The End of Faith
Sam Harris
The End of Faith
Sam Harris
The most amazing SF in the last decade I've read is still "Blindsight" by Peter Watts. It was suggested by one of you fellows - thank you.
It feels like you take a legit biologist and ask him to come up with the weirdest science he can barely come up with and create a First Contact novel from it.
The book has about 30 pages of references that'd do a proper science paper proud.
Just for a measure of how bizarre this can turn: He managed to put vampires in it without breaking the premise.
Recently, I finished "Flashback" by Dan Simmons.
It's a classic near-future dystopia and written well enough. There's a Film Noir style private investigator who does drugs instead of smokes, which I found interesting enough.
I liked the story well enough, but Dear God, I'm having trouble stomaching the towelhead-bashing: For instance, in this near future there's the world's biggest mosque sitting on Ground Zero "because everything else got bombed away again", and that's not even the biggest "DEAR GOD!!".
Originally Posted by dstopia
Actually, when you put it like that it sounds as much like Fallen Dragon as Misspent Youth, heh. Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, etcetera. Although I really enjoyed F.D. for the sci-fi side of it, as much as anything else. Although M.Y. basically boiled down to "in the future England becomes shitty, btw here is a dude lusting after his sons girlfriend or some twisted shit."
I am not "mixed in terms" about Misspent Youth at all. It is a horrible book. It is Hamiltons weakest storyarc from his other books - that one aimed on teenage boy readers (beautiful young woman falls for average boy, lots of hanky panky) - expanded into one whole book with that and only that. I regret reading through it all before throwing it in the trash. Hoped it would get better later.
The rest of the "series" is however of a different quality. It plays in the same story universe as Misspend Youth, but is in no way connected to it. You can skip it (in fact I heavily recommend that) and not miss anything.
I liked the Nights Dawn Trilogy better, though. His idea of living spaceships and stations is brilliant and really unique.
IDK, M.Y. had some decent tiny little bits in it, but yeah the characters and story were a bit gash overall.
A Universe from Nothing
Lawrence M. Krauss
and
The Deacon's Tale
Arinn Dembo
The last three erikson book were a devolved mess (unfortunately), this is almost like the style of deadhouse gates again. It's taken a while to get all the plots together thus far and something is brewing nicely without giving the game away just yet .... still enjoying so far...
Shitting up eve for .... well, longer than most of you scumbags.
The Koran.
Seriously, how in the hell do all these religious people not get along? The 2nd chapter of the Koran does nothing but restate the same theories in the Torah/Old Testament.
Because... How would we otherwise scare the people into following us?
Coming soon(tm).
<3 Entrox.
Ship Breaker and The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi.
Both apparently written as teen fiction but enjoyable reads. Really like his dystopia setting.
Ian Banks: The Player of Games
400 pages in 7 hours, 2 sittings.
All of his books go that way I feel so sad when they end so quickly.
Liked drowned cities, but it seems he has some strange kind of ambulation fetish.
so many body parts missing in the end i lost oversight.
Btw currently reading:
Flowertown, S.G. Redling SF , pretty good read:
"When Feno Chemical spilled an experimental pesticide in rural Iowa, scores of people died. Those who survived contamination were herded into a US Army medically maintained quarantine and cut off from the world. Dosed with powerful drugs to combat the poison, their bodies give off a sickly sweet smell and the containment zone becomes known simply as Flowertown"
Dr. Irabu Ichirô, Hideo Okuda
Strange collection of short storys about a freaky psychologist, but got entertained.
Last edited by Miep; August 16 2012 at 09:17:10 AM.
retarded [r??t??d?d]
adj; underdeveloped, esp mentally and esp having an IQ of 70 to 85 See also ESN, mental handicap, subnormal
During holidays I had time to read a few books so finished in chronological order:
The Man in The High Castle
Excellent alternate history book by PK Dick that describes a world in which the Nazi's won the second world war, in my opinion it ends far too early. I can't really say much about the general plot because it isn't very long and with the abundant amount of characters there is little explanation for it other than to act as a background. It mainly concerns itself with describing the world that came to be after the Nazi victory and does an awesome job at it in true PK Dick style.
Altered Carbon
I think I saw it mentioned in this thread before. A noirish dystopian sci-fi book about a man called Takeshi Kovachs who lives in a world where people can transfer their conciousness into different bodies, which they call sleeves. Kovachs is a criminal on one of Earth's distant colonies, which is only reachable by transferring a conciousness through a network of so called needlecasts. These allow people to travel between worlds as ships still take years to travel. Kovachs is brought to earth by a Meth, a high class ruling elite who are practically immortal, to solve the murder of this Meth and the subsequent memory loss brought on from having to use a backup conciousness from 48 hours earlier.
