What Should I Read in 2008? (Long List, With Voting)
Lawrenc...@gmail.com
As a compulsive list-maker, I'm once again asking the The Vast Wisdom
of Usenet what books I should read this year. Below are 100 books (or
a more, counting multiple titles by a single author) of fiction I'm
considering reading in 2008. They're all books I already own in first
editions. Most likely I'll get to considerably less than 100. The
first 10 or so are books I'll probably get to, and the probable order,
whereas the rest are a little vaguer (and in alphabetical order by
author). That's where you come in. Tell me which of the books below I
should or shouldn't read, and why. If a book's not on the list, it's
probably because I've already read it, or have no interest in it,
won't get to it this year, etc., so save your electrons instead of
suggesting alternates (there are plenty of other threads for that).
And if I list Book #2 in a series, rest assured I've already read Book
#1. (The Over/Under for how many messages it takes for the first
person to ignore these caveats is "3".)
I don't promise I'll read all the highest rated works, but those most
highly praised are considerably more likely they'll be added to the
reading stack, which is what's happened the previous years I've done
this.
Manly Wade Wellman: Lights Over Skeleton Ridge
Jack Vance: The Brave Free Men
Kelly Link: Stranger Things Happen
Gardner Dozois, George R. R. Martin & Daniel Abraham: Shadow Twin
Christopher Brookmyre: All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses an Eye
Alistair Reynolds: Chasm City
Peter Ackroyd: Hawksmoor
Samuel R. Delany: Driftglass
Robert E. Howard: Conan the Conqueror
Charles Stross: Halting State or Missile Gap
J. G. Ballard: The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard
Iain Banks: Against a Dark Background
Clive Barker: Everville
John Barnes: Kaleidoscope Century or Mother of Storms
Stephen Baxter: Traces or Mayflower II
Robert Bloch: Flowers from the Moon or Night World
Poppy Z. Brite: Plastic Jesus
Octavia Butler: Mind of My Mind or Fledgeling
Lois McMaster Bujold: Mirror Dance
Jack Cady: The Night We Buried Road Dog
Jonathan Carroll: A Child Across the Sky or Outside the Dog Museum
Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Avram Davidson: The Adventures of Dr. Esterhauzy or Joyleg
L. Sprague de Camp: A Gun for Dinosaur
Bradley Denton: Laughin' Boy
Philip K. Dick: Collected Stories Volume II or Confessions of a Crap
Artist
Paul Di Filippo: Lost Pages or Fractal Paisleys
George Alec Effinger: What Entropy Means to Me
Harlan Ellison: Deathbird Stories
Philip Jose Farmer: Maker of Universes or Down in the Black Gang
Jeffrey Ford: The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque
John M. Ford: The Dragon Waiting
Neil Gaiman: Snow Glass Apples
John Gardner: Freddy's Book
Ray Garton: Night Life
Jane Gaskell: The Serpent
Chris Genoa: Foop!
Peter F. Hamilton: Mindstar Rising
Nalo Hopkinson: Brown Girl in the Ring or The Salt Roads
Geoffrey Household: The Sending
Shirley Jackson: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Ha Jin: Waiting
James Patrick Kelly: Strange But Not a Stranger
Stephen King: Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass or The Colorado Kid
Russell Kirk: The Surly Sullen Bell (and yes, I've read the 2 Arkham
House collections)
Henry Kuttner and/or C. L. Moore: Mutant, Fury, Northwest Smith or No
Boundaries
R. A. Lafferty: Argo
Jay Lake: Mainspring
Joe R. Lansdale: Flaming London
Fritz Leiber: Rime Isle
Stanislaw Lem: Solaris
Jonathan Lethem: Motherless Brooklyn
Ian MacLeod: Breathmoss and Other Exhalations
Ken MacLeod: Giant Lizards from Another Star
Gregory Maguire: Wicked
David Marusek: Counting Heads
Richard Matheson: Duel or What Dreams May Come
Ian McDonald: River of Gods
Maureen McHugh: Mission Child or Nekropolis
Sean McMullen: The Miocene Arrow
Larry McMurtry: Lonesome Dove
China Mieville: King Rat or Looking for Jake
Michael Moorcock: Gloriana
Richard Morgan: Broken Angels
Pat Murphy: The Falling Woman
John Myers Myers: Silverlock
William F. Nolan: Things Beyond Midnight or Wild Galaxy
Naomi Novik: Temeraire
Chad Oliver: The Shores of Another Sea or The Winds of Time
H. Beam Piper: Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen
Tim Powers: Three Days to Never or Pilot Light
Rudy Rucker: Master of Time & Space or The Secret of Life or White
Light
Matt Ruff: Fool on the Hill
Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children
Joanna Russ: The Female Man
John Scazli: The Ghost Brigades
Karl Schroeder: Permanence or Lady of Mazes
David J. Schow: Crypt Orchids
Michael Shaara: The Herald
Michael Shea: A Quest for Simbilis
Lucius Shepard: Floater or Aztechs or Viator
Lewis Shiner: The Edges of Things or Love in Vain
Dan Simmons: The Terror
Robert Sladek: Roderick
Clark Ashton Smith: Tales of Science and Sorcery
William Browning Spencer: The Ocean and All Its Devices
Neal Stephenson: Zodiac or The Big U
Steph Swainston: The Year of Our War
Thomas Burnett Swann: The Day of the Minotaur
A. E. van Vogt: The Voyage of the Space Beagle or The War Against the
Rull
Karl Edward Wagner: Darkness Weaves
Howard Waldrop: Things Will Never Be the Same
Martha Wells: The Element of Fire
John Whitbourne: To Build Jerusalem or Binscomb Tales
Edward Whitmore: Nile Shadows
Liz Williams: The Banquet for the Lords of Night or Snake Agent
Jack Williamson: The Legion of Space
Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Walter Jon Williams: Conventions of War
Gene Wolfe: Pirate Freedom
Roger Zelazny: Wilderness or DonnerJack
Lawrence Person
http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson
Lame Excuse Books
http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson/lame.html
Konrad Gaertner
>
> Fritz Leiber: Rime Isle
Not the best of the series, but if you've read this far you may as
well finish it.
> Naomi Novik: Temeraire
This is good, though my interest is waning as the series continues.
> Steph Swainston: The Year of Our War
I bounced hard off this.
> Martha Wells: The Element of Fire
This is good if you can ignore the heroine's name.
> Liz Williams: Snake Agent
Very good non-Western urban fantasy; my favorite book on your list.
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: kgae...@tx.rr.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"If I let myself get hung up on only doing things that had any actual
chance of success, I'd never do *anything*!" Elan, Order of the Stick
David E. Siegel
> Hi there, and welcome to 2008!
>
> As a compulsive list-maker, I'm once again asking the The Vast Wisdom
> of Usenet what books I should read this year. Below are 100 books (or
> a more, counting multiple titles by a single author) of fiction I'm
> considering reading in 2008. They're all books I already own in first
> editions. Most likely I'll get to considerably less than 100. The
> first 10 or so are books I'll probably get to, and the probable order,
> whereas the rest are a little vaguer (and in alphabetical order by
> author). That's where you come in. Tell me which of the books below I
> should or shouldn't read, and why. If a book's not on the list, it's
> probably because I've already read it, or have no interest in it,
> won't get to it this year, etc., so save your electrons instead of
> suggesting alternates (there are plenty of other threads for that).
> And if I list Book #2 in a series, rest assured I've already read Book
> #1. (The Over/Under for how many messages it takes for the first
> person to ignore these caveats is "3".)
>
> I don't promise I'll read all the highest rated works, but those most
> highly praised are considerably more likely they'll be added to the
> reading stack, which is what's happened the previous years I've done
> this.
>
> Jack Vance: The Brave Free Men
I haven't reead this one, but I've never read I vance I didn't like a
lot, so if I were you I'd try it.
> Lois McMaster Bujold: Mirror Dance
This is, IMO, very good indeed. Not the very best ofher Miles books,
but definately in the upper third, IMO. And the use of several VP
characters other than Miles was, IMO a Good Thing. Also this is a
vital read to getting the most out of _Memory_ and _A Civil Campaign_
IMO, and those are MUCH too good to miss.
> Avram Davidson: The Adventures of Dr. Esterhauzy or Joyleg
The Esterhazy stories are top-rate. Don't miss them (including "The
Odd Old Bird" which is included in _The Other Nineteenth Centuary_ but
not in TAoDE). The use of various old and odd legands and more or less
obscure facts is absloutely wonderful -- at least if you have the kind
of mind that likes that sort of thing at all.
I prefered the title of the earlier edition (_The Enquiries of Dr.
Esterhauzy_), and I miss the maps of Bella and of SPT-B (which showd
that the rail line from Bella passed through Zenda and Streslau in
Ruritania). But that edition only has half the stories. I hope for/
dream of a new edition which includes ALL the storeis *and* the maps,
entitled _The Expanded Enquiries of Dr. Esterhauzy_,
_Joyleg_ was an early work, and co-authored, and IMO the ending was a
bit weak. But the early scenes are sidesplitting, and the protrait of
Joyleg himself is very well done IMO. Well worth reading.
> L. Sprague de Camp: A Gun for Dinosaur
Not IM De Camps very best, but worth reading. if you do read this,
read david drake's "Time Safari" if you havent already done so. TS was
a direct response to this story.
> Shirley Jackson: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Exquisite. Don't miss it.
> Henry Kuttner and/or C. L. Moore: Mutant, Fury, Northwest Smith or No
> Boundaries
Fury is very good indeed, but don'r read it without "Clash by Night"
The story that sets it up. (Also, consider David Drake's pastiche of
this: _The Jungle_). The first few stories in Northwest Smith are IMO
top-notch pulp, the later ones get a bit formulaic, again IMO.
> John Myers Myers: Silverlock
Lots of fun. Chock full of references to other works some famous, some
obscure. (I particularly loved the scene wher "The Death of Bowie
Gizard's-bane" -- the story of the Alamo in alleterative verse -- is
recited at the party in honor of beowulf's defeat of Grendal; and the
one where the hero sends don Quixote off on a quest to recover Babe
the Blue Ox) But the story IMO works perfectly well even when you do
NOT know the works being alluded to. Do't miss this one.
> H. Beam Piper: Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen
If you like alt-hist or Pikes&gunpowder ear fiction, this is very
good. The Sequels by another hand are interesting, but not as good,
IMO.
> Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Fun. Light fun.
-DES
Mike Schilling
>
> Jack Vance: The Brave Free Men
Durdane is one of the classic "goes downhill as Vance loses interest"
series; I'd skip this in favor of Emphyrio, Maske:Thaery, or Night
Lamp.
> Samuel R. Delany: Driftglass
One of the best single-author collections ever.
> Lois McMaster Bujold: Mirror Dance
Yes! Her best Miles book.
> Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Wonderful.
> Fritz Leiber: Rime Isle
I thought that the last two F&GM books (of which Rime Isle is the
fulcrum) were a big misstep. They're unpleasant, misogynistic, and
simply lacking in the previous books' sense of fun.
> Tim Powers: Three Days to Never or Pilot Light
Three Days to Never was muddled and disappointing, at least on a first
read.
> Michael Shea: A Quest for Simbilis
I've seen this praised a lot, but to me Shea misunderstood Vance and
Cugel quite badly. I suggest Nifft the Lean instead.
> Robert Sladek: Roderick
John Sladek. A definite yes; but be sure to get the recent complete
edition; the previous U.S. edition (two-thirds of the first book, in
an oh-so-clever plan to make a duology into a trilogy) is criminal.
> Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Hilarious.
> Walter Jon Williams: Conventions of War
I found it disappointing compared to the first two. Much of it is
taken up with a fairly pointless detective story.
