- Grifter
- Jul 24, 2003
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I do this technique called a suplex. You probably haven't heard of it, it's pretty obscure.
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One of the things I like about cryponomicon (As well as many of his books) are the small details you may never notice.
For example, the professor who Randy argues with during the 'war as text' thing is named
Günter Enoch Bobby Kivistik, for one of the three possible fathers
For me, I just couldn't get into Cryptonomicon as much as his other books because the Randy plot never drew me in. The stakes were so low compared to the WWII story, especially since he doesn't reveal what they're really planning until practically the very end of the book. Obviously, trying to prevent another holocaust from ever happening is a noble goal, but all you know is that these guys are scheming up some fake business to get capital and internet infrastructure built until they come across the gold and then their true plan is explained.
I'm also hoping we get the Shaftoes in the Old West story that links The Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon.
quote:Magnificent isn’t the word you would normally use to describe Tom Howard; he’s burly and surly, completely lacking in social graces, and doesn’t apologize for it. Most of the time he sits silently, wearing an expression of sphinxlike boredom, and so it’s easy to forget how good he is.
But during this particular half hour of Tom Howard’s life, it is of the essence that he be magnificent. He is going blade-to-blade with the Seven Samurai here: the nerdiest high-octane Ph.D.s and the scariest private-security dicks that Asia can produce. One-by-one they come after him and he cuts their heads off and stacks them on the table like cannon-balls. Several times he has to stop and think for sixty seconds before delivering the deathblow. Once he has to ask Eberhard Föhr to make some calculations on his laptop. Occasionally he has to call on the cryptographic expertise of John Cantrell, or to look over at Randy for a nod or shake of the head. But eventually, he shuts the hecklers up. Beryl wears a not very convincing smile throughout the entire thing. Avi just grips the arms of his chair, his knuckles going from blue to white to pink to a normal healthy glow over the course of the final five minutes, when it’s clear that the Samurai are withdrawing in disarray. It makes Randy want to empty a six-shooter into the ceiling and holler, "Yeeehaaw!" at the top of his lungs.
I just finished Reamde. It was okay I guess but extremely shallow. I don't think I would recommend it.
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Mar 12, 2014 23:37
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May 22, 2024 19:15
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- Grifter
- Jul 24, 2003
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I do this technique called a suplex. You probably haven't heard of it, it's pretty obscure.
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That aspect of the ending was the only thing that felt slightly off to me. On the other hand, that's how his books seem to go. It's also the kind of snowballing coincidental disaster that I enjoy in authors like Tom Sharpe (or sometimes Terry Pratchett), so I can totally forgive the slightly contrived coincidences. That's also one of the reasons I liked The Big U. It's got lots of Chekov's Guns (including the railgun) that end up getting used in a surprising and awesome way.
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Mar 13, 2014 03:07
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- Grifter
- Jul 24, 2003
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I do this technique called a suplex. You probably haven't heard of it, it's pretty obscure.
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They're not fake in the sense that they aren't actual companies with employees and a cash flow. It's just that Randy and co. aren't running them because they actually have any interest in those companies. They exist solely to setup the infrastructure they need to accomplish their actual goal.
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Mar 13, 2014 13:30
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- Grifter
- Jul 24, 2003
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I do this technique called a suplex. You probably haven't heard of it, it's pretty obscure.
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The most interesting thing about reamde for me was the discussions for ways to monetize MMOs being just charging for the gameplay itself.
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Mar 14, 2014 02:34
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- Grifter
- Jul 24, 2003
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I do this technique called a suplex. You probably haven't heard of it, it's pretty obscure.
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I didn't hate it either. It's miles better than reamde. A couple things I really enjoyed.
- There was a conversations in which people were talking about narratives being laid out by JBF, and the question was asked "Okay, that's her narrative, what's the reality?" and the response was "What's the difference?" Which I think was a neat character moment that I see all the time in real life when engineer types (Ivyns) bounce off politician types (Julians).
- The middle section following the separation of most of the arklets was just bleak, bleak, bleak and it worked. There were several points where it expressed terrible things without emotion, such as a really high suicide rate and I think the emotionlessness really sold it because it showed just how beat up the survivors were. They had no grief left in them.
- I enjoyed basically everything about the ideas of women being much better at surviving in space, and in fact the men basically made themselves available for death. I think I read too many cheesy books where square jawed hero dudes save the day.
- I enjoyed the exploration of the miner society. They did some hosed up poo poo, but it became clear that their actions were perfectly consistent with the way they had been shaped by their environment.
Having said all that, I agree that I would have liked Book 1: Izzy and Book 2: Red and Blue, mostly so that I could have seen Red v. Blue III: I poke you in the Eye. I felt it ended too quickly.
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Jun 26, 2015 04:46
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- Grifter
- Jul 24, 2003
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I do this technique called a suplex. You probably haven't heard of it, it's pretty obscure.
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I disagree with part of that. I felt that there were definitely stakes. Things could have easily escalated to an existential war with Red and Blue doing their best to completely wipe each other out. I felt that were ramping up towards that with miners and pingers as proxy pawns, but then it ended. I felt there were definitely stakes, to the point where I wanted to know more. I was pulling for the Blues, they're my horse. These societies were clearly reflections of their progenitors and if you weren't pulling for Dinah/Ivy over Anais/Julia then I don't know what to tell you. I think we both felt that the post-timejump period could have been different and better, but in very different ways.
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Jun 26, 2015 18:56
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May 22, 2024 19:15
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- Grifter
- Jul 24, 2003
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I do this technique called a suplex. You probably haven't heard of it, it's pretty obscure.
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Zodiac: Been a looonnnggg time, I remember it being fine if conventional. The bit that has stuck with me is "Sagamon's principle" - I have no idea if it's real, but it does sound pretty practical.
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Jul 28, 2016 05:04
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Mar 12, 2014 23:37
