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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Someone wrote a 2 page essay about the evolving complexity of computer systems and sketched out two possible far-future outcomes. His political essays are very interesting actually, even if I disagree with many of his conclusions.
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Jan 24, 2018 22:19
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:His political essays are very interesting actually, even if I disagree with many of his conclusions. Yeah, I don't think any considered him dumb. He was quite brilliant. And very emotionally disturbed.
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Jan 24, 2018 22:21
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He was mostly right though, especially about timber lobbyists
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Jan 24, 2018 23:26
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Proteus Jones posted:Yeah, I don't think any considered him dumb. He was quite brilliant. And very emotionally disturbed. He was also a massive fan of Jacques Ellul, who was a christian anarchist and member of the french resistance, and is therefore the best philosopher. Practically unreadable, but that's not really a hindrance.
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Jan 24, 2018 23:44
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Practically unreadable in what way? Some things are technically readable but may contribute to a mental break, like Hegel
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Jan 25, 2018 01:16
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:One of the far-future outcomes sketched out in that 2 page essay was a small group of Elites running the affairs of a civilization where the non-Elites had been raised/educated/socially directed/gene-modified/etc to spend most of their lives focused on mostly harmless life goals/hobbies. The non-Elites would be reduced to the status of domestic pets of the Elites basically. The Time Machine?
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Jan 25, 2018 02:02
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Yeah, the Morlocks and Eloi thing isn't exactly new to literature.
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Jan 25, 2018 02:43
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the unabomber was right
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Jan 25, 2018 04:33
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Was anyone here a fan of His Dark Materials trilogy as a kid? I just picked up the first volume in Pullman's new trilogy The Book of Dust, which wraps around the previous. La Belle Sauvage is a prequel, and the other two will be sequels. So far its entertaining though already knowing what happens to several of the characters thanks to the main series takes away some of the tension. It's still nice to return to that series' universe after so many years.
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Jan 25, 2018 04:57
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Ccs posted:Was anyone here a fan of His Dark Materials trilogy as a kid? I read it as a teen but my memories of it make me think I would find it stupid as hell if I went back to it. I mean, the ending is these teen heroes must do sex to balance the universe because reasons
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Jan 25, 2018 05:52
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cis autodrag posted:I read it as a teen but my memories of it make me think I would find it stupid as hell if I went back to it. I mean, the ending is these teen heroes must do sex to balance the universe because reasons gently caress YOU phillip pullman, author of "I guess the universe doesn't want us to be together, sorry!" which is complete and utter bullshit that runs contrary to your entire "gently caress god and the universe too" message of the entire series i literally threw the book against the wall and years later am still angry about it Bhodi fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Jan 25, 2018 |
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Jan 25, 2018 06:01
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Bhodi posted:funny, I remember it as "We, two young lovers destined for each other have to be apart forever in our own worlds because if if visited it tears the universe in a small unmeasurable way so uh, sorry i guess our love just can't overcome, well, this extremely minor thing. And i'm glad you're not only understanding but will also remember and visit the site of what-ifs for decades and decades" Huh, I remember the flow of dust reversing as they did sex, but it's been like 15 years so I am probably remembering wrong.
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Jan 25, 2018 06:04
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cis autodrag posted:Huh, I remember the flow of dust reversing as they did sex, but it's been like 15 years so I am probably remembering wrong. Bhodi fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jan 25, 2018 |
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Jan 25, 2018 06:07
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Bhodi posted:I never read the new series, I was thinking of the amber spygass, the third book in the trilogy that ends with them agreeing they had to remain apart because when that knife opens a tear between worlds the tear never truly heals so she goes back to her world and like, grows old thinking of what might have been (this was after the sex) I haven't read the new series either. You're right that they go back to their worlds, but I think their sexy time specifically is what makes the dust start going back to where it belongs.
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Jan 25, 2018 06:23
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cis autodrag posted:I haven't read the new series either. You're right that they go back to their worlds, but I think their sexy time specifically is what makes the dust start going back to where it belongs.
