What book are you reading, ιf' - Iff you read books

[Takhisis]

Do we even want to know? From the cover alone I suspect something between Douglas Adams' ‘meet the meat’ segment and Troy McClure introducing everyone to the meat factory (and, of course, the PBF version of the sausage factory).

 

[Kyriakos]

While the first of the Paradoxes of Mr. Pond was elegant, I felt that the second was rather dull.
Also reading Molloy, the first book of Beckett's trilogy.

 

[Smellincoffee]

The People vs Tech, examining the fundamental differences between democracy and big techocracy.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Finished The Years Of Rice and Salt. 7/10, very good book, very well-written in some parts, meandering in some, but overall great. The book begins in the 1300s focusing on a Mongolian scout in Tamerlane's army coming upon abandoned plague-infected towns, it ends with an octogenarian teacher taking a class under an oak tree in 21st century China.

Due to the Black Death, the majority of Europeans died out, and so our real-world history's parallel is carried out mainly by the Islamic world, China, and in the 1800s by the Haudenosaunee and a Buddhist Indian kingdom in centred in Travancore. What I found annoying was how the Chinese and the Islamic states (often cobbled together) are fairly portrayed as impressive but flawed empires, while Robinson goes the 'noble savage' and 'hippie Buddhist' route with the Haudenosaunee and the Travancori, who become a bland fairy-tale force of goodness and light in the world.

Robinson appears to have a very strong grip on most of the topics he touches on throughout the book: metallurgy, music, Buddhist philosophy, Sufism, sharia, Islamic doctrine, historiography among others...

The reincarnation schtick is good, it is fun trying to identify which character was which character in the previous story. Though I could have saved myself the trouble if I had realised before it is near-explicity spelt out in the last chapter that reincarnating characters have names that start with the same letter across reincarnations. So Kyu is Kang in a later life, Khalid in another, Kali in another, etc.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Some choice excerpts from the book:

Spoiler :

But this was one of those blessed moments when the future was no matter for concern, when both past and future were absent from the world. That was what struck Bistami most, even at the time, even in the act of floating along in the line of belief, one of a million whiterobed hajjis pilgrims from all over Dar al-Islam, from the Maghrib to Mindanao, from Siberia to the Seychelles: how they were all there together in this one moment, the sky and the town under it all glowing with their presence, not transparently as at Chishti’s tomb, but full of colour, stuffed with all the colours of the world. All the people of the world were one.

Spoiler :

Once when a last shard of sunset light shot under dark lowering clouds, Bistami heard from somewhere in their camp a musician playing a Turkish oboe, carving in the air a long plaintive melody that wound on and on, the song of the dusky plateau’s own voice or soul, it seemed. The Sultana stood at the edge of camp, listening with him, her fine head turned like a hawk’s as she watched the sun descend. It dropped at the very speed of time itself. There was no need to speak in this singing world, so huge, so knotted; no human mind could ever comprehend it, even the music only touched the hem of it, and even that strand they failed to understand — they only felt it. The universal whole was beyond them.

Spoiler :

he was full of thought on several levels at once, so that focus on any one stream of ideas left him fluttering in all the others, restless and inclined to stop following that tributary; inclined merely to let all rivers of thought roll at once.

Spoiler :

Because that’s what we are to other people, boy, we are their gossip. That’s all civilization is, a giant mill grinding out gossip.

Spoiler :

Nothing was ever normal again.
Many lives change like that — all of a sudden, and for ever.

Spoiler Some Buddhist anatomists discussing the structure of the brain :

“— the six lokas are names for the parts of the brain that perform the different kinds of mentation. The level of beasts is the cerebellum, the level of hungry ghosts the limbic archipelago, the human realm the speech lobes, the realm of the asuras is the frontal cortex, and the realm of the gods is the bridge between the two halves of the brain, which when activated gives us glimpses of a higher reality. It’s impressive, really, sorting things out that clearly by pure introspection —”
“But that’s only five, what about hell?”
“Hell is other people.”

Spoiler :

Memory was partial, a dim tawdry room in a run-down neighbourhood, illuminated by flashes of distant lightning.

 

[Arakhor]

Deliberately evoking Jean-Paul Sartre, eh?

 

[EnglishEdward]

Some choice excerpts from the book:

You are doing a very good job of convincing me not to read it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Sigh, reading Beckett's Molloy is really the opposite of fun.
It's essentially (rather, it feels like that) a 1000 pages (along with the two other novels in the trilogy) version of Waiting for Godot, and almost no one wants that.
It's also a less poetically inclined instance of The Chants of Maldoror, itself a rather annoying book. But at least that one was written by a 25-year old (iirc).

