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I think this conversation between the hero and his talking horse tells you most of what you need to know about The Waters Rising:quote:“Oh, mares,” said Blue, shaking his head. “They always have to be whinnied into it. Or . . . subdued.”
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Feb 27, 2014 14:20
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The line “Why, Blue, that's rape” combined with that this person is talking to a horse makes this all feel like some very, very dark humor in a children's cartoon parody.
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Feb 27, 2014 15:41
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Guess rape horses aren't getting sent to the unperson death camps 
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Feb 27, 2014 16:00
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CaptainCrunch posted:On the many, many, recommendations of this thread I finally read Blindsight. I just finished it last night as well. It was really exciting and well-written and I'm going to read his rifters series soon, but I don't buy the whole sentience is a disadvantage idea, even though the extensive list of citations in the acknowledgements were pretty interesting to look through. e: What I really like about Watts is how he obviously puts a lot of effort into at least seeming like he knows what he's talking about in terms of the science in his books. I don't actually know how accurate it is, but it's pretty rare that an author includes a complete explanation of every source of inspiration/information for all the science they wrote about. regularizer fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Feb 27, 2014 |
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Feb 27, 2014 16:04
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regularizer posted:I just finished it last night as well. It was really exciting and well-written and I'm going to read his rifters series soon, but I don't buy the whole sentience is a disadvantage idea, even though the extensive list of citations in the acknowledgements were pretty interesting to look through. He is a marine biologist who focused on neurology and micro organisms in school and focused on the impact of climate change on environments and ecosystems as a professional. Guy knows his science. The citation/end notes is a holdover from his publishing days and one I appreciate. To the extent he is bluffing about things it is minor stuff like where he mentions sociopaths tend toward malapropism, which is not a known trait but a dig at George W Bush. He has revised his opinion on the big twist over the years in response to new research, so echopraxia will be interesting. Related, Charles Stross dropped some hints about the next 4 Laundry Books and number 7 will heavily feature a parallel evolved hominid species that operates under a completely different theory of mind, grounded in neurology and evolutionary psychology, so I am really looking forward to that. I loved that part of blindsight, it will be interesting to see what another very skilled, very science focused author can do with it. Bring on 2016!
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Feb 27, 2014 16:33
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regularizer posted:I just finished it last night as well. It was really exciting and well-written and I'm going to read his rifters series soon, but I don't buy the whole sentience is a disadvantage idea, even though the extensive list of citations in the acknowledgements were pretty interesting to look through. Well apparently February is "finish Blindsight" month because I just got done with it today as well! I would say that his vision of non-sentient life being dominate in the universe would make sense with von neumann machines (or organisms such as the ones in Blindsight) outcompeting other forms of life, but I find it hard to imagine a species going from fire to interstellar travel just off what amounts to instinct. Maybe I misunderstood what he was saying, but it sounded like any sort of self-awareness was "bad/inefficient" in an evolutionary sense. It's a very interesting take on a totally alien viewpoint though, and I'd love to see more of the world he created in the novel. ^^^^^^ Edit: He certainly knows his stuff, which made the story that much better. I especially liked how he used the way our brains "see" to explain why no one could see the aliens a majority of the time. BadOptics fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Feb 27, 2014 |
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Feb 27, 2014 16:41
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BadOptics posted:Well apparently February is "finish Blindsight" month because I just got done with it today as well! I would say that his vision of non-sentient life being dominate in the universe would make sense with von neumann machines (or organisms such as the ones in Blindsight) outcompeting other forms of life, but I find it hard to imagine a species going from fire to interstellar travel just off what amounts to instinct. Maybe I misunderstood what he was saying, but it sounded like any sort of self-awareness was "bad/inefficient" in an evolutionary sense. It's a very interesting take on a totally alien viewpoint though, and I'd love to see more of the world he created in the novel.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:05
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Cardiovorax posted:Not instict but intellect without consciousness. His aliens are "philosophical zombies," which is a term from the philosophy of mind and basically means a sapient being that is capable of the same intellectual tasks as a human, but without any actual self-awareness. In the real world, this concept is generally considered nonsense, because it basically assumes that consciousness is separate from intellect for no adequately explained reason, but it's an interesting concept to explore in fiction. Qualifying this, NLP, machine learning, and evolutionary algorithms are steadily showing you can get the effects of intelligence without consciousness. The idea that intellect and consciousness are linked is an assumption from one data point (us) and there is no adequate reason to assume they are linked beyond the one example; particularly when our definition of intelligence is so fuzzy. Basically we have only one example they are linked, and we are so bad at articulating the criteria we can't even accurately determine the status of anything but the one example, but computers are showing at it may be possible to achieve the same ends through means that aren't apparent in nature. Or in another phrasing, from our observations you need to be able to swim to move through the water, but submarines show that you can get the same effect through different means, so what if submarines are more common than fish in the universe?
