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Because two straight nights of reading until 4am were not enough for this long, dense, thrilling book.

It’s so good, the choice was down to wants vs needs: Hot guys dancing in state of near-undress Vs the survival of the human race. To be exact, how the survival of the human race depends on Nerds.

Neal Stephenson’s latest doorstop opens with the moon breaking up, not with a bang but with a “Holy crap, where’d the moon go?” At first life goes on as usual except with more people looking at the sky, and then scientists realize that the Earth is doomed. (No, it’s not the tides or gravity.) There must be a mass evacuation of the planet using existing technology and resources. Seveneves is not so much science-fiction as a what-if scenario.

The first third of the book goes into the logistics of putting people into orbit and keeping them alive in the 5,000 to 10,000 years that Earth will be uninhabitable. This must be done in two months, which means that everyone must work together and there is no time for argument or democratic consultation. Step aside, politicians, this doomsday scenario calls for Nerds. (This is why national leaders should be intelligent people who will consider public opinion but will make their own decisions.)

Read our column at InterAksyon.com.

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A couple of things the proofreaders missed:

On p629 of the William Morrow edition, “Moira” should be “Kath Two” or “the Moiran.” On p778, “Julia” should be “Ariane” or “the Julian”. There are other instances in which characters are confused with their ancestor.

Due to inclement weather.

On the other hand, you have another week to enroll in the workshop.

New workshop schedule:
July 16, 23 and last day (TO BE ANNOUNCED)
6:30pm to 8:30pm, Ayala Museum

For inquiries, email Marj at villaflores.md@ayalafoundation.org.

We just finished The Wachowskis’ Sense 8. Think of it as Cloud Atlas with fairly graphic sex. You have to hand it to the Wachowskis: they will do what they want to do. Even their “failures” are more interesting than other people’s blockbusters.

Up next: The Man in the High Castle is based on Philip K. Dick’s classic alternate history in which the Axis powers won WWII. It’s produced by Ridley Scott, the most successful adapter for film of PDK’s work. Lots of PDK stories have been filmed – Total Recall (We Can Remember It For You Wholesale), Minority Report, Paycheck, The Adjustment Bureau, A Scanner Darkly (the rotoscoped Linklater—not bad), etc, but Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) is still the best of the lot despite changes to the story (and to itself, you know how many versions were released).

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson is available at National Bookstores, Php1049.

We were reading a different book when we happened to read the first page of Neal Stephenson’s latest, and ended up abandoning the earlier book temporarily. A large section of his 90s novel Crytonomicon took place in the Philippines; this one has a Filipino plant geneticist character.

At Tina’s birthday brunch someone mentioned that due to the One Child policy in China and the common preference for male children, there will be, if there isn’t already, an imbalance in the male to female ratio in their population. Apparently if ultrasound tests showed that the fetus was female, many couples chose to terminate the pregnancy and try again for a male child. Leading to a shortage of females.

Right now our relations with China are strained due to territorial disputes. We know they are bigger, stronger, richer than we are. However, we are not entirely powerless in this situation. We have leverage: our culture is the friendliest, least xenophobic on the planet, and we have a surplus of females who have difficulty finding suitable partners because the most attractive ones are gay.

Therefore it is in the best interest of both countries to maintain friendly relations. Filipinas need husbands, and the Chinese need wives. In fact, their need is greater than ours. Due to systemic ineptitude in the job market, Filipinas have been migrating to other countries for decades, and they have no trouble finding husbands abroad (Hence our entertainment personalities and national sports teams). Filipinos have an excellent track record at marrying foreigners; the Chinese not so much. But the Chinese need to marry because unless their cloning capabilities can make up the shortfall, they’re going to be underpopulated in a generation or so.

So be nice to the Filipinos, because who do you think you’re going to marry?

This is our idea so we get dibs on Tony Leung provided he still looks like the 2046 edition.

Gillian Anderson as Hannibal’s psychiatrist and Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter

Critics have long come to terms with the fact that reviews have little impact on audience numbers: it may even be argued that lousy reviews translate to stupendous box-office, as demonstrated most recently by Jurassic World. A couple of weeks ago, Hannibal returned for its third season of exquisite butchery; shortly after that, NBC announced that the series created by Bryan Fuller was cancelled.

The cancellation of Hannibal wasn’t a big surprise, even to viewers who went into raptures over the cannibal’s culinary and interior design skills. Fuller’s adaptation of the Hannibal Lecter books by Thomas Harris constantly tested network standards and practices by showing us cadavers in artistic arrangements, like a Venice Biennale of Death. More that that, its ratings were very low. The Hannibal cult—you are few, but you know what goes with fava beans and a good Chianti—need not worry as the show will certainly find a new home on cable or on the increasing number of online media providers

I thought of Hannibal last week when I came home to find blood splatter on the floor. My cat housemates, who have been play-fighting for years, miscalculated their posing and made actual contact, leaving one of them with a bloody nose. As I scrubbed away at the dried stains, I wondered how the fastidious Dr. Lecter cleaned up his post-murder messes, and so quickly, too. Did he always carry plastic sheets and bleach? Pop culture has mythologized serial killers as geniuses, but perhaps their most amazing quality is their housecleaning acumen.

Read our TV column The Binge at BusinessWorld.

Plus: What Hannibal’s cancellation—and possible renewal—tells us about the future of TV.

The “Let Blaine Die” SWOT analysis is priceless.

The toughest movies to review are those that you neither hate nor love. When someone asks what you think of the movie, you reply, “Okay lang.” I don’t like saying, “Okay lang” because I trade in opinions and that is a cop-out. Therefore, I will apply a cold business decision-making process to figure out how I feel about The Break-Up Playlist, the new film by director-cinematographer Dan Villegas and screenwriter Antoinette Jadaone, starring Sarah Geronimo and Piolo Pascual. The team made English Only, Please, which I liked, and Jadaone wrote and directed That Thing Called Tadhana, which did not suck but which caused me to have an out-of-body experience from tedium.

The process is called SWOT Analysis, and I learned it from the TV show Silicon Valley. SWOT means “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats”. My question is: Do I like The Break-Up Playlist?

Read our review at InterAksyon.com.