SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

quantumfoam posted:

Recently finished reading a non-fiction book about a internet criminal kingpin that reads like a bizzare scifi/milscifi book series given the various schemes and plans the internet kingpin had going on. But it was all real apparently, and why I'm cross-posting this recap-review to a few book barn threads.

==
A guy who created the online infrastructure and billing system for a unlicensed U.S. pill-mill (that he also created) made so much money he started hiring mercenaries to supply/guard/stay in the dozens+ of safe-houses he had filled up with gold bars and weapons. This escalated into the guy branching out into arms smuggling and of course drug smuggling along with lowest-bidder hit squads being sent out if the sums in the monthly (encrypted) budget expenditure (Excel spreadsheet) reports he required didn't add up. Toss in a stab at a legitimate business but make it a fishery specializing in rare fish stocks that was based in Somalia. Yes, Somalia (something about the decades of war + boat pirating allowing the depleted fish stocks along the Somalian coast to rebound and a fishery there being a fish-goldmine).
Did I also mention that the guy gave his mercenary teams detailed load-outs of what weapons and gear they should bring on each mission, and where he thought they should setup defensive positions like he was playing Jagged Alliance 2? Or that he was the brains and funding behind two major open-source disk encryption projects that were NSA resistant. Or that the sex addiction documented throughout the book was really a scheme for getting Anchor Babies in every non-extradition treaty nation or limited extradition treaty nation in case he had to flee and needed that extra leverage to resist getting extradited to the U.S.A.?
==

Well, all that stuff is true and real. Book is The mastermind : drugs, empire, murder, betrayal by Evan Ratliff.
And the two open-source disk encryption projects, in case anyone cares, were E4M and TrueCrypt.

I think that's the guy who was a coworker of a friend of mine.

Edit: No, that was a different criminal involved with mercenaries and such.

xcheopis fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Oct 8, 2019

# ¿ Oct 8, 2019 22:29

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 15:10

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

Joan Vinge's The Snow Queen
Mary Gentle's Golden Witchbreed

# ¿ Dec 25, 2019 16:22

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

fez_machine posted:

2010 (good FYAD pre-eat the eggs, transphobia, and the twitter exodus) soon after the publication of Mr. Shivers

there was a writing advice thread or something and RJB was posting in it

FYAD discovered it and tore the book to shreds for being phony depression era hobo nonsense

So? That doesn't say anything about the quality of his advice or his writing.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2020 00:55

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

fez_machine posted:

really defending the idea that easily mocked fake as hell Old-timey hobo dialect horror is unreflective of a person's writing

It's much harder to bully an author that has prose quality backing them.

I'd like to see someone try to bully Samuel R. Delany out of a forum based purely on his writing style.

The hilarity of believing everyone thinks of FYAD as the arbiters of good writing, much less anything else.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2020 17:56

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

Gnoman posted:

(This was inspired by a couple of joke posts in the milhist thread, where a question about historical dragoons (mounted infantrymen) was answered as if it was about Final Fantasy dragoons (spearmen who can Jump really high).)

Your link isn't working.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2020 05:04

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

"Everyone"

# ¿ Mar 25, 2020 22:29

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

Ninurta posted:

Mr. Shivers was an ok first novel, and Jackson has improved since then with his City of X trilogy. There was just a strange, Goony lynch mob that hated anything he wrote and forced him out of this forum.

Hence my use of "everyone"; because it wasn't "everyone" then and it's just some weirdo going on about it now.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2020 13:24

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

Black Griffon posted:

that's what you're supposed to do with all fiction in general

We've had that for centuries.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2020 16:19

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

wizzardstaff posted:

Someone several weeks ago suggested Dragon's Egg by Robert Forward and I threw it on my list. Just finished it last night and thought it was pretty good; I enjoy "big scale" stories about the rise and fall of empires. ("Big" being a relative term here since the aliens are practically microscopic.) I thought all the sections with humans were unbearably plodding and slow with cheesy, overexplained dialogue that didn't use enough contractions--but about halfway through I started wondering whether that was a deliberate style choice for contrast.

I don't think I'm going to check out the sequel unless someone promises that it's really awesome though; it seems unnecessary and I've got other stuff I want to read. Started I Am Legend by Richard Matheson this morning because despite seeing multiple movie adaptations I've never read the original.

I liked the sequel just fine but it's not awesome and isn't necessary.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2020 13:33

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

I was active on LiveJournal during racefail and it dragged in all sorts of issues. I think that might have been what really got N.K. Jemisin motivated to publish.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2020 01:25

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

If Gandalf is illiterate, then how did he read the journal page Isildur left in Gondor?

# ¿ Sep 20, 2020 17:11

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

HopperUK posted:

Is there a physical book I can get with the Lord Dunsany stuff in it? Everything on Amazon looks shady or low-quality or weird.

A few that I don't have in storage. The one missing its cover is At the Edge of the World and obviously needs replacing (already ordered a replacement for Don Rodriguez).

# ¿ Oct 4, 2020 00:38

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 15:10

xcheopis: Jul 23, 2003

Cavelcade posted:

Hi thread, I'm looking for some fantasy or Sci fi by a female author for a book club that wouldn't normally read that. I've read The Left Hand of Darkness recently and was thinking of suggesting the Dispossessed, but Kindred by Octavia Butler also looks good.

Any suggestions would be welcome. Also you guys seem cool.

Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 01:22

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > SF & F Mega-thread: I had to google 'spock pirate depilatory'