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Feb 27, 2014 17:17
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Fried Chicken posted:
I realize there's a Laundry thread here somewhere but I have a friend who met Stross and they chatted about the upcoming Laundry stuff and I think what you are describing are The Laundry universe's version of elves.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:21
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Since we're talking Blindsight anyway, some spoilery discussion that has always bothered me: Why does Sarasti attack the protagonist? I've never truly understood that moment in the book. Presumably to shock empathy or understanding back into him but I never really saw how it mattered at all in the context of what his job was. I enjoyed the book but found the ending kind of ridiculous. Vampires revolt and kill off the entire human species in a one sentence throwaway. I don't even see how that was possible given the supposedly small numbers of their population and the degree to which humanity was able to biologically re-engineer them.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:24
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Antti posted:I realize there's a Laundry thread here somewhere but I have a friend who met Stross and they chatted about the upcoming Laundry stuff and I think what you are describing are The Laundry universe's version of elves. Yeah, I just wanted to be vague about it since I don't know who follows his blog/twitter. Also, real jealous of your friend, I would love to just pick Stross' brain on stuff. And the laundry thread is basically the Dresden files thread
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Feb 27, 2014 17:25
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Oh, believe you me, I'm incredibly jealous. But yeah, it's in spoiler tags, mouse over at your own peril.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:30
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Antti posted:I realize there's a Laundry thread here somewhere but I have a friend who met Stross and they chatted about the upcoming Laundry stuff and I think what you are describing are The Laundry universe's version of elves. I always see posts on Krugman's blog where he's like "was getting dinner with Charles Stross last night and. . . " and then I realize those conversations actually happen, in the real world, not just in imaginary "five people you want to have dinner with" email forward lists.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:35
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My friend is a cool person and lives in Boston and all, but no, not Paul Krugman. This is probably a good excuse to link Krugman's 1978 paper on interstellar economics.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:36
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Fried Chicken posted:Qualifying this, NLP, machine learning, and evolutionary algorithms are steadily showing you can get the effects of intelligence without consciousness. The idea that intellect and consciousness are linked is an assumption from one data point (us) and there is no adequate reason to assume they are linked beyond the one example; particularly when our definition of intelligence is so fuzzy.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:46
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The Gunslinger posted:Since we're talking Blindsight anyway, some spoilery discussion that has always bothered me: Well I've read Blindsight twice so far this year, and I missed this both times. Now I feel like a moron, although I'm not sure it would have cheapened my enjoyment of the book. Maybe a throwaway line was all it really needed?
