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Long Time No Post
Nov. 1st, 2014 02:18 pmThis time, though, my life's actually changed some in the intervening months (aside from the slow pull of entropy), though really it's spillover from my brother's life. ( Read more... )
The big effect in my own life (aside from worrying over my brother and the additional cat chores) is in food. See, she was always the cook of the group (she didn't work or even bring in any money through social services or anything, which I guess also means we now are spending less money to maintain the same standard of living), which meant I never really had to do much of anything beyond occasionally putting something in the microwave or oven and coming back when it was done, and could allow my lack of any skills in the area continue to exist (or is it not-exist if it's a lack?). Although my brother does cook some, and did when she didn't feel up to it, he's working a lot with school and actual work, and I didn't want to add to his burden by asking him to cook for me, and in fact the reverse, that at least I could help out by making sure he had a decent hot meal without having to do much work when he comes home (though he often cooks on the weekends so it's not totally one-sided). So I've taken it upon myself to finally learn to cook. ( Read more... )
But let's move on from that. Other than that, my life's pretty much the same. Didn't do anything for Halloween (though it was cold and rainy so kids probably didn't enjoy it either... since we never get any Trick or Treaters at our apartment, I might have considered just going out for a walk to see what costumes were on display if not for that). Time does seem to be moving at a rapid pace, except for me, though. I almost feel like I'm in one of those SF stories about time dilation.
Anyway, TV... mildly enjoying stuff this year. Of new shows, Flash is okay fun, and Gotham I'm still not sure it works but it's mostly been holding my attention. It is, if nothing else, pretty well cast, I can believe Catwoman-girl becomes Catwoman and Penguin-Guy becomes Penguin. As for old stuff, Walking Dead's been pretty good, SHIELD's been somewhat better than this time last year, and most of the rest of the stuff is okay but unremarkable.
I should single out DW for special attention, because New Doctor. So far, I like the Doctor, but the writing is mixed. My favorites were probably Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline, both of which were written by the same guy, so I hope he does more next year. Though I have to say I really disliked the Forest one, also by a new writer. Just shoddy all around, maybe one good moment in it ruined by being such an awful episode. But in general, some new writers would be nice (especially a few women), and I think Moffat needs to step away. He's been at it a while, and he's reusing a lot of the same old ideas in new dresses... he's had the 50th anniversary, invented a new doctor and fudged the regeneration count so that he could tell the story of his final-of-12 regenerations, and introduced the first of a new set... that's enough, it's time to let somebody else put their mark on it. (And I hope whoever does it next ditches the "standalone episodes that dangle an ongoing mystery that gets unsatisfyingly resolved in some big finale" pattern and just gives us great episodes and a great finale that comes out of NOWHERE.
Also, I miss the old live-in companion style, rather than what it's been for Clara and about half of Amy/Rory, where they have a normal life that the Doctor just pops in on now and then. I want the Doctor to be that strange man who takes you off on a wild set of adventures that lasts as long as you can stand to stay, a roller coaster ride for as long as you can hold on, and changes your life forever, not to be Cosmic Kramer who keeps popping into your place to try and drag you into his latest crazy scheme (it occurs to me that Seinfeld is probably a dated reference by now). I guess tonight (probably just before the To Be Continued) we learn who Missy is, but so far I'm kind of meh on that too.
Anyway, let's finish with my book list since last time. As usual, the reviews are pulled from my Goodreads account.
Finished: Blindsight by Peter Watts (reread)
Reread this in preparation for Echopraxia, already reviewed it several times here.
Finished: Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross
Five thousand years in the future, humanoid artificial life form Krina investigates the disappearance of her sister that may be connected to an ancient financial scam.
This is set in the same universe as Saturn's Children, but aside from sharing the same setting of a hard SF, no-FTL universe where humanity has died out and robots have replaced them, there's very little in common... the plots don't connect and the characters are all unrelated. (Short version: more interesting than entertaining, and on the whole not as fun as SC)( Read more... ) Your mileage may vary, and it might thrill you.
Finished: Zero Echo Schadow Prime by Peter Samet (received for free)
Full disclosure: I received this book for free as part of a Goodreads giveaway, but I'll do my best to give it a fair and honest review.
