5 posts tagged “books”
I do not ordinarily succumb to Nostradamus style predictions about fire and brimstone and/or futurism, but in this case the man is preaching to the choir. I mentioned my intent to study Brain-Computer interfaces and a coworker lent me this book. It's full of wild claims of self-replicating machines and immortality within the next 30 years. For my part I'll make sure we can stream porno into our brains. I'm only through the first hundred or so pages but I can tell this is going to significantly disrupt my plans to get packing this week.
Ashia came by yesterday to help me get packing because I can't part with even the most worthless of items. Exhibits A,B,& C: three 10-gallon bags full of clothes for donation. A have a few bikes and set a of weights to liquidate, but other than my furniture should decompose Voltron style into a stack of lumber and from there it's smooth sailing.
On my birthday I mostly lounged on one of the grassy knolls on the
Tufts campus. This area is dead now that all the chilluns are home, and on the weekend car volume is way down. With a little squinting it's easy to conceal the rest of the city. The Saxyderms had a gig at a community gardening center as a favor to someone. Ten people showed up, and half the 'derms were reading different music or playing different instruments than usual. After that I went to J.P. for food, booze, and bowling at the Milky Way. The drinks were watered down a lot, but candlepin hit the spot. It was a low key, but enjoyable day.
Ashia came by yesterday to help me get packing because I can't part with even the most worthless of items. Exhibits A,B,& C: three 10-gallon bags full of clothes for donation. A have a few bikes and set a of weights to liquidate, but other than my furniture should decompose Voltron style into a stack of lumber and from there it's smooth sailing.
Hyperion has been in the "must read" pile for a long time now, ever since my dad picked it up. Its essentially a collection of short stories wrapped in a larger plot about a giant four armed robot that grants wishes to pilgrims traveling in groups of a prime number. One pilgrim gets a wish, the other N get brutally murdered and impaled on his tree of thorns. Thems the breaks, kid. I liked the universe, the individual vignettes were enthralling, jew(s) in space (a big plot point ) all-in-all solid reading material.
o--------------- It won a Hugo, L O O K .
So Its no big secret that the first book is a cliffhanger. Fall of Hyperion continues the journey from where it left off. If you wonder about the title of this entry, well theres a lot Keats in this book folks. And a lot of people being diced up by the aforementioned mythical robot. He's not actually described as a robot, more of a mechanical being( see covers ), but I feel robot is appropriate. If this is based on poetry then I think I need to start diversifying my reading material. Didn't like this one nearly as much as the first because it lacked the intensity of the individual stories, but there was still a lot going on here.
I like describing these books to you because they sound so outright ridiculous when summarized.
If you share my taste in literature at all you need to read this. Its about a 20th century scholar resurrected by the Greek Gods to watch over the siege of Troy and verify that it is happening according to Homer's Iliad. That's the first thread. The second involves a group of lazy buttholes in 40th century Earth that set forth on an adventure to contact the "post-human" that live in cities orbiting the poles and equator. The third thread is about a group of Shakespeare quoting sentient robots from the Jovian system. They are on a mission to Mars to invetigate large amounts of quantum disturbances. The book is mostly story, not boring science, driven so I definitely think it would appeal to a lot of people out there. It has an easy-to-read "movie" feel to it and unlike the works of Stephonson actually has more than afterfhought for an ending. I burned through this thing in a few days and now I'm fiending for the sequel, Olympos, which couldn't possible be as good yet I'll happily read anyway. Simmons won a hugo for Hyperion, which I'll probably read as well.
Yesterday was my last day of tutoring. My schedule is wide open again, except for Tuesday Nihongo no kurasu. I spent most of yesterday studying, focusing on hiregana. I'm tempted to buy more books, but I rarely get around to studying the ones I have. I need to ramp this up because I've visiting in 2 months and I hardly know anything. Anyway, now that I have all this free time it back to the bench to ward off SAd and practicing saxophone which I havent done in earnest for some time now.
Yesterday was my last day of tutoring. My schedule is wide open again, except for Tuesday Nihongo no kurasu. I spent most of yesterday studying, focusing on hiregana. I'm tempted to buy more books, but I rarely get around to studying the ones I have. I need to ramp this up because I've visiting in 2 months and I hardly know anything. Anyway, now that I have all this free time it back to the bench to ward off SAd and practicing saxophone which I havent done in earnest for some time now.
I knew Shadow of The Giant was going to be a let down so I put off reading it for a
long, long time. I was of course obligated to read this book having read
the other seven. Judging by the Bestseller status so I wasn't the only one... Fortunately the end of Bean's arc wasn't total nonsense
like Ender's in Children of the Mind ( which if you recall
involved a distributed software entity teleporting Ender and his
compatriots into the space between dimensions by thinking really REALLY
hard about it. Oh /spoilerz lol) Seriously, once OSC stopped talked about pre-teens taking showers together he lost his magic. For the record OSC has written two good books, but thats being damn generous considering Ender's Shadow was essentially Ender's Game with a find/replace "Ender"/"Bean".
