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newnumber6My word count is 34083. Will be getting my chips for reaching the half way point tomorrow, and probably sometime this week (unless I totally hit a wall) my chips for getting to the 3/4 point. If I keep to the same schedule, I'll reach 50k by the end of next weekend, and then the rest of the month is me-time.
I'm not sure I'm going to be able to finish it, properly, because to get to where I intended to be, I'd need more than 50k words, but I can always write "rocks fall, everybody dies". Or more likely, just write to some significant change in plot (like her escaping towards the New World) and call it the ending of Volume One. Anyway, the action's moved to the island of Laputa where she's learning more about steam machinery, the Combine has been introduced (made up of some old and new foes of the main character), the seven dwarves have been killed off (well, a couple of them might survive, I haven't decided yet), and in her rage and desire for revenge she's just met Adam, who will lead her more towards the dark side.
In other news, I finally got a new boxspring and mattress, which is good because my old one was... old. This one is actually comfortable to lie on in all positions, although I haven't actually slept a night in it. Still, it means there's a possibility I'll wake up without a few minutes of sore muscles. The only problem is (emo)without the pain, how will I know I'm me?(/emo).
Speaking of emo, I hit a real sudden wall of depression yesterday. Not sure what caused it. I'm okay for the most part today, but then I haven't had a lot of time to think introspective thoughts today.
And, a two-for-one deal in Book Foo this week...
Wednesday Book:
Finished: Judas Unchained, by Peter F. Hamilton (sequel to Pandora's Star
Thought behind the cut, not terribly spoilery but may be a bit.
Okay, on the whole I enjoyed the book. I think I enjoyed the series more than the Night's Dawn trilogy with the whole souls escaping hell plot. The menace of the Prime was played with convincing excitement, and the whole question about whether and when it's defendable to attempt genocide was at least given some due consideration. I did feel it spun off the rails a bit towards the end, I found myself skimming through the whole Planet's Revenge aspect, finding it a little silly, and there were perhaps a few too many characters. Also, there were a few strange hookups for the sake of a happier ending that just didn't feel justified enough to me. Still, it didn't feel too short, which is nice.
Started: Axis by Robert Charles Wilson (sequel to Spin)
Monday/Friday Book:
Finished: Glasshouse, by Charles Stross (set in the same universe as Accelerando)
Thoughts behind the cut... (some concept spoilers)
The concept of Glasshouse is that it's the far future, post-Singularity, humanity can back itself up and make duplicates of itself, change body type more or less at will, almost magic level of technology (but described convincingly). The main character, having had most of his memory removed (semi-voluntarily) and thinking his life is in danger, volunteers for an experiment to 'simulate' 20th/early 21st century life, a time period about which little surprisingly is known, due in part to the method of historical recording and also the Censorship Wars which raged through humanity wiping whole chunks out of memory and enslaving minds in a number of ways.
The structure of the simulation was a bit of a surprise because before reading the book I kind of expected it would be a sort of full universe simulation within a computer. Instead it's more like a Live Action RPG of the sims, where you play a character, other players play a character, and most everybody else is a zombie with limited interactive capabilities. Oh, and the whole thing is run by someone who's possibly evil and certainly has limited and incomplete knowledge of the time. Which is cool.
Still, too much of the plot seemed to be dependent on the badguys not doing what would seem to be fairly obvious things, which weakens the enjoyment a little. Also, the gender play (people going into the experiment are anonymized, so the main character, a male, becomes physically a female inside the experiment) didn't come through as well as it should have, some of the subplots along that line felt a little bordering on cliche.
The absolute best part of the novel was the portral of the censorship wars, and the excellent build up of suspense in certain cases where you know something's gone wrong, and manages to portray the future crimes of identity theft and mental tweaking with a convincing amount of horror. I think I would have loved to read a whole novel set in the time of the censorship wars more than Glasshouse itself.