Zero Echo Shadow Prime tells the story of Charlie Nobunga, a young genius who just programmed a new sort of AI assistant that actually feels like a real person. In the midst of her fame, she's diagnosed with cancer, the same kind that killed her twin sister, but the head of a cutting edge technology company proposes a solution... to scan her brain and copy her personality into a stronger, artificial body. Charlie's unsure about the whole thing, but the procedure goes ahead... and many different Charlies awaken, each unaware of the others, sometimes unaware of a lot more. First, there's Prime, the planned superior body, a form that could be a cyborg supersolider. There's also Echo, a four-armed warrior with no memories, in a digital world full of other, slightly different Echos. There's Shadow, who's been converted into an AI assistant in somebody's head. And finally, there's Charlie's original body, which wasn't destroyed during the scan but never intended to be reawoken unless there was a problem... except it's been kidnapped by Luddites, who want her help to take down the company that scanned her.
This book's not only a first novel, but a self-published one. This normally makes me very leery of potential poor quality works (I've been burned before), although I'm certainly willing to give a first novel a little more leeway, and the book's concept was impressive and ambitious. So does it live up to it, and is it a successful novel that you could expect to get published on its own? ( Read more... ) I guess the best thing to do is split the difference and call it a four, because I did really enjoy it, just with some reservations.
Finished: The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke tells the tale of the last human city, Diaspar, a billion years in the future, and eternally stable thanks to a population engineered to their environment. But one man lacks the fear of the outside world that grips everybody else, and driven by a curiosity about what lies outside the gates.
This is, I'm told, a rework of another work, Against the Fall of Night, but I haven't read it to compare, and I'm unlikely to. Suffice it to say, it's an ambitious book that, while it has some typical failings of SF books of its era, is full of sense of wonder and ably conveys a sense of awe.( Read more... )
Finished: The Year's Best SF 17 (short story collection)
A collection of short stories published in 2011, chosen as the best by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. As usual, it's a mixed bag. ( Read more... )
Finished: Crux by Ramez Naam
Crux continues the story begun in Nexus, in which a technology-based drug installs an operating system and wireless interface in people's brains. Nexus is growing in popularity, more and more kids are being born with Nexus in their systems or growing up learning how to be mentally connected, and groups wanting to stop the technology's spread are growing more desperate. And those who are finding ways to abuse it growing more crafty. Kaden Lane, one of the inventors of the latest version of Nexus, is doing what he can against both groups, using his secret back-door code to shut down those who use Nexus to hack into people's brains and control them for profit, perverted kicks, or political motives, but he has to question whether even he has the right to control others in that way. ( Read more... )How entertaining? As soon as I finished, I was ready to go online and, as part of my next bundle of online purchases, I was going to include the next book in the series, Apex... only to find out that I was mistaken and it's actually not released yet. And I was very disappointed in that, because I really want to see where it goes.
Finished: Echopraxia by Peter Watts
In Echopraxia, posthumans rule the world, but there's still a place for ordinary baseline humans... just barely, as a failsafe, a measure of comparison, a pawn in the schemes of hive minds, alien intelligences and more. Daniel Bruks is one such baseline, manipulated into joining a scientific religious order out on a search for the source of signals from space, which may be an alien intelligence, but the hive mind thinks might be God.
This is a follow-up to Blindsight one of my favorite SF books ever, and as such, has a pretty high bar right off the bat. (Short version: Not as good, but still on my shortlist for best SF novel of the year)( Read more... )
Finished: Homeland by Cory Doctorow
Homeland continues the story of Marcus Yallow, who appeared in Doctorow's excellent Little Brother, fighting against those who use the threat of terrorism to undermine the rights of the law-abiding. It's been some years since he told his story of imprisonment and fighting back, and the fame's ended, and just surviving is getting tough with the recession. But when an old associate comes to him and hands him a batch of leaked documents with the instructions to release them if anything happens... and then later witnesses her being abducted by the same forces behind his own imprisonment, he has to decide whether to get involved again. (Short version: Liked it up until the end dropped the ball) ( Read more... )I still enjoyed it on the whole, but it wasn't as good.
Finished: The Ultra Thin Man by Patrick Swenson (received for free)
Two private detectives who are working for the government's spy agency uncover some kind of conspiracy after a terrorist attack on a distant planet kills millions of people. (short version: didn't like it) ( Read more... )
Finished: Last Plane To Heaven: The Final Collection by Jay lake (short story collection, received for free)
The final collection of short stories from Jay Lake, a SF/Fantasy writer who recently died of cancer. ( Read more... ) If a novel had the same proportion of "stuff I like" and "stuff I didn't care for" it would probably get a two, but that rating's unfair and even misleading for a short story collection, where you're often skimming through stuff that's not your tastes. So I'll give it a three.
