Slashdot Mirror
A Good Summer Read?
binaryhead asks: "Well, the semester has just ended, and I have graduated from school! :-) I start my full-time job in a month and want to read a good book in the mean time. Having read Snowcrash, Neuromancer, and most of the hacker biographies, I am trying to find a scifi-geek-hacker book that people like. I might try the new Kevin Mitnick book, but I wanted to see what Slashdot preferred. Thanks."
I just picked up 'Pattern Recognition' & it is definitely a decent read (so far)
"Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun."
Ender's Game. Not sure about the sequels though. You may want the crossover(quasi-sequel) Ender's Shadow after that.
Free on PG and it's about time we, as a collective, got a little more broad in our selections.
A complete Unix manual.
Didn't you read slashdot? You'd be better off playing video games then reading!
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect
If you like fantasy at all, I'd recommned Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series (which is all but a blatant ripoff of Jordan's work, mind), or any of the Forgotten Realms mini-series (RA Salvatore is the best writer of FR books, imo).
;-), and can at least tolerate fantasy, you _must_ read Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" books. Absolutely must.
;-)
If you like humour (yes, the British version of it
I'd also recommend Asian folklore; those stories are surprisingly good, considering the plots seem like they were thought up by someone using the peace pipe...
...something not "scifi-geek-hacker" for a change? It's a big world out there.
Good book, includes guys wearing bow down for I am root T-Shirts.
Good stuff to read before starting your first job. Check out the Illuminatus! trilogy.
"I know together we'll make the possible totally impossible" - Homme
I have to recommend the old sci-fi classic, Dune. It did a marvelous job of creating a strange yet self-consistent world. Gread read. The other books in the series are sometimes dry and uninteresting, but still worth it.
the unix haters' handbook? It's FREE! You like FREE, dont' you?!?!
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programming, by Sussman and Ableson, a book from MIT using scheme as a teaching language but for than language it teaches invaluable concepts.
Apart from that I like crime fiction by Michael Connelly, not exactly typical slashdot fodder, but hey you asked.....
I rather liked Neil Gaiman's "American Gods."
You say
I recommend his book "Cyberiad" in particular...
Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Cliff Stoll
Good documentary account of tracing international hackers from a sysadmin-like guy's point of view. A little dated now but well-written, humorous and very entertaining.
I recommend The Hobbit or anything else by J.R.R. Tolkien
... it was a great series.
Or if you have already read those too many times, try out The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
If you're interested in Fantasy, the Wheel of Time series is one of the best I've read. I got the first book when it came out, and eagerly awaited the release of each new book. It might be a bit more than a summer project, though. The Dragonlance Chronicles is also a trilogy that you'll pick up and not put down until it's done. Then, a week later you'll pick it up again and re-read it. It's that good.
Hydrogen: The Essential Element
by John S. Rigden
From amazon.com:
Justly acclaimed for his lucid biography of physicist I. I. Rabi, Rigden here shifts his focus from person to problem, chronicling how one enduring conundrum--that of explaining the element hydrogen--has challenged two centuries of brilliant scientists. Beginning with the British chemist William Prout's pioneering hypothesis defining hydrogen as nature's fundamental building block, Rigden recounts episode after episode in which the mysteries of the simplest element--a bare proton and electron--have yielded their secrets to intellectually daring and resourceful researchers. In the process, he clarifies for general readers the nature of the scientific enterprise, in which elegant theories must meet the test of empirical verification. Nor does Rigden neglect the often-quirky personalities of the humans who frame the theories and conduct the experiments: we share, for example, in the frivolous musical ditties composed by Bloch and in the irreverent jokes circulated about Dirac. Readers will marvel that in its very first square, the periodic table holds so much science, so much history, so much humanity.
and leave you feeling dirty.
Like Naked Lunch
You could always read The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. It's a relatively short piece, can be read in a couple days. Also, the book is free, so there's no downside if you don't like it (short of a spell of time).
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
...and read The Lord of The Rings trilogy once a year. Should always be an entertaining read, and you'll catch some stuff not included in the movies.
Now, the articles I read about his doing this didn't say if he read The Hobbit or the assorted tails in the Silmarillion. I'd assume he's read the tales in the Silmarillion at least a few times.
I've read two excellent books lately that I'd recommend to any intelligent audience...
The Code Book, and The Selfish Gene. We'll see what the other slashdotters think of my suggestions...
Kind thoughts do not change the world
After Ender's Game, definately check out Ender's Shadow - through the eyes of Bean. Very good book. I don't care for the prior sequels.
Check out Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl?
The Powers comic series is ground breaking and really well done. The basic premise is that there is a cop investigating the murder of a superhero.
Really stunning work and surprisingly moving. Great written dialog.
I am actually finishing up the new Gibson book, Pattern Recognition, as part of my summer reading, it's definitely a sci-fi/hacker/geek/saavycool book that people like. They assigned it to my entire freshman class at a respected liberal arts university. I read the Art of Deception a few months ago. While good, it wasn't exactly what I'd call summer reading material. Hope this all helps.
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
You might consider reading a work of literature in addition to the latest greatest hacker book. Yes, there are non-computer books!
Snow Crash or Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson
Two of the best geek books out there.
If you like horror...check out Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith.
The Hyperion series ("Hyperion" and "Fall of Hyperion" by Dan Simmons) is one of the best, if not the best, works of Sci-Fi I've ever read. Better than Dune, IMHO.
:)
It's something fresh and original and it'll change the way you think
Nothing like Shadow of the Torturer and its companion novels by Gene Wolfe. Also props to those who suggested Dune and The Cyberiad.
Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
I'm reading Mitnick's book right now- I can't say I reccomend it. So far it just seems like 'how not to give out your password For Dummies'. It has all these little "Lingo" and "Mitnick Message" sections to try and clue you in on key points, in case you didn't pick up from the stories that you shouldn't give out potentially sensitive info to people you don't know. Maybe it get's better later on, but up to like chapter 8 it's kinda boring.
IMnvHO it's better than Snowcrash, even
- The Fountainhead
by Ayn Rand, of course, then onto- Atlas Shrugged
...There are few better favors you can do yourself before entering the working world in earnest than to have a nice philosophical framework.
Good luck!
Those who give up their power willingly deserve none.
I'm reading a book called Sophies World by Jostein Gaarder. It's not really what you're looking for (sci fi tech thriller dealie) but I'm really enjoying it and I know that me and a lot of my geeky friends are interested in it's subjet matter, philosophy. It's a attempt to create a fictional mystery intertwined with the history of philosophy from the anchients up till modern times. I say attempt because you really have to be interested in the philosophy part to get through the book, you won't finish it just based on the merit of the mystery aspect however it is interesting. So there's my two cents and hopefully it will give you a new look on life as you move on to college.
On the other hand for the scifi kinda thing I highly reccomend anything written by Isaac Asimov, my absolute favorite author in that genre. The foundation series is wonderful. Also check out the Hitchikers Guide series, very entertaining. Blah I'm just rambling now so go read something.
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
but you could check out the classics like Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, Illuminatis Trilogy, anything by Rand...those all seem to appeal to geek sensibilities.
The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life by Robert Wright. A look at evolution and nonzero-sum game theory and how they shaped our brains and our culture. I lent my dad my copy and he kept it to read it twice.
I'd stay away from the Mitnick book, if I were you. It reads like an executive summary of a much more interesting book. There's not much there: it's got large print and bullet points every few pages.
The new book "The Order of the Phoenix" is going to be out in three weeks!
A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Sure, you can read the whole collection in one night, but you'll be mentally chewing on it for two weeks.
This tagline is umop apisdn.
Slaughterhouse Five
Cat's Cradle
Player Piano
The Sirens of Titan
I enjoyed them 30 yrs ago as much as in the past few weeks. Unemployed and all. Don't forget 1984, The Doors of Perception and Fahrenheit 451. Enjoy.
- The complete works of H.P. Lovecraft (Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!)
- The Complete Sherlock Holmes: Stories and Novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Tales and Poems (the tales, mostly; I'm not big on poetry)
Not exactly sci-fi geek hacker stuff, of course, but I've read through most of Stephenson and Gibson's stuff and found that I like classic mystery/suspense as well. If it's hard sci-fi you're looking for, check out a book called The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, if you haven't already. It's old (circa 1950s or 1960s IIRC) but a great read. And then there's the classics like Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama or 2001 series.We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
If you want a good perspective bender, check out Wicked: The life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire. It totally re-draws the whole Oz story from a different direction, makes you think about how good and evil depend on the perspective you take, and who you believe. One of the best books I've read in a while
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
Something you might find interesting that satisfies your "Sci-fi" requirement with added humor. the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series is a great read.
Science will save us. The question is, will it destroy us first?
a hard day coding. A hot 22 old whore getting her pussy fucked in the bright pages of a magazine makes my day. It'll make yours too.
More science than computer stuff, but the stories will blow your mind
If you want to get a Cool read that no ones knows about check out cordwainer smith
And for something a little more modern, Tad Williams Otherland series, which combines virtual reality with a diverse set of cultural histories.
Nine Princes of Amber and the other subsequent Amber books in the series by Zelazny. Eventhough I feel the series is unfinished in parts, I really enjoyed these books. Don't know if they're exactly what you're looking for, being a bit too fantasy-ish, but I recommend them to everybody. I also put Dune and Ender's Game on my recommendation list.
One book in a month of nothing to do? Maybe one book a week, if you're slow!
Anyways, Cryptonomicon was a good read, if a little lengthy. In fact, anything by Stephenson that you haven't read (Zodiac and Diamond Age were great). Just ignore the complaints about endings and enjoy the rest of the story.
Asimov's Foundation series is a great choice as well. Not so much with the hacker angle (well, hacking of a different kind, surely) but very interesting.
If you want to go military geek sci-fi, David Weber's Honor Harrington series is excellent. You can get the first book, On Basilisk Station from the Baen Free Library. And if you buy the most recent book, War of Honor, in hardcover, you get a CD that has all the books in the series on it. Or you can just download the CD somewhere online.
Just a few suggestions. I have a ton of other things on my reading list, but that's a start.
-Todd
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man &/or The Stars My Destination (aka) Tiger, Tiger. Douglas Adams - If he wrote it, have a read. John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar (see the hacking of Shalmanseer) Roger Zelazny Ursula Le Guin Joe Haldeman Don't be frightened of the History books as well. Great reads. Code - Charles Petzold Rebel Code Hackers The Mythical Man Month (history?) And, of course, "Dr Strangehate or how I learned to stop worrying and love Microsoft"
Personally I wasn't all that impressed with the new mitnick book, you can get more information online. Which, in and of itself is a wonderful resource if you want to read something fun and learn at the same time. Make sure you have read all of BOFH, and the browse satirewire.com's archives for a bit of humor. Then move on to safari, the SANs Reading room and some hacking sites and read up on the latest tech.
Another thing to look into is some of the more esoteric cool networking software out there... not exactly reading but something to do... kernel patches are fun!
I touch computers in naughty places
This is the perfect month read, with lots of swim time thrown in. yeah the movie should be forgotten, but the book is really written well.
Jeoin
OK - CW'sW is marginally techie in the application of 20th c weapons to 16th c fighters, but your jaw will be on the floor. Cyberstuff will seem very very tame. Charlie Wilson's social engineering skills (what'n they used to call "politics") will make Kevin Mitnik look like a 4th rate lock picker.
Bringing Down The House - well what can a bunch of MITers and others do when they really set their minds to it. You'll recognize personalities here. You'll wish it was you until it hits the fan.
And as the man said, these stories "have the added benefit of being true."
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
just a cool book on the history of codes and encryption - It' been reviewed on /. - history of codes...the Codebreakers is good too, though pretty long and mostly centered on the WWII Enigma cracking.
don't waste your time though trying to solve the puzzles at the end, unless you're bored...the puzzle and 10,000 pounds were won less then a year after the challenge was issued, I think...
RB
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
You mentioned Snow Crash, but not Cryptonomicon (which I personally enjoyed more than Snow Crash). Oh, it's a hefty read... maybe pick up that and a Clancy novel and call it a summer.
They have the Internet on computers now?
My favorite reading experiences are usually those summer days when I'm on vacation (no computer), and it's hot (don't want to be too active). I alternate some classics with some sci-fi / fantasy.
Some of Asimov's series make my favorite summer reading, like the one that begins with "Caves of Steel". I've also done the Ender series, the Hyperion series, and I plan on reading some Wheel of Time this summer.
As long as you don't stagnate over the summer, almost any book will do... I know that if I avoid reading for more than about a week it gets hard to get back into the habit. Don't push those books back into the later summer weeks!
Of course, I feel obligated to post because there are only 13 postings above me.
You may want to check out The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. It's a cross of sci-fi, sociology and anthropology all wrapped up in a neat little fiction-style novel. Quite an interesting read and as some parts can be quite disturbing at times, you might put it down more than once and come back to it later. It should certainly fill your summer and is worth reading. It will spark alot of thought for you.
Big, thik book.
You'll be talking about giant lizards for weeks...
You can't take the sky from me...
How about the complete works of Shakespeare?
Nothing beats a nice assortment of Elizabethan plays.
True hackers read engineering, programming, and science books. Leave the fiction writers to dwell on things that are for the purpose of fantasy and escape, and sometimes glimpses into the future.
The end is not the point, getting there, now that's a really journey!
The needs of the many can be accommodated by the work of the few. The needs of the few, are, for the most part, irrelevant.
+2 cents.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Or the whole series if you have the time. This guy pulls out everything from Canturbury Tales to cyberfreakiness in this work. Definitely a well-rounded read and incredibly absorbing. If you enjoyed any of the books you mentioned then you should like the Hyperion Cantos.
Got sushi? The Sushi FAQ
I always find a nice Mills and Boon great reading!
Helps with those aweful nights of insomnia!
/sig
Then there's that little sci fi novel by George Orwell called 1984 -- which is important for geeks who want to be informed citizens
I know this doesn't classify as a hacker or sci-fi/fantasy, but if you start with Cybernation and read the books that come after it you will find some interesting views on open source. In particular making the entire world open source. You'll find it listed under Tom Clancy; however, in my opinion the only ones that are interesting are written by Steve Perry and his associates.
Absolutely stellar story. Check Amazon.
Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Michael C. Hollinger
Thought u knew... read M$'s press releases
Anything not tech-related (sci-fi excluded, of course).
Seriously, books with pictures of obscure animals on the cover, done in a faux-woodprint style, count as what we call "reference books".
When you have a specific question about how to use a particular construct in Malbolge, you pick up the book with the woodcut of the naked molerat(tm) and turn to the chapter on painless suicide methods.
You don't just READ such a book from cover-to-cover, a feat only slightly less painful than Vogon poetry.
Which brings me to my real suggestion - Reread the entire works of Douglas Adams. Most folks know the HHgttG series, but not the joys of "Dirk Gently's Holsitic detective agency" or "The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul". Great books in their own rights.
I think that Vernor Vinge is an essential geek read, most especially the loosely-related and absolutely fantastic pair, "A Fire Upon the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky". And the Motie Books, "The Mote in God's Eye" and "The Gripping Hand" by Niven and Pournelle, are a great first contact story. Also, anything by Robert Forward (especially Dragon's Egg and Starquake) is guaranteed to by intellectually fascinating and horribly written.
The XANTH series is an absolute riot. I highly recommend it.
Matthew G P Coe
http://mgpcoe.blogspot.com/
First of all, if you want to read more SF/fantasy/geek books, then you should make a point of reading a few books out of that genre as well. Get away from the familiar.
:-) In no particular order, I give you some of the finest contemporary (mostly) literature available...
Now having said that, most of these fall roughly into that category.
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
In Watermelon Sugar, Richard Brautigan
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Hiroki Murakami
Fool on the Hill, Matt Ruff
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Press Enter, John Varley
Sewer, Gas & Electric, Matt Ruff
the entire series of Sandman comics, Neil Gaiman
Lord of the Rings. (go read it again)
Harry Potter #1-5 (Yeah, they're that good!)
The Persistence of Vision, John Varley
Bringing Down the House (new nonfiction, about MIT math students taking on Vegas. Perfect summer fare)
The Varley books and possibly the Brautigan might be hard to find new--in anthologies if at all. Check the used bookstores for them.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
REd mars, green mars, and blue mars. The names sound stupid but they are the three best books ive ever read... and ive read way to many books in my life.
There are a ton of good geek books out there, especially in the scifi realm. Some of my favorites include:
Cryptonomicon. You've read snow crash, so you know all about Stephenson. Diamond Age is also excellent.
Ender's Game is good, as is Speaker for the Dead. A book that feels somewhat similar for some reason, but is more literary, is Hyperion. Quite good.
If you like fantasy, Guy Gavriel Kay writes excellent somewhat historically based fantasy. He got his name by editing the Silmarillion. Tigana is good, Sailing to Serantium is fantastic. Avoid the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy. It's formulaic schlock.
Well, that should get you started!
Enjoy,
target
Mix up your reading. It's a great way to avoid geek burnout, and sooner or later, you will have burnout. Try a mix of classic lit, modern popular novels, philosophy,religion, and history.
In fact, balance is a good idea for life in general...get away from your keyboard and do new things.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The Foundation Trilogy (Asimov) won the Hugo award for best sci-fi/fantasy trilogy ever (this award has only been given out once, obviously). Definitely worth reading.
Try Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren . It'll take you all summer, but it is one of the most magnificent books I've ever read. Delany's work has been coming back into print and that's definitely a good thing. If Dhalgren seems like too much, try Nova ; it's shorter and makes for a great, swashbuckling adventure.
reliever. Sex is nataural and healthy, and masturbation is no different.
All of these SF books are pretty good. He writes pretty good fiction as well.
Reading "Consider Phlebas" (title is a nod to T S Eliot's "The Waste Land") right now.
Isaac Asimove's work is the foundation (pun intended) for all modern sci-fi. Check out his non-fiction too. His catalogue should last you a month :) they are really good too.
Great story. You can tell it's popular if you google for "good omens", and the book comes up first.
From the classics section, I would recommend Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It is an involved read, but a great story by a masterful author.
For a cool geek-type fiction book, I would recommend Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut. I personally like Vonnegut's style, so I've appreciated all of his books, but that one has some quality that seems to fit the /. crowd.
For good quick-reading mystery/suspense fiction, I would recommend The First Horseman by John Case. It's interesting and hits home in that it isn't too far from reality.
Finally, for something that is just chilling (and wickedly gross at some points) check out The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. It follows the story of an Ebola outbreak with extremely vivid detail.
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
If you want more cyberpunk, he's your man.
Voice of the Whirlwind
Hardwired
and for a little post-cyberpunk era:
Aristoi
Actually, all his stuff is primo-fantastico.
Then there's also Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net, Babel 17 and Nova by Samuel R. Delany, and you could also try The Diamond Age and The Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson if you haven't read them already.
That's all I can come up with off the top of my head for techie/cyberpunk, but I'll keep thinking on it.
If you want science fiction in general, I could give you a fairly sizable list.
Moekandu
"Don't pull on that. You don't know what it might be attached to." - Buckaroo Banzai
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I second the motion for Cryptonomicon. I've only just started it, but it's really good so far!
Every geek reads Gibson and Stephenson (and rightly so) but you ought to have a look at some stuff by Greg Egan, Michael Marshall Smith, Bruce Sterling and Pat Cadigan. Their names crop up less often, but their writings are excellent. I'm re-reading Egan's "Quarantine", and it's amazing stuff. I've read Sterling's "Islands in the Net" so many times I've lost count.
By Elizabeth Moon
Yay me!
Rich ,gentleman scientist saves the world.
Daniel Keys Moran:
The Last Dancer (if you only have time for one read this one)
The Long Run: A Tale of the Continuing Time
Emerald Eyes
The Armageddon Blues
Dan Simmons:
Hyperion (or this one)
The Fall of Hyperion
Is that an invitation to plug my new book?
;)
Stealing The Network
After you get done reading all the excellent suggestions here written by really good authors, check mine out.
Beer. Admittedly there isn't much reading on the labels but it can take you to strange worlds.
Wayfarer's Redemption is a series written by a Aussie which recent got published as a trilogy in the US. It is fantasy genre. I thought the first book was nearly as good as The Hobbit. The latter two were also okay.
Vectors. This book pwns jo0!!!!11!
It's sci-fi that tackles the subject of life after death by means of neuroscience. Set in the near future, it provides a very plausible setting, deep characters, and a very entertaining ride. I can't wait for the sequel.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
Jennifer Government by Max Barry.
You can even play the game, Nation States.
Stay tuned for the movie.
Hey, you're already a qualified geek, so why don't you try to broaden your perspective a bit and read something else, like Wittgenstein. Seriously, as a former fresh graduate: take advantage of the time to see what else is out there... don't pigeon-hole yourself- read something random.
-spmd
The Boomer Bible.
.
No, I'm not getting all Christian on you here. It's more of a commentary on humanity and modern society that co-opts the structure of the Holy Bible. Excellent reading indeed.
Note:
Odd Facts
Some odd facts about The Boomer Bible . .
Considering that at least one reviewer called this book "impressively empty-headed" and that the Vatican of American literature (a.k.a. The New York Times) refused to review it at all, the fact that the answer to all of the following questions is "The Boomer Bible" seems odd indeed...
What work of fiction is so diverse in its content that it includes songs, anapestic verse, hymns, slide presentations, commercials, prayers, limericks, mathematical equations, word and number games, treasure hunts, and computer programs?
Given that chapter-and-verse is a poetic form, what work is demonstrably the longest poem ever written in English?
What work of fiction is written in first- second-, and third-person points of view?
What work of fiction contains, or makes significant use of, references to more than 200 works from the canon of English literature?
What work besides the Holy Bible contains more than 12,000 internal references?
What work of any kind other than the Holy Bible is so comprehensive in its subject matter that quotes from its text can be used to comment on virtually any news or feature story in the headlines, from pop culture to hard science to highbrow art to everyday politics?
What work of any kind anticipates and satirizes in its text every single criticism leveled against it by unwitting reviewers?
What work of any kind can be read linearly, concentrically, in random order, or in infinite variations of all of these without either losing coherence or requiring any retroactive reconstruction of linearity to divine its meaning?
What work of any kind has so confused bookstore clerks as to wind up being shelved, variously, in Humor, Fiction, Sociology, Philosophy, Religion, and Bible sections?
Etc, etc, ad nauseam, and so on and so forth.
I picked up The Return at our local store a few weeks ago; wasn't expecting much (and the narrative style with four separate first-person voices seemed a little strange) but I was quite pleasantly surprised. It's a good story, though tainted perhaps by the anti-Clinton anti-China tilt of 3-4 years ago when it was written. But it also is amazingly prescient (the shuttle crash will give you chills) and guardedly optimistic about our future in space.
Not exactly a Neil Stevenson book, but a very enjoyable read.
Energy: time to change the picture.
The new book "The Order of the Phoenix" is going to be out in three weeks!
Yes, but you may have trouble finding it. It will be under the name "The Order of the Mozilla Firebird"
Heard about it on Charlie Rose last night and bought it via Amazon today. Her prior book Close to the Machineis excellent Ellen Ullman is a former SW engineer and tells a compelling story.
Quote: Essayist, memoirist (Close to the Machine) and computer industry pioneer Ullman has now produced an illuminating novel about the fate of a programmer, Ethan Levin, who wrestles with an ineradicable bug in the heroic era of computing.
Help fight continental drift.
Summerland, by Michael Chabon, is definitely a geek book. It's hard to describe what it is without giving a lot of the fun away. It's a fast read, and very rewarding though. Chabon is the guy who wrote The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, about two cousins who live during WW2 and create a Golden Age comic hero. If you've not read Kavalier and Klay, it's very good, but it's pretty dense. I'm a fast reader, and it took me a solid two weeks to mow through it.
///Will
I also read Masters of Doom recently, which is about the early days of id software, Carmack, and Romero. It's a New Journalism book, where the author recreated dialog in conversations and things like that so it reads more like a novel than non-fiction. The writing's not the best, but it's entertaining, especially if you remember reading the trials and tribulations of Quake, Quake2, and Daikatana on the Shugashack and Bluesnews.
Finally, if you've not read William Gibsons Count Zero, it's excellent. I've read Neuromancer, Pattern Recognition, Idoru and am finishing Virtual Light right now, but I think I like Count Zero better than the others. Virtual Light, Pattern Recognition, Idoru, and Count Zero all share similar themes (strong but secretly vulnerable heroines in trouble with big corporations) but Count Zero does it better than the others.
I also just finished The Diamond Age, by Stevenson. I was pretty unimpressed with it. Its plotlines aren't as intricate as Cryptonomicons, and it seems kind of like Stevenson trying to be Gibson. I was pretty unimpressed. I'm going to pick up another Stevenson book after I finish with Virtual Light.
I could dig up some Amazon links, but I'm too lazy.
Hope this helps!
The man responsible for the stories that spawed minority report and blade runner deserves some attention here. I highly recomment the valis trilogy: Valis, The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
I've seen two people (and replied to one) recommend Robert Jordan's horrible "Wheel of Time" series. Unless you like tedium I suggest you stay away from all but perhaps the first two books.
As for my list, Frank Herbert's Dune is always a good read and, though I know many people would disagree, the fourth book, God Emperor of Dune is my favorite of the series. It's the culmination of the subtle (in the first book) Nietzschean subtext involving becoming the greatest predator ever to live, and so forth. Sounds goofy, I suppose, but I liked it.
Another, possibly less well-known though, again in my opinion, much better written series is Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Gene Wolfe loves to play mind games with his readers and more often than not you're presented with puzzles that at first you don't even realize are puzzles. The whole thing is very novel and, while short (four books with about 200 pages each -- compare that to Jordan's drivel which is 7, or maybe more now, at around 1000 each) it is intense and well worth the read. Aside from the intellectual motivation to read the series, it is also simply a great story. You won't see Gene Wolfe using science-fiction as a way to retell mostly old stories(*) in some sort of "futuristic" setting. Could I possibly gush some more? Maybe, but seriously, this is one of the finest pieces of real science-fiction to come out in a long time, perhaps ever.
(*)Ok, I lie, he does retell old stories and seemingly use the old ploys most science fiction authors do, but always in a way to poke fun at that way of writing. For example, all of his characters' names sound like science-fiction character names (Severian, Ymar, Palaemon, etc.), but in reality they're all names of obscure Catholic saints. Also, his retelling of the story of Theseus and the Minotaur using 19th century ships (which ones, I won't say, since even this fact isn't all that obvious when reading it) is wonderful.
Anyhow, in summary, etc., and so forth, I suggest you give Gene Wolfe a try. Really. Do it. HURRY!
I feel kind of obliged to point out that you need to be ready to read those books. They're full of hatred for communism, and a dogmatic obsession with Ayn Rand's objectivism. Be careful lest you get to involved with those books, take a moment to step aside and try to view them from a different context than they present. Very powerful work, but on another level it is propaganda and you should always remember that.
In addition, The Fountainhead has one of the ugliest scenes I have ever come across in any piece of literature. I'm referring to the scene involving Roarke and Dominique, which in my mind, seems more or less equivalent to rape, yet is not treated as such in the book.
I'm just trying to give adequate warning for those who don't know what to expect from the books, they are very powerful and well written.
Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country by WilliamGreider (ISBN: 0671675567)
Totally helpful for understanding current events in the economy (i.e., why grads can't find a job). You may not vote the same after reading this.
Sorry, it's not tech or sci-fi, but it is something only a geek could get into - it's a history of the Federal Reserve, written by a mainstream (if slightly leftist) economist. It is written in a very accessible style, not Greenspan-esque at all. But it's a huge book and might take you the whole summer.
And no, he doesn't claim the banks are controlled by the Jews.
China Mieville is fantastic. His two books, Perdito Street Station and The Scar, are great if you want some Steampunkesque "Weird Fiction."
For some refreshingly original fantasty, I would suggest Robin Hobb. Her series starting with Assassin's Apprentice is a must read for fantasty fans, and it will make you wonder why garbage like Robert Jordan's endless Wheel of Time series even gets published.
The Stone Canal by Ken MacLeod is a fun read with a mix of nano tech and mind bending, lots of stuff about intellegent machines and what it means to be real. Interesting descriptions about what it may be like to be an enhanced person with nano assisted abilities.
"I'm not high, just stupid" --JY
Try reading through one of those "100 best classics in the universe" sort of lists and picking an older book that sounds good.
(For the record, I only read a few of the "100 must read" sorts of things myself, but I do read some)
Great book by Scott Adams (The author of Dilbert). ;)
0 9/ qid=1023823517/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-9309714-07801 07#product-details
Read the reviews first to see if it's for you.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/07407219
Downmix - The Artscene News Source!
First is "The Borderlands of Science" by Micheal Shermer, who is the editor of skeptic magazine. That book goes over some of the biggest psuedo-scientific claims in a witty way. Shermer is an excellent writer.
And if you haven't read this yet, "The Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan. That is perhaps the best written critque of superstition ever.
And last "Darwin's Ghost" by Steve Jones. It is a recap and modernization of Darwin and Wallace's work. Very good British writer.
I recommend Umberto Eco's "The Island of the Day Before." It's (sort of) a hacker book set in the 15th century and written better than any SF I've ever read. Or read about some philosphers if you're up to it. Try to remember that there are reasons to obsess about hacking and computers that's outside of SF.
read some VOGON poetry!
.
It's probably better than the Poetry Slam down at the coffee house. .
Moekandu
Pay attention next time, cause the sig here was really funny.
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Dune if you haven't already - the best.
City by Clifford Simak - classic.
Shockwave Rider - the first real computer/scifi cyberpunkish book. The term 'worm' comes from this book.
Naked Sun - Asimov - genesis of R. Daneel Olivaw, the character that Commander Data was based on.
Nine Princes in Amber - after Lord of the Rings my favorite fantasy book.
Left Hand of Darkness - IMHO the 2nd best scifi novel ever written after only Dune.
Ringworld by Larry Niven - extrodinary world building and imagination in hard scifi genre.
Gateway by Frederick Pohl - ditto.
Startide Rising, David Brin - wonderful novel set in world where man is lifting other species to intelligence. Terrific writing, and the sequels are excellent too.
I am a huge fan of Gibson and Stephenson, but occassionally I like to reach out and read something different. Classics are especially nice because they provide such a glaring contrast from the usual sci-fi and fantasy that I read.
Good classics include:
-The Three Muskateers
-The Count of Monte Cristo
-Les Miserables
-Anything by Ayn Rand
-The Republic by Plato
-The Iliad and the Odyssey
All of these and many more are an excellent read.
I'm not sure if you care for fantasy, but, if you do, try these authors:
-Ursula K Le Guin
-Robert Jordan
-David Eddings (esp. the Belgariad and the Mallorean)
-Terry Pratchet
-Terry Brooks
-Joel Rosenburg
If you wish to continue in the sci-fi realm, try to expand to some more traditional authors such as:
-Isaac Asimov (sci-fi's Lord Almighty)
-Larry Niven
-Arthur C Clarke (Rama series and the Gripping Hand books are my favorites)
-Vernor Vinge (wrote A Fire Upon the Deep which is excellent)
-Neil Gaiman (a newer but still excellent writer)
-H G Wells
I hate to turn one away from great writers such as Gibson and his ilk, but mixing it up keeps you from burning out.
Good reading.
The movie *sucked*
If you enjoy realist sci-fi, you might want to try this incredible trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson.
I'm through half of the second book, "Green Mars", and they are an excellent read.
The story tells the colonization and terraforming of the red planet, the social interactions between the pioneers, the wars in a devastated Earth (year 2050) and a lot more, I think (As I said, I still haven't finished it).
Other things I enjoyed a lot lately are Tolkien's works; the Dune saga; and the Discworld books. I highly suggest you get a copy of Pratchett's "The Fifth Elephant" for a great phantasy-mistery-humor book.
"I think it would be a good idea!"
Gandhi, about Internet Security
include Gerrold's Chtorr series.
This is a cool site. Clicking on the 'Books' hotspot, amusingly, says that volume 5 will be out in 2002.
This site, however, contradicts the first link.
Gerrold's non-command of calendars has no negative effect on his writing.
The first four books are full-on page-turners. We're given something of an anti-hero in a situation that continues to worsen throughout the series, depicting an ecological invasion of earth in some truly graphic imagery.
Rumors to the effect that the Chtorr are merely a WMD project from Iraq that got a little out of hand are categorically denied by Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, as you may not find surprising.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
If you like mystery/suspense mixed in with your hacker lit, then check out The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll. It's the true story of a Unix (copyright Novell) administrator who is able to track and help capture someone hacking into his systems at the Lawrence Berkeley labs in the late 80's. A very good read.
I'm a bit fan of most of stephenson's stuff and a good slew of the gibson/sterling material as well. If you haven't had a chance yet I would definitely check out any thing by philip K dick. Vintage books has been releasing a slew of his stuff every few months. Most people will point you to man in the high castle, but i'd recommend "the simulacra" as the first book, it has a very surreal and very enjoyable.
If you like your sci fi hard, technical and crazy, brilliant: greg egan is definitely another good choice. His short story book "axiomatic." Each of the short stories would make a brilliant movie/novel in their own right and will let you get a flavor of his writing/ideas. (he's definitely an "idea" person)
I'd also recommend Matt Ruff's sewer gas electric. Fool on the hill is set in a miserable place called ithaca, ny.. think of it as an absurd, violent fairy tale set on a college campus. Sewer, Gas Electric a mixture btwn ayn rand parodies (literally) and sci/fi fairy tales.
Incidentally, the Gardner's sci fi anthologies are a good place to find new authors. (year's best sci fi).
Lastly check out Italo Calvino (invisible cities, cosmic comics), steve erickson (rubicon beach, arc d'x) JG Ballard (crash)
hope it helps!
-me
Am I the only one who thinks hermione is a raging hottie?
errrr... nm
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami; some of his other books have been reviewed on Slashdot before. Not quite geeky, not quite sci-fi (technically, it's magical realism), but still pretty mind-bending stuff. It's about a guy who loses his cat, then his wife, and all the people and events that happen to him inbetween.
If graphic novels are kosher, then how about High Society by Dave Sim? This is the second Cerebus graphic novel, and arguably one of the best; it centers on Cerebus' run for Prime Minister. In a similar vein, I'd recommend the Bone series by Jeff Smith.
ok its old but i only read this the other day, it is in IMO the greatest unmade SCI-FI script ever.
Alien III (Screenplay by John Fasano)
set on an orbiting artifical planet/monestary contructed almost entirely from wood with no technology. basicaly the xenomorphs are mistaken for devils and the Monks want to burn ripley.
there are thousands of scripts floating around google's cache, and they are often more informative than watching the directors cut/VO, or bonus scenes on DVDs. I find reading scripts more efficient than reading a novel - novels are often just scripts with lots of added page-filling inner-monologue fluff.
Before adopting WHATWG, read the moonlight.NET EULA [http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/moonlight.mspx]
I personally don't want to acquire either skillset, not sure about you.
Additionally, based on hearing him speak, I doubt he can write intelligibly. Stick with a proven author.
Besides, if you buy his book, that means he soc'd YOU.
Without a doubt the best fantasy series I've read is "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R. R. Martin. It is ongoing, and hopefully won't suffer the same fate as "The Wheel of Time" -- going on and on and on... These books are rich, interesting, exciting, warm and the thing I like the most about them: it is very difficult to say with certainty who is "good" and who is "bad" because the story is told from many different point of views. Well worth reading.
Ok, so this isn't quite a geek novel, but rather more a literary mystery. However, it's easily the best book I've read in a long time - and I just finished Pattern Recongnition and Cryptonomicon.
The story takes place against the backdrop of a liberal arts college in New England and follows a group of ultra intelligent greek students as they experiment with ideas from ancient Greece and end up murdering a local in an attempt to recreate an old ceremony.
