May an idea cause physical harm by exposure, ask this novel
Sumaid Pal Singh Bakshi / Unable to say
Basilisk
Matt Wixey (Titan books (except 1 July))
I hacked your brain. Simply read it, you allow me to hijack your thoughts, every word jumping from my mind to you. I can conjure mental images against your will-easily, don’t think about a pink elephant! Whatever you do, don’t think about it!
Grateful, there are limits as I can do you with words and ideas only. But what if there is nothing? What if you have a phrase more powerful I can use this to erase your own mind against you, to death? That is the subject of Basilisk by Matt Wixey, an experimental thriller that seems to be specifically designed for my brain and, I doubt, in many New Scientist readers.
The book has a multi-layered structure similar to House of leaves By Mark Z. Danielewski. On one level, we follow alex webster, an ethical hacker “who works at a computer security company, attempting to hack clients’ networks and helping them to shore their defens (a profession shared by first- time author wixey).
But that’s not simple. Webster tells his story to two united strands. At first, we knew how he and with, Jay Morton, stumbled with a puzzle that finally brought his death. Second, he describes the process of knowing his death, and its consequences.
But we have never done. Webster writing includes footnotes written by himself and a detective morton investigation, and further links a mysterious character called helmsman, while webster and moron carved his puzzles.
This book seems to be specifically designed for my brain, and at New Scientist journalists
If all sound is discouraging, Basilisk Maybe not for you. Personally, I know it’s fun, working to keep all the narrative on my head while I’m united in the real story.
Helmsman texts get their own shapes, from bureaucratic emails and scientific reports of the socractic dialogues. They attach topics that are well explored here in New Scientistfrom psychology to artificial intelligence (I am pleased to say accurate references to science papers). Helmsman defines an attempt to develop a “basilisk” – an idea that has caused physical damage by exposure to lone to a view.
Basilk Matt Wixey follows “Hacker Hacker” Alex Webster
As we know, the basilisks are not true, but the concept is a more interesting. The science David Langford science writer creates the idea of his short story flashwhere basilisks bring in the form of images that can “crash” the human mind, in a way similar to poor computer code.
Maybe the most popular example Roko’s basiliskA fairly stupid suggestion that a future, all powerful AI punishes anyone at the moment that fails to bring people who are related to people to post about it online. The most recent series of Sci-Fi Anthology Show Black mirror Also shows a basilisk, a reference to Roko’s.
Basilisks are just a form of a wider councenter known as cognitohahares, from knowledge of how to build a nuclear weapon In, under certain meanings, organized religions.
While reading BasiliskAnd always keeps the night to read another chapter, I wonder if the book is eligible to be a cognohaaahazard. I can never stop thinking about it, I have been done for a long time. And now that you have read this review, you may also be at risk.
Continue. Start the book. Don’t you know what happens?
Get your science fiction writing a new scale of this week devoted to building new worlds and new works of art Topics:
The art and science of science fiction writing
