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[Book] Thread 20XXAD

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  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    the sad part about the Culture books is you start with Player of Games and Use of Weapons and it all feels downhill from there

    No, that was just where you started so the high concept excitement was at it's peak there.

  • Raiden333Raiden333 Registered User regular
    My first culture book was The Hydrogen Sonata, and I thought it was a fine introduction to the universe that got me to read the other books.

    There was a steam sig here. It's gone now.
  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    Mostly, the sad part of the Culture books is there won't be any more.

    They moistly come out at night, moistly.
  • lwt1973lwt1973 King of Thieves SyndicationRegistered User regular
    I've been reading Nick Drake's Rahotep Series and enjoying it.

    Fun to read through a "police procedural" set in ancient Egypt.

    "He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
  • PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    anyone here have Kindle Unlimited? I signed up for the free 30 days and i just don't see myself keeping it. The selection still feels so limited that even if i spend more than the 10 bucks a month unlimited would cost, i think it would be worth it. maybe there are some hidden gems in it that i'm just not seeing?

    looking for recommendations to keep.

    i started on the Einstein Prophecy which seemed to have started good and then just kind of lost its way after a few chapters. I'm now working through The Lost Starship which at least starts off well enough but i've been burned before!

  • jakobaggerjakobagger LO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTORED Registered User regular
    Man Goodreads reviews are so weird.

    Just finished an admittedly weird book, the End of Mr. Y, which I personally enjoyed a lot. Almost all reviews though are either 1 or 5 stars, so I guess you will either love or hate it?

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Cryoburn was ok. Not great, though, and at no point does any peril feel like an actual threat. I'm guessing the Miles books just got a lot harder to write.

  • japanjapan Registered User regular
    jakobagger wrote: »
    Man Goodreads reviews are so weird.

    Just finished an admittedly weird book, the End of Mr. Y, which I personally enjoyed a lot. Almost all reviews though are either 1 or 5 stars, so I guess you will either love or hate it?

    I think this is a trend with goodreads reviews generally

    It's a rare person that feels motivated to write a review of a book they felt was OK

  • skippydumptruckskippydumptruck begin again Registered User regular
    I'm about 1/2 through 'The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August' and think it's p good

    it's about a guy who lives his same life through over and over, and others like him, while remembering all their past lives

    reminds me of jonathan strange and mr norrell but that might be because it has a pretty british tone to it

    time travel stories usually bother me because I feel like you can't think very deeply about them before running into paradoxes like
    why would people awaken to this reliving of lives at different points in history? it seems like they should all be like that from the beginning? or if they weren't, what were they before, in earlier replays of the other reliver's lives? themselves, but with no recollection of the last time through? and if that's the case, what 'awakens' them?

    maybe that kind of thing isn't central to the story or maybe it'll be answered later, but this is the kind of stuff that trips me up about time travel

    but I'm enjoying it so far

  • zakkielzakkiel Registered User regular
    I'm about 1/2 through 'The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August' and think it's p good

    it's about a guy who lives his same life through over and over, and others like him, while remembering all their past lives

    reminds me of jonathan strange and mr norrell but that might be because it has a pretty british tone to it

    time travel stories usually bother me because I feel like you can't think very deeply about them before running into paradoxes like
    why would people awaken to this reliving of lives at different points in history? it seems like they should all be like that from the beginning? or if they weren't, what were they before, in earlier replays of the other reliver's lives? themselves, but with no recollection of the last time through? and if that's the case, what 'awakens' them?

    maybe that kind of thing isn't central to the story or maybe it'll be answered later, but this is the kind of stuff that trips me up about time travel

    but I'm enjoying it so far

    The book seemed to be completely internally consistent, so far as I noticed, though of course many questions aren't addressed. Part of the point is that the ouroborans themselves don't understand their condition very well, especially the why - no more than we linears understand ours.
    The world of Harry August consists of an infinite ordered set of parallel universes. Each universe obeys internal causality, and they really are parallel in the sense that, left undisturbed, the broad strokes of history in each follow the same course. When an ouroboran dies in one universe, s/he is born in the next universe. From time to time, a given universe spontaneously generates a new ouroboran. Whether that person is previously a linear who suddenly develops the ability to transfer, or a new person who didn't previously exist, is left unclear. It doesn't seem like linears are ever removed or introduced between universes (baring cataclysms), but that might just be because Harry hasn't observed this yet in his first fifteen lives.