The characters are explored in depth and are very much like many 'geeks' I have known, with the study of Greek substituted for science.
Donna Tartt has a great command of english and an incredible talent creating metaphors. Many times, I found myself rereading passages just to fully appreciate them.
I rarely venture away from the traditional geek fare, but this one was well worth the time.
As for the other books mentioned, Pattern Rec. was a shadow of Neuromancer, only worth reading in a quick sitting. Crypto was Tom Clancy-esq with cryptology and monetary theory standing in for submarines and airplanes (though there are some of those, too). A good read.
Enjoy.
-Chris
How about Steve Aylett for some really funked up prose?
Spandau by Albert Speer will help you with dealing with life in a box.
-- Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
One of the best books I have ever read, and paticuraly appropriat right now.
Vurt by Jeff Noon
It's dubbed cyberpunk, though I tend to disagree. No fancy computers here. What you do get is a dark, wicked, futuristic tale of fantastic feathers that are used to enter dream-like worlds. Everyone I've suggested it to has loved it, and the folks on B&N rate it highly as well. Give it a shot.
I'd also recommend Deus Machine (only $2.99!?!). A furious mix of biomutation, an evil pr3v3rt, and a supercomputer which is continually redesigning itself to be increasingly powerful. It's hacker/geek and so much more.
And if you dig 1,000 page per book trilogies, I made it through the first book of the Otherland series. Some crazy computer fiction, and, again, so much more. Great stuff. Unfortunately, when I finished the first book, the second hadn't been released and I haven't got around to finishing the trilogy.
Enjoy!
True Names is an especially important story for hackerdom. IIRC, it's the first to explore virtual-reality networking and it does a better job of it than Nueromancer or Snow Crash. Incidentally, it's available on-line, though I'm not sure about the legality of it.
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
Actually haven't read much in the form of novels recently.
But that doesn't mean I haven't read anything.
Some books on my wall:
Berserk, the manga series (I don't think this has been translated yet.)
Blade of the Immortal (a manga series available translated)
Computers & Thought (So its a text book, so what, it was interesting.)
Dragon Half (another manga series)
Gunnm Last Order (yet another manga series)
The Temple of the Golden Pavillion, By Yukio Mishima.
The Tao te Ching
The Analects, by Confucius
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
I enjoyed the Dragonriders of Pern trilogy - it's fantasy with some scifi. There's more scifi aspects in the prequel and some of the later books. The trilogy was better than the later books, IMO, but they're good too.
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- Propaganda by Jacques Ellul
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
And here is a book I'm working on now...I'm still about 1,100 pages from knowing if it will deliver the goods:I read alot. :P
:)
I rank the books I read on a 1-10 scale.
Not everyone agrees with me
http://www.remsbox.com/showBooks.php
might give you some ideas if nothing else.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
.. by Douglas Adams. It's a classic and I finally got around to reading it.. plus the other four parts! ;)
And I have to say, it was the most fun I've had reading a book in a LOOONNNGGG time! It's a fairly quick read, but it's completely enjoyable. I highly recommend picking it up if you haven't already read it.
Personally, I really enjoyed Cryptonomicon. One need not be a math major to enjoy it, either.
Additionally, Hawking's Universe in a Nutshell is calling my name.
(you know you've read them...)
-- I'd say your post was about 3 monkeys, 18 minutes.
Read Cryptonomicon! Its is far superior to Snow Crach(by the same author) and is deeply entrancing, despite its thousand some odd pages. I read this last summer and it will consume you for at least a few weeks. Also, you may want to try American Gods by Neil Gainman. I'm not sure I understand 50% of the meaning in this book, but it is wonderful none-the-less.
Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid . Good stuff. A thinking book.
The other is George Dyson's Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence. Incredible history of communication and computing with a pretty cool argument abuot the possible future of computer intelligence. He doesn't follow the well-worn tracks of those who basically posit a Short-Circuit-esque Johnny5 for the future of computers, instead exploring the actual nature of intelligence and how it may emerge uniquely among computer networks. A presentation of the thesis is available at Edge.org.
You won't go wrong with these books.
Etc, etc, ad nauseam, and so on and so forth.
If you're looking for some science fiction that can really make you think, then I can't recommend Greg Egan strongly enough.
Emerald Astrology
Read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (by JRR Tolkien) and the Narnia books (by CS Lewis) every year. Otherwise you'll grow older. Keeping the magic of your youth alive in you is essential for having an interesting, flavorful life.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
Philip K. Dick is also well worthwhile if you haven't tried him. I like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and A Scanner Darkly
When you're done with Dick's mindfucks on consciousness and identity, try some other things than SF. I would particularly recommend Orhan Pamuk's My Name Is Red---a postmodernist mystery set in 16th century Istanbul (as the title suggests, one chapter is narrated by a particular shade of red)---and The White Castle (it's not about tiny hamburgers), or Nabokov's Pale Fire.
There are also some fantastic novels about doing science in the real world, as opposed to the more fantastical stuff that gets called SF. The best of the crop is Carl Djerassi's Cantor's Dilemma, which is perhaps the best novel of science ever.
Back to the predictable, if you really want things only about sf-geek-hackerdom, pick up Vernor Vinge's "True Names" and John Brunners' Shockwave Rider, which was perhaps the first cyberpunk book of all.
By Bill Landreth.
It is a winner..
Signal to Noise and A Signal Shattered are two of my favorites; cyberpunk, but with an alien twist, and....they're awesome, trust me.
Okay, it's not sci-fi, but it's probably *the* best book/trilogy I have ever read. To give you an idea of the story:
A sheepfarmer's daughter runs away from home (to avoid being forced to marry the local pig-herder) and joins a mercenary outfit. She goes through training, fights some battles, all good. Towards the end of the first book, it becomes apparent that a saint is watching over her, and eventually she follows her destiny down the path to becoming a paladin. If you like fantasy I don't think you'll regret for a second picking this book up. (Deed of Paksenarrion is the 3-in-1 book, the first book is called Sheepfarmer's Daughter)
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
... and it's 2 sequels, The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God. Absolutely brilliant scifi with a good dose of cyberpunk and horror.
An absolute must-read. THE closest book to the hacker perspective, in my view. Staggeringly original.
Robert Anton Wilson is one of if not THE greatest sci-fi/fantasy writers of the last 50 years. These two books are amazingly complex and could easily take up the month of time this guy has to kill if he spent it figuring out all of the intricate connections and metaphors present in these books. They're funny, intelligent and just DAMN GOOD.
I know this title is a little dated but it is a really good read. You'll know you're into it if you make it through the whole book in a day or two.
The Dueling Machine - by Ben Bova
You can find a used copy on amazon for like $1.50 or $2.00
Rather then fighting, men enter this dualing machine to work out their differences. It's like you enter into a cyber world. You have to physically kill the other person within this cyber environment in order to settle the dispute, and then you exit back to reality, and both men are fine / safe, and the dispute is resolved.
It's a pretty neat book. It even inspired a game.
Click for game
And you can buy your own copy of the book on amazon for like $1.73.
Click for book
Sex is nataural and healthy, and masturbation is no different.
Huh? What other kind of sex is there, other than masterbation?
All 6 books: Sundiver, Startide Rising, The Uplift War, Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore, and Heaven's reach. David Brin's best work; entertaining and thought provoking at the same time.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Ever read 1984? I hadn't until a few months ago. Try it...it's great. All the stuff about changing history and the wars really hit home, especially with everything going on now.
Everybody knows that 90% of the people here will read the new Harry Potter book, and that's great.
Think about trying something different, though. Try broadening instead deepening you knowledge for a change. Did you find the mindfuck aspect of the Matrix films intriguing? Try John Fowles 'The Magus' or Thomas Pynchon's 'The Crying of Lot 49'. If you something ultra chewy you might try Baudrillard's 'Simulacra and Simulation'.
C'mon ladies and gents, there's more out there worth reading than your favorite genres.
Check out Foucault's Pendulum, which has to be one of the most non-tech story lines revolving around technology and science I've ever run across. It's a challenge, but a worthy one, and an incredible read.
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
I'm taking a Futuristics class this summer and this is one of my more interesting books. In it, Michio Kaku predicts certain technological advances in the 21st century. It deals with quantum mechanics, biogenetics, and artificial intelligence.
Try Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark"
It changed the way I think about the world.
Tim Powers novels Last Call, Expiration Date, and Earthquake Weather. These simply rock. They are set in the modern era, except ghosts and various forms of magic are the reality. It is a fresh take on mysticism of all sorts and definitely worth reading twice.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
But the NY Times current #1 best seller, The Da Vinci Code is a gripping read. I started and couldn't put it down until I finished the book less than 18 hours later. (I do read faster than that-- One has to sleep, take care of family, etc..)
Not only is the plot fast and compelling, but the pseudo-history secret society stuff is fascinating. You'll never look at Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper' the same way again, guaranteed!
Sure, you may be reading the same book as the guy next to you on the train-- but it's popular for a reason!
by John Kennedy Toole It's not geek chic, but it is an excellent book, and geeks should relate to it pretty well.
It's the story of Ignatius J. Reilly, probably the most interesting character in all literature. It's sad at times, but it's amazingly funny. I'll refrain from giving away more of the book than I already have.
John Kennedy Toole did not live to see the book published in his lifetime. Rather, he was so misunderstood and despondent, that he killed himself while this masterpiece was still a stack of papers in his room. After his death his mother discovered them and had them published.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
I really loved Jeffrey Deaver's book the blue nowhere. It is about hacking and aproaches it from many different angles. There are many references throughout the book which only true geeks would understand aka MUDs, RPGs, etc. It's a pretty fast read so I highly reccomend it.
The Grand Chessboard - Zbigniew Brzezinski
Powderburns - Celerino Castillo (if you can find a copy that is)...Remember Iran/Contra? This is the part 60 Minutes didn't tell you about!
Dark Alliance - Gary Webb
That oughta keep you out of trouble for a while! (Though after reading these, you'll probably want to quit your job and move to Alaska and build a bunker or something...)
You're using her as bait, Master!
--Wow. Have you even read the 6 books that are currently out for the Sword of Truth series? They have a completely different character than the wheel of time series. The books are certainly not 100% original by any means... but I just don't see where you can make the claim that Goodkind 'rips off' Jordan. Perhaps a basic good vs. evil premise... but that isn't something that Jordan came up with.
I actually really enjoyed the first 6 or so books of the wheel of time, and I still read the series. However, comparing the two (Goodkind/Jordan), one is getting better while the other gets worse (IMO). Goodkinds 6th book, Faith of the Fallen, is one of the best fantasy novels I've read in a long time. Jordan's 7th/8th/9th books were somewhat tedious and drawn out.
I agree with your recommendation though... read both series. They are good!
-Tiak
I have already set aside a chunk of my time later this summer for it, as we all should.
For the fantasy fans:
Game of Thrones series by George R R Martin..
I'm a big fan of the Wheel of Time, but GoT blows it away.....
Oh yeah, can't forget my handle-sake, The Belgariad by David Eddings...
Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
Fight Club is an awesome book. Also any books by Arthur Clarke.
A few suggestions... some fiction, some non-fiction, some that could maybe go :-)
either way...
Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson.
I'm in the middle of this right now, and it
is looking pretty good so far!
The Code Breakers, by David Kahn.
Cool, talks about the history of cryptography
and secret communications and stuff....
Soul Of A New Machine, by Tracy Kidder
Computer history stuff, deals with the history of a company called Data General and how the engineers there thrashed like hell to release a new computer architecture in a year.
The Emperor's New Mind, by Roger Penrose & Martin Gardner
Roger Penrose "attacking the foundations of strong
Artificial Intelligence." Very cool read.
Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essense of Mind and Pattern, by Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Hofstader rambling on about all sorts of
weird stuff... Worth reading just for his treatment of the idea of "self-reference."
Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM, by Paul Carroll
Very cool history of IBM, deals largely with the
time-frame when OS/2 was still a big part of IBM's world... I think this was written before Lou Gerstner's era began, so it's definitely dealing with the "old" IBM...
The Mysterious Island, by Jules Verne
A classic, and for good reason. Long, very
worth-while... I've probably read this book 15+ times, and if I hadn't lost my copy I'd read it again soon.
Secrets and Lies by Bruce Schneier
Calling this a book on Computer Security really doesn't do it justice. Definitely worth a read if you have any interest in security.
A few other possibilities:
"The Mythical Man-Month" by Fred Brooks
"Decline and Fall of the American Programmer" by Ed Yourdon
"Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer" by Ed Yourdon
"Object-Oriented Software Construction" by Bertrand Meyer
"Death March" by Ed Yourdon
Anything by Dean Koontz, Stephen King, John Saul, Clive Barker, or H.P. Lovecraft.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
A moon is a harsh mistress (heinlen) Viva la Revolution
Walden (thoreau) Not geek but gives a different world view
Dhamapadra- Buddhist book easy to get in to
Something wicked this way comes (bradbury)
Alice in Wonderland - read this as a youngin and when you decide to grow up completly different each time
Enders Game - a good easy thought-provoking read
Although my main suggestion is to become good friends with your public library. Make it a hobbit to wander in each week. Enjoy
I've got it! Are there any books about two young lovers who meet in a chat room, but they are destined never to be together because one is a Mac user and one is Linux user? They try to pursue their love in secret chat rooms using fake handles, but then the LUG/MUG finds out and forbids them to ever speak again! In desperation she pretends to have switched to Windows, and he in his despair formats his HDD and really does install Windows! She comes online, realizes her lover has been seized by the cold, inhuman clutches of Redmond and she formats and installs Windows too! No greater a love story has ever been told.
Now that's literature, why didn't anyone ever come up with an idea like that!
How else can you know where we came from, what we're here for, etc. Those questions matter when it comes down to making sinful versus righteous decisions in the coding workplace.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon - A great novel set in and around the birth of the comics industry. Oh, and it won a Pulitzer.
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson - Gibson said that once the world got weird enough he'd set a novel in the present. This book is set in the present. Good stuff.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel - A boy is shipwrecked and trapped in a escape boat with a tiger and some other animals being shipped to a zoo. I know, it sounds odd, but is easily one of the best books i've ever read.
Diaspora by Greg Egan - Not his newest, but one my favourites from the new master of hard (and I mean HARD) sci-fi. In the 30th century, man is spilt into three races. Most fleshers are gone, but human mind uploaded into robot bodies or massive burried mainframes are heading to the stars and beyond.
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving - So, so MUCH better than the movie they made from it: Simon Birch. One of the only books that could make me laugh out loud. Two boys grow up in new england. One of them happens to have stunted growth and a messiah complex.
Same with Poe. Last summer I read the complete works of Poe and two things stuck out. First is his prose. It is absolutely fantastic. People just don't give Poe credit for the quality of his writing. Unfortunately the second thing that sticks out is the redundancy. The guy really only had about 3 themes he worked over and over.
Lovecraft is much the same. Read Cthulu, be disappointed at the ending, ask "Is this it?" and move on. The rest of his stories are reformulations of the same.
well, have you checked out any of the Phillip Dick stuff? those were some of the best books I have read but if you just dont feel in the ultra-paranoid mood then I would go with Catch-22, Fahrenheit 451, or for the Terry-Pratchet Diskworld series. That should keep you buisy for a summer.
IIRC, Asimov is the only author to appear in every section of the
Dewey decimal system, despite the fact that he's best known for
his fiction.
"Uncle Tungsten" by Oliver Sacks is a very readable and enjoyable account of the author's early fascination with chemistry. Sacks later became a neurologist and is better known as the author of "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" and "Awakenings", which are also pretty good reads.
I read Neil Gaiman's American Gods recently, and I enjoyed it. It start off a bit slow but interesting, and then goes off into an unexpected tangent. It also has the most satisfying ending i have read in a novel in a while. Good read.
>>Sig under construction
First off, I've gotten into Japanese author Murakami Haruki, who seems to get shoved into "cyberpunk" a lot because his books tend towards the unclassifiable and because half of them contain definite speculative themes. If he's scifi at all, it's soft scifi, for the focus is always on the characters and telling the stories through them. So far I've read "Hard Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World" (which gets compared to PKD a lot) and "Sputnik Sweetheart", a purely character driven tale that will resonate with anyone who has ever had an unrequited "just a friend" relationship.
I've also started reading the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman (first book: "The Golden Compass"). Comparisons to Potter are inevitable but completely misguided; Potter is good entertainment, "Materials" is a modern classic. It's dark, deep, and wild. It feels like LOTR did the first time I read it. I like it so much I'm not going to say anything concrete about it, lest the smallest detail be spoiled.
I have begun the "A Series Of Unfortunate Events" series by Lemony Snicket, but I'm personally a bit disappointed. I was expecting something with more Adamsian absurdity *in addition to* the cruelty, but what you actually get is far closer to Dickens, *minus* the 19th century sensibilities, the romances, and the length, *plus* a bone-dry wit. Many of my friends adore the series, though.
Last, I picked up "The Boilerplate Rhino", one of the collections of David Quammen's essays from Outside magazine. Wonderful little tidbits of science writing that often go off in rather unexpected directions (great bathroom reading).
You can get all of these through powells.com, which rules because it is a real bookstore in Portland, Oregon; has a huge selection including rare books; and is not Amazon or B&N (and no, I'm not connected with them in any way). HTH.
Posted with Mozilla
I second this one. Great intro to Ev Psych as well as a nice little biography of Charles Darwin. This book got me hooked on evolutionary approaches to understanding humanity.
Another great book that I feel compliments this is Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. That, and the Durant's Lessons of History . Nice thing about the latter book is that it is only a 100 or so pages of easy readying, but its significant stuff. IF you don't know who the Durant's are, they wrote a few massive histories of civilizaiton (11 volumes, I think) and philosophy. Lessons distills the uh, lessons, they learned in the course of writing the history of the world. Great stuff.
Etc, etc, ad nauseam, and so on and so forth.
:) == I'm pretty sure that was a joke
I just read this book and was very dissapointed with it. For a book that wieghed in a 1000 pages, it left tonnes of hanging plot threads and unanswered questions. There are some very cool parts, some very funny parts, and some great geeky exotica. But on whole it was not a good book.
I HIGLY recommend the three tomes of the great "space opera" from Alastair Reynolds :
- Revelation Space
- Chasm City
- Redemption Ark
Revelation Space was his first book, and damn a good one. It's one of the few books that managed to keep me awake until my eyes hurt, and when I realised it was time to get up, take a shower and head to the office.
I'm reading Redemption Ark at the moment, and it's really great how some of the questions asked in the first tome are finally being answered.
If you're up for some dark future fantasy novel with a bit of "believable" technology, this is it.
Music is the language of the heart, the sound of the soul. -Joe Satriani
Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan's book Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.
A great noirish ghost story with a trick ending. I think BSD press is the publisher.
"The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli./ qid=1054175326/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/104-6756848-13519 66.
It was written in 1505, and has some interesting insights on how to gain and keep power.
Google it, it's free. Or at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553212788
His New Crobuzon novels Perdido Street Station and The Scar are about the most original fantasy/steampunk I have ever read. Think Charles Dickens meets Hieronymus Bosch. The plots may seem a bit contrived, but his world building is unmatched.
or any Samuel R. Delany
some Pynchon? - Gravity's Rainbow
Haruki Murakami? - The Wind Up Bird Chronicles (or anything, really...)
.... no one will ever see my post... my goodness there are a lot of books...
Absolutely essential Vinge, and a short story mentioned in ``The Jargon File'' is his ``True Names'' which is a prototypical story of cyberspace. It's available in the short story collection _True Names and Other Dangers_ and is the gem of the lot.
Another story like to that (which was amazingly prophetic) was the short story ``Catacomb'' which was published in _Dragon Magazine_ a long while back.
Another excellent short story collection is Hal Clement's _Space Lash_ (originally published as _Small Changes_). ``The Mechanic'' is a fascinating story (though badly described on the back cover text) of genegeneering by ``mechanics'' whose knowledge encompasses that of several PhDs of the previous generation.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Try David Brin's Sundiver. It was written as a stand-alone, but other books have been written to continue the "uplift saga".
I'll also add my "me too"s to Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Singh's The Code Book.
http://www.cryptonomicon.com/
It's a very large book, but it's got some good characters, interesting crypto, all in all good summer tech fiction.
I noticed a lot of people put The Code Book by Simon Singh in this thread, which I think is a good recommendation.
I'd also suggest Chaos: The New Science by James Gleick. Has plenty of good geeky computer stuff and is also accessible to the layman.
And, I think David Foster Wallace's essay collection, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again is the epitome of summer reading. The title essay is about his observations on a luxury cruise..and it's not literary bubble gum either. David Foster Wallace is practically a "geek" in his own right. His novel Infinite Jest also has some interesting popular pharmaceutical chemistry and high math content, which should be right up any geek's alley.
Sort of the precursor to modern computer sci-fi, but in some ways more subtle and thought-provoking.
Also, the old Harlan Ellison stuff, like I have no Mouth but I must Scream is probably worth your time. (I recommend you get Harlan's books from the library, or buy 'em used, just to piss him off).
Hopefully someone will mod this post up to where you will see it, but I have a redhead waiting for me upstairs so I'm not going to spend any more time on the computer creating an account.
I would strongy recommend the works of Arkady and Boris Strugatski. They don't seem to be too popular or well-known in the US, and for shame. While a lot is lost in translation from the Russian, the books still do a marvelous job of exploring human nature in an oftentimes absolutely mindblowing setting. Beetle in an Anthill is one of the finest works of science fiction I have ever read, and the more popular Monday begins on Saturday and Roadside picnic are very enjoyable and thought-provoking. They've also written a few humor pieces that jest about with spacetime and higher mathematics, although they seem to lose a lot of their charm when translated.
The Gap Cycle by Stephen R. Donaldson was great. Anything by Ian Rankin, James Lee Burke, or Andrew Vachss, for mysteries. Lucius Shepard writes great sci-fi, definitely not the same old thing. Several others have mentioned Lovecraft, definitely great old school sci-fi/horror. Joe Lansdale is hilarious, Jack Whyte, and George R.R. Martin are all solid.
Damn, I gotta do some re-reading. Good luck.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
I still think his "Practice Effect" is based on one of the most original ideas I've ever about.
Science Fiction/Fantasy might be great to let your brain relax, but it won't leave you educated beyond the superficial themes most fiction writers insert. There are always exceptions, but once you've read the good ones, it's all down hill from there...
;)
If you want TRUE stories that are much better than the fiction some fantasy writers dream up, then try some History. Truth is much more interesting than fiction... Here's my picks:
_Ancient History_
Gates of Fire (Steven Pressfield)
About the Persian-Greek war and the Spartan's stand at the Thermopylae gates.
The Peloponnesian War (Donald Kagan)
About the title Greek war, with an indepth description of the tactics, the decision making process, the culture war, and analogies to the Cold War and other conflicts
Caesar's War Commentaries (Julius Caesar)
Read his exploits written by the man himself. Look around for a good translation, though. If you're interested in literature, get an exact one. If not, there's translations that convert to the first person/etc that make it a much more fluid story. Play Praetorians (PC game) while reading for the best experience.
Guns, Germs, and Steel (Jared Diamond, I think)
An anthropological explanation of why the Western World has (so far) dominated the world in culture, prosperity, and technology. Condemns racist rationales and explains the causes by reason of resources available on the different continents and differences in political states
_American History_
John Adams (David McCullough)
Extremely well written biography about our 2nd President
_Classics_ (classic fiction, I should say)
Anything by Alexander Dumas is a great read. Count of Monte Cristo, Three Musketeers, Man in the Iron Mask. Quite different from the movies (more sex, hah) and better pick up lines.
Anything by Oscar Wilde. Very funny plays (in a British way, I guess). 'The Importance of Being Earnest' is his most famous one, I guess. The movie was well done, if you saw it, liked it, and wanted to read the play itself...
_Contemporary_
Anything by Kurt Vonnegut. Read Slaughterhouse-Five and I bet you'll get hooked. Mother Night is especially Vonnegut-esque (dark sarcasm) and his short stories are very good.
Yes, I will say it: Atlas Shrugged and/or The Fountainhead. It will give you that good American "I want to be rich and I won't feel bad when I am" feeling. Jokes aside, Atlas Shrugged is a good story and, excepting a certain 80 page monologue, not _too_ preachy. I mean, Who is John Galt, anyways?
Ok, I'll stop.
It's amazing how enjoyable a good book can be when you don't have a teacher telling you to read it.
Salis
Favorite
C. S Friedman's This Alien Shore .
Also, I would second the Daniel Keyes Moran titles cited earlier.
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
A Deepness in the Sky deals with three different societies' approach to managing engineers and the creative process, and uses as a plot device a society's code base that has cruft that has been collecting for millenia.
A Fire Upon The Deep deals with the plight of a group of mere-mortals from a galaxy-spanning civilization against a Transendant (post-Singularity) power, with the plot dwelling heavily on variations of group consciousness and the effects of alien technology on less-advanced species.
This is way down the list, but maybe someone will see it.
I recommend Head Crash by Bruce Bethke and Wyrm by Mark Fabi. To my mind, they're not well known, but they're both interesting and humorous.
Before picking up Naked Sun, get Caves of Steel. That's what Asimov started that trilogy with, and it's quite an amazing book (probably the best of the three, too). Earth people dealing with robots, overpopulation, and an upperclass of people called 'spacers.' It's just got more substance than the agrophobic Baley, an earth detective, seeing another planet and some scary open spaces.
//TODO: signature
To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust has to be one of the best books I've read. This is one of the very few books I've ever read that made me say "Woah" after reading it.
Brief synopsis is that, in the beginning, God (Yaweh) was randomly formed out of chaos. Having will, he created a small bubble of order so that chaos could not reclaim him. Over time, more sentient beings appeared out of chaos and came across this island of stability; these new comers nominally accepted Yaweh as a leader, and through the cooperative efforts of all the island of stability grew.
However, chaos was forever nibbling at this island, even sending storms raging through it, periodically killing some of the inhabitants.
Eventually, Yaweh got it into his mind to create a permenant island of stability so that everyone would be protected from distruction for all time; however, many would die in the creation, so he was convinced with great reservation to claim that he is "God" so that he has the authority to compel everyone to help him and risk their lives.
Satan and others question what right Yaweh has to make this claim and give these orders, and these questions eventually yield revolt.
In my opinion, this is a MUST READ for anyone at all interested in Christian doctrine -- especially bible-thumpers, it will open their minds if they don't reject it outright. An outstanding book, and one that will remain on my bookshelf for all time.
_The_Dispossessed_, Ursula K. LeGuine _, Robert Pirsig, Richard Farina
:
_Stand_on_Zanzibar_, John Brunner
_Lucifer's_Hammer_, Larry Niven
_The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness_, Ursula K. LeGuin
_Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenanc
_Gateway_, Fred Pohl
_The_Forever_War_, Joe Haldeman
_Slow_River_, Nicola Griffith
_The_Sheep_Look_Up_, John Brunner
_Lord_of_Light_, Roger Zelazny
_The_Doomsday_Book_, Connie Willis
_The_War_of_the_Worlds_, H.G. Wells
_Earth_Abides_, George R. Stewart
_A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz_, Walter Miller
_Been_Down_So_Long_It_Look_Like_Up_To_Me_
_The_Folk_of_the_Air_, Peter S. Beagle
_Aegypt_, John Crowley
_The_Day_of_the_Triffids_, John Wyndham
_Rocannon's_World_, Ursula K. Leguin
_Planet_of_Exile_, Ursulak K. Leguin
_Ringworld_, Larry Niven
_The_Long_Walk_, Slavomir Rawicz
_We_Die_Alone_, David Howarth
all that being said, two books tower above all other summer reading
_Treasure_Island_, Robert Louis Stevenson
_Huckleberry_Finn_, Mark Twain
Wait a minute. Didn't I say that on the other side of the record? I'd better check
I just recently finished Glen Cook's Black Company series. It's amazingly good. Dark Fantasy setting about the Black Company, a merchant band. Can't recommend enough.
Ugh, I went to college to learn how to think for myself. Please tell me what to read Slashdot. Please tell me what to think Slashdot. Please tell me how to live Slashdot. Please!
just 1? in a month?
:)
Godel, Escher, Bach
the man who mistook his wife for a hat
it's not about the bike
on writing well
how proust will change your life
walden
zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
Lila: an inquiry into morals
The Cannibal Queen : an aerial odyssey across America
the minds eye
how to win friends and influence people
off the top of my head
Mitnick's book is on my list of worst books ever. it's %99 filler, %1 content. I was determined and made it quarter of the way through, the person I borrowed it from (and bought it for) didn't finish the first chapter. As one amazon review said: "very repetitive, very repetitive"
try neal stephenson's: cryptonomicon
good read, great plot, and the tech stuff isnt too shabby either.
bonus treat: perl source for the cryptographic alogrithm described [and used in the story] called solitaire [the algo, courtesy of bruce schneier of counterpane and "practical cryptography" book] presented at the back of the book...
Although I try to get outside of the sci-fi/fantasy genre, I find that I often don't make it very far. This summer will probably be no exception, because there are two very good fantasy books on the horizon.
Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth saga continues in Naked Empire . If you are not familiar with series, pick up Wizard's First Rule . Give it a few pages because it starts kind of slow, but it's definitely worth it.
The book I am most eagerly awaiting is A Feast For Crows , which is the fourth book in George R.R. Martin's spectacularly dismal A Song of Fire and Ice series. The series is a fantastic read, without the maudlin smoltz and pedantic melodrama often associated with epic fantasy. People die. Life is harsh. And the characters act, speak and behave with gritty realism. Pick up the first book, A Game of Thrones , and you'll see for yourself.
Outside of the strict confines of sci-fi and fantasy, Anne Rice has another book out in the Vampire Chronicles series. Blackwood Farm is not the best book in the series, but it is certainly a step above her last couple of books in the series.
Also, Larry McMurty has a new book coming out soon. The Wandering Hill continues The Berrybender Narrative begun in Sin Killer . Not familar with McMurtry? Read Lonesome Dove and then The Last Picture Show . You'll be hooked. This guy is one of the greatest American novelists of the last half of the 20th Century.
A ragtag group of MMORPG players, that have nothing to lose after hackers steal all their fairy points, get back at society by eating excessive amounts of fast food.
... if you haven't read them. My personal preference is the Frank Herbert books, the original series, and not the prequels by his son. Excellent story, characters, setting, everything. Epic, in every sense of the word.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
I enjoy reading non-fiction; here are some of my favorites. Links are to Amazon but w/o any affiliate tag.
The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expediation by Caroline Alexander. True and amazing story of Ernest Shackleton's doomed Antarctic expedition.
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Brysson. Absolutely, without a doubt, the funniest thing I've ever read. Also by Brysson and highly recommended are Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe and A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Road Fever by Tim Cahill. Two guys set the world's record for the fastest drive from the southern tip of South America to the northernmost road-accessible point in Alaska. Very entertaining.
All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty by P. J. O'Rourke.
Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer. An incredible autobiography by a Alsatian foot soldier who fought for the Germans on the Russian front in World War 2.
Working on the Edge: Surviving in the World's Most Dangerous Profession: King Crab Fishing on Alaska's High Seas by Spike Walker. Like the title says.
Steel My Soldiers' Hearts: The Hopeless to Hardcore Transformation of the U.S. Army, 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, Vietnam by David H. Hackworth. A very interesting Vietnam War read.
List of stuff I've read recently or am planning on reading soon:
-Star Wars New Jedi Order Series (if I can ever find the third book in it...)
-David Edding's Beglariad and Mallorean series (old but always fun)
-Peter F Hamilton's Nights Dawn Trilogy
-George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series (book 4 coming soon!)
-Jack Whyte's Camulod Chronicles (Historical fiction on King Arthur's grandparents, very very good)
-Tom Clancy's Red Rabbit (been reading bits and pieces for months)
-Robert Jordan's WOT #10, Crossroads of Twilight (his slowest read ever though, and not too good IMO)
-The Legacy of Herot, and Beowulf's Children. These two books had like 4 authors, Niven and Pournelle among them I believe.
-Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series
-Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon, Zodiac, Diamond Age
-Search for an online book, The Heretic. Got it from a friend, he said there was free downloads--very cool hacker type book, equates it to spellcasting and such.
-Anything by Robert Ludlum
-Clive Cussler novels
Some of these are oldies, but still good. Not all are fantasy or scifi. I've got a ton of others, but these are all the more recent ones (although in most cases it was re-reading them for the millionth time).
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
A little less talk; a little more action....
--
It's a tough read, but it's definitly worth it:
Godel, Esher and Bach
See it on amazon or go to the library
Seeing as this is the year of The Matrix, perhaps you should read a couple of Masamune Shirow's graphic novels and see where The Matrix got its roots. Definite titles to read include Ghost in the Shell (the original and the new Manmachine Interface), and Appleseed (anyone else think Minority Report's visual style was drawn directly from there?). If you're able to digest mangas as fast as I can, then I'd also suggest picking up the 9 volume Battle Angel Alita set. James Cameron said in a recent interview that he is planning on making at least a couple movies from this anthology.
;-).
Of course... even all of that took me only a couple weeks to read in my very sparse spare time, so maybe you should pick some other books too
-------------------------
It is the monkied monkey that monkies with another monkey's monkey. Monkey.
Try "Fields of Fire" by James H. Webb. No movie could ever get this graphic. I spent a couple of days in a weird shock after reading this book.
No, seriously, I just come here for the articles.
Technicaly, the Otherland series by Tad Williams has four books, "City of Golden Shadow", "River of Blue Fire", "Mountain of Black Glass" and "Sea of Silver Light" and I recomend the highly. Never had around three and a half thousand pages fly by so quickly, even quicker than the Wheel of Time series.
China Meiville
Robert Sheckley
Robert Zelazney
Gregory McGuire
Phillip K Dick
William S Bourroughs
Kathy Acker
Thomas Pychon
Ian Banks
Robert Anton Wilson
Eric Behm
Dairy of a Wacked Out Bitch
Heat Death of the Universe (Zoline)
Brent Eaton Ellis
High Fidelity
Franz Kafka
Christopher Fry
I wonder if my friends could pick me out by this book list. Hmmm...
Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb"
:
and
'Underground--Tales of Hacking, Madness, and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier"
by Suelette Dreyfus
with research by Julian Assange
Oldie but a goodie
"The Great Book of Amber" by Roger Zelanzny
"This is the way the World Ends" by James Morrow
I am gonna read "Cryptonomicon"
and WOT book 7 "A Crown of Swords" by Robert Jordan.
In the preface to the unabridged version of "The Stand", Stephen King (truly an American icon) writes:LOTR is certainly not short on words, but taking all of the pages that describe the world of Middle-Earth and boiling them down to single Cliffs Notes-style sentences would kill the narrative. There are portions where Tolkien goes overboard (i.e., some of the details of Middle-Earth's history and the lineages of his characters) but on the whole, I thought that LOTR was pretty well-paced.
I mean, the trilogy isn't a Michael Crichton airport reader or a Thomas Harris psycho thriller. It's an epic journey through a world of splendor and grandeur. The guy invented his own languages for Middle-Earth, dude.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
When in doubt, re-read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You can't go wrong with that.
I don't know if many here have read the Manifold series, but it is easily one of the best scifi trilogies ever. Each book is a different perspective on a time frame of millions of years, quite interesting and a deep thought provocking look into what will become of earth and humans in the deep future.
Nope. The trouble is that she's just a little young at the moment. She should ripen up nicely though in the next movie, or perhaps the one after that, assuming "the goblet of fire" gets made into a movie.
