#163

one of my faves, good choice

1 Like
#164

Just finished they shoot horses don’t they? by Horace McCoy. Really liked it, quite short but I didn’t mind.

Rolling straight into heart of a dog by mikhail bulgakov the blurb of which I read at a friend’s and thought it sounded so bonkers I had to read it.

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#165

Currently reading:

Composing Electronic Music - Roads
On Sonic Art - Trevor Wishart
Excession - Banks

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#166

Just downloaded this on Audible (my only realistic means of consuming books at the moment). Looking forward to it!

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#167

That’s awesome! I love Audible so much. Hard to find time to sit down and read paper for me these days too.

#168

sometimes curiosity leads me down really weird unexpected paths
a few eps into the 2nd seasons of tv show the expanse I got too impatient to wait for the next episode

so in the past 4 days I read calibans war and leviathan wakes…I’m glad I did but have too many misgivings to recommend any of it to someone else

2 Likes
#169

Ha, yeah, the first book (Leviathan Wakes) I thought was strong and fun stuff, but the rest of the series declines in quality :confused:

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#170

yeah it’s weird that I might not be able to stomach any more

great scientific ideas, decently entertaining political intrigue + but the dialogue and character dev is where everything falls apart imo

#171

Yeah, well, it’s light and fluffy, I went in with the expectation of an action/adventure/pulpy vibes, so I guess I’m less disappointed. That missing element makes the books less powerful, but more development does begin to unfold over the books, it’s just sort of ‘meh’. My issue is the whole ‘how often can this crew get into galaxy altering events’. The believability plummets…

1 Like
#172

I think fluff isn’t necessarily a problem in and of itself because I love whimsy humor…it’s hard to put a finger on what makes it feel inconsistent

shame cause the friction between factions with three entrenched cultural backgrounds (earth, mars, belt) felt VERY real and allowed for exploration of important questions about identity / discrimination / etc

2 Likes
#173

Yeah man, I love how much I can see this as a very realistic scenario in humanity’s future. The political element is great :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#174

Currently re-reading England’s Hidden Reverse. Not a huge fan of any of the genres/bands covered, but it’s facinating nonetheless.

3 Likes
#175

Started on Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
I’m about 100 pages in and so far it’s absent of what today I called Modern Exceptionalism (that we have it better now than we’ve ever had it…like American Exceptionalism but for this time period). Perhaps there’s another [real] name for that.
ANYWAY, so far it’s a good recapitulation of things I’ve read in Sex At Dawn, Food of the Gods, Supernatural, and Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus.

Wonderfully enough, Sam Harris has just had him on his podcast. His is episode #68 Reality and the Imagination. Definitely worth listening to and it’s only an hour and a half long. There he talked about shared stories (religion, virtual reality), consciousness, automation, globalism…etc. They really get into a lot of things.

3 Likes
#176

books? what are books?

since having kids (4yrs/1yr), i haven’t read a book. i’ve been working through Albert Camus’ The Plague going on 2 yrs.

i’ll read through this list and hope i have what it takes to finish one.

#177

Camus doesn’t write endings so you’re good!

(…I didn’t finish my copy of The Plague either ; )

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#178

phew, thanks for the heads up.

playing the occasional video game has helped, tho i’m just happy to record a piece of music.

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#179

IMG_0533.JPG2448×2448 1.3 MB

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#180

Reynolds is great. One of my favorite books last year was his novel House of Suns. It is a one-shot, not part of the Revelation Space series but completely great.

#181

https://www.ideabooks.nl/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/245x/040ec09b1e35df139433887a97daa66f/1/6/16307.soundsense.9788898120819_6.jpg

Sense Sound Sound Sense, an interesting read I think.


Also getting my feet wet in the culture series by Iain M Banks. Only read The Algebraist and Wasp Factory before, so this is my first delve into The Culture. Quite impressed.

10 Likes
#182

Culture novels vary wildly, and everyone’s favourites will vary - he explores a lot of different styles of sf throughout them. So don’t worry too much about order or favourites. (Personally, I found Phlebas a bit too straight-space-opera, but love Excession because the Minds will always be my favourite characters).

4 Likes