Robert Hutchinson
> Alistair Reynolds: Chasm City
> Charles Stross: Halting State
These are the two I would give unqualified recommendations for, but
then, they're the two already on your "probably will read" list, so.
> John Scalzi: The Ghost Brigades
I found that the _Old Man's War_ trilogy steadily improved in quality,
so I guess it depends on how much you liked OMW.
> Neal Stephenson: Zodiac or The Big U
I'd give both of these hesitant recommendations, unless you're one of
those crazies like me that *likes* most of Stephenson's authorial
idiosyncrasies, in which case I'll strike the hesitant part.
--
Robert Hutchinson
Rich Horton
wrote:
>Jack Vance: The Brave Free Men
YES
>Kelly Link: Stranger Things Happen
VERY MUCH YES
>Alistair Reynolds: Chasm City
YES
>Samuel R. Delany: Driftglass
VERY MUCH YES (and will you get mad if I express surprise that you
haven't read this yet?)
>Robert E. Howard: Conan the Conqueror
YES
>J. G. Ballard: The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard
YES
>Iain Banks: Against a Dark Background
YES
>Lois McMaster Bujold: Mirror Dance
YES
>Jonathan Carroll: A Child Across the Sky or Outside the Dog Museum
I liked Outside the Dog Museum
>Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
If you read one book this year ... definitely this one
>Avram Davidson: The Adventures of Dr. Esterhauzy or Joyleg
VERY MUCH YES to Eszterhazy, but Joyleg can be skipped
>Philip K. Dick: Collected Stories Volume II or Confessions of a Crap
>Artist
I'd read the Collected Stories and skip the crap, so to speak
>Paul Di Filippo: Lost Pages or Fractal Paisleys
YES
>Jeffrey Ford: The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque
YES
>John M. Ford: The Dragon Waiting
YES
>Neil Gaiman: Snow Glass Apples
YES
>Ian MacLeod: Breathmoss and Other Exhalations
YES
>Gregory Maguire: Wicked
Well, I liked the musical -- and my wife says the book is good
>Ian McDonald: River of Gods
YES
>Maureen McHugh: Mission Child or Nekropolis
YES
>Naomi Novik: Temeraire
YES
>John Scazli: The Ghost Brigades
Sure
>Karl Schroeder: Permanence or Lady of Mazes
YES -- not sure which I'd pick.
>Lucius Shepard: Floater or Aztechs or Viator
None of these strike me as Shepard at much like his best
>Robert Sladek: Roderick
Assuming you actually mean John Sladek, YES
>Steph Swainston: The Year of Our War
NO -- easily the most overrated new fantasy writer of the past few
years
>Liz Williams: The Banquet for the Lords of Night or Snake Agent
YES
>Jack Williamson: The Legion of Space
YES -- unabashed pulp, not really great, but fun
>Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog
YES
>Walter Jon Williams: Conventions of War
YES
>Gene Wolfe: Pirate Freedom
I'll be reading it soon ...
Kurt Busiek
> Robert E. Howard: Conan the Conqueror
Rousing, energetic pulp adventure.
> Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Wonderful, wonderful book.
> Stephen King: Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass or The Colorado Kid
THE COLORADO KID is pleasant reading, but very dlight. WIZARD AND
GLASS is at the very least a meatier read.
> Henry Kuttner and/or C. L. Moore: Mutant
One of my favorites. Well worth a read, if only for the Green Man and
the Cody.
> Naomi Novik: Temeraire
The first in the series is very engaging; I think they lose something
thereafter.
> H. Beam Piper: Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen
Fun stuff.
> Tim Powers: Three Days to Never
Not my favorite Powers, but full of engaging and inventive bits.
> John Scazli: The Ghost Brigades
Scalzi. Good solid SF adventure.
> Liz Williams: Snake Agent
First in aseries, shows a lot of promise and a deft approach to storytelling.
kdb
sigi...@yahoo.com
> Jack Vance: The Brave Free Men
Any Vance is at least OK, and this is better than that. Not long,
either. Read it.
> Alistair Reynolds: Chasm City
One "no" vote. Slow, not too plausible, ends up going nowhere
interesting IMO.
> Iain Banks: Against a Dark Background
Has most of what's to like about Banks and not too many of his
annoying bad habits. Recommended.
> Lois McMaster Bujold: Mirror Dance
Strongly recommended.
> Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Strongly recommended. Only negative is that it takes a while to get
going, so be prepared to give it a hundred pages. Worth the
investment; it's excellent.
> Stephen King: Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass
I'd bail on the Dark Tower series at this point. W&G is about 80%
backstory, and not great backstory either.
> Fritz Leiber: Rime Isle
The consensus (with which I agree) is that the last two F&GM books
were very inferior to the earlier ones.
> Gregory Maguire: Wicked
Excellent. Riffs on both the book and the movie, but is very much its
own work. Recommended.
> Maureen McHugh: Mission Child
I liked the idea of this book, but people kept being so damn stupid in
it.
> Neal Stephenson: Zodiac or The Big U
Zodiac is pure fun. The lead character is Stephenson's attempt to do
Travis McGee. Doesn't work but it's fun anyway.
> Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Fluff, very light and silly. Did not work for me.
> Walter Jon Williams: Conventions of War
Not as good as the first two but still worth reading.
Doug M.
DouhetSukd
> Alistair Reynolds: Chasm City
Probably the best Reynolds so far, very atmospheric, even if you see
the ending a mile away (hey, if I could get it...)
> Robert E. Howard: Conan the Conqueror
Conan's always nice to have around. Nice loinclothes!
> Iain Banks: Against a Dark Background
A very good Banks, SF, but not in the Culture setting. Re-read it
recently and loved it. Bleak and hopeless, even more than most Banks.
> Poppy Z. Brite: Plastic Jesus
I can't vouch for this book, but another Poppy book was just one of
the sickest, goriest books I ever read. Just disgusting, but without
much else to recommend it. Nice to know I have my limits :-) Try
American Psycho if you want sick gore, but with some brains included.
> Peter F. Hamilton: Mindstar Rising
Not bad, but he's done better. Earlier work of his.
> Stanislaw Lem: Solaris
Yes!!! Don't be put off by the rather lame and slow movies. It's much
tighter. One thing: not much of a conclusion, it is more
philosophical in nature.
> Ian McDonald: River of Gods
Haven't read it, yet, but he's one of my fave authors. Will read it.
> Sean McMullen: The Miocene Arrow
OK, but not exceptional. This is book #2 in the trilogy and thought
#1 was more thought-provoking, with the human computer element.
> Richard Morgan: Broken Angels
Hmmm. Richard Morgan is not, in my opinion, half as clever as
everyone seems to think. Altered Carbon had some good ideas in a
generally dystopian future, even if the ending was typical murder-
mystery Deus Ex Machina. Broken Angels spins up the dystopian future
bit, adds anti-corporate "philosophy" (surprise, surprise) and...
forgets about something called a plot. The end comes abruptly and
didn't really seem to justify the story, IIRC.
> Dan Simmons: The Terror
Definitely. Only if you love big books and long historical
descriptions though. Simmons has clawed his cerebrum back from the
dark days of Endymion and Ilium. I recommend you read along about the
expedition on Wikipedia, there are no real spoilers to doing so.
> Neal Stephenson: Zodiac or The Big U
Zodiac. Tight, logical, paranoid, ecological. Not rambling like his
latest crop. His editor hadn't had her red pen taken away.
> Steph Swainston: The Year of Our War
Avoid. For a book built around a world at war, the world is painfully
lacking in credibility. Look at the world map, it's just _bad_!
Plus, she goes overboard in dropping teaser hints and also lacks a
compelling plot.
> Karl Edward Wagner: Darkness Weaves
Yes!!! Meaner, sorcerous, and way more psychotic than Conan, Kane
rules. OK, not exactly Nobel prize material, but good ol' fashioned
hack & slash anti-hero.
> Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Hmmmm. I remember starting it, but I didn't finish it. Try
Doomsday or Bellwhether instead. YMMV, I couldn't get into the
Victorian cuteness and lost interest quickly - perhaps I didn't give
it a chance.
> Walter Jon Williams: Conventions of War
Pretty good, but this is book #1 of 3. Williams did a great job on
military scifi, I think, though, in pure space war terms, Dauntless/
Fearless by Jack Campbell might have an edge on tactics. Where
Williams has the edge is that he is the more polished author and he
has a better grasp of something you could call "military stagnative
dysfunction". i.e. a military which has basically forgotten how to
fight because all they know is obsolete doctrines and how to drill/
look good. Surprisingly common in the real world, that (check early
French WWI tactics for example).
Mike Schilling
> On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 17:43:26 -0800 (PST), Lawrenc...@gmail.com
> wrote:
>
>
>> Jack Vance: The Brave Free Men
> YES
And continue on to The Asutra? (I'd stop after The Anome, myself.)
>> Philip K. Dick: Collected Stories Volume II or Confessions of a
>> Crap
>> Artist
> I'd read the Collected Stories and skip the crap, so to speak
There are fine parts of CoaCA, but it doesn't stand up as a whole.
It's very clunkily constructed, much like every other mainstream Dick
novel I've read, other than The Transmigration of Timothy Archer,
which is magnificent.
Lawrenc...@gmail.com
> On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 17:43:26 -0800 (PST), LawrencePer...@gmail.com
> wrote:
>
> >Samuel R. Delany: Driftglass
>
> VERY MUCH YES (and will you get mad if I express surprise that you haven't read this yet?)
I have, in fact, read many of the stories in here, but not all of
them, and the ones I have were read quite some time ago.
Rich Horton
both KAVALIER AND CLAY -- which doesn't surprise me, I knew people who
have read it love it, as they should, and also THE YEAR OF OUR WAR,
which I had for a while though I was a lonely dissenter about.
mimus
> Tell me which of the books below I
> should or shouldn't read, and why.
Vance's _The Brave Free Men_ is the middle novel of his "Durdane" trilogy,
which really should be read starting with _The Faceless Man_ (aka _The
Anome_) and ending with _The Asutra_-- for one thing, the world "Durdane"
is kind of complicated, and for another things are (putting it mildly)
reeling wildly by the time _The Faceless Man_ ends and _The Brave Free
Men_ begins.
Shirley Jackson's _We Have Always Lived in the Castle_ is sad and funny
and terrible, the finest novelization of the most likely reality of
"witchcraft" that I've read (not that I've tried to exhaust the field or
anything), a real head-clutcher and arm-hair-raiser-- the narrator, young
"Merrikat" Blackwood, has been for decades one of my favorite females in
fiction, even though in real life she would probably best be locked up for
good a la Manson.
--
We are on the moon.
< _We Have Always Lived in the Castle_
douglas winston
> Jack Vance: The Brave Free Men
> Robert E. Howard: Conan the Conqueror 1967
> Charles Stross: Halting State 2007
> Iain Banks: Against a Dark Background 1993
> John Barnes: Kaleidoscope Century
> Lois McMaster Bujold: Mirror Dance 1994
> Avram Davidson: The Adventures of Dr. Esterhauzy
> Peter F. Hamilton: Mindstar Rising 1993
> Geoffrey Household: The Sending 1980
> Henry Kuttner and/or C. L. Moore: Fury 1947
> R. A. Lafferty: Argo
> Joe R. Lansdale: Flaming London
> Fritz Leiber: Rime Isle
> Richard Morgan: Broken Angels 2003
> H. Beam Piper: Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen 1965
> Joanna Russ: The Female Man 1975
> John Scazli: The Ghost Brigades 2006
> Neal Stephenson: Zodiac 1988
> A. E. van Vogt: The Voyage of the Space Beagle 1977
> Martha Wells: The Element of Fire 2006
> Liz Williams: Snake Agent 2005
> Jack Williamson: The Legion of Space
> Walter Jon Williams: Conventions of War 2005
These are the authors that I have read before and plan to read again.
