The business
Ben Aveling
disapointed by his more recent efforts. Is it just Banks trying to be
John Grisham or does he manage something worthwhile.
Regards, BenA
--
"It's not my job to teach you how to read or to think. If you have a
critical failing in either of those abilities, you will find yourself in
situations where you will look foolish because of it." -Sean K. Reynolds
Peter da Silva
Alan Bellingham <al...@lspace.org> wrote:
> He certainly isn't following the ever-deeper plunge into sheer awfulness
> that some writers have managed. Why oh why oh why did Piers Anthony give
> up writing good stuff and start churning out Yet Another Xanth Book (TM)
> instead. Fsck it, PA wrote some of the most chilling stories I've ever
> read - stuff to make Ellison sit back and gasp.
Piers Jacob collapsed into formulary long before Xanth.
I gave up waiting for him to write another Macroscope decades ago. The first
couple Incarnations weren't bad, but I can't think of anything else that I'd
call "chilling". Maybe Orn and Ox... but I suspect it was the success of those
that set him on his career of putting easily-amazed characters in unlikely
mileau.
--
In hoc signo hack, Peter da Silva <pe...@baileynm.com>
`-_-' Ar rug tú barróg ar do mhactíre inniu?
'U` "And now, little kittens, we're going to run across red-hot
motherboards, with our bare feet." -- Buzh.
Josh Brandt
>I gave up waiting for him to write another Macroscope decades ago. The first
>couple Incarnations weren't bad, but I can't think of anything else that I'd
>call "chilling". Maybe Orn and Ox... but I suspect it was the success of those
>that set him on his career of putting easily-amazed characters in unlikely
>mileau.
Check out his short stories. They were pretty decent.
He also (speaking of formularity...) co-wrote an astoundingly awful series
of kung-fu-hoo-ha novels with someone whose name is long forgotten. Wow,
they were bad.
Josh
--
the bitter comes out better on a stolen guitar / Bowie
J. Brandt / mu...@sidehack.gweep.net
Eric The Read
> I gave up waiting for him to write another Macroscope decades ago.
Thank you! Yes, I know most SF fans are lusers in the field, but I can't
believe that nearly everybody I mention his works to has not read
Macroscope.
> The first couple Incarnations weren't bad, but I can't think of
> anything else that I'd call "chilling".
The Bio of a Space Tyrant books were pretty chilling for the first 3
books or so (well, okay, the first was more of an adventure-type), but
then it degenerated into messy schlock.
> Maybe Orn and Ox... but I suspect it was the success of those that set
> him on his career of putting easily-amazed characters in unlikely mileau.
Possibly. What about Cthon? I haven't read the sequel, but I remember
Cthon being good, if more than a little confusing to my 13-year-old
brain. And then, of course, there's Anthonology, which is chock-full of
disturbing shit, some of which qualifies as "chilling".
-=Eric
--
"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
-- Johnny Hart
John Burnham
be...@xenon.triode.net.au "Ben Aveling" writes:
> Has anyone read Iain M? Banks' latest - The Business? I've been a bit
> disapointed by his more recent efforts. Is it just Banks trying to be
> John Grisham or does he manage something worthwhile.
>
I quite liked 'The Business', but it was one of those Banksie's with
IMHO a slightly disappointing ending. It just didn't quite click with
the impressions I'd got from the rest of the book.
Talking of disappointing endings, I've just finished 'Cryptonomicon'.
Another Neal Stephenson that just doesn't have a satisfying ending.
The rest of the book was quite cool, but I've just never got on with
Stephenson's endings....
J
--
John Burnham jo...@jaka.demon.co.uk
And I am not frightened of dying; any time will do, I don't mind
Why should I be frightened of dying ? There's no reason for it;
you've got to go sometime.
David Jacoby
>Why oh why oh why did Piers Anthony give
>up writing good stuff and start churning out Yet Another Xanth Book (TM)
>instead. Fsck it, PA wrote some of the most chilling stories I've ever
>read - stuff to make Ellison sit back and gasp.
"On the Uses of Torture" in _Xanthology_. Protagonist is the ultimate
Bastard anything From Hell, making the BOFH look like protoplasm in
comparison.
--
David Jacoby mailto:jac...@ecn.purdue.edu
Lead Web Technician, ECE http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~jacoby/
Computer Science Major Fast, Cheap, Good: Pick Two!
---------------------------------------------------------------
Randy the Random
yielding:
>"On the Uses of Torture" in _Xanthology_. Protagonist is the ultimate
>Bastard anything From Hell, making the BOFH look like protoplasm in
>comparison.
_Anthonology_, if I'm not mistaken. I'm pretty certain you didn't mean
to do that, since it doesn't make sense to relate the _Xanth_ trash with
one of the last of his readable works.
--
the Unsig
Peter da Silva
Eric The Read <emsc...@rmi.net> wrote:
> Possibly. What about Cthon? I haven't read the sequel, but I remember
> Cthon being good, if more than a little confusing to my 13-year-old
> brain.
Cthon just blew my "suspension of disbelief" valve too quickly, I was never
able to get into it.
