Slashdot Mirror
Decipher
What it's about: Tag line: Mankind had 12,000 years to decipher the message. We have one week left ...
Let me make something clear. Although this is my first Slashdot review, I do not give this book a 10 lightly.
March 2012. The whole world is experiencing unusual weather. A commercial research ship is drilling in Antarctica when the drill breaks against something hard. The pressure sends up chunks of C-60 (Fullerene) with glyphs on them. Cameras show a wall miles under Antarctica: Atlantis has been found.
A linguist, a geologist, a physicist and an engineer convene at CERN, invited by the U.S. military to analyze the C-60 and the writing on it. They discover that the mysterious molecules can create standing waves to temporarily solidify liquids. The government wants them to go on an expedition to the site, assisted by some U.S. marines.
In the meantime, the earth is being hit by gravity waves emanating from the sun, and astronomers predict massive solar flare activity that will practically destroy earth.
And home by dinner time ... Natural disasters are occurring everywhere because of the solar activity, and a plasma cloud is being sucked into a hole in Antarctica. Atlantis is sucking in all that energy without any trouble. Everyone is hoping that the answer to the coming cataclysm lies in Atlantis. Just to round things up, the Vatican wants Atlantis blown up with an atomic bomb, and the U.S. president agrees. The marines will be carrying a warhead; if Atlantis does not yield its secret, it will be blown away.
The linguist and the physicist figure out that every 12,000 years the sun goes through a massive coronal mass ejection (it's a pulsar, but with a 12,000 year period) and last time this happened Atlantis was destroyed. They were building equipment to prevent the destruction, but could not do it on time. However, the Atlanteans left automated nanobots to complete the task for the next time it happened. The time is now.
The expedition reaches the core of Atlantis, but the nanobots, as a result of over 12,000 years of artificial intelligence evolution, do not want to help humanity. They know that if humanity dies, they will take over; but if humanity survives they will have to go. Last-minute tension, the hero gives his life for humanity, the earth is turned solid for a second by standing waves generated from structures all over the earth, the gravity wave passes safely and then earth and all its creatures are returned to normal form. All is well.
I strongly recommend this book, but note that this is not a quick read: you have to assimilate this book to appreciate the wide scope. Good reading!
You can purchase Decipher from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
How they can put spoilers in a "review".
A linguist, a geologist, a physicist and an engineer
go into a bar and the bartender says...
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
It's perfectly possible to review a book w/out giving away the ending. Way to ensure that I won't be grabbing the book anytime soon.
Thanks.
[o]_O
Spoil the ending why don't you...
you gave away the ending!
I happen to be a character in this book - Dr. John Hackett - so I am a bit biased in liking Stel's first effort a whole lot.
I can't wait until he second novel.
Eric Aitala
Eric Aitala
www.f1m.com
I'm sorry, but this sounds really, really, really bad.
Vatican vs Atlantis would have been a better name, probably. And with a story line like that (and with the new name) it should have been a computer game, not a book. Don't you hate the entertainment industry? They can fuck up even the best ideas!
I passed the Turing test.
Ok, so I realize it carried a spoiler warning. And I realize that it would be a rare occurence indeed for mankind to be wiped out at the end of a book, but was it necessary to sum up the ending entirely? Maybe a "of course it all works out in the end." would have worked. Not that I'll ever get around to reading the book anyway.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
There was no need for the end of the book spoiler. Next time you review something for slashdot, keep that in mind.
It was THE biggest, baddest spoiler possible. You have done the author a disservice; no point in reading the book now.
include $sig;
1;
This is probably the worst review I ever read. Just retelling the story and then basically say "I liked this book". Not a word about what was good, bad or why this book is better than others.
Please, try to REVIEW instead of give a synopsis of the story.
He spoils the whole freaking story! Edit or remove this "review", please!
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
Please give spoiler notices at the top of your next review if you plan on revealing the end of the book.
Ahh, A nice legally binding electronic signature...
Hint: Reviews aren't supposed to have spoilers - a review is primarily to tell you whether or not you'd be interested in reading the book.
A review of Moby Dick is not, "A guy goes hunting after a whale."