Catch-22, that Yosarian is a hoot
The World War series by Harry Turtledove is pretty good. Actually the first book or two are good, and after that it goes south. It's an interesting concept (H.G. Wells thought of it), and Turtledove makes it kind of interesting.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
To new and very interesting things:
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter ***
Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond
** GEB deals with AI in what probably is its purest form. This tome will fill your month up and it'll blow you away.
- A real programmer uses $ cat > a.out
I highly recommend the Dark Tower series, starting with The Gunslinger, by Stephen King. It kinda sorta falls into the class of sci-fi, but it is also a fantasy type of book. So maybe not your exact genre, but if you like that type of book you would probably like this one.
Dune Never ends. I tried to pull them all at once (I used to have time for that). Somewhere in the 4th or 5th book I just shut down and couldn't take it anymore. Heinlein on the other hand...
Title: Hyperion Author(s): Dan Simmons ISBN: 0747234825 Publisher: Headline That's the first one, paperback. If anyone else here has read it.. I don't think I need to say much. I'll warn you.. it starts out a bit slow, but rewards you heavily. The first two in the series of four, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion are in my opinion some of the best science fiction you can find. The last two (taking place several hundreds of years later than the original) are also very good, but dont beat out the first two. Last two are Endymion and The Rise of Endymion. Names sound somewhat familiar? The book rests heavily on some of the more obscure writings of John Keats, yet take place thousands of years in the future. Man has ceased searching for God and in doing so has ventured to create it's own... (but this is in the past from the books perspective.) During the time frame of the book, now the machines have come against the same quandry and created their own God.. the UI or Ultimate Intelligence, capable of predicting events with a 99.9999% accuracy.. so whats the 0.1111%? Seven pilgrims and a planet called Hyperion. (Canterbury Tales on crack and whippits). Not really.. but.. my god. I couldn't scratch the surface of the story line without several hundred pages. These books will keep you coming back over and over again. The technology and the philosophy behind the technology and it's relation to humanity are awesome. Spins your head. Good stuff. S-Bottle
How about abandoning the /. universe altogether (but not the geekly one) and going pre-historic with The Earth's Children series by Jean Auel?
/. bunch.
....Bethanie....
The Clan of the Cave Bear
The Valley of Horses
The Mammoth Hunters
The Plains of Passage
The Shelters of Stone
This series has a very strong narrative (i.e., it's a well-told story) and wonderful, well-developed characters. Lots of detail goes into explaining how they developed tools and techniques and figured out how to do new things, which will definitely appeal to the
PLUS they're chock full of PLENTY of hot sex!! (Which this crowd ALWAYS needs more of!!)
Just trying to point y'all in the right direction, boys (and girls!).
by Peirs Anthony.
The whole series is great!
In my pleasure reading, I try to vary between fiction and non-fiction. Right now I'm reading The Seekers by Daniel Boorstin. I highly recommend it as well as The Discoverers by the same author. These books are narrative historical surveys of search for meaning in the former, and science and technology in the latter. A little non-fiction does the mind great. I can't tell you how many jeopardy answers I get because of this non-fiction reading or that.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Try Hunter Thompson's FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS for some background on the cyberpunk style, which closely resembles his 60's "gonzo journalism". Or try Daniel Boorstin's THE DISCOVERERS, a superb history of how technology has come to be.
I just finished Ken MacLeod's Cosmonaut Keep and Dark Light from the Engines of Light series; I found them very entertaining. You know it's geek sci-fi when one of the characters complains that he can't get to Slashdot. :-) (Taco and crew will be glad to hear that /. is still around in the year 2049.) Engines of Light combines hacking, politics, space travel, aliens, and oh yeah, there's a little sex and violence.
I don't know where his great literary reputation came from. Every book and short story of his I have read has been boring and tedious. I would rather read Shakespeare than Twain. I would rather read what a million monkeys wrote than read another Twain story. As for that Connecticut Yankee story, I read the first 200 pages and stopped, that's all we needed to do a book report when I was in ninth grade. I had to force myself to just get that far, and I love reading. Now almost two decades later, I still won't touch it. I don't even like the movies that are styled after it, that's how much I hated it. Dickens and the Bronte sisters wrote more interesting and entertaining novels.
Now excuse me while I gargle with salt water to wash the bitter taste out of my mouth from just typing this out.
I've never really been as into SF/Fantasy as most geeks are, though I can definitely enjoy those types of stories. Anything by Stephen King is good for me, though most other horror authors are kind of bad, IMHO.
The Internet Book List, which was mentioned in a story a while ago, is a pretty good place for finding good books, especially right now for SF/F.
Ignorance is bliss and I'm suicidal.
"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely --having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can." This other classics downloadable at http://promo.net/pg/
What you've stated is contrary to the idea that artists have been leaching off of great thinkers for centuries. James Burke, author of "Connections", and "The Day the Universe Changed", goes to show in detail just how artists extrapolate from ideas generated by people who know, or have found, how things really work. Artists basically see the world of reality as characatured, in their mind, then they use emotion to blow ideas way out of proportion.
Just look at modern movies these days. Almost nothing in them is possible, yet people act like they "will be one day". In fact, when the day comes, what we actually get is 180 degrees different in the way it works, than the artists had originally intended. And, that is the real point isn't it? When "warp drives" are finally invented, they won't be "warp drives", they will be something based on real thinking, on reality, not fantasy. Most people dream of flying, and can write stories as such, that's easy, but few can actually make it happen. Space, was never space to the artists of old, it was heaven, only scientists actually showed that it was "space".
That's why I really like Authur C. Clarke as an author. He bases most of what he writes on real possibilities instead of unimaginable probabilites. Only very rarely are artists correct about the future, just like a million monkeys all typing away trying to produce something tangable.
Artists ARE leaching off of scientists and engineers! It's not the other way round. Get that through your head, or go back and live with the Amish.
+2 more cents.
"Otherland" by Tad Williams is one of the best books/series Iv read. It's comprised of 4 novels. It's set a little in the future, when direct VR access to the net is such a part of life that a keyboard or a mouse seems impossibly archaic, and many people use neural jacks. It has good characters and the computer part of the world seem to follow consistent laws(unlike a resent movie I could name). Also the plot unfolds in a very intriguing manner, one of the best presented plots around...
Don't save your orgasms for Heaven; Heaven knows we need them here.
"...Gently dismantling the myth of medical infallibility..."
just read infinite jest by david foster wallace, or atlas shrugged by ayn rand.
either way, you're either old enough to appreciate them both, or you'll at least enjot the volume vs. price at borders.
--d.
Are you MORE than your SPINAL COLUMN?
SOmethign about fantasy worlds and guys with two R's in there name.
Enders game if you have never read it.
Actual hacker stuff ??? Dunno sounds like you have read the best or at least most current.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
I was cleaning out my shelves for a move and I found this. I actually read it in college for a class. It was a bit different -- not computer sci-fi, more biology or sociology-type -- but still a very good read.
Rendezvous with Rama. ACC
Perhaps I missed it, but I have not seen anyone recomend either The Hobbit, or The Lord of the Ring yet. If you haven't read the entire set, doing so before the last installment hits the silver screen would be a worthy challenge.
Ok, I understand that skipping about the first quarter of "The Fellowship of The Ring" may make the book more palatable. I don't know this, because I have not read the series yet. Though I do have it.
-Rusty
You never know...
Reread Snow Crash.
If you enjoyed Snowcrash, you may also enjoy Neal Stephenson's other book Cryptonomicon. Lots of crypto cracking intrigue in both modern day and World War II as you follow the main characters and their grandchildren in two parallel stories.
The1Genius - Littera Scripta Manet
"Where Wizards Stay Up Late", Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon (I have no affiliation with Amazon, I merely use them as a reference) - "...a well-researched story of the origins of the Internet substantiated by extensive interviews with its creators who delve into many interesting details such as the controversy surrounding the adoption of our now beloved "@" sign as the separator of usernames and machine addresses..."
:)
"Hackers", Steven Levy - chances are you've read this one already, but I'm putting it in anyway
"The Book Of The Subgenius" - Praise "Bob"!
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Actually, Daneel was invented in The Caves of Steel. And Brunner may have invented cyberpunk, but Gibson perfected it and made it what we know it as today in Neuromancer.
Does Slashdot count as a book? An ongoing saga/comedy/technical reference manual?
The coolest voice ever.
Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect was definitelly the most enjoyable thing I can remember reading in a long long time.
It's a short novel about the world post singularity (even where AI in some form takes over the world).
It's pretty heavy in violence at times, but its a good story.
There was a review for it on slashdot a few months ago, but unfortunatelly the author didn't know how to write a review and I doubt many people read it.
no comment
I'm working full time all summer, and getting married soon... I don't have time for summer reading!
dinner: it's what's for beer
Jeff Noon's Vurt is something that you might like. It isn't exactly cyberpunk, but it does have all the trappings of it. Such as existentialism, the nature of reality, drugs, sex, violence, and a good plot to boot.
Check it out, well worth the read.
I find my ignorance slapping me around too often. I wish I had a better background in literature so I could understand Western culture, the one I live in. More accurately, I'd just like to catch the gist; I know the culture is beyond anyone. I'd like to know more about the rest of the world's cultures, too.
Don Quixote by Cervantes
The Divine Comedy by Dante
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
War and Peace by Tolstoy
Various Mark Twain works
The Bible
so much more. Curse me for my laziness.
Stuff I have read and recommend highly...
Kurt Vonnegut books, particulary Slaughterhouse Five It is hilarious.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller It, too, is hilarious and biting.
J. D. Sallinger books and stories
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
binaryhead, be warned: if you start reading _startide_rising_, you might end up reading _sundiver_ and then _the_uplift_war_. then you'll end up reading brin's other trilogy: _brightness_reef_ , _infinity's_shore_ , and _heaven's_reach_ and then you'll be late for work like i was
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
"Decline of the American Geek, how globalism ruined a good thing". Real? You decide.
I'd recommend The Code Book by Simon Singh. Excellent very entertaining book tracing the history of cryptography.
"Wyrm" by Mark Fabi. Neat description of a virtual reality world (and the real world) in the not-too-distant future. Not too high a geek factor, if I recall correctly, but it was entertaining.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
If you're looking for sci-fi/fantasy type books and you liked Snowcrash, check out Otherland. It's a four book series by Tad Williams -- first book is City of Golden Shadow. Not as cyberpunk-ish as Snowcrash, and the writing doesn't have quite the same flair as Stephenson, but it's still a very good read and a huge story. A large part of it is spent visiting different worlds in a giant VR system. It may seem a bit Matrix-ish, but I'm pretty sure the first book came out before the Matrix.
A real challenge: the way the world really works (and almost undoubtedly not the way you profs taught you)... "The Road to Serfdom" by Hayek. Just finishing it now. I wish I'd read it back in 1980 when I got my M.Sc. and went to work in the real world.
Some other options:
"Human Action" by Ludwig von Miese
"Atlas Shrugged" or "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand
"Diplomacy" by Henry Kissinger
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Because I did not feel it was sci-fi. It almost felt like a documentary. And that's what I really loved about this book.
I would recommend every self-respecting geek needs to read "Surely you must be joking, Mr. Feynman" by Richard Feynman. Very cool ... very smart ... and a lot of laughs.
Share data. Share code. Share ideas. Share the wealth.
http://stockfilter.org
Yes it was a joke. now I have to wait 20 seconds to clarify that.
His first few books are decent thrillers, particularly Hunt For Red October and The Sum of All Fears (and perhaps Rainbow Six), but his later Jack Ryan books become ever-lengthier hymns to conservatism in general and Ronald Reagan in particular. If his editor had some spine he or she would send his drafts back with lots of red lines through the more egregious sermonizing.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
greg egan's "Diaspora"
Jeter's "Noir"
"Altered Carbon" (i forget the author)
Asimov's Foundation trilogy
Phillip Dick's "A Scanner Darkly" or "Ubik"
Complexity - M. Mitchell Waldrop
Unweaving the Rainbow - Richard Dawkins
Biohazard - Ken Alibek
At Home in the Universe - Stuart Kauffman
I have postulated a new law, entitled "Ender's Law"
"Every time the subject of science fiction is raised on Slashdot, Ender's Game will be mentioned in the first 10 messages."
I think Slashcode needs an Ender filter, just like it has a First Post filter.
That's a good list to start with..
Right now I'm into Tacitus, Suetonius, Pynchon's 'Mason & Dixon', and 'Godel Escher Bach'.. Gotta love mass transit!
Well, the semester has just ended, and I have graduated from school
.Net projects in them) to plagiar you own
You should be reading resumes on the internet ( fiction - Yes, SiFi- the ones with
How about favorites from your youth? I've recently rediscovered a couple of favorites:
"Thunder and Lightnings" by Jan Mark
"Conrad's War" by Andrew Davies
any of the Tom Swift stuff by Victor Appleton
Happy reading!
The reason a lot of self described 'hacker types' have a hard time socializing is because they are so afraid of going outside of their circle off knowledge. Try reading something totally non tech related.
Some of my favorite literature is by Russian authors. Check out Chekhov or Gogol. Especially Gogol!
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
Interesting list. Quite agree about Frank Herbert's _Dune_ and Roger Zelazny's _Nine Princes of Amber_ (and the series which they spawned), but not so sure on the rest---_Gateway_ didn't do much for me (though it was a good read), and other books by Ursula K. LeGuin are better (esp. _The Lathe of Heaven_).
:(
:(
;)
I haven't been reading for quite forty years... but... some books / series to add (in no particular order) which I haven't seen added elsewhere in this list:
- _Wild Cards_ - comic books w/ almost realistic physics
- _The Stainless Steel Rat_ by Harry Harrison - classic science fiction, and available in Esperanto!
- Barry Hughart's ``Master Li Novels'' - _Bridge of Birds_, _The Story of the Stone_ and _Eight Skilled Gentleman_ --- read these in private if you're embarrassed by laughing out loud. Fantasies of a China which never was but should have been.
- Roger Zelazny's _Damnation Alley_ and its sequel _Hardwired_ by Walter Jon Williams (who says ``thanks'' to RZ for ``letting me play in his alley'' in the foreword).
- Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion cycle, esp. the Jeremiah Cornelius books. This is where the concept of ``multiverse'' reaches its full breadth and depth.
- Stephen Brust's ``Taltos'' books, _Jhereg_, _Yendi_, &c. (Spoiler: Interesting application of Clarke's law). There's a prequel series written in the style of Alexandre Dumas which are a lot of fun (everyone did read Dumas as a child, right? If not, go and read _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and all the other books first)
- John Varley's Gaea trilogy - _Titan_, _Wizard_ and _Demon_
- _The Princess Bride_ S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure --- the good parts version by William Goldman. Get the older edition (Ballantine Books 1973 if possible 'cause the newer editions have a bunch of typos
- L.E. Modesitt, Jr. _The Forever Hero_, _Dawn for a Distant Earth_, &c. - fun to read as a pastiche of other books which doesn't require that much thought
- Steve Perry's Matador books are a lot of fun and an interesting view of human potential (though he cops out and punts on the immortality issue when he did the Stellar Ranger books
- Jack Chalker, esp. his Well of Souls books
- C. J. Cherryh, - her Merchanter novels are classics, _Rimrunner_ is particularly good (though one pretty much needs to read _Downbelow Station_ first for the background. Her Morgaine books are also fantasy classics.
- Fred Saberhagen - his Dracula books are way cool (haven't read his novelization of the movie though---get _The Dracula Tape_ instead), as well as _The Frankenstein Papers_. and for the sci-fi tie in, ``Berserker''
- Jack Vance's _Dying Earth_ is a classic, and his Lyonesse trilogy should be
- Manly Wade Wellman wrote a lot of good stuff, but there're few things as wholly American and mystical, and moving as his stories about Silver John---the short story collection _John the Balladeer_ is a good beginning.
- Robert Heinlein 'nuff said
- Lord Dunsany - _The Charwoman's Shadow_ is haunting, and interesting to contrast with _The Return of the King_. I'm fortunate to have a Modern Library edition of _The Book of Wonder_ from ~1908 or so which is a frequent companion when camping.
- R. A. MacAvoy's books are quite good, and here _Tea with the Black Dragon_ even works in a couple of people who work w/ computers---way cool, though a bit dated.
Lastly, Terri Windling at Ace Books created ``The Fairy Tale Series'' which are re-tellings of classic fairy tales by contemporary authors, all of which are quite good, especially the haunting _Briar Rose_ by Jane Yolen which I think everyone should read.
William
(whose resume's objective line reads, ``To make beautiful books''
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
The Call of Cthulhu is a fantastic story, but I agree that the ending is anticlimactic. The whole story is relayed second-hand by a narrator, and reading through it the first time, I expected the narrator himself to end up involved in the events of the story (that is, with Cthulhu, not with simply paying visits to some of the other characters.) At the time, I remember thinking "Well, this is like two-thirds of a story," but after reading it again, it grew on me. It's creepy stuff; the collective visions and bad dreams of the artists, the monstrous identical Cthulhu Cult rituals practiced by groups scatted all over the globe who know nothing of the others, etc.
:-)
However, I disagree that all of Lovecraft's stories are the same. I can't really draw any direct parallels between Cthulhu and, say, The Outsider or Cool Air or The Music of Erich Zann. It's true that many of his stories deal with the much-vaunted "Cthulu Mythos" (The Dunwich Horror and The Shadow over Innsmouth come to mind) but these are hardly the same stories. Many borrow from the same basic ideas (the Cthulhu pantheon, ancient civilizations that pre-date Man, etc.) but you'd be hard-pressed to find an author (alive or dead) that didn't do the same in his or her body of work.
Oh, and The Rats in the Walls makes me shiver every time I read it.
I completely agree on Poe's prose. This is not stuff that you're going to speed-read, but it's great to just sit down and take a bite out of. The opening pages of The Murders in the Rue Morgue, where Poe discusses the difference between true analysis and mere calculation, are great, and make an appropriate introduction to the engrossing mystery to come.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Has nobody heard of Greg Egan? He writes by far the best mathematics/physics/virtual reality SF. His "Axiomatic" is a beautiful collections of short stories where the plot points at the beginning are like axioms and the rest of the story unfolds like a proof of a theorem using these axioms. "Diaspora" is about the virtual and real colonisation of the universe and also contains some very interesting mathematics where life evolves using equivalents "Wangs carpets" to Turing machines. His stuff is always entertaining and mindbending.
The Dragonlance Chronicles are great too, written by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman (if I recall correctly). A wonderful series, it got me started on fantasy.
I agree that Jordan's "Wheel Of Time" is the ultimate though.
OK,it is not sci-fi but I have to recommend it. I am reading Chomsky's "Understanding Power" now. It makes me surprised, angry, upset at the same time. It definetely requires free time, you cannot read that book while trying to do something that requires concentration.
Give it a try, you will be surprised.
ato
Here is a matching test I found somewhere last week. Just match the men listed here to the women listed below. Then start reading the books that the couples are featured in.
Charlie Allnut
Rodolphe Boulanger
Rhett Butler
Angel Clare
Mr. Darcy
Cyrano deBergerac
Arthur Dimmesdale
Ethan Frome
Jay Gatsby
Heathcliff
Frederick Henry
Henry Higgins
Robin Hood
Ivanhoe
Sir Lancelot
Oliver Mellors
Paolo
Pip
Quasimodo
Don Quixote
Edward Rochester
Tom Sawyer
Tristan
Count Alexey Vronsky
Yuri Zhivago
Catherine Barkeley
Elizabeth Bennett
Emma Bovary
Daisy Fay Buchanan
Connie Chatterly
Eliza Doolittle
Dulcinea
Tess Durbeyfield
Catherine Earnshaw
Esmeralda
Estella
Jane Eyre
Lara Foedorovna
Francesca
Guinevere
Iseult
Anna Karenina
Maid Marian
Scarlet O'Hara
Hester Prynne
Rose Sayer
Roxanne
Rowena
Mattie Silver
Becky Thatcher
The list was supposed to be two columns, but that didn't work here. Oh well, that's life. If anyone knows the source of this test, please post it. I do want to give proper credit where it is due.
"Cryptonomicon" by Neal R. Stephenson of "Snowcrash" fame...one of the best books I've ever read...an amazing book, for sure...
I now you said that you've read all the hacker-bios, but you may want to consider the biography of Richard Feynmann - "Surly you're joking, Mr. Feynmann". He somewhat predates most hackers (and computers for that matter!), and is most famous for being the person to demonstrate the flaw which caused the Challanger to explode. Definitely an intersting read on many levels.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
A very good book, definetely hackerish, good science, not fiction though.
Yeah, I did mention it in a couple previous postings. I loved the book.
ato
Haha, I have to agree with this. It wasn't until much later, and only when someone specifically told me, that I found out that orcs and goblins were actually the same thing. The whole time I thought they were supposed to be two different species.
read Don Quixote backwards
He originated Cyberpunk. Way ahead of the curve.
Shockwave Rider
Stand on Zanzibar
The Sheep Look Up
Jagged Orbit
Also Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling.
=brian
For the last 3 days I have been reading Breakfast of Champions. Until now, the only book I had read of his was Slaughterhouse Five. I had no idea his stuff was so great. Before that, I read Survivor by Palaniuk on a recommendation. I finished it in 2 days and then proceeded to buy and read the rest of his books within a week. Fantastic stuff, and for those not in the know he is the author of Fight Club.
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Oh, and seeing we've had the Ayn Rand enthusiasts, you could try some other flavours of political philosophy. Machiavelli's The Prince, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty and Marx's Communist Manifesto are all reasonably accessible and are certainly worth a read.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I used to read a lot of sci-fi, then I realized how many great books were out there in "other" catagories, and I rarely go back. I suggest Orwell, Huxley (Island), Vonnegut (ok so some of these are still sci-fi in many ways), and especially Hesse. Go for some Lewis Carrol for a neat read. Also, there are more than just fiction novels, try a little Neitzsche, Blake, or Poe.
But I almost feel bad just making suggestions, there is so much good stuff out there, just pick something random up and start reading!
The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. -- ee cummings
My status just got upgraded. I thought I was a mere dabbler in the hacking arts; if the converse of your comment is true, I guess I'm a real hacker now. Thanks!
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
These are all excellent books with some I would like to add:
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- 1984 by George Orwell
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
- Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Anything Written by Douglas Adams
I'm personally awaiting my copy of "Dancing Barefoot", Wil Wheaton's new book. It's gotten good reviews from people that I respect: Steve Jackson of SJGames among them. I'm really looking forward to it.
--
$tar -xvf
It's an epic story that touched me on so many levels that, when complete, I was overcome with sadness and loneliness at the realization that the characters couldn't be "a part of my life" any longer. It begins in the mid 1950s and covers several generations of a family through roughly 1991 -- and every page is executed perfectly.
Get it now.
The Road to Serfdom
by F. A. Hayek
a book...maybe you should go back to school
I, Claudus
Came to power because rivals thought he was too stupid to be a threat.
John Adams
Founding father that doesn't get the respect he deserves.
Best American Short Stories
I've gotten this book for Christmas the last 5 years. Some of the short stories pack more punch than a novel.
Metamorphosis
A short twisted book by twisted guy. You'll think "What was that all about" for days.
The Plauge
How people cope with an outbreak of bubonic plague. Deep thoughts about the human condition by a first rate philosopher.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Adam Smith's first book, aruges that well functioning markets require moral participants. The "invisible hand" is introduced here.
An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sacks
The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins
Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter
The Gold Bug Variations, Richard Powers
Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
The Scar, China Mieville
Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud
Darwin's Blade, Dan Simmons
Enchantment, Orson Scott Card
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
He, She, and It, Marge Piercy
Lo's Diary, Pia Pera
Pattern Recognition, William Gibson
The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder
books in my library rated 'excellent' or 'great'
You might want to forget about the typical "geek" reads for a little while and focus on some amazing literature.
For this reason, I'm recommending "The Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie to all who are interested. It's not a hard book to obtain anymore and it's definitely one of the more interesting stories ever told.
It is, however, a very deep book with many hard to understand metaphors. If you don't know anything about Islam you might want to brush up a little before delving into this book because it helps a lot of things make more sense. If you don't want to read a whole book on the subject of Islam, at least do a search for a biography of the prophet Muhammad.
If that isn't your cup of tea, read anything by Noam Chomsky.
I think, therefore I am an Atheist.
I really enjoyed the first Thomas Covenant trilogy, but put down the second one half-way into the first book (and incredibly rare event for me). It just got to be TOO MUCH. I was waiting for Covenant to start whining "Oh the pain, the pain of it all!" in a Dr. Smith voice...
If you REALLY want to be kept busy, try reading all of Tolkien's works. Off the top of my head: The Hobbit The Silmarillion Lord of the Rings Book of Lost Tales Book 1 Book of Lost Tales Book 2 Unfinished Tales 1 Unfinished Tales 2 Beowulf translation Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Farmer Giles of Ham etc....
Take a look at the few books from Simon Ings - especially Hot Head and Hotwire or even the City of the Iron Fish.
:-))
Definitely off the wall
Jinx
Tom Clancy is something you read when you want to take your brain out of gear, rather than engage it. Great for reading on a plane, perhaps not so great for when you're on holidays and looking to prevent intellectual atrophy.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I started reading Jordan's series in middle school, and I loved it. In fact, I would still love it if either a), it had ended 2000 pages ago, or b), the most recent books were as good as the first few.
The series is good up until the 5th or 6th book, at which point it stalls and dies a long, slow, painful death. I recently bought the 10th book out of the same vague sense of obligation that sent me to the theater for Star Wars: Episode II, and I wouldn't want anyone else to be sucked into that vortex.
On the other hand, if you want a good fantasy series, take a look at George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" (starts with _A Game of Thrones_). Another multivolume, incomplete series, but he promises only 6 books, so maybe it'll work out. I also just recently read Neil Gaiman's _Neverwhere_, a dark-comedy urban fantasy (how's that for a sub-sub-genere?), which is excellent.
"A witty saying proves nothing." --Voltaire
But if you insist on reading a hacker book, read "Soul of a New Machine" by Tracy Kidder. It's about the design of a Data General mini-computer to compete with the VAX (so its about the deep, dark past). Yes, it's dated, but a very good yarn and it won the Pulitzer Prize. No, really, it did, and it's definitely a "hacker book."
Well, I like George R.R. Martin for all of his books, the jokers series, his vampire book, and his current series "A Song of Fire and Ice."
I do like him a lot. A thousand words wouldn't suffice.
As for Robin Hobb, any of hers is highly recommended. Her writing is less intense than Martin's, but then good ending is a requirement for US readers.
I have a healthy 6GB or so collection of ebooks that I have slowly gathered from usenet. So many in fact that I have maybe 60% of the books mentioned here, already on my HD. Now all I need is several lifetimes to read them all!!
If only there was an easy way to share some of these books with slashdot. I guess I could uuencode the file, split it into pieces, and post it in several comments, but that seems like too much work for both me and the prospective downloader.
In the meantime I suggest irc. Try channels like #bw, #bookz, #bookwarez and you too can start an ebook collection. Hell, even KaZaA has a few ebooks, but not as much as usenet and irc.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
try "The Fugitive Game". It was written about his life while he was on the run (with his help) and it is an excellent read, especially for skipping the FUD.
:).
For non-tech, you can't beat Shakespeare (well I admit that you might be able to but he doesn't suck that's for sure
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Just curious ... who's getting the money everytime somebody clicks the Amazon affiliated Mitnick link in this article?
Great books, unique perspective, good bio-sci-fi with prescience... All his books are worth reading, the kind you get engrossed in, his classic is Diaspora - lots of data-mining stuff there, you can't go wrong :) Good intelligent reading, more than just emotive pulp.
Kent
If you like the Evil Dead triology, give Bruce's book (If Chins Could Kill : Confessions of a B Movie Actor) a try. It's a really good read with lots of interesting/funny stories and it even has some pictures (for those of you who graduated from my high school and still can't read)!
Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
The Wheel of Time series is perfect if you enjoy the (thinly disguised) wholesale theft of ideas.
Oh, and misogyny. You have to dig misogyny, too. After all, women are the source of all evil in his books. No joke.
I'm tempted to imply things about the psychological bent of folks who like this series, but I won't.
geek-hacker psych0delic [sic]. words like a paintbrush, man.
Have you tried looking at The Jargon File's bibliography?
Huck Finn marked a very important time on Twain's literary life and personal life. It deals with issue far deeper than Connecticut Yankee. It is often required reading because it is considered his book. The book that made Twain and what he will always be more remembered by.
That was a great one :)
Not really SciFi per se, but how about some Stephen King for a change. I love the way he describes settings. It creates a very vivid picture in your mind and you can lose yourself in the story for quite a few hours. Some of his books that I would really recommend are the Dark Tower books:
Soon to be re-released:
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three
The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands
The Dark Tower: Wizard & Glass
Not yet released:
The Dark Tower: Wolves of the Calla (November 2003)
The Dark Tower: Song of Susannah (Summer 2004)
The Dark Tower: The Dark Tower (November 2004)
> ...something not "scifi-geek-hacker" for a change? It's a big world out there.
I just finished The Handmaid's Tale today and its such a great book. Think 1984 but instead of criticizing Stalinism its focuses more on a hypothetical western fundamentalist distopia.
Don't be fooled by reviews that make it sound like a feminist's book. This is great character writing, great world-building, and powerful political commentary. Do some web searches, this book deserves more attention than its already gotten since it was written in '85 I believe.
Them: Adventures with Extremists. This was the best thing I read all of last year. Writer/Reporter Jon Ronson makes a list of 10 or so people/groups labeled extremists and spends somes time with them in a neutral way as possible. Amazing eye-opening book on how people out there think and live and how it affects us all in the end.
Worth it just for the chapter on Ruby Ridge. It will bring you close to tears. Laugh at me now, but just read that chapter and then tell me how silly I sound.
Neither of these books are geeky/hacker but I think they intersect that demographic in interesting ways. Enjoy.
Greg Bear is definitely one of the great writers of hard sci-fi. Darwin's Radio is amazing, Blood Music is very interesting, Moving Mars was almost as good as Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars (Robinson's Mars series is phenomenal, read that, too). I also highly recommend Slant as well.
The world Bear writes about in Slant and Moving Mars brings to mind Bruner's world(s) of Stand on Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up, Jagged Orbit, and to a lesser extent The Shockwave Rider.
Bear is one of the few writers to really get nanotechnology and use it in ways that don't suck.
Darwin's Radio - Dormant viruses encoded in the human genome become active and reprogram our genes. Nebula award winner, Hugo nominated.
Slant - In the future nearly everyone has nanotechnological monitors that stabilize their brain functions and help keep them sane. Someone has engineered a disease that prevents these therapies from working. Cool AI stuff, excellent ideas about nanotech.
Blood Music - A biotech research creates intelligent cells. In order to prevent his research from being destroyed, he injects them into his own body to smuggle them out of the lab. Some very interesting ideas about the nature of intelligence and awareness. Incredible concepts for impact of creation. I felt a bit let down by the ending, it seemed like a bit of a cop out. Still a great read.
Moving Mars - Yet another "colonists on Mars want independence from earth" book. This one is well done. It takes place in a later version of the world from SLANT, so you get to see some cool nanotech and AI stuff. It provides an interesting and new take one this subject. Interesting characters, too. Nebula award winner.
BTW, If hard scifi is your thing, check out Hal Clement's Half Life.
For something very interesting, and sufficiently nerdy, I'd check out Chaos or Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by Gleick. I also enjoyed e: The Story of a Number but don't remember the author. Real dorky.
This side up.
James Alan Gardner - Trapped
Ken MacLeod - Cosmonaut Keep
L.E. Modesitt Jr. - Gravity Dreams
Vernor Vinge - Fire Upon the Deep & Deepness in the Sky
And some music, for the sake of something different:
Opeth - Damnation (great acoustic album with tons of Mellotron)
Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos
Gordian Knot - Emergent
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Or, if Down and Out in Paris and London caught your eye, may i also suggest Utopia...
Short, classic, and an eye-opener. Sir Thomas More's Utopia is a breath taking view of a perfect world NO MATTER WHAT THE TIME-PERIOD. There are so many things that can be viewed as remarkable even in the cyber/modern world we live in. It is my favorite... and so i wont try pushing my oppinion, just my experience as a programmer looking for something unique and quick and easy to read.
Since there have been over 40 translations... (5+ from Yale press alone) may I suggest Clarence Miller's. I havent completely read other versions, but the first 10 pages of four or five of them all seemed silly, or oversimplified, or over dramatified by comparison. All the names are kept to their proper Latin, and good preparations for/explanations of the entire context are given in a couple good forwards and introductions.
Happy reading.
Just drop acid, already, and invent something better... or quit your whining.
Microserfs was a decent read. It's geeky, but more of a story of growth in the dot-com era. I enjoyed it.
The Terminal Experiment, by Robert J. Sawyer.
It's about what happens to society when someone discovers proof of the human soul... and a whodunit involving virtual personas created as a method of simulating possible afterlifes.
Heck, nearly any of his works would do.
The Draka series, starting with Marching Through Georgia. (Out of print, find a copy at your local used bookstore, or at used.addall.com)
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
This useless space for sale, inquire at front desk.
But, as someone else mentioned, the later books in the series have gotten very tedious. I'm sorry, but endlessly resurrecting the bad guys after the hero kills them off (trust me, it's not much of a spoiler) gets old after a while. And in the most recent book, which I made the mistake of buying in hardback, nothing happens. Well, one significant thing does, but it's on the very last #$#$% page. The rest of it is total filler that doesn't even advance any of the infinitude of subplots, much less the main plot.
Laura
Start out with Fahrenheit 451 since it's wonderful and short. Then up the tree to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I couldn't follow the movie until after I read the book. Suddenly, everything started falling into place, and it wasn't just the phrases like
'Few people understand the psychology of dealing with a Highway Traffic Cop. Your normal speeder will panic and immediately pull over to the side. This is wrong. It arouses contempt in the cop heart. Make the bastard chase you. He will follow.'
Well, maybe you better stay away from it if you haven't seen the movie or hate ether for some reason.
Left Hand of Darkness - IMHO the 2nd best scifi novel ever written after only Dune.
I find Ursula K. LeGuin to be one of the underappreciated authors around here. Her novels are good (and I really enjoyed Left Hand of Darkness), but she really shines in her short stories and parables. Her stories and parables convey the moral of the story without being overly cryptic or completely unsubtle most of the time, and she regularly challenges the standard stereotypes.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
You asked about a "scifi-geek-hacker book".
;-)
You may like my book, Dancing Barefoot. There's a really long story all about Star Trek (scifi) and me (geek) and Vegas (hackers, I suppose, if you count Bringing Down the House, which is a GREAT summer -- or anytime, really -- read.)
But I won't pimp the link for BDTH, because I'm only shamelessly promoting myself.
If you haven't already read them, find something by Cory Doctorow (he's made his novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom freely available if you don't want to buy it, but it's worth it) or Charles Stross. Another good author more hyperpunk than cyberpunk is Eric Nylund; his two novels Signal to Noise and A Signal Shattered are great. I find picking up an anthology like The Year's Best Science Fiction helps me find authors whose work might interest me; that's how I found Charles Stross's work, at any rate. There are plenty of others out there, go digging around and you'll find tons of pointers on the Web for what to read.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
I second Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. It's definitely one of the funniest books I've ever read.
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul taught me a lot about finding my way around in a car...
Oh, nevermind, you have to have read it to get it.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
Roger Zelazny - "Lord of Light". I've seen others mention the Amber series, which I found tedious and self-indulgent on par with Hubbard, but "Lord of Light" was a great book, mixing the Hindu gods with science fiction. "Roadmarks" is pretty interesting too.
David Brin - the "Uplift" series, starting with "Sundiver". Great stuff.
Gregory Benford - great hard science fiction. Timescape is my favorite - you'll never think about time travel quite the same after reading this... I need to read more of his work!
Guy Gavriel Kay - Very good Tolkien inspired fantasy. He's the writer who helped finish the Simarilion (sp?). His style and quality are on par with Tolkien, but he doesn't steal any of the Tolkien mythology, instead he created his own.