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Feb 27, 2014 17:48
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Cardiovorax posted:NLP is pseudoscientific nonsense and linking anything related to machine learning to intelligence is kind of stretching the meaning of the term, but the lack of data is a good point.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:52
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Cardiovorax posted:...it's pretty hard to make a cogent argument about the connection between intellect and consciousness when we hardly have any idea what either of those things are or how they work.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:53
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I always see posts on Krugman's blog where he's like "was getting dinner with Charles Stross last night and. . . " and then I realize those conversations actually happen, in the real world, not just in imaginary "five people you want to have dinner with" email forward lists. There is an image floating around from last summer of Peter Watts, Charles Stross, Vernor Vinge, Ken MacLeod, Cory Doctorow, Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong, Tyler Cowen and 2 physicists I didn't recognize sitting in a pub all toasting pints of beer and basically spent the whole day bullshitting and bouncing ideas off each other. God, to be a fly on the wall there. And I recall Delong, Krugman, and Stross all mentioning they came away with hangovers and some new lines of inquery to think about. I suspect one topic was whether technology was deflationary or not because that popped up in all their blogs shortly thereafter
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Feb 27, 2014 17:59
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Fried Chicken posted:NLP is Natural Language Processing, a branch of computer science focusing on artificial intelligence and linguistics, basically an interface layer that translates how we speak to how computers process data and vice versa. Currently you see it most commonly applied as text analytics and things like Google Voice and apple's Siri. I was not referring to the 1980s pseudoscience
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Feb 27, 2014 18:02
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The Gunslinger posted:Since we're talking Blindsight anyway, some spoilery discussion that has always bothered me: They are small numbers in incredibly important positions. And they are smarter than we are. Presumably vamps run all the security apparatus, so they program/can reprogram the drones, they own the comms network/run the economy. Since they are small in number, it is very likely that most meat-people don't really notice. Siri's dad is connected and in a position to _know things_. But Joe Dole Prole just collecting his food yeast and watching his soap operas? how is he even going to know that the orders are coming directly from the vamps, rather than generated by vamps for humans, then from humans? Point is, it isn't like the vamps said "Hah, silly humans, we are in control now!" they just started changing society through their inherent position and power to better suit them, which means higher birth rates, and humans not in a position to have vamps genocided anymore for not working toward non-vampire ends. It isn't that far-fetched as a plot, it is what a goodly portion of humanity has believed at some level or another forever, that the Illuminati/1%/Jews/Bohemian Grove/etc. are up to some poo poo behind our backs.
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Feb 27, 2014 20:34
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quote:They are small numbers in incredibly important positions. And they are smarter than we are. Presumably vamps run all the security apparatus, so they program/can reprogram the drones, they own the comms network/run the economy. I see what you mean but for me at least it doesn't jive with some of what he presents in the book like Sarasti being controlled by the Captain AI the entire time. I know we're getting a sidequel or something so hopefully he'll explore that in more detail. It's funny actually, I was really happy with Blindsight when I finished but after a second read a bunch of little inconsistencies have started nawing at me. I really enjoy his ideas on consciousness and will but he also throws out a bunch of story elements that never seem to go anywhere.
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Feb 27, 2014 21:24
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I give no fucks about spoilers and now I'm really excited about the idea of reading blindsight holy poo poo that sounds neat.
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Feb 28, 2014 03:40
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The Gunslinger posted:I see what you mean but for me at least it doesn't jive with some of what he presents in the book like Sarasti being controlled by the Captain AI the entire time. I know we're getting a sidequel or something so hopefully he'll explore that in more detail. It's funny actually, I was really happy with Blindsight when I finished but after a second read a bunch of little inconsistencies have started nawing at me. I really enjoy his ideas on consciousness and will but he also throws out a bunch of story elements that never seem to go anywhere. Sarasti didn't quite seem to live up to how predatory vampires were meant to be. Could be he was selected partly for that factor, given how things ended up. We'll get to find out more about what happened on Earth come August when Echopraxia gets released. From reading the spoiler bits he's put up... Things are not simply about proceedings on Earth.
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Feb 28, 2014 03:55
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Nevvy Z posted:I give no fucks about spoilers and now I'm really excited about the idea of reading blindsight holy poo poo that sounds neat. It's one of the neatest scifi stories I've read. Plus, it's free on the author's webpage if you don't want a physical copy. I want all his books on my bookshelf though.
