The most amazing technology I've seen this year. And for a large chunk of last year too.

[andrewducker]

I _think_ that it was the Night's Dawn Trilogy* that had laser projectors that would spot where your eyes are and then project images into them so that you got your own private 3D screen.

Microsoft have made one of those. Ok, so it's not lasers, it's LEDs, but it uses what looks like an industrial Kinect hooked up to LEDs and lenses that spot where your eyes are, use head-tracking to work out what your view should be, and then project the correct view directly at your eyes. And it works with multiple people, so that you can each be watching different things.

I am _very_ impressed.

Looks like it's a few years out at the moment - but when they get the speed and resolution up this will revolutionise computer games (and 3D CAD).

*Which I never made it more than 150 pages into. Should I go back at some point?

Comments

[gominokouhai]

> I _think_ that it was the Night's Dawn Trilogy* that had laser projectors

You're thinking of Snow Crash.

> Which I never made it more than 150 pages into

I read the first one in 24 hours because I thought it was AWESOME. Somehow never bothered to pick up the other two in the last twelve years, though, so not exactly compelling.

[ironjeff]

The folks who make helmet sights for fighter aircraft have been trying to work the bugs out of this idea for at least 15 years (that I know of). Writing visual data directly onto the pilot's retinas (retinae?) would allow them to drop a LOT of weight out of those helmets, kind of important to do if you don't want the pilot to break his or her neck when they have to eject...

As always, leave it to the consumer electronics folks to accomplish what megabucks of defense spending (in at least 4 countries, just counting "The Free World") could not...

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Night's Dawn trilogy: I've read the first two. Fantastic ideas. Very clever writer. But...

So, so big. Genuinely daunting. While I find something like 'A Song of Ice and Fire' easy to read and follow, I struggle with the sheer number of point-of-view characters, non-point-of-view characters, themes, events and technologies in Hamilton's work.

If the massive trilogy had been edited into something like a 12 volume series of normal-sized books with fewer characters in each book, I think I would really love it. As it is, although I will definitely want to read the third book, it's way down my to-be-read pile.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

How does Night's Dawn compare to the Commonwealth Saga or the Void books? I loved those but it seems Night's Dawn might be a step too far in terms of characters, plot threads, etc (and the other two series weren't exactly short on separate story strands).

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Haven't read them I'm afraid. I quite liked the first of his Greg Mandel series of SF detective stories.

[simont]

Which I never made it more than 150 pages into. Should I go back at some point?

I would say no, because I thought the Night's Dawn trilogy consisted of a mediocre plot set in a really cool universe, and the first 150 pages of the first book are by far the best part because he's still just introducing the universe and hasn't started the main plot yet.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Which I never made it more than 150 pages into. Should I go back at some point?

Dear gods no. In addition to Hamilton being hideously conservative (which shows at various points), once you get to the whole ghost of Al Copone and etc... you've gone from SF to a genre best described as graphically violent gonzo nonsense.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

He's no more "hideously conservative" than many other SF writers*. I'm sort of with you on the Capone thing (I was trying to avoid spoilers though!) and the books (especially the second half of the first one) are very violent.



* Incidentally you touch on something here which I've pondered in my own blog - to what extent do you need to agree with an author's views to appreciate his work. See my post (and the comments from others) here:
http://philmophlegm.livejournal.com/158811.html

I'm guessing from your comment that a) you see being "conservative" as a bad thing and b) that you are someone who does need to (or at least prefers to) agree with an author's views to appreciate his work. Would that be the case? I want to stress (like I did in the original post) that there's not necessarily anything wrong in this - just that it is a different way of relating to authors than my own.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I'm often willing to ignore the fact that an author holds beliefs that I find reprehensible if these beliefs are in now way obvious in their work. However, with Hamilton, you have his novel Mindstar Rising, where the UK is recovering from rule by Eeevvviiillll socialists, and where right-wing ideology is clearly correct - those sorts of inclusions cause me to rapidly cease reading a novel, even if it was good (other than the vile politics, the first quarter of Mindstar Rising was pretty damn mediocre). I don't remember anything quite so extreme in the first Night's Dawn book (which I attempted to read first), but I do remember that his generally dubious (at best) portrayal of female characters, and a few other bits in the model made me think he was likely pretty far to the right - then I saw Mindstar Rising, and have never looked at another book by him.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I quite liked the Mindstar Rising setting. For one thing I thought it made a change for the evil authoritarians to be left-wing. So often in SF (especially British SF), the evil authoritarians are 'right-wing'*, especially if the author is trying to be allegorical. Of course my own political views do probably (sub-consciously or not) colour this since I would consider myself to be very much a right-wing libertarian, and therefore far closer to Hamilton's views than you are. Still, I also have Alan Moore's V for Vendetta on the to-read shelf in my library and that has the evil authoritarians as the more traditional right-wingers.

It seems to me that there is room for both right and left-wing views in literature and especially in speculative fiction.



* Or are thinly-veiled Nazis**, but discussions of whether the German National Socialists were right-wing or left-wing is rather outside the scope of this thread.

** See the Doctor Who story 'Genesis of the Daleks' for a good example of this.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

I have the Night's Dawn trilogy. Good up to the point where the choice of head bad guy and the overtly religious themes annoyed the fuck out of me. Oh and his characterisation (particularly of women) sucks. I made it to the and but it was a hard slog. The Greg Mandel stuff is a bit better - the best, for me, is actually the short story collectin "Second Chance at Eden".

The other newer saga I managed the first book but it was hard work, the shitty cardboard characterisation just wound me up too much. I can cope with Greg Egan's style where the characters are purely there to allow exposition of a neat idea, or even Steven Baxter, where he doesn't aim for much more than that - but Hamilton aims - and horrifcally misses... (IMO)

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Sony has a simpler version of that kind of display out already, with their PS3 display -- two people wearing glasses see two completely different full-screen 3D images. :)