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Slashdot Asks: What Are Your Favorite Technology Books and Novels?

Posted by msmash on from the share-share-share dept.

It can be a nonfiction book, or a fictional narrative where technology plays a key role. I recently started to read 'The Rise of the Robots' by Martin Ford. It talks about how robots are threatening mass unemployment more than they ever did before. I also found Andrew Blum's 'Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet' quite insightful. I would like to read 'The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers'.

What are some of your favorite tech-centric books? And which book are you currently reading, or recently finished?

10 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Daemon by Daniel Suarez by fatnlazy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    along with his follow-up Freedom.

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    Yep, that's what I said.
    1. Re:Daemon by Daniel Suarez by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Those books were garbage. I'm actually surprised anyone on slashdot liked them. Cheesy poorly written action books with all the tech so stupidly wrong it's offensive to anyone who knows how computers work.

      I have a theory that power and accessibility in books are largely orthogonal. Power comes from having something to say that resonates with someone. Accessibility from from craft. Sometimes you read a book and it passes through your head effortlessly without making a ripple or leaving a trace. That's a very, well written book with nothing interesting to say.

      When a book's message and themes hit you in the right spot, you can't see its faults. Lord of the Rings is a brilliant book, but it's a hot mess (with a sprinkling of sublime bits) all the way up to the Council of Elrond. That's painfully obvious for someone who is not getting into the book as he reads it. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is likewise a brilliant book with serious first-novel-itis. And we all know how dreadful the dialog and scene pacing in Twilight is -- but the people who love that book don't. And it's OK. Had Twilight been better written, it might have found a larger audience; but it found a large enough audience, and if they enjoy the book I'm not going rub their nose in its faults.

      If there's one thing I can't stand, it's prigs who try to make people ashamed for liking things that they think are bad. If you read hard enough, everything starts looking bad. Someone in my book club recently disparaged a potential novel as "Gun sci-fi". I knew exactly what he meant, and I suspect that book is not for me; but there are people out there who want to read that stuff and if they enjoy it, good for them. Sure it looks better to them than it does to me, but there's stuff I like that they probably would find ridiculous too.

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      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  2. Nonfiction by cecurry · · Score: 5, Informative

    - Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder - What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff

  3. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson by ytene · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Although his later works (such as Anathem) felt like they went off the edge of the world, Cryptonomicon combines a clever story, a prescient look at the emerging internet age, and some thoughtful nods to encryption schemes, all in a decent story. IMHO one of his best, and a good all-round sci-fi yarn...

  4. Martian Chronicles by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Martian Chronicles are at the top of my list. Maybe not exactly realistic, but a great read.

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    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  5. I vote for The Cuckoo's Egg by sconeu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Cliff Stoll's account of how he tracked the CCC hackers is a very good read.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  6. Richard Stallman by 101percent · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Stallman's Free Software, Free Society if you're too lazy to connect to gnu.org/philosophy. Say what you will, but rms is simply a legend and too important to overlook whether or not you agree or disagree with his views.

    1. Re:Richard Stallman by 101percent · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He is more consistently more correct than anyone else in technology. His early research with Sussman is also still relevant. And his code Emacs is still the most non-trivial ported FOSS software in existence. He's certainly going to be relevant for the next several decades.

  7. Re:Godel Escher Bach : hofstadter by ArmchairAstronomer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yet another vote for Gödel, Escher & Bach. I was blown away when I read it. It is now my favorite non-fiction book by far. I go back and re-read at least one chapter every year just for fun.

  8. Surely You Must Be Joking Mr. Feynman by hambone142 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    An entertaining book on Richard Feynman's pranks and interests.