    Account not recoverable. So long.
  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    Started on Nomad after seeing it mentioned on Twitter.
    Something big is coming… Big enough to destroy the entire solar system… And it’s heading straight for Earth. That’s what Dr. Ben Rollins, head of Harvard’s exoplanet research team, is told by NASA after being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. His first instinct is to call his daughter, Jessica, who’s vacationing in Italy with his wife: something is coming, he tells them, a hundred times the mass of our sun. We can’t see it, we don’t know what it is, but it’s there. They’re calling it Nomad, and the Earth may be destroyed in months.

  • MahnmutMahnmut Registered User regular
    Uprooted by Naomi Novik is I think my favorite book I read all year. I read quite a few, too!

    The Eternal Sky series by Elizabeth Bear also super great: colorful and engaging and an awesome cast of characters.

    Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear didn't do much for me. I may just be a hard sell on War of the Oaks urban fantasy at the moment, though. Lots of cool elements in this one.

    Steam/LoL: Jericho89
  • DoodmannDoodmann Registered User regular
    edited August 2015
    Echo wrote: »
    Started on Nomad after seeing it mentioned on Twitter.
    Something big is coming… Big enough to destroy the entire solar system… And it’s heading straight for Earth. That’s what Dr. Ben Rollins, head of Harvard’s exoplanet research team, is told by NASA after being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. His first instinct is to call his daughter, Jessica, who’s vacationing in Italy with his wife: something is coming, he tells them, a hundred times the mass of our sun. We can’t see it, we don’t know what it is, but it’s there. They’re calling it Nomad, and the Earth may be destroyed in months.

    How is it? Has Bruce Willis been called yet?

    Doodmann on
    Whippy wrote: »
    nope nope nope nope abort abort talk about anime
    Sometimes I sell my stuff on Ebay
  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    I read The Martian this weekend and I loved it! Only two bucks for the Kindle version on Amazon right now. Go get it!

  • Dizzy DDizzy D NetherlandsRegistered User regular
    Just finished Crow Road (God, I miss Banks.) and Cuba Libre (Elmore Leonard, nice to read a book about a period in time I have little to knowledge of). Going through my unread pile to figure out what to read next.

    Steam/Origin: davydizzy
  • knitdanknitdan In ur base Killin ur guysRegistered User regular
    Been reading Fourth of July Creek off and on, because even though it's fiction I know a lot of these people and it's incredibly depressing. There's a lot of ways to be poor in America.

    “I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
    -Indiana Solo, runner of blades
  • PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    VoodooV wrote: »
    I read The Martian this weekend and I loved it! Only two bucks for the Kindle version on Amazon right now. Go get it!

    i need to keep better track of this forum.. i'm only seeing the "analysis" books on the cheap cheap now. :)

  • VanguardVanguard But now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited August 2015
    Things I have finished recently:

    Embryoyo, Dean Young
    The Private Lives of Trees, Alejandro Zambra

    Currently Reading:

    The One Before, Juan José Saer
    Jackson Pollock, Ellen G. Landau

    Next:

    Breezeway, John Ashbery
    I Don't Know Do You, Roberto Montes
    My Documents, Alejandro Zambra
    At Night, Lisa Ciccarello

    Vanguard on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Transplanted from movie thread:
    shryke wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Atomika wrote: »
    The Hunger Games is not a series I particularly enjoy

    The first book was fairly interesting, the second book a boring rehash, and the third book was a great change of pace and seemed fairly clever until the need for a shocking surprise ending made it go dumb as hell.

    By contrast, the first movie was painfully dull, the second movie was fun, and I haven't seen the third movie, because I'm waiting to see if they do the same stupid ending bullshit from the book in Third Movie Part 2.