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Feb 28, 2014 05:21
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Fried Chicken posted:Related, Charles Stross dropped some hints about the next 4 Laundry Books and number 7 will heavily feature a parallel evolved hominid species that operates under a completely different theory of mind, grounded in neurology and evolutionary psychology, so I am really looking forward to that. I loved that part of blindsight, it will be interesting to see what another very skilled, very science focused author can do with it. Bring on 2016! We are actually getting 4 more Laundry books? The series are progressively getting worse, albeit from a very high level and I'm not sure Stross can do the series justice for 4 more books. I mean, I love them but Apocalypse Codex was just good and not great. Including Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin was kinda disappointing. The series are moving toward some form of occult thriller, whereas my enjoyment have been how bureaucracy, IT nerds and HP Lovecrafts world are mixed together. Bob Howard are becoming more and more like your generic hero.
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Feb 28, 2014 09:48
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Honestly, I think it'd be an improvement. The first few books consisted of nothing except Howard bumbling stupidly about the place being vaguely geeky for the sake of it. They're pandering of the worst "he's an IT guy! I'm an IT guy! So funny!" kind. Shifting the genre to generic supernatural thriller would at least make them worth reading to anyone outside that demographic.
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Feb 28, 2014 10:38
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I like (and I assume others as well)the Laundry series just because of the clever moments that get Bob out of a pickle. Like with the Jennifer Morgue, it was Angleton gender-swapping the characters in the geass, or in The Fuller Memorandum with Bob accidentally turning himself into a necromancer. You read it and you're like "holy poo poo, didn't see that coming," but it makes total sense given the universe's magic system. One of the big problems I had with The Apocalypse Codex is that it didn't really have any of those moments. The entire book was just Bob getting in further and further over his head, getting saved by either pure dumb luck or someone else. And to make it worse at the end, supposedly master spies still like the cut of his jib for some reason. It was a really weak book in an otherwise strong series.
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Feb 28, 2014 11:13
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Cardiac posted:We are actually getting 4 more Laundry books? I'm not gonna spoil this because at this point it is vague outlines about books he hopes to write in the future, and is all subject to change: Apocalypse Codex was the last of the ones where he was going to write it in the form of another author and also the last Bob centered one. From here on out it is shifting to being a larger satire of genre conventions and the real world - Stross has compared the shift to how discworld went from mocking fantasy to being satire of the real world. We will see if makes the transition as well. Rhesus Chart is a backwards time jump to between 2 of the books we already have, and while it deals with Bob and Mo a core point of it is introducing a new character. #6 is Mo centered. #7 & 8 are centered on the new character whose relationship to Bob will be similar to Bob and Angelton, and the new character's coworkers because The Laundry won't be as understaffed anymore. And core points to be satirized will be the Home Office (7) how the Tory British government handles well run government agencies (8), so a big focus on bureaucracy and IT nerds. So basically Stross agrees to you about writing himself into a corner with Bob, and his solution has been to promote him out of central character and either use time skips or new characters to get around that. Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Feb 28, 2014 |
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Feb 28, 2014 14:11
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Whalley posted:It's one of the neatest scifi stories I've read. Plus, it's free on the author's webpage if you don't want a physical copy. I want all his books on my bookshelf though. Yeah, I mean it is always the advice that if you really like an authors books, buy them to support them, but with Watts that is doubly true. Behemoth (in his words) "tanked like a panzer", the publisher tried to bury Blindsight until online buzz got it a bunch of awards, and editor and real life trouble outside his control has stalled out projects since then. So if you want to keep the mindblowing scifi coming, guy needs solid sales. You can grab the kindle edition off amazon for 8 bucks, so basically you are helping keep an amazing author in print for the cost of going to Chipolte. Buy it man
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Feb 28, 2014 14:16
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I couldn't even finish the first Laundry book. I'll never understand why Stross is popular.
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Feb 28, 2014 14:20
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Fried Chicken posted:I'm not gonna spoil this because at this point it is vague outlines about books he hopes to write in the future, and is all subject to change: Well, this actually put the whole thing in a new perspective. If this is true, I will probably like Stross even more. More focus on Mo would be interesting, since she in my opinion hasn't been fleshed out enough in the series. The reveal on Angletons true nature sort of made him not so interesting from a plot point, so a new character might be good.