Finished: iD: The Second Machine Dynasty by Madeline Ashby
iD picks up where vN leaves off, except it focuses on vN Javier, who's found love with Amy but still has his failsafe that makes doing harm to humans unthinkable. And that fact is used against him, to force him into betraying his love. Once that's done, he must go on a quest for redemption, falling on his old techniques of charm and seduction to find someone who might have a backup copy of Amy's personality. ( Read more... )I certainly enjoyed it. I'll probably read book three, if there's a sequel. I'm just not as excited over it as I was the first.
Finished: Starfire by Peter Watts (semi-reread)
A geothermal power facility on the bottom of the ocean floor isn't the most inviting place to work. Overwhelming pressure, constant danger, near-complete darkness, monsters of the deep, not to mention them having to cut into your body to let you survive the necessary excursions outside the station. Under such conditions, normal people might bend, or break, in unpredictable ways. So if you're a big corporation that just wants to get the job done, it might occur to you to send down people who were already broken... people who've grown up with constant pressure and fear, who had monsters in their own family or have become monsters themselves... people who've grown addicted to being used and abused. These are people who your studies indicate might break, but do so in more predictable ways, ways that don't compromise the mission. Of course, you've forgotten that extreme environments can serve as crucibles, that sometimes broken things put themselves back together stronger, stranger than before. And there are other things at the bottom of the ocean, things that have evolved in those extreme environments, stranger and more dangerous than dysfunctional workers, and together they might change everything. ( Read more... )If I were going to recommend any book of this author, it'd still be Blindsight... but Starfish is pretty good too, and well worth checking out.
Finished: Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
The aristocratic class of Grass go hunting for creatures they call "foxen", on things they call "mounts", led by beasts they call "hounds", but it's a much darker game on the planet Grass, where these alien creatures are much more dangerous, and stranger, than the earthly ones they're named after. It's more than a cultural institution, it's practically an obsession among the nobles of this one insular world. The nobles would be happy if nobody from the outside world set foot on Grass ever again, but the rest of the galaxy is secretly facing a plague... and there's some evidence that Grass is the only place that plague doesn't exist. So Grass is pressured in to accepting a family of ambassadors, who's mission it is to find out if there is a cure there, all while hopefully keeping the plague secret. But to do that, they must uncover the dark secrets of Grass.
It took a while for me to get into the book, I have to admit. ( Read more... ) On the whole, I liked it, am glad I read it, but it wasn't mind-blowing and I don't think it's a book I'm going to read again anytime soon.
Started: Exo by Steven Gould (Jumper, Book 4)
Started: Maelstrom, by Peter Watts (Rifters, Book 2)
Started: Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
The big effect in my own life (aside from worrying over my brother and the additional cat chores) is in food. See, she was always the cook of the group (she didn't work or even bring in any money through social services or anything, which I guess also means we now are spending less money to maintain the same standard of living), which meant I never really had to do much of anything beyond occasionally putting something in the microwave or oven and coming back when it was done, and could allow my lack of any skills in the area continue to exist (or is it not-exist if it's a lack?). Although my brother does cook some, and did when she didn't feel up to it, he's working a lot with school and actual work, and I didn't want to add to his burden by asking him to cook for me, and in fact the reverse, that at least I could help out by making sure he had a decent hot meal without having to do much work when he comes home (though he often cooks on the weekends so it's not totally one-sided). So I've taken it upon myself to finally learn to cook. ( Read more... )
But let's move on from that. Other than that, my life's pretty much the same. Didn't do anything for Halloween (though it was cold and rainy so kids probably didn't enjoy it either... since we never get any Trick or Treaters at our apartment, I might have considered just going out for a walk to see what costumes were on display if not for that). Time does seem to be moving at a rapid pace, except for me, though. I almost feel like I'm in one of those SF stories about time dilation.
Anyway, TV... mildly enjoying stuff this year. Of new shows, Flash is okay fun, and Gotham I'm still not sure it works but it's mostly been holding my attention. It is, if nothing else, pretty well cast, I can believe Catwoman-girl becomes Catwoman and Penguin-Guy becomes Penguin. As for old stuff, Walking Dead's been pretty good, SHIELD's been somewhat better than this time last year, and most of the rest of the stuff is okay but unremarkable.
I should single out DW for special attention, because New Doctor. So far, I like the Doctor, but the writing is mixed. My favorites were probably Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline, both of which were written by the same guy, so I hope he does more next year. Though I have to say I really disliked the Forest one, also by a new writer. Just shoddy all around, maybe one good moment in it ruined by being such an awful episode. But in general, some new writers would be nice (especially a few women), and I think Moffat needs to step away. He's been at it a while, and he's reusing a lot of the same old ideas in new dresses... he's had the 50th anniversary, invented a new doctor and fudged the regeneration count so that he could tell the story of his final-of-12 regenerations, and introduced the first of a new set... that's enough, it's time to let somebody else put their mark on it. (And I hope whoever does it next ditches the "standalone episodes that dangle an ongoing mystery that gets unsatisfyingly resolved in some big finale" pattern and just gives us great episodes and a great finale that comes out of NOWHERE.