Where is all of that mythic influence you briefly mention? What do the characters bring to the story? What does any of it mean to you? What is this story's context within the rest of the world?
I can read the back of the book for a non-spoiler summary. Add something of your unique perspective if you're doing a review.
for summarizing the entire plot and telling nothing of the style of writing, the authors skill with words, etc.
Just tell us the entire story and give absolutely no insight nor use any critical thought.
That wasnt a review, that was a blithering idiot following you around babbling about how "fuckin cool Hellraiser 6 was".
F - - - - -
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This reads like Bart Simpson cribbing Treasure Island from the cover. You spoilered the conclusion (in a plot based book!), you didn't talk about characterisation, style, pacing, about comparable novels, you just blabbed out the plot. Were you making sound effects with your mouth while you wrote this?
I give this review a 1, and - SPOILER ALERT!- it sucks major ass. The only way this could be worse if if (when?) Taco dupes it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The way it was meant to be.
This post is spoiler free!
That's how clueless the editors are here. Quality be damned, we want geeky wankery no matter how retarded it is!
I picked up a copy a few weeks back. The story is good, and the background is interesting, although i do think the author has spent far more time than is healthy pouring over 'chariot of the gods'. In short if you like this kind of book its entertaining , if you dont, this book wont change your mind, its no great work of literature , but itsnt badly written.
I found it passed the time on the bus to work quite nicely.
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree"
Sure, it's just a plot device, but it's silly for the reviewer to portray this as hard, well-researched sci-fi. A mass extinction every 12,000 would be pretty obvious in the fossil record.
Nice review. I'd like to submit my review the book (and eventual movie) "Planet of the Apes". Here goes... A spaceship crash lands on a planet after a big space-storm thing. Something has gone horribly wrong. The astronauts escape (and some of them die) and see other people running. They follow them and find out that this planet is ruled by apes. There is some harrowing stuff and lots of adventure. In the end though, the remaining astronaut discovers that he is on earth! The apes of the planet have taken over. I recommend this as the best book I've ever read. Granted, it's the only book I've ever read. Plus, you'll never believe the shocking ending.
Makes me want to reread Cat's Cradle. Ice nine anyone?
The author of the book is a screenwriter, so the reviewer was just trying to follow Hollywood's lead with trailers.
But seriously, from what little else we are told about the book, I'm pretty sure the reviewer is doing us all a favour. This sounds like a truly horrid book. Of course I'm not surprised the reviewer liked it. He's got to be, what, 12?
This review ruined the book, it is like reading the last page of a book, now I won't even bother getting the book if I know what happens. This has got to be the worst review I have ever read.
Review is about the type of book, some hints about the plot, but never the equivalent of Cliff Notes.
What a shame.
The expedition reaches the core of Atlantis, but the nanobots, as a result of over 12,000 years of artificial intelligence evolution, do not want to help humanity.
Sure, this sounds really plausible... an Antartic based human society 12,000 years ago (wasn't this during the last ice age? When the south polar region would have been even more inhospitable then it is now?). And they developed such incredibly advanced technology as to construct AI nanobots, yet somehow never bothered to spread to other, warmer continents or leave any archeological trace of their existence behind?
Even with out that sun/gravity pulse stuff the review makes this book sound completely ridiculous to me. Sorry, I prefer my SF with at least a small dose of reality or plausibility.
I never thought I'd say it, but BRING BACK KATZ!
You did not read the article closely.
Warning -- spoilers within.
What the big print giveth - the fine print taketh away...
---
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Is from startrek isnt it?
That thing has always freaked me out. Make it go away, please. *sad*
Mod -1: offtopic.
no
Usually I have a sad at everyone for just trolling for karma, but this time I do aggree. The review, or overview as someone more accuratly pointed out was rather crappy.
Stel can go a bit overboard.... but its still a pretty fun book...
Eric Aitala
www.f1m.com
Well, at least we have a reason to say that something has been "Lone Gunmened" again.
Thomas Galvin
what is this? some kind of a joke?
Which one of you would be willing to wear this duck? So the geologist says ...
I guess it would be arrogant for me to say that just because something is useless to me, it's useless to everyone. But shit.. just what is the point of that kind of review? Why would someone do that?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
...as best affiliate reviewer in the category of sales-killing.