    There's nothing bullshit about the ending of the 3rd book. It's not done for "shocking surprise", it's done to bring the ideas of the series together.

    Nah, it's weak. Third book spoilers
    There is zero reason for Coin to betray Katniss, and even less reason for Prim to go to the front lines of an active war zone. The idiot ball that requires all that to happen is a 99-yard hail mary.

    It's like, Katniss has 1) spent three books not being interested in politics (while still being pretty good at them when she puts her mind to it) and 2) been willing to move heaven and earth to save her little sister. What did Coin think would happen when she caused Prim's death? What's really in it for her (aside from, you know, an arrow)? Katniss is one of the only people who every single district has some stake in; her use, unbroken, as a PR tool far outweighs any political risk down the road. You can still have a bittersweet ending without killing Prim. Katniss realizing that she's still a tool, but going out there and smiling and helping the districts rebuild anyway, that would've been an ending more in line with the rest of the series.
    Coin has always feared Katniss exactly because she is such a powerful PR tool. She is the face of the resistance and thus a huge risk to Coin's power. She doesn't know what Katniss' intentions are and she's exactly the type of person who would see ambition in others (ie - see herself in others) It's also not just about Katniss. Or even primarily about Katniss. She just wants Katniss out of the way and when Katniss volunteers to go on a suicide mission into the city, she's like "Welp, problem solved". The bombings are mostly a PR move designed to break the capitals resistance. You seem to have missed what was going on in the ending.

    And no, what you decribe would not have been in line with the rest of the series because a big pat of the whole series that the ending deals with is what kind of person Katniss chooses to be.
    If Coin were that stupid and paranoid, she wouldn't have been effectively running District 13 for however long. When Obama got elected, he didn't have Oprah murdered as a threat to his power. There was zero actual reason to think that Coin would do this. Some characters said they didn't like Coin that much, and Katniss didn't like Coin much, but Collins never gave any evidence that she had chronic backstabbing disorder.

    The ending has Katniss a destroyed waste of a person. As I recall she settles for brainwashed Peeta instead of the guy she actually loved and lives out the rest of her life in mediocrity. That's not what she chose, that's what she got handed and she shrugged and lived with it because her entire reason got taken away by silly plot contrivances.

    Yeah, again, this is wrong on every count.
    1) Collins continually establishes that Coin is paranoid about her position and doesn't like Katniss because she represents a challenge to her power.

    2) She doesn't "settle for Peeta" nor is Gale "the guy she actually loved". She decides she doesn't want Gale because she doesn't want to be with that kind of person. She doesn't want his anger and his violence. She wants to forgive, to be comforted, to grow things and heal.

    Frankly, the way you characterize the end is incredibly pre-biased and basically highlights that your issues with the narrative are not coming from the book. Like, seriously "lives out the rest of her life in mediocrity"? Get over yourself.

    You seem to have missed what was going on in the ending.

    I don't think I did. It was like thirty of the most painfully-written pages I've ever read, but I fucking read them. I know what Collins wrote, and what she intended. I don't ascribe a deeper meaning to it, though. A lot of YA is churned out crap; Collins clearly didn't know how to end her far-more-popular-than-expected trilogy so she went with what she went with, to get people talking, hopefully spur more sales, and maybe on the off chance that it would be seen as some sort of Brilliant Risk-Taking Art. I get it. It isn't rocket surgery.

    Authors aren't perfect or all-knowing. Example, I deeply admire Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamorra, but he going through a break-up with his long-time girlfriend when he wrote Red Seas Under Red Skies, and I feel that it took its toll on the quality of the book (Republic of Thieves is back in form, though). Another example, the last couple Song of Ice & Fire books have been meandering and largely dull. George R. R. Martin was not sure what the hell he was doing when he wrote them, and we, the fans, sure didn't help by dogpiling and asking him when he'd be finished every seven seconds.

    So yeah, even good and great authors lose their way sometimes, and I'm not sure I would even rate Collins that high.