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Jan 25, 2018 06:24
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Bhodi posted:I never read the new series, I was thinking of the amber spygass, the third book in the trilogy that ends with them agreeing they had to remain apart because when that knife opens a tear between worlds the tear never truly heals so she goes back to her world and like, grows old thinking of what might have been (this was after the sex) The tears also produce evil specters! I was kind of mad at the ending when I first read it as a kid, but as an adult I get what Pullman was going for with it and kind of admire that he stuck with that downer ending in order to make his point about living in the now even if it means pain and loss down the road. Can you imagine the Hunger Games ending with Katniss dying for the cause, bringing the arc of her volunteering to die for another to full circle, instead of pairing off with one of the boys fighting over who had dibs for three books?
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Jan 25, 2018 08:27
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I really like Northern Lights (/Golden Compass) and think it's a genuinely great YA book. Too bad about the sequels getting progressively stupider.
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Jan 25, 2018 15:12
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anilEhilated posted:I really like Northern Lights (/Golden Compass) and think it's a genuinely great YA book. Too bad about the sequels getting progressively stupider. That’s my feeling too. Then I read whichever short story it was Pullman wrote where the plot is “teenage girls who sneak off to read instead of going to the school disco and snogging boys get eaten by monsters and have to live inside them for eternity with nothing to read and SERVE THEM RIGHT” and decided he was far too invested in teenage girls shagging for my comfort. Also as an ex-teenage girl who liked reading, no gently caress YOU Pullman.
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Jan 25, 2018 15:28
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anilEhilated posted:I really like Northern Lights (/Golden Compass) and think it's a genuinely great YA book. Too bad about the sequels getting progressively stupider. 
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Jan 25, 2018 16:26
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anilEhilated posted:I really like Northern Lights (/Golden Compass) and think it's a genuinely great YA book. Too bad about the sequels getting progressively stupider. The funny thing about Pullman's novels is that they get progressively worse in the same ways and for the same reasons that Lewis' Narnia books get bad: they start out with a good story but then get progressively preachier and dumb. He set out to write Narnia for Atheists and by god he achieved it.
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Jan 25, 2018 16:41
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anilEhilated posted:I really like Northern Lights (/Golden Compass) and think it's a genuinely great YA book. Too bad about the sequels getting progressively stupider. But that is the general way for most fantasy series 
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Jan 25, 2018 17:43
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:Practically unreadable in what way? Some things are technically readable but may contribute to a mental break, like Hegel He coins his own definition for technique and then bases everything he says around this new definition: “Technique is the totality of methods, rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.” As far as I can tell he's arguing not against class-divides and capitalism, but against the very idea of rational organisation in the pursuit of efficiency. Which is either a very clever distillation of Marx's theory of alienation, or a completely banal restatement of the same ideas, and I haven't the foggiest idea which.
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Jan 25, 2018 19:13
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I had a very similar angry reaction to the ending of Animorphs, but not The Amber Spyglass, weirdly enough. I don't even hate the Golden Compass sequels, which is why I refer to it as The Golden Compass and not Northern Lights. Also, I wish I knew that those Terra Ignota spoilers pertained to Seven Surrenders and not Too Like the Lightning before clicking them. I genuinely love the society portrayed in that series, minus Mycroft's creepy baggage and private activities, and I'm curious to find out if/how Ada Palmer will try to convince me that I'm dumb for thinking she made the most attractive and convincing utopia I've ever seen. (I'll read the other books soon.) NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Solitair I bring you warnings as the ghost of someone reading a 1965 Hugo Award winner and hating every second of it. Thanks. No guarantee I'll remember to reference and quote you, but I'll try. I'm not expecting to love every book I'm covering (one of L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth books got on a ballot for gently caress's sake), but I value the opportunity to rant about bad books and contrast them with good books.
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Jan 25, 2018 20:23
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I continue to be utterly gobsmacked by the idea that anyone (Dr. Palmer included) can consider the world of Terra Ignotia as other than a stark and horrifying dystopia.
