Category: Books

  • Disposable literature

    Writer Charlie Stross has a blog post entitled Why the commercial ebook market is broken that’s a really good read and puts forth a thought I hadn’t really considered before:

    My take on ebooks is that they are — and should be seen as — the cheapest form of disposable literature.

    “Disposable literature.” I like it. I should probably point out that this isn’t meant to be derogatory; rather, Stross is using it in the same sense as for mass market paperbacks: cheap, portable, easy to mass-produce and replace.

    I’m not sure I have more to say about it at the moment… I’m kinda letting the concept roll around and ferment in my head a bit.

  • Comic book rant II

    Okay, it’s been a good long while since I unleashed a comic book rant here and got my geek on. If you don’t read comic books, or don’t care, or whatever, you can safely pass this by. Otherwise, expect this to go long, and you may even be a little embarrassed for me. :)

    Full-on rant after the jump…

    (more…)

  • Books, books, books

    So far this 2007 I’ve been consuming bunches of books. Kind of continuing my trend from last year, though based what I’ve gone through in these first six weeks of the year, my year-end list might be much larger.

    • Lisey’s Story, by Stephen King. His latest, pretty good but not the best he’s ever written. I had a pretty good hunch where the plot was going and I was mostly right. What makes it interesting is all the backstory which is where all the real stuff is happening.
    • Manifold: Origin, by Stephen Baxter. Rounding out the Manifold series he wrote (the first two of which I read in the last months of 2006). Interesting concepts, all of them (he wrote them as possible solutions/scenarios to the Fermi paradox), but one thing Baxter generally isn’t good at is characterization. And Origin, plot-wise, is the weakest of the bunch; a lot of stuff happens that has nothing to do with the final reveal, or the overall point of the story.
    • High Desert of Central Oregon and Bend in Central Oregon, both by Raymond Hatton, which I reviewed respectively on Hack Bend here and here.
    • The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. Sure to be controversial. Oddly enough, it’s the first Dawkins book I’ve read, even though he’s been publishing since the ’70s. He’s been called “Darwin’s rottweiler,” and that’s pretty much in full force here.
    • Mona Lisa Overdrive, by William Gibson. Pretty good read—it’s Gibson, after all—but I think my least favorite of his three “Sprawl” novels. Neuromancer set a pretty high bar.
    • I’ve been going through all the trade paperbacks of the Fables comic series (available at the library, which is very cool). This is a really brilliant series. The premise: All those fairy tales and fables of lore are real, but they’ve all been driven out of their worlds by a mysterious Adversary, and live in New York City in their own private and secret community named Fabletown. King Cole is the mayor, Snow White the deputy mayor, like that. For mature readers. I’m through the first seven trades, at least three were this year.
    • The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson. Pretty good, about the cholera outbreak in Victorian London in 1854 and how that changed science and cities.
    • I’m also finishing up Bend, Overall by Scott Cook, though that’s quite a bit shorter than most of the others. It’s a guidebook read.

    Next book will be fiction again. I haven’t decided on one definitively yet; it’s between Idoru (William Gibson), Wolves of the Calla or Cell (Stephen King), Singularity Sky (Charles Stross), and A Deepness in the Sky (Vernor Vinge). Or, perhaps I’ll read several concurrently…

  • Book report

    I’ve been on a reading tear over the summer, mostly all good books, and I thought I’d be a little self-indulgent and list what I’ve read with some comments.

  • Derivatives

    Cyberpunk:

    Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, noted for its focus on “high tech and low life” and taking its name from the combination of cybernetics and punk. It features advanced science such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or a radical change in the social order.

    Cyberpunk writers tend to use elements from the hard-boiled detective novel, film noir, and postmodernist prose to describe the often nihilistic underground side of an electronic society…. much of the action takes place online, in cyberspace, blurring any border between the actual and the virtual reality.

    Classic example: Neuromancer

    Steampunk:

    Steampunk… concerns works set in the past, or a world resembling the past, in which modern technological paradigms occurred earlier in history, but were accomplished via the science already present in that time period.

    The prototypical “steampunk” stories were essentially cyberpunk tales that were set in the past, using steam-era technology rather than the ubiquitous cybernetics of cyberpunk but maintaining those stories’ “punkish” attitudes towards authority figures and human nature. Originally, like cyberpunk, steampunk was typically dystopian, often with noir and pulp fiction themes, as it was a variant of cyberpunk.

    Further derivatives: Stonepunk, bronzepunk, ironpunk, sandalpunk or classicpunk, middlepunk, clockpunk, dieselpunk and atomicpunk, transistorpunk, spacepunk… though I don’t think most of these are full-fledged subgenres, and were developed for the GURPS Steampunk role-playing game.

    Classic example: The Difference Engine

    Biopunk:

    It describes the nihilistic, underground side of the biotech society which is said to have started to evolve in the first decade of the 21st century. Unlike cyberpunk, it builds not on information technology but on biology. Individuals are enhanced not by mechanical means, but by human genetic engineering.

    Postcyberpunk: Not so much a derivative as an evolution.

    Postcyberpunk describes a subgenre of science fiction which some critics suggest has evolved from classic cyberpunk. Like its predecessor, postcyberpunk focuses on technological developments in near-future societies, typically examining the social effects of an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized informaton, genetic engineering and modification of the human body, and the continued impact of perpetual technological change. Unlike “classic” cyberpunk, however, the works in this category feature characters who act to improve social conditions or at least protect the status quo from further decay.

    Includes a sense of humor, as opposed to the frequently deadly serious nature of cyberpunk.

    Classic example: The Diamond Age

    …At some point, you know, this all seems like a snake devouring its own tail…

  • Lost’s season finale book

    Haven’t seen a book on Lost in awhile, but they managed to slip one into the season finale tonight: Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. Not that it was hard to spot; Desmond only waved it around enough in a bunch of critical scenes.

    As far as the season finale itself goes… I’m still trying to decide what I think about it. I think it started out strong enough. But I’m trying to decide if the last 15 or 20 minutes were weak. Definitely ambiguous, and a general “huh?” factor. And, I’m thinking, weak. I’ll have to let it sink in some more.

  • For Dummies book cover generator

    This is pretty cool: Dummies Book Cover Generator (via eMusings). Now you can generate a fake “For Dummies” book for any occasion (which would have been handy when I originally created this and this). Imagine the mayhem…

    At the very least, I can now mockup my For Tards ideas:

    Book For Tards

  • Lost book: Judy Blume

    It’s like my regular Lost Book Watch feature or something. Anyway, right there on the screen in your face, Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. I don’t know that it has anything to do with the overall theme or plot of the show; since Sawyer was reading it, I rather suspect the producers are just having fun with us.

    “Us” being those people like myself who have nothing better to do than blog about the books that show up on Lost

  • The Paperback Exchange is closing

    Heads-up, Bendites: The Paperback Exchange, which is one of the oldest used bookstores in Bend (if not the oldest), is closing! Right now they’re having a huge 75% off sale on everything. I stopped over there after lunch and bought four books (for only $4.50, which would have been regularly priced at $18) and talked with the owner a bit.

    They have to be out by April 30th, but will probably close a week or so before that to empty out the store. So, you’ve got about a month left to get there and get some great deals.

    It’s located at 184 NE Greenwood, on the corner of 2nd and Greenwood. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

  • Tonight’s Lost book

    Just had to point it out (even my wife noticed it): this week’s book on Lost was The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

    It’s going on the list…