    Yeah, no. Sorry dude but the themes of the series are quite clearly laid out from start to finish. It's in fact Collins sticking to these ideas and themes rather then just turning the sequels into a series of pulp adventures that pissed alot of fans off. They complain that suddenly it's all about how Katniss feels and her dealing with the shit she's been through and her position after the first novel and it's like "Yeah, that's been the point since the start".

    You may have read the words, but you haven't even been able to get the basic plot points and motivations right, so I don't find your argument that "there's nothing there" particularly compelling. You have very much shown that you neither know what she wrote or what the books intended to convey in terms of themes and ideas. All this shit I mentioned is in the books.

    This would be better moved to the Book thread though since what you are talking about has nothing to do with the movies anymore.

  • MahnmutMahnmut Registered User regular
    Gonna read So You Want to be a Wizard while I'm sick. Eat your heart out, Harry Potter.

    Steam/LoL: Jericho89
  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Finished the first Conan collection. The many printing errors in this edition are a strain, well below the standard I'd expect of a Masterworks edition from Gollancz.

    The stories are fun, pacy adventures of Conan and whatever passing princess/slave girl/priestess/pirate queen he happens to take a shine to. They're formulaic in that Conan rocks up, has an adventure and carries off the girl for what can be assumed to be pretty energetic rumpy-pumpy, but Howard made his world weird and strange and inventive, which stops the stories from becoming stultifying. They're pulp fantasy stories from 80 years ago, and have held up remarkably well considering. The Margaret Brundage Weird Tales covers from the time were an excellent guide to what you'd find in the story. A woman wearing not very much being menaced by a beast, or possibly some other women wearing not very much and carrying a whip.

    The racism is glaring, inevitably, and the sexism as well, though since it's the thirties Conan does little more than kiss his current squeeze before heading off to disembowel some fool.

  • GrisloGrislo Registered User regular
    Has anyone else read King's 'Revival'?

    I had a thought, somewhere between the half-way mark and the end that
    the foreword, where he name-checks Lovecraft et al, was added as a way of assuring the reader that, yes, this is going to get King-y/spooky at some point. Imagine reading it if you hadn't read the foreword, and had no idea who King was. Yeah, there's freaky stuff along the way (the cribbed-from-the-Blair-Witch-Project-standing-in-corners thing), but without that, you'd be pretty puzzled – and then, when the freaky stuff does happen, it even name-checks Lovecraft “in universe”, and just... tries really hard to be otherworldy, in that “Colour out of Space” way?

    It's a really peculiar book. There's lots of good stuff in it, and a lot of it feels like a “shit Stephen King could write in his sleep” checklist, which tends to work well if you're not, you know, comparing (we've seen it done better, by King). But man, it just didn't click with me. The ending felt more like parody than earnest attempt at the thing he was trying to do.

    But maybe I missed the trick? I'm kind of interested in being told that I'm super wrong.

    This post was sponsored by Tom Cruise.
  • knitdanknitdan In ur base Killin ur guysRegistered User regular
    I've been reading The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. She always does interesting things with fantasy, finding a way to talk about social issues and diversity without making the book about those things. It's the first book of a planned series about a world going through catastrophic geological changes and the people trying to survive through the apocalypse. "Magic" users are primarily able to interact with stone and lava and fault lines.

    There's also something really clever she's doing that doesn't become apparent until midway through the book and I can't really talk about it without giving away some huge spoilers.

    “I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
    -Indiana Solo, runner of blades
  • AstharielAsthariel The Book Eater Registered User regular
    I finished Reamde by Neal Stephenson.

    Wow, what a beautiful trainwreck, masterpiece of failure, excellent example for everyone who wants to be a writer - "what NOT to do whie writing a thriller".

    Amazing, i had great fun, 4/10.

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    Finished The Causal Angel, the last part of the Jean le Flambeur trilogy by Hannu Rajaniemi. Supremely weird stuff.