A few of the titles are new to me.
David DeLaney
>Hi there, and welcome to 2008!
>
>As a compulsive list-maker, I'm once again asking the The Vast Wisdom
>of Usenet what books I should read this year. Below are 100 books (or
>a more, counting multiple titles by a single author) of fiction I'm
>considering reading in 2008. They're all books I already own in first
>editions. Most likely I'll get to considerably less than 100. The
>first 10 or so are books I'll probably get to, and the probable order,
>whereas the rest are a little vaguer (and in alphabetical order by
>author). That's where you come in. Tell me which of the books below I
>should or shouldn't read, and why.
Some of these I have no clue on...
Recommend strongly from personal liking:
>Iain Banks: Against a Dark Background
>Lois McMaster Bujold: Mirror Dance
>Harlan Ellison: Deathbird Stories
>H. Beam Piper: Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen
>Tim Powers: Three Days to Never
>John Scalzi: The Ghost Brigades
>Michael Shea: A Quest for Simbilis
(I'm assuming you've read the Vance Dying Earth books already)
>Liz Williams: Snake Agent
>Jack Williamson: The Legion of Space
>Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Recommend if you've already, as you note, read the previous bits of the
series, but definitely not as a first book by the author:
>Octavia Butler: Mind of My Mind
(#2 of 4, though the third isn't as related)
>Sean McMullen: The Miocene Arrow
(#2 of 3)
And there's several on there that I'd recommend simply because I like most
of what I've read by the author, even if I don't know that book specifically
(like Manly Wade Wellman, de Camp, or Zelazny, among several others there),
but I gather that's not actually what you're looking for.
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
David DeLaney
>> Michael Shea: A Quest for Simbilis
>I've seen this praised a lot, but to me Shea misunderstood Vance and
>Cugel quite badly. I suggest Nifft the Lean instead.
I don't know if it's quite that so much as that he wrote them into -his-
far future world instead of Vance's Dying Earth, as such. I liked it, but
it's definitely different from the rest of the series.
David DeLaney
>>Jack Williamson: The Legion of Space
>YES -- unabashed pulp, not really great, but fun
And, if you like it, see if you can find Three From The Legion and The Queen
of the Legion as well.
William December Starr
Lawrenc...@gmail.com said:
> Kelly Link: Stranger Things Happen
I read half of two ir three stories in there and gave up. There's
something *unpleasant* about the way she thinks, or at least writes,
even though I can't quantify it.
> Charles Stross: Halting State or Missile Gap
I haven't read the former. MISSILE GAP... I dunno. Charlie has
impressive *IDEAS*, but sometimes they don't work out to a good
story. This one bugged me[1*] because the end makes it pretty clear
that that particular end was about 99.9999% inevitable and
preordained from well before the point in time that the narration
even started, but the author didn't want us to know that _during_
the story so he made it look as though other things were possible.
*1: No pun intended, as insects and the concept of communal/hive
entities play a major role.
> Harlan Ellison: Deathbird Stories
Harlan with the dial often turned up to eleven. If you like this
sort of thing then this is the sort of thing you'll like. I find
the sort-of title story, "Deathbird," to be really impressive even
though I don't realy understand it.
> Richard Morgan: Broken Angels
This the second in a sequence of books -- three so far, and maybe
that's all there'll be -- featuring (in the first person) Takeshi
Kovacs. I really, really like them, but I have to say, start with
the first one, ALTERED CARBON.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Mike Dworetsky
news:1c669751-9314-4c10...@v4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> A. E. van Vogt: The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Can't understand why no one has yet recommended this one, one of the
classics of SF and a very good read that doesn't seem dated even today.
Tightly written, with a very scary monster.
--
Mike Dworetsky
(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)
Gene Ward Smith
IMzd_-banZ2d...@bt.com:
>> A. E. van Vogt: The Voyage of the Space Beagle
>
>
> Can't understand why no one has yet recommended this one, one of the
> classics of SF and a very good read that doesn't seem dated even today.
> Tightly written, with a very scary monster.
>
Do you mean the very scary monster, or the scary monster which could pick
its teeth with that scary monster, or the scary monster which has already
eaten one galaxy and now wants to eat ours?
Joseph Nebus
>On Jan 1, 8:43 pm, LawrencePer...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Gregory Maguire: Wicked
>Excellent. Riffs on both the book and the movie, but is very much its
>own work. Recommended.
Just endorsing the recommendation here. I went into it with
fair-to-middling skepticism particularly after a bit of conversation
in the first few pages which was probably meant to shock people who
expected twee Oz fanfic (fair enough to warn them off early, I admit)
but came out thoroughly satisfied with the story as well as the
world-building behind it.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Howard
>
> Alistair Reynolds: Chasm City
Recommended
> Charles Stross: Halting State or Missile Gap
Missile Gap was good, but don't miss halting State. I think it might
be Charlie's best novel yet.
> Iain Banks: Against a Dark Background
Good Banks, without the Culture background
> Stephen Baxter: Traces or Mayflower II
I read just about everything by Baxter, but Mayflower II didn't do
much for me.
> Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Read this!!! An amazing book.
> John M. Ford: The Dragon Waiting
It's been a long time since I've read this, but I recently got a new
copy and am thinking of rereading it this year.
> Peter F. Hamilton: Mindstar Rising
Early Hamilton. If you've not read him before, it's a good place to
start to see if you like his style.
> Jay Lake: Mainspring
An excellant novel. This and Rocket Science are the only things I've
read by Lake, but both are highly recommended.
> Joe R. Lansdale: Flaming London
If you enjoyed Zepplins West, then this is more...
> David Marusek: Counting Heads
I was much less impressed with this then the general critical
concensus, I think.
> Ian McDonald: River of Gods
Very impressive, though I actually like his newer book better.
> Sean McMullen: The Miocene Arrow
Recommended
> Larry McMurtry: Lonesome Dove
Oh, I just got a copy of this to try and read this year also.
> Richard Morgan: Broken Angels
More along the lines of Altered Carbon. I like Morgan, but I'm not
expecting any truly great things from him.
> H. Beam Piper: Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen
Excellant book.
> Tim Powers: Three Days to Never or Pilot Light
Three Days to Never isn't my favorite Powers, but it's still very
good.
> John Scazli: The Ghost Brigades
Scazli seems to be getting better (and his first novel was pretty darn
good).
> Karl Schroeder: Permanence or Lady of Mazes
Yes to Lady of Mazes--I've still not read Permanence
> Dan Simmons: The Terror
A true masterpiece--the best Simmons I've read
> Neal Stephenson: Zodiac or The Big U
I read The Big U years ago; fun in a crazy sort of way. Still haven't
read Zodiac
> Edward Whitmore: Nile Shadows
I assume you're read Sinai Tapestry and Jerusalem Poker? I read the
Jersualem quartet all at one time. A powerful series (though I remain
annoyed at the lack of quotation marks--a sore point for me since I
just read No Country for Old Men and it does the same thing. This is
supposed to be literary?)
William George Ferguson
wrote:
>Lawrenc...@gmail.com <Lawrenc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Hi there, and welcome to 2008!
>>Octavia Butler: Mind of My Mind
> (#2 of 4, though the third isn't as related)
Which 'patternist' book aren't you counting (or aren't aware of)?
The books in published order (with internal chronology in parentheses)
Patternmaster (5)
Mind of My Mind (2)
Survivor (4)
Wild Seed (1)
Clay's Ark (3)
The only two that are directly connnected (as in shared characters) are
Mind of My Mind and Wild Seed)
--
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
(Bene Gesserit)
William George Ferguson
wrote:
Or the scariest monster of all, who eventually takes over the space ship to
beat that last scary monster?
The book is a 'fix-up' of four related short stories. The third section,
'Discord in Scarlet' is the admitted inspiration for the movie "It! The
Terror From Beyond Space" and the un-admitted, but Fox settled Van Vogt's
slam-dunk plagiarism suit out of court, inspiration for "Alien".
Mike Schilling
Grosvenor, the Null-A^H^H^H^H^H^H Nexialist, is pretty daned scary
himself.
David DeLaney
>d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
>>Lawrenc...@gmail.com <Lawrenc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>Hi there, and welcome to 2008!
>>>Octavia Butler: Mind of My Mind
>> (#2 of 4, though the third isn't as related)
>
>Which 'patternist' book aren't you counting (or aren't aware of)?
>
>The books in published order (with internal chronology in parentheses)
>
>Patternmaster (5)
>Mind of My Mind (2)
>Survivor (4)
>Wild Seed (1)
>Clay's Ark (3)
Hm. I thought I had read 'Survivor' long ago and decided it wasn't part of
the series? Wikitime... ... okay, perhaps I missed or glossed over the
explanation that Wiki says is in the novel about the background of the story
and its main character Alanna. It looks like the book's main themes don't
really involve the Patternists (or the Clayark disease) at all, so that may
be why I mentally left it out way back when.
(Wiki also says it's the only one not reprinted in English since 1981.)
>The only two that are directly connnected (as in shared characters) are
>Mind of My Mind and Wild Seed)
Right; Patternmaster is set long after the end of Doro's era, and Clay's Ark
explains one major contributor to the differences between the Patternmaster
era and our own.
David DeLaney
>sigi...@yahoo.com writes:
>>On Jan 1, 8:43 pm, LawrencePer...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> Gregory Maguire: Wicked
>
>>Excellent. Riffs on both the book and the movie, but is very much its
>>own work. Recommended.
>
> Just endorsing the recommendation here. I went into it with
>fair-to-middling skepticism particularly after a bit of conversation
>in the first few pages which was probably meant to shock people who
>expected twee Oz fanfic (fair enough to warn them off early, I admit)
>but came out thoroughly satisfied with the story as well as the
>world-building behind it.
Yes - it's definitely a retcon on the Oz stories, but not one which made me
want to throw the book against a handy wall. (Contrast that with the recent
children's series starting with ... okay, now I can't even FIND the
paperback ... ha, got it, the main character's name is "Alyss" and the
books so far are The Looking Glass Wars and Seeing Redd, by Beddor - avoid
these at ALL costs. I read all the way through the first thinking "surely he
can't make the differences WORSE this chapter... o gods he did" repeatedly, and
that's a trade paperback's worth of dollars and time I'm not getting back.
No consistency in the setting, not even the mad dream-logic Carroll had, no
explanations of any sort of sensible history or sense that there was an
actual world behind these interacting .43-dimensional characters, and an
excess of gore and splatter for its own sake. Oh, and the obligatory "meets
and falls in love with handsome prince through unreferenced-up-to-that-point
psychic powers that do not get used afterwards".)
mimus
> <Lawrenc...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1c669751-9314-4c10...@v4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
>> A. E. van Vogt: The Voyage of the Space Beagle
>
> Can't understand why no one has yet recommended this one, one of the
> classics of SF and a very good read that doesn't seem dated even today.
> Tightly written, with a very scary monster.
Darwin's original was better.
Swarms of giant black blood-sucking bugs, anyone?
--
You want a job and a lizard to ride?
< _The Einstein Intersection_
Anthony Nance
> John M. Ford: The Dragon Waiting
I found this to be quite enjoyable, said enjoyment enhanced by
consulting/reading Andrew Plotkin's fine concordance in parallel,
usually a chapter at a time:
http://eblong.com/draconc/
> Henry Kuttner and/or C. L. Moore: Fury
A bit dated in places, but a very enjoyable work indeed. I think I've
read that Moore helped write this one, although she is not credited.