The worst part of the novel was the ending. Not that the events are bad, but just that it all seems to wrap up too quickly and too patly, and in fact it's almost a case where it looks like writer seemed to say "okay I'm bored now I'm going to wrap this up as quickly as possible". There's a moment where the story shifts from action moments to a past tense quick recap of everything that happened next to end the story. This soured me a lot on the book. I still enjoyed it, but I felt a little cheated out of an ending.
I would like to read more in the universe (and again, something set more during the Wars would be cool), but sadly according to the author's FAQ he has no plans to write far-future or Singularity novels in the immediate future, so it looks like it'll be a fair wait if they come at all.
And time to be crass again and play "Who should have won the Hugo?" of the nominees I read, now that I've read 3 of them (Blindsight, Rainbows End, and Glasshouse)
If you asked me in the first two thirds of the book, I probably would have said Glasshouse should have won hands down. But like I said, the ending really soured the experience for me. It's still a good book and well worth reading, but I have to give Blindsight the edge. There the ending satisfied me - I would have liked a good deal more pages in the middle, but it didn't hurt the story itself. Here, I wanted a couple hundred more pages at the end and a better (in terms of how it set up) ending, and I think that's the greater problem. So I still have to give a slim edge to Blindsight as the novel that should have won. Of course, Rainbows End was the actual winner, and I haven't read the other nominees (nor do I have a particular intention to - none of them jumped out at me as must read in terms of concept), so really it boils down to my personal preference.
Started: Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan
Heard good things about this one, will give it a shot.
Let's see, is there anything else needed in this post? How about ZOMBIES!
Lifeless: The First Zombie Apocalypse TV Series. Okay, it's not actually a TV series, yet. It seems to be something the creators hope will be picked up as a TV series, but they're filming a pilot (and possibly a few other episodes) on spec. Which at least gives me the _impression_ of a sort of fly-by-night fannish production that has limited chance of going anywhere and may not be all that great if it does, but still... the trailer didn't seem too bad. If it came out on TV, I'd watch it.
And huh, when did LJ add word-completion for the tags field? Neat. Although I never seem to remember what button to press to actually complete the word rather and so wind up typing it out anyway.
I'm not sure I'm going to be able to finish it, properly, because to get to where I intended to be, I'd need more than 50k words, but I can always write "rocks fall, everybody dies". Or more likely, just write to some significant change in plot (like her escaping towards the New World) and call it the ending of Volume One. Anyway, the action's moved to the island of Laputa where she's learning more about steam machinery, the Combine has been introduced (made up of some old and new foes of the main character), the seven dwarves have been killed off (well, a couple of them might survive, I haven't decided yet), and in her rage and desire for revenge she's just met Adam, who will lead her more towards the dark side.
In other news, I finally got a new boxspring and mattress, which is good because my old one was... old. This one is actually comfortable to lie on in all positions, although I haven't actually slept a night in it. Still, it means there's a possibility I'll wake up without a few minutes of sore muscles. The only problem is (emo)without the pain, how will I know I'm me?(/emo).
Speaking of emo, I hit a real sudden wall of depression yesterday. Not sure what caused it. I'm okay for the most part today, but then I haven't had a lot of time to think introspective thoughts today.
And, a two-for-one deal in Book Foo this week...
Wednesday Book:
Finished: Judas Unchained, by Peter F. Hamilton (sequel to Pandora's Star
Thought behind the cut, not terribly spoilery but may be a bit.
Okay, on the whole I enjoyed the book. I think I enjoyed the series more than the Night's Dawn trilogy with the whole souls escaping hell plot. The menace of the Prime was played with convincing excitement, and the whole question about whether and when it's defendable to attempt genocide was at least given some due consideration. I did feel it spun off the rails a bit towards the end, I found myself skimming through the whole Planet's Revenge aspect, finding it a little silly, and there were perhaps a few too many characters. Also, there were a few strange hookups for the sake of a happier ending that just didn't feel justified enough to me. Still, it didn't feel too short, which is nice.
