A Good Summer Read? 1485
binaryhead asks: "Well, the semester has just ended, and I have graduated from school! :-) I start my full-time job in a month and want to read a good book in the mean time. Having read Snowcrash, Neuromancer, and most of the hacker biographies, I am trying to find a scifi-geek-hacker book that people like. I might try the new Kevin Mitnick book, but I wanted to see what Slashdot preferred. Thanks."
Gibson.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gibson.... (Score:3, Funny)
ttyl
Farrell
Good Read (Score:5, Interesting)
good read, great plot, and the tech stuff isnt too shabby either.
bonus treat: perl source for the cryptographic alogrithm described [and used in the story] called solitaire [the algo, courtesy of bruce schneier of counterpane and "practical cryptography" book] presented at the back of the book...
Cryptonomicon's characters (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, reading it now is an opportunity to be nostalgic about that Internet Boom Thing that was so many quarters ago....
Re:Gibson.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Gibson.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Neuromancer's "Miss Linda Lee" is in the song "Cool It Down"
The book "All Tomorrow's Parties" appears to be named after a VU song as well.
There are others as well, but I can't recall of the top of my head.
How about something USEFUL? (Score:5, Interesting)
Required Slashdot reading list. (Score:5, Funny)
2) New Guide to learning Hindi
3) Linus Torvalds: Savior of the Multiverse
4) How Things Work In Soviet Russia
5) Why employers are evil, and why I still insist of working for them
6) The Theory of How to Date Women
7) Physical Exercise: Tips On How To Avoid It
8) How To Get Used To Bathing
9) Hottest IT Jobs/Trends In India
10) The Essential Goat.sx Reference
11) Creating Beowulf Clusters From Anything
What?? (Score:5, Insightful)
No one suggested Hitchikers guide to the galaxy (a trilogy iun 5 parts) yet!!??
Re:Gibson.... (Score:4, Informative)
I also can't speak highly enough of John Courtenay Grimwood [j-cg.co.uk]. This guy's stuff is broadly in the Cyberpunk genre, but again, very different. Look at Amazon UK [amazon.co.uk] which has more on offer than the US site.
A third option are the Marid Audran/Budayeen trilogy (and others) [amazon.com] by George Alec Effinger.
Enjoy!
Trib
Re:Gibson.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gibson.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I read it a few months ago and STILL think of Cayce Pollard every time I'm in a clothing store. And every time I remove a label from the stuff I buy.
I think she's my new idol.
Ender's Game (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ender's Game (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ender's Game (Score:3, Insightful)
Enjoy the Ender series
Re:Ender's Game (Score:5, Interesting)
If I were going to recommend a couple of really excellent books for hacker summer reading, I'd aim for some quality writers who are also going to make you sit down and think a bit afterwards.
First, I'd go with Jack Womack. Strictly in terms of how he writes, I think he's one of the most interesting SF writers around. His books experiment very interestingly with language (although they are page-turner readable), with ideas about the post-national or post-government future of the world, with artificial intelligence, and even with mutant post human freaks.
The first book I read by him was Ambient [powells.com], about a corporate assasin in New York City in the not-so-distant future. The main character thinks and tells the story in an oddly compelling near-future english slang that will have you thinking in Ambient yourself by the end of the book. Another, Random Acts of Senseless Violence [amazon.com], is a kind of prequel to Ambient, in which a young Upper East Side rich girl watches her world collapse into post-national chaos. The language in the book changes from proper english (with a snotty schoolgirl attitude) to Womack's invented post-English gradually to reflect the character's own slide into violent street life as the city collapses around her.
Another hacker classic I have not seen mentioned here (surprisingly) is Vernor Vinge's Across Realtime series [amazon.com](there are three, read them all), which many people credit with inventing cyberpunk (the first one precedes Gibson). A more recent Vinge book, and my favorite, is A Fire Upon the Deep [amazon.com]. Vinge is not (I would say) as good a writer as Womack, but he is a hell of a lot better than most of the hacks I've seen mentioned in this discussion, and he's had by far some of the most interesting and influential ideas in SF writing.
I hope this is fair use: (Score:5, Insightful)
In the preface to the unabridged version of "The Stand", Stephen King (truly an American icon) writes: LOTR is certainly not short on words, but taking all of the pages that describe the world of Middle-Earth and boiling them down to single Cliffs Notes-style sentences would kill the narrative. There are portions where Tolkien goes overboard (i.e., some of the details of Middle-Earth's history and the lineages of his characters) but on the whole, I thought that LOTR was pretty well-paced.