He/they do a great job of making you feel the on-the-edge emotion
(fury, mostly) of the protagonist. Next time a "revenge in SF" thread
rolls around, I hope to remember this book.
> Richard Matheson: Duel or What Dreams May Come
I've greatly enjoyed everything of Matheson's that I've read,
but I've never read What Dreams May Come.
> John Myers Myers: Silverlock
I agree with David Siegel (I think it was him, anyhow):
This is great fun whether you are catching references or not.
Better said, I surely missed references, but I don't feel it
hurt my enjoyment one bit.
> H. Beam Piper: Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen
For me, this was good, but since you're also looking to choose
some amongst many, I'd recommend the others I've left here
above this one.
> John Scazli: The Ghost Brigades
If you liked the previous OMW universe books. you'll like this too,
and probably about as much.
> A. E. van Vogt: The Voyage of the Space Beagle or The War Against the
> Rull
I liked both, but I feel TVotSB was superior - van Vogt writing
near his peak abilities, pretty much uniformly.
> Walter Jon Williams: Conventions of War
Worth reading, but I found it lesser than the first two in this series.
It does pretty much tie everything up, too.
Tony
Johan Larson
> Alistair Reynolds: Chasm City
I got three chapters in, and lost interest.
> Charles Stross: Halting State or Missile Gap
Halting State is on my to-read list. Looks tasty.
> Iain Banks: Against a Dark Background
Excellent.
> Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Good in parts, but overrated as a whole. Try "Soon I Will Be
Invincible" instead.
> John M. Ford: The Dragon Waiting
Another one people rave about, but I bounced off completely. I suspect
it gets better if you know a lot about ancient history, so you can
tell what was changed.
> Ian McDonald: River of Gods
On my to-read list. Unfortunately I have fallen hard for GRRM's A Song
of Ice and Fire, so it may be a while before I get to anything else.
> John Scazli: The Ghost Brigades
Excellent.
> Neal Stephenson: Zodiac or The Big U
I've read them both, and Zodiac is both later and better. The Big U
was Stephenson's first novel, and it shows.
Johan Larson
Konrad Gaertner
>
> (Contrast that with the recent
> children's series starting with ... okay, now I can't even FIND the
> paperback ... ha, got it, the main character's name is "Alyss" and the
> books so far are The Looking Glass Wars and Seeing Redd, by Beddor - avoid
> these at ALL costs. I read all the way through the first thinking "surely he
> can't make the differences WORSE this chapter... o gods he did" repeatedly, and
> that's a trade paperback's worth of dollars and time I'm not getting back.
> No consistency in the setting, not even the mad dream-logic Carroll had, no
> explanations of any sort of sensible history or sense that there was an
> actual world behind these interacting .43-dimensional characters, and an
> excess of gore and splatter for its own sake. Oh, and the obligatory "meets
> and falls in love with handsome prince through unreferenced-up-to-that-point
> psychic powers that do not get used afterwards".)
Thanks for the warning. I've been seeing quite a bit of hype about
this from the YA-literati, and was considering picking it up.
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: kgae...@tx.rr.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"If I let myself get hung up on only doing things that had any actual
chance of success, I'd never do *anything*!" Elan, Order of the Stick
PV
>Alistair Reynolds: Chasm City
If you've read "Revelation Space", by all means read this - Reynolds really
gets rolling in the story. if you haven't, go read RS first - while CS is
chronologically first, if you read it first you'll miss out on a lot of the
fun of RS. Reynolds writes medium-hard SF in the classic style.
>Iain Banks: Against a Dark Background
This is just a fantastic adventure yarn that's fun to the last page. A good
introduction to Banks.
>Philip Jose Farmer: Maker of Universes or Down in the Black Gang
Wow. I read "Down in the Black Gang" so long ago that I don't remember a
bit of it. PJF is one of those writers that clicks with you or completely
fails.
>Stephen King: Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass or The Colorado Kid
Bleck. The Dark Tower is an endless fantasy series. King has done a lot
better in his day.
>Fritz Leiber: Rime Isle
Any Leiber is a treat.
>Stanislaw Lem: Solaris
Ditto on Lem!
>Richard Matheson: Duel or What Dreams May Come
Big thumbs up on "What Dreams may Come".
>John Myers Myers: Silverlock
If you're a fan of older literature, you will have endless fun playing
"spot the character". Every once in a while I trip over another one of the
sources of his characters years after reading it. I have tried to read the
sequel (The moon's fire eating daughter) 3 times and it's bounced.
>Tim Powers: Three Days to Never or Pilot Light
I haven't read either of these. The first is actually the next book on my
plate, but I don't know "Pilot Light". Powers is another author that you
love, or give strange looks to people that say they love his books.
>Neal Stephenson: Zodiac or The Big U
Zodiac is a hell of a lot of fun. The Big U annoyed the living crap out of
me. I finished it, but only barely.
>A. E. van Vogt: The Voyage of the Space Beagle or The War Against the
>Rull
The first one is a classic. Don't know the second.
>Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog
You really need to have read her earlier time travel books to appreciate
all that's going on in this one. Loved it to death.
>Walter Jon Williams: Conventions of War
WJW is another "hard to find a bad one" author.
>Roger Zelazny: Wilderness or DonnerJack
There is *almost* no such thing as bad Zelazny. Even the much-maligned (and
justifably so) second Amber books have some great bits in them. *
--
* PV something like badgers--something like lizards--and something
like corkscrews.
Arthur Green
> Hi there, and welcome to 2008!
>
[ ... ]
> I don't promise I'll read all the highest rated works, but those most
> highly praised are considerably more likely they'll be added to the
> reading stack, which is what's happened the previous years I've done
> this.
>
> Alistair Reynolds: Chasm City
Almost all of Alistair Reynolds' stuff blurs into one for me, I'm afraid. I
think there's there's a limit to the amount of techno-goth doom and gloom I
can read.
> Peter Ackroyd: Hawksmoor
On my list to read.
> Charles Stross: Halting State or Missile Gap
I think Missile Gap is available online. I read it a while back and thought
it not bad (perhaps not as good as Singularity Sky or the Laundry series).
I'm maybe 20% of the way through Halting State - so far so good (I find
myself buying Charles Stross in hardback quite a lot).
> Iain Banks: Against a Dark Background
Not quite first-rank Banks, but not so bad. Doom and (a little bit of)
gloom, but the characters seem more vibrant than Alistair Reynolds'. Better
than The Algebraist (which I thought was sort of going through the
motions - take a set of Banks tropes from his earlier SF and rearrange
them). I was repeatedly reminded of an RPG campaign when I read it first.
> John Barnes: Kaleidoscope Century or Mother of Storms
I read Mother of Storms way back - since I can't remember very much about
it, I'm not sure I could recommend it.
> Fritz Leiber: Rime Isle
Ho-hum Fafhrd and Grey Mouser - not as good as (say) Ill Met in Lankhmar
> Stanislaw Lem: Solaris
Good. The style of writing is quite stilted (something I've seen in all the
Lem I've read - perhaps an artifact of the translation?), but it does
convey how unfathomable Solaris is.
> China Mieville: King Rat or Looking for Jake
Haven't read either of these, but Mieville is good if you don't mind
wallowing in crypto-Victorian steam fantasy grunge. Actually, I like the
Mieville I've read - The Scar, Perdido Street Station and The Iron Council.
> Michael Moorcock: Gloriana
I was put off Moorcock in my teens back in the '70s by various rehashes of
the Eternal Champion. I haven't had any urge to revisit.
> Neal Stephenson: Zodiac or The Big U
Zodiac is quite good and almost manages a real ending (something of a rarity
for Stephenson). The Big U hasn't aged very well - I'm not sure how good it
might have been in the first place. I believe Stephenson (whose work I
like, despite the ending issue) didn't want it reissued.
> A. E. van Vogt: The Voyage of the Space Beagle or The War Against the
> Rull
Van Vogt always left me thinking "meh - why did I bother with that?".
> Lawrence Person
> http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson
> Lame Excuse Books
> http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson/lame.html
- Arthur
Gene Ward Smith
@winston.phraction.org:
> Better
> than The Algebraist (which I thought was sort of going through the
> motions - take a set of Banks tropes from his earlier SF and rearrange
> them). I was repeatedly reminded of an RPG campaign when I read it first.
>
What it needed was an actual Algebraist instead of a Slow Seer.
Johan Larson
Has any SF novel included a realistically portrayed mathematician?
Johan Larson
David DeLaney
>David DeLaney wrote:
>>(Contrast that with the recent
>>children's series starting with ... okay, now I can't even FIND the
>>paperback ... ha, got it, the main character's name is "Alyss" and the
>>books so far are The Looking Glass Wars and Seeing Redd, by Beddor - avoid
>>these at ALL costs. I read all the way through the first thinking "surely he
>> that's a trade paperback's worth of dollars and time I'm not getting back.
>> No consistency in the setting, not even the mad dream-logic Carroll had, no
>> explanations of any sort of sensible history or sense that there was an
>> actual world behind these interacting .43-dimensional characters, and an
>> excess of gore and splatter for its own sake. Oh, and the obligatory "meets
>> and falls in love with handsome prince through unreferenced-up-to-that-point
>> psychic powers that do not get used afterwards".)
>
>Thanks for the warning. I've been seeing quite a bit of hype about
>this from the YA-literati, and was considering picking it up.
Library. (And consider losing it while you have it checked out, as a service
to them. Shudder.)
Haven't been this icked out since The Fifth-or-so Sorceress.
Andrew Wheeler
> Thanks for the warning. I've been seeing quite a bit of hype about
> this from the YA-literati, and was considering picking it up.
On the other hand, Beddor is a more entertaining writer than
_Wicked_-era Maguire, and is not nearly as full of himself. Beddor's
books are dumb, Hollywood-style action movies, but they're not bad at
it. _Wicked_ knows much less about Oz than it thinks it does, doesn't
manage to ring interesting changes most of the time, and badly bobbles
its central conceit (the natural of evil).
They're both deeply flawed books, but I found _Wicked_ to be bad in
much more annoying ways.
--
Andrew Wheeler
once again
Andrew Wheeler
> Kelly Link: Stranger Things Happen
I think it's actually better than _Magic for Beginners_; it's certainly
more diverse. And Link is clearly one of the best short-story writers
currently active.
> Alistair Reynolds: Chasm City
Still Reynolds's most ambitious novel, and one of my favorites of his.
Well wroth reading.
> Peter Ackroyd: Hawksmoor
I read this ages ago, and it fled from memory almost immediately. My
general lasting impression is that its not as great as it's considered.
> Charles Stross: Halting State or Missile Gap
A vote for "Missile Gap," or for "Missile Gap first. But _Halting State_
is awfully good, too.
> J. G. Ballard: The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard
You have to read this.
> John Barnes: Kaleidoscope Century or Mother of Storms
I have problems with the protagonist of _Kaleidoscope_ (mostly in that I
think Barnes means the reader to identify with him, and I thinkthat is
vile), but its compulsively readable and interesting. I haven't read
_Mother_.
> Lois McMaster Bujold: Mirror Dance
One of the best novels in a fine sequence; I'd personally put this at
about the bottom of the upper third of the reading pile.
> Jonathan Carroll: A Child Across the Sky or Outside the Dog Museum
All Carroll novels are basically the same; _Child_ is probably a bit
better than _Dog_, so if you're reading one this year, I'd suggest going
that way.
> Philip K. Dick: Collected Stories Volume II or Confessions of a Crap Artist
_Confessions_ is incredibly dull; Dick's prose isn't all that great (it
never was), and his plots are plodding and bland without the eruptions
of abnormality. I'd avoid it.
> George Alec Effinger: What Entropy Means to Me
I haven't read this in more than a decade, but I loved it when I did
read it. It may be awfully "'70s" now.
