Books
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Just finished reading "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson. Enjoyable, but I have mixed emotions about it. Mostly because it felt like it was building toward a more monumental conclusion than it actually had.
Yeah that was my feeling too. It was building for so long, and then the steam. it just kind of. ran dry. Anathem is probably my fav book by Stephenson. Difficult to get into, but sets up and delivers on point. Snow Crash, is a bit of an easy/relaxed read. Didn't stretch me, light and enjoyable, no less.
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Anathem was great!
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Yeah that was my feeling too. It was building for so long, and then the steam. it just kind of. ran dry. Anathem is probably my fav book by Stephenson. Difficult to get into, but sets up and delivers on point. Snow Crash, is a bit of an easy/relaxed read. Didn't stretch me, light and enjoyable, no less.
I've never read Snow Crash. It's petty of me, but I just can't get past the silliness of naming the main character "Hiro Protagonist".
I also just finished re-reading Dune for the first time since my early teens. A much deeper and richer experience this time around. It's prompted me to try out the others in the series, which I've not read before. I've got to do something to kill time until Patrick Rothfuss finally finishes the Kingkiller Trilogy; although I don't see how he's going to wrap up everything in a single book. I'm just praying he doesn't drag things out like George R.R. Martin. I've given up hope that the Song of Ice and Fire series will ever be completed.
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LOVE Dune, but also haven't read any others in the series.
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I've got to do something to kill time until Patrick Rothfuss finally finishes the Kingkiller Trilogy; although I don't see how he's going to wrap up everything in a single book.
I had forgotten that was still on it's way, dammit, can not unforget again, until next distracted. At least Anathem will keep you busy for a few weeks
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For an interesting view at Japanese history as comics:
Shigeru Mizuki: Showa 1926-39, Showa 1939-44, the third volume 1944-53 will be published soon by Drawn & Quarterly (Farar, Straus and Giroux)
The books are presented in the traditional Japanese manner and is meant to be read from right to left. Shigeru Mizukiis one of Japan´s most respected artists. He lost his drawing arm in WWII to a bomb. He has received almost every every award the comics industry has to offer. -
I've got to do something to kill time until Patrick Rothfuss finally finishes the Kingkiller Trilogy; although I don't see how he's going to wrap up everything in a single book.
I had forgotten that was still on it's way, dammit, can not unforget again, until next distracted.
Is this the sequel to Name of the Wind / Wise Man's Fear?
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That's the one.
"The Slow Regard Of Silent Things", a novella focusing on a secondary character, is coming out at the end of October. It's not much, but every little bit helps ease the wait.
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I first read this about 5 years ago, it was amusing but mainly aimed at Americans.
5 years on it has become more relevant in the UK, and it appears that I am whiter than I thought and many of the people I read on social media are extremely white, even those who aren't.
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Reading The Martian.
Fan-goddamn-tastic. Almost impossible to put down. VERY hard sci-fi, meaning lots of sci. It is set in a near future manned mission to Mars, and it's all about the ingenuity of an astronaut who gets stranded on The Red Planet. Shifts between gallows-humor imbued journal entries and narrative from varied perspectives.
HIGHLY recommended.
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Yeah, the film won't be able to match some of the scientific detail, but I look forward to it–read it @Graeme ; outstanding even for non-SF people.
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Read it!
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Just finished Dune Messiah, finally. I've been reading it off and on for several months. It's a very different book than Dune, and I can understand why opinions on it are sharply divided. 329 pages, and the first 310 or so were largely un-enjoyable. But then the ending was somehow right; so much so that now I don't know what I think about the book.
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I'm currently reading "Black Like Me", which I know is required reading in many schools in the US but I only became aware of last November. Amazingly it hadn't even been in print in the UK until a few years ago.
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Glad you enjoyed, I thought you would!
Currently reading a very strange novel called Radix by A A Attanasio. It takes place in a remote dystopian future where cosmic events have exposed the planet to radiation that changes the planet in odd ways. I'm still on the fence in terms of how much I like it, but the writer is really good. Has such a deep vocabulary that I've had to go to the dictionary a couple of times.
I know of this writer from a killer Arthurian cycle he wrote. In it, spirits and gods are represented very creatively as scientific entities, artifacts of electromagnetic energy who live on the Tree of Life, which is the polar energy that causes the Aurora Borealus. A very imaginative and skilled writer.
