Accelerando is an impressive book for actually doing what it set out to do: Show the epoch of the singularity as people travel through it. While the second third is far better than the first, it really felt like a necessary foundation. Only thing is... now I want external memory banks and threading.
So, Madame Sissyl, what are you reading these days? Anything sexy?
Finished The Iron Wyrm Affair by Lillith Saintcrow.
Started In the Company of Ogres by A Lee Martinez.
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Not much, really. I got hold of Charles Stross' The Family Trade. Otherwise, just read through Making Comics and Reinventing Comics, by Scott McCloud.
On the sexy front, I feel I should read 50 shades of grey. It's a pretty big thing to have such a book reach that distribution. However, there are problems with it:
1) It is badly written.
2) It's not sexy.
3) I don't read Twilight, and I certainly don't read Twilight fanfiction. Vampires are half-beastly monsters that rip out people's throats and hide in the sewers. And: THEY. DON'T. SPARKLE. Ever.
If your local railway station is anything like mine (and it probably isn't), you'll be able to find a staggering selection of those Black Lace bondage novels there. It's the only place they seem to sell them... Failing that, you can bet your bottom dollar that there'll be a graphic novel out in the near future.
Am also reading The Archeology of Ritual and Magic, which has loads of good stuff in it about witch bottles, curse tablets, weird things that people used to bury in the foundations of their houses and so on. There should be more books like this one.
David Weber's Shadow of Freedom, part of his military sci-fi "Honor Harington" series. Massive fleet battles, heroes with real ethics, corrupt governments, dirty politics, secret conspiracies, alien telepathy...Weber hits all the targets.
Re-reading it for the 3rd time.
Finished Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" ebooks from my brother for Christmas, and re-read Leiber's "Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" series for fun and nostalgia. Am now most of the way through Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World.
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Not much, really. I got hold of Charles Stross' The Family Trade. Otherwise, just read through Making Comics and Reinventing Comics, by Scott McCloud.
On the sexy front, I feel I should read 50 shades of grey. It's a pretty big thing to have such a book reach that distribution. However, there are problems with it:
1) It is badly written.
2) It's not sexy.
3) I don't read Twilight, and I certainly don't read Twilight fanfiction. Vampires are half-beastly monsters that rip out people's throats and hide in the sewers. And: THEY. DON'T. SPARKLE. Ever.
If you want some BDSM-flavored fantasy, pick up Kushiel's Dart instead.
1) It's well written.
2) It's sexy.
3) It's got two awesome love interests.
4) Unlike the 50 Shades books, the relationships in it are not abusive.
5) (Except for the ones that are clearly depicted as wrong-on-so-many-levels.)
5) (Except for the ones that are clearly depicted as wrong-on-so-many-levels. [And those are in the sequels, anyway.])
I have the first one on my shelf. With luck, I will not have 50 shades of suck there, ever.
Big time Brit writer discussing Game of Thrones in the London Review of Books
Which, I am afraid to say, is much cooler than the New York Review of Books.
Big time Brit writer discussing Game of Thrones in the London Review of Books
Which, I am afraid to say, is much cooler than the New York Review of Books.
Thanks for the link -- at first I was like "Wow, how insightful!" and then I caught myself and realized I was just pleased that the reviewer was agreeing with me on everything. Ah, well.
Those are the best kinds of insights!
Also, it is pretty funny that you chose today to reappear in the Books Thread (this is your first post in here since the move, right?) because:
At work this morning I was helping some kid load his trucks and we started talking about his Ethics course at the local community college and he was going on about the myth of Gygas (?) from The Republic and I then told him about the Great Plato Flamewar of 2011.
Ah, good times...
LOL
And then, today, while we were loading trucks, we talked about how awesome the The Hunger Games is. Are.
What's the correct English, SG?
"Is" if referring to the specific title of the novel;
"are" if one is referring to the Games themselves.
Nothing against The Hunger Games, but have any of youse twos dudes read The Running Man? It's worth reading, but don't bother with the movie.
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I have a distinct memory of reading The Bachman Books in the sixth grade, but I don't really remember The Running Man. As a maladjusted teenager, I remember really liking Rage, though.
Also, in sixth grade, I remember that my teacher was married to a Czech defector, and she did this very interesting project to teach us about capitalism vs. communism. We were all assigned jobs and told to write a story about our lives. I worked in a shoe factory.
After we were done with all of that, we came in the next day, and she told us that there had been a communist revolution and all of the factory workers were now the government. I got to be the head of state and I was given three passes to have people I didn't like taken out into the hallway and shot by Jason Desrochers, who had been a worker in an electronic factory and was now the head of the secret police.
I used all three passes in about, oh, five minutes.
Vive le Galt!