  • SummaryJudgmentSummaryJudgment Grab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front door Registered User regular
    Asthariel wrote: »
    I finished Reamde by Neal Stephenson.

    Wow, what a beautiful trainwreck, masterpiece of failure, excellent example for everyone who wants to be a writer - "what NOT to do whie writing a thriller".

    Amazing, i had great fun, 4/10.

    And here i really kind of enjoyed it. Think of it as a love letter to Ultima Online. I can see where if you never played that, though, you'd be missing out on a lot.

    Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Asthariel wrote: »
    I finished Reamde by Neal Stephenson.

    Wow, what a beautiful trainwreck, masterpiece of failure, excellent example for everyone who wants to be a writer - "what NOT to do whie writing a thriller".

    Amazing, i had great fun, 4/10.

    And here i really kind of enjoyed it. Think of it as a love letter to Ultima Online. I can see where if you never played that, though, you'd be missing out on a lot.

    I did as well but I recognized it for what it was. It's much more like the stuff he did early or under another pen name. Aside from his prose style it isn't really the same thing as Anathem or The Baroque Cycle.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • AstharielAsthariel The Book Eater Registered User regular
    Asthariel wrote: »
    I finished Reamde by Neal Stephenson.

    Wow, what a beautiful trainwreck, masterpiece of failure, excellent example for everyone who wants to be a writer - "what NOT to do whie writing a thriller".

    Amazing, i had great fun, 4/10.

    And here i really kind of enjoyed it. Think of it as a love letter to Ultima Online. I can see where if you never played that, though, you'd be missing out on a lot.

    Nope, i cannot agree, as entire plot about MMO in the end turns out to be entirely pointless in comparison to the main plot of the book.

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    The Jean le Flambeur novels are really heavy on the show, don't tell. I understood a lot of stuff from The Quantum Thief, but The Fractal Prince just went too heavy on it.

    I got that a gogol was a copy of a human mind, but I had to read up elsewhere to discover the connection to Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. Likewise about the Sobornost.

  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Asthariel wrote: »
    Asthariel wrote: »
    I finished Reamde by Neal Stephenson.

    Wow, what a beautiful trainwreck, masterpiece of failure, excellent example for everyone who wants to be a writer - "what NOT to do whie writing a thriller".

    Amazing, i had great fun, 4/10.

    And here i really kind of enjoyed it. Think of it as a love letter to Ultima Online. I can see where if you never played that, though, you'd be missing out on a lot.

    Nope, i cannot agree, as entire plot about MMO in the end turns out to be entirely pointless in comparison to the main plot of the book.

    If it had been written a few years later it would have just been Bitcoin in it's place.

    The MMO seems like the more entertaining idea.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • darleysamdarleysam On my way to UKRegistered User regular
    Echo wrote: »
    The Jean le Flambeur novels are really heavy on the show, don't tell. I understood a lot of stuff from The Quantum Thief, but The Fractal Prince just went too heavy on it.

    I got that a gogol was a copy of a human mind, but I had to read up elsewhere to discover the connection to Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. Likewise about the Sobornost.

    I've yet to read The Causal Angel, but the first two I found I'd get to the end and have to think really hard about what I'd just read to try and piece it together. Like, I can pick out any word and tell you what it means. I can read any sentence and understand it. But somewhere between that and a paragraph, things get really blurry and I have to concentrate hard on keeping it all together. I keep meaning to go back and re-read them both now that I have a better understanding of what's going on.

    forumsig.png
  • lwt1973lwt1973 King of Thieves SyndicationRegistered User regular
    A few years back, my local library announced that the library collective it was in, was going to be losing a major city library group as the major city wanted to stop having to ship books for holds at other libraries. My local library group also imposed no holds for new books unless you are from that library as another cost saving. Now my library collective is losing the other big city and another library collective that they had a mutual hold system for. So now I'm going to have to drive to a further library for the other library collective that is bigger then my local. I like my local library but when I try to find some books that I have an interest in from this forum, it'll come up as no holds possible as they have been reduced to just a couple smaller city libraries.

