[continued from previous message]   
      
   if not chuckling, throughout).  The police are called in--and they   
   are all robots, by the way--and a scene right out of Monty Python   
   occurs as the police try to decide just what is going on and what   
   to do with Charles (the Keystone Kops may also come to mind, but   
   this little scene is much more refined and organized than those   
   cops ever were).  Eventually he is banished by House, and is sent   
   to Central Services in order to be repaired.  However, now that   
   his Master is dead and he has no more job, he eventually takes on   
   the name of UnCharles, which of course is a statement that now   
   that he doesn't have employment he is not a real robot.  Central   
   Services turns out to be a mess, as no services are provided at   
   all, for reasons which are revealed during his time there.   
      
   Thus begins UnCharles' journey to find out just what is wrong in   
   the world, and to find employment as a valet robot, as that is   
   what he is programmed for and thus that is all that he can do.  He   
   is accompanied on and off by the Wonk, a sidekick who flits in and   
   out of the story who insists that UnCharles has the Protagonist   
   Virus, and thus is becoming a free and sentient being.  UnCharles   
   is having none of it, and in fact thinks that the Wonk is a   
   defective robot.  Like any other good sidekick, the Wonk comes in   
   and out of the story at just the right time to help UnCharles   
   along on his journey of not only self-discovery but of discovery   
   of just what happened to the world.   
      
   For the world has collapsed.  Nothing is working right.  In fact,   
   there are no human beings to be found anywhere, except maybe the   
   Conservation Farms Project, a museum-like place where humans are   
   re-enacting the way life was in the past as a sort of historical   
   preservation society.  The problem is that the humans are   
   "conscripted volunteers", and they demonstrate the drab and   
   lifeless way of life via endless commuting and office meetings.   
   Even the Central Library, a repository of all human knowledge, is   
   run by robots who store human knowledge in a very strange and   
   useless fashion.  There are no human beings to be found.   
      
   SERVICE MODEL is a tale of what can happen to a world when the   
   robots become too good at their jobs because, in part, they are   
   following their programs to the letter which is of course what   
   they are supposed to do.  The further along in the book we get,   
   the more the world is a wasteland.  Meanwhile, UnCharles just   
   wants to find meaningful employment as a valet robot, because that   
   is all he really knows how to do.  It's also a cautionary tale (I   
   think I said that in a previous review of a Tchaikovsky book) of   
   what can happen when humankind tries to make life too easy for   
   itself.  We all want our lives to be easier, a little less   
   stressful, and a little more restful.  However, SERVICE MODEL   
   tells us that we should be careful what we ask for, and that maybe   
   we need a little challenge in our lives to find meaning.   
      
   I mentioned earlier that the novel is humorous.  It is, but I   
   wouldn't call it a comedy, unless we want to call it a comedy of   
   the absurd.  Having been a software developer for a good portion   
   of my career, it was funny to me to see where things were going   
   and where they would probably end up based on what Tchaikovsky is   
   telling us about how the world is ordered via the software in   
   place in the robots.  It's a funny book at times, but not over the   
   top.  And I don't think Tchaikovsky was aiming for that.   
      
   SERVICE MODEL is a good book--not great, but good.  It's well   
   worth your time.   
      
   Tchaikovsky himself does a serviceable job narrating SERVICE   
   MODEL.  He does a pretty good job differentiating robot voices so   
   that you know what robot you're listening to or what mood the   
   robot is trying to convey.  He does a really good Eeyore robot.   
   Trust me.  [-jak]   
      
   ===================================================================   
      
   TOPIC: METAMORPHOSIS (letter of comment by Arthur Kaletsky)   
      
   In response to the announcement of METAMORPHOSIS for the book   
   discussion group 10/25/24 issue of the MT VOID, Arthur Kaletsky   
   writes:   
      
   May I , from another continent, respectfully suggest that two   
   brilliant and very hilarious riffs on METAMORPHOSIS be included in   
   the Halloween discussion?  They are Philip Roth's THE BREAST and   
   Irvine Welsh's "Granton Star Cause" (the latter collected in THE   
   ACID HOUSE)?  [-ak]   
      
   Evelyn adds:   
      
   THE ACID HOUSE was made into a film incorporating all four stories   
   in it.  It is available on Tubi.  [-ecl]   
      
   ===================================================================   
      
   TOPIC: Historical Advisors (letters of comment by Hal Heydt and   
   Keith F. Lynch)   
      
   In response to Evelyn's comments on GLADIATOR in the 10/18/24   
   issue of the MT VOID, Hal Heydt writes:   
      
   [Evelyn wrote,] "In fact, the professor hired as a historical   
   advisor for the film asked to have her name removed from the   
   credits when she discovered that her function was to provide   
   support for what the filmmakers wanted to do (e.g., have female   
   gladiators who fought with razor blades on their nipples) rather   
   than to help them get the film to be accurate.  [-ecl]   
      
   Dorothy was once told, by someone in the business, that the sole   
   and exclusive purpose of a studio Research Department was to   
   answer one--and only one--question: Can this get us sued?  [-hh]   
      
   Keith F. Lynch responded:   
      
   I'd think that for historical fiction, the answer is always no.   
   Under our system, nobody can sue when a dead person is defamed.   
      
   Otherwise, the heirs of Gus Grissom would have sued the producers   
   of THE RIGHT STUFF into the poorhouse.  [-kfl]   
      
   ===================================================================   
      
   TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)   
      
   FROM GIBBON TO AUDEN: ESSAYS ON THE CLASSICAL TRADITION by G. W.   
   Bowersock (Oxford University Press, ISBN 97-0-19-537667-8) is an   
   example of why it is dangerous to read history books: they lea you   
   down a rabbit hole.  The bibliographies are risky, of course, but   
   even more so are the works mentioned and discussed in the text.   
   For example, in the first chapter ("Gibbon's Historical   
   Imagination") Bowersock writes about Henry Edwards Davis's "An   
   Examination of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of Mr.   
   Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"   
   (which attacked Gibbon's scholarship) and Gibbon's own response,   
   "A Vindication of Some Passages in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth   
   Chapters of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman   
   Empire".  I decided I wanted to read these, but they were both   
   written in the eighteenth century and neither was in Project   
   Gutenberg.  The "Examination" is available in book form, but at a   
   higher price than I want to pay, so my option here is a scan of   
   the original text in Google Books.  Have you ever tried reading   
   eighteenth text?  The font is unfriendly, and all those 's's that   
   look like 'f's are not helping.  And it's over three hundred pages   
   of this.  The "Vindication" is available in PDF form, which could   
   be converted to text, plus it is not over three hundred pages long.   
      
   So I may report on these, depending on whether I decide to slog   
   through the "Examination".   
      
   And that was from just the first chapter of Bowersock.   
      
   Bowersock also compares Suetonius and Plutarch, discusses the   
   discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and talks about Andrea de   
   Jorio's 1832 analysis of sign language in ancient Rome and   
   (then-)modern Naples.  I had hoped for more from the last,   
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)