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Immortal SuperFuture tale of intrigue set in Disney World.
This books premise is so nuts its difficult to actually type it. I'll do my best. It is THE FUTURE and people can now live forever via a bizarre cloning process that leaves you with whatever memories you had at the time of your last backup. The world has changed fundamentally and the book takes place in Disney World, now considered one of the greatest works of the 20th century. For some reason.
Superfuture in Disney land was enough for me to grab a free copy from the authors site, but it didn't live up to what it was aiming for. While I'm not pissed off at it or anything, it just felt like its messages and commentary on the human condition were a little empty. God knows it tries hard, but in the ocean of unexplained, difficult to understand concepts, and silly names, This book was basically a big pile of neat ideas (the idea that the currency in the world is based solely on what other people think of you) jumbled together into a silly plot that takes itself far too seriously.
At times I felt like I was missing something, like there was a big idea just under the layer I was reading at. There are parts of the book that are genuinely exciting, fun and thought provoking, so it succeeds there. I guess I was mostly annoyed that it didn't keep that up through the book.
Its free, so go look it up if you like the concept. Just be prepared for endless pages of flashbacks and the word Whuffie alot.
Book 1 - Flatland by Edwin Abbott
The idea of a book based completely in a 2D world where the main character is a square was...interesting to say the least. So I jumped on Project Gutenburg (the best website in the world for me right now) and grabbed it.
Good plan. This is such a fun read. The book's main point is to paint a satire of Victorian culture, something that becomes evident as soon as the book picks up a mallet labelled "Civil Rights" and starts beating your face (which is now labelled as "Oppression") until your brain flies out of your skull (which is now labelled hate or something i dunno this political cartoon joke died before I started to write it). The book literally refers to women as a single lines that are seen by every other shape as almost animals, but they have the ability to quite easily massacre everything in Flatland (cause they are the pointiest). Very good social commentary, if a little strong.
The visuals and concepts of higher dimensions are the main reasons I loved this book and they didn't disappoint, Every single chapter blows your brain with accurate ideas of how a 2D creature might "see". I couldn't possibly begin to explain most of it to you so I'll just say stop being an illiterate slob and go read it, its free cause its older than dirt but, like dirt, its deep, more complex than it seems and brown.
-Nem
Good plan. This is such a fun read. The book's main point is to paint a satire of Victorian culture, something that becomes evident as soon as the book picks up a mallet labelled "Civil Rights" and starts beating your face (which is now labelled as "Oppression") until your brain flies out of your skull (which is now labelled hate or something i dunno this political cartoon joke died before I started to write it). The book literally refers to women as a single lines that are seen by every other shape as almost animals, but they have the ability to quite easily massacre everything in Flatland (cause they are the pointiest). Very good social commentary, if a little strong.
The visuals and concepts of higher dimensions are the main reasons I loved this book and they didn't disappoint, Every single chapter blows your brain with accurate ideas of how a 2D creature might "see". I couldn't possibly begin to explain most of it to you so I'll just say stop being an illiterate slob and go read it, its free cause its older than dirt but, like dirt, its deep, more complex than it seems and brown.
-Nem
Book 2 - Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournell
Sci Fi writer finds himself in Dante's hell. Oh my.
I have a confession to make. I have never read all of Dante's inferno. Cause its boring as fuck. It's a book that requires a massive amount of footnotes and prefaces to ensure you know who the hell is talking and why. I'm sure at the time it was a rip roaring ride but I'm not an 14th century Italian. What I am is a 20th century nerd. So when I read about a book that starts with a sci-fi writer killing himself and ending up in the very same hell that Virgil walked, I thought Why not.
I don't feel right calling a book "pointless" cause I guess at their heart, alot of books are pointless. but this one doesn't even tell a new story. I guess the inclusion of a bunch of different characters from various times and places is kinda neat but, I dunno, could have been alot more creative. Theres no real message or criticism or anything, unless the author's self insert's constant ramblings to himself count. One main issue I had was that it leads you along for a very long time on two plot points that are both painfully obvious and played as if they are incredible mysteries.
I don't have much more to say about this, it was alight I suppose but I wouldn't recommend it unless you really like the idea.
I have a confession to make. I have never read all of Dante's inferno. Cause its boring as fuck. It's a book that requires a massive amount of footnotes and prefaces to ensure you know who the hell is talking and why. I'm sure at the time it was a rip roaring ride but I'm not an 14th century Italian. What I am is a 20th century nerd. So when I read about a book that starts with a sci-fi writer killing himself and ending up in the very same hell that Virgil walked, I thought Why not.
