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Bilirubin posted:Just finished Snow Crash. Was good. Finished your review of Snow Crash. Was good.
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May 15, 2017 13:20
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The Grey posted:Octagon by Fred Saberhagen Octagon was written as a joke. The game in the book is in fact a real game called Starweb that existed in the old days of Play By Mail. Players have a hidden role that determines how they score, and one of those roles is as one of Saberhagen's Berserkers. However, nobody bothered to ask permission to do so and while Saberhagen wasn't totally upset when he found out he wrote the book as a teensy bit of punishment.
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May 15, 2017 15:00
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Bilirubin posted:Just finished Snow Crash. Was good. That's the book widely considered the origin of Cyberpunk, right?
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May 15, 2017 17:03
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El Marrow posted:That's the book widely considered the origin of Cyberpunk, right? I thought that was Neuromancer?
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May 15, 2017 17:07
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VelociBacon posted:I thought that was Neuromancer? It was Neuromancer. Neuromancer came out in 1984 and Snow Crash not until 1992; by 1992 there had been a lot of cyberpunk in between (including Sterling-edited Mirrorshades and Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired).
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May 15, 2017 17:30
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ulmont posted:It was Neuromancer. Neuromancer came out in 1984 and Snow Crash not until 1992; by 1992 there had been a lot of cyberpunk in between (including Sterling-edited Mirrorshades and Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired). Ah ok gotcha. Exploring the origins of that world has been on my list for a while.
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May 15, 2017 18:19
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Jedit posted:Octagon was written as a joke. The game in the book is in fact a real game called Starweb that existed in the old days of Play By Mail. Players have a hidden role that determines how they score, and one of those roles is as one of Saberhagen's Berserkers. However, nobody bothered to ask permission to do so and while Saberhagen wasn't totally upset when he found out he wrote the book as a teensy bit of punishment. That's really interesting. I figured Starweb was an actual game but didn't know the history behind this. One of the other "jokes" Saberhagen put in the book then is he called the company that created Starweb "Berserkers Inc." and said they named themselves after a successful sci-fi author they were fans of.
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May 16, 2017 00:24
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El Marrow posted:Ah ok gotcha. Exploring the origins of that world has been on my list for a while. Snow Crash is one of the seminal works of cyberpunk, so you should still read it.
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May 16, 2017 01:18
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funkybottoms posted:Snow Crash is one of the seminal works of cyberpunk, so you should still read it. That actually sounds like a good reason to not read it
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May 16, 2017 04:59
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I still really don't understand what cyberpunk is or how it would be fun to read about, so I have to side with a human heart on this (Lord/Satan help me)
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May 16, 2017 05:00
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Franchescanado posted:I still really don't understand what cyberpunk is or how it would be fun to read about, so I have to side with a human heart on this (Lord/Satan help me) I think it's one of those things that has to hit you at a certain point in your life, like a lot of fantasy/scifi stuff tbh. I'm 32 and came to adolescence watching Johnny Mnemonic and right as the internet etc was developing into what it is. It's still a guilty pleasure but I love me some cyberpunk.
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May 16, 2017 05:35
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I can understand cyberpunk in a visual medium, like film or even video games, but reading about it sounds about as fun as hearing about someone's golf game.
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May 16, 2017 05:43
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VelociBacon posted:It's still a guilty pleasure but I love me some cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is dated in that a lot of the bits, for better or worse, are just real life these days.
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May 16, 2017 05:44
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ulmont posted:Cyberpunk is dated in that a lot of the bits, for better or worse, are just real life these days. Isn't there a bit in a Stephenson novel about a dude having to run for his life over an incredibly sophisticated flash drive that can hold a whopping 125 megabytes?
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May 16, 2017 05:45
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Franchescanado posted:Isn't there a bit in a Stephenson novel about a dude having to run for his life over an incredibly sophisticated flash drive that can hold a whopping 125 megabytes? Possibly, but I think you're confusing it with Johnny Mnemonic's 160GB of cranial storage.
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May 16, 2017 05:49
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ulmont posted:Possibly, but I think you're confusing it with Johnny Mnemonic's 160GB of cranial storage. Well, for most goon's that a pretty high mark. To contribute, I read T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets on vacation, and they were excellent. The Dry Salvages was the highlight of my weekend.