> Harlan Ellison: Deathbird Stories
Don't read them straight through -- only a teenager can read a bunch of
Harlan stories in a row -- but make time to read them.
> John M. Ford: The Dragon Waiting
I never found this all that wonderful. It's slow-moving and also doesn't
go anywhere.
> Neil Gaiman: Snow Glass Apples
It's very short (not even a novellette, I think), and one of the bet
fantasy stories of the past twenty years. Read it.
> Chris Genoa: Foop!
Is this the "fluid's running out of my brakes" book? If so, you MUST
read it, and report on it here. I've never known anyone else who's seen
a copy of it, and I didn't get the chance to read it myself.
> Nalo Hopkinson: Brown Girl in the Ring or The Salt Roads
Haven't read _Salt_; _Brown_ is OK but very much the
first-novel-as-sublimated-autobiography thing.
> Fritz Leiber: Rime Isle
Late F&GM, and short -- if you've made it this fa, you might as well
read it. (And I think putting on a list like this that you own a first
edition consisitutes bragging, as well.)
> Jonathan Lethem: Motherless Brooklyn
It's a very quick read, but it isn't as great as people were saying.
It's certainly worth reading; it's just not transcendently wonderful or
anything.
> Gregory Maguire: Wicked
Very disappointing, in a very first-novel way. Maguire shows very little
knowledge or understanding of even Baum's first novel, and misremembers
the movie as well. It's a muddled mess. Unless you have a reason to read
it, avoid it.
> David Marusek: Counting Heads
It has massive structural problems (the ending is a mess, and the
novella doesn't belong bolted onto the front), but what's in between is
excellent. If you don't expect it to have the shape of a novel, it's
wonderful.
> Maureen McHugh: Mission Child or Nekropolis
I think I've read most of the pieces of _Mission Child_ when they wre
being published as novellas, and I read _Nekropolis_. I find McHugh a
terribly dull, spinach sort of writer: the kind that people tell me I
should read for my own good. And life's too short for that.
> China Mieville: King Rat or Looking for Jake
Avoid _Looking for Jake_; Mieville will do a "Best Short Stories"
collection in about twenty years, which will be the one to have. _King
Rat_ isn't as good as his later novels but is still worth reading.
> Michael Moorcock: Gloriana
One of the great fantasy novels of the 20th century. Read it ASAP.
> Richard Morgan: Broken Angels
Eh. Morgan wrote one very good SFnal mystery, and then fell to blander,
more cookie-cutter leftist MilSF. There are plenty of better books than
this to read.
> Naomi Novik: Temeraire
Best for those of us who wish Patrick O'Brian weren't dead; a nice piece
of worldbuilding and evocation of a different time. Plus, you know,
battles with dragons and tall ships.
> H. Beam Piper: Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen
It holds up OK, but it was always a minor classic.
> Tim Powers: Three Days to Never or Pilot Light
_Three Days_ isn't top-rank Powers, but it's still quite good. I haven't
read _Pilot Light_.
> Rudy Rucker: Master of Time & Space or The Secret of Life or White
> Light
The last time I purged, the one Ikept myself is _White Light_. But
_Master_ is probably the most gonzo-entertaining.
> John Scazli: The Ghost Brigades
As others have said, this trilogy gets more interesting as it goes, but
I think _Ghost Brigades_ is the best novel of the three. It's not a
must-read, but it's good modern SF; I recommend it.
> Michael Shea: A Quest for Simbilis
I don't remember it all that well, but I liked it when I read it.
> Robert Sladek: Roderick
*You* haven't read _Roderick yet? OK, then this goes right after
_Gloriana_. (Though it may be dated at this point.)
> Neal Stephenson: Zodiac or The Big U
They'e both minor, but I found _The Big U_ more interesting, though less
obviously a Stephenson book.
> Martha Wells: The Element of Fire
Liked it when I read it fifteen years ago; but that was fifteen years
ago.
> Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog
As funny and pleasant as SF gets. Save it for right after something
worthy and depressing (like a Peter Watts novel).
> Gene Wolfe: Pirate Freedom
It's wonderful and tricky; I just made it one of my favorite books of
2007. It should be on your shortlist.
> Roger Zelazny: Wilderness or DonnerJack
Never read _Wilderness_, which is very odd Zelazny. _Donnerjack_ is
minor and goes on much too long; I think Lindskold finished it up by
writing more, when Zelazny would have finished it by cutting it down.
--
Andrew Wheeler
who spent the '90s reading a lot of this junk
mimus
There's a whole gallery of turn-of-the-(last-)century mathematicians and
physicists in Thomas Pynchon's last, _Against the Day_, which is fairly
plausibly considered SF ("steam SF", so to speak).
--
"_Ach, der Kronecker!_" cried Gottlob, "he needed only to step out into
the street, and mad dogs ran away or, knowing what was good for them, at
once regained their sanity. Only five feet tall, but he enjoyed the
abnormal strength of the possessed. Each time he appeared, one could
count on weeks of panic."
"But . . . folks say he was very sociable and outgoing," said Kit.
"Perhaps, for an insane zealot who believed 'the positive integers were
created by God, and all else is the work of man.' Of course, it is a
religious war. Kronecker did not believe in pi, or the square root of
minus one--"
"He did not even believe in the square root of _plus two_," said Humfried.
"Against this, Cantor with his _Kontinuum_, professing an equally strong
belief in just those regions, infinitely divisible, which lie _between_
the whole numbers so demanding of all Kronecker's devotion."
"And that's what has kept driving Cantor back into the _Nervenklinik_,"
added Humfried, "and he was only worrying about line-segments."
< _Against the Day_
Gene Ward Smith
> On Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:52:30 -0800, Johan Larson wrote:
> > Has any SF novel included a realistically portrayed mathematician?
>
> There's a whole gallery of turn-of-the-(last-)century mathematicians and
> physicists in Thomas Pynchon's last, _Against the Day_, which is fairly
> plausibly considered SF ("steam SF", so to speak).
>
> --
>
> "_Ach, der Kronecker!_" cried Gottlob, "he needed only to step out into
> the street, and mad dogs ran away or, knowing what was good for them, at
> once regained their sanity. Only five feet tall, but he enjoyed the
> abnormal strength of the possessed. Each time he appeared, one could
> count on weeks of panic."
>
> "But . . . folks say he was very sociable and outgoing," said Kit.
>
> "Perhaps, for an insane zealot who believed 'the positive integers were
> created by God, and all else is the work of man.' Of course, it is a
> religious war. Kronecker did not believe in pi, or the square root of
> minus one--"
>
> "He did not even believe in the square root of _plus two_," said Humfried.
Very funny, but not even slightly realistic.
mimus
> On Jan 2, 5:20 pm, mimus <tinmimu...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:52:30 -0800, Johan Larson wrote:
>
>> > Has any SF novel included a realistically portrayed mathematician?
>>
>> There's a whole gallery of turn-of-the-(last-)century mathematicians and
>> physicists in Thomas Pynchon's last, _Against the Day_, which is fairly
>> plausibly considered SF ("steam SF", so to speak).
>>
>> "_Ach, der Kronecker!_" cried Gottlob, "he needed only to step out into
>> the street, and mad dogs ran away or, knowing what was good for them, at
>> once regained their sanity. Only five feet tall, but he enjoyed the
>> abnormal strength of the possessed. Each time he appeared, one could
>> count on weeks of panic."
>>
>> "But . . . folks say he was very sociable and outgoing," said Kit.
>>
>> "Perhaps, for an insane zealot who believed 'the positive integers were
>> created by God, and all else is the work of man.' Of course, it is a
>> religious war. Kronecker did not believe in pi, or the square root of
>> minus one--"
>>
>> "He did not even believe in the square root of _plus two_," said Humfried.
>
> Very funny, but not even slightly realistic.
I'm pretty sure Kronecker wasn't too happy with the "real numbers", and
that Cantor was indeed in and out of the _Nervenklinik_ a few times . . . .
I consider it a toss-up as to which is the funniest "modern" mathematical
joke, the two theorems of Goedel and Church, or the Tarski-Banach Ball(s)
(which follow(s) on Cantor's work).
And just how tall was Kronecker, exactly?
--
"The math is easy," said Chaos.
< _Thief of Time_
Gene Ward Smith
> > Very funny, but not even slightly realistic.
>
> I'm pretty sure Kronecker wasn't too happy with the "real numbers", and
> that Cantor was indeed in and out of the _Nervenklinik_ a few times . . . .
Kronecker was just fine with the real numbers, and for that matter the
complex numbers. He wasn't just fine with some other things, such as
continuous nowhere differentiable functions or Cantor's set theory. He
would have enjoyed sneering at the Banach-Tarski theorem.
Bill Snyder
<Handwave> These aren't the ethics violations you're looking for.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
mimus
> On Jan 2, 5:48 pm, mimus <tinmimu...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > Very funny, but not even slightly realistic.
>>
>> I'm pretty sure Kronecker wasn't too happy with the "real numbers", and
>> that Cantor was indeed in and out of the _Nervenklinik_ a few times . . . .
>
> Kronecker was just fine with the real numbers, and for that matter the
> complex numbers. He wasn't just fine with some other things, such as
> continuous nowhere differentiable functions or Cantor's set theory.
"He believed in the reduction of all mathematics to arguments involving
only the integers and a finite number of steps. Kronecker is well known
for his remark:
" 'God created the integers, all else is the work of man.'
"Kronecker believed that mathematics should deal only with finite numbers
and with a finite number of operations. He was the first to doubt the
significance of non-constructive existence proofs. It appears that, from
the early 1870s, Kronecker was opposed to the use of irrational numbers,
upper and lower limits, and the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem, because of
their non-constructive nature. Another consequence of his philosophy of
mathematics was that to Kronecker transcendental numbers could not exist.
"In 1870 Heine published a paper On trigonometric series in Crelle's
Journal, but Kronecker had tried to persuade Heine to withdraw the paper.
Again in 1877 Kronecker tried to prevent publication of Cantor's work in
Crelle's Journal, not because of any personal feelings against Cantor
(which has been suggested by some biographers of Cantor) but rather
because Kronecker believed that Cantor's paper was meaningless, since it
proved results about mathematical objects which Kronecker believed did not
exist."
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Kronecker.html
Also:
"He tended to fall out personally with those who he disagreed with
mathematically."
And:
"Kronecker was of very small stature and extremely self-conscious about
his height. An example of how Kronecker reacted occurred in 1885 when
Schwarz sent him a greeting which included the sentence:-
" 'He who does not honour the Smaller, is not worthy of the Greater.'
"Here Schwarz was joking about the small man Kronecker and the large man
Weierstrass. Kronecker did not see the funny side of the comment,
however, and never had any further dealings with Schwarz."
> He would have enjoyed sneering at the Banach-Tarski theorem.
It's given a lot of people a good and generally needed laugh.
Back to the drawing-board _somewhere_!
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/do_you_know/banach.shtml
I could've sworn it was included in the metamath project, but couldn't
find it there.
--
In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded.
< Pratchett
Gene Ward Smith
zeHanZ2dnU...@giganews.com:
> It appears that, from
> the early 1870s, Kronecker was opposed to the use of irrational numbers,
> upper and lower limits, and the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem, because of
> their non-constructive nature.
Kroecker had a constructive approach to algebraic numbers, which as it
happens are irrational in degree>1. The Kronecker-Weber theorem is based on
complex numbers, and the extension to imaginary quadradic base fields on
the j-fuction, which is a function of complex analysis. His famous
Jugendtraum was to extend the *analytical* solution of the construction of
class fields to any algebraic number field as a base. This problem is still
a big deal in number theory.
