new threat that constantly defeat national armies wherever they clash. But the book only half explains while in a believable fashion. On one hand since there not a national army and as such have no desire to hold territory and are only concerned with bringing the UK gov to the negotiating table so it makes sense how there able to confound there opponents strategically. But tactically when the actually clash on the streets of Reading and elsewhere the NMA's wipe the floor with the sqauddies with every skirmish. Its explained that in future things like Wireless internet Wiki's and googlemaps have progressed to the point were they can be applied to military coordination effectively making each trooper a recon unit, and while this explains why groups are better at flanking manoeuvres and tactical withdrawals when necessary it doesn't explain while the Army (the guys who have pioneered these technologies) aren't capable of doing the same. Well they do explain it, its because there used to blindly following orders directly from there Generals which isn't even close to how urban warfare is waged. Then there is the NMA's unerring accuracy, we constantly see three or four NM soldiers casually pick of a dozen or so infantry, at first I thought they were using some kind of new hi tech private military rifles but nope they appear to use Ak's and other cheaper kit.

But these are rather minor gripes, another surprising point in the books favour is that Tony is Gay. and yet somehow isn't a flamboyant interior decorator or mincing sodomite. Which I personally found quite refreshing to see.

Once I'll refrain from getting into the specifics about the ending but thats owes a lot to the fact that the ending is extremely had to understand. When Tony was captured by the Americans they finally turn him round to a more cooperative state of mind. And develop some new type of AI called giant which they believe will do.... something, which they've planted in his head to use as a living bomb, they decide that it will be prudent to test first on a smaller NMA by the name of Schaferhund (shepherd dog)operating out of Alsace-Lorraine, so they do and activate Giant and it..... does something.

In conclusion I would highly recommend New Model Army warts and all (teehee). Especially if you're an Anarchist interested in seeing a truly democratic and egalitarian military force. Or a Celt who would like to indulge in a little nationalistic anti monarch wish fulfilment, what with the whole succession wars. Also futurists might be interested in the novels use of internet technologies to bring about global change.

Mikes helpful tips for students

Hey everyone, been a bit quiet lately and I'm sorry for that but its getting pretty close to the start of my final year at Uni (hopefully) and I've been busy moving about and packing my bags, then there was my frequent attempts to find temporary employment of this summer which only yielded temporary one or two day jobs.

Anyway I thought since I do like to help my fellow man and woman it might be a good idea to list off a few tips and tricks I've found that helped me with my studies.

This will be most relevant to those studying for degrees in politics, history, and international relations mind but there should be a few tips that can work across the board.

Number One: Get at least one book that is a brief and yet concise outline on the topic your discussing. I personally recommend the Oxford A Very Short Introduction When writing essay's or answering exam questions it helps to be specific, and it helps you be specific and keep a confidant argument when your sure what year your example happened happened and what the figures were in at least an approximate form. It also helps keep your thoughts grounded on the right trail.
I've lost count of the times I've heard some brain box base his arguments around something he just skimmed.

Number Two: Set your own much more punishing deadlines as they are crafty bastards when left to there own devices. I've been at University for two years now and while not as unprepared for it as I was when I first started I am still constantly being caught out by this feeling that I've got a whole month left thats four weekends and I don't have lectures on Wednesdays plenty of time etc. And I ain't the only one, I'm safely in the majority on this one. The funny thing is this seems to get worse the more work I actually do before zero hour. Last time I did half my workload early and then sat on it for awhile so trust me the shorter the time limit the less you'll suffer in the long run.

Number Three: Keep an open mind, short of mankind evolving to the point of developing into some sort of hive mind or gestalt entity there will never be a man who knows everything and has considered every possibility. You will encounter many people from diverse social cultural political backgrounds etc. And even you never know who you'll be forced to work with nor in the case of a debate/argument what they'll come up with. I once had to explain how knives and swords actually work to a bloke who was extolling the virtues of Japanese sword craft, and another time I had to call someone out on how they knew nothing about nuclear devices when the suggested a viable strategy in war was to detonate nuclear bombs in the atmosphere to disable a cities electricity, in the middle of the Cold War, as this would cause less of a stir.