Brian W. Aldiss - a very prolific science fiction author, and winner of many awards, but a lot of people have never heard of him. There's a book (based on a short story) called either "Hothouse" or "The Long Afternoon of the Earth" depending on where it was printed. Also, for a very tongue-in-cheek book, try "The 80 Minute Hour - A Space Opera". OK, maybe it's just wierd. But it was fun to read.
You mention you've read "Neuromancer" by Gibson. Have you read "Count Zero Override"? Just about all of the big Gibson fans I know consider this to be his best work, and I agree.
Ender's Game, The Andromeda Strain, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (all 5 books, trust me on this)
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Philip Dick is definitely the father of cyberpunk and a great writer as well. Plenty of good stories if you can find them.
Worst. Sig. Ever.
Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.
Just started reading 'Free as in Freedom'. All about RMS. He has a beard.
Now wash your hands.
Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers
Author: Grant Naylor
This is a great read, short, funny, and it's SiFi!
by Lee Killogh (sp?), a SF mystery in a Credit Card society. Should keep you entertained for a day or two.
He writes military sci-fi. March Upcountry, March to the Sea, and March to the Stars are good. The Legacy of the Alldenta series is good: A Hymn Before Battle, Gust Front, When the Devil Dances, and Hells Faire. If you like Sluggy Freelance, the Hells Faire book has references aplenty. If you pick up Hells Faire, it has a CD-ROM with the entire series, in several formats (great if you have a Palm or equiv) For a wacked out mind f**k, The Illuminatis Trilogy by Robert Shay & Robert Anton Wilson. Way weird, and you can currently get it for about $20 on Amazon. I'd also agree with everyone who suggested the Honor Harrington books. Jason A.
Do you see the FNORDS? I refuse to post anonymously, as I am fireproof!
This is a set of 4 novels that look dauntingly long but are a breeze to read through. They involve a virtual reality matrix-style world but are more involved with the story/characters than with detailing heavy duty science/math. The series is one of the most enjoyable series I've read of late, and I definitely recommend it!
A word of warning: The novels don't end well... It's really like 1 big long book split up into 4 physical books. The last one ends well, though...
-David
There. Now go play some cool javascript games!
Geeks who like the philosophy-lite offered in the first two Matrix movies should check out Sophie's World.
Sophie's World isn't hardcore philosophy either, but is easy to digest and covers the philosophical questions posed in the Matrix movies as well as many other equally (or more) interesting questions.
However, it does lack Carrie-Anne Moss in PVC.
"Rich Dad, Poor Dad" would be a good starting point for someone who's fresh out of school and wondering what sort of future their diploma will bring. It might also open your eyes to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of dot-bomb paupers out there who thought a 60-hours-per-week job with a signing bonus was the epitome of success....
1001 Arabian Trolls, of course!
What, you expected legitemate literary criticism on slashdot?! :)
Sydney does not have 100 Farenheit days in September, when the Olympics were. 30 seconds of googling can tell you that Sydney's record September temperature, over 140-odd years of record-keeping, was about 94 Farenheit (still reasonably warm, but *extremely* rare), and the mean daily maximum in September is a very pleasant 67 Farenheit. There was no need for the kind of fogging equipment that formed the key point of the terrorists' plan in the book. If you were going to use a fogging system at an Australian sporting event to spread Shiva, the only one of global interest that's held in really hot conditions is the Australian Open. Equally jarring, the dialogue involving Australians just didn't ring true. I doubt Tom Clancy has ever spoken to an Australian, let alone an Australian soldier, in his life.
Now, if he can't be bothered getting easy stuff like that right, how the heck are we supposed to find the rest of the book convincing?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
N/M
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
Hacker Bios? get into some O'Reilly.
:)
You could good read 'hacking' books like http://www.hackinglinuxexposed.com or any number of unix books. i'm eagerly awaiting absolute OpenBSD atm
I love DnOiPaL... it's one of my all-time favorites. Actually, it's probably my favorite. It's especially good if you find yourself working in a restaurant; as I was when I first read it.
Orwell is great. Forget all the crap they taught you in high school about 1984 and Animal Farm. I just finished Coming Up For Air, and am now reading Homage To Catalonia. About a year ago, give or take, I read Burmese Days. Many years ago I read Keep The Aspidistra Flying... will probably read that soon too.
What do I like most about Orwell? I don't know. Maybe because when I'm reading him, I catch myself saying "That's it. Exactly." Good, Good Stuff. Very well written, not too pretentious.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
I see Ender's Game and Cryptonomicon mentioned many times and I enjoyed them both, but to be different I will suggest some non-geek books.
Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett
and for a new book:
Moneyball, by Michael Lewis
Portnoy's Complaint, by Philip Roth. Excellent off-the-wall psychoanalysis of growing up Jewish in New York City. It's really wild in some places, and laugh out loud funny most of the time.
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's not light reading, but it's fascinating. A study of family relationships, life in tsarist Russia in the 1870s, religion, politics, everything.
Doctor Faustus, by Thomas Mann. It's dense German prose, even after the translation to English. But I'm a musician, and this book is all about music, art, the history of Germany, and Hitler's rise to power, all wound up in the biography of a composer who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for musical success. It's one of the five best books I've ever read.
My big summer read for this year is Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. It's my wife's favorite novel and she identifies strongly with the lead female character. Since I've never read it, I figure it's about time I got to know something that she enjoyed so much.
I've also spent time reading the latest Dune novels by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, a few Star Wars novels, all the Harry Potter books, and I'm currently reading a history of the Pittsburgh Steelers. I think that as long as you spend your summer reading and keeping your mind in shape, it doesn't matter what you read. Just enjoy yourself.
Lousy minor setbacks! This world sucks! -- Homer Simpson
Downbelow Station, the Chanur Saga, Merchanters Luck - C. J. Cherryh is a master of world building... and my favorite author.
Read something of the personal library of Borges.
Alexandros trilogy by Manfredi Valerio Massimo.
George Bataille or Emile Cioran, something not related of computers, cyberpunk, science, etc.
a great book!!
The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey An absolutely great book. But it is likely only going to take you a few days to read, cause you won't put it down.
The Moon is A Harsh Mistress
Amazing book.
Mikerosoft
broaden your knowlege base a bit. Pick up some Bill Bryson if fiction isn't your thing; he has a new book out called "a short history of everything" (or something like that... I haven't read all of it yet and forgot the title....everything else he's written that I've read -- travel narratives, mostly -- are fantastically great and very entertaining; I would recommend either "A walk in the woods" or maybe "travels in europe". great stuff.
FreeBSD for the impatient.
Having graduated in the not-so-distant past, the one advice I can give you is to try to do a whole lot more than read a book in that month and live it like it's your last. You can always read a book again, but your brain will be blindsided by the time you've been working for 6 months and you'll wish you had taken a loooong vacation before you started.
To stay on topic, if you like fantasy and can stand a few too many Tolkien-isms (read: plagiarism) try the Belgariad and the Malloreon series by David Eddings.
-bm
I'll let the text speak for itself:
sheesh, i usually read upwards of 5 books in a block of summer holidays..... and no, im not talking cartoons/8yr old books, either...
Anything by the Critical Art Ensemblew w.critical-art.net
a rt]
[technology-politics-culture]
http://w
Escape Velocity
Mark Dery
[technology-culture-art]
Hatred Against Capitalism
[fiction-non-fiction-essays]
Software Patterns
The GoF
[software design]
Envisioning Information
Tufte
[technology-interface-design-
Society of Mind
Minsky
[AI theory]
The Perfume
Suskind
[*good* contemporary lit]
Comments?
HAD
If you are just about to embark on a full-time job and perhaps a career I wonder if it wouldn't make more sense for you to celebrate what will be your last (albeit abbreviated) true summer. Once you join the working-day world, summers lose their luster a bit...their magic.
Don't just sit at home. Get in a car and drive. See the country. Explore. Seize the day.
OK, if you have to read bring along a copy of "On The Road", by Jack Kerouac (or "My Travels with Charley")...but only read it during the night or when it rains.
Trust me I took a similiar voyage in that precious gap between school and career and look back on it fondly. Even after 10 years.
You could try
Cheap Complex Devices or
Acts of the Apostles
both great geek reads and both available (for FREE)
at www.wetmachine.com
scary. he was in world war 2 , although the stories are dramatised. simple writing but very effective. you can go from his unit drinking to fughting in like 1 page. dosent glorify war or the nazis at all , after reading any of his books you'll never want to go to war , or go to war yourself
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for slashdot.sig (129323052 bytes).
I concur.
As an aside, does anyone here remember the old RPG that was based off of Pohl's Gateway? It went by the same name as was actually pretty good.
Back to books though, I'd also reccomend Moving Mars by Greg Bear, it's a good read and is not as well known as it deserves to be.
I'm amazed no one has mentioned the Beggars in Spain yet!
-kade
See sig. :P
t m.
Actualy my personal webserver is down, but you can find a lot of the novel at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~cokere/re/index2.h
I just finished The Diamond Age My Neil Stephenson. It's a good book but gets pretty bizzare at the end.
Danny Yee's book reviews are always intresting. He seems to be the #1 search result on google for book reviews.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
- Connie Willis is very good at creating characters you can care about, and she has a delightful, dry sense of humor. The Doomsday Book is one of the best books I've ever read. Passage (a recent Hugo nominee) and To Say Nothing of the Dog were also quite good.
- Ursula K. LeGuin has been mentioned by others. The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed each won (and deserved) both the Hugo and Nebula. The former is sort of about gender relations and the latter is about a future utopian (or is it dystopian?) society.
- C.J. Cherryh is good at what I call "sociological fiction". Her characters are good, but her strength is creating believable, consistent societies and exploring them. Downbelow Station and Cyteen were both excellent, as was the Foreigner series.
- Sheri S. Tepper has written some good books, especially The Gate to Women's Country and Grass, which are hard to describe without spoiling. Some of her later books ladle on the feminism a bit too thickly, though.
- C.S. Friedman's This Alien Shore was very good, and a bit cyberpunk-ish.
And some guys who I haven't seen mentioned yet too...- Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars trilogy is also excellent. I'd lump it into the "sociological" category as well. It chronicles the colonization (and subsequent politicization) of Mars by following a cast of 20 or so main characters. Antarctica is also very good -- sort of a cross between the Mars trilogy and cyberpunk, though people are hacking culture rather than computers.
- Dan Simmons. Hyperion and its sequels were extremely good.
- Greg Bear's Queen of Angels is very good.
I could go on, but that's probably enough. I hope it helps.Laura
Second only to the Bible in both a Library of Congress survey and Book-of-the-Month Club study of books that made a difference in the reader's lives.
:)
It's long, but it's good. The down side is, you'll likely end up understanding all those freaky libertarians and objectivists.
Pulp classic that originated in Japan and became a hit movie and graphic novel. It has recently been translated to English and I just picked it up. I was able to read through it very quickly. It's very entertaining.
My quick review would be: Brutal teen novel with hackneyed romantic undercurrents but overall very unique and interesting.
Where the Music Matters
Some excellent books:
Mother of Storms by John Barnes (TOR)
Suppose the Pacific Ocean warmed up 2 degrees and spawned a hurricane with supersonic wind walls? Lots of cyber geek details and well thought out science. An innovative way to wreck the world without hitting it with a big rock. Clever technology of cyber-sex too!
Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold (Hyperion)
A novel of stage magic (Carter was a real American Illusionist at the turn of the century), the odd death of President Warren G. Harding and the invention of television. Yes, it ties them all together. You will find a soulmate in Carter who created magic tricks the way programmers code, and for similar reasons.
Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser (Vintage) Won the Pulitzer Prize a few years ago. This is the science fiction novel that would have been written in 1890 about the future big engineering feats of the next 20 years, had there been any SF in those days. A wonderful vision of a man trapped in his own virtual reality built only using the tools, materials and values of 1900.
Here is my list in no particular order. I really enjoyed a lot of these books.
Endurance : Shackleton's Incredible Voyage [read]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/07
South : A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage [have, not read yet]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0786
Into Thin Air [read]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/03
Flags of Our Fathers [have, not read yet]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553
The Greatest Generation [read 25%]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375
Forgotten Soldier [read]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/00
Great Escape [read]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/04
Codebreakers : The Inside Story of Bletchley Park [read]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/01
Alan Turing: The Enigma [have, not read yet]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802
Navajo Code Talkers
unknown url, just a topic I am interested in
Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea [read]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/03
America's Lost Treasure [want]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/08
In the Heart of the Sea : The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex [read]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/06
La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West [read 10%]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375
The Cartoon Guide to Statistics
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASI
Managing Gigabytes : Compressing and Indexing Documents and Images [want]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/15
Programming Windows, The Definitive Guide to the Win32 API [have, not read yet]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572
Ghost Soilders [read]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/03
Lotta replies already, but here's my $.02 anyway:
Brunner's "Shockwave Rider" gets all the credit, but it's far from his best. Find a copy of "Stand on Zanzabar" and enjoy the ride!
Brian Aldiss' "Helliconia" trilogy is a fascinating look at human nature, in a world where man is only the dominant species during the thousand year long summer. Highly underrated.
If you've ever read Stephenson and marveled at his use of language, you're ready for the big leagues. Find a copy of Thomas Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49". If you like it, dive into "V" or "Gravity's Rainbow".
Anything by Phillip K. Dick.
Ditto J.G. Ballard. His recent "SuperCannes" is a good starting point. Save "Crash" for later.
If you haven't read Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" comics, you're missing one of the greatest artworks of the century.
A lot of David Brin sucks, but I really liked "Startide Rising".
And one of the most fascinating, frustrating things I've ever read three times, Samuel Delany's "Dhalgren".
That's enough for now.
I would highly recommend this story by Shamus Young. Its online, free, relatively short, but its a nonstop futuristic hacking and zombie killing romp from start to finish. Did I mention it was heavily based off of System Shock 2? ;0)
Empire Express is the history of the first US transcontinental railroad (from Omaha to Sacramento), but it's so much more than a timeline. Bain introduces us to the key figures, then animates their personalities so that we get to know them. Well researched and factual, yet it reads like Clancy.
Railroading was the high tech of its day, and the technical, financial and political interplay will resonate with anyone who was involved in the Dotcom boom. It's all there: a tech genius with a vision ("crazy" Theodore Judah) begs politicians and financiers to build the Great Thing, then is cut out and dies trying to get back into the game. Financiers float inflated bonds and other worthless bits of paper, siphoning off tidy profits for themselves so immense that they kicked off the "Gilded Age". The despiration boring tunnels through Sierra granite that leads to the use of nitroglycerine (and an accident that vaporizes a ship in the San Francisco harbor). And all made possible by hordes of low-paid domestic and immigrant labor. Sound familiar?
One warning: it will take you the entire summer to read through all 700+ pages. But well worth it.
...-.-
by Steven Levy. The mother of all hacker books. Hacking used to mean 'clever means of improving electronic and computer systems'. At what point did it get perverted to mean unauthorized access to computer systems? Sigh.
The books begins at MIT in the late 50s, with hacking at the model railroad club, and ends at MIT in the 80s with the Richard Stallman about the freedom to hack software. I found the beginning and the end of the book much more interesting than the stories in the middle set in Stanford and the Valley.
If you've read all the classics, you should check out a newer book (2002) by Charles Sheffield:
Dark as Day
It's got plenty of geeky goodness: solar system-wide distributed computing, forcasting of the future using computer models, lots on how SETI of the future might. I like the book, because Sheffield clearly has the technical background down solid (hence the "hard science fiction" genre applied to the novel). And the plot and characterizations aren't bad either.
Why read a book? Write your OWN book.
FREE your mind... spooge it onto paper, and stick in on the web.
Where did this guy get a job?
I would not start with the Valis trilogy (the three books mentioned above which are essentially the same story) if introducing someone ot PKD. Start with the good fiction and then work your way down to his more personal, experimental, and tougher to read books.
Try:
A Scanner Darkly: Still relevant (if not more so in today's surveillance culture) criticism of the war on drugs, exploration of drug culture, and paranoia/conspiracy. Great character work. *if you can only read one PKD story do this one or Man in the High Castle.
Bladerunner (that's the title they sell it under now, I know): Okay, you've seen the movie, but the book has very little to do with the movie except with setting, a little plot, and character names. Excellent PKD exploration on human vs non-human and moral ambiguity.
Ubik: excellent work of sci-fi. Touches heavily upon PKD's "kipple" theme.
The Man in the High Castle: one of the first, if not the first "elsewhere" story. Superb in many ways.
Eye in the Sky: Ubik-like mindbender.
Solar Lottery: No one ever recommends this because its so unlike PKD (first published novel I believe) but its a great short read and you can pick up on some future themes PKD explores later on.
Lawrence Person's Recommended Reading List
Novels
Rats & Gargoyles - Mary Gentle
The Werewolves of London - Brian Stableford
The Exorcist - William Peter Blatty
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein
Dune - Frank Herbert
1984 - George Orwell
The Chronicles of Amber (Original Five) - Roger Zelazny
Neuromancer - William Gibson
The Long Walk - Stephen King
The Vampire Lestat - Anne Rice
Salem's Lot - Stephen King
Phases of Gravity - Dan Simmons
The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
The Book of the Long Sun - Gene Wolfe
Blood Music - Greg Bear
Eon - Greg Bear
IT - Stephen King
The Glass Hammer - K.W. Jeter
Moving Mars - Greg Bear
Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion - Dan Simmons
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
Bridge of Birds, The Story of the Stone, Eight Skilled Gentlemen - Barry Hughart
The Time Ships - Stephen Baxter
Weaveworld - Clive Barker
Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
The Hereafter Gang - Neal Barrett Jr.
Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner
Permutation City - Greg Egan
The Light at the End - John Skipp & Craig Spector
Crucifax Autumn - Ray Garton
A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge
The Sheep Look Up - John Brunner
The Child Garden - Geoff Ryman
Carrion Comfort - Dan Simmons
The Bridge - Iain Banks
Perdido Street Station - China Mieville
Evolution's Shore (a.k.a. Chaga) - Ian McDonald
The Stone Canal - Ken MacLeod
A Deepness in the Sky - Vernor Vinge
Holy Fire - Bruce Sterling
Geek Love - Katherine Dunn
Terminal Cafe (a.k.a. Necroville) - Ian McDonald
The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
The Night Watch - Sean Stewart
Nifft the Lean - Michael Shea
Summer of Night - Dan Simmons
Fevre Dream - George R. R. Martin
The Magic Wagon - Joe R. Lansdale
Mona Lisa Overdrive - William Gibson
The Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe
Perfume - Patrick Süskind
The Difference Engine - William Gibson & Bruce Sterling
Synners - Pat Cadigan
The Xenogenesis Trilogy - Octavia Butler
Lord of the Hollow Dark - Russell Kirk
The Anubis Gates - Tim Powers
Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny
Last Call - Tim Powers
Door Number Three - Patrick O'Leary
The Paratawa Trilogy - Christopher Hinz
Declare - Tim Powers
Metropolitan, City on Fire - Walter Jon Williams
The Paper Grail - James P. Blaylock
The Foundation Trilogy - Isaac Asimov
Firelord - Parke Godwin
The Shaft - David J. Schow
Empire of the East - Fred Saberhagen
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book. Definitely alternate history, as well as being whimsical and very funny.
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
link ...by Daniel Quinn - no other book changed my life and perspective on it. Seriously amazing and unbelievable.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, I am SO excited! Let's hope it is not SCO related again! Or a DUPE! A.C.
How about a book for short stories? Some of us don't have that much time ...
I used to read pretty much nothing but sf/fantasy, but my tastes have since diversified. Here are some things you might enjoy:
Raymond Chandler - Any of the Marlowe novels, particulary The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. If you like William Gibson's stripped-down prose style, here's where he probably got it.
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest. Those of you who find Stephenson's digressive technique entertaining should check this out.
Michael Swanwick - The Iron Dragon's Daughter. A hybrid of sf and fantasy that could be considered steampunk. Whatever it is, it's brilliant.
China Mieville - Perdido Street Station and The Scar. More "Steampunk." Perilously close to genius.
George R. R. Martin - A Game of Thrones. First book in a series of epic fantasy by a writer who gets a lot more mileage out of his Rs than that other guy.
Nonfiction:
Howard Zinn - A People's History of the United States. Sure he's a commie. Sure you won't agree with half of what he says. But you won't look at US history quite the same way again.
Douglas Hofstadter - Godel, Escher, Bach. If you've been feeling intellectually lazy, here's the equivalent of a membership at the Y.
David Cook - Robot Building for Beginners. Looking for a new hobby? You could do worse than start here.
Here are some just off the top of my head
Stranger in a Strange Land
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (book Bladerunner was based off of) by Philip K. Dick
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
Brave New World by Aldus Huxley
1984 by George Orwell
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
All of those except for possibly Beggars in Spain should be required reading for any sci-fi/geek book lover.
If you're willing to look beyond the geek areas my highest recommended book would be On The Road by Jack Keroac. I've read it 5 times and I'm sure I'll read it at least as many more.
Why not give the Chaucer's masterpiece a try? It's huge, and it's in middle english, so instead of starting out, "When April, with his sweet showers," it begins, "Whan that Apryll, with his shoures soote..." It's a fun challenge.
No, I haven't read the whole thing, really only the first part of the prologue. I had to memorize the first paragraph of the prologue way back in high school and I've greatly enjoyed having it swimming around in my brain, and occasionally reciting it at work to freak out my colleagues.
Enders Game - Orson Scott Card (plus sequels etc)
Nightsdawn Trilogy and prequels - Peter F Hamilton
Ian M Banks (any and all)
Asimov
Gibson
Sterling
Lion of Macedon - Brian Gemmel (sp?)
Perfume
Womack
Niven/Pournell
to busy to keep going...
but I'd still recommend "The Dark Tower" series by Stephen King. I'm just finishing "Wizard and Glass" (book 4), and I'm already looking forward to the 5th book which comes out in November. Definitely not a "tech" series but very good nonetheless. The Dark Tower theme and some characters also pops up in other books by King, so it makes for an interesting read.
the blood has stopped pumping, and he's left to decay
the me that you know is now made up of wires
Ok, so they're not geek-hacker books, but they are sci-fi. Judging by the fact that I agree with 80% or so of the recommendations I've seen thus far I figured I'd thrown in my 2c. I read this trilogy when I was a teenager and I've re-read them at least twice since they. Still a good read. Three books by John Varley: Titan, Wizard, and Demon. Enjoy.
a suggestion...
don't read ANOTHER sci-fi book...
read What Should I Do With My Life?, by Po Bronson...
NO, it doesnt GIVE you the answer...
YES, you will quit that full-time job...
==
apostrophes...right...
Anything by William Gibson or Robert J. Sawyer... the latter being my favorite of all time. I recommend Flashforward, and anything from the Hominids Trilogy.. Well, its only a deuce now, but the third will be out shortly.
- = S y L e N T P R o F e T = -
Then again, Martin started out aiming for a trilogy and missed it. "Song of Ice and Fire" is his largest work (mostly just editting collections, mostly), and we'll see if it pans out. I'm hooked on it though, and will certainly be buying the next in the series this fall.
I liked Gaiman's "American Gods" quite a bit more than "Neverwhere". "Neverwhere" was good, but it just didn't grab me. If you like Gaiman, you might want to check out some Sandman graphic novels.
And just to add another author to the list, I really liked Mary Gentle's "Book of Ash" series. It's an alternate-reality history set in the late middle ages. And just for a lark, her book "Grunts!" was hilarious. Sci-fi comedy with a military twist (imagine orcs as marines, and you'll have a good idea of the book).
by Douglas Adams.
I can't say I have any disagreements with any of the above suggestions (er, literary suggestions, anyways). My personal favorites are Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, Dragonlance Chronicles (I plan on rereading all three this summer), Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, all that good stuff. One book I haven't seen mentioned and am apalled hasn't been discovered by man is WYRM, by Mark Fabi. This book as it all: hackers, viruses, actual development people, Monty Python references, LotR references, D&D references, Armageddon and Doomsday motif...it'll keep you riveted. I've read it twice and infected every person I've met with the love of this book with just a page. It's even got fascinating psychology, technology (does neural shunt gaming mean anything?) and real puzzles to solve! At one point our intrepid adventurers need to solve a crossword puzzle, and it's a real puzzle printed in the book with the solution in the back. Oh, that reminds me, I forgot about the obscure-yet-nifty scientific mindbending principles references (like Schroedinger's cat) and Alice in Wonderland (like the Cheshire cat...incidently, all balled into one.) Just forgive it the play into the Y2K bug - yeah, it's a couple years old. It's actually incredibly well-done despite that. Read it! I implore you! And all of the rest of you, too.
hes one of my all time favs, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is one of the best books i've ever read. especially satisfying if your a comic book fan =)
Hoffstadter's Goedel, Escher, Bach. Might be too difficult if you're just getting through high school, but definitely recommended.
Not sci-fi-hacker-geek, but I very much have enjoyed John Mortimer's Rumpole stories. Start at the first omnibus, read through the first book in third omnibus, read Rumpole on Trial, and then finish the third omnibus. There's an odd discontinuity, in that Rumpole on Trial seemed to have been intended as the second book of the third omnibus, but isn't. Also, P. G. Wodehouse's Wooster & Jeeves books are great.
I also recommend Hemmingway, Maugham, and Menken. The first two are easiest to get into if you start off with the short stories.
While you've got free time, Bertrand Russell's softer philosophical works, such as Why I Am Not A Christian, Marriage and Morals, and The Scientific Outlook are also well worth the time, and are a good deal more accessible than his more difficult philosophical or mathematics works. Of course, the classics, like Dracula and Frankenstein are great.
Hm, I guess I don't really read much sci-fi any more, although the occasional horror story, like those by Lovecraft, Damon Knight, or Robert Block catches my attention. I also enjoyed Eight Fantasms and Magics by Jack Vance, which I guess is sorta sci-fi/fantasy. (Try to find an edition with the crazy psychedelic dust jacket,if you can find it all.)
Wil
wiki
I went through some of two particular author's works, and I laughed my ass off a lot of the time.
Robert Lynn Asprin- The M.Y.T.H. Inc. series of books never let me stop, I was bawling at points, which is kind of embarrasing in study hall. Can't find the last book in the series....Sweet M.Y.T.H.teries of Life.
Piers Anthony- The Xanth series of books has lots of humor mixed in a very entertaining large series (about 30-40 books right now). I really enjoyed his Tyrant series. And last but not least, the weird ass book of short stories called the Anthology or Anthanology or somesuch.
Also, the Photon and Phase series was awesome, still want to read the last book.
I remember reading a book about a Darksword. May be the Darksword series...but I don't recall. Loved that too.
Also, surprisingly enough, is the Left Behind series. I was shocked to learn that I liked that series, but I loved it. I was forced to read the first in school, and finished the first 7 in the series in 2 months. Just polished off the 8th that just came out in a weekend.
I got nothin'.
And here is a book I'm working on now...I'm still about 1,100 pages from knowing if it will deliver the goods: A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram No.
Having read most of the books mentioned ad naseum so far, may I recommend a few more intersting reads? ;)
Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae - A story of the historic battle to the death where a force of 300 delayed an attack of 100.000 enemy
Under the Eagle: A Tale of Military Adventure and Reckless Heroism with the Roman Legions
The last one I can't remember other than having Priscus and Sicarious and a Roman emperor's attempt to restore the old gods over Christianity. Don't limit yourself to SciFi- as big as a fan of it that I am it still repeats the same themes over and over and over... try reading some of the past- just as interesting and based in reality
You have to be into long character and plot/multiplot development to enjoy his books. There are certainly times where it gets slow, but it's worth reading in the end. I got some of the same feeling from the first part of the LotR series (but then, I was in the 8th grade...). It was slow in the beggining, and a chore to read, but it picked up and was worth it.
For people who want a quick 2-hour story (ala a movie), this is NOT a series to read.
A modern day witchhunt.
Personally I've just read and enjoyed Station X by Michael Smith, about how Alan Turing (among many others) broke Enigma. A fascinating read with alot of insight into the circumstances under which many of the early steps in computing were taken.
The Adolescence of P1, Thomas Ryan
The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage, Clifford Stoll
The Ambidextrous Universe: Left, Right and the Fall of Parity, Martin Gardner
Dragon's Egg, Robert Forward
Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut.
If you haven't read these books, you should.
The First Ape was alone and scared in the dark and chewed on a sick until it had a point and stuck it in the closest body, which happened to be another Ape. This gave him comfort.
I'm currently reading Walter Hunt's The Dark Wing. He's a relatively new author (it's his first book) and I haven't been sleeping much.
read the bunni comic
The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card -- technically sci fi, it's really about the author's exploration of human nature: What makes us human? What makes a person great? People go on about Ender's Game, and it's pretty good, but I think the story of Jason Worthing goes much deeper.
Trader by Charles de Lint -- A story about waking up in a stranger's body sounds a bit cheesy, but this one sucked me in with its exploration of identity and personality. The ending wasn't the predictable warm, fuzzy, everything's okay type, either.
Cry to Heaven and Feast of All Saints by Anne Rice, both historical fiction with no vampires or magic whatsoever. She does a wonderful job of bringing these places and times to life.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson -- just incredibly engaging. The book is huge, but it's a page-turner from start to finish. Actually, I haven't read anything by Neal Stephenson or Steven Bury (an alternate pen name) that I haven't adored.
The Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams (Dragonbone Chair, Stone of Farewell, and To Green Angel Tower). Epic, beautifully written coming of age story set within the context of a compelling war between good and evil. The characters really come alive.
-monique
I hope I haven't been beaten to it.
It's quite informative and very entertaining. This should be mandatory reading for all System Administrators.
If you it takes you a summer to read a book (rather than a couple of nights) - you need to go back to school ...
"On The Road", by Jack Kerouac.
It will change your life, or at least the way you look at it.
Seriously, an incredible read. IMHO, up near "Catcher in the Rye".
It's amazing how Frank Herbert managed to create such a strange and yet coherent world. The first book is one of my all-time favorites. The sequels are a hard read, but still very interesting.
Arthur C. Clarke: Rendezvous with Rama
Must-read for all fans of hard Science Fiction. Clarke writes as if he was among the crew that encountered a giant, seemingly deserted, alien spaceship. His attention to scientific details, and his witty humor make this a fascinating read. The sequels (co-authored with Gentry Lee) are written in a different style, much more character-based, and some people seem not to like them very much (I personally think they're brilliant).
Robert A. Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land
The book's language is a bit outdated, but it's still a brilliant and oftentimes hilarious book. The story is about an earthling raised by martians, who is now returning to earth.
Douglas Adams: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Simply one of the most hilarious books ever written. Be prepared to ROTFLYAO while reading it.
Arthur C. Clarke: Childhood's End
Besides Rama my favorite Arthur C. Clarke book.
Larry Niven: Ringworld
I'm reading it right now, and I'm halfway through. Niven writes like a cross between Arthur C. Clarke and Douglas Adams. Very entertaining read.
Prize question: Which book is my signature taken from?
1) Bill Gates: Portrait of Evil
2) New Guide to learning Hindi
3) Linus Torvalds: Savior of the Multiverse
4) How Things Work In Soviet Russia
5) Why employers are evil, and why I still insist of working for them
6) The Theory of How to Date Women
7) Physical Exercise: Tips On How To Avoid It
8) How To Get Used To Bathing
9) Hottest IT Jobs/Trends In India
10) The Essential Goat.sx Reference
11) Creating Beowulf Clusters From Anything
Excellent choice there with the Amber series. I generally don't like SciFi/Fantasy but I enjoyed the decalogy (ya, count 'em, ten) enough to actually buy it.
Forget all the other stale suggestions. The best book I've read recently is "lucky wander boy" by d. b. weiss. Not easily summarised but the protagonist emabarks on a project of critical analysis of classic arcade video games in order to bring more focus to his disconnected existence. There is some clever writing and observations that arise quite naturally from the material. The fictitious arcade game "Lucky Wander Boy" and its pursuit become the driving force of the narrative.
Jeff Noon's books (the ones I've read) are pretty good sci-fi, try Pollen and Vurt. And, as others have suggested, if you're looking for "scifi-geek-hacker", read Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. How many novels have you read with Perl scripts in them?
How about Necronomicon by Abdul Alzahred
Somewhat along those lines I would highly reccomend "The Risen Empire" by Scott Westerfield. It is not cyberpunk directly, it is sci-fi, but with some very cool technologies and gadgets :) He has some really interesting ideas for nanotechnolgy. Check it out:
The Risen Empire
makes for an entertaining read. Try his most recent one, "Prey". "Timeline" is also good.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I'm not sure if anyone's heard of him but Stephen Lawhead is absolutely amazing. Check out the series that starts with "The Paradise War." Great writing style.
I recommend Gravity's Rainbow...tough, but it'll knock you down.
"this perfect day" is a little-known sci-fi written by ira levin (who also wrote "rosemary's baby" and "boys from brazil" among others). it's about a future where the world is run by a (supposedly) omnipotent computer. it's more intelligently written than others with this same plot line. it's got tech, suspense, and a statement about the human condition.
I read the four books in this series and really loved them. Look up Otherland written by Tad Williams. They're really kewl sci-fi books set in the future with a 3D virtual environment, and the book takes place in both the 3d world and the real word. Great read, I know you'll love it.
Best non-techie reads (ie. on my bookshelf right now):
Robert Ludlum - Bourne Identity
James Clavell - Shogun
John Grisham - Client and Runaway Jury
Dick Francis - absolutely anything
Richard Adams - Watership Down
William Golding - Lord of the Flies
Joseph Heller - Catch 22
Binaryhead graduates college, but doesn't know how to decide on a book to read. If he is indicative of his generation, the future looks bleak.
For all you who think that LoTR is too hard, I suspect that you find reading any literature difficult. Tolstoy, Joyce, James - sorry, they are just too tough. You might as well forget Milton or Shakespeare since they don't speak "American" and "they talk kind of funny".
LoTR is to be read slowly. The literary style extends the imagery of the world that Tolkein created. You are meant to read it slow and savor the words - much like sipping a fine cognac. Of course, this is too much to expect from today's attention span deficient generation that wants nothing other than instant gratification.
Ender's Game is a good story, but as one poster mentioned, "Enders Game is the best. I got it [sic] and read it in one weekend". If you don't see the tragedy of this statement, you will probably think that Ender's Game is a great feat of writing. Go find yourself a good air flight read such as Crichton or Grisham - you should be able to finish all of their books in just a few hours.
Forgotten Realms books are written for prepubescent boys seeking escapism from their dull lives. If you are still reading these after the age of 15, there is something wrong with you.
Frank Herbert's books - they might be readable if he didn't try to make the same point over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Rather annoying, isn't it?
Kudos to the very few of you who suggested Irving, Falkner, Maugham, Twain, Pynchon, Nabakov, Dickens and Dostoevsky. You are in the definite minority.
To all of you who lamented about how boring stories were when you read them in high school, now that you are a few years older, go back and reread them. Hopefully you will realize why you were required to read them in the first place. If not, you are a clod.
=====
My suggestions:
Joseph Campbell and Shakespeare. After you read Campbell, you will realize that every hero and villian found in science fiction and fantasy is just a rehash of the same mythos that humans have been telling for thousands of years. In regards to Shakespeare, there have been few new plot devices introduced since the bard penned his plays. Almost all books, movies and plays are derivative of Shakespeare's work.
If you are familiar with Russian history, Bolshevism, Marxism, Existentialism, Catholicism and Christian Theology, then I suggest "The Brother's Karamozov" by Dostoevsky. It isn't an easy read and you won't finish it in a week, but it is well worth the time.
Interested in expanding your vocabulary - pick up any book by William F. Buckley Jr.
Want to remain a geek and broaden your horizons? Read Ursula Le Guin or Joan Slonczewski who write Sci-fi from a feminist perspective.