The precipice was fun only because I read it immediately after having finished the Rainbow Mars Trilogy. The good: It wasn't about rocks. It was about mining asteroids, which is completely different... No its not. The bad: The characters have absolutely no depth and the outcome of the book is pretty much obvious once the conflict has been introduced.
OK I think I need to stop reading shitty sci-fi and move on to something a little more thought provoking than Danielle Steel.
The precipice was fun only because I read it immediately after having finished the Rainbow Mars Trilogy. The good: It wasn't about rocks. It was about mining asteroids, which is completely different... No its not. The bad: The characters have absolutely no depth and the outcome of the book is pretty much obvious once the conflict has been introduced.
OK I think I need to stop reading shitty sci-fi and move on to something a little more thought provoking than Danielle Steel.
If you've ever read a science fiction book and thought "man this isn't hardcore enough for me." you should probably read this trilogy. OK, they're rife with deus ex machina but close enough, OK? As the titles suggest the books follow the science of terraforming mars from a barren wasteland to a planet with liquid water and a breathable atmosphere.
The first book is high on my list of the best sci-fi ever written. Its so detailed that it borders on science fact, minus the whole " this hasn't actually happened " bit. Ever wanted to spend months driving across the surface of desolate planet where nothing significant has happened in several billion years? Ladies and gents, you are in luck!
Green Mars was a huge step backward in my opinion. It covers a lot of the politics and human interactions, bla bla bla. I can't really remember what happened, I think some people died? It won a Hugo, so I guess someone liked it.
Blue Mars caps the series and continues the focus on the socio-political impact of having a second liveable planet in the solar system. This time sucking less. The science in this book is not nearly as tight as the first, which is unfortunatey but I guess theres way too many unknowns.
OK so the best book in the series was by far the first, I just felt compelled to read them all because....I just do stuff like that ok?
I get the feeling I'll be very old if, and when, we ever send anyone to Mars. Right now I believe the guesstimate for the next moonwalk is 2010 -15 - never. I know its not exactly a priority given the mess on Earth but like many other nerds growing up I seriously wanted to be an astronaut. Then I realized how hopelessly impossible a dream that is. Anyway, the Apollo 11 astronauts are all 70+, so pretty soon we won't have any moonmen left amoung us :[
And as long as we are on the subject of world's driest novels allow me to reccomend Greg Bear's masterpiece EON. The premise of this book is simple: An asteroid from our future containing an infinitely long cooridor lined with a singularity travels to the present via the combined gravitational sling shot of the Sun and that terrible planet of the Apes! Its all so easy! Its been a while since I've read it but I remember the lead character is a female Hispanic mathematician ( science fiction, remember? ) and I'm pretty sure in the future Ralph Nader has a cult of personality.
The first book is high on my list of the best sci-fi ever written. Its so detailed that it borders on science fact, minus the whole " this hasn't actually happened " bit. Ever wanted to spend months driving across the surface of desolate planet where nothing significant has happened in several billion years? Ladies and gents, you are in luck!
Green Mars was a huge step backward in my opinion. It covers a lot of the politics and human interactions, bla bla bla. I can't really remember what happened, I think some people died? It won a Hugo, so I guess someone liked it.
Blue Mars caps the series and continues the focus on the socio-political impact of having a second liveable planet in the solar system. This time sucking less. The science in this book is not nearly as tight as the first, which is unfortunatey but I guess theres way too many unknowns.
OK so the best book in the series was by far the first, I just felt compelled to read them all because....I just do stuff like that ok?
I get the feeling I'll be very old if, and when, we ever send anyone to Mars. Right now I believe the guesstimate for the next moonwalk is 2010 -15 - never. I know its not exactly a priority given the mess on Earth but like many other nerds growing up I seriously wanted to be an astronaut. Then I realized how hopelessly impossible a dream that is. Anyway, the Apollo 11 astronauts are all 70+, so pretty soon we won't have any moonmen left amoung us :[
And as long as we are on the subject of world's driest novels allow me to reccomend Greg Bear's masterpiece EON. The premise of this book is simple: An asteroid from our future containing an infinitely long cooridor lined with a singularity travels to the present via the combined gravitational sling shot of the Sun and that terrible planet of the Apes! Its all so easy! Its been a while since I've read it but I remember the lead character is a female Hispanic mathematician ( science fiction, remember? ) and I'm pretty sure in the future Ralph Nader has a cult of personality.