I mean, the trilogy isn't a Michael Crichton airport reader or a Thomas Harris psycho thriller. It's an epic journey through a world of splendor and grandeur. The guy invented his own languages for Middle-Earth, dude.
Re:Ender's Game (Score:3, Insightful)
For some reason, Card is amazing in his firsts - EG and ES. But I feel h
Ender's Law (Score:5, Funny)
"Every time the subject of science fiction is raised on Slashdot, Ender's Game will be mentioned in the first 10 messages."
I think Slashcode needs an Ender filter, just like it has a First Post filter.
Re:Ender's Game (Score:3, Insightful)
I never got a chance yet to read "Speaker for the Dead", the fi
Gullivers Travels (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gullivers Travels (Score:4, Insightful)
I couldn't agree more. Gulliver's Travels raises many fascinating philosophical questions, in the form of a historical satire. (Jonathan Swift intended the book as a complex satire on 18th century morals and thought.) Ah, if only Swift were alive today, imagine what he would write on things like:
- the university system in the US
- the crazy US government and its Total Information Awareness, War on Drugs/Terror/Whatever, Iraqi Freedom(TM), etc. - all the outsourcing of tech jobs.
- Kind-hearted Micro$oft and the RIAA. Amazon's nice, well-deserved patents.
The possibilities for Gullver Travels Version 2003 are endless!
Re:Gullivers Travels (Score:3, Interesting)
If we want to wax philosophical but still keep the reading accessible to the casual -- unlike, say, Spinoza's "Ethics" -- there's material such as Nozick's "Anarchy, State and Utopia". Fiction-wise, there's plenty of philosophical fiction, especially in the woe-is-the-world apocalyptic genre typified by, say, John Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar" or other dark material such as most anything by Philip K. Dick or Franz Kafka. History can get one thinking, as well... and readers shouldn't confine th
ok (Score:4, Funny)
Read? (Score:4, Funny)
books in pre-Change Internet form (Score:3, Interesting)
Fantasy? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you like humour (yes, the British version of it
I'd also recommend Asian folklore; those stories are surprisingly good, considering the plots seem like they were thought up by someone using the peace pipe...
Re:Fantasy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who wants to spend the time reading 7, or however many there are now, 1000+ page books whose plot is plainly drawn out as long as possible for seemingly no other reason that to extend the series? I don't, but I suppose this is a good way to kill time during the summer.
Re:Fantasy? (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as Forgotten Realms is concerned, I think RA Salvatore is the only really good writer. I haven't read all of FR, so maybe I was just unlucky, but everything else I read was crap
Death Gate cycle, by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, is damn good fantasy (especially the 4 first books). The Dragonlance trilogies are good, too, and so is Rose Of The Prophet apparently, although I haven't read that.
Ì saw someone recommend Connelly - I must concur, although that's no summer read. If you buy all the Connellies this week, you'll have finished reading them before summer starts. They're page turners - heck, I read Blood Work in one sitting. I started reading before going to bed - didn't sleep all night :)
Re:Fantasy? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Fantasy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, my suggestions.
Fantasy:
George RR Martin - A song of fire and ice [iblist.org] (series)
Stephen Donaldson - The chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever [iblist.org] (two series, one listed)
Tad Wiliams - Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn [iblist.org] (series)
Stephen Erikson - A tale of the Malazan book of the fallen [iblist.org] (series)
Science fiction:
Stephen Donaldson - The Gap series [iblist.org]
Peter F Hamilton - Night's Dawn Trilogy [iblist.org]
Greg Egan - Diaspora [iblist.org]
And all the classic; Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, etc.
A word of warning. Both series by Stephen Donaldson contain main characters whose actions at times might seem offensive/disturbing to many.
Dragonlance is good too (Score:3, Informative)
I agree that Jordan's "Wheel Of Time" is the ultimate though.
For the love of God, don't start the Wheel of Time (Score:5, Informative)
The series is good up until the 5th or 6th book, at which point it stalls and dies a long, slow, painful death. I recently bought the 10th book out of the same vague sense of obligation that sent me to the theater for Star Wars: Episode II, and I wouldn't want anyone else to be sucked into that vortex.