"Microsoft has made computing accessible to a population who would otherwise not be able to use computers" - B. Kernigha
OSC has published many books of short stories
Flux
Maps in a Mirror
Cruel Miracles
Monkey Sonatas
The (C)Hanged Man
Lost Songs
Five of these books have been compiled into a hard cover version of Maps in a Mirror
These stories are highly though provoking and worth the read.
Cryptonomicon is incredible. Stephenson again. A step above Snow Crash
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060 926945/002-5205035-2054449?v=glance&s=books
/hacking/ back in the day. Not sci-fi but still a good read.
Great book about
I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but definitely check out books by Gene Wolfe. Namely, Shadow & Claw and Sword & Citadel. Oh, and Urth of the New Sun too.
...do exist in the local book store or library, just in case you've already read all of the other quality sci-fi suggestions.
If you are looking for something really humorous and you aren't thin-skinned when it comes to religious matters, try "Lamb: The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" by Christopher Moore. It provides answers to classic questions such as, "what if Jesus learned kung fu?"
If you're looking for a more serious read and happen to like southern literature, go with Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men." It's extremely well written and very powerful.
Rather read something to ensure your personal paranoia when dealing with government officials and others in power? "The Trial"...Kafka.
Or, if you'd rather just sit around and laugh until mucus shoots out your nose: "Pure Drivel", by Steve Martin.
Enjoy!
Read some of Horace's Satires. It's still relevant, and if you don't read Latin, there are many excellent translations out there. They're witty, funny, and have a lot of truth to them.
Is my all-time favorite sci-fi writer.
Specifically, Ringworld and The Ringworld Engineers.
Asimov and the Foundation series is another timeless classic...
I agree with this post completely. Caves of Steel is not to be missed, and should be read before Naked Sun. Mod this guy up!
american gods didn't cover anything that wasn't hit on in shaggy gods.
Try Grendel. It's the first part of the saga of Beowulf told from Grendel's point of view. Excellent writing, fantastic character, depressing ending.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Although, I've only read about half of the books on your list, I wholeheartily agree with you and would like to recommend the following:
Spider Robinson: "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon" series, "Lady Sally" series, "The Free Lunch", "Stardance" series. Spider's work is usually humorous and chock full of humanity. If you've been reading Slashdot lately, you've probably seen his "Melancoly Elephants" short story in regards to governmental copyright abuse.
Harlan Ellison: Pick up any collection of his short stories or his non-fiction essays. Ellison's stuff is not always Science Fiction, in fact Harlan venomously argues that his stories are not Science Fiction at all. Most of his work is about the injustice in life and the angry backlash it engenders. Some recommended short stories: "Paingod", "All the birds come home to roost", "Repent Harlaquin, said the Tick-Tock man", "A Boy and His Dog", "Flop Sweat". If you are an old skool Star Trek Fan, you're probably familiar with "City on the Edge of the World", which was originally written by Ellison (and ghost hacked by the Paramount studio writers of the 1960's).
Steve Miller and Sharon Lee: Their Liadan Universe stories are some of the most entertaining Space Operas I have ever read. The cultural backdrop for these stories is as complex and complete as anything I have seen. Their work is somewhat comparable to Lois McMaster Bujold's "Miles Voroskaven" series (which I also recommend).
Robert Sawyer: "Illegal Alien", "Hominids" and "Humans", "Factoring Humanity", "Flashforward", "Terminal Experiment" and "Calculating God" are recommended books.
Theodore Sturgeon: Most of Sturgeon's work is good, but "More Than Human", "Microcosmic God", "Born of Man and Woman" and my guilty pleasure favorite "Killdozer!" are
recommended (the made for TV movie of "Killdozer!" is a B-movie classic!).
Murray Leinster: "A Logic Named Joe" is worth tracking down. Written in 1946 it describes the modern internet in eerie accuracy.
H.P. Lovecraft: No spaceships here, but plenty of alien inteligences and fantastic settings. Lovecraft's work is more properly Horror or Fantasy. Recommended works: "The Dunwitch Horror", "Colour out of Space", "Cool Air", "Pickman's Model", "The Shadow over Innsmouth", and of course "The Call of Cthulhu".
Issac Asimov: "Nine Tommorrows" and "I, Robot" are great collections of Asimov's short story genius, while the "Foundation" trilogy is a fine example of Asimov's novel chops.
Ray Bradbury: "The Martian Cronicles" is a great collection of stories. And there is his dystopian classic "Fahrenheit 451".
Neville Shute: "On the Beach": A fine story about what happens after the nuclear war. Don't read it if you like happy endings.
Hal Clement: "Mission of Gravity": Cool story from the King of Hard-Science Fiction.
Kim Stanley Robinson: "Red|Blue|Green Mars" is a great trilogy about terraforming Mars.
Joe Haldeman: "The Forever War" is a great novel about the disgusting futility of war.
Frank Herbert: "The White Plague" and "The Heisenburg Experiment" are cool books about genetic expermentation and of course there's his "Dune" series.
Eric Flint: "1632" is one of my favority alternate history books -- not exactly science fiction, but an entertaining read. Also Flint's "Belesarius" series is a good read. Other recommended authors of military Science Fiction are David Drake and Steve Weber. "The Warmasters" is a good intro to all three of these authors, featuring short stories from their most famous settings.
H.P. Wells: Wells' works are so good, they've become part of the human collective conciousness: "The Invisible Man", "War of the Worlds", "The Time Machine". Throw in Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and Jules Verne's "10,000 Leagues under the Sea" to round out your old skool Science Fiction collection
Neil Stephenson: Almost all of his books are awesome. "Z
I've seen a few poorly moderated posts recommending Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy." I'm not sure why it's not worthy of a few points of praise - it's a truly awesome trilogy in five parts, but perhaps it's so well known that recommending it is moot. Not that most of the other, well rated recommendations aren't well known classics either, but to each his own.
Anyway, if you've already read and/or are tired of hearing about the "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy," I highly recommend Mr. Adams' unrelated yet equally (actually more so, IMHO) amusing "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and "Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul." The only problem with these books is that they're so damn short you can finish one off in a day or two if you put your mind to it.
Some other books sitting on my shelf that I enjoyed reading:
- "Nemesis" by Isaac Asimov
- "If Chins Could Kill" by the great Bruce Campbell
- Anything by Charles Dickens is good, though "A Tale Of Two Cities" is my personal favourite - this man is a master of l33t verbiage, and as a bonus his books cost next to nothing because no one has collected any royalties on them in centuries.
- "The Iliad" by Homer, one of Humanity's earliest great classics, was surprisingly good. The other well known ancient epic, Virgil's "Aeneid," turned out to be so much Daikatana; +700 years after Homer, Virgil took what Homer had done, added some of his good ideas and tired to do better, but in fact did worse (IMHO).
- Calculus 3rd Edition... err, wait...
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
He's up to about 26 right now and the last few seem to be out of print on the Amazon site. I assume that's because they suck. Proof: this quote from the Amazon.com page on Yon Ill Wind, the 19th in the series:
"Anthony incorporated about 150 suggestions from fans in Roc and a Hard Place (1995); he uses and credits another 100 here, including two major premises."
The guy couldn't even care enough to come up with his own plots! He was a contractor, for pete's sake! He's even got his books planned out, by month, on his web site! And he's got an erotic fantasy novel due out this year called (and I'm not making this up, check the site) "The Magic Fart"!!!
I rest my case.
A couple of things I might add that haven't been mentioned so far, I think:
- Norstrilia and/or the collected short stories of Cordwainer Smith (Henry Linebarger). This is an amazing writer whose stories are literally 50 years ahead of their time in so many ways. His Alpha Ralpha Boulevard has been anthologized about a bajillion times, yet most folks don't seem to have heard of him.
- The Illuminatus! Trilogy of Robert Anton Wilson. Very juvenile, silly stuff, but there's nothing quite like it out there, and it's definitely a geek read.
- The Cyberiad. Stanislaw Lem's greatest work IMHO.
There's plenty of more room, of course. If you haven't read Hofstadter's classic Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, for example, you simply must. But I think we've given enough to get started onWell, this book isn't sci-fi, but it made a facinating read.
Trainspotting by Irving Welch.
I just picked up the sequel, Porno today, and I can't wait for school to let up so I can get into it.
Must iterate in compliment to the Jack Womack. I started with Random Acts of Senseless Violence and was blown away by the slow gradual language virus development; it was as if Burroughs' word virus ideas were put into beautiful action. Elvissey, about an alternate time slippage in the 50s whereas agents from the future discover "Elvis Presley," who is actually his infantly dead twin brother. Written terribly well.
/vurt/ual world of gaming and archetypal interference. Complicated and well-encoded. Also highly recommend Nymphomation, and Pixel Juice. The Cobralingus is great for anyone interested in systems processes on language.
And then there is Jeff Noon, another Brit. His world and writing has become quite good, though often he is round on the edges, but the language angles are always challenging and inventive. Vurt will soon be made into a movie, and it's about wonderful trip drugs encoded on feathers, allowing a
And then the usual suspect Philip K. Dick. A Scanner Darkly, Valis, The Man in the High Castle, and Confessions of a Crap Artist are tremendous, as are most of his 60s-70s work.
Robert Anton Wilson tends to run well with a lot of geeks. The Illuminatus presents a wonderful summerful of reading, as well as following up with Scrodinger's Cat. Will make the mind melt for a good amount of time. His other books like Quantum Psychology, Prometheus Rising, and Reality Is What You Can Get Away With are also great reads.
And then there is my favorite author, who makes summertime and anytime worth considering and thinking about, Richard Brautigan. Take a nice summer day to read In Watermelon Sugar and watch a new reality unfold before your brain and come out with a unspecific new way of thinking about things, in a way perhaps beyond what one commonly percieves as thinking.
Great summertime music to listen to include the illustrious, instrumental Tortoise's TNT. Always sweetens the days and compliments and reading and writing and general life living.
d. Taylor Singletary
reality technician.
d. Taylor Singletary,
reality technician techra.el
It's a decalogy, and I was looking for a nice space opera epic so I gave the first book a read. It seems like the whole 10 book series is even material for one (thin) novel. So the first (fat) book is pure agony.
It's entirely about the main character packing for a trip. That's it. It's completely linear too, only narrative from the one character.
It makes me ill remembering.
While they're not strictly geek-fiction, I think the C.S. Lewis Space Trilogy is a fine, thought-provoking read somewhere near that genre.
These will set you up and knock you down:
Non-Zero Sum / Robert Wright
The New Science of Networks / Albert-László Barabási
The Killing Star / Charles Pellegrino/George Zebrowski
Everything you need to know. It's a big universe out there.... You'll remember reading these books.
Sorry I have to post this anon, but I've already used up 3 mod points on this story. Anyway, I'd highly recommend John Updike's short story collections. Not particularly geeky, but he's a damn good writer.
;)
BTW, maybe it's just me, but if you don't have time to read novels, then you might want to spend some time reprioritizing
--IndependentVik
I read Cryptonomicon in three days, you need a month to read Kevin's thin tome?
The latest Slashdot meme.
Another to consider is "The Cuckoo's Egg" by Clifford Stoll
It's an oft overlooked book by Frank Herbert of Dune fame, but it's got what I felt was a fascinating plot, and some great psychological stuff going on with the characters. I just finished re-reading it and posted a review on one of my project sites for readers/writers.t opic.php?t=66
http://wordtrip.com/phpBB2/view
You may have a tough time finding the book, but if you do I think you'll enjoy it. It's especially interesting I think to look at what he was writing back in the 80s about subjects that are still hot topics today, genetics and DNA manipulation, and biological weapons.
Charles P
wordtrip.com
i must say, even though some of the scenarios are interesting, the book reads a bit too much like a dale carnegie self-help book. there is no narrative whatsoever, just details of fictionalized phone calls. most importantly, the chapters are all structured identically. he details the scenario, then analyzes the con, then says how to prevent it. i think it is a good read for trusting americans, i.e. people who really do trust their neighbors. but, having come from the ussr, none of this is new. i always say NO to phone surveys and always go out of my way to be suspicious. i must admit that i have gotten caught doing things with my computer that could have been avoided, but that was mostly cause i was just curious what the obviously-a-trojan-or-a-virus download was. about the only thing i can away with was: large corporations are bad. i work in a small company and 95% of the things he describes could never happen because everybody knows everybody. most of his hacks presume there exists a person whose voice you might have never heard before or you do not know personally. otherwise, nothing terribly surprising...
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
The guy is a genius...at least in his earlier works. Check out Lightning, Darkfall, and The Bad Place if nothing else. While I will admit off the bat that they are not "Hacker Books", they will certainly entertain and keep you up all night!
Besides, I saw Stephen "I pump out a book every month" King mentioned and Koontz certainly ranks up there.
"This food is problematic."
I realize that there is the ability to use internal phones or hack caller id systems, but most of the phone based attacks played out in the book can be avoided with callerid, which is pretty ubiquitous these days. Its not fullproof by any means, but while reading a lot of the scenarios, I kept thinking caller id...
700+ pages
... and little wiser for the remainder of the book.
tears apart our notions of causality with irregular outbursts of chemistry, mathematics, physics and psychology.
you have no idea what's happening for the first 50 pages...
A great author of Non-Geek oriented books that no one seems to mention is George Peleconos its good gritty fiction thats just great. I got hooked on his wriring a few years ago, none of his books have dissapointed me yet.
Also, if you're not well acquinted with the works of the good Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, I recommend that you get to know him as soon as possible. Very good stuff. Plus after reading some of his writing you must check out the Doonsbury collection of the Uncle Duke strips to see Trudeau's take on Thompson, plus the doonsbury collection comes with a Hunter Thompson action figure, whats more geek thatn that, An Action Figure! with interchangable martini glass and chainsaw!
Words are only yours until someone else uses them...
By Neil Gaiman. I have only read 60 pages so far, but it seems to be damned good.
All his novels are exceptional. He is pioneer of the "historical fantasy" micro-genre. Song for Arbonne, Tigana, and especially The Lions of Al-Rassan are incredible. His earlier trilogy, The Fionvar Tapestry is less impressive, but still enjoyable. Most recently he put out a duology - The Sarantine Mosaic which is loosely based on Byzantium - is on par with his best works. I will also add another vote for George RR Martin. Brutal, in your face fantasy that reads more like historical fiction. Great plot twists and character development. On the subject of historical fiction, I would highly recommend Dorothy Dunnet's Lymond Chronicles, which detail the exploits of the fictional scoundrel Lymond in medieval Scotland. Lymond is a sort of Han Solo/Robin Hood/Lancelot hybrid. Finally I would recommend some of Robert Heinlein's more obscure stuff. The collection of short stories, The Green Hills of Earth has some great material. Especially the title story. That could make an incredible movie given the right people. Also I enjoyed I Will Fear No Evil more than I did his acclaimed Stranger In A Strange Land.
____
to asdf and beyond!!
nuff said
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005
Errm. They're called "sequels", not "postquels". At least, they'd better be...
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I'm almost shocked that noone (at least with score >= 3) has suggested Peter F. Hamiltons Night's Dawn trilogy:
- The Reality Dysfunction
- The Neutronium Alchemins
- The Naked God
This is a must-read for every scifi loving person.
Sometimes reality is more amazing than fiction.
The Dragonlance Series is Deffinately worth the time, it may encompas your entire break period in a wonderfully thought out, and written, set of novels.
Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman should be saluted for this one.
I am considering very seriously reading the series again.
I have read Tolkien 3 times and in my oppinion Dragonlance is better. Would Love to see it on the silver screen, if as much attention to detail is observed as in LOTR movies (ahem, very good but lacking(Tom Bombadil... (Wrights......)).
In retrospect, I doubt if Hollywood could capture Dragonlance (even close to in essence) on screen no matter how hard they tried, even if they had unlimited funds to do so.
There are only 10 kinds of people, thoes who understand Binary and thoes who don't.
Lemidan
I have read massive amounts of sci-fi and fantasy over the years. I stopped reading much several years ago, because it all started to seem the same to me. (See Robert Jordan and all the other LOtR imitators) So I was very pleased to discover several writers who are not just imitating what has sold well for others. These were originally recommended to me by the owner of Dark Carnival, here in Berkeley.
'Altered Carbon' by Richard K Morgan. Sci-Fi.
A hard-boiled detective novel (think Phillip Marlowe) set in a future in which people can switch bodies. You can live and die, over and over. Fast-paced, and with some dynamite political asides thrown in. Best since Snowcrash.
'Across the Nightingale Floor' Fantasy.
Set in medieval Japan. A young man with high-level Ninja skills has to choose between his heart and the various demands of society. Lyrical and amazingly well-written. First of a trilogy.
'Sabriel', 'Lirael' and 'Abhorsen' by Garth Nix. Fantasy.
Set in a world literally divided into Science and Magic by a Wall. Follows the lives of a family of 'Abhorsens' whose job is to keep the Dead from returning to the world of the living. Evocative, well-drawn world and characters.
'The Golden Compass', The Subtle Knife' and 'The Amber Spyglass' by Phillip Pullman. Fantasy.
Lately this has been marketed as a 'Young Adult' series. Don't be put off by that. I've been re-reading this after my first time throught the series a couple of years ago.
Things that you do not expect keep happening. A sense of wonder that I haven't felt in years. Like being a kid again.
Engines of Creation, and Atlas Shrugged. I leave it to you whether those qualify as scifi-hacker books.
So, I figured I might as well go back and do a trifecta:
- The Prince
- Discourses on Livy
- Art of War
I figured I'd also try and do Clausewitz's On War; Cicero, Everitt's biography of the Roman; and since I was reading Machiavelli, I figure I might as well read Leo Strauss' book about him.Read anything by Phillip K. Dick, esp. the Valis Trilogy.
Well, looks like the market's cornered on the Dunes, Enders, Stephensons, Hyperions and Hitchhikers (must-reads, but also entries into *very* long series that will dominate your reading until you're done with them).
/. 101 summer reading, and they're all really fast reads.
;-) I actually forced myself to read it in small chunks instead of in one sitting because I enjoyed it so much and didn't want it to end.
Anything early and non-biographical by Vonnegut is a good choice. He's written about 12 autobiographies at last count, and paying to get the same stories about his life over and over again gets a bit tedious. That said, Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle just can't be beat.
In our current socio-political situation, there's quite a few books that are more than a little relevant: 1984, Brave New World, Catch-22...
So the books above plus Ringworld give you
An idea: why not branch out a bit? it pays to have some knowledge of other cultures and non-tech related things. Get a little more well-rounded!
James Clavell's Asian Saga is amazing (they were derided as mass-market page turners back in the day -- maybe correct, but the man can tell a great story). They work better if you read them in chronological order by when the story is set (ie, start with Shogun, then Tai-Pan) instead of the order they were released in. They're hella page turners, and I'd have to say that 4 of the 6 in the series were amazing... passing on Whirlwind and Gaijin wouldn't hurt you much -- if you can even find Whirlwind -- it's been out of print a long time. Added bonus: you'll be able to speak a bit of pidgin Japanese by the end of the first two.
Considered brushing up on some Shakespeare? Most people loathe it because they're introduced in a rather hostile environment in school. Check out Macbeth or Othello. Awesome insight into human nature.
My fiancee introduced me to Paul Auster's books. Breathtaking writing.
Driving Mr. Albert (Michael Paternini) is a travelogue detailing a cross-country trip with Einstein's brain in his trunk. Amazing stuff that goes in the truth is stranger than fiction file.
My personal favorite book that I've read in a year or so, I gave to my fiancee as a gift -- Balzac and the little Chinese Seamstress. It's set during the chinese cultural revolution and is a modern-day fable. Simple, sweet, and a hell of a punch line at the end
If none of these float your boat, get your hands on a banned book list.
I'm not saying that everything on it is worth reading - but words put together in such a fashion that they can create public outcry deserve a look, at least while our first amendment is still in effect.
...isn't necessarily a novel. I'm going to pick up a few books to read over the summer today, and one of the things I'm hoping to find is a collection of short stories by Philip K. Dick. Good short stories are a very hard skill that I believe SF writers have really mastered (after all, that's how the genre started!), and reading several short stories by an author can often be an enlightening experience.
:-P
/. covered a while ago. There are plenty of good non-fiction books that cover the likely future and are a definitely worthwhile read.
And as far as "good SF hacker/geek" is concerned, I'm not the only one, but check out William Gibson's books that you haven't read. I hear his latest one is good, but if you haven't read it Idoru is a must read.
Also, though it's neither of those things (except "good" which it is very very), I think novels by Chuck Palahniuk would definitely appeal to the kind of people most geeks or hackers have. If you haven't read Fight Club, read it, and if you have, read the sequel, and if you have, I don't have to tell you how good he is.
And as far as non-novels are concerned, there's also non-fiction which can also somehow fit in the "good SF geek/hacker" book. I'm thinking of things alogn the lines of The Space Elevator that
The Lives of Dax
Millenium (Three books)
Avatar (Two books)
Section 31: Abyss
Gateways #4: Demons of Air and Darkness
Gateways #7: Horn and Ivory
Mission: Gamma (Four books)
Rising Son
The Left Hand of Destiny (Two books)
Unity
Deep reading it isn't, but it's a pleasant diversion from the heavier stuff ("The Life and Death of Planet Earth", "Nietzsche's Mirror", and the hit new thriller "IAU Colloquium 176: The Impact of Large-Scale Surveys on Pulsating Star Research").
Microsoft delenda est!
Steven Levy "Crypto" a brief history of public key encryption or "Body of secrets" by James Bamford (NSA history since WWII)
AC
The oldest known 'long text' originated in the third millennium B.C.! got written down for the first time around 700 B.C. Of course, this is in fact a bit of a strange thing to read: extremely repetitive (echoes of the oral tradition), of extremely old fashioned, missing pieces... BUTBUTBUT it gives you a kick, knowing you're reading sumting REALLY ancient, even the big flood, from the O.T. is originally described in this text. Also, a bit of the mother of all fantasy novels, i guess.... Not your average book, sure, but a really interesting read...
If you liked snowcrash and you like maths and computers you have to read Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson). It even has some dodgy perl script in it although corrections have been posted at Neal's web site.
Otherwise there a whole CD or more worth of free sci fi, so you can get a taste of what authors you like here
http://www.baen.com/library/
I really like Lois McMaster Bujold - her "Vorkorsican" novels start with "Cordelia's Honor" which is really two novels published together ("Shards of Honor" and "Barrayar"). Epic like Starwars with much more attention to detail (are you ever annoyed when a novel fails to complete an idea, and leaves some character hanging, or contradicts its universe rules in every new release?).
And I like David Weber - "On basilisk Station" and I just finished CS Friedman "The alien shore" which I liked. Most of these involve space travel. "The alien shore" involved spaceships and social structures and computer gadgets.
David Weber was very military, as is Lois McMaster Bujold, and I don't like strict hierachies but I like these books. I like Elizabeth Moon's "Hunting Party", about Heris Serrano, again in a very hierachical society. I guess I like the breaking the rules bit that most of these use to create the drama.
David Brin - "Earth" is an epic plot weaver, the ultimate internet, combined with some interesting physics, maths and enviromental outcomes. I needed 6 bookmarks to read that one.
I hated Robert Jordan Wheel of time series because he never finishes, there are dangling ideas everywhere and it looks like every book just spawns more threads without completion. Very frustrating. I also disliked CJ Cherryh "The Chronicles of Morgaine" because it was a little bit Arthurian legend (I am sick to death of Arthur), but if you want to know where the "Stargates" come from, then it is interesting.
"A deepness in the sky" by Vernor Vinge is another great epic. It is sort of a prequel to A fire upon the deep (1993), and covers 1000's of years of time, space travel, aliens and humans, traders and religious fundamentalist dictatorships. And interestingly explores the consequences of dependence on computer systems and human augmentation with biotech.
I also like Julian May, Golden Torc series; Anne Macaffery, Mercedes Lackey (although they're a little girly-princess). Terry Goodkind is good but a little too much s&m for me. And for good detective crime fighting, I like Dick Francis, so far as I know he wrote only one computer related story "Twice Shy" and it is quite historical now ie it used cassette tapes to load the programs.
For cultural completeness, if you haven't already read these, you must read Tolkein ("Hobbit", "Lord of the Rings" etc), and Douglas Adams "Hitchikers guide to the galaxy" series.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
I would recommend the collected short stories of Ray Bradbury and the Foundation series and Robot series by Azimov. Ray Bradbury can have the hair on the back of your neck standing on end in a few pages - an effect rarely produced even by some of the longest and most powerful Novels. Azimov's work is from a different era - the "big fins" 50's view of the future alluded to in Gibson's short story "Gernsback Continuum". If that doesn't satisfy you, be sure to tackle some of the best stuff ever written in the English language: The original Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewiss Carol. So well written that when you put it down, you really feel like you're waking from a twisted dream. The seven Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis also never fail to stimulate the mind. You can't help but almost feel the stuffy old Victorian English attic or closet melt into the wild, adventure-filled, otherworld that is Narnia.
Whatever you do, don't do yourself the disservice of planning to read "A Book" during the summer! At that rate you'll be long dead before you get to the good stuff! Read a few!
I remember my (then-girl-)friend saying, ;-)
on the very OTHER side of Atlantic: "So,
you claim you do not like Fantasy? Well,
read this book..." --- and the next thing
I knew was me trying to bend the reality
of a neighbourhood street-corner cart to
carry the beer that I liked...
Just that you asked...
Paul B.
This
is a very good read (and feel free to show your sexual insecurity by making fun of the fact that it's a Oprah's Book Club selection). seriously, one of my favorites
well, it's nothing one behind the ear wouldn't cure
Harry Turtledove's Darkness series is a story about a war, very similar to World War II, but set in a usual fantasy world of magic, dragons, etc.
It's a very good read. Character development is excellent, though there are so many characters it's a bit hard to keep track of, at first. However, once you're in to it, you begin to know them intimately.
The Darkness series is a damn good read for anyone that likes good fantasy.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Then stop asking what "people like" and go to a library or bookstore to find out for yourself. Letting the lowest common denominator determine your reading habits doesn't seem the way to go about it, IMHO.
Oooh! Oooh! Yeah! how did I forget Gaiman?
Everything that's come out of Neil Gaiman's pen is freakin' awesome. I haven't read all of Sandman, but his novels are really imaginative and evocative. I loved his children's book, Coraline.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Loved the book, loved the movie.
Had the nicest moral to the story as well: "Be careful what you pretend to be, because that is what you become" (IIRC).
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
With > 700 posts, who knows if anyone will see this...
I *must* recommend China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station" (and the sort-of sequel "The Scar"). His novels have amazingly rich texture, setting and characters are vivid and life-like. An excellent balance of description and plot, I found myself completely immersed as New Crobuzon came alive around me. While it would probably be found in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section, it's hardly the standard techo-thriller/D&D work you might expect. Perhaps the closest example I can give is Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" - another book I heartily recommend. In fact, you should probably read everything Gaiman has written - from "Good Omens" (with Terry Pratchett) to his Sandman series of graphic novels.
-User
Emacs is for experts. Pico is for beginners. VI is a disease.
Iain M Banks is probably not counted as hard-scifi author but his books are thought-provoking and entertaining as hell (I even recommend you to take a look at his non-scifi books, published under the name Iain Banks, some real gems there too). Try The Player of the Games, Use of Weapons or State of the Art which is a excellent collection of short stories. Cheers, Tero
Try reading the book "Why a university degree will help you get where you want in life." I forget who the author is.
/., you might want to consider further study. If you are taking a break for a year, that's ok. Experience is good, but a degree and experience is better. Goodluck binaryhead.
If you enjoying reading, and read
I can't believe nobody mentioned Zelazny (at least in the 5mods), which is all I read on this sites' comments.. heh
The guy didn't win multiple nebula and hugo awards for nothing. He has some of the most original and interesting ideas that I've read and my god can the guy suck you in quickly.
So for his sci-fi stuff read "The isle of the dead", "To die in Italbar", "Damnation alley" -- also a movie made in the 70's. His Amber series is pretty famous and extremely excellent in my opinion, it's kind of a blend of sci-fi & fantasy, a bit heavier on the fantasy.
Anyway, if you like Gibson you'll love Zelazny.
-- "Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit." -Henry B. Adams
If you like fantasy (and even if you don't), George R R Martin's triology A Song of Fire and Ice is a fantastic choice. Currently the three books are about 800-1000 pages each but if you have a month to spare reading this series would make you a very happy camper.
Sci-fi: "Altered Carbon," by Richard K. Morgan. Big, but excellent. A truly new set of sci-fi ideas. It's his first book and it's already gonna be a movie (which usually bodes ill for a book, but not in this case).
Not sci-fi: Try "Dubliners" or "Ulysses" by James Joyce. If you really wanna unhinge your mind, try "Finnegan's Wake."
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV.
The eye in the triangle; an interpretation of Aleister Crowley
by Israel Regardie
-Very interesting look at his early years when he developed his 'style of magic'. Story by his defunct star student, Regardie.
Futureland
by Walter Mosley
-An amazingly fresh cyberpunk book! Superb series of short stories linked together.
Evasion
by the Crimethink Collective.
-Sort of a post-modern Tom Sawyer story about hopping trains, living without a job, and shoplifting to survive. Come be useful info if Bush is re-elected!
The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
-A cool motivational/Zen book that has a big positive impact on most folks who read it.
There is no better preparation for corporate life than going there, knowing what it's all about that fscked our culture up so badly (and I'm on about the global taker culture, not our "precious" east vs. west subdivisions and so on).
Enjoy & good luck with your new job!
Uwe
Ever wondered whats wrong with the world? http://www.ishmael.org/
The Illistrated Man by Ray Bradbury is a great collection of interesting short stories. Its a sci-fi book about the future but it has some really interesting ideas and concepts in in.
Also, reading it now is an opportunity to be nostalgic about that Internet Boom Thing that was so many quarters ago....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Just graduated from compsci???
"A Fire Upon the Deep" is one of my favorite books but there's a reason it shared the Hugo Award with Connie Willis' "Doomsday Book". You might want to check out her writings too.
I can tell you the meaning of life,
but you have to promise not to laugh.
I recommend Foundation by Isaac Asimov. A tale of science, religion, human survival and prediction.
While sci-fi, fantasy, tech books, etc... are fun to read, it's important to read about other things as well. You may spark interest in things that might never have crossed your path, or gain insight into your life and the world you live in. there's alot to gain from a book - more than what's on the page. The following books cover a breadth of subjects: music, art, philosophy, the mind, mathematics, society, history - not as individual topics, but instead linked together in ways that aren't very obvious. That alone would make you think some more, and the more fuel you have for that, the better off you'll be.
</lecture>
Gödel, Escher, Bach (Douglas R. Hofstadtler)
Take multi-level music (bach), recursive art (escher), and incomplete systems (gödel), string it together along the lines of reasoning, logic, computer science, and a good story and you'll eventually end up talking about Artificial Intelligence. Not a 'light' read, but challenging and satisfying in all it covers.
Gravity's Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon)
I just like this book a lot. There's quite a few different themes running independantly, touching every now and then, eventually converging. The most top-level theme is the search for an officer who is distantly related (in every sense of the word) to the German V2 rocket bomb. it's funny and has a lot going on in it. Pynchon's writing takes a bit to get used to, but it's worth the effort.
The Mind Within the Net (Manfriend Spitzer)
An intro to neural networks and how they are used to test theories on the biological functions of the brain.
Synaptic Self (Joseph LeDoux)
This book begins with the brain's biochem/electric functions. As it progresses, you'll find it parallels Spitzer's book from a biological perspective - alot of the technical aspects presented by Spitzer (i.e. modules, networks, systems) are realized in terms of physical biology.
The Metaphysical Club (Louis Menand)
Basically a history of the most prominent ideals in our society. It's interesting reading, and, considering most of the players date to the Civil War, surprisingly relevant in today's society.
Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
This is a fun book to read, good story. There's also quite a bit going on, but i've only read it once so i can't really give a revealing opinion of it.
Great read in short story style. Yeah, it's a programming book but the lessons are applicable elsewhere.
I don't agree with "dry and uninteresting", but Miles Teg getting his in book 5 (Heretics of Dune, I believe) is one of my all-time favorite sections in any book. As well, the book is as much about the fact that the development of the humans centers upon *awareness* is in itself worth the wordage, IMO.
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
You can pick Lovecraft's hack work out at 20 paces, and frankly, most of his later stuff was just reworked earlier stories.
However, if somewhat repetitive, there are definitely better stories in the mix.
His pantheon tended to have 3 main regions:
1. Main Cthulhu stories -- the straight mojo w/ the big boys
2. Secondary Cthulhu stories -- man vs the peripheral monsters. I think 'Pickman's Model' is the best of those.
3. The dreamlands stories -- I think he was into drug usage when he did these, but it's hard to tell. This is the only realm of Lovecraft where man isn't hopelessly doomed.
BTW -- the novella 'At the Mountains of Madness' lays the entire mythology out pretty well.
We're 106 leagues from Ankh-Morpork....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I've become a big fan of David Brin fairly recently. For a standalone book, I'd recommend "Earth" which has some pretty interesting insights into ecology, privacy and the impact of technology on human culture.
;)
If you're willing to risk getting sucked into a big series, then I'd start out the "Uplift" series of books with "Sundiver". It also works well on its own, but you'll probably be compelled to read the rest if you like it.
Someone whose speculations head off in entirely different realms is my personal favorite: Philip K. Dick. A lot of his stuff kind of requires that you have a basic understanding of how his writing operates but some that are accessable to a first-timer, assuming you are one, include "Time Out of Joint", "Ubik", and "A Scanner Darkly". Set and written in the 50's, 60's, and 70's respectively, each provides a good insight into his style as it evolved. An added bonus of TOOJ is that it is the book that exposes "The Truman Show" as the blatant second-rate rip-off that it is, not that I'm holding a grudge over it.
I don't recommend "Valis" for a beginner as it really requires too much background knowledge of Dick's life to make a lot of sense out of it. But if you're willing to be confused, it's a book that can be plumbed over and over again for insight.
Yup, definitely grittier. My basic summary of it is "lots of swords, not much sorcery", and in the (third?) book he credits so-and-so "who made me put in the dragons" which are involved with most of the sorcery side (and really end up more as an excuse to have a couple of characters who hang around locations and cultures that are different from most of the book, which is good for balance and variety.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's a new one, and it's not exactly SF -- but it's not exactly not SF either -- but Lucky Wander Boy by D.B. Weiss really did it for me. It's about a guy's quest for this surreal, rare, and possibly supernatural videogame called Lucky Wander Boy. Funnier than hell, and well worth checking out.
Careful, goatse link
David Brin is a brilliant author, especially with his Uplift books. Read the Uplift War and the three or four or so books (lost count, I've read them so many times, I forgot how many there were.) I mean like.. wow.
Reductio Ad Adsurdium David
"The Crying of Lot 49" was good, and also short - it's a fast read. And you'll start to understand why occasional email systems are named "Trystero" :-) Vineland is also pretty accessible. On the other hand, I made several attempts at reading "Gravity's Rainbow" and just never clicked with it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Gormenghast Trilogy
Quite a few people consider it the best science fiction or fantasy trilogy ever. Myself included.
You have to give it sixty pages to get used to Peake's style, but if you do, you are going to read something you'll probably remember forever. A strange experience to read, and difficult to forget.
No kidding...