Since you've spoiled the ending and all the plot twists, there's no reason for me to read the book. This makes your review a waste of everyone's time. Please don't make this mistake again.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Yeah and in the sequel, I heard the Atlantians return to prosecute the scientists for breaking their early form of the DMCA (digitial millenium copyright of atlantis) coded within the buckyballs.
------
beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
You maniac! You spoiled it all to hell!
...but your review doesn't deserve to be called one and, I'm really sorry about that, is * so * crappy it sounds like this book is something like a Clive Cussler rippoff for morons. ...if reviews actually are your trade ...that if they are, you substancially improve your skills on them before attempting your second one.
This is your first review, ok, but check and see...
1.)
2.)
Your stuff usually is good, timothy, but this review is extraordinaryly shoddy.
Sorry to have to say that.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
This has to be THE MOST ludicrous review I have EVER seen shamelessly posted on Slashdot. Hey kids! It's the Barnes and Noble Affiliate Sales Cavalcade! No review is turned down provided it's an 8 or higher!
The Crying Game: It's not a woman!!!
Matrix: Neo's world is a computer simulation!!!
The Usual Suspects: Kevin Spacey is Kaiser Soze!!!
The Sixth Sence: Bruce Willis is already Dead!!!
Presumed Innocent: The Wife did it!!!
Sightings: Water kills the aliens!!!
Soylent Green: Soylent Green is People!!!
The Wizard of Oz: It was all a Dream!!!
In the case of this review, I think the reviewer actually paid timothy. Not that that hasn't happened before...
I hope the reviewer above is 14, for that would explain not only his terrible review, but also the fact that he praises what is, in my humble opinion, a crappy book.
Were I an English teacher, the above review wouldn't have been an acceptable homework from a kid!
(My booklog, my SF reviews)
It's the sled, dammit!
BTW, Bruce Willis is dead!
"I'm an old-fashioned type of guy. I worship the Sun and Moon as gods. And fear them."
Best. Review. Ever.
Seriously, that's exactly the same tone this review had. I envioned a 3rd grader standing in front of his class and making alot of "Uhs" and "ums" while shifting his weight back and worth.
+5 'teh funny'
Wow, this sounds like the worst book ever. I'm kind of glad you gave the ending away so that no one will be tempted to read it.
My humble contribution :)
I am me...I think
"Yahoo News has the story. He's best remembered for the book review of Decipher by Stel Pavlou. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon."
I got the message that the review had a spoiler but I hoped that there wouldn't be whining bitches to spoil it in their reply posts without a warning.
And everyone who modded a spoiler up falls in the same category as the whining bitch who posted the spoiler.
Everyone else has explained why...
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
Nice job making sure NO ONE will buy the book this year.
Kudos...you are a great reviewer, and should keep posting more so I can save even more money on not buying books.
P.S. Expect to get sued by Readers Digest.
More like the frickin' cliff notes.
At any rate, it sounds like utter crap to me. If the Atlantans had this solution all working, why didn't they use it. And why would they Atlantis be under Antartica? I guess if I cared to answer these questions I'd reat the book. Which I don't. So I won't read it.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
"Yahoo News has the story. He's best remembered for the book review of Decipher by Stel Pavlou. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon."
The Sixth Sence: Bruce Willis is already Dead!!!
Scratch that one off my rental list.
beyond the crappy review
beyond the complete implossibility (astronomical research, fossil records, geohistorical, etc...)
why the hell would the vatican want to blow up atlantis? pat robertson maybee...
I dunno who's the bigger troll...the reviewer or the author
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Geesh..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
At a high level, the concept is cool. The way I would have approached writing this is the idea that life on earth is seeded by higher intelligence. Encrypted messages are then scattered on the planet and in order to be allowed to survive past a couple million years, they must decipher the messages and report back that they've got the answer.
The core premis being that advanced cryptology (I'm not talking Rail Fence or Vigenere, but number theory and extremely large values) requires the advance of many sciences. First, you need physics to develop machines capable of crunching lots of numbers. You need advanced mathematics in concert with that. You need linguistic analysis, which comes from developed language. You get the idea.