There we go hope someone out there will find this useful.

Nuclear Proliferation and 21st Century Real Politik

It recently been discovered that the United States has been working on a deal to supply Vietnam with access to Nuclear fuel as well as the benefit of US nuclear information and reactor parts in a bid to weaken China's political clout in the region.

Ever since Vietnam embraced "Market Socialism" in a economic restructuring similar to China's under Deng Xiaoping, it has enjoyed economic growth but had a hard time combating inequality and the new demands on its energy networks and turned to nuclear power to fill the holes. A number of companies including from Russia and China were in negotiations for the contracts at the time the US stepped in.


You might notice that this agreement makes the US protestations over the Iranian nuclear program and there "fears" over nuclear proliferation seem farcical would that that were the end of the US and the West's hypocrisy on this matter.

Below is the news story that Turkey and Brazil were able to not only get Iran to agree to a deal that was nearly word for word what the official Western policy was with the exception that Iran could seek compensation if Turkey did not deliver on its part within a certain time. Naturally this deal was seized on by a rejoicing Whitehouse right? Wrong. Obama and Cameron refused to recognise the deal and continued scare-mongering about Islamic atom bombs.

But why you might ask? its simple the US won't accept the deal because it was not present at the talks and neither were any other Western nation safely tucked away in its sphere to look like America's interests were being served. To give there blessing to a deal not brokered by the West or a big power like the old USSR, new Russia or the PRC sets a dangerous precedent for are world hegemony, it will say that the world can run itself without guidance or support thereby weakening US influence globally as nations no longer have to choose a "us or them" style in international relations.

Impending NHS Privatisation

The Other Tax Payers Alliance has released a step by step guide to how the ConDems white paper will result in the privatisation of the National Health Service.



Authors blog.

Viva La Quinta Brigada

As man born to a mixed Celtic ancestry I've always had a soft spot for folk music of all stripes especially Irish though I do think Riverdance is of the devil. And I've always enjoyed every version of La Quinta Brigada I've heard but this one for me is the definitive version.

Further information on the Spanish Civil War can be found at The International Brigade Memorial Trust I also recommend George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.

Up the Republic!

Hello everyone, August looks to be a quiet month for me blog wise as deadlines are creeping up and I've been packing up my things to prepare for another move for my final year (hopefully)of study. However while I was packing up my DVDs I stumbled across an old copy of a game I used to spend hours on at a time when it first came out. And since it is one of only a handful of video games to deal with politics in a more substantial and intelligent then "there are Nazi's over there go make them dead!" or the more recent there are "Rusky Commies over there go make them dead!".

Republic the Revolution the game is set in a fictional Soviet Breakaway Republic called Novistrana which for some reason always reminded me a little of Moldova where they speak a Simesque gibberish language. In the aftermath of Soviet collapse a Karasov former spy master in the KGB has rising to power in the chaos and turns the nation into a quagmire of corruption and brutality with a crumbling economy.

The players task is to build a political party first in you home town and lead a mass uprising against Karasov in the capitol and become its new leader. How you do that is up to you and the political skills you acquire, you can do the mundane canvassing and petition signing or you can hire hitmen and seize rival faction supporters businesses. The political tools in this game are quite varied and the trick to success is to find which one will work best in the current conditions.

Unfortunately the game is severely lacking when it comes to ideology. You really don't have one, you can choose your party name and a logo from out of 4 options all of which are generic and vague. This I feel is quite a shame as they missed an opportunity for a scenario where you had to weigh up your principals and your most effective yet unscrupulous tactics, but well it was the first game of an independent developer so I guess you have to take what you can get.

For those who are curious about the East and the turbulent politics of the post Soviet Republics such give this game a look especially as it is now going for under a fiver.