LWH-
Windup Bird Chronicles -- Haruki Murukami
Stations of the Tide -- Michael Swanwick
Once and Future King -- TH White
Excession -- Iain Banks
Hyperion -- Dan Simmons
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire -- Gibbon
A Scanner Darkly -- Phillip Dick
The Razor's Edge -- Somerset Maugham
Our Man in Havana -- Graham Greene
Different Seasons -- Steven King
Camp Concentration -- Thomas Disch
An Instance of the Fingerpost -- Iain Pears
Geek Love -- Katherine Dunn
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest -- Ken Kesey
Sure, back in the dark ages, Michael Moorcock did the Elric fantasies, with a moody swordsman with a really nasty haunted sword, and did the "Dancers At the End Of Time" series which was much more interesting, and the didn't work-for-me mixture of the two in "Elric at the end of time". But he's also done some non-fantasy stuff set in the current time with modern human beings, such as King of the City, which is a totally different kind of thing and worth reading.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
No one suggested Hitchikers guide to the galaxy (a trilogy iun 5 parts) yet!!??
We've always been at war with Eurasia.
You can't read Lord of the Rings too many times. Get yourself in peak condition for the release of The Return of the King.
But if you want it all to fall into place read Vurt, Pollen and Automated Alice (in that order) for that moment of clarity.
Vurt and Pollen are set in a parallell manchester where they use feathers to access another paralell universe - too wierd to explain, just read.
Naturally gibson is the obvious choice, but since the Matrix, everybody luvs Gibson - I recommend the Difference Engine for pure originlity
Anothe tip is the sword and sourcery title 'monument' (out soon - UK) for the ultimate drunken bastard antihero.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
Every time somebody tells me that I "have to" read the Discworld books, I postpone doing so for another six months, just out of spite. Maybe I'm just hurting myself, but I've got plenty of reading material. As it stands, I don't intend to read anything Discworld until 2009.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
David Brashears's book High Exposure is partly about that year, and partly about his experiences as a climber in general. He led the IMAX film-making expedition that was on Everest that year.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Just go to CharlieRose.com, and click on whatever book he's hyping. People will instantly think you're smart.
Holy crap, my trailer park friend, you read a lot of crap. I mean, here is Elrond Hubbard's (the father of Scientology) pile of dung, which you rated nine out of ten.
To each his own, I guess, but I would advise the recent graduate to pass over this list you're graciously offering.
... is a great book about the development of modern physics.
It isn't too light like most "pop-physics" books; it includes enough technical depth to keep scientists interested, but the technical depth can also be ignored without destroying the flow and substance of the book. It does a great job telling the story of how all the seemingly bizarre weirdness that is modern physics was discovered.
He also wrote bios of Einstein and Bohr.
I liked Pattern Recognition, and found out a week ago that William Gibson has a web site; there's a (good) blog and a discussion list. http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/index.asp
"Oh, the tragedy of math gone wrong. I can't even talk about it." -Wil Wheaton http://www.wilwheaton.net
The theme of classical literature is seldom hacker/geek, but they are value to anybody with a mind to read them. They're the originals from which todays hackneyed archetypes are spawned. Read The Iliad and The Oddysey (I'm particularly found of Rouse's plain English translation). Read War and Peace, as other posters have suggested. I, myself, am having a summer of Ayn Rand (but as quick as Anthem went by, I might have to find something else to liven this summer). The Divine Comedy is pretty good - at least Inferno and Purgatorio are. Paradiso is a bore. Anything by Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Grey, Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband) is solid gold. If you're a stoic, try Thomas Hardy. If you prefer contemporary literature, try Catch 22.
If you're truly inclined to be geeky, may I suggest the trilogy, "His Dark Materials" (starting with The Golden Compass) by Philip Pullman. The Earthsea Trilogy (starting with A Wizard of Earthsea) by Ursula Leguin is a personal favourite. If you can find the Saga of Pliocene Exile (a four-book series, starting with The Many Coloured Land) by Julian May, it's a very good read (out of print, though; hard to find).
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
On the other hand, that's ok if it's done well and you're not expecting more of it, and Feist's books really were done well. He's telling a bunch of stories, and telling them well, does an OK job with his characters and the worlds he sets them in and does a good job with the pacing, and does a good enough job of tying the books together. If you're going for basic summer read rather than a deeper literary experience, try the first one or two and see if you want to pick up the rest. It's read-it-once stuff, but it holds up well enough for that.
I'd recommend Steven Brust's books instead, or Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books if they work for you. For Brust, you REALLY REALLY need to start them with "Jhereg", and after that the order's less critical, except that you need to read Athyra before Orca, and The Phoenix Guards before Five Hundred Years After before The Viscount of Adrilankha.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
But, ummm, how shall I say this, the Gap series sucked rocks. Yes, fine, somebody has to take the Ring of the Niebelungen and do something deeper than Tom Holt's lightweight cheerful "Expecting Someone Taller", like transforming it into Space Opera, but for me, this one just failed badly, and the last book or two of it I bought in unfulfilled hopes that he'd finally get somewhere worthwhile with it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
With all the hype of Matrix Reloaded (and specifically the Second Renaissance animatrix shorts), I wanted to get a real-world perspective on the possibility of human intelligence in machines.
It's written by Ray Kurzweil and covers his prediction that we will have human-level intelligence in machines by 2020 and the implications of that prediction. I'm a bit more than halfway through this right now and it's a *great* read.
War and Peace epic, and therefore long, but uses a cool sardonic writing style. Also has a neat theory about the history.
Some of his short works are even better.
Best part: it's all on Gutenberg.
Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead.
First, the parts of the book that I flipped through when I first opened the package and took it out were either A) So self-congratulatory of Wolfram's "discoveries" so as to be annoying or B) Details of simple experiments with Cellular Automata conducted in Mathematica. You might have seen Commodore BASIC source code for similar experiments in Compute! magazine in 1982. Okay, maybe not, but you get my point. Even with those points against it, Wolfram appeared to make some interesting conclusions, so I decided to attempt it.
Which brings me to point the second: When I sat down and started to read the book, the lengthy copyright notice caught my eye. Lucky for me it did. Rather than go off on a rant, I'll let the copyright statement speak for itself:
I read no further than the end of the copyright statement and haven't opened the book since except for the purpose of this post.
Perhaps people might think it unreasonable, but I have to take issue with a book claiming to deliver A New Kind of Science in which all the science appears to be held under lock and key. Where the hell would we be if Newton, et al. patented calculus, or Knuth patented algorithmic analysis?
So all I can offer is my completely uninformed opinion based solely on my layman's interpetation of the copyright statement: Stop before you infect your mind with Wolfram's IP.
First Of all Part I and Part II And PartIII And Finally Newest Trailer
By Alastair Reynolds http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/authors/Alastair _Reynolds.htm
Less "hard" SF to consider - The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester, Nova by Samuel R. Delany. Maybe even Peter F. Hamilton (start with The Reality Dysfunction), if you liked Stephenson.
Try Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny, one of the best New Wave sci-fi authors. The language of book is delicious, and the mix of Hindu/Buddhist philosophy with technology and one man anti-authoritarian struggle is very thought-provoking.
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
Hard SF at its best: Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. Wellt thought out, and gripping (wel maybe sometimes he does go a little bit overboard when describing Mars) Dan Simmons: Hyperion/The Fall of Hyperion Everything by William Gibson ;)
Yes.
anything by greg egan won't disappoint! permutation city is a fairly good intro to his works i think. diaspora is mind blowing.
Peter G. Tsouras has written and edited several excellent books and collection:
Rising Sun Victorious The Alternate History of How the Japanese Won the Pacific War
Cold War Hot Alternative Decisions of the Third World War
Disaster at D-Day The Germans Defeat the Allies, June 1944
Third Reich Victorious: The Alternate History of How the Germans Won the War
Gettysburg: An Alternate History
Tierce
Who sponsors your feelings?
It may not, in your opinion, be as good as his other books, but it is the only one of his I've read, so far.
I am looking forward to reading his other books.
Things I liked about it
1) Intelligent. Not scared of hard things
2) Funny sense of humour. eg the breakfast cereal thing
3) Way out there storyline, combined with nitty gritty details (similar to Miss Schmilla's Feeling for Snow)
4) nerdiness. The nerd-as-protagonist (if not hero) appeals to my inner nerd.
Still 'non degustebum' and all that...
Absolutely definitely Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. If that' s not enough for you, try the mountains of madness and the case of charles dexter ward by lovecraft
I'm assuming you're going into the IT industry, probably already sat a load of IT exams, probably spend a lot of time in front of your PC ?? I know that describes me pretty damn well, and its books from non-tech perspectives which keep me 'connected' to the real world... There's a sh!t-load more to life than computers. Now's your chance to find out about some of it... Try reading the following instead: Love in the Time of Cholera (G.Garcia-Marquez), Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera), Romeo + Juliet (W.Shakespeare), High Fidelity (N.Hornby), Prozac Nation (E.Wurtzel), Roots (A. Haley), Berlin (R. Jenkins) Good luck - hope you read something which changes you forever. isdfnmo
quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
I'm surprised no-one's mentioned this yet, but there's an excellent node at Everything2 with books liable to give you a mind-job:
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=10161It's got Iain Banks, Henlein, Stephen King, and loads of good authors.
MikeJ
Mikesroom.org
In a break from his norm, Jeffrey Deaver released a book called The Blue Nowhere, about a hacker that's killing people using social engineering tactics, and a team that have to track him down.
It's very well written - I've read it a couple of times now.
Here is a short summary and an excerpt from the first chapter.
The Road Ahead it's a must read.
Superb, excellent, this book really captures the mind. Gates shows how intelligent he is with some of his predictions, which will make our lives easier and safer. May of his predictions are suddenly creeping into the market place.In the book Gates describes how technology has advanced, and of course how he thinks it will further advance. He explains things simply and clearly. The beggining of the book is not to great, but the rest of the book is excellent. As gates says at the beggining of the book, ' anyone who is expecting a biography of Bill Gates has choosen the wrong book'.This is true, Gates is simply acting as a philiosopher in the technological world
3 books set in a "near future" UK changed by the effects of global warming and economic distuption. SciFi thrillers with an interesting background and good characterisations.
I enjoyed all three. His other work is good too but this trilogy seems closer to a straightforward summer read. Or if you're really quick, a straightforward weekend read...
"we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
I've only just read "The Forever War", a very powerful book.
I'd recommend Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey series (there are 20 of them) as a change of pace. Life in the Royal Navy around 1800.
If you do feel inclined to read them start with "Desolation Island" or "The Post Captain", to get the flavour, as the first in the series, "Master and Commander" is not immedately gripping.
Are You Experienced by William Sutcliffe is incredibly readable - very much a sit down and don't move until it's finished job. Very funny and perfect for staying home after college. Fight Club is possibly the best film adaption of a book I've come across and it's arguable that you could do without reading it after seeing the film. However, I just found that I immersed myself in the book all the more because of the film and the impact was equally massive. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is another great film adaption. However, reading the book, you get much more about the humour and the influences of the time. Seriously seriously good. Also, anything by Ian (M) Banks is top quality and of interest to a slashdotter. Finally, Zen and the of Art Motorcycle Maintenance is fantastic (takes a while to read) and The Prophet by Kahil Gibran is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read (takes no time to read) - great soul food.
Read all the Jeff Noon you can get. Some of his recent books are hard to get stateside, but definatly worth the search (amazon.co.uk?). I'd read Vurt, Pollen, then Pixel Juice. Kinda like psychodelic cyberpunk with feathers. Must be my favorite obscure author. Falling Out of Cars is also good, but impossible to find. Americans have no taste (being an american I am offended by my own statement!)
Right now I am reading a very good book, called Six Degrees, by Duncan Watts, its about the science of networks, from a semi-sociological POV, very good.
Another good book is The End of the American Era, by someone or another. Don't have it in front of me because I'm moving. Very good polisci book. Or Jihad vs. McWorld, by someone else located in a cardboard box right now, also good reading.
Or you could just go for the classics, read some philosophy. Kant, Kierkriegard, Nietzsche, Plato.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
One spare month and you want to read one book?
Make book reading part of your life - really it's not too late. There's no reason to wait until you have spare time before reading - read as much as you can. A spare month is enough time to leisurely read 10+ books (depending on length...) and expanding your interests outside sci-fi/hacker would expand your mind more too...
My recommendation? I've bought 'The Art of Travel' by Alain De Botton for a few friends http://www.alaindebotton.com/ . It's a fantastic book, bringing philosophy to daily life. This book will get you into philiosophy and travel... both great things to expand your mind.
I second the Orwell recommendation. But I'd also like to throw in Haruki Murakami. I don't know the english titles, but all his books are good. Especially for summer reads, because they somehow create this feeling of a lightness of being, while at the same time being deeply touching.
I think my favourite so far is called 'Norwegian Wood' in english. Perhaps for the seriously geek inclined, "A Wild Sheep Chase" would be more appealing, as it has fantasy elements of sorts (I called them surreal at the time, though).
Read some Thomas Pynchon, Like The Crying of Lot 49, one of the best multi-layered conspiracy novellas out there. Gravity's Rainbow is also a very good, albeit confusing, novel.
In the same line you can read The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Shea, and R.A.W., like taking drugs but cheaper. Kinda makes you think about Rummy too, him and that damn Pentagon, IA! Azathoth!.
Bringing me to Lovecraft, good books, great appeal. Much bad pulp, at its best.
Or you can do what I did my last summer, read ALL of the Dune books, by Herbert and his son. I mean EVERYONE of them, in order. He really is the best scifi author out there, the scifi analouge to Tolkein.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Check out Vurt by Jeff Noon. It won the 1994 Arthur C. Clarke award, and is a cyberpunk tale that reveals a dark England a few years from now. It rocks. For non sci-fi I would really check out Sap Rising by another English author, AA Gill. The first line is "If you were a pidgeon, you could f**k forty times a day". Funny and sharp, it has moments of extreme debauchery tempered by glimpses of soaring beauty. The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula LeGuin is a good pure fantasy read too.
coldcity
code, life, art
I just finished reading The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham. Excellent.
The old authors are the best in my opinion because they wrote before Sci Fi became so popular and took their subject seriously and weren't in it just to make a fast buck. That's why Tolkein and HG Wells are so much better that the mass of authors that have jumped on the gravy train in the last two decades.
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter will blow your mind.
Most of the books I'd recommend have already been mentioned, but I'd like to add a 'second' to...
Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman - Richard Feynman
Microserfs - Douglas Coupland
Crytonomicon - Neil Stephenson
Cuckoo's Nest - Clifford Stoll
Hitchiker's Guide Triology - Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams
Over the past few years I've really gotten into the novels of Patrick O'Brian. They are stories of the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. I've always thought it was a lot like Jane Austen with ships, cannon and spies.
With 20 books in his Aubrey-Maturin series, it incredibly manages to maintain a high standard of writing and storytelling to the very end.
O'Brian earns his geek-cred - albeit a 19th century geek-cred - by thoroughly understanding the ins and outs of naval technology of the day.
It's great, engaging stuff and I can't recommend it enough. After two years of patronizingly calling them my "little sailboat books", my wife started paging through one and was instantly hooked. Two months later, she's on the 7th book!
Buy "Master and Commander" and you won't be disappointed.
I really enojoyed it
I've just finished reading Walden, by H D Thoreau, from the Gutenberg e-text. Its basically a story of a man who goes and lives in a shack in the woods for a few years. The irony of reading this on a digital computing device did hit me...
Yet another recommendation for The Crying of Lot 49
The best read is a womans pussy but you fat fucks will never find out, get outside and party
It's not sci fi, but it's a ****ing good read....
http://www.ercb.com/brief/brief.0059.html
Nevrar
That has to be one of my all time favourites. Having read all 6 books, they do go a bit crazy towards the end but the first one is a definate read.
Also for a little philosophy check out the Tao of Pooh. Explains a chinese philosophy for Life throught Pooh and Piglet. Really good.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
I'm always eager to read posts about rand and her work, looking for something that inteligently represents her ideas, but over the years I've noticed a lack of pro objectivist posts. Being an objectivist myself I understand that most people don't understand and don't care to understand the concepts of objectivism, but where are the few to come to it's defence when it's misrepresented? I get why responces to "Rand Sucks!!!" posts are not really worth our time, but some people post specific attacks which are easily countered by anyone with any objectivist knowledge. One thing she said was that it's not our jobs to go out try to convert people, but it is our jobs to stand up for ourselves and defend our ideas, and at the least let it be known that we disagree.
> Jack Vance's _Dying Earth_ is a classic, and his Lyonesse trilogy should be
Agreed. And for space opera his Planet of Adventure tetrology and Demon Princes pentology are hard to beat. (As could be said for almost anything else he ever wrote.)
And BTW, Lyonesse gets less troubling as it goes, and PoA gets much, much, much better as it goes, so if you pick them up and start having second thoughts, hang in there and you won't regret it.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I recommend the HYPERION series by Dan Simmons.
The hacking is there, but a little light on facts, but the social discourse on the evolution of artificial intelligences is fantastic!!
Like eating 80 hits of acid
Those Who were left behind, It is a great series currently 11 books long that deals with the end of the world and the rise of the antichrist. It is a well written and gripping (at least so far). Well worth the read.
I feel a need to understand many culteral references to great literature that pop up in conversation with intelligent/well read people. In my school age and early career my focus was completely on technical/hard-skill related books which left me deficient with regard to the great classics. If you would like to improve yourself and educate yourself in a meaningful way I can recommend the following good, uplifting classics:
- "Silas Marner", George Elliot, short, easy to read, takes place a few hunder years ago, good human element, nice ending
- "A Tale of Two Cities", Charles Dickens, long, exciting account of a few individuals around the time of the French revolution, very well written
- "Crime and Punishment", Fyodor Dostoyevsky, very well written, fascinating view of human psyche, long but worth the read, unexpected but arguably pleasant ending
KK4SFV
I robot - sci fi
Who is affraid of Human Cloning? - Philo/Science
Anthem or the Fountainhead - Philo
Why Atheism - God?
Drawing Blood - horror
1984, We, Brave New World - Distopia
The only thing I'm high on is love...Love for my Son and Daughters. Yes, a little LSD is all I need.-Marge Simpson
Acts of the Apostles, Tounge in cheeck techno thrilla, one of the finer points is that Saddam Hussian intended for the Gulf War to end in his defeat in order to remove Bush from Power. Funny and its a free PDF book too, at last a use for that Tablet PC! http://www.wetmachine.com/acts/index.shtml Nit
"They locked up a man who wanted to rule the world, the fools, they locked up the wrong man! L.Cohen
Gibson's Pattern Recognition is also good, but maybe borrow it from the library.
Finally, Dan Simmons' Hyperion and The Fall Of Hyperion are also brilliant.
Find a book shop like Pulp Fiction in Brisbane, Qld. Everyone for their recommendations has been excellent.
"The big question in our lives is how to be at the same time a hedonist and in a hurry" - Alain Ducasse (?)
The first book is "Triplanetary". I think the others all have "Lensman" in the title (other than "Masters of the Vortex", set in the Lensman universe but not part of the series plot line).
The "Lensman" series is a set of books concerning the most noble set of Good Guys ever to run loose in Science Fiction. A Lensman is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent; and Well-Educated, Athletic, and Relentless, to boot.
The "Lens" is an artifact, a telepathic amplifier and universal translator keyed to the individual Lensman who owns it, and will kill anyone else who tries to wear it.
I won't read a book by Mitnick unless I pick it up at a garage sale. I won't give money to him.
Also anything by Vernor Vinge.
True Names
Collected Short Stories
Across Realtime(The Peace War, Marooned in Realtime, and The Ungoverned)
He appears to have retired as a professor at
Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
San Diego State University
(Interesting that "mean time" does not mean the same thing as "meantime")
Salon review.
The brief interview that got me interested.
I am currently reading Anvil of Stars, which is cool, and the sequel to the amazing Forge of God.
Definitely look at Forge of God - Greg Bear has a way of incorporating a lot of science into his science fiction (although I suppose most of it in this is theoretical physics, expect to brush up on your geology as well), and he makes you think.
Anyway, to pique your interest, here's what's on the back cover:
June 26, 1996:
One of Jupiter's moons disapears.
September 28, 1996:
A geologist near Death Valley finds a mysterious new cinder cone in a very well-mapped area.
October 1, 1996:
The government of Australia announces the discovery of an enormous granite mountain. Like the cinder cone, it wasn't there six months ago...
P.S.
Yes, it's set in 1996 - that was the not too distant future when he wrote it, back in '87.
I belong to the ______ generation.
Ulysses (and Finnegans Wake), by James Joyce. Two ontological romances (you have to read them and think about them to understand what I mean), with the kinds of word-play hackers adore.
Lolita - beautifully written, by a man writing in his second language!
A Clockwork Orange - entirely written in an artificial pidgrim language.
Anna Karenina - a slow, deeply psychological novel by Tolstoy. Try to use your analytical skills to find the structure for this one.
Grande Sertão: Veredas - by Brazilian writer Joao Guimaraes Rosa. A precious, nearly-unknown piece of universal literature. Unavailable in English, though, except in a poor translation that does not deserve any credit. (I've read it in Italian)
Goedel, Escher, Bach - the hacker's Bible? And so much more. Hackers are supposed to be such forward-thinking people. I don't know why, when it comes to literature, most of them reach for the cheaper, more obvious books.
by john kennedy otoole.
this is the funniest book i ever read. otoole wrote it, didn't publish it, then commited suicide. his mom found it and brought it to a publisher, and it won a pulitzer.
This book is a non-stop ride through a modern murder mystery set against the search for The Holy Grail. Talks about how chrisitianity perverted the goddess and other 'pagan' religions. LEt's face it any book that has Leonardo Da Vinci and Sir Isaac Newton opposing the church can't be all bad.
Can't believe the Foundation books were not mentioned earlier! These books are an amazing read given the time span between writings. Classic to modern, Asimov's genius and youthful insightfullness through to wise and entertaining experienced authouring. Absolutely brilliant. Even better than 'The Hobbit'...
Also really liked Niven, Pournelle and Stephens? 'Legacy of Hereot' and that classic 'Dune'... 1984, Brave New World, FF???
the bhaghvadghita? it's pop culture or remotely pop. It's a thought provoking read.
Not hacker-ish in any way but thought provoking and interesting to read (WARNING: Wolfe is a Catholic and religion plays an over-arching role in many of his characters' lives BUT I am also an athiest and still found much, much pleasure in the reading.)
Wolfe has written 3 series of books known as "The Book of the New Sun". "The Book of the Long Sun", and "The Book of the Short Sun". Each of which is a collection af books and not necessarily a single book in itself (though I do own a limited edition of the New Sun stuff in a single bound hard-cover). Given the names one might assume there was a definite chronology to them--which is correct, in when they were written and when they take place. I't isn't necessary to read them in the order of New -> Long -> Short, however, if you can I do suggest it.
After reading these books I have begun to devour anything that I can find written by Wolfe; his imaginings are simply to interesting for me to not take notice of.
You can be an atheist and still not want to succumb to some weird cross-over sheep disease -- AC
Non fiction writer James Gleick just came out with a new book on Issac Newton (Computers are easy- try hacking together a model of the universe). If you likes Genius, Faster, and Chaos (which I hope that you've read, if not I HIGHLY remommend them), then you will love this book. My only complaint is that it is way too short.
WARNING!! SPOILER FOR "ENDER'S GAME"!! DON'T READ ON IF YOU HAVEN'T READ "ENDER'S GAME"!!
.
.
.
While I was about the middle of the book, I ACCIDENTALLY browsed some of the last pages. I spotted the sentence "it was real" or something like that. And somehow I interpolated all that was left to read! I kept reading the whole book, but it lost almost all interest.
On the other hand, knowing the ending of Neuromancer or LOTR won't stop you from re-re-reading them...
Am I special or is "Ender's game" a bit too dependant on that plot surprise?
If you wait to the 21st, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is supposed to be out. :D
Expect it will be on hardcover, though...
errera hunamum ets
This Alien Shore
Phemur.Being Digital - Nicholas Negropointe
One of the best ive read.
How about helping me find books that are okay for my kid to read? As a 5th grader, she reads high-school level literature, but I don't want her reading anything above a PG-13 reading level... At least not by my recommendation.
Any good stuff that isn't laden with obscenities and sexuality?
Damn! I wish it was saturday!
Tad Williams' Otherland series is absolutely incredible, I'm about halfway through it right now, and I'm loving it!!
....if you would rather not read about teen boys with erections getting hanged. You are warned.
"Le Prince", Nicolas Machiavel (I'm sure there is an english translation).
...
The best ways to learn and understand human underlyings. If you want to easly manager
I think all these peeps recommending fiction books are funny. Just what we need, more escape from reality.
Try a real book: It wont even cost you a dime...it's called Aint Nobody's Business if I Do. The entire book is free on the web...Here's a link -
http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/aint/toc.htm
You will learn more from this book than you will from any fiction garbage. Read it and find out how fucked up we are about combining morals and government - one could think the Taleban are alive and well and living in Washington DC. This is a book that *WILL* change your life.
I was hoping to see Gene Wolf up there. His imagery is dark yet very vivid, like good black-and-white photography. Perhaps more of interest these days would be a later work, the Book of the Long Sun , which features, among other things, programs masqurading as gods and a populous that has no idea they are in the cargo hold of a failing ship in space. The Matrix has sci-fi influences beyond cyberpunk, you know....
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Anything by Plutarch -- especially his biography of Caesar.
-kgj
The world may kiss Dave Pajo's samoan heiney!
Pajo Mythos Story #334: My former business partner used to sit next to him in a religeon class. For his final essay question he -pen in each hand- ambidextriously drew a very disturbing demon face in his blue book and turned it in with the comment "essay's aren't my forte'."
Whaddamarroon
Zodiac, Hacker and the Ants, Distractions, Holy Fire, Headcrash, Heavy Weather, American Gods, Neverwhere, Good Omens, any Robert Heinlein (personal favorite), any Isaac Asimov. While most of these are not considered classical literature they are all excellent reads. Crytonomicon was also a great suggestion.
Hackers by Stephen Levy is a classic (sadly out of print) non-fiction accounting of the origins of the computer culture at MIT (mainly) and other places. His first (and best) book really captures the ways and means of the hacker pioneers. You can still find it in many libraries. Takes you back to when a "hack" meant more than running port scans using other's code.
What about Douglas Adam's Hitchiker's Trilogy. I've read them at least a hundred times, and still enjoy them when I pick them up.
Nice slip of the ref. link there...
so how much have you made so far?
Good list. I'd forgotten about Saberhagen. His Berserker stuff is good, too, if less dramatic than stuff like Snowcrash.
:).
I shy away from trilogies and series these days, they're generally just ways to get you to buy a lot of paper (kind of like really big vegetables with no taste) (Asimov's _Foundation_ series and Robot Novels being the exception that proves the rule).
Try Varley's anthologies, _Persistence of Vision_ and _Blue Champagne_. Very creative and humanistic.
Also, Greg Bear writes some good stuff. I think his best is _Queen of Angels_, but _Moving Mars_ was pretty good, too.
Joe Haldeman (_Forever War_, _All My Sins Remembered_ (can't believe that's out of print)) might be good reading in these days of kicking ass in foreign countries and then not quite knowing how to win hearts and minds.
David Drake: another Vietnam vet, with a somewhat different take on things than Haldeman
Also, try Keith Laumer.
And I remember a book named _The Man Who Folded Himself_ that was the best treatment of time travel I ever read. (Hmmm. bn.com tells me I'm not the only one w/this opinion, either.)
Brust: I tried Jhereg or Yendi (can't remember which) -- blech, too bombastic, hard to get into. Instead, I recommend _Brokedown Palace_ (which has absolutely nothing in common w/the recent move of the same title -- I'll always wonder if that was a result of a conversation I had with someone in the film industry at my aunt and uncle's house in N. Hollywood one Thanksgiving).
John.
This is my take on Jordan as well. The WoT got stale. I put it down in the middle of book 7 and haven't picked it up since. Every now and again I feel the urge to pickup where I left off but then I slap myself not wanting to commit to a series that looks as if it will go on for most of the rest of my life and never actually get anywhere. Describing it as a vortex that is difficult to escape is accuarate in my view
To Do: 1. Take over world 2. Pick up Milk and Bread on the way home
consider this list slightly eclectic...
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, Haruki Murakami. Maybe I'm crazy, but this is one of the most simultaneously beautiful and depressing works of fiction I've read, probably ever. Very stream of consciousness.
Metaplanetary, Tony Daniel. I would consider this very original hard scifi- takes place around 1k years from now, humanity heavily integrated with nanotech. Some awesome imagery and really cool representations of what we could become (especially the cloud ships).
Mcteague, Frank Norris. Takes place in turn of the century (the last one) San Francisco - an 'American tragedy', it explores materialism in a very effective and upsetting way.
Game Theory and the Law, Douglas Baird et al. A weird fusion of two very different areas, which attempts to apply game theoretic concepts to the formulation of laws. Got a bit tiring at the end, but interesting nonetheless.
I'll throw in some miscellaneous at the end - Towing Jehovah, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Denial of Death, Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision. Enjoy!
Excellent sci-fi. You will enjoy it.
I've never heard someone give the credit for inventing cyberpunk to Vinge's Across Realtime series before.
His earlier story True Names is often given that credit though.
It's also one of my favorite cyberpunk stories. It got more things right about the internet and hacking (before there was a real civilian internet) than most modern stories on the subject. And it kept twisting your perception of who was who, and what was actually happening, right up to the end. And that's not to mention it contains one of the sweetest, most interesting, internet romances I've ever seen.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
I found myself with the same problem a few months back, and I'd recommend you pick up a series of short stories/novlets. For Science fiction, look for Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Masters (3 volumes that I know about) its got a pretty good sample of writings of the so-called 'best' writers in sci-fi. For fantasy, I enjoyed Legends. That way, not only do you have the bonus of putting down the book for other activities (most shorts take 2hrs or less to read), but you also get a nice sampling of a bunch of really good writers, to followup at the bookstore/library.
Also check out Spaceland, A Novel of the Fourth Dimension, which is a tribute to the classic novel about a character in two-dimensional space, Flatland by Edwin Abbott.
And while I'm at it, anything by Gene Wolfe, especially the Book of the New Sun series. Also, for fantasy and goth fans, try Storm Constantine's Wreathru books.
signature not found
Anyone who's looking for a thought provoking new science book might want to check out the shortlist for the Aventis Prize.
Here's the lowdown:
Small World, by Mark Buchanan
In brief: Starting with the philosopher Karl Popper and finishing on Malaysian fireflies, this book covers research often neglected by popular science publications, such as computer networks and cellular biochemistry. Buchanan reveals how networks have been uncovered in all areas of life. With extraordinary examples covering everything from the KGB to the spread of syphilis, he outlines how discoveries in complexity science could lead to a new kind of physics.
Reckoning With Risk: Learning to live with uncertainty, by Gerd Gigerenzer
In brief: Everyone should read this book. Not a catchy headline, but it's surprisingly compulsive, untangling concepts such as frequency and probability, using real examples from DNA fingerprinting to HIV testing and mammograms.
The Extravagant Universe: Exploding stars, dark energy and the accelerating cosmos, by Robert P Kirshner
In brief: A supernova expert describes how an American team provided new insights into the expansion of the Universe and the mysterious dark energy that pervades the cosmos. It provides lots of colour from the frontline of astronomy. It's a good read and a clear guide to some of the key debates in cosmology over the last century.
Right Hand, Left Hand: The origins of asymmetry in brains, bodies, atoms and cultures, by Chris McManus
In brief: A fabulous read for any left-handers and - come to think of it - for all right-handers, too. It poses questions most of us never even think of, such as "Why are most people right-handed?" and "Why is the heart on the left-hand side of the body?" It draws on art, philosophy, medicine and physics to provide illuminating answers.
The Blank Slate: The modern denial of human nature, by Steven Pinker
In brief: Explains why many intellectuals today deny the existence of human nature and argue instead that each of us is a tabula rasa on which the environment writes. With his trademark stylish writing, wit and flair, Pinker is a top-notch guide to the latest thinking on that age-old debate over nature versus nurture. It is hugely enjoyable and thought-provoking.
Where Is Everybody? Fifty solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the problem of extraterrestrial life, by Stephen Webb
In brief: Webb writes with verve and humour about the possible answers to the question once posed by the brilliant physicist Enrico Fermi: "If alien life exists, where IS everybody?" It's a down-to-earth guide to some of the latest thinking on staples of science fiction such as extraterrestrial life and interstellar travel.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
I'm reading Tad Williams Otherworld right now... I had toyed with picking it up for years each time I saw that hard cover edition leaping from the shelf at the bookstore... the guy in the office across from mine turned it up in a box at work a few days ago.. and gave it to me... but I'm not ready to put an opinion out on it just yet.
However, I would recommend these books - "Tigana" by Guy Gavriel Kay was one of my assigned readings in university for a Sci-Fi Fantasy fiction course (also Ender's Game!) and I really enjoyed it. Then, a few years ago while I was on a business trip I noticed Kay's Sarantine Mosaic series, "Sailing to Sarantium" and "The Sarantine Mosaic". I bought the first one and took about 1 year to get past the first 30-40 pages... I got into the practice of putting in my carry on in hopes that I would finally read it. Anyway, on a trip one night I finally got a few pages further and then the story exploded, I finished the book a day later, picked up the second book and changed my flight home so that I could have a longer stop over in the airport.. and I just read. Had the second one finished when I got home! I loved it that much... but a friend of mine that I've encouraged to read the series agreed that getting past the first 30-40 pages is tough.. so many names to keep track of - takes notes!
Also, I read Crichton's "Time Line" a few months ago, I had received it as a Christmas gift a few years ago, but never got to it. Then a few months ago I was not sleeping so I pulled it off the shelf - and still didn't sleep much, it's a fun read.
And one more for now - "Blindness" by Jose Saramago. I have convinced my complete circle of friends to read this, and everyone is awestruck by it. Highly recommend...
My recommendation would be for Nancy Kress (who amazingly enough does not seem to have been mentioned yet). She has some wonderful bio-engineering sci-fi books. She has a great feel for characters and believable sci-fi, what-if scenarios. A must-read for a sci-fi fan.
by Richard Morgan.
Just finished it and it's great, reading the sequel now. Basically it's a cyber-punk detective story. The technology is centered around people being able to download themselves into different bodies, which is handy.
Also, the Arabesque series (Pashazade is the first) by J.C. Grimwood is a must read. Again, slightly detective-ish.
_Jhereg_ was Brust's first published novel AFAIK, and shows that badly---I suspect _Yendi_ was written before it and it shows---his writing gets better in the later books, becoming quite introspective, and even changing point of view in _Athyra_ and _Orca_.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Try "The Cuckoo's Egg" by Clifford Stoll
Linky
A sentimental favorite, The Cuckoo's Egg seems to have inspired a whole category of books exploring the quest to capture computer criminals. Still, even several years after its initial publication and after much imitation, the book remains a good read with an engaging story line and a critical outlook, as Clifford Stoll becomes, almost unwillingly, a one-man security force trying to track down faceless criminals who've invaded the university computer lab he stewards. What first appears as a 75-cent accounting error in a computer log is eventually revealed to be a ring of industrial espionage, primarily thanks to Stoll's persistence and intellectual tenacity.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
The second is "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers, and Betty Sue Flowers. This is also a geek book, although geared more at humanist geeks than computer geeks. It is really just one hell of a long interview with comparative mythology über-geek Joseph Campbell, who knows more about comparative mytholo gy than, well, anyone. If you have ever wondered why it is common to celebrate marriage for example, this is the book to read. And also if you feel that modern society must have lost something important in the process of becoming modern, and want to understand exactly what that is. Ok, it's not as good as the previous book, but still very essential reading.
Who wrote Shakespeare? Who Invented the banana? What really happens when a bookworm farts? Don't read this book unless you want to find out.
Although the trilogy is "targeted" at young adults, The Golden Compass and the rest of the series are a great story of alternate universes and Paradise Lost, revisited. Adventure, witches, mythology, religion and metaphysics, oh my.
The series is "His Dark Materials", and the books are The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.