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May 16, 2017 05:53
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VelociBacon posted:I think it's one of those things that has to hit you at a certain point in your life, like a lot of fantasy/scifi stuff tbh. I'm 32 and came to adolescence watching Johnny Mnemonic and right as the internet etc was developing into what it is. It's still a guilty pleasure but I love me some cyberpunk. 32 and coming of age during the beginnings of the internet describes 90% if people on this forum. I don't really know what cyberpunk is or how its different from other forms of science fiction Anyway I just finished The Crying of Lot 49
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May 16, 2017 08:31
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fridge corn posted:Anyway I just finished The Crying of Lot 49 Book fuckin' owns. The twisty conspiracy stuff is delightful.
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May 16, 2017 09:10
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Just finished Hillbilly Elegy. Was very disappointed, the book was highly recommended, but I found it to be pretty terrible, and the author to be completely up his own rear end.
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May 18, 2017 00:44
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Franchescanado posted:I still really don't understand what cyberpunk is or how it would be fun to read about, so I have to side with a human heart on this (Lord/Satan help me) Cyberpunk describes life on the margins/underclass of a world transformed by networked computers, machine intelligence, and super powerful corporations. In the Gibson mold it's characterized by noir influences, glossy detached prose with an eye for beauty in the action of machinery and contrast between the ultratechnological and profanely ordinary. It basically became nonfiction so it's kinda 'so what' now
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May 18, 2017 01:47
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General Battuta posted:Cyberpunk describes life on the margins/underclass of a world transformed by networked computers, machine intelligence, and super powerful corporations. In the Gibson mold it's characterized by noir influences, glossy detached prose with an eye for beauty in the action of machinery and contrast between the ultratechnological and profanely ordinary. The guys who make the Deus Ex series of computer games talked about this a year or two back. It was hard to market a cyberpunk RPG because pretty much everything that distinguishes cyberpunk as a genre of science fiction has become a part of real life.
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May 18, 2017 01:52
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I feel like the geek who would be really invested in the "empowered hacker living on the edge surrounded by sheeple" fantasy is also just into zombie apocalypse scenarios now.
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May 18, 2017 02:09
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The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of Crime and Punishment. Once more I lament for my complete lack of literature education in the southeastern United States, because only now do I see how much I like Dostoevsky.
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May 21, 2017 00:45
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Frankenstein. Pretty meh.
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May 21, 2017 14:15
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Sandwolf posted:Frankenstein. lol
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May 21, 2017 17:30
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Sandwolf posted:Frankenstein. Would you go so far as to call the book a monstrosity?  Also, what are TBB's general thoughts towards David Gemmell? I've just been recommended his books by a colleague after talking about the Witcher (novel) series. (I'm reading The Black Company next, but you never know - there might be a spot free, after that)
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May 22, 2017 10:00
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Major Isoor posted:Would you go so far as to call the book a monstrosity? Nah, it was pretty good from an internal philosophy perspective, duality of man as a god, stealing something from the gods but doing it imperfectly. Just a lot of waxing philosophical, I get it Victor, you love scenes of nature and narcissism.
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May 22, 2017 12:21
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I just finished The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch. It's set in a small Bavarian town in the mid-1700s. A child's body washes up from the river with a mark tattooed on him, and the story focuses on the town hangman and the town doctor's son as they try to catch the child's killer. Despite the book being named after her, the hangman's daughter is mostly a love interest for the doctor's son. She's not useless by any means, but she's definitely not as major a character as the book's title would suggest. I think it's part of a series, so maybe she has a bigger role in later books. I only paid 99p for the Kindle version, so I wasn't expecting much going in. That said, I was pleasantly surprised - the setting and most of the main characters are fleshed out well, and the plot's engaging enough if a little prone to characters forgetting and remembering things at convenient times. It was originally written in German, and the English translation for the most part is also pretty good - barring one or two odd turns of phrase dotted here and there.
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May 22, 2017 23:54
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The Library At Mount Char by Scott Hawkins. I really enjoyed this. Original, daring, and absolutely bugfuck. Robot Wendigo fucked around with this message at 00:35 on May 23, 2017 |
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May 23, 2017 00:25
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The Space Between Our Hearts - Kat Evans Lesbian Romance novel. Was never really into this genre but met the author and decided to give it a try. It was a good read and was good enough in my opinion to read her other work Sizzle.