Humanity's challenge would be to get over all the stupid bickering and fighting that leads nowhere (except to our own destruction) and concentrate on making ourselves smarter until we succeed in breaking open the message.
Basically, you put monkeys on earth, write encrypted messages on C-60 tablets, wait a couple of million years. If they evolved enough to decipher and understand the message, keep them. If not, rince, lather, repeat. The end goal of the higher intelligence would be to enhance itself by cultivating new forms of intelligence (which would theoretically be unique to every planet intelligent life forms on).
Come to think of it, I should write this book...
Join Tor today!
And where else are you going to get fresh penguin-sicles?
...since it was written by the same writer who wrote the screenplay to THE 51st STATE \ FORMULA 51.... which was horribly written.
I just want to say thanks for the great review. I normally don't read /. book reviews, but I've laughed so hard reading the other comments that I'm going to make it a habit.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
A bunch of stuff happens.
You should submit your summary to "Book A Minute" at http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/sff.shtml.
--- Ban humanity.
I once went to a website, not sure which now, which printed a notice saying spoilers condtained below this message. The spoilers themselves would then be printed in the same color as the background to the webpage. Instructions notified you that if you wanted to read the spoilers, just highlight the text. If you did not, just go on your merry way.
Slashdot should really do something like this. As I was reading the review, my interest really picked up. Man, I should go check this book out, I thought. Then bam, the whole end revealed in the last two sentences. Well, not much suspense in the book anymore, might as well skip it.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
Pulsars don't have 12,000 year periods... if this is in the book, it's crap (the assertion, not the whole book!) and the reviewer didn't notice. Pulsars are pulsars because they happen to sweep their highly-outflowing magnetic axis directly in our line of sight... we see this as the object pulsing... thousands of times per second... not once every 12,000 years... this is just not reconcilable.
You must be new here...
*cough* Lone Gunmen spoiler *cough*
Well, not much suspense in the book anymore, might as well skip it.
You must live an singularly empty existence, if the value of everything is determined by the amount of suspense it offers.
Let me save you some time on Hamlet: Everyone dies.
It should have been caught by the moderators, or whatever we have on this site, and not published. In lue of that, I want to mod down the review itself, so it can be taken off the front page.
It's just terribly written, and I feel it decreases the potential readership of this book. I'm less likely to read this book now that I've heard about it than if I randomly hit it on a bookshelf and read the summary in the back.
The Vatican wants to blow up Atlantis to keep the secrets of the Illuminati from the Knights Templar/Free Masons so that the Trilateral Commission can ...Oh wait. The CIA is beaming a message into my brain telling me to stop typing.
Lather, rinse, repeat?
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
Seriously though, I think Star Trek also made a similar mistake. It is sad the science in this book is on the same level. (On one episode I remember they had a "pulsar" that was a star that would go from dim to bright and back about once per second.)
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
Hmm... an article where 90% of the comments are from people bitching about giving away the ending, and people asking the editors to actually edit the content (wishful thinking, I know). 1 comment where the endings to many great movies are given away, that gets modded up to +5 so everyone will see it.
Only on Slashdot...
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
step in and edit this thing before others who might want to read the book have it spoiled.
Aw damn! I hope the movie isn't based too closely on the book. Because if it is, you just spoiled the whole thing for me! Great, next thing you know, you'll be telling me Darth Vader is somehow related to Luke.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
No, the value of everything in my existence is *not* determined by the amount of suspense it offers.
However, I don't think I am going to be reading this book for its literary prowess.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
This is just a kindergarten-level retelling of the whole book. There is nothing that defines a review in this "article".
The idiots that wrote and published this should be forced to use Windows 3.1 on a 386 for a year.
This is a 9th grade book report that totally gives away the story line, incorrectly labeled as a review.
Unbelievable.
Oops... I'm sorry Taco, did I give away the ending here?
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
Fucking useless. The /. editors must be happy with their positions as they are, because they're certainly not going to have any brighter of a future with submissions like this.