On the other hand, if you want a good fantasy series, take a look at George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" (starts with _A Game of Thrones_). Another multivolume, incomplete series, but he promises only 6 books, so maybe it'll work out. I also just recently read Neil Gaiman's _Neverwhere_, a dark-comedy urban fantasy (how's that for a sub-sub-genere?), which is excellent.
How about... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn right. Read Down and out in Paris and London [amazon.com] by George Orwell [k-1.com]. One of the best books I've read in a long time.
Cire
Re:How about... (Score:4, Informative)
Water-Method Man, John Irving
Sound and Fury, Falkner
Of Human Bondage, Maugham (Perfect for someone just getting out of school)
All Quiet on the Wester Front. (Not exactly a day-brightener, but should be required reading for all humans)
A good proto-hacker story is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Mark Twain was a bit of a technology buff/hacker himself, and a failed VC. IIRC, he blew his Huckleberry Finn/Tom Sawyer fortune on some kind of early typesetting machine or typewriter or something. I suppose I could look it up if I felt like it, but Google is way over on that other tab in Moz.
But yeah, try something non-hacker once in a while. It's good and good for you.
Re:How about... (Score:5, Informative)
The book is neither about Zen Buddhism or motorcycle maintenance. Its tremendously good, and thought provoking, particularly for those analytical minds out there. I can't recommend it enough.
Re:How about... (Score:3)
It doesn't have to be sci-fi to be mind-bending. Try "The Crying of Lot 49" by Pynchon. Almost anything by Nabokov is great. If you don't want to invest in a whole novel, try his "Nabokov's dozen" collection of short stories. Short stories in general are a lot of fun. Get one of those big fat books of collected short stories - American Authors, Great Fiction, etc. It's a great way to introduce yourself to authors you might otherwise never read. If you like their short stuff, then you m
Re:How about... (Score:4, Informative)
NON-FICTION:
* Joe Simpson - Touching the Void ("Dark Shadows Falling" is good too, but "Touching the Void" is the one you won't be able to put down)
* Jon Krakauer - Into Thin Air (you should probably also read Anatoli Boukreev's "The Climb" for his account of the Everest tragedy, though it's nowhere near as good a book as Krakauer's)
* Nick Hornby - Fever Pitch (for all sports fans)
* Steven Vogel - Cats' Paws and Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature and People
* Simon Winchester - The Map That Changed the World
* David Attenborough - Life On Air (biography)
FICTION:
* George RR Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire series
* Kim Stanley Robinson - Red Mars (the rest of the trilogy is also good, but nowhere near as good as the first book IMO)
* Matthew Reilly - Ice Station (I challenge anyone to put this down once the action starts)
* Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front (should be required reading for everyone)
* Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
* Stephen King - Christine
* Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Identity (please don't judge this on the movie - the book is on another level)
* John Fowles - The Collector
* Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series
there's lots more, but hopefully there's some decent ideas for someone there.
whereis /usr/man/ROMEO? (Score:4, Funny)
I've got it! Are there any books about two young lovers who meet in a chat room, but they are destined never to be together because one is a Mac user and one is Linux user? They try to pursue their love in secret chat rooms using fake handles, but then the LUG/MUG finds out and forbids them to ever speak again! In desperation she pretends to have switched to Windows, and he in his despair formats his HDD and really does install Windows! She comes online, realizes her lover has been seized by the cold, inhuman clutches of Redmond and she formats and installs Windows too! No greater a love story has ever been told.
Now that's literature, why didn't anyone ever come up with an idea like that!
Tom Clancy later stuff is shite... (Score:5, Informative)
Robert Anton Wilson (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Robert Anton Wilson (Score:3, Informative)
Shroedinger's Cat Trilogy
Masks of the Illuminati
This is a trilogy of sorts that includes trilogies for the first 2 books of the trilogy. Great reading though, very stimulating, funny, and you'll probably learn something.
The Principia Discordia [principiadiscordia.com] is a fun read too, and available online. Better to check it out as a book and randomly flip through it though.
Dune (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to recommend the old sci-fi classic, Dune. It did a marvelous job of creating a strange yet self-consistent world. Gread read. The other books in the series are sometimes dry and uninteresting, but still worth it.
Re:Dune (Score:3, Funny)
Cuckoo's Egg (Score:5, Informative)
Good documentary account of tracing international hackers from a sysadmin-like guy's point of view. A little dated now but well-written, humorous and very entertaining.
