Connected the two as being linked, but I can see it now. I found the book hard work to be honest, but can't put my finger on why. 

Bit of a fanboy, I think I've read everything of his but Dead Air... his earlier stuff is better and nastier though. Consider Phlebas, Use Of Weapons, Complicity, The Wasp Factory... all worth reading.

I think often enjoy books as much for the imagination as the stories -- I really liked the airspheres and the gigabehemoths and so in in Look to Windward. They helped distract from the plot and the terrible ending at least :-) 

Although one of the most challenging reads i have come across, i did find it very much worthwhile. Even wrote a paper on it for university, which i thought was rather poorly done, but the professor gave me an A, so i guess he liked it. 

agree with all that, specifically the second paragraph. That pretty much nails it I think, I've read it twice again since when I posted :)

It also helps that Conrad' use of language to express his ideas is absolutely fantastic. 

Finnish scifi. Probably not translated anywhere, a decent if uneven book, has impressing amount of imagination and breadth of details but the overarching story is a bit of a mess and there's some weird pathos. (Can't say exactly without spoilers but a lot about religion, science and the western world.)

But why am I writing about this for you, as most of you have no way to read it anyway?

Well, the writer is an open information and open source guy, his latest book is even available in the internet with a creative commons licence (titled Lueminut - which translates to Readme). I think that is an interesting way. I'm still wondering about the different profit models with internet. How can you create content and get some compensation without the whole convoluted publisher thing, marketing etc?

I also notice the book has some errors, which shows that the small publisher didn't do much editing. I've heard from a guy who works as an editor for a publisher how much editors actually shape the novelists' work. For example Stephen King uses always some same guy.

Interesting. There are probably guys or girls on func who have thought about penning something themselves.

As a side note, the most famous finnish scifi writer, Risto Isom�ki has a bit of a similar style: the plots and people can be somewhat corny at times but damn the visions are so grand and extraordinary, and that's what scifi is mostly about. I hope someone translated for example his latest, "Sarasvatin hiekkaa" to swedish, german, french or english. 

trying to find a book i read ages ago... i think it *may* be Survivors by John Nahmlos, but there's not a single synopsis/summary on the entire internet to check and verify it's the book i'm looking for.

so... has anyone here read it? if you've got it, could you type out the back summary please? 

Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds - pretty good, lots of interesting ideas in here. Some unnecessary parts, and some characters seem tacked on to make the universe seem bigger or more complex than it is, or perhaps he is setting the story up for the later books. I can't be sure. There are only two complaints I have with this book, and they are :

1.) Bio-engineered assassin peacocks
2.) Perhaps I just don't read enough science fiction, but the author uses the phrase "of course" entirely too damn much - in the narration and in the character speech. All of the personality he tries to fill his characters with gets bled dry when they all use 'of course' like czg uses TF2-gay-porn web sites. (A whole lot.)

The story itself is not unlike that of Mass Effect - not the same thing, but very close to it. There's really not a lot of action, most of it is based around archeological evidence and so on, but it's a pretty intriguing read none the less. I'll be getting to Chasm City sooner or later, the 2nd book in the series.

*SPOILER*

Also, the ending was a bit cliche (giant boom that saves the day, the main characters survive, no big surprise if you read the book) when really he could have done something much more interesting and cliff-hangery. But whatever, the ride was fun.


Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick - This is just like Blade Runner - if Blade Runner were written by Douglas Adams. I mean I can see why the movie left out and changed a huge portion of the book, because the book is just plain silly in so many parts that I find it hard to believe Ridley Scott could have gotten the same mood if he left it in - the whole story line with the goat made me laugh out loud.

And really, while I understand the events happening in Electric Sheep, if there is any sort of moral or philosophical goal to get across, it's completely wasted on me because too damn much happens in a relatively short amount of time. The book is a breeze to read, but it really is all over the damn place. Rick Deckard changes moods like czg changes condoms while looking at TF2-gay-porn web sites. (A whole lot.)

It's completely possible that it's just a story about the times (1968 I believe) and more a social commentary, which would go over my head mostly. There seems to be a strong religious view point, as Wilbur Mercer would make a good parallel for Jesus Christ, but I can't find the others to fill in the metaphor or reap any kind of message from it other than that Jesus is fake and people are androids. Or something. I don't know.

Blade Runner = good
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? = what 

just as much as i liked Blade Runner

tought me spiders can live with only 4 legs but they just dont feel like it 

Dude--a cliche ending? It was a fucking neutron star! And Chasm City is a side story. And, the rest of the series is awesome. SHIT MAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING 

He gets better as he goes really, the characters in his earlier books like Revelation Space are a bit meh.

I thought Electric Sheep was great, but it's definitely got that very weirdo old-school sci-fi vibe that Dick quite alot of. 

I don't know why, I mostly spent the time (and it was a lot of it, that man writes bricks) thinking about what was wrong with it in detail. Oh well. 

I thought his newest stuff was quite good, the Whole Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained, and the new series, Dreaming Void etc. Definitely feels stronger than his older books. 

And yeah, it's not bad exactly, but it's not that good either...

I'm not sure what it is about his books I find so strange. I think they have a really odd dramatic structure -- he mostly seems to try for a massively detailed at least semi-plausible future history sort of thing but the way all the story arcs come together at the end gives it an echo of an epic tale like the Lord of the Rings, and the two really don't sit well together.

And of course they're far, far, far too long. These two books are about 2500 pages in total -- the same story less a few subplots in 800 pages might have been really good. 

Volks Game

its alright 

it's alright 

 

So if you've seen the iPad stuff you know they have an iBooks store to go along with it. Quite intriguing. I remember a discussion about Kindle in some other thread, cba to find it, so I'm putting this here.

Any thoughts/opinions on iPad's iBooks vs Kindle? I wouldn't want to pay $200+ for an electronic personal library, but $500+ for a pretty neat laptop along with the electronic personal library sounds good.

But then when iPad comes out the price of the Kindle might drop to something pretty affordable as well, and really what good is a laptop if you can't play Crysis on it maxed out, amirite?

'Course, the iPad does have all that other stuff, so maybe it's not exactly fair to compare the two? 

Kindle is a different experience due to the e-ink screen. It's very different from reading off of an LCD screen like the iPad. It depends on whether or not you like reading on LCD screens. Reading forums and such is one thing but books are another. You're basically staring into a flashlight for hours.

The Kindle has the same eye strain as reading paper.

So if books are your primary concern, I would recommend a Kindle. But of course there are many shades of grey here. 

by China Mi�ville. A review:
http://sfreviews.net/mieville_kraken.html
I won't read the review as I hate spoilers but the first few lines piqued my interest. He/she is a lovecraft fan anyway. 

Yeah looking forward to Kraken. His last book was nice (the City and the City), but The Scar is still my favorite from him. 

I didn't know he'd done anything since Iron Road. Someone update me. 

updates Shambler to version -0.0.0.13 --- already broken :( 

that's interesting? 

/me googles kurzweilian 

i've never read this masterpiece before, but it got me totally. i'm in the middle of the fifth part - song of susannah and i can't stop reading. highly recommended.