If you are looking for some decent non-fiction, philisophical reads, take a look at Immanuel Kant. His works are not currently in project gutenberg, but can be downloaded here - http://books.mirror.org/gb.kant.html.
Of course, if you are still stuck on needing a good geek read, you can always download the first 100,000 prime numbers from project gutenberg and memorize away.
Pick up something by Larry Niven the author of Ring World. He's got a great collection of short stories out now. I picked it up last year and loved it. It starts with some real old short stories and get into some of his more modern work.
Great read.
Also if your just looking for one quick novel "Ring World" is great.
hmmmm...what? Oh, I left this stupid
Godel Escher Bach, The Mind's I, Fluid Concepts and Creating Analogies, or if you are adventurous and don't mind getting headaches from thinking about things, Metamagical Themas.
All his books from Amazon , but I would go to best book buys to find the best prices on them.
My wife has read Le Ton Beau De Marot, and she loved it. She has her masters in French Linguistics, and found this book in the bookstore at the same time that I found Metamagical Themas. We were kind of surprised when we went to check out and found that we had found books by the same author in different sections of the bookstore. Hofstadter is a very smart and interesting guy, and writes some awesome stuff. I think that GEB is a must read.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Infinite Just (David Foster Wallace) was a great book: that and Cryptonomicon are two of my favorite "pulp" reads. They both seemed written just for me: lenghty, engaging fiction written to me as a 13-year-old. Jest was funnier: definitely worth a read.
My wife and I have developed a formal name for this, the Clancy Pontification Index (CPI). After one of us has read a book of his, the other will decide whether to bother based on the CPI. My wife's theory is that once Clancy became weathy, he offed his editor. Consequently, not enough red lines.
Seconded. I bought a copy of the book (hardback, even) a couple of months after I bought my bike on numerous recommendations. While there are parts that appeal to the biker in me, the book is great even without the biker appeal. I've been told that a lot of people (bikers, mostly, as that's the crowd in which I hear about it most) read it annually, and get something new out of it every time. I'm still working on my first reading, and have been for six months--I'm in the "meaty" part, and I can't read more than about ten pages at a time and really digest the material; it takes several days of pondering to really "get it." If you're interested in something intellectually stimulating, pick up a copy. Oh, and if you don'get the new one, don't read the foreword before the main story; it gives away too many details that would better be left to figure out.
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There's a reason nearly every major philosopher in the 19th century at least alludes to Kant in their works. I can tell you it's not because he managed to confuse them.
My post was in no way endorsing Kant's philosophy as such, only holding it above Rand's insofar as it is actually has something interesting to say.
Actually, the thing I really noticed about Donaldson was that he managed to commit the great (and common) sin of word fascination. He would get hooked on a somewhat obscure word and use it over and over, at least once per chapter. I wish I could remember one of them now. It was so bad that every time I'd hit the word I'd groan. This is all through the first four books (where I stopped).
More than anything else, this gave me the impression he had a poor vocabulary.
I have finished it. I've also read "Neverwhere" by Gaiman (which i thought kinda sucked...) and by far this book is the JAM.
Its really good. And by really good, I mean its great.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
And the bookstore rush with 50 million of favorite neighborhood kids on June 20th?
Personally I find the books lightweight and choppy, even for kids.
I've enjoyed reading just about everyting from Michael Morecock - eternal champion of the metaverse series is well written, fully imagined and a good page turner. Also, though not really a sci-fi author, I found out about Thomas Pynchon from the back cover of Snowcrash. His book Gravity's Rainbow has the ability to blow your head off if you want something challenging. Enjoy!!!
Atlas Shruged by Ayn Rand Its an intersting perspective on capatialism, and it is a sci-fi book. You get cultural goodness and tech in the same basket. Granted things mainly get as advanced as a really uber railroad, but consider the publish date :). The line I like from the book the most so far, to paraphrase:
"What is you saw atlas, the god who holds up the world bleeding and struggling under the wieght of the world? What if the harder he struggled the hevier the world got? What would he do? .....
Shrug."
Or if your political bend is a little differnt, "The Moon is a Harsh mistress" by Heinlien. Both good sci-fi... both good reads.
BOFH, My model for being a sysadmin :)
I've finished it (kinda, there are parts you only leaf through) and I think this is a great book.
Get it with colored text- its pretty freaky!
Its starts off like an academic paper (complete with footnotes) and devolves (in a lovecraft kind-of-way) into madness and unkown evil. I can't recommend this book enough!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Tag line: Taking America back...one politician at a time.
not *entirely* sci-fi, but it certainly fits the audience. also, it's sequel 'story of b'.
Marooned in Realtime, Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky - Vernor Vinge
Welcome to the Monkey House, Slapstick, Sirens of Titan, Galapagos, Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
American Gods, Coraline - Neil Gaiman
Ringworld - Larry Niven
Just about anything by Theodore Sturgeon (YMMV on that one)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff
The Fionavar Tapestry - Guy Kay
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
There are lots more, but this is what popped into mind....
Wilhelmina Baird : Snowcrash, Clipjoint, Psykosis Also a reasonable list at : http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/cpace/scifi/cpunk.h tml
If you have a tons of free time try the Otherland Series by Tad Williams. 4 books and a major investment of time, but well defined plot and characters. Borders on Fantasy due to it VR worlds and not as technical as Gibson but still decent.
I thought the ending in the book made more sense.
The ending in the film was too Hollywood. Too pat. "Oh, he shot himself in the face and now everything is great. We haven't really discussed a sense of love between "Jack" and Marla, but they're the male and female leads, so just have them hold hands."
As I remember it the movie gives even less attention to what happens to the space monkeys than the book.
He says repeatedly that paraffin never worked for him. The building didn't blow up.
He ends up in an institution. That's why he gets letters from Marla, and God has diplomas on the wall.
As far as the space monkeys go, it is hard to be sure, since the story is told by someone who is hopelessly delusional, but it seems likely that either they continue without him (as implied by the winks from the orderlies) or that they were all delusions in the first place. Depends on how much faith you put in the narrator's account and just how delusional you take him to be.
I think that the fact that the story is narrated by someone who is gravely mentally ill has something to do with this.
Again, I like the movie more, as movies go, than I do the book, as books go. If that makes any sense. But I think that the book is quite good.
The movie has more to say. At least more that I find interesting and relevant to my own life. This is probably the crux of why I like the movie better. And the main reason that the opposite is usually true.
-Peter
The Shockwave Rider is brilliant sci-fi, since it anticipates many of the current issues of a networked world, and did it back in 1973 (or so).
William Gibson is a hack by comparison.
I also like his other stuff a lot; Traveller in Black is well worth a look.
Let me just mention the Berserkers series as well.
By Fred Saberhagen
Thank you.
I seconded it elsewhere, and I'll second it here-
[blue]House[/blue] of leaves is a masterful work that descends into madness. Read it.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I'm surprised at the absences in some of these lists. The top SF contemporary authors, IMHO, are Iain Banks (with or without the M.), Greg Egan and Kim Stanley Robinson. That is not to slight Jonathan Lethem, Jeff Noon, Steven Brust (look beyond the admittedly entertaining Jhereg), and the topical Susan R. Matthews. In particular, Greg Egan is the inheritor of Arther C. Clarke's "hard science" mantle, except with better, more well-rounded stories. I believe the most recent novel is "Schild's Ladder". Driven by quantum vacuums and peopled by quantum computers, he develops his theme of intelligences moving between computational substrates. (See "Permutation City" and "Diaspora") The previous "Teranesia" is more concerned with evolution. Recently I've enjoyed Jon Courtenay Grimwood's novels ("redRobe", "Pashazade", "Effendi" and others). They own a significant debt to Gibson but with original variations on the cyberpunk themes. But if you are after a _real_ geek book, look no further than the brilliant novel by Katherine Dunn, "Geek Love".
1. Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcoln.
2. Laurence Durrell, The Alexandria Quartet.
3. Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf.
4. David Christian, The History of Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia, Volume I.
5. Mikhail Sholokhov, And Quiet Flows the Don.
The volume 5 of the harry potter series is coming out in a few weeks. don't miss the midnight launch parties :-)
I would highly recommend the following: Memory, Sorrow, Thorn series by Tad Williams (only fantasy I have read that rivals Tolkien) Ishmael by Daniel Quinn (philosophical and really deep) Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card (fun, quick, easy read) Forever series (War, Peace, Free) by Joe Haldeman (wonderful books) Thomas Covenant series by Donaldson (great fantasy)
Lucifers Hammer, Niven and Pournelle novel, classic in it's genre, probably (arguably) the best
Unintended Consequences, John Ross novel, very good detailed past to present to future look at politics, freedom issues,technical isses as related to the phenomenon of self defense as a born with right, and how the US has dealt with these topics and possible future scenarios (the government hates this book, should be a clue how good it is). It might drag the first 1/3 for maybe younger people, but being very similar in age and background and interests to the author, I have to emphasize the background is extremely important to "get" the entire novel.
Patriots, Surviving the Coming Collapse, James Wesley Rawles novel, similar to above, but all the technical details are absolutely correct, a rarity in most novels, and I'll assert that as his subject matter is my top interest and skill set. This is a technical manual disguised as a novel, a pretty interesting combination that was pulled off well.
Civil War II, by Tom Chittum analysis, future trends and probabilities, with the stats, details, etc documented so you can see where the analysis comes from, reads almost as fast as a good novel, and so far his predictions are almost completely correct
for fun,sort of stealth philosophy in an extremely good "americana" readable form, an older author now deceased, anything by Robert Ruark, earlier works better than latter
I think Harry Potter is great for a light good fun read.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is FANTASTIC.
and finally go read some Douglas Coupland like Generation X or Miss Wyoming.
Fave pics from a scottish geekess anyway.
Thanks for the inspiration :)
Cheers
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Forget _Neuromancer_, IMHO _The Secret Agent_ by Joseph Conrad is the first cyber-punk novel. Written early in the 1900's I believe. Excellent read! (Here is a little about it: The Secret Agent.) It's got conspiracy, terrorism, p0rn - what else do you need?
The heck with sci-fi, try bio-sci... I enjoyed Darwin's Radio (Greg Bear) very much. The beauty of programming with genes... Also enjoyed Prey by Michael Crichton even though it's like a 20 minute read. (exaggeration)
The feeling that I am always left with after reading one of these stories is that slashdotters tend to have really, really bad taste in literature.
I have been enjoying this one for the last couple of months. The Savage Nation by Michael Savage is entertaining also.
Telecommuting! What about socialization?
If you are willing to read historical books, I would strongly recommend "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. Its been a few years since I read it, but I remember it being very interesting and a better page turner than some novels. This book basically follows the scientific developments from around 1900 all the way through the Manhattan Project.
"Dark Sun" also by Richard Rhodes follows the development of the Hydrogen Bomb. However, it has some overlap and is not quite as exciting.
Also in the history of Technology genre, I would recommend "The Invention that Changed the World: How a Small Group of Radar Pioneers Won the Second World War and Launched a Technological Revolution" by Robert Buderi.
Cryptonomicon. dope book. 900 or so pages but a geek piece fo sho.
Ender's Game was a nice read, but I found it far to manipulative and formulaic for me to heap the praises on it that seem endemic here.
Let's see, lets take a young, scrawny hyperintelligent sort (like most sf reading geeks) who is hated and misunderstood (like mmost sf reading geeks) who is a seriously dangerous murdering badass when pushed (like most sf reading geeks want to be) who can rationalize his morality any way he wants (like most sf reading geeks) who has a latent talent to be the best strategic general in the history of mankind (liek most sf reading geeks want to be).
The only way OSC could have made it more of a geeks wet dream was to have the prom queen of Ender's original school kiss him at the end.
If you liked Gibson, then you would love:
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
Fnord.
The Science of Being and the Art of Living
by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Also his commentary on the first 6 chapters of the Bhagavad Gita.
And for short stories, have you read the "Prize Stories nnnn: The O. Henry Awards" series? It's published every year, and each has around 20 "of the best" short stories published the previous year.
Heinlein's books are dated now, but the guy was definitely ahead of his time:
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Time Enough for Love
The Number of the Beast
I know it's already been mentioned, but 'Cryptonomicon' is a double- maybe triple-read. 'The Diamond Age' is also good.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned these, but the 'Dune' series is interesting as the story of a society which has completely eradicated computers (the Butlerian Jihad) - Herbert did some interesting things with how such a society would have to compensate (mentats - the human computers).
For something different and new, you might want to check out Lyda Morehouse's books: Archangel Protocol, Fallen Host, and the upcoming Messiah Node for an interesting mix of postcyberpunk, action, and religion (very well researched).
She has a new novel out now, "The Bug", which is more of the same. See http://www.salon.com/books/int/2003/05/16/ullman/i ndex.html
for an interesting interview from 5/16/03.
The author does a formidable job chronicling the Manhattan Project, deftly blending politics, biography, history, and science into a suspenseful and intensely engaging story. The science and the scientists really take center stage, which endows the book with unmistakable geek appeal. It's long (800+ pages), but so very worth the time.
Well, Liebniz would have probably had a few words with Newton about that, and Newton, being the scrooge that he was, would have set fire to Liebniz, or something similarly pissy.
Knuth didn't invent algorithmic analysis; his innovations are mostly in how the data is presented, in an incredibly dense and informative manner. (TAoCP.) If he'd patented literate programming, it'd be even less popular than it is now, and if he'd patented TeX, it'd just be another proprietary format that no one used after 1985 or so.
Knuth did say "I decry the current tendency to seek patents on algorithms. [...] There are better ways to earn a living than to prevent other people from making use of one's contributions to computer science." Great guy. Says he's gonna write Book Four any day now, too.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Watchmen.
Dark Knight Returns.
Ronin.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
That should get you started. :)
The one I can most strongly recommend is "The Risen Empire" by Scott Westerfeld. A very interesting Sci-Fi universe created, in a future where impending war is almost guarenteed to be lost by a society that has "swallowed the pill" so to speak, regarding IP to the extreme. As well, I am currently reading The Peshawar Lancers, a wonderful bit of alt-history, about a post-comet impacted world, ruled more than less between a British Empire and a Russian Czarship. Any of the Harry Turtledove series will get you through the summer, as well as make you think about things. For pure beauty, my vote goes towards Salmon Rushdie as well. Read his books from start to end, and you can see the evolution of one of the most interesting people of our time. Comedy? Pratchett or Adams, of course. Non-Fiction? Some really good books out there now. The one I would recommend is "Blinded by the Right" by David Brock. Politics, deception and human drama all roled into one!
See subject, the Foundation series (the original trilogy) would be a good bet because they can be finished quickly while you are busying doing other things.
Highly recommended!
--Joey
I'd suggest Moneyball by Michael Lewis, a book that follows Oakland A's GM Billy Beane through the 2002 season.
Yes, I know, the idea of reading a book about sports is probably not appealing to most slashdotters. But this one may be different. Essentially the book describes how Beane and his staff of math geeks and computer nerds have been able to succeed on a low budget by employing some radical ideas about player talent evaluation.
If you've ever wanted to see a real-life case study of the smart kids beating the jocks at their own game, this is it.
Authors:
-Umberto Eco (translated!)
-Iain Banks
-Michel Houellebecq (translated!)
-Ludlum
-John Cheever
-Chrichton
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Books:
-Life of Pi, Yann Martel
-Watership down, Richard Adams
-The great Gatsby, Fitzgerald
-Microserfs, Douglas Coupland (still nice)
-Future Shock, Alvia Toffler
-any Ripley book, Patricia Highsmith
-1984, Orwell
-Dr. Zhivago, Pasternak
That's about all I could think of now.
L'etranger, Albert Camus - because you just need to. The Last Days of Christ the Vampire,JG Eccarius - Jesus turns out to be a vampire who's zombie followers are trying to destroy the world through nuclear annihilation. On Having No Head, DE Harding - zen classic. Mutual Aid, Pyotr Kropotkin - the argument is that co-operation within a species is a more powerful factor in evolution than competition, a bit dated but worth reading for its anarchist politics
charlie harvey's website
If you liked Neuromancer I highly recomend count zero and mona lisa overdrive which are kind of related but not exactly a trillogy.
Virtual Light is also quite good.
all as William Gibson of course!
Possibly the best futuristic novel you're likely
to encounter. And reading it will provide you
with oodles of postmodern cachet.
(Don't waste your time on adolecent b.s. like
_Ender's Game_ or the latest Larry Niven wankfest
for heaven sake!)
After you chew through IJ, try _The Tunnel_
by William Gass, _Auto da Fe_ by Ellias Canneti,
or _Gravity's Rainbow_ by Thomas Pynchon.
Here are some suggestions I haven't seen yet:
Sarah Zettel has some great SF, especially her earlier books. "Fool's War" is one of my all-time favorite books, and "Reclaimation" is good too. Definitely of interest to hacker-types and computer-folk!
Alfred Bester writes top-notch science fiction. "The Stars My Destination" is incredible.
In general when I'm looking for a new book or a new author, I like to go into the bookstore, pick up some likely looking book (maybe something by an author I've heard of and never read, or something on display, or just anything that catches my eye), and start reading it. If I get through a couple of chapters and don't want to put it down, I buy it and take it home!
I really enjoyed the Wrinkle In Time trilogy by Madeleine L'Engle. After the trilogy there are some other books involving the children of the main charachters. Great books.
I suggest the Dark Tower series by Stephen King.
I have read Douglas Adams, Herbert, Heinlein (good when he isn't obsessing with sex), Card (Ender's Game IS that good), Gibson, etc. but dont' want to suggest any of that stuff because as a slashdot reader you most likely have already read it. I just finished reading the new Margaret Atwood novel Oryx and Crake. I have to say I was pleasently suprised, not normally being a fan of hers (even though I am Canadian and should be for patriotic reasons). It deals with the results of playing to much with nature but has an underlieing story of how misfits deal with life. http://www.oryxandcrake.com
by Dan Simmons
Hugo award winning novel
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami is a very good book - raises some interesting philosophical questions; my current favourite book :)
Seriously, this is *the* book.
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
This is one of the great American novels that everyone should read during these times of unemployment and potential unemployment. Ignatius Riley is a true icon of the working man. His ennui and slothful stupor as a worker is completely hysterical. This book will put anyone in a better mood.
How about The Bible? It's got some neat stories, some timeless wisdom, and some stuff to trip up bible thumpers. It is one of the foundations of our civilization, and a good book to know even if you don't believe.
If you do believe, it's required reading.
Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre and you should be able to plow through it in a day, if you put your mind to it.
Everything is not great. The narrator's last line is supposed to be ironic. He's rid himself of Tyler (or merged with him?), but the buildings still got blown up and the space monkeys are still out there. We don't know quite what's going to happen, and that's good. We do know that the narrator always fancied Marla and has been in denial about it - that was the reason for Tyler coming into being in the first place!
Where, when?
I meant, in the film. It doesn't seem like Tyler wants to kill himself, but the film shows that there is a bomb below the building where the narrator and Tyler are going to watch the destruction from. Maybe it was supposed to detonate later than the others. However, I think in one of the DVD commentaries this is mentioned as being a mistake.
Nice recommended reading list.
I'm inclined to check out the ones I haven't read, because in addition to the fairly obvious classics mentioned fifty times previously, you also listed a few favorites, like "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", that I didn't see mentioned anywhere else in this thousand-plus-message-thread.
Ever think about putting a link to that list on your home page?
Try Cory Doctorow's novel, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom". It's even available online at craphound It's technical, it's satire, it's black comedy, it's totally relevant and very entertaining. For best effect, download the ebook version and read it on a handheld.
Setting out to read GEB is like setting out to conquer Everest. I've made three attempts over the last eight years, determined to understand it fully and solve all the exercises. I've never made it all the way, but I've gone a little farther each time, and each time I've come away having learned something new.
:^)
My first time was as a 2nd-year undergraduate. My roommates and I were racing to see who could read it first. We raced up to the first exercise, and immediately hurled ourselves upon the problem, beating on it with our antelope thighbones like the primitive ape-men at the beginning of "2001 -- A Space Odessey". After untold hours of frantic amateurish hair-pulling, one of us finally read on past the exercise and found that its was unsolvable (*). We were all pissed-off that we'd been had, and that was the last I looked at GEB for several years.
But... I eventually came back for another try. This book has helped me to understand what a formal system really is, and what "proof" really means. It's a good cure for math anxiety; this understanding can help you use these tools to solve problems when designing software.
Perhaps it's time to make another attempt.
- Tim
(*) Before the GEB fans attack me, I seem to recall that the first exercise was a challenge to derive a given string using the axioms of a small formal system, also given. If you'd done this sort of thing before, you could probably tell right away that you couldn't derive the target string, but to a newbie it wasn't as obvious. After you wrestled with the problem for a while, you learned in a very concrete and unforgettable sort of way.
Doglas Hofstadter's "Godel Escher Bach"
_The Structure of Evolutionary Theory_ by Stephen Jay Gould? Can't get geekier than that.
(And it's a nice antidote to the blue-sky speculations of "evolutionary psychology" and "selfish gene" nonsense.)
Try something non geek, but worth reading. Theres a big world out there.
I've read the following two recently - The New Rulers of the World - John Pilger & Reffer Maddness - Eric Schloser. Both are worth reading. Alternatively take a look at Stupid White Men by Michael Moore.
Fiction wise, Spider by Patrick McGrath, Body of Evidence by Jon Banville and No Great Mischief by Alistar MacLeod would all rate up in my recent reading as being good.
Sci-fi, take a look at anything by Ian M. Banks or else for the fantasty stuff try some Tad Williams, both excellent. Morgan Llewellyn has done some beautiful takes on Irish legends which could be worth taking a look at as well.
Finally if your up to it take a look at Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Beware, its not easy reading, but its one of the best books I've ever read. But beware of following into its theories.
I agree with many of the sibling posts that Tolkien is, indeed, VERY descriptive, and that's why I love his works. Your Readers Digest condensed edition is what's wrong with many writers today. They write novels that are meant to be a quick read. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that these novels are bad by any means, but rather they don't have the depth...the reality that Tolkien creates. Sure his songs can get obnoxious, but I would rather have them there to enhance the depth of Middle Earth than to cut them and become a flat, lifeless world. (And I'm sad that they cut the Ents warsong from the movie...that would have been great :-) ).
There's where Tolkien falls down: Endless, endless descriptions, many of them without the appropriate points of reference for modern readers. I can't get into Tolkien; he and I have nothing to say to each other. Personally, I don't care if he invented his own languages for LOTR; Marc Okrand did that for Star Trek, and no one considers him to be a genius of fictional linguistics -- and I'm not sure if I'd read fiction by Noam Chomsky, either, and he's one hell of a linguist and a not-bad writer -- did you ever see that paper he wrote where he tap-danced on B. F. Skinner? Whew!
:)
:)
Personally, speaking to the 'hacker' mentality, if you wanted to broaden your reading horizons a bit away from straight techno-fables (as good as those might be), I'd recommend some speculative fiction that deals with "What if?" type questions, specifically along the lines of alternate history:
For instance, Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream asks the question "What if Adolf Hitler hadn't been kicked out of art school and had gone on to a career in commercial illustration, then writing, instead?" Likewise, Spinrad's The Mind Game asks "What if a Scientology-like cult took over Hollywood?" ('Trancendentalism' in the book is a very thinly-disguised Scientology clone. In my more tinfoil-hatted moments I can't help but wonder if The Mind Game is part of the reason Spinrad's been virtually blacklisted in North America!)
Also, Yevgeny Zamyatin's classic novel We asks "What if Communism ruled the world?" (This book makes a nice tryptych with 1984 and Brave New World, by the way.)
For a more technological bent, Gibson and Sterling's The Difference Engine asks "What if Babbage's Difference Engine had actually worked?" Another similar technologically-inclined fable, Jack Williamson's The Silicon Dagger asks "What if a gang of hard-core Libertarians had the means to create their version of Utopia in the middle of the United States?" Although it's not a terribly good novel, per se, it's certainly thought-provoking.
Books such as these are different from the usual sort of SF which postulates a scenario and the rules in which that scenario works, because they start with known history or events, and extrapolate, either by asking "What would have happened if X happened (instead)?" or "What would have happened if X had not happened (instead)?" It's also fun to do your own thought-experiments along these lines, once you get the knack.
Another benefit of these books is that they're mostly older and can be found at most libraries, ergo, for free.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
True, it's not exactly a geek book, but it is pretty geeky.
I called it dense because I found myself going back and rereading passages because I felt I'd missed something. There's subtexts in almost every paragraph, and some of the actual sentences are beautiful. It's due for a re-read sometime soon.
Dense isn't a bad thing. I enjoyed it more than just about anything I've read in the last year.
Once you get done with K&C, grab a copy of Summerland. You'll not regret it.
But it's hard to go wrong with Goedel, Escher, Bach if you're into philosophy of maths.
Actually, "the last eight years" should have been "the last 12 years". Dang, I'm getting old.
Since I have no relpy I'll just quote a Haiku from the book (that didn't make it to the movie):
-Peter
Reading the musketeers series by Alexandre Dumas is like injecting adrenaline straight into your blood stream.
The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years After
Ten Years Later
Louise de la Valliere
The Man in the Iron Mask
Online in about any format you could hope for
Read "Altered Carbon" by Richard Morgan.
3 45 457684/qid=1054224499/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-327340 9-5060159?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Great story. Great technology. Awesome action. Drugs, sex, etc. What more could you want?
This is a book I picked up totally by accident and it turned out to be one of the best sci-fi/cyberpunk type stories I've read in a long time.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0
What about a few summer books, as well as books for fall, winter and spring???
/. crowd.
I don't mean to troll, but c'mon one book for the whole summer? I know schooling systems are getting worse everywhere, but I expected more of the
Reading is good for you. Books stimulate your brain, improve your writing skills, and good ones are fun as hell to read! (Even the not so good ones can be fun, sometimes).
My picks would be anything by Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert or Isaac Asimov. Maybe also Phillip J. Farmer or Gordon Dickson. Don't want Sci-Fi, how about Umberto Eco? Feeling esoteric? Try Fritjof Capra. If you're also onto trippy stuff, how about Carlos Castaneda (he's just passed away, so let's pay him homage).
On a final note, take some suggestions you find in this thread, spare a couple of hours and go to a local library or book store (used or new). Get a few books and enjoy. Oh, and please don't watch the movies (like these: RAH, FH, PJF) instead of the books. Only afterwards... maybe.
/* TAANSTAFL */
Actually, Daneel was invented in The Caves of Steel.
Yes, I blew that one. I meant Caves of Steel, which is really much better than the Naked Sun.
Gibson perfected it and made it what we know it as today in Neuromancer.
Sure, but the original article already mentioned Neuromancer. I thought that having read Neuromancer, Shockwave Rider would be very interesting.
by Julian Jaynes. Does this book explain god and God consciousness ? You decide.
My recommendation for good summer reading, based upon my past summer readings, are three good SciFi authors. (well - one is alternative history but I'll get to that)
Harry Harrison: The Stainless Steel Rat series. Or Bill the Galactic Hero. Not hard SciFi, but a very good read and very funny.
Harry Turtledove: Well renowned for "Guns of the South" where time travellers introduce AK-47's to Lee's army at Gettysburg, changing the outcome of the war. While he's got lots of great alternative history, some of his other works are very good stand-alone reads or series that don't have as much alternative history:
Agent of Byzantium: James Bond, Byzantine Empire style
The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump: Funny reading, and a very interesting take on what modern life would be like if everything was based on magic today.
Videssos Cycle series: A legion from Rome gets transported to an alternate dimension of magic and sorcery. Much better than it sounds, and the character development in this story is excellent.
Arthur C. Clarke: If you haven't read any of Clarke's works, you should really pick some of them up. They're hard SF, so much of what is presented, while fiction, is based on good science fact. Rather than reading the 2001: A Space Odyssey, I would read the full version: The Lost Worlds of 2001, instead. Many of his other works (Fountains of Paradise, Rendevous with Rama, The Sentinel, Childhood's End) are also very good ones worth reading.
This summer for reading I'm going to focus on Robert Heinlein, who so far I've liked what I've read (Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land).
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
"Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution"
;-)
Good history of how open source came about.
"Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet"
Exactly what it says on the tin. Another great book.
"Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software"
Kindof an auto-biography. Actually a GPL book IIRC
James
http://www.reeb.freeserve.co.uk
I borrowed all three of these from the library not long ago- it turns out that Across Realtime is just a compilation of the other two. I highly recommend it though- and all Vinge's other books too.
I especially hope he makes a novel or series out of his short story "fast times at fairmont high" (to be found in True Names and other stories)
Michael
Gotta love Peter F Hamilton. I'm not sure how widely known his name is, but he writes some truly brilliant worlds and characters (Night's Dawn Trilogy being top of my list). Also Larry Niven. The 'Known Space' series, and 'Ringworld' series (they may be the same series, it's been a while). Happy Reading. Of course, being in the UK I'll still be at uni for another four weeks...
"It's not getting what you want, it's wanting what you've got."
Try reading some classic Sci Fi, such as Jules Verne. Journey to the Center of the Earth is the mental equivalent of a popcorn flick, and H.G. Wells's Time Machine is good despite the god-awful movie adaptations that come out.
If you can find The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, it's a fun series, a sort of cross between Tolkien and Piers Anthony (In his early Xanth/Incarnations heyday). It's currently out of print, but it was written by a man with the last name Donaldson.
I also recommend V.C. Andrews's Foxworth, Casteel, and Cutler series, which start with Flowers in the Attic, Heaven, and Dawn respectively. Formula fiction? Yes. Total trash? You bet. But good to take your mind off the real world, and much better paced than soap operas.
For the same reasons, check out some Harlequin Romance novels.
I think it's good to be well-rounded in one's reading. Not all books have to be high literature, and I've always associated summer reading with something light and forgettable. It's fun to read trashy formula fiction for the same reason we like to see stupid disaster movies with predictable endings. Save the heavy tomes for the gloom of winter next to the roaring fire with a mug of cocoa (Irished up, of course).
There are 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
Actually, I know this seems like a stupid suggestion, but starting out with the old sci fi classics can be the best... Battlefield earth, Dune, the forever war, etc.
Or Terry Prachett can be nearly addictive.
I'm almost hurt that after about 1200 posts, nobody has mentioned this amazing book. Ok so it's an online story but the depths in wich Roger Williams goes to describe the thought patterns of an A.I. Acquiring knowledge is quite interesting. Also, the whole idea of people who can't die or live trying to reach for the extremes in pain and pleasure that once made them feel human keeps me coming back to this story tima and time again. It's a very quick read though I do caution anyone who is easly offended by sex or violence to stay away. http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/
The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?.
Fairly easy to read and they all connect with each other. Secret agents, double crosses, politcal storylines. Good story and fast paced. The books in order are Term Limits; Transfer of Power; The Third Option; Separation of Power. There is actually a 5th book that just came out.
The Arthurian legend from Merlin's point of view. Good story teller...
Two-holed freak
Try Philip Jose Farmer's four volume epic "River World". Great reading. I did enjoy it thoroughly the first time around and still do so every other year. elmusafir
He started off with non-computer punchcards doing Neat Astronomy (two thousand hours of hand-calculations resulted in re-finding the eighth moon of Jupiter), and from there jumped into computers with IBM. His comments on the inner workings of IBM, both good (Watson, Sr. could approve your project in an hour) and bad (he got chewed out for eating a prune), are priceless.
He was involved in the world first Very Sucky Computer, the IBM 602 "Calculator", which was so bad it was silently replaced by the "602A" -- which was a totallly different machine, despite the name.
But unlike us, he actually had dates :-)
Want a sig like mine? Join ACM's SigSig today!
Try the old Larry Niven Jerry Pournelle books like
Lucifers Hammer, Footfall, A World Out Of Time,
etc.. These are great stories and real page
turners. Not the hardest of hard SciFi but they
try not to break too many laws of physics.
Skip Mitnick's book. I paid $1.99 for it on clearance and it wasn't worth it....
If you're interested in hacking, I think you might find some books on math interesting. There has been a slew of books lately that have done an excellent job of making seemingly inaccessible math issues very comprehensible to the layman. To put it in context, I have philosophy and law degrees and the last math class I took was half a year of calculus in high school a long time ago. Nonetheless, I found the following fascinating:
The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh - Singh does a great job of tracing codes and codebreaking through history without getting too heavy on the math. Great for historical context.
Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem, also by Singh - I never knew mathematicians had such personality. Great story of centuries of failed efforts and finally personal triumph.
History of Pi by Petr Beckman - Beckman is a bit zealous and manages to make his politics come through even in this book that does nothing more than explain how different cultures first realized the relationship between the diameter of a circle and its circumference and then how they figured out how to calculate it. Very interesting for its blend of math, history and cultural relativism.
It sounds like you have a bright future ahead of you, if you stay out of trouble. I can only assume by your interest in hacker biographies that you are also interested and/or curious about hacking. Or, perhaps you are already involved in it.
I would ask you think carefully about what you might be getting into.
Hacking can be very exhiliarating because of the sense of power and intellectual achievement that comes with it. But, it is not without great risk, and their are many other ways of achieving a similar sense of achievement without resorting to hacking.
You may feel young and invincible right now, but I would ask you to consider where you want to be, 5 years from now..10 years from now. How would having a criminal record impact your ability to seek employment?
Stay curious, but be safe.
Cheers,
-Mike
Perdido Stree Station (followed by The Scar) by China Meiville. Truly bizarre book - a cross between The Diamond Age and Discworld, only a little more steampunky and weird. Excellent books.
I read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom a few months back after seeing a review on The Screensavers and found it to be a fun read. You can get it here, and you can get a copy for free. http://www.craphound.com/down/
If you like the Frank Herbert Dune series at all there are some new books that are pre-history to the first books. I think that there are three.
Also, I'm liking Pattern Recognition.
If you've ever heard Cliff Stoll talk, you'll know he's just on the near side of raving lunacy. He likes to sit on top of tables, talks at about 3000 words/minute, and drinks chocolate milk like a fish. (like a fish that drinks chocolate milk-- nevermind).
He is very competent and capable with technology, but at the same time acts like a neo-luddite. Iirc, his book reads like this: "So then we patched into his stream to trap requests & fake commandline output. After that I went out for a bike ride and thought, 'wow, how sad it is that most people are inside instead of out here enjoying the beauty of nature.'"
If you don't believe me, read Silicon Snake Oil!
Isn't /. reading scifi-geek-hacker enough for you or what?? Look no further man!!! =)
RED HAT 9 BIBLE!....
Persionaly I am thinking about picking up a C# book, cause that is in demand, and will be for the next few months at least!
ALL ABOUT THE PAEPA's (contracts that is)
1239th post!!!
If you got as far as this post yuo've probably already wasted you're entire summer vacation. I just read "All Tomorrows Parties" by William Gibson. And it SUCKED! I don't know if I'll ever be able to pick up another Gibson book after that letdown. He definitely forced the post-semi-apocalyptic future. I also just got finished with Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" and that was a fun quick read. Actually i didn't read it, I got the audio book from the library and finished in four days during my commute.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
The trick to enjoying the songs is to SING them (in your head, at least). Pick a melogy and sing the words to it. It makes a world of a difference.
Here's Nimrodel's song. Try it!
http://tolkien.cro.net/talesong/nimrodel.html
Larry Niven's Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers
Greg Bear's Queen of Angels
Ender's Game
1984
Rendezvous with Rama
Asimov's Foundation
Also worth mentioning 'Not wanted on the voyage' by Tom Findley is a darkly satirical look at Noah and the Flood.
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
"Earth" is quite good, I second the recommendation, although I also recommend a number of bookmarks.
I just finished "Kiln People" as well, which while I thought it was a little weak at points, in general it was very well written and had some nicely converging storylines.
But yeah, Cryptonomicon is good. Stephenson never bothers with a denouement, though; his books end right after the climax.
