February 2010 Meeting Report
February saw the first post-Borders meeting due to the January snow problems. Five of us made it – no snowdrifts this month!
We discussed David Weber’s Bolo! – a collection of stories set around the exploits of the Artificially Intelligent mega-tanks. Robert summarised his notes for us:
Weber is a prolific writer, deeply into military – especially naval – history [Thanks Wikipedia]
This is the first set of stories I’ve read about an AI controlling a weapons system that doesn’t say bad things like “Dave, I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do that”.
Mixed opinions overall: Right-wing techno-fantasy?, some tedious/annoying bits, some engaging stories.
I’d sum up the discussion as “Totally bonkers technology – but quite entertaining.”
Alex offered:
I went into this without a very open mind. The cover alone just screams “our tanks, your horses… who do you think is going to win”. I managed to read one of the collection and, while it was funnier than anticipated (the cynical expectations of the beuracratic system) it still descended into a “my gun’s bigger than your gun” storyline.
The main Bolo character in the story – Nike – was also immensely irritating – I don’t care that it took you 0.23454829 seconds to do something – that’s just bragging and crass. Actually, now I think about it, that seems a remarkably long time but that’s a sign of the age of the book.
There were elements of humour and enjoyment, but overall it wouldn’t survive a theoretical purge.
Finally, NerdStock on BBC Four was mentioned – iPlayer appears to have it available still (2 days).
SciFi Warrington 
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