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May 23, 2017 01:04
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Do you, like, is that just for jacking off, or like what
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May 23, 2017 05:09
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okraslayer posted:The Space Between Our Hearts - Kat Evans How did you meet the author?
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May 23, 2017 08:10
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Looked in the mirror. That's right, I'm claiming a self-published author burnt ten bucks to plug their stuff under false pretenses. No I cannot back that up.
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May 23, 2017 09:13
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A Head Full of Ghosts, by Paul Tremblay I liked it. Its surprises weren't mind blowing, but I enjoyed the way events were questioned within the text, as well as the possible multiple interpretations it invites. I probably would have liked it even better if I hadn't read We Have Always Lived in the Castle first, but it felt like an interesting nod to a better work. A Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky This was excellent! I was looking for something bleak and unsettling, and this delivered. One section dragged, but overall the narrative was tight enough to keep that from being a big issue. This book hosed me up in ways I did not anticipate, and did its work well.
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May 23, 2017 17:02
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I've been working on some of the 33 1/3 books, which are a whole series of short books, each about a specific album's creation. So far I've read the Let it Be and Exile on Main St books, both of which were pretty good. Looking forward to breaking out of the classic rock though, next up are In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and either Paul's Boutique or Bowie's Low album. I've been particularly enjoying reading a physical book (as opposed to an ebook) while laying in bed at night and listening to the album that I'm reading about. Also about 3/4 through a reread of American Gods, which I'd only read once before when it first came out. It's not quite as good as I remember but it's still really enjoyable.
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May 23, 2017 18:12
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Lawen posted:I've been working on some of the 33 1/3 books, which are a whole series of short books, each about a specific album's creation. So far I've read the Let it Be and Exile on Main St books, both of which were pretty good. Looking forward to breaking out of the classic rock though, next up are In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and either Paul's Boutique or Bowie's Low album. I really loved the one for Flood by They Might Be Giants, but probably because they're my favorite band.
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May 23, 2017 18:18
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A human heart posted:How did you meet the author? I work as a rural carrier part time and she is on one of the routes I work on. Noticed she was getting a lot of mail for some other name and asked her about it.. Just making sure she wasn't getting the wrong mail... Turns out it was for her pen name and told me about her side hustle of writing this sort of lit. She also let me in on some of her other works she has not published yet a bio bit and youth books. As for what did I enjoy about it. It is kinda romance / just good fiction.. Not exactly "50 shades of gray" stuff. I like fiction to begin with so it tickled that part of the brain fine. The characters where there and I actually gave a dam about what happened to them & had enough of a mystery /detective vibe that I enjoyed it. I wold have never picked up a book like this just off the shelf or searched for it online, but since I met the author and she seemed cool & did a good pitch for book I gave it chance. Besides I have amazon kindle unlimited so didn't cost me anything outside of subscription already. Just wish there was a paper back copy & have her sign it.
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May 23, 2017 19:46
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Greg Egan's Permutation City. Really enjoyed in, high concept sci-fi that got very weird at the end but still made sense. It's the second Egan book I've read and he's already become a firm fave of mine. It's very much a book about the concepts it explores, rathern than characters or a direct plot. (which is either a huge red warning flag or something you enjoy). Liked the flow and he doesn't get info dumpy about the ideas in the book. It deals with "Copies" - emulated versions of human minds, looking at a world of digital haves and have nots, the nature of self and the mind. And from there is gets really out there, in a pleasing brain bending way.
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May 23, 2017 20:18
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DroneRiff posted:Greg Egan's Permutation City. Really enjoyed in, high concept sci-fi that got very weird at the end but still made sense. It's the second Egan book I've read and he's already become a firm fave of mine. Egan's quite something. He's a real science fiction author: so much of SF is cowboys / cops / Hornblower / etc in space but he's totally about science and strange stuff that happens as a consequence. For my taste, he gradually gets too lost in the ideas and info dumps as time goes by (a friend joked about "the obligatory point in an Egan novel where the characters question the ontological basis of their own reality") but it's still amazing stuff.
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May 23, 2017 22:24
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okraslayer posted:I work as a rural carrier part time and she is on one of the routes I work on. Noticed she was getting a lot of mail for some other name and asked her about it.. Just making sure she wasn't getting the wrong mail... Turns out it was for her pen name and told me about her side hustle of writing this sort of lit. She also let me in on some of her other works she has not published yet a bio bit and youth books. So did you jack off
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May 23, 2017 23:13
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