EDIT: The only thing I remember about my essay on life as a shoe factory worker was that I got married and six months later, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. We had to read our essays in front of the class and I remember Mrs. Reimann giving me a dirty look at that.
Even when barely pubescent, goblins do it in the streets!
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I have a distinct memory of reading The Bachman Books in the sixth grade, but I don't really remember The Running Man. As a maladjusted teenager, I remember really liking Rage, though.
Also, in sixth grade, I remember that my teacher was married to a Czech defector, and she did this very interesting project to teach us about capitalism vs. communism. We were all assigned jobs and told to write a story about our lives. I worked in a shoe factory.
After we were done with all of that, we came in the next day, and she told us that there had been a communist revolution and all of the factory workers were now the government. I got to be the head of state and I was given three passes to have people I didn't like taken out into the hallway and shot by Jason Desrochers, who had been a worker in an electronic factory and was now the head of the secret police.
I used all three passes in about, oh, five minutes.
Vive le Galt!
EDIT: The only thing I remember about my essay on life as a shoe factory worker was that I got married and six months later, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. We had to read our essays in front of the class and I remember Mrs. Reimann giving me a dirty look at that.
Even when barely pubescent, goblins do it in the streets!
So that's when it all started? Now we know who blame, Doodlebug. You named names!
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Nothing against The Hunger Games, but have any of youse twos dudes read The Running Man? It's worth reading, but don't bother with the movie.Of course! I thought The Long Walk was better, though... and I really, really enjoyed what he did with Desperation/The Regulators as King/Bachman.
Disclaimer: Haven't read "Hunger Games." Or "Twilight." I'm not a teenage girl.
Yeah, I remember really liking The Long Walk, too, but I can't remember anything about The Running Man to save my life.
Maybe I only read half of TBachBooks
As for not being a teenage girl, which I am not either, did I ever tell you about how awesome Judy Blume is? Little Women? The Bronte sisters?
Smash Panem Through Workers Revolution!
Vive le Katniss!
The Running Man is the one where some guy is hunted throughout the entire world, and it's a game show. Actually, considering books like The tenth Victim by Robert Sheckley, Hunt-each-other-down-and-kill-each-other-on-a-game-show maybe worthy of the term sub-genre at this point.
And speaking of Jennifer Lawrence, every tween-aged girl out there should see Winter's Bone; hell that one was even directed by a woman; definitely a chick flick. :P
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I have a distinct memory of reading The Bachman Books in the sixth grade, but I don't really remember The Running Man. As a maladjusted teenager, I remember really liking Rage, though.
Also, in sixth grade, I remember that my teacher was married to a Czech defector, and she did this very interesting project to teach us about capitalism vs. communism. We were all assigned jobs and told to write a story about our lives. I worked in a shoe factory.
After we were done with all of that, we came in the next day, and she told us that there had been a communist revolution and all of the factory workers were now the government. I got to be the head of state and I was given three passes to have people I didn't like taken out into the hallway and shot by Jason Desrochers, who had been a worker in an electronic factory and was now the head of the secret police.
I used all three passes in about, oh, five minutes.
Vive le Galt!
EDIT: The only thing I remember about my essay on life as a shoe factory worker was that I got married and six months later, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. We had to read our essays in front of the class and I remember Mrs. Reimann giving me a dirty look at that.
Even when barely pubescent, goblins do it in the streets!
A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a little bit about Stephen King, and the Wikipedia writeup on Rage is fascinating. It is not often that an author deliberately withdraws one of his novels from publication.
On a side note, while I can "take or leave" most of King's stuff, Misery happens to be one of my favorite novels. Does that saying anything unflattering about me?
I did say I was a maladjusted teenager...thankfully I am much better now.
A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a little bit about Stephen King, and the Wikipedia writeup on Rage is fascinating. It is not often that an author deliberately withdraws one of his novels from publication.
On a side note, while I can "take or leave" most of King's stuff, Misery happens to be one of my favorite novels. Does that saying anything unflattering about me?
He was actually going to publish Misery under Bachman's name, but got outed (or whatever) before he could.
Personally, I think King's a very interesting writer, but all the stuff that makes his writing so interesting makes it nigh-unfilmable. It's no coincidence that the two movies that approach the emotional impact of the books have a voice over. (I'm talking about Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption.)
Full disclosure, the only book I've read since finishing the dark tower series is Lisey's Story.
Finished Catching Fire. Must say I didn't see that coming...
Smash Panem Through Worker's Revolution!
In other news, I started watching I, Claudius (that was linked in here, right, Limey?) and, yeah, it's pretty awesome, but everyone just got a lot less sexy. I wonder if HBO could re-do it?
Although, to be honest, after I read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl I felt guilty for all those boners I popped watching Rome...