Read something that will FUCK with your head (Score:5, Insightful)
Like Naked Lunch
Re:Read something that will FUCK with your head (Score:5, Funny)
Naked Lunch
"I can think of at least two things wrong with that title" - Nelson MuntzPattern Recognition (Score:3, Informative)
Hyperion (Score:3, Informative)
It's something fresh and original and it'll change the way you think
art of deception (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't in your requested genre... (Score:4, Informative)
- The Fountainhead
by Ayn Rand, of course, then onto- Atlas Shrugged
...There are few better favors you can do yourself before entering the working world in earnest than to have a nice philosophical framework.
Good luck!
Note on Ayn Rand (Score:5, Informative)
In addition, The Fountainhead has one of the ugliest scenes I have ever come across in any piece of literature. I'm referring to the scene involving Roarke and Dominique, which in my mind, seems more or less equivalent to rape, yet is not treated as such in the book.
I'm just trying to give adequate warning for those who don't know what to expect from the books, they are very powerful and well written.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Score:5, Informative)
Cat's Cradle
Player Piano
The Sirens of Titan
I enjoyed them 30 yrs ago as much as in the past few weeks. Unemployed and all. Don't forget 1984, The Doors of Perception and Fahrenheit 451. Enjoy.
Reading (Score:5, Interesting)
You read one Lovecraft story you've read 'em all. (Score:3, Interesting)
Lovecraft is much the same. Read Cthulu, be disappointed at the ending, ask "Is this it?" and move on. The rest of his stories are reformulations of the same.
Wicked (Score:3, Interesting)
Just one? (Score:5, Informative)
One book in a month of nothing to do? Maybe one book a week, if you're slow!
Anyways, Cryptonomicon was a good read, if a little lengthy. In fact, anything by Stephenson that you haven't read (Zodiac and Diamond Age were great). Just ignore the complaints about endings and enjoy the rest of the story.
Asimov's Foundation series is a great choice as well. Not so much with the hacker angle (well, hacking of a different kind, surely) but very interesting.
If you want to go military geek sci-fi, David Weber's Honor Harrington series is excellent. You can get the first book, On Basilisk Station from the Baen Free Library [baen.com]. And if you buy the most recent book, War of Honor, in hardcover, you get a CD that has all the books in the series on it. Or you can just download the CD somewhere online.
Just a few suggestions. I have a ton of other things on my reading list, but that's a start.
-Todd
Re:Just one? (Score:3, Insightful)
Cryptonomicron is historical fiction focusing around the age of Alan Turing (WorldWarII) and really centers around encryption. This is a read-several-times-and-still-see-something-neat book. Also, shortly after this book came out, SeaLand [sealandgov.com], the country, started making news again. No accident I think as this book kind of gave a "business plan" to the island.
Diamond Age is another read-several-times book that focuses around where nano-tech can go. It remembers that not all technologies are controlled.
Cryptonomicon, Earth, A Deepness in the Sky, HHGTG (Score:4, Informative)
Otherwise there a whole CD or more worth of free sci fi, so you can get a taste of what authors you like here
http://www.baen.com/library/
I really like Lois McMaster Bujold - her "Vorkorsican" novels start with "Cordelia's Honor" which is really two novels published together ("Shards of Honor" and "Barrayar"). Epic like Starwars with much more attention to detail (are you ever annoyed when a novel fails to complete an idea, and leaves some character hanging, or contradicts its universe rules in every new release?).
And I like David Weber - "On basilisk Station" and I just finished CS Friedman "The alien shore" which I liked. Most of these involve space travel. "The alien shore" involved spaceships and social structures and computer gadgets.
David Weber was very military, as is Lois McMaster Bujold, and I don't like strict hierachies but I like these books. I like Elizabeth Moon's "Hunting Party", about Heris Serrano, again in a very hierachical society. I guess I like the breaking the rules bit that most of these use to create the drama.
David Brin - "Earth" is an epic plot weaver, the ultimate internet, combined with some interesting physics, maths and enviromental outcomes. I needed 6 bookmarks to read that one.
I hated Robert Jordan Wheel of time series because he never finishes, there are dangling ideas everywhere and it looks like every book just spawns more threads without completion. Very frustrating. I also disliked CJ Cherryh "The Chronicles of Morgaine" because it was a little bit Arthurian legend (I am sick to death of Arthur), but if you want to know where the "Stargates" come from, then it is interesting.
