MichelleD said:
I think Obsessed was the one where Sam met Donna in a bar...Which wasn't something Sam would have done either. Al was smart, and he would have had to be to be involved in with a project like Sam's. As was pointed out people are smart in different ways though. Of course they had things in common, but they were different enough to keep things interesting too.
If that's true than I haven't read it yet as it's not in my knowledge. This may be a re-read but it's been easily 3-4 years since I last read them.
Agreed that Sam is portrayed not only a bit too self centered but quite a but too shy. He's made out to be downright phobic to being touched particularly by Donna and while yeah he can be uncomfortable with physical intimacy that's only when he doesn't know or isn't sincere about the other person. With Donna I heavily doubt he'd be uncomfortable the way they made him.
Personally I believe
Mirror's Edge was amazing, and that for that situation Sam had been characterized well. It makes sense that he'd be growing tired and frustrated with leaping.
Perhaps his being a workaholic pre-leap is questionable especially when it interfered with being with his family and having sex with Donna but it's not exactly impossible given what had to be put into this project to make it function.
One novel while enjoyable that I do feel Al was heavily over irritable is
Double or Nothing but then again that entire story was just eh for me. I also felt the selfish portion of Sam which had leaped into one of TWO leapees (identical twins who were rivals) was also written overly cruel. Come to think of it I have not written my review of this one here at its thread yet. I might do that.
I disagree, Al easily had a very high IQ. Just think about what he said in the Genesis
Sam: Can't you just fade in or something?
Al: You tell me how to "fade in" agitated carbon quarks, and I'll make the scientific journals.
Sam: Just don't sneak up on me!
Writing scientific journal articles is incredibly difficult, even if Sam could explain it to Al, Al would still have to do a great deal of research to be able to write it up and have it published...
While I am not disagreeing (since he also did define a quark in 'Shock Theater' to Jesse Tyler/Sam) don't forget that he can at times be sarcastic with such comments.
By the way I said Al might have the lowest IQ
ON THE PROJECT. Having the lowest IQ on the project wouldn't necessarily mean he has a low IQ. There's a difference. Put Al in a room full of under educated homeless people, like Tibby of
'Shock Theater' for example and he'd probably have the highest there.
Obviously to have been hired by Sam Al's IQ is higher than the average person.
In turn though Sam has probably the highest IQ in existence if you placed him in a room full of 'Baywatch' trivia masters, he'd probably be an idiot. Since I don't see 'Baywatch' being his thing hehe. There are a lot of areas where even Sam doesn't know the first thing,
'Thou Shalt Not' for example, the Jewish practices at the Bat Mitzvah. Doesn't mean he wasn't still intelligent.
Also all those mentions of Quarks and fading in, whose to say Al knew all that before he met Sam. Also recall in
'Glitter Rock' how he couldn't even pronounce Schizophrenia let alone knew what it was.
The idea that Al knew that answer while Sam couldn't entertain it is still intriguing because given Sam's background he probably attended Church with his family so for him to lack so much faith compared to a man who lost it after he believed it betrayed him is pretty amazing.
I guess I shouldn't have made the IQ reference, it really isn't important.
My point was simply that I love how Al had seemed to know the answer before Sam even leaped so they hadn't needed one yet.