I don't feel right calling a book "pointless" cause I guess at their heart, alot of books are pointless. but this one doesn't even tell a new story. I guess the inclusion of a bunch of different characters from various times and places is kinda neat but, I dunno, could have been alot more creative. Theres no real message or criticism or anything, unless the author's self insert's constant ramblings to himself count. One main issue I had was that it leads you along for a very long time on two plot points that are both painfully obvious and played as if they are incredible mysteries.
I don't have much more to say about this, it was alight I suppose but I wouldn't recommend it unless you really like the idea.
Book 3 - Mass Effect: Revelation by Drew Karpyshyn
Prequel to Mass Effect, famous RPG, dialogue and alien sex sim.
My secert love of Halo books made me read this. I don't care what you bitchs say this book has a part where a giant rino alien uses magic powers to throw an APC 30 feet into the air so screw all of you. I really enjoyed this as a mindless, space military tie in. Its written functionally enough, got a decent enough plot, clears some issues you may have with the plot of the game and is just really fun to read. If you like Mass effect, you'll probably like this.
My secert love of Halo books made me read this. I don't care what you bitchs say this book has a part where a giant rino alien uses magic powers to throw an APC 30 feet into the air so screw all of you. I really enjoyed this as a mindless, space military tie in. Its written functionally enough, got a decent enough plot, clears some issues you may have with the plot of the game and is just really fun to read. If you like Mass effect, you'll probably like this.
Book 4 - Hell is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang
Angels, God, Hell and Fallen Angels exist as real, frequent, and problematic as Tornadoes.
I kinda liked this book, the message of Humanities place in a world where the promises of angels and the like are actually met is really strong and even through the almost mechanical way its written there's a very dark sadness to the whole affair. The plot revolves around visitations from angels, which sometimes will heal you, sometimes result in your death from the effects of the angel. The people who see these angels hardly even care what the angels have to say, they just want to feel the magic light that surrounds him when he arrives or leaves.
If you can get past how utterly mind-numbingly boring its written, it's actually a really great read. short too so you can't complain about it. Theres far too much story and message and underlying plot for me to get into in these short reviews, but it is a solid experience.
I kinda liked this book, the message of Humanities place in a world where the promises of angels and the like are actually met is really strong and even through the almost mechanical way its written there's a very dark sadness to the whole affair. The plot revolves around visitations from angels, which sometimes will heal you, sometimes result in your death from the effects of the angel. The people who see these angels hardly even care what the angels have to say, they just want to feel the magic light that surrounds him when he arrives or leaves.
If you can get past how utterly mind-numbingly boring its written, it's actually a really great read. short too so you can't complain about it. Theres far too much story and message and underlying plot for me to get into in these short reviews, but it is a solid experience.
Book review idea
So I just got a kindle and I love this thing so much that I've read about twice as much as I usually would in the last week or so. Its insane how much I'm reading now with this thing and its, undisputably, the best gadget I have owned this year. Unless they bring out Rocket boots very very soon, its probably gonna stay that way.
So I had an idea while browsing around for ideas for articles. I read about this one guy who had the bright idea of doing like 10000 movie reviews in one year, through twitter.
What a stupid asshole.
The problems with this seem obvious, only 140 charcters, and most of those will go to telling you what movie it is. No, bad plan. What I may do is try to read one book every 2 weeks and post a short (paragraph) review on here for every one of them. Going from the current date, that would mean I'd read about 12 books. Given I've already read 4 in the past few days, I expect to beat that pretty harshly. The question is will I stick with this idea to the end? Would anyone even be interested? Who knows. All I know is I read alot, I love talking about books and love suggesting them to everyone. I also read alot of werid stuff and think people might be interested in some of them.
This will not interupt usual "RAGHHH" posts, I have one in mind on how much no one gives a shit about space coming up, but I think it'll be nice and refreshing.
So what do you think, invisible, barely existent audience?
-Nems
So I had an idea while browsing around for ideas for articles. I read about this one guy who had the bright idea of doing like 10000 movie reviews in one year, through twitter.
What a stupid asshole.
The problems with this seem obvious, only 140 charcters, and most of those will go to telling you what movie it is. No, bad plan. What I may do is try to read one book every 2 weeks and post a short (paragraph) review on here for every one of them. Going from the current date, that would mean I'd read about 12 books. Given I've already read 4 in the past few days, I expect to beat that pretty harshly. The question is will I stick with this idea to the end? Would anyone even be interested? Who knows. All I know is I read alot, I love talking about books and love suggesting them to everyone. I also read alot of werid stuff and think people might be interested in some of them.
This will not interupt usual "RAGHHH" posts, I have one in mind on how much no one gives a shit about space coming up, but I think it'll be nice and refreshing.
So what do you think, invisible, barely existent audience?
-Nems
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