How to fit in as an Autobot in Human Society by Optimus Prime.

After noticing the Autobots were having some issues adapting to life on Earth, Optimus Prime has written a handy guide for his fellow Autobots to help them co-exist usefully with humans. 

Fitting in is a big problem for any new alien, culture shock is an all too common result of immigration. 

With Out Passport? 

Fresh off the boat? 

How about fresh off the Milky Way!? 

Then you need to read Prime's letter.


How to fit in as an Autobot in Human Society by Optimus Prime.


My fellow Autobots,


We are forever united to human kind by a history long forgotten, and a future we shall face together. I am Optimus Prime, and I send this message to all Autobots so that we can fit in and stop accidentally destroying the homes and cities of these good people. Or stepping on their dogs.


Here's my advice to you all:

• Learn to use language that is appropriate for the context and conversation. For instance, “What’s crackin’ bitches’ might work for the young ones like Sam and Michaela but it won’t work with the President’s Advisor.

A Pink Warrior Goddess, Megan Fox 

• Compliment the men on how smoking hot their warrior goddess princesses are. 
• Cowards like Starscream do survive but Autobots are fearless and stand up to their issues with courage. And pay their parking tickets.
• Try and keep your battles with Decepticons in big wide open areas like forests and deserts. Remember the bill we got for destroying the half the city when we fought Megatron for the All Sparkplug? Still paying it off.
• It was the same fool that once told me that humans don't deserve to live. I beg to differ and that they deserve to choose for themselves! Try not to interfere in human matters. Avoid their petty squabbles about global warming, free trade and globalisation. We know they will eventually have bigger fish to fry and we can keep our powder dry for the day they fall from outerspace. Space Braiiinnnns indeed.
• I saw a documentary on their favourite pet, the Mogwai. The lesson from this film was never ever feed their mogwai after midnight. If you do such a thing you cause terrible things to happen to families at Christmas time and you won’t be getting any presents.
• I’ve said this like a gabillion times but freedom is the right of all sentient beings. So never ever handcuff a human (without their permission of course).
• If you step on someone’s flowers, destroy their house or cyber heaven’s forbid, leak oil lubricant on their dog or mogwai, simply brush it off with a ‘Oops! Sorry, my bad’. This usually has the desired effect of reducing the tension.
• Chicks dig hot cars or hot rods, if you prefer. I suggest we all make sure our alternate modes are sleek and sexed up. Thus, I'm suggesting you make your rod hot for the ladies. They will be sure to want to check you out and so you’ll be sure to fit in. 
• If someone mentions that Voltron rules, feel free to begin smashing them up a bit. Fitting in don’t matter if they be insulting you!
• If you can, appear on the Oprah Winfrey or get a book published in her Book Club. Garner the sympathy angle. Express feelings of distraught about missing your home planet, engergon piklets cooked by your Mumma Prime etc. Remember, Dr Phil is for those losers like Barricade.
• If you’ve got the jokes, go on Letterman. Just don’t to a Joaquin Phoenix or THAT guy from Back to the Future. Feel free to mention the time I single handedly saved the universe.

My Autobot friends, I hope you will be apply to this guide's ideas to help you fit into human society. If they don’t, just show em your guns!


Sincerely,


Optimus Prime
Fearless Leader of the Autobots 
Ex. Defender of Cybertron

Chief Protector of Earth

JJ Reviews: Primordium by Greg Bear

You might have read how much I loved Greg Bear's Halo: Cryptum and that within a short while of reading the last page I had ordered the second in the saga, Primordium.

I'm gonna assume you've read Cryptum too as I review it. So do I need to say spoilars?

JJ Reviews: Primordium by Greg Bear

Opening with a very quick recap of the events of Crytum, it's immeadiately clear that this story is a retelling of an adventure that happened to one of the characters from that novel,  Chakas.

The twist is that he appears to not be himself any more. Is he a collection of thoughts on a disk drive? Has he turned into another being? All, I'm sure is to be revealed.

Chakas finds himself crash landed on a Halo and perhaps almost too quickly falls in love (of a kind) with a local 'inhabitant'.

From memory, the Halo games have never shown us as having intelligent life (other than plants and the odd bird) so this sets up an interesting premise.

But it's a premise that takes a little time to really get into gear. As a hero and his two new best friends seek out the abandoned city where Riser might be found, we basically learn nothing except that there are rabbits on the Halo.

But once we are passed that minor hurdle Greg Bear settles into the narrative, drop nice little hints and references along the way about the Librarian, geas and the unspoken plan to keep the reader interested.

Which is the point of a book right? (You can tell Jimmy Jangles doesn't have a career in book reviewing ahead of him - Ed.)

Finally (and I really do mean finally as it's a bit of a slog) there's a real sinister turn taken where we realise that the Precursor that was revealed to be alive on the last page of Cryptum is alive and well on Halo and seemingly in charge of the bloody thing.

Talk about a bad turn... At least Chakas has found Riser and they start a great journey, the end of which signals the climax of the plot arc.

Things come to a head. Our hero is confronted with saving the Halo so that it can be used against the Foreunners but does he want that?

The ending largely wraps up well, an adventure here, a near death (?) experince there, souls long dead revived through geas to give us context there, an old warrior servant wreaking havoc there and we're done.

The twist, if you could call it that, was obvious and I'd wondered if that was it a few chapters into the main story but fitted in nicely to traditional Halo lore, so I'll give big ups to Greg Bear for that.

Was I satisfied with Primordium? 

Not really. I found the journey to get the climax long and ponderous. Some of the detail in describing things was so vague as to not be helpful and the climax itself was a convoluted array of ghosts, monitors and walking corpses. That said, it was ultimately a good ending, perhaps just not as exciting as that of Cryptum.

I did feel however that Cryptum and Primordium were both written at same time as the same book, just split in two.

I would bet Greg Bear and his 'Halo team' had the trilogy's essential elements well plotted before the writing began (thus meaning a a huge epic novel could have been written - but where's the money in that?!).

Thus the scene is set for the third novel in the The Forerunners Saga.

Or is it? The third, as yet not named book, is going to only be released after Halo 4.... which you might recall Frankie having said the novels feed directly into that game. It will thus be interesting to see how Halo 4's plot will influence or echo that third novel.

Check out my review of Halo 6 or if you're into other science fiction reads, Mortal Engines. Or, see the movie and enjoy Tom Natsworthy's quotes.