In other news, everyone has told me to watch Winter's Bone, Lord Dice, but I haven't yet.
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I asked if you'd ever watched I, Claudius on some thread or another because you're always yammering on about Rome and I,C has some characters in common. (Augustus and Livia Drusilla were the only ones I spotted, you may do better.) But c'mon, you get to see Capt. Picard and Gimli as murderous centurions, if that's not awesome I don't know what is!
The thing about I,C is, given the way things were filmed at the time, it's more like watching a play than a high budget TV series of today. Also, a roman empire period piece with BBC orchestra pit intro music is just weird.
Books? I, like Kirth, have been rereading Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser, after running across the entire White Wolf series (with Mignolia illustrations, double win!) in ye olde used bookstore. "Lean Times in Lankhmar" is a fricken hilarious story; whoever read it and decided that Issek of the Jug should be statted up for Dieties & Demigods sorta missed the point, IMO.
I asked if you'd ever watched I, Claudius on some thread or another because you're always yammering on about Rome and I,C has some characters in common. (Augustus and Livia Drusilla were the only ones I spotted, you may do better.) But c'mon, you get to see Capt. Picard and Gimli as murderous centurions, if that's not awesome I don't know what is!
I said it was awesome, Lord Dice. Just not sexy.
HBO = Huge Boobs Obligatory ?
I've moved on to a biography of King Alfred, which is not at all sexy, unless you're into monks and/or dead Vikings. Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser would be a better idea.
I said it was awesome, Lord Dice. Just not sexy.
Well, then, there's always Caligula.
Just when you thought there wasn't enough Gore Vidal on these boards, Caligula!
He was actually going to publish Misery under Bachman's name, but got outed (or whatever) before he could.
I think I probably could like King quite a lot, but I'm not generally a horror fan. Misery is the only book of his that I've read, back in the 90s when bookstores had giant King shrines with most of his books on display with matching covers. It was fun, but I actually felt very sorry for crazy murdering whatshername.
Part of that could be from seeing the movie, though. I saw the movie first and Kathy Bates reminds me a lot of my mother. Similar height, age, shape of face, and she often takes roles that my mother likes.
Caligula's in I,C! There are even orgies!
What's funny is, I, Claudius came back into my life when my local PBS station stated re-airing it a couple of months ago; I said what the hell and ordered the DVD.
Now, this is a BBC series from the 70s, so the some (very tastefully done) nudity. Early in the series, it's a small enough amount that you don't really notice the digitally fuzzed out bits. So I receive my DVD, watch the rest of the series, and, because it actually is very tastefully done, don't really think much of the nudity.
Until that is, I watched a later episode on broadcast television and it looked like someone's smeared butter across half my TV screen. Man, America's one uptight nation.
And look what I've found on YouTubeHmmm. Three BAFTA-winning tv show and most successful BBC miniseries ever or The Prisoner of Azkaban for the umpteenth time?
'ello, 'arry!
I think there are some boobs in here, Lord Dice.
Yeah, that's the original BBC format, though; they split the super long first episode into two for American broadcast.
Also, a lot of those early BBC dramas on PBS just showed everything the BBC had filmed; I can certainly remember seeing nipples (and sex scenes for that matter) during the original broadcast of Brideshead Revisited. I don't think the moral majority types really got up in arms about it till The Singing Detective aired, and that was mid to late 80s, iirc.
Yes, I watched PBS as a kid, and went to school and told the other kids all about the nudity; that's cultural enrichment, baby!
I haven't read that, Mogwen, but I did read the bio by Bockris and Bayley.
Vive le Patti!
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Not intended as an insult, but as an identification of the target audience. Just as it's not sexism when my wife tells me that she didn't enjoy "The Expendibles" because a bunch of testosterone-fueled mayhem and explosions don't really appeal to her.
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It's too late, Kirth.
I already told Katniss and she's trekking down the Appalachians as we speak.
You're so f&@#ing dead.
Don't want to spoil things for you, Mog, but if Just Kids does the early years...
I was looking at all of the books that I have started and not finished...Accelerando, The Revolutions of 1848, The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, The French Revolution from 1793 to 1799...and instead read the latest issue of Black History and the Class Struggle, "South Africa: Marikana Massacre, The True Face of Neo-Apartheid Capitalism".
Am resisting the urge to join the bandwagon and pick up my Mignola-covered Fafhrd and Gray Mousers books.
Intruder by CJ Cherryh. Book 13 of her "First Contact" series (Foreigner).
Haven't made it all the way through Accelerando yet, but am almost done.
It's pretty awesome, even though I am sure I'm not even getting half of the sci-fi references. At least I got the Spider Jerusalem one...