How on earth can you actually let a book review through that gives away the entire ending? And you want people to subscribe to this sort of thing? What worse is their consistant lack of reaction or apology.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
You must own You Don't Know Jack.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
www.TheOneRing.net shows spoiler this way: you must highlight the spoiler to be able to see it.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
As cruel as writing "the butler did it" on the title page of murder mystery.
hum.... so, who dies in the end?
I laughed, I cried, I fell in love again.
The horrible spoiler in the review is actually pretty fitting. I thoroughly enjoyed 90% of Decipher when I read it, but the ending sucked donkey dick.
I rarely fail to finish a book (well fiction, anyway), but I wasn't too sure about this at one point. A qualified 6/10 from me.
Thinking about it the only books I can remember deliberately abandoning are :
1) The first Thomas Covenenant (blecch!)
2) Paradiso Street Station (just didn't ever engage my interest)
3) Chasm City (got bored)
4) Anything by Dickens
One of the books I'm currently reading is Dawnthief, which started well but I'm halfway through and it's got a bit flat, but I'll probably persevere.
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
This review first piqued my interest and then destroyed it. The spoiler warning was not enough. This kind of spoiler needs a stronger warning, such as an "Every important detail of the plot revealed eliminating any possibility of suspense" warning.
Worst. Review. Ever.
However, the above review is amazing in its unabashed and breathless fanboy presumption: Apparently, just telling us the plot is compelling enough to have us join the ranks of fans.
I mean, really. At least the Star Wars people usually make some reference to Campbell to justify their adoration of the work. Here, the complexity of the work in its unification of various mythologies is relegated to the one line blurb in the summary box, but not expounded upon at all in "the review" itself. I expected a work akin to Illuminatus, but the actual review itself makes it sound like one of Kilgore Trouts insane ideas for a SF novel.
If people are upset about this (as I am), then there's a simple solution: Every time the /. editors pull a stupid move like this, boycott the site for 3 days. Pretty soon they'll start seeing the pattern of bad content resulting in lower page hits, and then, hopefully, they'll get the message.
See you all Tuesday.
...go check out The Forge of God by Greg Bear. One of the best books I have ever read, hands down.
The back of the book:
June 26, 1996:
One of Jupiter's moons disappears.
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....
Oh, it was written back in '89 so 1996 was the near future back then.
I belong to the ______ generation.
Primal Fear: the kid did it.
Fight Club: Jack and Tyler are one and the same.
The Game: it really really is a game.
More like
Warning -- All spoilers with a few odd conjunctions sprinkled in.
That was a fucking train wreck. If you handed that book review into your sixth-grade teacher, you'd get a C-.
If like me, you are now a big fan of Javed's write-ups, don't miss his other famous review, where he covers the "UNIX System Administration Handbook", a great book on how to protect yourself from Dilbert's boss (sic)!
Dallas: Bobby Ewing doesn't die, it was all a dream. He reappears in the shower. To be then stabbed by Norman Bates dressed as a woman.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
My new book is going to be a rip off of the Planet of the Apes but instead of having the apes take over its going to be all clones of Davy Jones and the astronaut will finally destroy the earth to get rid of them.
I think you're assuming the owners and editors and extensive staff of /. are funding their swimming pools, mansions and exotic vacations with the ad revenue from this site.
I think it's actually a bunch of cool guys coding over cheap greasy food who liked to talk about nerdy stuff. One day OSDN, a wholly owned subsidiary of VA Software Corporation, a company that's been finding innovative ways to lose lots of money for years now, gave them some money in exchange for them continuing to do what they did.
"It's a great mystery movie and the best part is at the end when you find out it was the nun with a leather penguin."
please remove this review. It does absolutely no credit to the author. It does not persuade anyone to read the book. "F*(% You" written on the bathroom wall conveys more literary skill than this oral diarrhea. This person should be banned from slashdot, and may God have mercy on his cold, black soul.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
Totally unacceptable. Being a pretty picky reader its not too often I get exited about a book. And when I see "Review" with "spoilers" I certainly dont exepect a weak 2 paragraph plot summary- basically the inside cover with the key plot details included. Review means an actual intelligent commentary on why/how the book was great/sucked. Hitch a ride on the clue train buddy.
I mean come on! "I strongly recommend this book, but note that this is not a quick read: you have to assimilate this book to appreciate the wide scope. Good reading!" is NOT a review.
