Now Reading

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Edited September 16, 2016 by doublename

Hunger is great. i'll pick up Pan one of these days.

 

i'm STILL reading Norman Mailer - The Naked and the Dead. book is looooongggg. some parts are really good, i keep forgetting he wrote this so young. a few sections are a little boring but considering the page count so much of it holds up well.

i dunno how this thread works so i will just spoil-er everything:

 

i read "story of your life" by ted chiang because the talentless villeneuve will inevitably ruin it with the upcoming "arrival" (in fact i remember very well that he will, hah), and to me, establishing communication with aliens it is too fascinating of a premise to experience a shit version of it, so i turned to the original.

 

the depiction of the process of establishing communication and getting to know the alien language, though quite technical and requiring quite a few detours to dictionary and wiki, was fascinating. the intermittent passages of protagonist's memories of her child were beautiful, and about halfway through gain an even more poignant dimension as it becomes clear what that language is like and what it apparently did to the protagonist. in fact once that becomes clear the actual reading becomes even entrancing in way because the chiang manages to convey that newly attained perception of time by protagonist in first person really well. the notion of deriving emotional fulfillment from performing own predestined life as it was depicted is, again, simply beautiful.

 

i did have a bit of trouble making that leap of faith and accepting that the protagonist did attain the ability to see the future, it's one thing learning to think like aliens through language, but actually gaining the ability? that particular bit was not as well presented as was needed, i felt. in fact for most of the time i thought the protagonist was an unreliable narrator of sorts, having become accustomed to that mode of thinking but without having an ability to actually see the future, and thus stuck seeing only some kind of possible future. that would make a pretty cool twist..(and perhaps it's actually a possible interpretation?).

oh cool, that's a good story. are you reading the entire collection? there are some great stories in there: understand is like a good version of limitless, tower of babylon is interesting as well. his story the merchant and alchemist's gate is great. ted chiang is one of sci fi's hidden gems. everyone should read exhalation, one of the best sf stories i've ever read. btw might want to work on that spoiler.

Edited September 16, 2016 by keanu reeves

so far i just got that one because that "arrival" trailer popped up and i got real excited about it till i noticed that villeneuve is the director. and now after reading the story it looks like the film really won't have that much to do with it besides the basic premise anyway, seems like they're ditching that touching, personal and diary like storytelling for something big and global.

i already bookmarked exhalation after searching the thread for other mentions of chiang and you were the only one, which is indeed quite peculiar for such a sci-fi-interested forum, from what i gathered chiang is a quite acclaimed sf writer. i guess it's something about the short story format? seems like a perfect format to me - you don't have to spend a too much time to determine whether what you're reading is a waste of time.

 

i'll probably jump on "understand" next though, i actually liked limitless (the film) quite a bit, lol.

i don't know why more people aren't aware of him. he seems to be a "writer's writer" or something. wins a hugo every couple years and goes away. this forum has been disappointing with regards to genre writing. seems to revolve around pkd and the obvious older writers like asimov, clarke (which chiang is basically a modern version of), herbert etc. chiang has never written a novel and seems to write as a second career so his profile is relatively low. he's been around since the 90s though, so i'm surprised when genre fans haven't heard of him.

I read a lot of SF when I was growing up (the classics: dick, asimov, clarke, aldis, bester, heinlein, van vogt, lem, etc), but in the last 15 years or so have mostly avoided new stuff (last 'current' stuff I read was probably Greg Bear, Neal Stephenson or Kim Stanley Robinson many years ago now), generally sticking to regular fiction and nonfiction these days though. Still read the odd SF thing, either old stuff I never got around to back then, re-reads, or very occasionally new books (read a good few Charlie Stross books in the last few years, good stuff). There's no doubt a raft of good authors I'm not aware of, I don't really follow the awards or whatever.

Surrealism & the Occult by Nadia Choucha, a balanced blend of academic rigor & a myriad of threads all succinctly unpicked & inter-woven. Its accompanied a hot summer & nails allusion, networks & interpreting how particular figures evolved their approaches, rather than the typical the long leather coat chaos wrapped in veiled bs line of inquiry. Only quibble is it helps to reference google images to let your eyes breathe & rummage fully @ the intensity of wonder.