"A deepness in the sky" by Vernor Vinge is another great epic. It is sort of a prequel to A fire upon the deep (1993), and covers 1000's of years of time, space travel, aliens and humans, traders and religious fundamentalist dictatorships. And interestingly explores the consequences of dependence on computer systems and human augmentation with biotech.
I also like Julian May, Golden Torc series; Anne Macaffery, Mercedes Lackey (although they're a little girly-princess). Terry Goodkind is good but a little too much s&m for me. And for good detective crime fighting, I like Dick Francis, so far as I know he wrote only one computer related story "Twice Shy" and it is quite historical now ie it used cassette tapes to load the programs.
For cultural completeness, if you haven't already read these, you must read Tolkein ("Hobbit", "Lord of the Rings" etc), and Douglas Adams "Hitchikers guide to the galaxy" series.
Re:Just one? (Score:3, Interesting)
Then there are the ones written after his death by other authors. Don't bother. I got about 1/4 of the way through Foundation's End and
Code Book, by Simon Singh (Score:3, Informative)
don't waste your time though trying to solve the puzzles at the end, unless you're bored...the puzzle and 10,000 pounds were won less then a year after the challenge was issued, I think...
RB
Book suggestion (Score:4, Informative)
Some must-read modern classics for geeks (Score:3, Insightful)
Then there's that little sci fi novel by George Orwell called 1984 -- which is important for geeks who want to be informed citizens
Good Omens by Niel Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (Score:5, Funny)
Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Re:Good Omens by Niel Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (Score:4, Interesting)
My mother bought me this book because she thought I would find the "motorcyclists of the apocalypse" amusing. It was a great read, and I have often laughed about some of the images.
Do yourself a favor and get this book. Then start listening to NPR. Buy the books they review. You get a wide variety of good reads this way. I got _Ice_Masters_ via NPR last summer, and I never would have bought it otherwise.
If you haven't read _Confederacy_of_Dunces_ do it soon. _Catch_22_ is another classic I have read more than once. _Jupiter's_Travels_ is a winner and the author is currently going around the world again.
I'll spare you a longer list.
Depends. Enjoy sanity? (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously, books with pictures of obscure animals on the cover, done in a faux-woodprint style, count as what we call "reference books".
When you have a specific question about how to use a particular construct in Malbolge [mines.edu], you pick up the book with the woodcut of the naked molerat(tm) and turn to the chapter on painless suicide methods.
You don't just READ such a book from cover-to-cover, a feat only slightly less painful than Vogon poetry.
Which brings me to my real suggestion - Reread the entire works of Douglas Adams. Most folks know the HHgttG series, but not the joys of "Dirk Gently's Holsitic detective agency" or "The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul". Great books in their own rights.
Vinge of course (Score:5, Insightful)
short story collections (was Re:Vinge of course) (Score:3, Informative)
Another story like to that (which was amazingly prophetic) was the short story ``Catacomb'' which was published in _Dragon Magazine_ a long while back.
Another excellent short story collection is Hal Clement's _Space Lash_ (originally published as _Small Changes_
Iain M. Banks SF Books (Score:3, Interesting)
Reading "Consider Phlebas" (title is a nod to T S Eliot's "The Waste Land") right now.
Chabon is good (Score:3, Informative)
I also read Masters of Doom recently, which is about the early days of id software, Carmack, and Romero. It's a New Journalism book, where the author recreated dialog in conversations and things like that so it reads more like a novel than non-fiction. The writing's not the best, but it's entertaining, especially if you remember reading the trials and tribulations of Quake, Quake2, and Daikatana on the Shugashack and Bluesnews.
Finally, if you've not read William Gibsons Count Zero, it's excellent. I've read Neuromancer, Pattern Recognition, Idoru and am finishing Virtual Light right now, but I think I like Count Zero better than the others. Virtual Light, Pattern Recognition, Idoru, and Count Zero all share similar themes (strong but secretly vulnerable heroines in trouble with big corporations) but Count Zero does it better than the others.
I also just finished The Diamond Age, by Stevenson. I was pretty unimpressed with it. Its plotlines aren't as intricate as Cryptonomicons, and it seems kind of like Stevenson trying to be Gibson. I was pretty unimpressed. I'm going to pick up another Stevenson book after I finish with Virtual Light.
I could dig up some Amazon links, but I'm too lazy.
Hope this helps!
