I finished Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand. The true story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic athlete turned Japanese POW. A powerful story, I was shocked by the will that man had to survive. I hope they do the story justice when the movie comes out this Christmas.
Letās see.
I have finished Pride and Prejudice. The book is funny but that old-style of English made it a chore to read. I finished Voltaireās Candide, an excellent satire. Iāll read it again. Now Iām reading a book by Alice Munro. Pretty good stuff, albeit a little bit too much on the sympathy side.
Iāve been lazing about and not doing much at all, but I plan to read through Known Space, Uplift, Vorkosigan Saga, Codex Alera, Heralds of Valdemar, Honor Harrington, Foundation, I, Claudius, Mistborn, Skulduggery Pleasant, The Salvation War, and The Screwtape Letters.
Eventually.
ā¦Muh backlog.
Candide kicks ass!
I just finished Grapes of Wrath, and the only thing on my mind is what kind of fuckin name is Rose of Sharon?
Trying to thinkā¦
So I listened to Blood Meridian and read The Road because No Country for Old Men left such a good impression on me. I think I would have preferred to read Blood Meridian a.k.a. the book where the Kid doesnāt know. I had a tendency to phase in and out of thought while I was driving and listening unfortunately. The Road was neat, its probably as Cormac McCarthy-an as you can possibly get. No names, no quotations, no chapters, no happiness and LOTS of darkness. Next on my list for McCarthy is Suttree. Iāll get to it some point sooner rather than later probably, really like the stuff Iāve read by McCarthy.
FINALLY finished Neuromancer and that book really helped me nail down while I like Sci-Fi over Fantasy or other genres. The meta-physical elements that come into play when sci-fi authors start talking about VR and other future elements. Holy shit at the end of that book.
Currently reading Alan Mooreās Saga of Swamp Thing (speaking of meta-physical). I havenāt finished the 1st TPB yet but its sweet so far and Iām near 100 pages into Catch-22. Some of the brainbending contradictions, the catch, are so fucking awesome lol. I took my friends Something Happenedā¦ from her beach house too so Iām probably going to get to that before the end of the year too.
I just coped Joseph Campbellās The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The writing is a bit heavy for me, but suddenly I feel like playing Journey on my PS4, assuming I can do that.
@Exodus.
So it can safely assumed that you like fiction where Clarkeās Third Law(āAny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.ā) is realized, lol?
Yeah thatās a fair assessment. I quote that all the time, got my brother saying it now. Its funny because I still think its true and I studied how computers work for 4 years. Some of the stuff that people do is still like magic and its only getting more and more crazy.
And then some. As an example, from earlier this year: http://www.nature.com/news/laser-fusion-experiment-extracts-net-energy-from-fuel-1.14710
tl;dr We created a fucking star from raw elements in a heavily reinforced chamber in some lab, and it was self-sufficient for a tiny bit of time.
Yeah.
Yes yes yes! Gibson, Neal Stephenson (has youāve perhaps gleaned from my AVās as of late) and Corey Doctorow highly influenced my decision to start back writing again. I Admire what theyāve done to build imaginative worlds and (primarily on the part of Doctorow) to challenge pressing issues about privacy in the techno age.
If youāve got some spare time, please check out my blog, linked in my sig. It was highly influenced by both Gibsonās Neuromancer as well as Blade Runner (Iāve never read Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep, but plan on it soon), two archetypical classics of the genre.
The man currently in my sig is William F. Wu, whoās work Hong on The Range got me started reading sci fi way back when I was a teenager. Iām currently re-reading it alongside The Baroque Cycle.
:tup:
I promise Iāll get to Blittās Journey :tup:. Iāll start tomorrow, Iāve been working nights to try and get some commits up on github so I have a better chance of being able to move somewhere else and have an actual developer gig after this contract Iām on expires this winter. Iām hoping this pull request to duckduckgo I have pending gets merged tonight or tomorrow. <= Which is why I havenāt read any of it yet
Spoiler
I added 1 line to a script that some one else in a thread said was the fix but didnāt want to do it so you better believe I did that shit 
. I was bummed too because I was about to start a plugin of my own but the API from the source site I was going to use only returns information in xml which DDG doesnāt support (yet, hopefully they get it up and running soon). So Iāve gotta spend some time tomorrow looking for another thing for work on for them
Never heard of Doctorow, Iāll have to keep him in mind. DADoES is good, read it over spring break last semester but havenāt seen Blade Runner. I should just buy a digital copy for fucks sake. Has anyone read Assimovās Last Question? Its really good and fits with this little topic:
Cory Doctorow releases a lot (most?) of his work for free.
Saw him at a book signing at CMU a few years ago. He was SUPER engaged with a small throng of enthusiastic fans. Seems like a really fun guy. IIRC he also is co-editor at Boing Boing.
The thing about Neuromancer is itās the book where Gibson invented a lot of terms and ideas we now use in our culture today - he was the originator of the idea of 'ācyberspaceā. The way the internet has developed was massively influenced by his worlds. Pretty surreal.
I know that Gibson coined āCyberspaceā. Though I think that was in Burning Chrome which is linked earlier in this threadā¦
I knew that @Reticently didnāt do the ā!ā for nothing I thought I recognized the avatar from a post about cool sci-fi
^His last post was just a ā!ā beforeā¦ Now its a link of stuff that Iām going to read after Manxās blog.
I just finished The Catcher in the Rye. I feel awkward about being able to relate to Holden.
I HATED that book, but I read it as a 26 year old, I am sure I would have had a greater appreciation for it if I read it during my awkward teen years.
Are you still in high school? If so, thatās okay. If not, wellā¦I donāt know what to tell you.
29 y/o. Thatās not what I relate to.
I have problems being enthused about things. Even things I like I donāt like enough to go in 100%. Thereās always something that puts me off if I get into it enough, and thatās enough to make me slowly lose interest. I like hearing people talk about things they are enthused about though. I donāt use the word āphonyā but I very often feel the same way he does about people he labels as such. I make excuses for my follies. I like doing random things to make people laugh, and if I canāt make someone laugh then I donāt like them. Iām a profligate. Iām a cowardly sociopath(I donāt remember exactly how he said it but he said he was unlikely to start a fight but he might push a guy out a window or something). I fainted in the bathroom once but it was because I stood up too fast after jerking off.
I donāt smoke though. And I wish I could dance half as well as him.
Did I mention Dragonlance?
Iām currently reading Death in the Afternoon. Man, Hemingway is an amazing, amazing writer.