Rich Horton
Wheeler) wrote:
>> Chris Genoa: Foop!
>
>Is this the "fluid's running out of my brakes" book? If so, you MUST
>read it, and report on it here. I've never known anyone else who's seen
>a copy of it, and I didn't get the chance to read it myself.
No, that's FROOMB!, by someone else -- Lymington, maybe? I should
check, but someone will correct me anyway.
I've never heard of Foop!
Rich Horton
Wheeler) wrote:
>> Fritz Leiber: Rime Isle
>
>Late F&GM, and short -- if you've made it this fa, you might as well
>read it. (And I think putting on a list like this that you own a first
>edition consisitutes bragging, as well.)
I own a REAL first edition -- the copies of Cosmos in which it was
serialized.
Enjoyable enough, but I agree with the other posters that the later
F&GM stories aren't really as good as the best of them.
Rich Horton
Wheeler) wrote:
>> Maureen McHugh: Mission Child or Nekropolis
>
>I think I've read most of the pieces of _Mission Child_ when they wre
>being published as novellas, and I read _Nekropolis_. I find McHugh a
>terribly dull, spinach sort of writer: the kind that people tell me I
>should read for my own good. And life's too short for that.
I can only think of one part of _Mission Child_ published separately
(and it much revised in the novel, as I recall): "The Cost to Be
Wise".
I think you should read McHugh for your own good.
Seriously -- I don't think she's dull as dishwater at all.
mimus
Hey, I just now worked out the 7- and 11-minute-glass-timed
fifteen-minute-egg problem . . . .
--
This is part of the eternal wonder of the universe
as man forages out to discover in the womb of time
the nascence of his individuality in the motherhood of possibility.
< Malzberg
Lawrenc...@gmail.com
> <LawrencePer...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Fritz Leiber: Rime Isle
>
> Late F&GM, and short -- if you've made it this fa, you might as well
> read it. (And I think putting on a list like this that you own a first
> edition consisitutes bragging, as well.)
Actually, first editions of Rime Isle aren't that expensive to come
by. A look at bookfinder.com shows that Fine/Fine firsts can easily be
had in the mid-$20 range. No, if I were bragging, I'd note that I have
Manly Wade Wellman's copy, inscribed to him by publisher Stu Schiff.
Which, in fact, I do. ;-)
I don't quite have a complete Fritz Leiber collection, but I'm closing
in on one. I don't have Two Sought Adventure just yet, but I do have
the six volume Gregg Press set (as well as other Gregg press Leibers
like The Big Time, etc.) , a Fine/Fine copy of Night's Black Agents, a
Fine/Fine Dobson (HB) first of The Wanderer, etc. The prices on a lot
of Leiber firsts have been drifting down this decade (though not quite
in freefall the way De Camp's stuff seems to be), especially compared
to contemporaries like Heinlein or Clark Ashton Smith.
Actually, if I were bragging on firsts, there are a lot of firsts on
that list considerably more valuable, such as Conan the Conqueror,
Lonesome Dove, the HB first of Confessions of a Crap Artist, Dark
Tower IV (would you believe it's notably more valuable than II or
III?), Wicked, Silverlock, or To Say Nothing of the Dog. And none of
those are remotely among my most valuable firsts, some of which are
described here:
http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson/lib.html
And shown here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/LawrencePerson/LawrencePersonSLibrary
Actually, I should confess that I only have a second printing of the
UK hardback first of Temeraire, having waited to long to pick it up,
as it's gotten quite pricey.
Lawrence Person
http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson
David DeLaney
The Peace War?
Dave "it's easier to portray one on paper than it is experimentally" DeLaney
David DeLaney
><Lawrenc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Rudy Rucker: Master of Time & Space or The Secret of Life or White
>> Light
>
>The last time I purged, the one Ikept myself is _White Light_. But
>_Master_ is probably the most gonzo-entertaining.
I like White Light better than I liked MoT&S - but the one of his I've
recommended the most to people? Is his (mostly) non-fiction Infinity & The
Mind. Takes nonspecialists through various portions of the field of knowledge
involving transfinite cardinals.
Dave
netcat
acwh...@optonline.net says...
> <Lawrenc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Jonathan Carroll: A Child Across the Sky or Outside the Dog Museum
>
> All Carroll novels are basically the same; _Child_ is probably a bit
> better than _Dog_, so if you're reading one this year, I'd suggest going
> that way.
So if I read _The Wooden Sea_ and didn't like it, there's no point in
trying any others?
rgds,
netcat
David E. Siegel
I think that LeGuin's _The Dispossesed_ includes a portrayal of a
theoretical physicist and (to a lesser extent) Mathematician which is
fairly realistic. The short story "Gomez" by Kornbluth is again about
a mathematician/physicist, but again with with the physicist side
mostly in focus. Gardner's "The No-sided Professor" is a soemwhat
realistic portart of an academic mathematician, or at elast how one
appears at certian gatherings, but the whole thing is a quite
fantastic romp and not intended to be taken seeriously.
-DES
Peter Bruells
>
> Has any SF novel included a realistically portrayed mathematician?
What can be more realitisch than a "chaotician" correctly predicting
that the cloned dinosaurs would break free and eat the humans?
Mike Schilling
The recent _The Indian Clerk_ (which is not SF) gives a very realistic
portrait of several famous mathematicians, notably Hardy and
Ramanujan.
William George Ferguson
>On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 03:49:28 +0000, Gene Ward Smith wrote:
>
>> mimus <tinmi...@hotmail.com> wrote in news:K5OdnYV3QIW-
>> zeHanZ2dnU...@giganews.com:
>>
>>> It appears that, from
>>> the early 1870s, Kronecker was opposed to the use of irrational numbers,
>>> upper and lower limits, and the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem, because of
>>> their non-constructive nature.
>>
>> Kroecker had a constructive approach to algebraic numbers, which as it
>> happens are irrational in degree>1. The Kronecker-Weber theorem is based on
>> complex numbers, and the extension to imaginary quadradic base fields on
>> the j-fuction, which is a function of complex analysis. His famous
>> Jugendtraum was to extend the *analytical* solution of the construction of
>> class fields to any algebraic number field as a base. This problem is still
>> a big deal in number theory.
>
>Hey, I just now worked out the 7- and 11-minute-glass-timed
>fifteen-minute-egg problem . . . .
Does that even count as a math problem? Lay both timers on their side on a
perfectly flat (and plumb) surface, set the egg in boiling water, set up
the 11 minute glass (which will have half the sand in the top) and let it
drain, when it drains set up the 7 minute glass and let it's half drain,
then invert the 7 minute glass and let it drain full. Five and a half,
three and a half, seven equals fifteen.
I can also do fox, chicken, grain, which I guess is reducible to a math
problem if you want.
--
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
(Bene Gesserit)
GSV Three Minds in a Can
wonderful person William George Ferguson <wmgf...@newsguy.com> said
<snip>
>>Hey, I just now worked out the 7- and 11-minute-glass-timed
>>fifteen-minute-egg problem . . . .
>
>Does that even count as a math problem? Lay both timers on their side on a
>perfectly flat (and plumb) surface, set the egg in boiling water, set up
>the 11 minute glass (which will have half the sand in the top
Ah, that's where you went wrong. Go examine an egg timer more closely,
because there's no guarantee that the amount of sand will exactly fill
one end, or half-fill two ends.
>) and let it
>drain, when it drains set up the 7 minute glass and let it's half drain,
>then invert the 7 minute glass and let it drain full. Five and a half,
>three and a half, seven equals fifteen.
What you do is start both timers (from full), when the 7 minute timer
expires, start the egg, When the 11 minute timer expires (4 minutes
later) start it again. When it finishes, the egg is (over)done. 8>.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
10,414 Km walked. 2,032 Km PROWs surveyed. 36.9% complete.
Wayne Throop
:: fifteen-minute-egg problem . . . .
: William George Ferguson <wmgf...@newsguy.com>
: Does that even count as a math problem? Lay both timers on their side on a
: perfectly flat (and plumb) surface, set the egg in boiling water, set up
: the 11 minute glass (which will have half the sand in the top) and let it
: drain, when it drains set up the 7 minute glass and let it's half drain,
: then invert the 7 minute glass and let it drain full. Five and a half,
: three and a half, seven equals fifteen.
Hrm? The ability to set them up half-full is not reasonable.
Certainly setting them on their sides is no guarantee of getting a
half-full state. Instead, you simply start both timers, and when the
7-minute timer runs out, invert it. When the 11 minute timer runs out,
the 7-minute timer has 3 minutes of sand in the top, and 4 in the bottom.
So, invert it, and when it runs out, you've got 15.
The fact that 11-7=4 and 15-11=4 is a huge hint as to
(what I take to be, if I didn't screw up) the obvious solution.
(If the proposed solution was meant to be a joke...
then, oops, I didn't get it; nevermind.)
: I can also do fox, chicken, grain, which I guess is reducible to a
: math problem if you want.
Oh, that one's easy; you lay the chicken and the sack of grain on
their sides on a plumb surface, then take the half-chicken...
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
mimus
You're not allowed to use fractional glasses.
HA
--
I am a Shing. All Shing are liars. Am I, then, a Shing lying to you, in
which case of course I am not a Shing, but a non-Shing, lying? Or is it a
lie that all Shing lie? But I am a Shing, truly; and truly I lie.
< _City of Illusions_
mimus
> Bitstring <6viqn3tl2vt9ac8r1...@4ax.com>, from the
> wonderful person William George Ferguson <wmgf...@newsguy.com> said
>
>>>Hey, I just now worked out the 7- and 11-minute-glass-timed
>>>fifteen-minute-egg problem . . . .
>>
>>Does that even count as a math problem? Lay both timers on their side on a
>>perfectly flat (and plumb) surface, set the egg in boiling water, set up
>>the 11 minute glass (which will have half the sand in the top
>
> Ah, that's where you went wrong. Go examine an egg timer more closely,
> because there's no guarantee that the amount of sand will exactly fill
> one end, or half-fill two ends.
>
>>) and let it
>>drain, when it drains set up the 7 minute glass and let it's half drain,
>>then invert the 7 minute glass and let it drain full. Five and a half,
>>three and a half, seven equals fifteen.
>
> What you do is start both timers (from full), when the 7 minute timer
> expires, start the egg, When the 11 minute timer expires (4 minutes
> later) start it again. When it finishes, the egg is (over)done. 8>.
Oh, great, isn't there a spoiler convention here?
--
It is usual on these occasions to make a great vapouring
about honour and conscience: but as those words are now
generally acknowledged to be utterly destitute of meaning,
I have too much respect for your understanding to say any
thing about them.
< Peacock
Butch Malahide
[...]
> I consider it a toss-up as to which is the funniest "modern" mathematical
> joke, the two theorems of Goedel and Church, or the Tarski-Banach Ball(s)
> (which follow(s) on Cantor's work).
The Banach-Tarski theorem follows on *Hausdorff's* work, which follows
on Cantor's. I think Hausdorff's role is too important to omit.
ObSF: Henry Kuttner's "The Time Axis": a scientist in the future
demonstrates the Banach-Tarski theorem in his laboratory, on a solid
metal ball. Later the procedure is repeated on a grand scale.
Wayne Throop
: Oh, great, isn't there a spoiler convention here?
Huh. I admit it didn't occur to me to rot13 when I replied
crossthread from here. Didn't seem a substantial enough problem.
When I was reading the thread, I just paused a moment to get the
answer before reading the next message. But I suppose, given
what I was replying to, it should have occured to me. Oops.
Butch Malahide
> Has any SF novel included a realistically portrayed mathematician?