Philip K. Dick (Score:5, Informative)
Bad starters for PKD. Try these. (Score:4, Informative)
Try:
A Scanner Darkly: Still relevant (if not more so in today's surveillance culture) criticism of the war on drugs, exploration of drug culture, and paranoia/conspiracy. Great character work. *if you can only read one PKD story do this one or Man in the High Castle.
Bladerunner (that's the title they sell it under now, I know): Okay, you've seen the movie, but the book has very little to do with the movie except with setting, a little plot, and character names. Excellent PKD exploration on human vs non-human and moral ambiguity.
Ubik: excellent work of sci-fi. Touches heavily upon PKD's "kipple" theme.
The Man in the High Castle: one of the first, if not the first "elsewhere" story. Superb in many ways.
Eye in the Sky: Ubik-like mindbender.
Solar Lottery: No one ever recommends this because its so unlike PKD (first published novel I believe) but its a great short read and you can pick up on some future themes PKD explores later on.
Oh my! (Score:5, Informative)
As for my list, Frank Herbert's Dune is always a good read and, though I know many people would disagree, the fourth book, God Emperor of Dune is my favorite of the series. It's the culmination of the subtle (in the first book) Nietzschean subtext involving becoming the greatest predator ever to live, and so forth. Sounds goofy, I suppose, but I liked it.
Another, possibly less well-known though, again in my opinion, much better written series is Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Gene Wolfe loves to play mind games with his readers and more often than not you're presented with puzzles that at first you don't even realize are puzzles. The whole thing is very novel and, while short (four books with about 200 pages each -- compare that to Jordan's drivel which is 7, or maybe more now, at around 1000 each) it is intense and well worth the read. Aside from the intellectual motivation to read the series, it is also simply a great story. You won't see Gene Wolfe using science-fiction as a way to retell mostly old stories(*) in some sort of "futuristic" setting. Could I possibly gush some more? Maybe, but seriously, this is one of the finest pieces of real science-fiction to come out in a long time, perhaps ever.
(*)Ok, I lie, he does retell old stories and seemingly use the old ploys most science fiction authors do, but always in a way to poke fun at that way of writing. For example, all of his characters' names sound like science-fiction character names (Severian, Ymar, Palaemon, etc.), but in reality they're all names of obscure Catholic saints. Also, his retelling of the story of Theseus and the Minotaur using 19th century ships (which ones, I won't say, since even this fact isn't all that obvious when reading it) is wonderful.
Anyhow, in summary, etc., and so forth, I suggest you give Gene Wolfe a try. Really. Do it. HURRY!
Things that I like after 40 years of reading SciFi (Score:5, Informative)
City by Clifford Simak - classic.
Shockwave Rider - the first real computer/scifi cyberpunkish book. The term 'worm' comes from this book.
Naked Sun - Asimov - genesis of R. Daneel Olivaw, the character that Commander Data was based on.
Nine Princes in Amber - after Lord of the Rings my favorite fantasy book.
Left Hand of Darkness - IMHO the 2nd best scifi novel ever written after only Dune.
Ringworld by Larry Niven - extrodinary world building and imagination in hard scifi genre.
Gateway by Frederick Pohl - ditto.
Startide Rising, David Brin - wonderful novel set in world where man is lifting other species to intelligence. Terrific writing, and the sequels are excellent too.
Re:Things that I like after 40 years of reading Sc (Score:5, Informative)
I haven't been reading for quite forty years... but... some books / series to add (in no particular order) which I haven't seen added elsewhere in this list:
- _Wild Cards_ - comic books w/ almost realistic physics
- _The Stainless Steel Rat_ by Harry Harrison - classic science fiction, and available in Esperanto!
- Barry Hughart's ``Master Li Novels'' - _Bridge of Birds_, _The Story of the Stone_ and _Eight Skilled Gentleman_ --- read these in private if you're embarrassed by laughing out loud. Fantasies of a China which never was but should have been.
- Roger Zelazny's _Damnation Alley_ and its sequel _Hardwired_ by Walter Jon Williams (who says ``thanks'' to RZ for ``letting me play in his alley'' in the foreword).
- Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion cycle, esp. the Jeremiah Cornelius books. This is where the concept of ``multiverse'' reaches its full breadth and depth.