    "He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
  • PhillisherePhillishere Registered User regular
    lwt1973 wrote: »
    A few years back, my local library announced that the library collective it was in, was going to be losing a major city library group as the major city wanted to stop having to ship books for holds at other libraries. My local library group also imposed no holds for new books unless you are from that library as another cost saving. Now my library collective is losing the other big city and another library collective that they had a mutual hold system for. So now I'm going to have to drive to a further library for the other library collective that is bigger then my local. I like my local library but when I try to find some books that I have an interest in from this forum, it'll come up as no holds possible as they have been reduced to just a couple smaller city libraries.

    Do you have a local university library? A lot of them have patron cards for non-students/faculty.

  • chrono_travellerchrono_traveller Registered User regular
    Asthariel wrote: »
    I finished Reamde by Neal Stephenson.

    Wow, what a beautiful trainwreck, masterpiece of failure, excellent example for everyone who wants to be a writer - "what NOT to do whie writing a thriller".

    Amazing, i had great fun, 4/10.

    And here i really kind of enjoyed it. Think of it as a love letter to Ultima Online. I can see where if you never played that, though, you'd be missing out on a lot.

    I did as well but I recognized it for what it was. It's much more like the stuff he did early or under another pen name. Aside from his prose style it isn't really the same thing as Anathem or The Baroque Cycle.

    I just found this thread, and I was gonna ask about some of Neal Stephenson. I just finished Cryptonomicon on audiobook, and though it came highly recommended to me, I had two real sticklers with the book:
    1) He seems to really, really need a more forceful editor. He'll go on for loooong yarns, while admittedly amusing sometimes, he does it far too often for my tastes. Especially when he spent like what felt like 3/4ers of a chapter explaining how he had to go in search for an oral surgeon, just to describe how Randy was feeling at a particular moment.
    2) The ending seemed really abrupt and forced. I get that it was more the journey than the destination, but ending showdown with Andrew Loeb felt just forced in there to generate some tension, and felt really flat.

    But I also noticed that 2 other Stephenson books are on the recommended list, but not Cryptonomicon, so do those books tend to address these concerns?

    The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Asthariel wrote: »
    I finished Reamde by Neal Stephenson.

    Wow, what a beautiful trainwreck, masterpiece of failure, excellent example for everyone who wants to be a writer - "what NOT to do whie writing a thriller".

    Amazing, i had great fun, 4/10.

    And here i really kind of enjoyed it. Think of it as a love letter to Ultima Online. I can see where if you never played that, though, you'd be missing out on a lot.

    I did as well but I recognized it for what it was. It's much more like the stuff he did early or under another pen name. Aside from his prose style it isn't really the same thing as Anathem or The Baroque Cycle.

    I just found this thread, and I was gonna ask about some of Neal Stephenson. I just finished Cryptonomicon on audiobook, and though it came highly recommended to me, I had two real sticklers with the book:
    1) He seems to really, really need a more forceful editor. He'll go on for loooong yarns, while admittedly amusing sometimes, he does it far too often for my tastes. Especially when he spent like what felt like 3/4ers of a chapter explaining how he had to go in search for an oral surgeon, just to describe how Randy was feeling at a particular moment.
    2) The ending seemed really abrupt and forced. I get that it was more the journey than the destination, but ending showdown with Andrew Loeb felt just forced in there to generate some tension, and felt really flat.

    But I also noticed that 2 other Stephenson books are on the recommended list, but not Cryptonomicon, so do those books tend to address these concerns?

    No, both of those are pure Stephenson. Long digressions into shit he read on wikipedia or something and abrupt endings.

  • knitdanknitdan In ur base Killin ur guysRegistered User regular
    Also abrupt, extremely awkward sex scenes between his nerdy protagonists and the attractive worldly damsels they fall for.

    “I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
    -Indiana Solo, runner of blades
  • tapeslingertapeslinger Space Unicorn Slush Ranger Social Justice Rebel ScumRegistered User regular
    yeah, I really wouldn't put a lot of stock in the "recommended" lists as I'm pretty sure it's just the stuff Jacob could think of off the top of his head when he put the list together? The SF and Fantasy lists are pretty devoid of anything but the greatest hits or most obvious choices in a lot of cases, for example.