The book does an excellent job at describing a dystopian world in which technology has led to an even greater shift in class struggles and showcasts all the technologies which make the transfer of the conciousness possible, although not in hard sci-fi style (if you were expecting this). It is certainly a good read and the story is fun but I felt that some plot elements were overly forced and just predictable. It also tries to tie up all loose strings which it actually does do but not in the best of ways. Still I recommend the book for anyone who likes a good sci-fi book.
1984
A very notorious book that many have probably read because of the cultural impact it has and still makes and or because it was in a school's curriculum. For those who have not read it an are interested in reading it I highly recommend it. It describes the life of a regular guy within a totalitarian three class system and the impact that it has on him and the people who live in this society. Of course the book ventures further than that but to keep it simple it deals with telling a story of a arrested society and what happens to people who step out of line.
Orwell's writing is very, very good. I mostly interpreted the book as a thought experiment of what if a totalitarian society managed to get a complete grasp upon mankind and make sure that no change within the structure of society could ever happen. With clear inspirations of both the Communist and Nazi regimes. It was impressive for it's time to project such a future and it still tells a relevant story today, but most of all it makes a damn good dystopian sci-fi book. I would definitely put this on the list of must reads for anyone who likes a good story about a regular person, his dreams and the suppression of all-powerful state taken to the extreme.
Next book which I'm reading: A Scanner Darkly
50 shades of whey
Its about bulking up
Tapatalk crew
texas rules of civil procedure.
laaaaaaaaaaaaaaame
Preparing for the Texas bar exam? If so, congratulations. If you need it for a law suit (I hope not), good luck to you.
Sent from my phone by tapatalk.
nevar forget
Where did they jump to no human earth? Just finished the book last monday and i dont recall that bit. If you are reffering to the part where they see destroyed Moskou its just a destroyed moskou.It's a good book and I'm a fan of his work (signed book ftw) but compared to a lot of his other stuff Transition has a couple of internal inconsistencies.last third is mind bending awesome sauce
Spoiler:
I was also surprised that he published it under Ian Banks, not Ian M. Banks his sci-fi semi-pseudonym, perhaps he feels that his sci-fi is good enough to try and drop the stigma sometimes attached to it, I'd be inclined to agree with his publisher if that's the case but he's released Culture novels under Ian M. Banks since so I guess not.
The end is absolutely brilliant tho and i really didnt see the whole conspiracy coming.
Also finished the man in the high castle and was amused.
Reminded me of a book i read, and forgot the title off, last year where in the middle of WW2 there is a alien invasion with the aliens siding on the Nazi side. Funny stuff altho not very well written.
Think ill read the rest of Philiph K. Dick next (tmintht was my first).
Spoiler:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is really good, so is Flow My Tears the Policeman Said. A Scanner Darkly has been good so far but I'm only like one fourth of a way in.Where did they jump to no human earth? Just finished the book last monday and i dont recall that bit. If you are reffering to the part where they see destroyed Moskou its just a destroyed moskou.It's a good book and I'm a fan of his work (signed book ftw) but compared to a lot of his other stuff Transition has a couple of internal inconsistencies.last third is mind bending awesome sauce
Spoiler:
I was also surprised that he published it under Ian Banks, not Ian M. Banks his sci-fi semi-pseudonym, perhaps he feels that his sci-fi is good enough to try and drop the stigma sometimes attached to it, I'd be inclined to agree with his publisher if that's the case but he's released Culture novels under Ian M. Banks since so I guess not.
The end is absolutely brilliant tho and i really didnt see the whole conspiracy coming.
Also finished the man in the high castle and was amused.
Reminded me of a book i read, and forgot the title off, last year where in the middle of WW2 there is a alien invasion with the aliens siding on the Nazi side. Funny stuff altho not very well written.
Think ill read the rest of Philiph K. Dick next (tmintht was my first).
Finished Hannibal Rising, Red Dragon. Now onto The Silence of The Lambs.
I also read A Small Colonial War, which I think someone here might have mentioned already? It was good! Though, the names of all the characters took a bit of mental chewing to digest and track throughout the story. It also appears to be the first of three featuring the unit/commander, so I'm going to track down the other two.
Recent acquisitions: Cryptonomicon, Spook Country, Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties, Zero History and Saturn's Children.
Neal Stephenson, William Gibson and Charles Stross. The lot of them are now parked waiting in the Kindle.
I read The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes over the course of a day. I recommend it highly.
Re-reading the original necroscope series
Harry keogh is a boss
Tapatalk crew
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