Glenn Yeffeth

The word “cyberspace” was coined by William Gibson in his 1982 science-fiction short story “Burning Chrome”, and in his first novel, Neuromancer, he used “matrix” to describe the same thing. In Gibson’s books it’s the technological equivalent of a drug-induced hallucination, an addictive virtual realm into which computer hackers escape from real life. The film The Matrix later switched this around: it’s where we all are, right now, unknowingly living out our so-called “lives”.
    So what is The Matrix? The simple answer is that it is a science-fiction action film, replete with Hollywood special effects, fight scenes, guns and chase sequences, written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski and released in 1999. It is also a whole lot more though: it’s intelligent, philosophical even—but what does it mean? Is it a metaphor, or literally true; is it just science fiction, philosophy—or theology even? This book is a collection of fourteen essays loosely (very loosely in some cases) aimed at answering that.
    Some see the film as:

• Metaphysics: “What is the Matrix?” is also the question which propels the film’s hero, Thomas Anderson, down his rabbit hole; it’s a film about the true nature of reality.
• Or a religious parable for the new millennium; full of Christian imagery, a messiah story.
• Or Buddhism, although only superficially—the film glories in some pretty graphic ultra-slow “bullet time” violence, which is hardly part of the Buddhist (or Christian) teachings.
• Or a film, not about the future at all, but about the unreality of the way we live now—modern life as a kind of dreamworld imposed on us by the rich and powerful.
• Or, simply, as a pretentious, pseudo-intellectual excuse for violence on the cinema screen.

Other essays have a more tenuous connection to the film though (the possible future of technology for example, both optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints).
    There are some well-known contributors here, science fiction’s Robert Sawyer and inventor Ray Kurzweil among them, and the final essay is by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom who considers the question of whether we could all be living in a gigantic Matrix-like simulation already. Interesting read overall.… (altro)

As always, when reading a collection from many different contributors, it's impossible to like them all equally. My favorite essays were written by Roxanne Longstreet Conrad (loved her frisky creativity), Scott Westerfeld (his ideas about story types intrigued me), Laura Resnick (liked her writing and it rang true to me), Justine Larbalestier (really loved her voice and her "festival" ideas), Kevin Andrew Murphy (interesting behind-the-scenes info about making the show), Christie Golden (another fresh and frisky voice, explaining just why Willow isn't a Wiccan) and Lawrence Watt-Evans (offering an unexpected choice for a Buffy love interest).

Several of the other essays were interesting enough but not standouts, and a couple didn't support their arguments very well or took things to a weird, and in my opinion, overly-serious level.

Also, the intro by Drew Goddard had me laughing out loud.

Fun collection and a must-read for Buffy fans.… (altro)