Lovecraft's short stories are entertaining, but most of his mythology operates on the premise that none of us mean jack shit in this universe, and there are a lot of really nasty entities that see humans as either scenery or prey. If you want a more optimistic treatment of Lovecraft's universe, try reading Brian Lumley's Titus Crow novels.
Although I like Lovecraft's vision I found a lot of his work to be long winded and repetitive. A friend of mine pointed out one story (Shadow out of Time I think, time travel demon possesssion thing) which just seemed to have a lot of redundant language in it. And it occurred to me that if I was being paid per word by a magazine I would do this too. Lovecraft needs editing.
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
Yes it IS the book mentioned in Good Will Hunting but don't let that stop you. A must read for Americans more than non-Americans... the foreigners - we already know this stuff!
PSS is the best novel I've read this year. It takes place on a world called Bas-Lag. It's never specified if this is another world, Earth at another time, a parallel universe, or what. It doesn't matter. It's a beautifully rendered, immersive world that's easy to believe whilst reading this novel.
The story is kind of science fantasy - it has fantastic elements with a scientific sensibility. It revolves around a scientist named Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin who is hired to do an unusual job. He's an outsider at the university where he works and is considered a bit of a maverick. As a result of this job, Isaac becomes entangled in a great deal of intrigue.
What's geek about this book? Well, first there's the world it takes place in. Every little detail contributes to the whole - and geeks tend to like well-rendered worlds. Then there's the steampunk aspect - many modern scientific ideas with Victorian technology. There are also some obsolete theories (phlogiston gets mentioned, for example) that are fun to read and look out for. And, without giving too much away, there's an unusual take on artificial intelligence.
The political issues in the novel are also interesting. Miéville has a doctorate from the London School of Economics, and it's obvious that politics and economic systems are something in which he takes a great interest.
I had the pleasure of meeting Miéville this past weekend. He's very smart, extremely interesting and nice to his fans - which is exactly what one might expect from reading his books. Others have mentioned his other two novels - The Scar, which also takes place on Bas-Lag, and King Rat, which takes place in contemporary London (and is not related to the Bas-Lag novels). Read those, too, but start with Perdido Street Station. It's worth every word.
Think like a person of action, act like a person of thought. --H. Bergson
Have alook at this recently republished list of SF masterworks, I'm going through it myself, next on my list is 'I am Legend' the Vampire one:
I'd also mention the folowing because they've always coloured my perception of the world since I read them:
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Orwell: 1984, Down and out in Paris & London, Homage to Catalonia
Nabakov: Lolita, Aida
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: 100 years of Solitude.
Jack Kerouac, On the Road.
The Tao Te Ching
anything on Zen Buddhism, Zen Speaks! Shouts of Nothingness is great because it's cartoons, but there's a lot of wisdom in there
If you want to read about real technology development and transition (in this case in aviation) read "Skunk Works" by Rich and Janos. Covers development of U-2, SR-71, and F-117. Good stuff includes gov't-industry interaction, 90% engineering and Kelly Johnson's rules of acquisition (developed before there were Ferengi).
If you want to read a scary book, read Blackhawk Down by Bowden. It is about the battle of Mogudishu Somolia and is much more detailed and terrifying than the movie.
This is a three volume series (so far) starting with "A Game of Thrones" - the three volumes would probably fill your month nicely. I picked up the first volume having read a very positive review, but expecting I'd read it, find it uninspired and drop it.
Instead I ended up bying the second volume before I'd finished the first - because I didn't want to have to wait - and the third volume before I finished the second. And knowing that the third volume was all that I'd get for a bit, I read the last third or so of it very slowly - rationing it out. Now I have to wait for the next volume. (Taps foot impatiently.)
Its long (each volume is 800 or so pages), filled with characters (there are pages in the back with information on who belongs to which faction, and you're likely to need them), and the story jumps from one main character to another quickly. Each chapter is told focussing on one of the main characters and the viewpoint switches with every chapter so it felt a bit fragmented until I started to put the world together - and then it just feels right, although rather frustrating sometimes.
The story told is fascinating. It would probably be more correct to say "stories", all interwoven, often separate, but woven together to produce a real tapestry of the world Martin creates. And the world so created is compelling. Politics and war predominate and magic pays a relatively small part for a fantasy novel - but magic and the fantastic are never far away - but they do not overwhelm the story as told.
Martin managed to keep me interested (maybe obsessed is a good word) in the story and the characters. He has a talent for making the characters multi-dimensional - few of them are all good or all bad, but mixes of both. Enough to make their behavior surprising. He does have a habit of pulling rabbits out of hats - but I never knew where or how - though I did grow to expect it often enough.
Martin does not shy away from the brutal and this may disturb some people. People in this book die - lots of them - and many of them die rather, even extremely, unpleasantly. If that kind of thing bothers you - go somewhere else.
I'd also like better maps - you'll need the maps in the books often enough - I really wanted one big enough to carry with the books and that I could stick pins into to show who was where.
This is the best fantasy series I have read in a long, long time. I already think the series will end up in my list of top books (though I rarely put anything there till at least five years after I first read it). If its a choice between Robert Jordan and this, pick this.
That I haven't read yet...
I'm heading off to live a long way from everywhere for about 6 months and I was wondering if anyone felt like adding a list of their top 10 all time books to this discussion as I might need a little assistance on picking six months worth of reading at once...
I'm already taking the HHGTG and my Neil Gaimen books so...
dan.
[All Your Fish Are Belong To Us]
Check out the His Dark Materials trilogy...really amazing characters, really cool plot...lots of references to older literature too, if you like looking for them (the title of the trilogy is, after all, taken from Milton's Paradise Lost).
If you love the Hitchhiker's 'trilogy' then this is a really good read as it's a collection of the Douglas Adams' work through his life plus the first 9 (Ithink) chapters of the book he was writing when he died... Some great little passages, especially the one about tea...
dan.
[All Your Fish Are Belong To Us]
Into giant, sentient, autonomous tanks?
The Compleat Bolo, by Keith Laumer.
He died. Baton picked up by miscellaneous authors ("Bolos" books 1-6) and at novel length by William Keith Jr., in Bolo Bridade, Bolo Rising, and Bolo Strike.
My fave is Bolo Rising. No kidding: I was sitting in a restaurant about halfway through the book, and I started shaking my fist and pounding my foot I was excited. You'll know it when you reach it. Hint: think "asteroid defense". Mmmm, boy.
3. Profit!
2. ???
1. On Soviet Slashdot, a Beowulf cluster of alien Natalie Portman overlords welcomes YOU!
this is a brilliant piece of non-fiction. kurzweil really understands where things are heading. it's very philosophical going into the consiousness of ourselves and how that changes as we augment ourselves with computers, and if AI is consious, and just what is consiousness? plus it's got a shiny cover oooo
Got it and the sequel, Gateway 2: Homeworld. Will have to get around to finishing them one of these days :)
Did you get through the old Neuromancer game? Circuit's Edge? Geez, will probably have to install a PC emulator on my PC to play these again.
I think you can all of these off of www.home-underdogs.org
I think Ken Kesey's life/work/philosophy might appeal to the minds of many slashdotters. If you haven't read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, that's always a good place to start, but I also recommend his later work, Sailor Song, about (ready for it?) a hollywood movie corp. moving into an Alaskan fishing town to shoot a movie because it is one of the last unspoiled frontiers. Set in the not too distant future.
--Damn! We're in a tight spot!
J.R.R. Tolkien blows goats. C.S. Lewis sucks hind tit. Such a low level of reading knowledge...pity.
Read Ubik or A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick. I saw Gibson at a book signing for Pattern Recognition and was disappointed that he's run out forward thinking ideas (IMHO). I plan on reading PR this summer since I've already read all of PKD.
If you've seen Series 7, Battle Royale or even Running Man -- check out the old book by Robert Sheckley called The Tenth Victim.
Battlefield Earth was mentioned, but I'd stay away from it. If you want a real waste of time you should read the whole Mission Earth series by Hubbard.
A thinking mind will enjoy something like Godel, Escher, Bach or The Bible Code. If you like programming, but don't know that much about how your computer works, pick up the well written and educational book titled Code.
I'm sick and tired of being told that some kind of philosophy is "pulp", or "amateur", or "freshman". This happened with The Matrix's exploration of the brain-in-vat idea, and no one could explain what they meant to me then.
So, come on. What's an example of "un-pulp", or "professional", or "graduate-level" philosophy?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Who reads Faulkner for fun? Ten-page paragraphs? Jeez...
Rather than push a stereotypical geek book, I'll suggest Margaret Atwood's "The Blind Assassin" or "Oryx and Crake". Both are brilliant and absorbing, multilayered and multitextured.
404 Error:
"Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue" by Paul Woodruff
Books such as these are different from the usual sort of SF which postulates a scenario and the rules in which that scenario works, because they start with known history or events, and extrapolate, either by asking "What would have happened if X happened (instead)?" or "What would have happened if X had not happened (instead)?" It's also fun to do your own thought-experiments along these lines, once you get the knack. :)
To recommend another book from that sub-genre: I liked Fatherland by Robert Harris. It's situated in 1964 (!) Nazi Germany, with Hitler celebrating his 75th birthday.
Dude read harry potter it's the best book ever. all of them. broomsticks and shit. you don't get stuff like that out of gibson
How about The Fountainhead?
Actually, IIRC, he defuses the bomb in the van below that building. That's the scene with him and Tyler in the garage, and Tyler says things like "No! Not the green wire!", etc.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
I would suggest some books which mix genres in a good manner:
- The Wiz Biz by Rick Cook: a unix hacker(in the old sense) gets thrown in a fantasy world. Good fun if you get the jokes about daemons and shell scripts.
- The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling: an alternate victorian world where Charles Babbage's difference engine worked and sparked a technological and industrial revolution. Part detective story, part historical thriller.
And now for the "me too": if you like fantasy(or at least not loathe it) and humor, try a book from Terry Pratchett, like "Rincewind the Wizzard"(sic) or "Interesting Times". Read them in this order, to get the background about the principal character, Rincewind.
Have fun!
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
Carnage and Culture or anything else from http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reviews/books.htm
She
The White Company
To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth
Any C.S. Forrester book
Any of Gerrold's The War on the Chtorr series (Ok, one Sci-Fi recommendation)
The Federalist Papers
I won't even think about mentioning my favorites, since I guess all alternative to Gibson and Stephenson have been mentioned 3 times allready.
:-)
I recommend two rock solid classics that are considered the best in putting people to thinking (and finding answers). Aka:
The best in philosophy:
Arthur Schopenhauer;
The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims
This is, iirc, Schopenhauers last book and is generally considered one of the references in philosophy in general. Basically an extract of modern & classic philosophy since the ancient greek. Actually a must-read for every literate grown-up. Beware Schopenhauers pessimism though, that's the catch with his stuff. Very educative read though.
Rudolf Steiner;
The Philosophy of Freedom: The Basis for a Modern World Conception
This one is generally rewarded as the best 'unknown' work of philosophy of our cultural epoch. Steiner is a monist, just like Schopenhauer, but he unweeds Schopenhauers general pessimism and takes on all the dualists generalisims that are used nowadays to prove that humans have no free will (and stuff like that) and does a very good job at correcting Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Kant and a whole league of all the rest of know philosophers.
I personally consider this a *very* important read for anyone who likes to ponder the life and times of the human race and the human individual. So I think you could say everybody should read it.
BTW: Afaik one could say that the currently very popular Ken Wilbur is something like a 'makeshift Rudolf Steiner'. Allthough I have to admit that I haven't gotten around to reading a lot from him....
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I've enjoyed every book by John Barnes I've ever read, starting with Mother of Storms, which is a terrific near-future disaster/redemption story which raises some interesting questions about humans fusing with technology. If you like that, read everything else he's written.
"Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure." --Robert LeFevre
Machiavelli's "Art of War", though usually overshadowed by Sun Tzu's pithier volume of the same name, is also worth reading.
Hrmh, glad I missed the movie. The book is rather good, but the technology in it is so dated that younger readers might find it laughable.
Tim Powers, 'The Anubis Gates' - time travel, conspiracy, magic, and made-up poets.
Tim Powers, 'The Stress Of Her Regard'. The best vampire novel ever.
Lord Dunsanay, 'The King of Elfland's Daughter'. Lovely. Just lovely.
Scott McCloud, 'Understanding Comics'. You'll never look at comics the same way again. Avoid the sequel 'Reinventing Comics', it's full of dot-bubble sentiment about how the net will save comics.
I just finished reading heretics. I've definitely enjoyed the first 5 so far and I can't wait to start the 6th. Just the whole idea of how he sees the relationship between religion, politics, and status quo has been interesting as hell.
This year seems to be the year for me to actually read books I've intended on reading for a long time.
Wheel of Time...Dune series...what's next? heh
The Hyperion series by Dan Simmons is definitely worth picking up. I have read a lot of science fiction through the years and Hyperion easily remains my favorite.
The Diamond Age is not even a cyberpunk novel. It's more....well, Victorian. And full of amazing ideas, something that becomes scare as Gibson ages....
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Try Ulysses by James Joyce. Though I'll admit it may well take a good deal longer to read. It's tough, but I think it is actually easier to read than Tolkien in it's own way. (Though the same can't be said of Finnegans Wake - that takes a lifetime to read.)
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, The Exile Kiss. All by George Alec Effinger, who died in 2002. GEE hated it when people classified these books as cyberpunk, but that is how the books were popularly classified. The books follow the exploits of Marid Audran in the middle-east. The stories start with Marid as a street hustler who catches the eye of a powerful "godfather" character, has his brain wired to accept "moddie" (software that alters personality) and "daddie" (data) chips, and learns to take responsibility for people other than himself. Think of Dashiell Hammet doing cyberpunk. Hardboiled cyberpunk. I cannot believe that no other /.ers have recommended this. The stories are captivating and GEE always remembered that the story is everything.
I just reread the Diamond Age and it is also very good, about nanotech.
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
"The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes. Intense.
Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action.
Radio Shack has some ham radio books on clearance, get a license before I beat you to it! ;) They're under a buck each before tax, just a thought.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
This author is usually relegated to the children's or young adults sections, but that's just because they don't really know how to classify her books. Some definitely are for children, but other are certainly meant for adults. Try Deep Secret for a geeky fantasy. (much of the story takes place at a scifi convention). DWJ is an amazing writer. Not only are the plots surprising and interesting, the characters are wonderfully real and developed. I don't mean she blathers on for pages about the character, but rather the characters act so naturally that they seem real.
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
--It may not necessarily fit the initial description of what he's looking to read, but I guarantee he'll be enthralled with it for at LEAST a summer or two:
:)
The "Left Behind" novels - it's up to 11 books [[obligatory Spinal Tap reference here]] in the series, surpassing L.Ron Hubbard's crappy "dekalogy" - and the next one is coming out next year. Five straight #1 entries on the NYT bestseller lists.
http://www.leftbehind.com/
--A few books into the series, there *is* a mention of portable computers and cell phones that are beyond anything we have now... But it's not exactly tech-centered. I'm a fast reader, and managed to devour the entire series by starting back in late February - but this guy will probably be hooked for a long time.
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
On the other hand, if you want a good fantasy series, take a look at George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" (starts with _A Game of Thrones_). Another multivolume, incomplete series, but he promises only 6 books, so maybe it'll work out.
I think he's up to promising 7 now. It was in an IRC chat that got linked to alt.fan.grrm a few months ago. Something like he found out he couldn't just skip past the years that were supposed to be between books 3 and 4.
I'd reccomend (as others have) Vernor Vinge's A Fire upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. "Deepness" is a "prequel" so read it first if you can. Vinge is an amazingly original writer with a breathtakingly deep sense of wonder and invented concepts such as the Singularity. Both these books won Hugos, I believe. Together they are nearly 1000 pages, ought to keep you busy for a while! Josh ps-- the only book I've ever read with a greater scope is Greg Egan's "Diaspora"...
Read Tolstoy. The books can appear deceptively simple to read but they have so many insights into human society. Try "Anna Karenina" and "War & Peace".
Yes, I am too cheap to buy books.
OK, in case you guys havent read these books they are great!!! Software, Freeware,Wetware and his latest addition to the series Realware. Great story line that real sets in you in period, meaning interesting background on the time, great slang....uuvys and pheezers and the list goes one....anyway...you like cyberpunk, you will like this. If you like Gibson....you like these..
Vernor Vinge is your answer. Heed the Anonymous Coward. All of his books have hacker links. A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon The Deep are both books about hackers. In one, the protagonist is a combat programmer in a 'mature programming environment' - the ships run on GNU software, but in an unimaginably deep future.. and the other has essentially a three way hacking war as it's backdrop. All brilliant. All written in ways that subtly incorporate hacking into the fabric of the store, rather than making computers the McGuffin. Not surprising, really, given Vinge's professional background. You write what you know.
There are three new books in this series, written by his son Brian and some other guy. They make a nice read for those who have read the rest. I liked tham anyhow.
All your database are belong to U.S.
Although SF literature is great, it'd probably be a good idea to check out some of the things that shape (or screw, depending on your perspective) our lives up. Politics runs the spectrum...
Stupid white men: Written by the director of bowling for columbine. liberal as heck, but at least you can get a different perspective on things..
Hardball: By chris matthews. this is THE book that everyone should read. our government still doesn't make sense, but it seems a little less illogical.
The No-Spin Zone: VERY far to the right. again, perspective is key, even if you don't like O'reilly.
This I have to admit to; the last book was dreadfully pointless.
I hope the guy hurries up and finishes writing these, or the old bastard is going to die before it's all done!
...the books read YOU!
Gene Wolfe is a great writer, and the New Sun books are terrificly/terribly beautiful. If only there wasn't so much weird christian bias. Like reading CS Lewis, another great.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
A few humble additions to the latest, Ask Slashdot, unofficial summer reading guide. Lets just get past this reptitive stuff and start a GPL'd Geek Body Of Knowledge. Or GeeBok?...
I guess my list is mostly what I was reading sometime recently and is still lying around the place. Ever noticed that read books, wait to be "borrowed", probably forever by a "friend" or just slid back into infinite "Library Space", by your freindly local Orangutan Librarian...
- 1. Metamagical Themas. The ever fascinating, Douglas R. Hofstadter.
2. The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Eric S Raymond. Nuff Said.
3. The Portable Machievelli. Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa (Ed)
4. The art of deception. Nicholas Capaldi.
5. The Matrix and philosophy. William Erwin (Ed)
6. Asimovs guide to Shakespeare. Isaac Asimov.
7. The Canterbury Tales. Geofrey Chaucer.
8. Crossing the chasm. Geoffrey A. Moore.
9. The Discworld Series. Terry Pratchett.
10. Bertie Wooster and Jeeves series. P.G. Wodehouse.
11. The problems of Philosophy. Bertrand Russel.
Enjoy!. I did.There is no god; get over it already! Never exchange a walk on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage.
As I read in one sitting, but that was mainly because I couldn't put it down:
Pat Cadigan: "Tea from an Empty Cup"
Definitely cyberpunk/sci-fi and I'd say it's for any geek
Her short stories are magnificent. And what is often missed is her Wizard of Earthsea stories - much better writing than Harry Potter for the same age group.
One of Zelazny's last books, and one of the few really good collaborations he did. Called the internet/VR/Matrix world 'the Virtu' and the real (non-Matrix) world 'the Verite'.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
Ought to be required reading for posting to any /. YRO article.
Shameless plug warning - Actually, plea for unbiased review ahead -- Given "The Mythical Man-Month", if you want a quick, entertaining read on computer engineering, you could try "Debugging" by David Agans. That's me. The book could be a beach read but only for a day at the beach; you'll finish it in a few hours. But it's funnier than Ayn Rand and Fred Brooks put together. It even comes with an endorsement on the cover by slashdot's own CmdrTaco, and a free, funny, downloadable poster at www.debuggingrules.com. It got a great review in Dr. Dobb's journal, but I'd love to see a slashdotter give a review -- I can't get a friend to review it, friends are biased. Anyone want to step up?
"Debugging" by Dave Agans - the perfect gift for your favorite imperfect engineer.
Don't settle for reading the same crappy sci-fi and fantasy titles bandied about here. Try something new...
What is real? Philip K Dick discusses at length. Some of his bests include: A Scanner Darkly, Flow My Tears The Policeman Said, and Ubik.
As for fiction I can heartily recommend The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (especially if you like comic books). Suttree and/or Blood Meridian (the best most violent depiction of the wild west) by Cormac McCarthy. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.
Non-fiction: Everything You Know Is Wrong and You Are Being Lied To. Uncover the conspiracy!
Poetry: Big Backyard by Michael Teig -- yeah, he's my friend. Nothing wrong with promoting your friends work. Check out Jubilat for a modern poetry magazine.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/lis t-browse/-/D0KNH8RDGARB/ref%3Dcm%5Flm%5Flists/103- 6372685-3302229
See above the list I placed on Amazon a hundred years ago, listing 25 of my favourite Sci-Fi series. The first book is the one listed, with additional volumes mentioned in the comments section.
~wmaheriv
"Shema Yisroel- Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad!"
Shameless plug warning - Actually, plea for unbiased review ahead -- Given suggestions like "The Mythical Man-Month", if you want a quick, entertaining read on computer engineering, you could try "Debugging" by David Agans. That's me. The book could be a beach read but only for an afternoon at the beach; you'll finish it in a few hours. But it's funnier than Ayn Rand and Fred Brooks put together! It even comes with an endorsement on the cover by slashdot's own CmdrTaco, and there's a free, funny, downloadable poster at DebuggingRules. It got a great review in Dr. Dobb's Journal and EDN, but I'd love to see a slashdotter give a review -- I don't want to ask a friend to review it, friends are biased. Anyone want to step up?
"Debugging" by Dave Agans - the perfect gift for your favorite imperfect engineer.
I enjoyed both of these.
The Plague
by Albert Camus
and
The Evolution Man, Or, How I Ate My Father
by Roy Lewis
What is the point of slash dot? Every Story posted is followed up by innane comment after innane comment. The is no originality here, no aminma. And people wonder why innovation is dead. THere can be no orginal products if we all think the same. I've made a decision: No more living a steriotype. I will be completely undefinable. A rennisance man. Sure I know Math Physics, Computer science, but I also know English, Art, Politics, History, Economics, philosophy, Psycology, Theology, Music, Marketing, Accounting, and most importantly Commedy. Thus I will not be comming back here again, there is no challange here. No stimulus. YOu cannot help me grow, So I must leave. Good Bye. I will not write.
this is such a fucking me too post. you feel all smart and shit today, or you identify with other fat sexless live with mother geeks today? what a fuck.
and a dirty, IP thief.
You've read his novels, right?
Neverwhere
Stardust
American Gods
Coraline (kids' book)
If they don't carry those, slay your librarian.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Hi clitoris chopper, you islamists support clitoris carving. You are Islamic, and of course are a fucking animal. I hate you you pull-start camel jockey lover. Towelheads, Camel Jockies, Sand Niggers, Ackmids, Abeebs, Carpet Flyers, Dune Coons, Rag Heads, Sand Scratchers, Habeebs, Abba-Dabbas, Camel-Humpers, Demi-niggers, Fig-Gobblers, Hucka-luckas (hucka hlacka ghalcka ghugh), Lefties (If you steal, you lose the right hand so, since they are thieves...) Ocnods, Pull-Start-ables (imagine pull starting Ossama's dirty rag like a Briggs and Stratton), Roach-Ranchers (habibs cant kill roaches by a tenant of Is-slum), Sand Moolies.
Shut up all you dirty fucking Islamic pigfucking swinehundts and the pigs, the communist fuckin Islamic terrorist supporter.
Take your fucking Koran and cram it up your ass. The sooner the earth sees Islam leave it, the better off it will be. Your Koran is Goat Piss.
I hope if there is a God and a Hell, you have to drink the liquidy shit from a Pig's ass, and Jewish Rabbis defecate on you.
I hate the stupid ISLAM fucks who read into the trash they come up with. Saddam Hussein [who needs to take a dirt nap] is higher on my sanity list than fucking Muslim "clerics." In fact, I like Saddam more than most of the other Arab leaders because he is secular. We should fucking nuke the Saudis and Mecca and Medina and turn it into rubble, then tell Saddam to remove the heads of all the buttfucking "royalty" in the area.
I want to wipe my ass with Mohammad's shroud. I want to grind his body up into bone meal and fertilize my garden with it.
Our tortured dead scream out in HORROR, asking for vengeance:
Nuke their countries to hell.
Nuke them again.
Death to Islam.
I piss on Mecca. I wipe my ass with the Koran. I shit upon Mohammed. I wipe the cum for a freshly fucked pussy with Mohammed's shroud then throw it in the pig sty so it can mire in pig shit as it decomposes.
came across this on everything2. Might be worth perusing.
An excellent and very fun read. Not so much hacking as AI-oriented. Much better written than most of the trash pawned as SF nowadays.
some really interesting jounalism about the fast food industry: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. Definitely changed my life a bit. Not only does he look at the food, he also investigates the social, commercial, and industrial aspects of the industry. Now, not only do I not eat fast food, I refuse to pay for it. I let a fourth grader I used to tutor read the chapter about where the meat comes from. Afterwards, he had such a shocked expression on his face, he looked like he had just seen his dog get run over by a big rig. Luckily all is not lost - he does identify some fast food that isn't evil.
Suggest: 18 QUAINT SF STORIES (short stories, incl. a love story based on information theory and the True Story of J Christ) also THE DEATH OF MEGALOPOLIS (novel on thedownfall of USA in 2010 due to excessive complexity of large technological systems) can get them on www.printandread.com These are good reads - I wrote them. www.robertovacca.com
Then Tyler says "I told you not to cut the green wire!", kicks him, and adjusts the bomb himself. I think the building where they were sitting at the beginning/end was supposed to be a different building, even though the rapid pans show it as being the same one.
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! How dare it, I'm a Mathematician, that was hardly any nonalphas
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
by Jack Chalker. Starts out appearing to be fantasy, moves into sci fi as
we find there is tech behind the fantasy. Those with high match scills seemed
to also be the best wizards. Turns out the entire world they live in is
digitized, converted to energy then back to matter @ around 60-200 Hz. Those
with best match skills most easily could visualize the strings and formulae
that made up 'spell' to alter reality and perform wizardry. Five book set.
Also surprised no one mentioned -- depending on your hobbies and interests,
the first several books of the Gor series...:-) Not hacker culture though.
Interesting movie "Thirteenth floor", I believe -- more pre-matrix foder.
-l
Why not start the Otherland series by Tadd Williams. Finishing it is a bit of a stretch for 1 month, seeing as the series is 4 books and each book is over 800 pages I think. It's a futuristic story about a strange disease that is afflicting the young of the world that spend their lives on the net. It eventually takes place in an amazing virtual universe that attracted me because I'd like to think it possible someday. (I know, not your professional book review, sorry.)
Check this series out if you are into epic novels that take decades to read.
Try - The Universe is a Cloud, Some Raw Food for Thought. Blows away Big Bang Theory, I mean, completely.
Somehow, I prefer fantasy over sci-fi or technical readings in summer.
Thus I recommend "Rhinegold" by Stephen Grundy.
Also anything by Dan Simmons, just because.
I recommend reading a Charles Dickens novel. Great Expectations, Hard Times, Old Curiousity Shop are all amazing.
His books are only 150 years in the past. As a techie I just am awed by how different life was then.
"I ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more".
Anything by Roger Zelazny (esp. Amber et al);
Iain (M) Banks;
Gene Wolfe;
These are some of the most brilliant and as usual underappreciated (semi)contemporary authors.
Clifford Donald Simak is what you want if light reading, yet philosophically dense and original plots are your thing.
Most everything by him.
I browsed through these comments and while several people mentioned the Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series, no one (that I saw) suggested his Otherland series, 4 MASSIVE volumes that could conceivably keep you going all summer. And they take place (you eventually learn) to a large degree completely INSIDE a virtual universe. This unique concept allows Williams to cleverly combine elements of fantasy within a scifi/hacker concept.
The 4 volumes are City of the Golden Shadow, River of Blue Fire, Mountain of Black Glass and Sea of Silver Light. The first one was reviewed on /. here: http://slashdot.org/books/980803/087207.shtml
Will
Moofie,
First of all, my statement was my opinion. As in the article is asking for opinions and I gave mine in hopes that his summer reading is fun for him. Why does the fact that you disagree suprise you? That's the nature of opinions.
Second of all, why are you as a geek (meant as a compliment), making a Argumentum ad numerum argument (a classical logical flaw)? To be perfectly honest, I expect better from you.
I have found in times past that most of the NYT best seller list is complete crap. About once a year there's a top-40 song that I like enough to buy the album it's on. The rest, I'm afraid, sounds like crap to me. Apparently, there are tens of millions of people who like soap operas and watched Ally McBeal (along with other evening dramas). I still think they're all crap.
Going against the trend (and lots of people) hasn't been a problem for me so far. Nor, I suspect, is it a problem for you. I'm sure there are a bunch of geeks living in the Bay area who loved this book. I have never lived in the Bay area, however I know enough people who lived there to get many of the jokes. They still weren't funny. Certainly not funny enough to make me do anything but drive my copy down to the used bookstore and get $5 for the hardback I spent $30 on the previous week.
Finally, there's no need for the ad hominem at the end of your posting. I may have been criticising one of your personal sacred cows, but you certainly don't know enough about me to assume that because I didn't like this story that I'm scared of big books. As an aside, nothing could be farther from the truth. Though I am hesitant to recommend big books to others without knowing their reading speed, I wouldn't recommend this particular big book because I don't think it was written very well.
And that again, is my opinion...
Regards,
Ross
Look for a post titled "books in pre-Change Internet form." There was a short thread of very positive posts and the parent is modded up and text is visible on the default view. Logs show that as of midnight this morning it had brought me about 500 more viewers too (thanks guys!).
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Each of these authors has a large body of work that merits reading, I think-- this is the short list.
By Robert A Heinlein: The Number of the Beast; Time Enough for Love.
By John Varley: Steel Beach; Titan; Wizard; Demon.
By John Barnes: Mother of Storms; Candle.
By Rudy Rucker: Software; Wetware; Realware; Freeware; The Hacker and The Ants.
By Nancy Kress: Beggars in Spain; Beggars and Choosers; Beggars Ride.
By James Patrick Kelly: Wildlife.
By Paul Di Fillipo: Ribofunk.
/* http://www.gregdeocampo.com */
Yes, they carry two of those. But that's four books out of something like a dozen comic books he's written. Not the vast majority of his work, no.
Depends on how you count. : ) His novels contain a lot of really good prose, so they have as much Gaiman goodness as several of his comic books.
Fortunately the books require no knowledge of one another, so I encourage you to get whatever is available.
I'm a library junkie too. I've been reading this article in one window, with another open to my library's electronic hold request page. Got much reading goodness now. : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
First off, congrats on graduation!
There's been a lot of discussion about Cryptonomicon, which is a personal favorite. So far this summer I've read A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge, Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke, Bad News by Donald Westlake, and most of Stardust by Neil Gaiman (a re-read). Gaiman's is a fantasy involving a mostly ordinary guy who makes a foolish promise to a girl and goes on a quest. If you like it, go for Good Omens, Neverwhere and American Gods. The Vinge is sci-fi on a grand scale with cool aliens and The Net of A Million Lies. He has other books in the same universe, which I haven't read yet. The Clarke is a nice counterpoint to most SF you read - everyone is very civilized, even the nominal bad guys, but it has lovely eyecandy for your mind. And a space elevator. The Westlake is a comic crime novel featuring a professional thief with very bad luck, but it wasn't as funny as Don't Ask or Drowned Hopes. Yes, a novel titled 'Drowned Hopes' is actually very funny.
You could also try Foucualt's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. It might be heavier going than some of these others, but it's a damn good novel. If you like hard-edged crime fiction there's always James Ellroy. I'll put it this way - LA Confidential was a much diluted and simplified version of the novel. American Tabloid, Ellroy's take on the JFK assassination is a huge, dark, nasty and brilliant piece of work. He's also written a memoir called My Dark Places, that starts with his mother's (still unsolved) murder, and gets only marginally cheerier.
I've been getting back into comics in the last couple of years, so if that sounds interesting, I'd recommend Kingdom Come, which has nothing to do with the bad Led Zeppelin ripoff band, but is a near-future tale of what happens after Superman returns from self-imposed exile. A good story with amazing art (all oil paintings) by Alex Ross. Ross also did Marvels, which is sort of the man-in-the-street view of the Marvel Universe (Spiderman, the X-Men, etc.) The Astro City collections are sort of non-traditional stories set in a traditional superhero world, while the Top Ten collections are about the police station in a city where everyone and everything is super-powered. Even the rats and cats. Good stuff all around, you shouldn't even feel embarassed reading any of the ones I listed. Heck, there's always the Sandman series, which is where Neil Gaiman got his start and did some of his best work - especially A Season of Mists.
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
Here's some books that may not qualify as "Summer Reading", but are good nonetheless.
"One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" by Ken Kesey
"Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell
"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxely
Also, anything by Neil Gaiman, Guy Vanderhaeghe, or Mordecai Richler won't normally let you down.
Speaking of geek allusions in song. It only took me 15 years to realize in the past week that Information SOciety's hit "Pure Energy" Title rap is being spoken by Spock. Freaky. Thought I'd share for "the good of the many..."
That is a subject of intense discussion, apparently. I have no idea who or what he might be, possibly one of the angel-like beings who helped create the world? Here's some discussion of the mystery: Bombadil References
On the internet, no one knows you're a frog.
Listen to the DVD commentary, they say that the bomb was in a different building, and they are in a different place. "I got us a great place to watch" Tyler said.
The instructions are the worst. I was never able to summon that greater demon.
I eagely await a life of slinging burgers, always needing to have a roommate, a never ending series of $500 cars, etc.
you might look into "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" by Cory Doctorow. I believe it's been slashdotted before, but worth a re-mention. don't worry, it's not all cutesy, with prancing Goofy's and whatnot. Dark look at the future, with a concept of "whuffie" that rather nicely mirrors slashdot's "karma" Available thru amazon, or online in PDF and other formats at http://www.craphound.com/down
"split the clouds and divide the sea and show those evil guys how nasty the Tiki gods can be."
One other book which I failed to add, Herman Hesse's _The Glass Bead Game_---interestingly there's an effort to actually implement the game described in the books.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
A complete list is here. I've read all of them so far. They're all pretty short, so you can read one or two in a day. That would still leave you plenty of time for other stuff.
The next book in the series, "CashFlow Quadrant" is also good, in a similar manner. Not How-To, but "think about this", with an emphasis on the different (general) ways you can EARN money. The details of how to act on your new thoughts is, to use an oft-repeated Comp. Sci. phrase, "left as an exercise for the reader".
It may not seem to 'geeky', but geeks tend to have higher earning potential than most. I'm not sure what your major was or what your job will be, so this broad generalization may or may not hold for you.
Why do you think that someone who likes the film sympathises with Tyler Durden? I can sympathise with the dissatisfaction that the Fight Club members have with the way they live. The film makes it very clear that the narrator/Tyler is mentally ill and that Tyler is a terrorist. It shows how someone like that could exploit this dissatisfaction to do terrible things. I don't see that it attempts to justify or encourage it.
"The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. I couldn't put it down - a fast paced quadruple murder semi-mystery with the Holy Grail, Da Vinci art, multiple country scavenger hunt and Catholic conspiracy plots intertwined. A fun book, worth the time, IMO, in between all the SF.
You might try "Altered Carbon" by Richard Morgan, a solid sf/mystery that takes a look at how society might change if you could back yourself up - where the death of the body doesn't necessarily mean the death of the mind. Of course, everyone still acts pretty human...=)
"Stupid White Men" by Michael Moore...A MUST READ