 

Tasty brain food & hits this sweet spot/10

 

edit for possible double post review last page div move

Edited September 18, 2016 by cwmbrancity

Finished In the Approaches by Barker, good stuff. Now onto

 

[TRIGGER WARNING]

 

 

[/TRIGGER WARNING]

V is super duper

IJ is so fucking long

 

yea I get it Foster alcoholix anonymous is giving up your will too. can we move on

Excellent read; maps, charts, illustrations, articles on Vulcan society, characters, history, ships, weapons, religion, mating, etc. All for a made up planet from a 50 year old TV show.  Recommended.

António Lobo Antunes - Knowledge of Hell (1980)

 

"Like his creator, the narrator of this novel is a psychiatrist who loathes psychiatry, a veteran of the despised 1970s colonial war waged by Portugal against Angola, a survivor of a failed marriage, and a man seeking meaning in an uncaring and venal society. The reader joins Antunes on a journey both real and phantasmagorical as he travels by car from a vacation in the Algarve back to his hated work as a psychiatrist at a Lisbon mental institution. In the course of one long day and evening, he carries on an imaginary conversation with his daughter Joanna, observes with surreal vision the bleak countryside of his nation, recalls the horrors of his involuntary role in the suppression of Angolan independence, and curses the charlatanism of contemporary psychiatric "advances" that destroy rather than heal."

 

It's good

Have to give that a look, The Land at the End of the World was brilliant.

finished book three of knausgaard's struggle. might stop there. i've got to live my own life. 

 

also finished this:

 

 

stories here get weirder as you move through the collection, which is 600 pages long. goes from literary fiction to metaphysical surrealism. maybe not quite at the level of borges as some people have suggested, but lispector was a major writer.

Have my Jerusalem, which I shall read after Albert & Emily. Here is how small the words are in it:

 

 

And there's 1200 pages of this.

lel you picked the wrong time to deviate from e-books

 

just added that Lispector jawn to my hold list a the library

Edited September 26, 2016 by doublename

  On 9/26/2016 at 10:34 PM, keanu reeves said:

finished book three of knausgaard's struggle. might stop there. i've got to live my own life.

 

also finished this:

 

 

stories here get weirder as you move through the collection, which is 600 pages long. goes from literary fiction to metaphysical surrealism. maybe not quite at the level of borges as some people have suggested, but lispector was a major writer.

lol book 3 was a bit of a slouch in the series but I think it's worth it to keep going. Book 5 is especially good. although you might have just been aiming for a lol there

 

nice to see some lispector love. Edit: if you're not familiar with her novel The Passion According to G.H., I highly recommend it.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Alcofribas

i finished The Naked and the Dead which was brilliant, particularly the final quarter or so. now i'm going to read a few smaller novels; i started reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. i don't have a massive interest in running but it sounded interesting and reading some non-fiction is nice for a change.

  On 9/20/2016 at 12:56 AM, ThatSpanishGuy said:

IJ is so fucking long

 

yea I get it Foster alcoholix anonymous is giving up your will too. can we move on

 

pg ~300 atm

 

the story by yrstruly pg 128... amazing writing

 

and later,of poor tony's withdrawals

 

disturbing

  On 9/20/2016 at 12:56 AM, ThatSpanishGuy said:

IJ is so fucking long

 

yea I get it Foster alcoholix anonymous is giving up your will too. can we move on

Looking for a good history of computing, any watmm-approved suggestions?

  On 9/30/2016 at 9:41 PM, Bechuga said:

 

  On 9/20/2016 at 12:56 AM, ThatSpanishGuy said:

IJ is so fucking long

 

yea I get it Foster alcoholix anonymous is giving up your will too. can we move on

 

 

I finally read the thing (7 months ) and ended up with a thousand questions. Read the first chapter again and ended up with two thousand questions. Guess I'm gonna have to read the whole thing again (or at least the actual-plot relevant parts, which is about 30% of the book) sometime, in about 10 years.

 

Only a few chapters in and the author has spent a lot of time fawning over Lorna Byrne, who I had always assumed was talking bollocks, but we shall see.

The Vorrh by Brian Caitling.

 

It's a bit like 100 Years of Solitude crossed with The Crystal World by JG Ballard. Right up my alley tbqh.

Edited October 3, 2016 by doublename