I don't know, but I guess a reasonable place to look would be in SF
written by mathematicians. Not a sure thing, any more than finding
reaisticaly portrayed humans in fiction written by humans. Now, who
are the mathematicians who have written SF? Lewis Carroll, John Taine,
Martin Gardner, Rudy Rucker, there must be many others. Well, I don't
believe Gardner wrote any novels, and I don't recall his fictional
mathematicians (e.g. the "No-Sided Professor" as being especially
realistic.
Gene Ward Smith
91b9-b95...@c4g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:
> Well, I don't
> believe Gardner wrote any novels, and I don't recall his fictional
> mathematicians (e.g. the "No-Sided Professor" as being especially
> realistic.
>
He also wasn't a mathematician.
GSV Three Minds in a Can
wonderful person mimus <tinmi...@hotmail.com> said
<snip>
>Oh, great, isn't there a spoiler convention here?
Only for SF plots, not for off-topic mathematical puzzles, or future
history (Clinton loses). 8>.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
mimus
> On Jan 2, 7:48 pm, mimus <tinmimu...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I consider it a toss-up as to which is the funniest "modern" mathematical
>> joke, the two theorems of Goedel and Church, or the Tarski-Banach Ball(s)
>> (which follow(s) on Cantor's work).
>
> The Banach-Tarski theorem follows on *Hausdorff's* work, which follows
> on Cantor's. I think Hausdorff's role is too important to omit.
Sorry, I was thinking there was more than one link in the chain and didn't
want to get into an involved genealogy, me being far too prone to "catalog
sentences" as it is.
So where did we go wrong? infinity? the Axiom of Choice? indexed sets?
> ObSF: Henry Kuttner's "The Time Axis": a scientist in the future
> demonstrates the Banach-Tarski theorem in his laboratory, on a solid
> metal ball. Later the procedure is repeated on a grand scale.
I have a bad feeling that that "point piece" would be highly dangerous if
the thing was ever actually demonstrated physically . . . .
--
_Somebody_ help me! I'm _missing_!
< Van der Graaf
mimus
> : mimus <tinmi...@hotmail.com>
>
> : Oh, great, isn't there a spoiler convention here?
>
> Huh. I admit it didn't occur to me to rot13 when I replied
> crossthread from here. Didn't seem a substantial enough problem.
> When I was reading the thread, I just paused a moment to get the
> answer before reading the next message. But I suppose, given
> what I was replying to, it should have occured to me. Oops.
LOL
I thought about ROTting the solution, but didn't.
Due to the same "trivial" reason.
--
A morphote, resting on a log, made an incomprehensible gesture
and slipped off into the undergrowth.
< _The Gray Prince_
Gene Ward Smith
news:VP2dnckyN52l_uDa...@giganews.com:
> I have a bad feeling that that "point piece" would be highly dangerous if
> the thing was ever actually demonstrated physically . . . .
>
Solid objects whose shape is so peculiar they don't have an assignable
volume are a little difficult to produce. They are also dangerous, drawing
unwanted attention from Elder Gods, who think they are cute ("eldrich" is
the word they prefer.)
William December Starr
acwh...@optonline.net (Andrew Wheeler) said:
>> Chris Genoa: Foop!
>
> Is this the "fluid's running out of my brakes" book? If so, you
> MUST read it, and report on it here. I've never known anyone else
> who's seen a copy of it, and I didn't get the chance to read it
> myself.
That's FROOMB! (an acronym based upon the phrase you cited) by John
Lymington. I don't know if it's actually rare -- MITSFS has so many
copies that we've had to box up a few of 'em due to lack of space,
but of course most/all of those probably crawled in years ago.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Mike Schilling
And it's very difficult to reassemble them after they've been chopped
up with an eldritch cleaver.
William December Starr
William George Ferguson <wmgf...@newsguy.com> said:
> d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
>> Lawrenc...@gmail.com <Lawrenc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Octavia Butler: Mind of My Mind
>> (#2 of 4, though the third isn't as related)
>
> Which 'patternist' book aren't you counting (or aren't aware of)?
>
> The books in published order (with internal chronology in parentheses)
>
> Patternmaster (5)
> Mind of My Mind (2)
> Survivor (4)
> Wild Seed (1)
> Clay's Ark (3)
>
> The only two that are directly connnected (as in shared
> characters) are Mind of My Mind and Wild Seed)
To add to the confusion, the ISFDB, numbering them in publication
order, includes KINDRED, for a total of six.
* Patternist
+ 1 Patternmaster (1976)
+ 2 Mind of My Mind (1977)
+ 3 Survivor (1978)
+ 4 Kindred (1979)
+ 5 Wild Seed (1980)
+ 6 Clays Ark (1984)
(I've read KINDRED -- the only Butler I have read, I think -- and
I don't see how it could be part of any series or "universe," but
whadda I know?)
David DeLaney
>On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:56:03 +0000, Wayne Throop wrote:
>> mimus <tinmi...@hotmail.com>
>> : Oh, great, isn't there a spoiler convention here?
>>
>> Huh. I admit it didn't occur to me to rot13 when I replied
>> crossthread from here. Didn't seem a substantial enough problem.
>> When I was reading the thread, I just paused a moment to get the
>> answer before reading the next message. But I suppose, given
>> what I was replying to, it should have occured to me. Oops.
>
>LOL
>I thought about ROTting the solution, but didn't.
>Due to the same "trivial" reason.
Plus, if you ROT the solution, the hourglasses turn over again, ruining it!
David DeLaney
>Butch Malahide wrote:
>> The Banach-Tarski theorem follows on *Hausdorff's* work, which follows
>> on Cantor's. I think Hausdorff's role is too important to omit.
>
>Sorry, I was thinking there was more than one link in the chain and didn't
>want to get into an involved genealogy, me being far too prone to "catalog
>sentences" as it is.
>
>So where did we go wrong? infinity? the Axiom of Choice? indexed sets?
I'm thinking one possibility is "how infinitely divisible matter would behave,
in comparison to intuitive notions of atomic matter".
>> ObSF: Henry Kuttner's "The Time Axis": a scientist in the future
>> demonstrates the Banach-Tarski theorem in his laboratory, on a solid
>> metal ball. Later the procedure is repeated on a grand scale.
Rudy Rucker also had such balls as a plot point, in White Light, I believe -
but there the protagonist's in a land where things _are_ physically infinite
in the small and the large.
Andrew Wheeler
If you think he might be a writer you could enjoy -- maybe if there were
bits in _Wooden Sea_ that you enjoyed, or other people's descriptions of
his work have sounded interested -- you might try _Bones of the Moon_,
which I think is his best book.
But none of his books are vastly different from each other; they all
share a similar tone, for one thing. And if you hated that once, you'll
probably keep hating it.
--
Andrew Wheeler
Andrew Wheeler
Yes -- but has anyone actually ever *read* it?
--
Andrew Wheeler
DH
"William George Ferguson" <wmgf...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:6viqn3tl2vt9ac8r1...@4ax.com...
>>Hey, I just now worked out the 7- and 11-minute-glass-timed
>>fifteen-minute-egg problem . . . .
>
> Does that even count as a math problem? Lay both timers on their side on
> a
> perfectly flat (and plumb) surface, set the egg in boiling water, set up
> the 11 minute glass (which will have half the sand in the top) and let it
> drain, when it drains set up the 7 minute glass and let it's half drain,
> then invert the 7 minute glass and let it drain full. Five and a half,
> three and a half, seven equals fifteen.
Nope, sixteen. Try again.
Butch Malahide
> Butch Malahide <fred.gal...@gmail.com> wrote in news:9d591476-89b8-4f51-
> 91b9-b95bbec34...@c4g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:
>
> > Well, I don't
> > believe Gardner wrote any novels, and I don't recall his fictional
> > mathematicians (e.g. the "No-Sided Professor" as being especially
> > realistic.
>
> He also wasn't a mathematician.
Wasn't? Did he die?
Whether he is/was a mathematician or not depends on how you define
"mathematician". I understand that he wasn't a *research*
mathematician, and he didn't have a degree in mathematics, and he
rejected the term "mathematician" as applied to himself. On the other
hand, he has an Erdos number of 2, and he seems to be a member of the
MAA; also, he has written some books about mathematics.
Aaron Denney
> So where did we go wrong? infinity? the Axiom of Choice? indexed sets?
Axiom of choice. Infinty is too useful to get rid of.
There's an old joke that "The Axiom of Choice is obviously true, the
well-ordering principle obviously false, and who can tell about Zorn's
lemma?" The joke is, of course, that all three are equivalent.
Personally, my gut feeling on them varies from "not obviously true" to
"obviously not true". Of course, "truth" shouldn't be applied to
axioms, only theorems. So I should say that these axioms don't apply to
systems I like to study.
--
Aaron Denney
-><-
Gene Ward Smith
> Personally, my gut feeling on them varies from "not obviously true" to
> "obviously not true". Of course, "truth" shouldn't be applied to
> axioms, only theorems. So I should say that these axioms don't apply to
> systems I like to study.
>
If you multiply together a finite number of finite positive integers the
result is never zero. The Axiom of Choice says an arbitrary Cartesian
product of non-empty sets is non-empty. This means if you multiply any
number, including an infinite number, of nonzero cardinals, including
infinite cardinals, the result is never zero. I find the idea of
multiplying an infinite number of infinities together and getting zero as a
result objectionably counter-intuitive.
netcat
acwh...@optonline.net says...
mostly bothered by the constant subtle (and sometimes not) cruelty
towards the main character. One thing that I don't enjoy at all in
fiction is (human) beings being reduced to toys superior powers are
playing with.
I'm sure the prose and storytelling was excellent otherwise, as many
people have assured me, but I was totally unable to enjoy it. If he has
a book where he does not do this, I might try it.
rgds,
netcat
GSV Three Minds in a Can
wonderful person Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.net> said
Yes, long ago in a Galaxy oops Library far away. It was not very
memorable, and I failed to make notes. I think it gets ** (of a possible
*****), which makes it below average even for Lymington (good Lymington
gets three stars).
Aaron Denney
Can you show me the reduction to one of the more standard definitions?
Thanks.
David DeLaney
>Can you show me the reduction to one of the more standard definitions?
I can try to do cliffs notes...
>On 2008-01-04, Gene Ward Smith <ge...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
>> If you multiply together a finite number of finite positive integers the
>> result is never zero.
Because the way multiplication is defined, the product can't be zero unless
there's a zero as one of the multiplicands. (Furthermore, unless all but one
of them are 1, the product's gonna be larger than any of the factors, but
that's irrelevant here.)
>> The Axiom of Choice says an arbitrary Cartesian
>> product of non-empty sets is non-empty.
If I remember how to do this right:
"If you pick one member from each of the non-empty sets, and make a set out
of the sets made by making each of those members into a set, regardless of
which member you picked from each set, the resulting set is non-empty".
This gets relevant because the _amount_ of different Cartesian products you
can get this way is the multiplicative product of the amount of members in
each of the non-empty sets. (A set with 4 things in it and a set with 5 can
give you 20 different result sets that contain a pair of things, one from
each of the sets, for example.)
[I may be misremembering things and the 'Cartesian product' is the collection
of all the paired-off result sets... <wiki> okay, yes, I am. So it's actually
"If you pick one member from each of the non-empty sets, and make a set out
of them, and take the collection of _all such possible sets_ for each different
choice of picked members, the resulting set is non-empty".
and "the cardinality of the Cartesian product of the sets is the multiplicative
product of the cardinalities of the sets themselves".]
>> This means if you multiply any
>> number, including an infinite number, of nonzero cardinals, including
>> infinite cardinals, the result is never zero.
... because the Cartesian product you get from them as sets, rather than as
numbers, is non-empty.
>> I find the idea of
>> multiplying an infinite number of infinities together and getting zero as a
>> result objectionably counter-intuitive.
