West Coast Connection Forum
Lifestyle => Sports & Entertainment => Topic started by: Don Seer on August 27, 2003, 02:43:51 PM
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hehe in the same vein as the thread in the main forum...
Right now i'm reading....
Bruce Sterling - Schismatrix Plus
Was hard work getting into it, a bit stop/start/stop/start but its picked up now..
brief precis..
its actually a book and short stories, the book is called Schismatrix and there are more stories in the same universe hence the Plus...
this is more me catching up my cyberpunk.. some 'classic' books i cant find tho :(
a review..
chismatrix Plus gathers Bruce Sterling's five "Shaper-Mechanist" short stories of the early 1980s with his 1985 Shaper-Mech novel Schismatrix. In these works Sterling launched a guerrilla raid on the comfortable conventions of science fiction. Sterling's future history is neither a bland techno-utopia nor a dreary post-apocalypse ruin. Schismatrix Plus portrays instead a future of constant upheaval, fueled by non-stop social and technological change, the hardships of life in space, and humanity's own restlessness.
In this future two factions vie for control of the solar system. The Shapers have "reshaped" themselves through genetic engineering, adopting such enhancements as superior intelligence, longevity and odor-free perspiration. In the other corner lurk the Mechanists, who prefer to gradually replace their mortal flesh with prosthetic limbs and artificial organs.
The hero of Schismatrix, Abelard Lindsay, is neither Shaper nor Mechanist but merely a rabble-rouser in exile from a backwater space habitat. His quick wits and Shaper schooling, however, make him a consummate con artist, politician and survivor. Making his way through a dense, ever-changing web of plots, conspiracies, feuds and occasional small-scale wars, Lindsay manages to outfox Shapers, Mechs and even the Investors, reptilian aliens so rapacious they make Star Trek's Ferengi look like the Sierra Club.
In his turbo-charged tour of the future, Sterling shows his genius for conjuring bizarre, unsettling yet plausible settings, from grubby spaceships infested with mutant cockroaches to incomprehensibly strange alien vistas. Humanity itself, however, becomes the ultimate fountainhead of strangeness as various self-made strains of "posthumanity" overshadow the squabbling Shapers and Mechs and the technologically stagnant Investors.
The short stories alone are worth the price of admission, though their relentlessly dark tone can be oppressive if read all at once. Schismatrix is more upbeat, leavened by humor, a likable main character and a sense of exhilaration over the unbounded possibilities of posthuman life. The novel suffers from a couple dull stretches in the first half, and while Abelard Lindsay makes for an appealing protagonist, readers seldom know what he truly thinks or feels. Such narrative distancing can lend a magisterial tone to a novel encompassing many characters, but Schismatrix frustrates at times by remaining tightly focused on Lindsay without ever getting inside his head. Still, Schismatrix packs a full load of wonder, entertainment and wild ideas.
Schismatrix Plus also includes an essay by Sterling in which he talks about his growth as a science fiction writer, how he attained a "hot and sticky ten-fingered grip on the genre" and "gnawed my way through the insulation and got my teeth set into the buzzing copper wire." As he often does, Sterling seems insufferably pleased with himself here. More than many writers, however, he has reason to be.
Much of Sterling's best work is collected here. A must-read for anyone interested in truly cutting-edge science fiction. -- Curt
seems fair.. slagged off the start like i did.. but in better words :)
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Peter Ackroyd's London: The Biography. A fuck-off big tome covering practically the entire history of the city.
Just started it and am a couple of chapters in - already thinking it's the kind of thing I'm gonna have to just dip into here and there rather than trying to read cover-to-cover.
Oh, and not really the size of book you can take onto public transport and casually read... :)
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The sept. issue of FHM :D
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right now im reading Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird (school novel)
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Star Wars book called Dark Saber. But I have no idea off hand who the author is.
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^ something like timothy zahn? i know he's done quite a few.. havent read any star wars novels, i heard some jedi academy ones are real good though
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Actually, it's Kevin J Anderson. Says on the back "Praise For Kevin J Andersons Jedi Academy Trilogy". I just started reading it, so I can't tell you if it's any good :)... I did read a book called the Crystaline Planet when I was in High School that was written by Zahn, but I don't remember much about it. I'm ashamed to admit that it was probably 8 years ago since I finished it lol. Damn I'm old.
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ahh right.. he's written some diff ones then.. only name i could remember :)
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Zahn wrote a trilogy of books taking place 5 years after Return of the Jedi. Heir To The Empire. Dark Force Rising. The Last Command. Takes place between Return of the Jedi, and The Jedi Academy. I'm reading out of order :(. I'll have to track down those books. I'm glad you said something, or I wouldn't have had any clue there were some before this book. Got all this info from the back of my book btw. I'm not THAT big of a Star Wars nerd :)
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Got Your Back - Frank Alexander (Pac's bodyguard) It's actually about 8th time I read it.
The latest XXL issue...
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Sammy The Bull - Under Boss
Was my last book
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Just some novels for school, Finnish literature. Just finished one that was boring as hell... But also I'm reading "The Egyptian" by Mika Waltari. One of the few Finnish novels you can find worldwide and (so far) the only Finnish novel that's been made into a Hollywood movie (a couple decades ago.) I dunno if any of y'all have heard of it, but trust me - it's hella good. That coming from a man who hates to read books.
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Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
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"Halo: The Flood" by William C. Dietz. A very good read for people who like war/action books.
This would be my second time reading it.
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The latest XXL issue...
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just finished Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. about to read The Glass Bead Game, also by Hesse
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The Blue Suit by Richard Rayner
A biography about the life of a cambrage philosophy student who thieves for the feeling
The Doors of Perseption/ Heven and Hell by Aldous Huxley
It's two works by Huxley pertaining to Philosophy. i've almost finished The Doors of perseption witch encourges the use of hallucinogenic drugs to explore diffrent modes of consciousness
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^ cool... the only huxley i've read is 'brave new world' guy was years ahead of his time, kinda like philip.k.dick. :)
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yeah, huxley is great, i plan to read brave new world next and i'd like to read crome yellow sometime in the future
i've never heard of this dick, what do you suggest is his best work
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i havent read a lot of phillip.k.dick
But you've seen the film Bladerunner right? thats based on a book by him called 'Do Andriods Dream Of Electric Sheep?'.. he also wrote the book 'minority report', havent read that one. :)
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Still on Jurrasic Park
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Going thru
LEE IOCOCCA's
Biography....
Just finished Ken folett's Code to Zero and Arundhati Roy's *God of small things*..
Swell books
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im reading Whoopi Goldberg's book called "Book". damn shes funny
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Right now I'm on the third book of The Inqusition War Trilogy by Ian Watson, Choas Child, it's set 40,000 years in the future and involves an inqusitor who discovers a plot that threatens the psychic future of mankind.
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at the moment readin ROBERT LUDLUM-PROMETHEUS DECEPTION..