space operas and their fat ladies

If you like the science fictional genre “space opera”, I would very highly recommend Charlie Stross’s Singularity Sky.

What happens when an autocratic society meets an economic and informational singularity? (By singularity, seem to mean the thing that Vernor Vinge talks about here and which the transhumanists seem awfully fond of.) There’s some neat stuff in this book.

(Though one section of the book, which I misread as a flash-forward which contained a flashback and was only a flashback, confused the hell out of me for about 150 pages, until I reread the (ho ho) offending passage for the fifth time.)

It’s a fun one, though the very mathematical/geometrically defined and described space battles did a number on my poor wee brain. This one I would highly recommend to any science fiction readers out there!

An interview with the author, here. (He likes Bruce Sterling: hope that won’t be too much of a disincentive, i!)

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UPDATE: I just remembered that this short story, “Lobsters”, was the reason that I picked up Singularity Sky.

looking for “some guy”? look no further!

foible, these happy (nothappy) searchers

right side of the brain
right side brain
right side of brain
magnatune
laugh your heads of
brain right side
grant morrison interview comic journal
the right side of the brain
collapsible dolls
grant morrison interviews
kinds of monkeys
pressure behind eyes
robert anton wilson interview
some guy
strange instruments
why is my brain slow
ah me
fear of centipedes
gamezone carrollton

fumbling through this book

I finished reading the rather short Bay of Souls by Robert Stone, last week Friday.

I don’t really know what to say about this book. There were moments that I really liked it; there were moments that I really disliked it.

Never having been scuba diving, I do think it has one of the most well-written scuba diving passages that I have ever read. Amazing. Made it out to be a very intense experience and then carried the scuba diving metaphor over into a later part of the book in a very compelling way… Scuba diving versus the oppressive weight of a voodoo ceremony: drumming, drugs, Papa Legba, Baron Samedhi and the whole lot.

I thought that the extramarital affair around which the whole book circled was a bit tired. Which was unfortunate. College prof with wife and kid, etc., in Minnesota(?), meets new colleague who intrigues, etc. Yadda yadda, blah blah. Unfortunate, I say, because the affair is the vehicle which drives the action of the story which is, for the most, rather interesting.

An interview with Robert Stone here, discusses some of this religion stuff that i, over at squub, and I have been sort of chatting about off and on for a little bit now.

Especially this bit:

RS: I am not a believer in God. I have been a believer in God. I am obsessed with the absence of God. I believe in that phrase from Pascal, that says?I can’t remember where I used it?I think it’s in Damascus Gate, where he reads somewhere in Pascal, “Everything on Earth gives a sign of the divine presence. Everywhere we look there seems to be evidence of it. And it never yields itself to our discovery. And yet it seems to be everywhere.”…. I do admit that faith is not what you believe, it’s not about believing in a body of doctrine. Faith is something else. Well, I don’t have the body of doctrine. But I don’t have the faith either. Which is an insistence that somehow that things are all right and as they should be. I don’t have that.

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(One reason I always link to the amazon thingy as well is that I’ve been using this thing called allconsuming to keep track of the books I’ve read. That’s also how they display all pretty like over there on the left.)

mercurial excursions

A few days ago, I went to go seeNeal Stephenson read from his newest book, Quicksilver. (Hey Mark, neener neener!)

The main website for the book, is some kind of fascinating “wiki” doodad. As Stephenson said, the web isn’t a very good place for explaining stuff, so the wiki thing is an attempt to try and use the web to explain stuff better. Valiant!

I’ve also been perusing “In the Beginning was the Command Line…”, an interesting essay Stephenson wrote–what do you call a non-fiction novella? nonfictionette? nonfictionella?–about operating systems and design and etc.

The reading of the book was so-so. I don’t really think his work reads out loud very well. I think he knows this, too, because he spent most of his time speaking and answering questions from the audience. Hotdamn! All my doubts are gone. I’m reading this book. And soon.