Oh we love Kuffle Bunny.
Jessica - tell me a little about Glasshouse?
Damn it! You know what? I'm sick of this crap. I'm sick of being the guy who eats insects and gets the funny syphilis. As of this moment, it's over. I'm finished being everybody's butt monkey!
Xander ,'Lessons'
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 - Jun 16, 2008 10:52:25 am PDT #6231 of 28370
not your mom's socks.
Frankenbuddha - Jun 16, 2008 11:02:31 am PDT #6232 of 28370
"We are the Goon Squad and we're coming to town...Beep! Beep!" - David Bowie, "Fashion"
You should try The Confidence-Man sometime. It reads more like late-60s John Barth than the work of a writer in the late 1850s.
We read that too. It was a VERY intensive Melville class - almost an immersion rather than a clase. We read:
Mardi
Pierre (that one was absolutely of-the-rails lunatic; almost a parody of a Wuthering Heights type of novel, but I'm not sure Melville was kidding)
Moby Dick
A volume of short stories (including Bartleby and Billy Budd) and
The Confidence Man
Which I really need to dig up my copy of and re-read. I really enjoyed it, but I'm sure I didn't get close to a quarter of what's in that book.
Jessica - Jun 16, 2008 11:02:31 am PDT #6233 of 28370
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset
tell me a little about Glasshouse?
Robin wakes up from memory surgery not entirely sure who he is or what he was trying to forget, but pretty quickly works out that someone is still trying to kill him. Decides to sign up for a social experiment that will have him locked in a closed habitat for three years recreating a "dark ages" (approximately 1950-2050) society with hundreds of other volunteers. (Figures he'll be safe in there - he won't be able to get out, but they (whoever they are) won't be able to get in either.) Wakes up inside the experiment as a woman (not exactly what he was expecting, but oh well!) and has to learn to live as a dark ages female while his memories start to come back as dreams, all the while slowly realizing that there's more going on with this "social experiment" than he was led to believe when he signed up.
It's one of the best-realized post-singularity societies I've ever read, and Stross' POV of a modern posthuman trapped inside the body of a 20th century woman is amazingly dead-on. I just loved every second of it.
Polter-Cow - Jun 16, 2008 11:04:51 am PDT #6234 of 28370
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
That sounds pretty awesome.
hippocampus - Jun 16, 2008 11:06:33 am PDT #6235 of 28370
not your mom's socks.
cool. it's on my list now
Hayden - Jun 16, 2008 11:09:07 am PDT #6236 of 28370
aka "The artist formerly known as Corwood Industries."
Pierre
Never read it, but I just bought a copy at the library sale, so it's on the list.
brenda m - Jun 16, 2008 11:17:33 am PDT #6237 of 28370
If you're going through hell/keep on going/don't slow down/keep your fear from showing/you might be gone/'fore the devil even knows you're there
That does sound good. I've read some others of his, but I'm memfaulting as to what.
Ginger - Jun 16, 2008 11:22:25 am PDT #6238 of 28370
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
I love The Confidence Man. This is the list of Melville I don't love: Billy Budd.
I suggest that people also read Typee, which was hugely popular. Tropical paradise! Sex! Naked girls! What's not to like? It does help you understand why there was such a negative contemporary reaction to Moby Dick. People were expecting Harold Robbins and they got James Joyce.
Miracleman - Jun 16, 2008 11:27:45 am PDT #6239 of 28370
No, I don't think I will - me, quoting Captain Steve Rogers, to all of 2020
DebetEsse - Jun 16, 2008 11:29:20 am PDT #6240 of 28370
Woe to the fucking wicked.
awesome