Started: Axis by Robert Charles Wilson (sequel to Spin)
Monday/Friday Book:
Finished: Glasshouse, by Charles Stross (set in the same universe as Accelerando)
Thoughts behind the cut... (some concept spoilers)
The concept of Glasshouse is that it's the far future, post-Singularity, humanity can back itself up and make duplicates of itself, change body type more or less at will, almost magic level of technology (but described convincingly). The main character, having had most of his memory removed (semi-voluntarily) and thinking his life is in danger, volunteers for an experiment to 'simulate' 20th/early 21st century life, a time period about which little surprisingly is known, due in part to the method of historical recording and also the Censorship Wars which raged through humanity wiping whole chunks out of memory and enslaving minds in a number of ways.
The structure of the simulation was a bit of a surprise because before reading the book I kind of expected it would be a sort of full universe simulation within a computer. Instead it's more like a Live Action RPG of the sims, where you play a character, other players play a character, and most everybody else is a zombie with limited interactive capabilities. Oh, and the whole thing is run by someone who's possibly evil and certainly has limited and incomplete knowledge of the time. Which is cool.
Still, too much of the plot seemed to be dependent on the badguys not doing what would seem to be fairly obvious things, which weakens the enjoyment a little. Also, the gender play (people going into the experiment are anonymized, so the main character, a male, becomes physically a female inside the experiment) didn't come through as well as it should have, some of the subplots along that line felt a little bordering on cliche.
The absolute best part of the novel was the portral of the censorship wars, and the excellent build up of suspense in certain cases where you know something's gone wrong, and manages to portray the future crimes of identity theft and mental tweaking with a convincing amount of horror. I think I would have loved to read a whole novel set in the time of the censorship wars more than Glasshouse itself.
The worst part of the novel was the ending. Not that the events are bad, but just that it all seems to wrap up too quickly and too patly, and in fact it's almost a case where it looks like writer seemed to say "okay I'm bored now I'm going to wrap this up as quickly as possible". There's a moment where the story shifts from action moments to a past tense quick recap of everything that happened next to end the story. This soured me a lot on the book. I still enjoyed it, but I felt a little cheated out of an ending.
I would like to read more in the universe (and again, something set more during the Wars would be cool), but sadly according to the author's FAQ he has no plans to write far-future or Singularity novels in the immediate future, so it looks like it'll be a fair wait if they come at all.
And time to be crass again and play "Who should have won the Hugo?" of the nominees I read, now that I've read 3 of them (Blindsight, Rainbows End, and Glasshouse)
If you asked me in the first two thirds of the book, I probably would have said Glasshouse should have won hands down. But like I said, the ending really soured the experience for me. It's still a good book and well worth reading, but I have to give Blindsight the edge. There the ending satisfied me - I would have liked a good deal more pages in the middle, but it didn't hurt the story itself. Here, I wanted a couple hundred more pages at the end and a better (in terms of how it set up) ending, and I think that's the greater problem. So I still have to give a slim edge to Blindsight as the novel that should have won. Of course, Rainbows End was the actual winner, and I haven't read the other nominees (nor do I have a particular intention to - none of them jumped out at me as must read in terms of concept), so really it boils down to my personal preference.
Started: Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan
Heard good things about this one, will give it a shot.
Let's see, is there anything else needed in this post? How about ZOMBIES!
Lifeless: The First Zombie Apocalypse TV Series. Okay, it's not actually a TV series, yet. It seems to be something the creators hope will be picked up as a TV series, but they're filming a pilot (and possibly a few other episodes) on spec. Which at least gives me the _impression_ of a sort of fly-by-night fannish production that has limited chance of going anywhere and may not be all that great if it does, but still... the trailer didn't seem too bad. If it came out on TV, I'd watch it.
And huh, when did LJ add word-completion for the tags field? Neat. Although I never seem to remember what button to press to actually complete the word rather and so wind up typing it out anyway.