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Feb 28, 2014 14:36
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Fried Chicken posted:I'm not gonna spoil this because at this point it is vague outlines about books he hopes to write in the future, and is all subject to change:
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Feb 28, 2014 16:38
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ravenkult posted:I couldn't even finish the first Laundry book. I'll never understand why Stross is popular. I really don't like the laundry books but some of his short fiction was pretty good. I kind of hate cthulhu themed stuff anymore but A Colder War was probably the best thing I've read in that sub-genre. Missile Gap was enjoyable too.
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Feb 28, 2014 16:54
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Trying to get into some SF short fiction, even Flash. Any recommended websites? In terms of books I have an Australian SF anthology, just picked up David Masson The Caltraps of Time from the library, and have The Small Assassin by Ray Bradbury. Martian Chronicles was a pretty great, few slow/boring stories.
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Mar 1, 2014 00:40
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Homemaster posted:Trying to get into some SF short fiction, even Flash. Any recommended websites? If you're looking for top-quality SF short fiction online read Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons. Beneath Ceaseless Skies is good if you're into fantasy. Apex and Shimmer are also really cool. Short fiction is often a little experimental and tricky to get into. Another option might be the annual Year's Best anthologies - I like the Jonathan Strahan ones a lot.
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Mar 1, 2014 16:18
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General Battuta posted:If you're looking for top-quality SF short fiction online read Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons. Beneath Ceaseless Skies is good if you're into fantasy. Apex and Shimmer are also really cool. Also escapepod.com, podcastle.com, and drabblecast.com. They are audio casts of short stories, but I believe the full text is usually available online for free.
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Mar 2, 2014 01:33
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I'm reading A Deepness In The Sky, I'm about a third of the way through it, and I just realized I'm confused as gently caress. I only now realized they do the asian thing, where family names go first. Their organization being the Qeng-ho and the asian names in general didn't tip me off. I thought these people were individuals and find out there are families walking around and each name might correspond to up to three different characters. People I thought were dead are walking around, people who should DEFINITELY KNOW THINGS are walking around oblivious to it. People who are supposed to be respectable are being called suck-up idiots by people I thought were their friends. My understanding of who is what and where with the why is all tied in knots. I'm miserable with non-anglophone names, I guess. I want a genealogy chart or character guide that will just give me the basics without spoiling what comes next and I'm afraid to google for it. Anyway from what I do understand I really like what I'm in for. It is a little like Asimov's General Battuta posted:Do I gently caress alright no. I do mean asimov I don't mean culture. I mean they spread their trading culture everywhere. gently caress. I'm going to not google this out of stubbornness but I meant the asimov one with the predicting the future machine and traders. Not the ones by the Scottish author who died last year. Krinkle fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Mar 2, 2014 |
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Mar 2, 2014 11:00
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Krinkle posted:Anyway from what I do understand I really like what I'm in for. It is a little like Asimov's Culture series Do I  or do I 
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Mar 2, 2014 11:27
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Krinkle posted:I'm reading A Deepness In The Sky, I'm about a third of the way through it, and I just realized I'm confused as gently caress. I only now realized they do the asian thing, where family names go first. Their organization being the Qeng-ho and the asian names in general didn't tip me off. I thought these people were individuals and find out there are families walking around and each name might correspond to up to three different characters. People I thought were dead are walking around, people who should DEFINITELY KNOW THINGS are walking around oblivious to it. People who are supposed to be respectable are being called suck-up idiots by people I thought were their friends. My understanding of who is what and where with the why is all tied in knots. I'm miserable with non-anglophone names, I guess. I want a genealogy chart or character guide that will just give me the basics without spoiling what comes next and I'm afraid to google for it. When you start getting chapters from that old bumbling Pham whatsisface dude's perspective, a loootttt will become much clearer. edit: Pham Trinli. That dude. Wait for his POV chapters.
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