Also, I miss the old live-in companion style, rather than what it's been for Clara and about half of Amy/Rory, where they have a normal life that the Doctor just pops in on now and then. I want the Doctor to be that strange man who takes you off on a wild set of adventures that lasts as long as you can stand to stay, a roller coaster ride for as long as you can hold on, and changes your life forever, not to be Cosmic Kramer who keeps popping into your place to try and drag you into his latest crazy scheme (it occurs to me that Seinfeld is probably a dated reference by now). I guess tonight (probably just before the To Be Continued) we learn who Missy is, but so far I'm kind of meh on that too.
Anyway, let's finish with my book list since last time. As usual, the reviews are pulled from my Goodreads account.
Finished: Blindsight by Peter Watts (reread)
Reread this in preparation for Echopraxia, already reviewed it several times here.
Finished: Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross
Five thousand years in the future, humanoid artificial life form Krina investigates the disappearance of her sister that may be connected to an ancient financial scam.
This is set in the same universe as Saturn's Children, but aside from sharing the same setting of a hard SF, no-FTL universe where humanity has died out and robots have replaced them, there's very little in common... the plots don't connect and the characters are all unrelated. (Short version: more interesting than entertaining, and on the whole not as fun as SC)( Read more... ) Your mileage may vary, and it might thrill you.
Finished: Zero Echo Schadow Prime by Peter Samet (received for free)
Full disclosure: I received this book for free as part of a Goodreads giveaway, but I'll do my best to give it a fair and honest review.
Zero Echo Shadow Prime tells the story of Charlie Nobunga, a young genius who just programmed a new sort of AI assistant that actually feels like a real person. In the midst of her fame, she's diagnosed with cancer, the same kind that killed her twin sister, but the head of a cutting edge technology company proposes a solution... to scan her brain and copy her personality into a stronger, artificial body. Charlie's unsure about the whole thing, but the procedure goes ahead... and many different Charlies awaken, each unaware of the others, sometimes unaware of a lot more. First, there's Prime, the planned superior body, a form that could be a cyborg supersolider. There's also Echo, a four-armed warrior with no memories, in a digital world full of other, slightly different Echos. There's Shadow, who's been converted into an AI assistant in somebody's head. And finally, there's Charlie's original body, which wasn't destroyed during the scan but never intended to be reawoken unless there was a problem... except it's been kidnapped by Luddites, who want her help to take down the company that scanned her.
This book's not only a first novel, but a self-published one. This normally makes me very leery of potential poor quality works (I've been burned before), although I'm certainly willing to give a first novel a little more leeway, and the book's concept was impressive and ambitious. So does it live up to it, and is it a successful novel that you could expect to get published on its own? ( Read more... ) I guess the best thing to do is split the difference and call it a four, because I did really enjoy it, just with some reservations.
Finished: The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke tells the tale of the last human city, Diaspar, a billion years in the future, and eternally stable thanks to a population engineered to their environment. But one man lacks the fear of the outside world that grips everybody else, and driven by a curiosity about what lies outside the gates.
This is, I'm told, a rework of another work, Against the Fall of Night, but I haven't read it to compare, and I'm unlikely to. Suffice it to say, it's an ambitious book that, while it has some typical failings of SF books of its era, is full of sense of wonder and ably conveys a sense of awe.( Read more... )
Finished: The Year's Best SF 17 (short story collection)
A collection of short stories published in 2011, chosen as the best by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. As usual, it's a mixed bag. ( Read more... )
Finished: Crux by Ramez Naam
Crux continues the story begun in Nexus, in which a technology-based drug installs an operating system and wireless interface in people's brains. Nexus is growing in popularity, more and more kids are being born with Nexus in their systems or growing up learning how to be mentally connected, and groups wanting to stop the technology's spread are growing more desperate. And those who are finding ways to abuse it growing more crafty. Kaden Lane, one of the inventors of the latest version of Nexus, is doing what he can against both groups, using his secret back-door code to shut down those who use Nexus to hack into people's brains and control them for profit, perverted kicks, or political motives, but he has to question whether even he has the right to control others in that way. ( Read more... )How entertaining? As soon as I finished, I was ready to go online and, as part of my next bundle of online purchases, I was going to include the next book in the series, Apex... only to find out that I was mistaken and it's actually not released yet. And I was very disappointed in that, because I really want to see where it goes.