>
>Thanks.
Does that help any?
Gene Ward Smith
>> If you multiply together a finite number of finite positive integers
>> the result is never zero. The Axiom of Choice says an arbitrary
>> Cartesian product of non-empty sets is non-empty. This means if you
>> multiply any number, including an infinite number, of nonzero
>> cardinals, including infinite cardinals, the result is never zero. I
>> find the idea of multiplying an infinite number of infinities
>> together and getting zero as a result objectionably
>> counter-intuitive.
>
> Can you show me the reduction to one of the more standard definitions?
> Thanks.
"An arbitrary Cartesian product of non-empty sets is non-empty" is a
standard definition. That means an arbitrary Cartesian product of nonzero
cardinals is not empty, which is the direction I require above.
Mike Schilling
> Aaron Denney <wno...@ofb.net> wrote in
> news:slrnfnt0o6...@ofb.net:
>
>>> If you multiply together a finite number of finite positive
>>> integers
>>> the result is never zero. The Axiom of Choice says an arbitrary
>>> Cartesian product of non-empty sets is non-empty. This means if
>>> you
>>> multiply any number, including an infinite number, of nonzero
>>> cardinals, including infinite cardinals, the result is never zero.
>>> I
>>> find the idea of multiplying an infinite number of infinities
>>> together and getting zero as a result objectionably
>>> counter-intuitive.
>>
>> Can you show me the reduction to one of the more standard
>> definitions? Thanks.
>
> "An arbitrary Cartesian product of non-empty sets is non-empty" is a
> standard definition.
What guarantee that it's even a set?
Gene Ward Smith
$Pv2....@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net:
>> "An arbitrary Cartesian product of non-empty sets is non-empty" is a
>> standard definition.
>
> What guarantee that it's even a set?
>
The set of all functions defined over an index set I such that the value of
the function at a particular index i is an elemenet of the indexed set X_i
is a set.
Mike Schilling
Do you get the from the replacement axioms? Certainly not from the
subset axioms.
Doug Weller
wrote:
>
>> John Scazli: The Ghost Brigades
>
>As others have said, this trilogy gets more interesting as it goes, but
>I think _Ghost Brigades_ is the best novel of the three. It's not a
>must-read, but it's good modern SF; I recommend it.
Apologies for being pedantic, but for anyone who looks up the author, and
can't find him, it's Scalzi.
Doug
--
Doug Weller --
A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'at http://www.hallofmaat.com
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.co.uk
Amun - co-owner/co-moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Amun/
Gene Ward Smith
$El5...@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net:
>> The set of all functions defined over an index set I such that the
>> value of the function at a particular index i is an elemenet of the
>> indexed set X_i is a set.
>
>
> Do you get the from the replacement axioms? Certainly not from the
> subset axioms.
>
All functions from one set to another set is a set. The Cartesian product
is a subset, with the ith projection map restriction on it.
Mike Schilling
Let's back up. Given an arbitrary collection of sets, demonstrate that
the cartestian product of the sets in that collection is a set.
Gene Ward Smith
$se5...@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com:
>> All functions from one set to another set is a set. The Cartesian
>> product is a subset, with the ith projection map restriction on it.
>
> Let's back up. Given an arbitrary collection of sets, demonstrate that
> the cartestian product of the sets in that collection is a set.
>
If X and Y are sets, then P(P(X U Y) (P is power set) is a set by power set
and union axioms. The Cartesian product X x Y is a subset of this set, and
the set of functions from X to Y a element of P(P(X x Y)).
Now the argument I gave above holds: take all functions from the index set
I to the union of X_i, and that is a set by what we have shown. The
(generalized) Cartesian product is a subset, and therefore alos a set.
Gene Ward Smith
news:Xns9A1BAC3E3D151ge...@207.115.33.102:
> The Cartesian product X x Y is a subset of this set, and
> the set of functions from X to Y a element of P(P(X x Y)).
>
>
Or the smart way to say it: the set of all functions is a subset of P(X x
Y).
Mike Schilling
I'm trying to figure out if you can write the subset axiom that
results in the Cartesian product, or if the expression would be
infintely long. What I'm realizing is that 1980 (when I actually used
to do set theory) was a long time ago.
David DeLaney
>>> "An arbitrary Cartesian product of non-empty sets is non-empty" is a
>>> standard definition.
>>
>> What guarantee that it's even a set?
>
>The set of all functions defined over an index set I such that the value of
>the function at a particular index i is an elemenet of the indexed set X_i
>is a set.
One of the other possible sticking points, as I recall, is "is it always
possible to choose an arbitrary element of an infinite set?", either because
you can't actually choose the one you want for some reason, or because you
can't describe it well enough to pick it out from the surrounding ones... That
could also interfere with being able to take a Cartesian product.
(I don't think any of the bits where it could have gone wrong in getting us
to the conclusion go wrong for _finite_ sets?)
Mike Schilling
> Gene Ward Smith <ge...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
>> "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote
>>>> "An arbitrary Cartesian product of non-empty sets is non-empty"
>>>> is
>>>> a standard definition.
>>>
>>> What guarantee that it's even a set?
>>
>> The set of all functions defined over an index set I such that the
>> value of the function at a particular index i is an elemenet of the
>> indexed set X_i is a set.
>
> One of the other possible sticking points, as I recall, is "is it
> always possible to choose an arbitrary element of an infinite set?",
> either because you can't actually choose the one you want for some
> reason, or because you can't describe it well enough to pick it out
> from the surrounding ones... That could also interfere with being
> able to take a Cartesian product.
>
> (I don't think any of the bits where it could have gone wrong in
> getting us to the conclusion go wrong for _finite_ sets?)
No, you can always make a finite number of choices. The axiom is
required for "a set which consists of an infinite number of choices is
magically guaranteed to exist, even though you can't specify it".
Aaron Denney
> Aaron Denney <wno...@ofb.net> wrote:
>>Can you show me the reduction to one of the more standard definitions?
>
> I can try to do cliffs notes...
>
>>On 2008-01-04, Gene Ward Smith <ge...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
>>> If you multiply together a finite number of finite positive integers the
>>> result is never zero.
>
> Because the way multiplication is defined, the product can't be zero unless
> there's a zero as one of the multiplicands. (Furthermore, unless all but one
> of them are 1, the product's gonna be larger than any of the factors, but
> that's irrelevant here.)
>
>>> The Axiom of Choice says an arbitrary Cartesian
>>> product of non-empty sets is non-empty.
>
> If I remember how to do this right:
>
> "If you pick one member from each of the non-empty sets, and make a set out
> of the sets made by making each of those members into a set, regardless of
> which member you picked from each set, the resulting set is non-empty".
Yes. This shows the implication from the Axiom of choice (that you can
do this picking) to Gene's words. I'm looking for the converse.
mimus
> Gene Ward Smith <ge...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
>
>>"Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote
>>
>>>> "An arbitrary Cartesian product of non-empty sets is non-empty" is a
>>>> standard definition.
>>>
>>> What guarantee that it's even a set?
>>
>>The set of all functions defined over an index set I such that the value
>>of the function at a particular index i is an elemenet of the indexed
>>set X_i is a set.
>
> One of the other possible sticking points, as I recall, is "is it always
> possible to choose an arbitrary element of an infinite set?", either
> because you can't actually choose the one you want for some reason, or
> because you can't describe it well enough to pick it out from the
> surrounding ones... That could also interfere with being able to take a
> Cartesian product.
>
> (I don't think any of the bits where it could have gone wrong in getting
> us to the conclusion go wrong for _finite_ sets?)
I'll put even money on infinity and indexed sets: the former has been a
constant source of controversy from at least the time of Cantor (if not
Aristotle or earlier), and the latter is a much more complex relationship
than meets the eye, and therefore a possible location of set-member
confusion-- like inferring from all things being finite that the world is
finite-- or other knotty error).
--
Given a manifold M with a submanifold N, N can be knotted in M
if there exists an embedding of N in M which is not isotopic to N.
Traditional knots form the case where N = S1 and M = S3.
< Deep wisdom from on high (Wikipedia)
Melita Kennedy
Lawrenc...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> John Barnes: Kaleidoscope Century or Mother of Storms
These are both 'adult' Barnes. I found Mother of Storms, while
interesting and liked the characters, squicky. I believe both have
been culled from my collection (very unlikely to read them again).
I think Kaleidoscope Century to be a stronger book.
> Lois McMaster Bujold: Mirror Dance
I found Mirror Dance to be quite a fun romp with serious themes
really starting to come into play. It leads directly into Memory
which I think is one of LMB's best books.
> Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Recommended, but I can't articulate why. His latest book, Gentlemen
of the Road, is quite good. I've really enjoyed everything I've read by
him. I decided to read AAKC because of the comics plot and his take on
the early days of the industry.
> John M. Ford: The Dragon Waiting
Finally read it after yet another round of recommendations occurred
here recently. Now reading Growing Up Weightless and will be hunting
for Jumping Off the Planet today. Ford jumps right into the story,
and trusts the reader. There aren't many "well, you know, Jim..."
lumps.
> Maureen McHugh: Mission Child or Nekropolis
I haven't been able to get into either of these, but I bought both
in hardcover based on her earlier works.
[Reminder: Must locate copy of Half the Day is Night for reread]
> Pat Murphy: The Falling Woman
Required for a class on sf (around 1988-9) which may be causing me
to downgrade it slightly (I *hate* assigned books). I found the writing
very good, and I've read several other Murphy books because of
this book, but it's not a 'favorite'. I also thought it was one of
the best books that we had to read [that I hadn't already read].
> Neal Stephenson: Zodiac or The Big U
I would go with The Big U. Although rough, you can see the
beginnings of Cryptonomicon in the style. And anyone who's
attended or been involved with a university with cryptic
administration should find it amusing.
> Martha Wells: The Element of Fire
I *adore* Martha Wells books. Kushner's Swordspoint is a more
challenging read with a similar milieu; EoF is just outright fun.
More like level of The Privilege of the Sword.
Entire book takes places in under a week.
> Edward Whitmore: Nile Shadows
I tracked down this book based on (IIRC) a PNH recommendation in an
Overlooked/Underrated books talk at a worldcon (LA96?). He said
that the book showed an ideal middle east where everyone got along.
He found that a seductive vision. I liked the book enough that I
tracked down the other three books, but overall I found it focused
too much on sex and bodily functions. I want to say that the series
is similar in complexity of plot to Stephenson or Powers. YMMV.
I still haven't read the rest of the series, but haven't given up yet.
Have fun this year with whatever you end up reading!
Melita
Melita Kennedy
Melita Kennedy wrote:
>
> Lawrenc...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
>
> Finally read it after yet another round of recommendations occurred
> here recently. Now reading Growing Up Weightless and will be hunting
> for Jumping Off the Planet today. Ford jumps right into the story,
> and trusts the reader. There aren't many "well, you know, Jim..."
> lumps.
Somehow I'd conflated Ford's Growing Up Weightless and Gerrold's
Jumping Off the Planet into the same series. Although I may be in
mood for another YA novel...Opinions?
> > Edward Whitmore: Nile Shadows
>
> I tracked down this book based on (IIRC) a PNH recommendation in an
> Overlooked/Underrated books talk at a worldcon (LA96?). He said
> that the book showed an ideal middle east where everyone got along.
> He found that a seductive vision. I liked the book enough that I
> tracked down the other three books, but overall I found it focused
> too much on sex and bodily functions. I want to say that the series
> is similar in complexity of plot to Stephenson or Powers. YMMV.
> I still haven't read the rest of the series, but haven't given up yet.
Also didn't realize that this is book 3. Lawrence, what did you think
of books 1 and 2?
Melita