 

[Smellincoffee]

Finishing The Glass Cage, working on The Chaos Machine in earnest, just about to start Antisocial Media. Can you tell I'm starting an information science degree?

 

[Kyriakos]

The third short story of Mr. Pond's paradoxes was also of little interest. I am beginning to fear that only the introductory story will have some worth.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee agreed to have a battle.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hadn't read Kafka in a while. Now re-reading the Burrow (which I once had translated and it exists in book form), which likely will be featured in the final chapter of the new seminar.
It's my favorite story, anyway. Building a massive subterranean world where you can live - but you can't live there either, due to dangers from deeper still.

Three years ago someone read an (in english) article of mine on the Burrow, and it partly inspired him to create this beautiful animation:

 

[Birdjaguar]

Starting Red Queen by Juan Gomez-Jurado (translated from Spanish by Nick Caistor). It is apparently the first of three with 2 more to come.. It has quite a good start. The blurbs say it is a "thriller!"

 

[Smellincoffee]

Focusing on SF (especially older/obscure SF) this month. Recently finished True Names by Vernor Vinge, included in an anthology of essays about themes in the novella, and am making steady progress on The Shockwave Rider. Plan to tackle The Neuromancer next week.

 

[MPorciusCatoCivver]

The Complete Works of Hesiod in Latin.

Also recently read Aristotelis Opera, by Imannuel Bekker. The Coasts of Bohemia by Sayer.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Starting Red Queen by Juan Gomez-Jurado (translated from Spanish by Nick Caistor). It is apparently the first of three with 2 more to come.. It has quite a good start. The blurbs say it is a "thriller!"

All done. Finished it Monday. It's a page turner and excellent. Book 2 is due out in March.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Children of Men (1992) by P.D. James. Only just started it, but I like her writing.

Finally finished this. It was just okay. I decided about halfway through that I didn't really care for it - I didn't like James' dialogue - but was interested to see how it played out. The movie was wildly different from the book.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Red Queen by Juan Gomez-Jurado is the first book in a trilogy that has sold over 2 million copies in Spain, sold to seventeen countries, and is the basis of an Amazon streaming series to debut in 2023.

 

[Birdjaguar]

10 GREAT BOOKS FOR YOUR AI READING LIST

Today you can use ChatGPT to clone your voice or plan your meals, but what will AI of the future do? These science-fiction novels envision sentient machines that fulfill human desires, topple governments, disrupt economies, save humanity and, maybe, replace it. Some think the genre started with HAL in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Arthur C. Clarke’s 1968 book (and screenplay written with Stanley Kubrick). But WSJ staffers’ favorites took us further back. By Matt Wirz

1. ‘I, Robot’ (1950) —Isaac Asimov
The OG of AI. A short-story collection exploring self-will and the unintended consequences of creating autonomous life. This is where “ The Three Laws of Robotics” were created.

2. ‘The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress’ (1966) — Robert A. Heinlein
Colonists on the moon, led by a supercomputer, revolt against the government of Earth. Nerds are the heroes in this novel steeped in antiestablishment politics of the swinging ’60s.

3. ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ (1968) —Philip K. Dick
Before there was the 1982 film “Blade Runner,” there was the book it is based on, a masterpiece mélange of hard-boiled detective, environmental dystopia and identity crisis.

4. ‘Neuromancer’ (1984) —William Gibson
Henry Case is a cyberspace hacker intent on one last score—if he can just outmaneuver the godlike AIs that populate Gibson’s elegantly crafted world.
Crisp writing and postmodern sensibilities that will please fans of “The Matrix” and “The Peripheral.”

5. ‘The Diamond Age’ (1995)—Neal Stephenson
The AI is a book in this steampunk story about an orphan who triumphs against classism and unfettered capitalism thanks to her supercomputer tutor. A Dickensian epic full of technological optimism written in the days of the early internet.

6. ‘The Windup Girl’ (2009) —Paolo Bacigalupi
“I, Robot” in the era of climate change, this book tackles globalization, environmental degradation and the sex trade. A fast plot and rich world creation carries the reader through these weighty topics with ease.

7. ‘Cinder’ (2012) —Marissa Meyer
The eponymous hero of this fairy tale refresh is a cyborg, and her best friend is an android caught up in another Moon-ver-sus- Earth space opera. A read for the YA crowd.

8. ‘All the Birds in the Sky’ (2016) —Charlie Jane Anders
AI combines with magic, literally, in this dark romance between a witch and a scientist in the near future. Beautiful prose by one of the leaders in new science fiction elevates the YA plotline.