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Jan 25, 2018 21:16
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Thranguy posted:I continue to be utterly gobsmacked by the idea that anyone (Dr. Palmer included) can consider the world of Terra Ignotia as other than a stark and horrifying dystopia. I'm only a quarter into the first book so maybe there are revelations I haven't hit (don't spoil me!) but it seems like they've got cheap safe mass transit, no environmental issues, no more sectarian/ideological conflict, and I think an effective end to poverty? That's a decent start.
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Jan 25, 2018 21:20
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So before Christmas I bought myself a Kindle PW, because I do things like that, and it sparked in me a desire to read a lot more than I had in recent years. I'm up to 8 books this month (counting an audiobook) and very happy with my decision, even though I think only 2 of them have been actual Kindle books. Having a wife that works at a library means you can place holds on books and have them delivered to you.  Anyway, I'm about 4/5ths of the way done with Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon, which I started in advance of the Netflix series. It's always been on my radar but I'd never read it before, and I wanted to before the show comes out. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I didn't plan it but I read Maltese Falcon two books prior to Altered Carbon, and the links between them (in terms of genre conventions) has made it even better. For those that have read the other two Takeshi Kovacs books - are they pretty consistently good? What about Morgan's other books? I don't hear him mentioned very often apart from Altered Carbon - were his other ones not as popular? Japanese Dating Sim fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Jan 25, 2018 |
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Jan 25, 2018 21:44
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Japanese Dating Sim posted:Anyway, I'm about 4/5ths of the way done with Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon, which I started in advance of the Netflix series. It's always been on my radar but I'd never read it before, and I wanted to before the show comes out. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I didn't plan it but I read Maltese Falcon two books prior to Altered Carbon, and the links between them (in terms of genre conventions) has made it even better. Altered Carbon is basically like the rest of his books ie a mix of Mickey Spillane meets sci fi/fantasy. I would say they are all consistently good and well worth reading.
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Jan 25, 2018 21:57
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General Battuta posted:I'm only a quarter into the first book so maybe there are revelations I haven't hit (don't spoil me!) but it seems like they've got cheap safe mass transit, no environmental issues, no more sectarian/ideological conflict, and I think an effective end to poverty? That's a decent start. I jumped the gun with my embarrassing post. What I didn't mention earlier is that Too Like the Lightning only starts with a novel, optimistic view of the future. You'll see the downsides to it in due time, and I'll see if the plot decides whether the tradeoffs are worth it. In chat Thranguy also brought up that freedom of religion and speech are pretty severely curtailed in the name of eliminating that sectarian conflict, which I completely forgot about. At several points that's made to sound reasonable from the characters' perspectives and the benefits you mention, but again, not something a lot of people in the real world are going to accept. Solitair fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Jan 25, 2018 |
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Jan 25, 2018 22:42
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Solitair posted:I had a very similar angry reaction to the ending of Animorphs, but not The Amber Spyglass, weirdly enough. I don't even hate the Golden Compass sequels, which is why I refer to it as The Golden Compass and not Northern Lights. Ugh sorry, I thought it was clear from context  also i didn't realize the Censor was rather profoundly dystopian until she mentioned it on her blog edit: this isn't a spoiler, there are literally censor labels on the first page of the book 
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Jan 25, 2018 23:28
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:too soon i still swear he has some timey-wimey outs on that one but he seems not to think so makes me especially mad because he said the next one was probably going to be about interstellar insurance fraud and space trucking and insider trading and crates of USB sticks being valuable cargo and that's totally my jam 
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Jan 25, 2018 23:31
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Japanese Dating Sim posted:
The second one is great, but don't go in expecting more space noir, it's a war/ancient alien artifact story. I believe the third switches genres in the same way too.
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Jan 25, 2018 23:40
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:too soon What happened to the eschaton? Edit- wiki'd. 
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Jan 25, 2018 23:44
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GreyjoyBastard posted:i still swear he has some timey-wimey outs on that one but he seems not to think so Charles Stross did write that book, and it's called "Neptune's Brood". Neptune's Brood was readable, not the best Stross writing in it, but not the worse Stross writing in it either. The interstellar insurance fraud & insider trading reveal happens about 13/14 into the book, and was a total "um..what?" switchup from what the story had been leading up to/what the main character had been telling you the reader throughout the book.