Finished: Echopraxia by Peter Watts
In Echopraxia, posthumans rule the world, but there's still a place for ordinary baseline humans... just barely, as a failsafe, a measure of comparison, a pawn in the schemes of hive minds, alien intelligences and more. Daniel Bruks is one such baseline, manipulated into joining a scientific religious order out on a search for the source of signals from space, which may be an alien intelligence, but the hive mind thinks might be God.
This is a follow-up to Blindsight one of my favorite SF books ever, and as such, has a pretty high bar right off the bat. (Short version: Not as good, but still on my shortlist for best SF novel of the year)( Read more... )
Finished: Homeland by Cory Doctorow
Homeland continues the story of Marcus Yallow, who appeared in Doctorow's excellent Little Brother, fighting against those who use the threat of terrorism to undermine the rights of the law-abiding. It's been some years since he told his story of imprisonment and fighting back, and the fame's ended, and just surviving is getting tough with the recession. But when an old associate comes to him and hands him a batch of leaked documents with the instructions to release them if anything happens... and then later witnesses her being abducted by the same forces behind his own imprisonment, he has to decide whether to get involved again. (Short version: Liked it up until the end dropped the ball) ( Read more... )I still enjoyed it on the whole, but it wasn't as good.
Finished: The Ultra Thin Man by Patrick Swenson (received for free)
Two private detectives who are working for the government's spy agency uncover some kind of conspiracy after a terrorist attack on a distant planet kills millions of people. (short version: didn't like it) ( Read more... )
Finished: Last Plane To Heaven: The Final Collection by Jay lake (short story collection, received for free)
The final collection of short stories from Jay Lake, a SF/Fantasy writer who recently died of cancer. ( Read more... ) If a novel had the same proportion of "stuff I like" and "stuff I didn't care for" it would probably get a two, but that rating's unfair and even misleading for a short story collection, where you're often skimming through stuff that's not your tastes. So I'll give it a three.
Finished: iD: The Second Machine Dynasty by Madeline Ashby
iD picks up where vN leaves off, except it focuses on vN Javier, who's found love with Amy but still has his failsafe that makes doing harm to humans unthinkable. And that fact is used against him, to force him into betraying his love. Once that's done, he must go on a quest for redemption, falling on his old techniques of charm and seduction to find someone who might have a backup copy of Amy's personality. ( Read more... )I certainly enjoyed it. I'll probably read book three, if there's a sequel. I'm just not as excited over it as I was the first.
Finished: Starfire by Peter Watts (semi-reread)
A geothermal power facility on the bottom of the ocean floor isn't the most inviting place to work. Overwhelming pressure, constant danger, near-complete darkness, monsters of the deep, not to mention them having to cut into your body to let you survive the necessary excursions outside the station. Under such conditions, normal people might bend, or break, in unpredictable ways. So if you're a big corporation that just wants to get the job done, it might occur to you to send down people who were already broken... people who've grown up with constant pressure and fear, who had monsters in their own family or have become monsters themselves... people who've grown addicted to being used and abused. These are people who your studies indicate might break, but do so in more predictable ways, ways that don't compromise the mission. Of course, you've forgotten that extreme environments can serve as crucibles, that sometimes broken things put themselves back together stronger, stranger than before. And there are other things at the bottom of the ocean, things that have evolved in those extreme environments, stranger and more dangerous than dysfunctional workers, and together they might change everything. ( Read more... )If I were going to recommend any book of this author, it'd still be Blindsight... but Starfish is pretty good too, and well worth checking out.
Finished: Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
The aristocratic class of Grass go hunting for creatures they call "foxen", on things they call "mounts", led by beasts they call "hounds", but it's a much darker game on the planet Grass, where these alien creatures are much more dangerous, and stranger, than the earthly ones they're named after. It's more than a cultural institution, it's practically an obsession among the nobles of this one insular world. The nobles would be happy if nobody from the outside world set foot on Grass ever again, but the rest of the galaxy is secretly facing a plague... and there's some evidence that Grass is the only place that plague doesn't exist. So Grass is pressured in to accepting a family of ambassadors, who's mission it is to find out if there is a cure there, all while hopefully keeping the plague secret. But to do that, they must uncover the dark secrets of Grass.
It took a while for me to get into the book, I have to admit. ( Read more... ) On the whole, I liked it, am glad I read it, but it wasn't mind-blowing and I don't think it's a book I'm going to read again anytime soon.
Started: Exo by Steven Gould (Jumper, Book 4)
Started: Maelstrom, by Peter Watts (Rifters, Book 2)
Started: Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