9. ‘All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries’ (2017) —Martha Wells
Murderbot is the genderless good guy in this wry and fast-paced investigation of sentience and emotion dressed up as a murder mystery. A page-turner that launched the bestselling series.

10. ‘Klara and the Sun’ (2021) —Kazuo Ishiguro
A near-future tale of a sun-worshiping android nanny and its sickly charge. Written by the Nobel Prize-winning author of “ The Remains of the Day,” this novella shares its predecessor’s insights on love, servitude and service.

CHASE CASTOR FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 

[Smellincoffee]

Just finished Astounding, a biography of John W. Campbell which focused largely on his role as editor of Astounding Stories and the talent he promoted, edited, and (in the case of young fry like Asimov) mentored. To the degree that it focused on the SF bits, I enjoyed it. Couldn't care less about the sex lives of Asimov, Heinlein, etc which the author frequently dips into, and the long side rail into Hubbard's development of 'dianetics' and Campbell's obsession with it tested my patience.

Currently reading Neuromancer.

 

[EgonSpengler]

After struggling through the last third of The Children of Men, I absolutely flew through Sea of Tranquility (2022) by Emily St. John Mandel. I wish it was longer. I just adore Mandel's writing. If there's any author today whose writing just fits right into my brain, hand in glove, it's her. If my own writing was half as smooth as hers... Anyway,

Spoiler :

I liked that this tackled a question about time travel that I've often had myself, which is, if you posit the existence of time travel, how many historical events would then be the result of interference by time travelers? I didn't really mind that the book didn't tackle Simulation Theory in a more head-on way, though. I feel like The Matrix more or less exhausted that idea for me.

At first, I was tickled that this book was a sequel to The Glass Hotel (2020), but almost as an aside, because I was a little unsatisfied with that book's ending. But by the end of this book, I didn't feel like it had wrapped up that book's ending quite the way I'd hoped it might. That didn't impact my enjoyment of Tranquility, but it means I remain slightly unsatisfied with Hotel.

Like I say, I wish this book was longer. I was getting along with all of the characters and wanted to get to know them better, and there were some time-jumps that I thought could've had at least a chapter devoted to them.

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10 GREAT BOOKS FOR YOUR AI READING LIST

3. ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ (1968) —Philip K. Dick
Before there was the 1982 film “Blade Runner,” there was the book it is based on, a masterpiece mélange of hard-boiled detective, environmental dystopia and identity crisis.

Another classic, like The Children of Men, where I prefer the movie over the book, which are very different from one another. Dick is really more of an ideas guy, for me. His writing is just alright, but it's at least straightforward and moves along. I literally just cracked open Imperial Earth (1975) at lunch today, incidentally.

EDIT: D'oh. Imperial Earth is Clarke, not Dick. Move along. Nothing to see here.

4. ‘Neuromancer’ (1984) —William Gibson
Henry Case is a cyberspace hacker intent on one last score—if he can just outmaneuver the godlike AIs that populate Gibson’s elegantly crafted world.
Crisp writing and postmodern sensibilities that will please fans of “The Matrix” and “The Peripheral.”

I'm curious how well this one holds up, as so much of it has been adopted and adapted in other things, ten times over. I don't hear much about a potential film adaptation anymore, which is maybe just as well. It would have been a blockbuster 25 years ago. Today, I'm not sure there'd be much point to seeing it onscreen now. It might seem derivative today, when in fact the reverse is true, and it was this that inspired so much sci-fi of the last 30 years. otoh, I might've said the same thing about The Fellowship of the Ring when Peter Jackson was working on his movie, or when Francis Ford Coppola did Bram Stoker's Dracula, and look how those turned out.

6. ‘The Windup Girl’ (2009) —Paolo Bacigalupi
“I, Robot” in the era of climate change, this book tackles globalization, environmental degradation and the sex trade. A fast plot and rich world creation carries the reader through these weighty topics with ease.

I remember thinking this one was a bit of a struggle at the beginning, but it was worth hanging in. I think it took me some time to get on the same wavelength with Bacigalupi's writing style. Maybe others wouldn't have that problem. I read Ship Breaker (2010) after this and I found it went down smooth, but then I really struggled again with The Water Knife (2015). I'm not even sure I finished that one.

9. ‘All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries’ (2017) —Martha Wells
Murderbot is the genderless good guy in this wry and fast-paced investigation of sentience and emotion dressed up as a murder mystery. A page-turner that launched the bestselling series.

Book 7 - System Collapse - comes out in less than a month. I think I've only read the first four, so I've some catching up to do.