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Jan 26, 2018 00:02
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Japanese Dating Sim posted:So before Christmas I bought myself a Kindle PW, because I do things like that, and it sparked in me a desire to read a lot more than I had in recent years. I'm up to 8 books this month (counting an audiobook) and very happy with my decision, even though I think only 2 of them have been actual Kindle books. Having a wife that works at a library means you can place holds on books and have them delivered to you. The second one is War/Ancient Aliens/something, the third one is Ancient Aliens/Revolution/Artifact recovery/Old war/Moby Dick. None of the sequels are near as good as AC. 13/Black Man is very good and self contained. Not read any of his other stuff. As the Singularity Sky series, the Eschaton sent human communities back in time relative to their distance from Earth. Linearly. I think. But they could travel faster than light. So basically those that were sent 3,000 light years away were sent 3,000 years back, but could travel faster than light so could get back to Earth before the Eschaton became aware. I think (I am probably wrong) that was the fatal flaw Stross made for himself. He could fix it with some rewriting but I guess he would rather make new stuff.
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Jan 26, 2018 01:59
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Collateral posted:
I read 13 and it was largely entertaining but also completely rage-inducing in certain respects for me. Like it examines several layers of oppressive systems that exist even in the enlightened liberal technocracies but it does so by perpetuating some of the worst  bullshit ever with its concept of the "natural alpha male superwarrior." The basic concept that today's youth are too dissipated and soft to fight a Real Man's War has been a whinge since at least the era of Socrates complaining about Plato's generation and it has simply never, ever been true. Terminal Lance has something to say about people complaining our modern soldiers are "soft" as well. I'm not generally one to flounce on about the military but I really hated the basic conceit that resulted in the 13s, the idea that our proud Oh, and Morgan also killed the female lead in the third act solely to motivate the male hero. Total fridge. occamsnailfile fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 02:39
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occamsnailfile posted:The basic concept that today's youth are to dissipated and soft to fight a Real Man's War has been a whinge since at least the era of Socrates complaining about Plato's generation and it has simply never, ever been true. Is this a good time to mention that Starship Troopers is a terrible piece of poo poo? It's barely even competent as sci fi considering half of the book is boring masochistic boot camp poo poo with a sprinkling of mech suits at the end. Precambrian Video Games fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 03:12
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Japanese Dating Sim posted:
So, if the first book is Tak as Sam Spade, the second is Tak as Indiana Jones and the third is Tak as Danny Ocean. It’s more complicated than that, but they definitely swap genres as easily as they swap bodies. His fantasy series is really good (and possibly tied into the Kovacs books) but has a lot of awkward gay sex in there. It’s not the gay that’s weird, it’s the awkward bit, but I generally skim sex scenes so it didn’t really phase me much.
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Jan 26, 2018 03:17
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Anyone have any recommendations for stuff with a really out-there prose style? I’m thinking something like Riddley Walker where it’s basically written in its own cracked-out original dialect, or else like entirely in a super elevated diction like Eddison or something. I guess it doesn’t have to be genre book but the only example I can think of that isn’t is The Wake by Kingsnorth.
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Jan 26, 2018 03:28
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skasion posted:Anyone have any recommendations for stuff with a really out-there prose style? I’m thinking something like Riddley Walker where it’s basically written in its own cracked-out original dialect, or else like entirely in a super elevated diction like Eddison or something. I guess it doesn’t have to be genre book but the only example I can think of that isn’t is The Wake by Kingsnorth. A Clockwork Orange is a classic, you probably want to get a copy with a nadsat dictionary in the back though.
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Jan 26, 2018 05:21
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skasion posted:Anyone have any recommendations for stuff with a really out-there prose style? I’m thinking something like Riddley Walker where it’s basically written in its own cracked-out original dialect, or else like entirely in a super elevated diction like Eddison or something. I guess it doesn’t have to be genre book but the only example I can think of that isn’t is The Wake by Kingsnorth. Feersum Endjinn is what you want.
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Jan 26, 2018 05:28
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