- Stephen Brust's ``Taltos'' books, _Jhereg_, _Yendi_, &c. (Spoiler: Interesting application of Clarke's law). There's a prequel series written in the style of Alexandre Dumas which are a lot of fun (everyone did read Dumas as a child, right? If not, go and read _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and all the other books first)
- John Varley's Gaea trilogy - _Titan_, _Wizard_ and _Demon_
- _The Princess Bride_ S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure --- the good parts version by William Goldman. Get the older edition (Ballantine Books 1973 if possible 'cause the newer editions have a bunch of typos
- L.E. Modesitt, Jr. _The Forever Hero_, _Dawn for a Distant Earth_, &c. - fun to read as a pastiche of other books which doesn't require that much thought
- Steve Perry's Matador books are a lot of fun and an interesting view of human potential (though he cops out and punts on the immortality issue when he did the Stellar Ranger books
- Jack Chalker, esp. his Well of Souls books
- C. J. Cherryh, - her Merchanter novels are classics, _Rimrunner_ is particularly good (though one pretty much needs to read _Downbelow Station_ first for the background. Her Morgaine books are also fantasy classics.
- Fred Saberhagen - his Dracula books are way cool (haven't read his novelization of the movie though---get _The Dracula Tape_ instead), as well as _The Frankenstein Papers_. and for the sci-fi tie in, ``Berserker''
- Jack Vance's _Dying Earth_ is a classic, and his Lyonesse trilogy should be
- Manly Wade Wellman wrote a lot of good stuff, but there're few things as wholly American and mystical, and moving as his stories about Silver John---the short story collection _John the Balladeer_ is a good beginning.
- Robert Heinlein 'nuff said
- Lord Dunsany - _The Charwoman's Shadow_ is haunting, and interesting to contrast with _The Return of the King_. I'm fortunate to have a Modern Library edition of _The Book of Wonder_ from ~1908 or so which is a frequent companion when camping.
- R. A. MacAvoy's books are quite good, and here _Tea with the Black Dragon_ even works in a couple of people who work w/ computers---way cool, though a bit dated.
Lastly, Terri Windling at Ace Books created ``The Fairy Tale Series'' which are re-tellings of classic fairy tales by contemporary authors, all of which are quite good, especially the haunting _Briar Rose_ by Jane Yolen which I think everyone should read.
William
(whose resume's objective line reads, ``To make beautiful books''
More books to read (Score:5, Informative)
About A New Kind of Science (Score:5, Interesting)
First, the parts of the book that I flipped through when I first opened the package and took it out were either A) So self-congratulatory of Wolfram's "discoveries" so as to be annoying or B) Details of simple experiments with Cellular Automata conducted in Mathematica. You might have seen Commodore BASIC source code for similar experiments in Compute! magazine in 1982. Okay, maybe not, but you get my point. Even with those points against it, Wolfram appeared to make some interesting conclusions, so I decided to attempt it.
Which brings me to point the second: When I sat down and started to read the book, the lengthy copyright notice caught my eye. Lucky for me it did. Rather than go off on a rant, I'll let the copyright statement speak for itself:
I read no further than the end of the copyright statement and haven't opened the book since except for the purpose of this post.
Perhaps people might think it unreasonable, but I have to take issue with a book claiming to deliver A New Kind of Science in which all the science appears to be held under lock and key. Where the hell would we be if Newton, et al. patented calculus, or Knuth patented algorithmic analysis?
So all I can offer is my completely uninformed opinion based solely on my layman's interpetation of the copyright statement: Stop before you infect your mind with Wolfram's IP.
Sci-Fi Fantasy books on a 1-10 scale (Score:5, Interesting)
I rank the books I read on a 1-10 scale.
Not everyone agrees with me
http://www.remsbox.com/showBooks.php
might give you some ideas if nothing else.
Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy (Score:5, Informative)
And I have to say, it was the most fun I've had reading a book in a LOOONNNGGG time! It's a fairly quick read, but it's completely enjoyable. I highly recommend picking it up if you haven't already read it.
My final recommendations today: Intelligence! (Score:3, Informative)
The other is George Dyson's Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence [amazon.com]. Incredible history of communication and computing with a pretty cool argument abuot the possible future of computer intelligence. He doesn't follow the well-worn tracks of those who basically posit a Short-Circuit-esque [imdb.com] Johnny5 for the future of computers, instead exploring the actual nature of intelligence and how it may emerge uniquely among computer networks. A presentation [edge.org] of the thesis is available at Edge.org.
You won't go wrong with these books.
Stay young with reading! (Score:3, Informative)
Uplift saga (Score:3, Informative)
You won't feel special.. (Score:3, Informative)
Not only is the plot fast and compelling, but the pseudo-history secret society stuff is fascinating. You'll never look at Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper' the same way again, guaranteed!
