The Bug by Ellen Ullman

Never Rock Fila writes "On the front page of tomorrow's New York Times Book Review, a slightly breathless but overdue enthusiastic review of Ellen Ullman's new novel, The Bug. The review acknowledges that 'Ullman has already established herself as an indispensable voice out of the world of technology' -- if you haven't read her first book, a memoir, Close to the Machine, read that too -- and it's nice to see a mainstream publication like the Times, the gold standard of book reviews as I understand it, giving such prominent and positive attention to a novel by a former 'software engineer' that's all about getting inside the mind of a programmer, even concluding 'If more contemporary novels delivered news this relevant and wise they'd have to stop declaring the death of the novel.' The reviewer, one Benjamin Anastas, has the chops to develop a sustained comparison to Mary Shelley, to legitimately place the 1984 computer programmers at the center of the novel among 'all the best characters in fiction,' and to declare the book 'thrilling and intellectually fearless.'"

Comments

Wow.

[mrseigen]

First Cryptonomicon hits the best-seller lists, now a paper does a favorable review of a novel about a geek.

Either us geeks are buying more books, or the mainstream population is getting brighter. Somehow, I think it's the former. American Idol is still on television.

Re:Wow.

[Zebbers]

geekier != brighter

cryptonomicon wasn't any more 'intelligent' than other books, it just had its basis in a geekfriendly subject

the majority of novelists do a substanial amount of research about the state of their subject in real life. Writer's spend a decent amount of time in libraries.

I dont find Farscape to be all that more entertaining than American Idol. Its called personal preference, taste.

The Slashdot crowd really reminds me of the punkish segment of population. Rebel and Yell. The system sucks, damn the system, damn the man, damn the sheep. Lets all dye our hair green. In the end, you aren't much different. You only seem different if you focus soley on those areas where you do differ so much.

Maybe the technocratic elitist themes in Cryptonomicon are true....

Ullman's Programming the Post-Human

[Drakonian]

If you get a chance, read Ellen Ulman's article Programming the Post-Human - Computer Science redefines life. It was an excellent and realistic look at the current state of AI development. It was found in the October 2002 issue of Harper's Magazine. (I couldn't find an online copy) I'll have to think about picking up this book now, I thought her writing was superb.

Re:Ullman's Programming the Post-Human

[ullman]

That's funny but unfortunately not true. You must be confusing me with Ellen Degeneres or Tracy Ullman (or someone; there's nothing on E! online for me). I did many things in college, but softcore porn just wasn't among them. In any case, I'll stick to writing.

Ellen Ullman Stuff

[the end of britain]

Salon.com loves Ellen Ullman almost as much as I do. Read excerpts from The Bug here: http://archive.salon.com/books/int/2003/05/16/ullm an/index_np.html You can read articles by Ullman here: http://archive.salon.com/directory/topics/ellen_ul lman/ Salon is free as long as you watch a little commercial (C'mon--its 10 secondds, and then you get to read Ulllman--for free!!!)

Solution to the NYT registration thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

How come everybody always posts these broken links that require registration? Why can't they link to, say, the Google partner URL or some such? Is this some kind of unwritten rule? Or do the Slashdot editors make sure to find the registration-required URLs? I always see replies with "no reg link", etc. Why don't the original authors use these?

Re:Solution to the NYT registration thing...

[ceejayoz]

They're not "broken links", you're just too lazy to give the NYT some fake info one time - that, or you prefer to whine about it each time a NYT link comes up here.

If Slashdot starts using the Google partner tag, then NYT and Google will evntually shut it off - checking referers, etc.

Golden standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...and it's nice to see a mainstream publication like the Times, the gold standard of book reviews as I understand it..."

I thought Oprah's book club was?

read it, liked it

[sith]

Finished this a few weeks ago after reading the sample of it Salon had posted. A very solid book, and the technical stuff was pretty solid as far as compiler interaction and such. It doesn't paint a rosey picture of life as a programmer though, and made me glad I got out of CSCI when I did...

Strange review

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

it's nice to see a mainstream publication like the Times, the gold standard of book reviews as I understand it, giving such prominent and positive attention to a novel by a former 'software engineer'

I've read the review, it suck. Here it is :

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Thanks for review NYTimes. Here's one book I won't buy : it's all about internet junk !

B & N instead

[truthsearch]

A little offtopic, but I'd like to see book links point to somewhere else, like Barnes & Noble. After all the coverage on /. of the amazon.com patents I thought this would have been obvious. Let's not support software patents and shop somewhere else instead. Here are the B&N links:

The Bug
Close to the Machine