"We're all mad here." --Cheshire Cat
He built C3P0!! IT IZ TEH LOLZ!!!111!
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Sorry.
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
I stopped reading the review at this point and knew I would not like the book:
"The pressure sends up chunks of C-60 (Fullerene) with glyphs on them."
This is like a Tom Clancy book out this week about a "new kind of war" and the terrorist threat.
Or this is like a harry potter book where harry dabbles with St Johns Wort and Ginsing.
Can you say trendy? Please authors expand your circle of knowledge beyond everyone elses before writing a fiction book. This writer probably even managed to fit in nanotech somewhere.
This isn't a review. It's a book report that gives away the ending.
I guess I should be glad that I didn't have to spend money to find out that the plot of this book is apparently a cliched piece of shit.
You mean Perdido Street Station?
it would have been nice to rot13 the next to last paragraph after the word but...
That was hardly a review, just a few sentences of praise followed by a lengthy plot summary.
Sure, the plot sounds interesting, but how does the guy write? WHAT did you find so deep about it? Did you like the author's writing style? How did he convey emotion, depict setting, build tension, describe the characters? Is it dense prose? Technical? Abstract? For a lot of people, these elements are as important as a complex plot.
All you did was give away the ending for most people without really explaining what was great about the book. The level of detail in your summary was totally unnecessary; you've actually done a tremendous disservice to anyone who might want to read this book. And since your intended audience is people who HAVEN'T read the book yet, a "Warning -- spoilers within" label doesn't automatically give you carte blanche to sloppily regurgitate the entire plot.
This would have been a great submission -- if we were talking about a high school newspaper.
Jesus, Slashdot editors, raise your standards a little. And take some remedial English / Journalism courses.
Snipped from BN.com, excerpts from an actual review of this "book":
In British screenwriter Pavlou's adolescent first novel, it's March 2012 and huge storms are raging around the globe, sparked by giant sunspots.
An unconvincing gaggle of scientists discovers they have only one unholy Holy Week to ship a nuclear device to Antarctica and bomb the underwater threat to smithereens.
The often ludicrous dialogue and the ham-fisted handling of human relations and motivations, however, make for an unfocused novel, one patched together like Frankenstein, with every stitching line, every unnatural feature, unblushingly exposed to the most casual glance.
I think I'll pass.
The first? Does this mean you did read the others?
I'm sure a lot of people hate Steven Donaldson, but I think that these novels are truly fantastic if you can just get past the first book. The series creates a wonderfully rich and detailed fantasy world. Though there are a lot of things you can complain about with his style of writing... But try the first book again - it might be worth it.
don't post goatse ASCII art or link to tubgirl.com in the review. It's just common sense, wiseass.
What gets me is that this guy thinks this book deserves a 10. Apparently he really didn't read Snow Crash, because it was actually awesome.
2 280750//qid=1059161726/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-37184 57-9016815?v=glance&s=books&vi=reviews
Certainly I have not read Decipher, but from his plot summary I can tell you that it sounds like crap. Checking the first Editorial Review here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/031
really tells me that it IS crap.
The reviewer comparing this to Neal Stephenson should be ashamed of himself.
Can't see the point - I dipped into a collection of other stories by Donaldson and didn't like that either. There are plenty of books I haven't read that I want to, and will probably like, so I won't bother with the Unbeliever again. :-)
I had some friends at uni who went on at me so much about this series I ended up creating a monster in the AD&D games I was DMing and called it an Ur-Vile (not too many HD as they were all low-level). Whenever they wittered on about the books a pack of my Ur-Viles wold come along and beat them up
I suppose I should have had a high level npc mage called Pavlov to hammer the point home further but I didn't.
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
Pulsar? 12,000 year period? Gravity waves from the Sun? I can suspend my disbelief for alot of things, but this is outrageously bad science.
Pulsars are rapidly rotating collapsed stars with
an intense magnetic field.....even allowing a mistake and saying that the Sun pulses in and out...this won't generate gravity waves.