Sure, you may be reading the same book as the guy next to you on the train-- but it's popular for a reason!
A Very Good Far-Future Virus/Hacker Tale.. (Score:3, Informative)
Also, I would second the Daniel Keyes Moran titles cited earlier.
My own idiosyncratic essentials (Score:3, Informative)
_Stand_on_Zanzibar_, John Brunner
_Lucifer's_Hammer_, Larry Niven
_The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness_, Ursula K. LeGuin
_Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenanc
_Gateway_, Fred Pohl
_The_Forever_War_, Joe Haldeman
_Slow_River_, Nicola Griffith
_The_Sheep_Look_Up_, John Brunner
_Lord_of_Light_, Roger Zelazny
_The_Doomsday_Book_, Connie Willis
_The_War_of_the_Worlds_, H.G. Wells
_Earth_Abides_, George R. Stewart
_A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz_, Walter Miller
_Been_Down_So_Long_It_Look_Like_Up_To_Me_
_The_Folk_of_the_Air_, Peter S. Beagle
_Aegypt_, John Crowley
_The_Day_of_the_Triffids_, John Wyndham
_Rocannon's_World_, Ursula K. Leguin
_Planet_of_Exile_, Ursulak K. Leguin
_Ringworld_, Larry Niven
_The_Long_Walk_, Slavomir Rawicz
_We_Die_Alone_, David Howarth
all that being said, two books tower above all other summer reading
_Treasure_Island_, Robert Louis Stevenson
_Huckleberry_Finn_, Mark Twain
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know about geeks or hacking but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Non Fiction? (Score:5, Informative)
Stuff I wish I had read & some I have (Score:3, Interesting)
Don Quixote by Cervantes
The Divine Comedy by Dante
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
War and Peace by Tolstoy
Various Mark Twain works
The Bible
so much more. Curse me for my laziness.
Stuff I have read and recommend highly...
Kurt Vonnegut books, particulary Slaughterhouse Five It is hilarious.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller It, too, is hilarious and biting.
J. D. Sallinger books and stories
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
Richard Feynmann? (Score:5, Informative)
Anything by Kurt Vonnegut or Chuck Palaniuk (Score:5, Interesting)
Arthur C. Clarke... (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, and seeing we've had the Ayn Rand enthusiasts, you could try some other flavours of political philosophy. Machiavelli's The Prince, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty and Marx's Communist Manifesto are all reasonably accessible and are certainly worth a read.
The Jargon File knows (Score:4, Informative)
No, he is not dead (Score:4, Insightful)
Soon to be re-released:
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three
The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands
The Dark Tower: Wizard & Glass
Not yet released:
The Dark Tower: Wolves of the Calla (November 2003)
The Dark Tower: Song of Susannah (Summer 2004)
The Dark Tower: The Dark Tower (November 2004)
That's easy... (Score:4, Interesting)
The Terminal Experiment, by Robert J. Sawyer.
It's about what happens to society when someone discovers proof of the human soul... and a whodunit involving virtual personas created as a method of simulating possible afterlifes.
Heck, nearly any of his works would do.
Shameless Self-promotion (Score:4, Interesting)
You may like my book, Dancing Barefoot [monolithpress.com]. There's a really long story all about Star Trek (scifi) and me (geek) and Vegas (hackers, I suppose, if you count Bringing Down the House, which is a GREAT summer -- or anytime, really -- read.)
But I won't pimp the link for BDTH, because I'm only shamelessly promoting myself.
some of my favorites ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Trader by Charles de Lint -- A story about waking up in a stranger's body sounds a bit cheesy, but this one sucked me in with its exploration of identity and personality. The ending wasn't the predictable warm, fuzzy, everything's okay type, either.
Cry to Heaven and Feast of All Saints by Anne Rice, both historical fiction with no vampires or magic whatsoever. She does a wonderful job of bringing these places and times to life.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson -- just incredibly engaging. The book is huge, but it's a page-turner from start to finish. Actually, I haven't read anything by Neal Stephenson or Steven Bury (an alternate pen name) that I haven't adored.
The Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams (Dragonbone Chair, Stone of Farewell, and To Green Angel Tower). Epic, beautifully written coming of age story set within the context of a compelling war between good and evil. The characters really come alive.
American Gods (Score:4, Informative)
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (Score:4, Interesting)