And Ian McDonald too.
Saffron: But we've been wed. Aren't we to become one flesh? Mal: Well, no, uh... We're still two fleshes here, and I think that your flesh ought to sleep somewhere else.
'Our Mrs. Reynolds'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
hippocampus - Aug 21, 2011 3:01:19 pm PDT #16132 of 28288
not your mom's socks.
Ginger - Aug 21, 2011 3:18:09 pm PDT #16133 of 28288
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
What about Vernor Vinge? He was a math professor and computer pioneer who has written about the future of society and artificial intelligence.
Jessica - Aug 21, 2011 3:57:21 pm PDT #16134 of 28288
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset
Alastair Reynolds!
DavidS - Aug 21, 2011 3:57:23 pm PDT #16135 of 28288
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
Sox suggested Banks as well...guess I should read some of his stuff?
Well, whatever you like about Stross he's copying from Banks, but not as well.
Toddson - Aug 22, 2011 8:02:04 am PDT #16136 of 28288
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"
A book for Jilli. The cover's lovely.
And, Jilli, I hope you enjoy the book I sent more than I did. It just didn't ping me like I thought it would.
hippocampus - Aug 22, 2011 8:13:30 am PDT #16137 of 28288
not your mom's socks.
Well, whatever you like about Stross he's copying from Banks, but not as well.
In what ways, David?
Strega - Aug 22, 2011 8:50:18 am PDT #16138 of 28288
The cover's lovely.
The blurb made my head explode. Boom. Now I'm dead.
Avenge me!
Atropa - Aug 22, 2011 9:09:30 am PDT #16139 of 28288
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.
A book for Jilli. The cover's lovely.
The cover is pretty.
The blurb made my head explode. Boom. Now I'm dead.
Yeeeeaaah. IIRC, I looked at a copy in Powell's, went "oh the fuck no", and put it down. I have ... issues with overly-romance-trope takes on Dracula. (Yes, even tho' I like the Coppola movie version.)
Avenge me!
From beyond the grave, hon. I will.
And, Jilli, I hope you enjoy the book I sent more than I did. It just didn't ping me like I thought it would.
It looks like fun! And it will probably be my bathtime reading tonight. And the coffee mug! Eeeee! That has become my new favorite mug. (Toddson sent me a pink mug with black lettering that says Nevermind Princess, I want to be a VAMPIRE.)
Toddson - Aug 22, 2011 9:17:06 am PDT #16140 of 28288
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"
I saw that mug and knew you had to have it. Then it sat for about a month waiting for me to get off my ass and send it.
The book ... I don't know if I wasn't in the right mood, but it just wasn't what I wanted. But the second book's out now - saw it in the store last week.
DavidS - Aug 22, 2011 10:35:51 am PDT #16141 of 28288
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
In what ways, David?
Well, first of all I don't think Stross is a very good writer. His books read like RPG manuals. (Which he used to write.)
I know that Glasshouse was specifically emulating Banks' culture novels, something Stross acknowledges.
For somebody who is interested in writing about the effects of radical body reinvention he doesn't have a lot of psychological subtlety in his work. Characters wear their bodies like suits, and their subjective experiences seem very static in relation to that.
Compared to somebody like Delaney or Leguin he's got absolutely no sense of how a gender fluid character might think or feel.
I think he's good with extrapolating the implications of the hard science and how radical the effects of those changes could be. But his sense of character seems really conventional to me.