It's just sad.....
thanks timothy. now I have to travel back in time, and kill you the very moment you plan to write this article so that I can enjoy the book from cover to cover WITHOUT KNOWING HOW IT WILL FUCKING END. and then I will have to wipe my memory. I hate that. it always gives me a rash.
Karma
Reviews like this are very valuable. It tells us never to trust any evaluation from this guy ever again.
Darth Vader is really Luke Skywalker's father!
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
From Publishers Weekly In British screenwriter Pavlou's adolescent first novel, it's March 2012 and huge storms are raging around the globe, sparked by giant sunspots. The villainous U.S. Rola Corporation, drilling for desperately needed oil off Antarctica, discovers strange crystalline artifacts covered with a precuneiform script, while radiation detected under the antarctic ice portends the awakening of powerful alien forces. An unconvincing gaggle of scientists discovers they have only one unholy Holy Week to ship a nuclear device to Antarctica and bomb the underwater threat to smithereens. Pavlou builds his unlikely crescendo of Bad Things from nearly every major folklore, myth and religion, dizzyingly cutting between eye-popping disasters and eye-glazing capsule summaries of linguistics, geology, chemistry, mathematics, numerology, cryptology, archeology, ESP and Edgar Cayce. Stripped down to comic book proportions for the big screen, with a deafening soundtrack and a teenage audience anesthetized to a vocabulary largely dominated by four-letter cliches, this often gruesome tale might make a middling SF adventure flick. The often ludicrous dialogue and the ham-fisted handling of human relations and motivations, however, make for an unfocused novel, one patched together like Frankenstein, with every stitching line, every unnatural feature, unblushingly exposed to the most casual glance. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Doesn't sound so interesting to me. I think the idea of tying in every mythology is ridiculous.
Ironically, the book "Planet of the Apes" has a much different ending than the movie. If I were a teacher, and student gave this review of the "book", I'd punish them.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
Maybe I'll occasionally scoot through. But I'm deleting the bookmark, and taking at least six weeks off from this site. Laziness like this is just inexcusable. Bye all, and thanks for all the fish.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
and I just got back the other day from a multi week hiatus! see you in august.
Maybe what /. needs is a ROT13 function. That way they could obfuscate the spoiler bits. Oh, and some of the posters! :)
Kind thoughts do not change the world
Don't they realize that if they're in an SF story, the thing they want to bomb will just feed on the energy? It's like these people have never read SF... Let me guess, that's how they activated it to save the planet...
..how you suppose we would read a whole book?
i wouldn't mind a bit spoiling, but giving away that "here gives his life for humanity" bull was quite too much.
though, seriously, i'd much more apreciate reviews that told me what books suck ass totally. i got enough books to read anyways for the next few years(and yes i do read more than 1 book per year, this summer around 10 so far, though harry potter qualifies as half a book).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Now let's assume that Atlantis is under the 3 miles of ice of present-day Antartica. If some strange incident tipped the earth off its axis and caused massive climate change enough to cause the pile-up of ice on Atlantis 12,000 years ago, wouldn't the pressure of that ice and erosion ruin anything left beneath it? That's what bugs me about the whole possibility of Atlantis under that ice; the physical evidence is probably toast. Its a pitty because after seeing that arial based map of the world the allies found in WWI that showed exactly what the continent of Antartica looks like under the ice I've thought something was fishy about the place (and I don't mean the penguins either!)... Then again, maybe I've read too much from Charles Berlitz...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Tosser.
--This isn't a man who is leaving with his head between his legs.
The author thinks that:
Carbon 60 is a crystalline substance that looks like diamond.
The GPS system works by having all vehicles broadcast their location at all times.
Hydrogen fusion and combustion of hydrogen are the same thing, and somehow imply an engine could work on water alone.
And much, much more... apart from the constant tech and science gaffes, Pavlou writes like an excited teenager recounting the kewl bits of an action movie. There's no characterisation and 400% too much plot.
If you see this book, burn it on sight.
If you're wondering if I'm being a bit negative about Decipher, consider this - the fuckwit who wrote the 'review' above thought it was good. See my point?
PS - Slashdot editors: articles like this are why nobody wants to pay to subscribe. This is a fucking insult. You might as well ask me to pay you to go over to my grandma's house and use her roughly from both ends.