  • chrono_travellerchrono_traveller Registered User regular
    Ugh, well then. I'll probably put off reading those then.

    The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
  • SummaryJudgmentSummaryJudgment Grab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front door Registered User regular
    edited September 2015
    Asthariel wrote: »
    I finished Reamde by Neal Stephenson.

    Wow, what a beautiful trainwreck, masterpiece of failure, excellent example for everyone who wants to be a writer - "what NOT to do whie writing a thriller".

    Amazing, i had great fun, 4/10.

    And here i really kind of enjoyed it. Think of it as a love letter to Ultima Online. I can see where if you never played that, though, you'd be missing out on a lot.

    I did as well but I recognized it for what it was. It's much more like the stuff he did early or under another pen name. Aside from his prose style it isn't really the same thing as Anathem or The Baroque Cycle.

    I just found this thread, and I was gonna ask about some of Neal Stephenson. I just finished Cryptonomicon on audiobook, and though it came highly recommended to me, I had two real sticklers with the book:
    1) He seems to really, really need a more forceful editor. He'll go on for loooong yarns, while admittedly amusing sometimes, he does it far too often for my tastes. Especially when he spent like what felt like 3/4ers of a chapter explaining how he had to go in search for an oral surgeon, just to describe how Randy was feeling at a particular moment.
    2) The ending seemed really abrupt and forced. I get that it was more the journey than the destination, but ending showdown with Andrew Loeb felt just forced in there to generate some tension, and felt really flat.

    But I also noticed that 2 other Stephenson books are on the recommended list, but not Cryptonomicon, so do those books tend to address these concerns?

    That oral surgeon story is the best

    Why are you against fun ;-)

    "The cost of the surgery is conditioned on a difficulty scale from 1-10. I think we will be charging you the full rate."

    SummaryJudgment on
    Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
  • chrono_travellerchrono_traveller Registered User regular
    Asthariel wrote: »
    I finished Reamde by Neal Stephenson.

    Wow, what a beautiful trainwreck, masterpiece of failure, excellent example for everyone who wants to be a writer - "what NOT to do whie writing a thriller".

    Amazing, i had great fun, 4/10.

    And here i really kind of enjoyed it. Think of it as a love letter to Ultima Online. I can see where if you never played that, though, you'd be missing out on a lot.

    I did as well but I recognized it for what it was. It's much more like the stuff he did early or under another pen name. Aside from his prose style it isn't really the same thing as Anathem or The Baroque Cycle.

    I just found this thread, and I was gonna ask about some of Neal Stephenson. I just finished Cryptonomicon on audiobook, and though it came highly recommended to me, I had two real sticklers with the book:
    1) He seems to really, really need a more forceful editor. He'll go on for loooong yarns, while admittedly amusing sometimes, he does it far too often for my tastes. Especially when he spent like what felt like 3/4ers of a chapter explaining how he had to go in search for an oral surgeon, just to describe how Randy was feeling at a particular moment.
    2) The ending seemed really abrupt and forced. I get that it was more the journey than the destination, but ending showdown with Andrew Loeb felt just forced in there to generate some tension, and felt really flat.

    But I also noticed that 2 other Stephenson books are on the recommended list, but not Cryptonomicon, so do those books tend to address these concerns?

    That oral surgeon story is the best

    Why are you against fun ;-)

    While he certainly had some good one liners there, I feel like half (maybe 3/4ers) the point of the story is that he got to explain/use Mercator map projection in the story...

    I certainly liked some of the technical background involved in the story, like (spoilered just to be safe)
    the explanations of van Eck Freaking
    which lent some credibility/realism to the story. Especially since it did lead (perhaps too directly) to the setup of the prison scene, but the exposition just really got out of hand in some places. I would kinda compare him to Robert Jordan (and why I stopped reading the Wheel of Time), just too much exposition.

    The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
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