If the nanobots want to kill us they don't need the sun to do it. All they need to do is multiply until they're the only things left..
Go here to create your own Slashdot dis
In other news:
Soylent Green is People! Peeeeeeeople!
demi
No, fight club.
I think I saw this one back when it was a movie called The Core (imdb.com).
Seriously, complaints about the spoilers aside, this book sounds like a real piece of bestseller-list crap. Though I haven't read it, I think the comparison to Stephenson is probably inappropriate; Snow Crash's exploration of Sumerian myth does not require any of it to be true -- it's a purely theoretical excursion.
Besides, even when it comes to pseudo-archaeology, Atlantis is yesterday's news, long past being insulting to real scientists or titillating to morons.
Anyway, when will ./ers start reviewing books that are available online? I read a lot, but it's ages since I read any fiction on dead trees. Why aren't there any reviews of stuff that's available in electronic form (in an open format, that I can read on my Psion)?
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
"I'm pretty sure the reviewer is doing us all a favour. This sounds like a truly horrid book"
Whole heartedly agree! As regards all of the complaints about the spoiler, it was only a spoiler for the 12 years and under. Anyone over 12 years of age would already know the ending - like you think the nanobots (nanobots! how unoriginal can one get anyway?) are really going to win? Wow I have not read such an edge-of-the seat-pants kind of book like that since I was about four. But all joking aside, I am going to borrow the book from my local library and I am going to make sure that those dastardly nonobats don't win!
Well, not much suspense in the book anymore, might as well skip it.
That's too bad, but you could always buy it for a friend who doesn't know the ending yet.
Sir, You recently wrote:
"What worse is their consistant lack of reaction or apology"
What is worse? I'll tell you what is worse - it is slachdot's consistant and reactionary lack of sponginess! And what's worse is that there are never enough paper-towelettes in the public washrooms,actually there is one thing worse that even that, but I can't think of it right now...
I must say I am surprised by the number of people saying they wont read the book because of the "review". I mean, would prevent yourself from reading, say, Karamázovi Brothers (is that the english title?), by dostoiévski, because you know that its about one of the three brothers killing the father. Theres much more to a book than the big scope, at least to good boks IMHO.
You just saved me 10 hours of reading. Thanks!
Although - What are the US military doing at CERN? Whatever happened to Swiss neutrality? Or are they in the French half? 'Bout time we invaded them.
This is one of those books you either love or loathe.
It's basically a retelling of every Von Däniken or Baigent & Lee book out there, which is fine if that's your bag, but the wordt thing about the book is that (a) the science is all wrong and (b) the characters are totally non-believable cardboard cut-out action figures.
As a reviewer at Amazon.co.uk put it: "I suppose if you regard Bruce Willis movies as high-concept cinema this is probably going to suit you fine. If you have a working brain, don't waste your money."
I read this book some time ago and its a piece of technobabble crap. I read it half and gave up....I would rather read snowcrash again. The author introduces all types of sceintific hoo-ha at some point and get egyptiian and atlantis mythology too. And it goes on about shit like gravity wanves an dlight waves and all kinds of particles and ancient languages that people were not able to decipher for 100s of years but gets deciphered in a few hours and all that kind of stuff. Offends my sense of credulity.
I didn't see anything mentioning the relevance to Snowcrash. Basically after reading how Decipher starts out it doesn't even hold a candle to Snowcrashes first 5 pages!
First off, the mythologies mentioned in the summary are, by a long shot, NOT all mythologies.
Second of all, myths don't "all fit together." I've spent a lot of time lately reading just about everything Joseph Campbell wrote, and even he cannot tie all myths together. There are very many similarities and parallels, which he goes into at great detail, but also very many differences (likewise with the detail).
Therefore, if any book tries to convince me that it will tie a bunch of mythologies together, I avoid it and go browse in the cookbook section until I feel better.
I don't normally reply to sigs, but correct English require one to say, "to whom are you going to speak?"
I do know that the ending in your sig is now considered acceptable, but acceptable grammar and correct grammar are separate things, and in a sig of this nature, the difference matters. Was it a misquote, or did Clarence outsmart himself?
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Yes, I know, "requires". :)
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005