> And then, of course, there's Anthonology, which is chock-full of
> disturbing shit, some of which qualifies as "chilling".
I haven't read any of his short stories. I'll make a point of digging up
Anthonology.
Mark Atwood
> > disturbing shit, some of which qualifies as "chilling".
>
> I haven't read any of his short stories. I'll make a point of digging up
> Anthonology.
The most chilling story Anthony didn't write...
"Stockyard"
--
Mark Atwood |
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra |
cdj...@ualberta.ca
> He certainly isn't following the ever-deeper plunge into sheer awfulness
> up writing good stuff and start churning out Yet Another Xanth Book (TM)
> instead. Fsck it, PA wrote some of the most chilling stories I've ever
> read - stuff to make Ellison sit back and gasp.
Because it sells. He admits explicitly in Death on a Pale Horse
that he only sends outlines to the publishers to see how much money he can
get before he starts writing. The words "artistic imperative" are, I
presume, not part of his vocabulary.
CJ
--
"Adulthood is the realization that stupidity is permanent and terminal....
There's different degrees, and some people are better at hiding it than
others. But it's congenital.... See what happens when bad things happen to
you when you're young? You become cranky and cynical like me." - Peter David
Calle Dybedahl
> He's done one particular short story, on the subject of torture,
> that is way nastier than any of the Incarnations series that I
> actually read. Right now, I don't remember the name of it.
"On the Uses of Torture".
--
Calle Dybedahl, Vasav. 82, SE-177 52 Järfälla,SWEDEN | ca...@lysator.liu.se
"I like darkness, because it shows us light" -- Victoria McManus
Joel Gluth
<SNIP content="cryptonomicon may have a sequel"/>
First of a trilogy, IIRC.
--
Joel Gluth // Software Engineer, N-space. http://www.n-space.com.au
"Gotta change my mind before it burns out." -- Thurston Moore
Mike Andrews
: pe...@abbnm.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
:>
:> > And then, of course, there's Anthonology, which is chock-full of
:> > disturbing shit, some of which qualifies as "chilling".
:>
:> I haven't read any of his short stories. I'll make a point of digging up
:> Anthonology.
: The most chilling story Anthony didn't write...
: "Stockyard"
Is that a sequel to the one in Anthonology which might be
called "Farmyard" or some such?
--
Mike Andrews
mi...@mikea.ath.cx
Tired old sysadmin since 1964
David Jacoby
Yes. It was as you said. I don't think this book is in my library
anymore. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of anything I have anymore
that wouldn't be 004-006 or 780 in Dewey Decimal[1][2].
[1] I prefer LOC to Dewey, but what can I say?
[2] http://ivory.lm.com/~mundie/DDHC/DDH.html is where I went to
remember the organizational structure.
--
David Jacoby mailto:jac...@ecn.purdue.edu
Lead Web Technician, ECE http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~jacoby/
Want to buy a monkey?
---------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Atwood
> Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> : The most chilling story Anthony didn't write...
>
> : "Stockyard"
>
> Is that a sequel to the one in Anthonology which might be
> called "Farmyard" or some such?
Yes. He specifically mentions not writing it in the afterword to Farmyard[1].
[1] I dont think that's the right title, but it's close enough.
John Burnham
> Oh really? I don't think I've read a Banks novel yet that _didn't_ have
> a disappointing ending.
>
I'd say 'The Wasp Factory', 'The Bridge' and 'Espedair Street' (but only
'cos I really love Espedair Street). YMMV.
J.
John Burnham
pfaf...@msu.edu "Ben Pfaff" writes:
> <Cryptonomicon>
> A magazine article I saw recently claimed that there's a sequel
> in the works. So maybe it's not really intended to be an ending
> at all.
Hmm. Possibly, but it had the classic 'rush everything to get an
almost but not quite satisfactory ending' feel of NS. Lots of loose
threads get tied up in a slightly unsatisfactory way, and there
aren't enough interesting plot threads to scream 'Sequel !'.
The rest of the book was kinda fun though.
J
Eric The Read
> What is this thing with trilogies, by the by? I mean, it's like just
> about *everything* you buy these days in the fantasy/sci-fi section is
> meant to be read either before or after something else by the same
> author.
It's not a new phenomenon-- Oscar Wilde makes fun of it in _The
Importance of Being Earnest_ with Miss Prim's "three-volume novel". And
it's not in and of itself a bad thing, as the classic story devolves
nicely into three parts.
> Doesn't anyone *write* stand-alones anymore?
Connie Willis comes to mind, as does James P. Hogan. But yeah, most
people are looking to become the next Robert Jordan, churning out book
after book after book after book after....
> Whoops. I'm ranting. I shut up now.
No, no... this place is *for* ranting. Rant away, I say!
Josh Brandt
Meg Thornton <mag...@megabitch.tm> wrote:
>meant to be read either before or after something else by the same
>author. Doesn't anyone *write* stand-alones anymore?
Egan. Banksie (who may write multiple novels set in a given world, but
doesn't give them any kind of order). Probably I could think of others. Oh,
Bruce Sterling.
>I mean, it was interesting when David Eddings managed to sell the same
>story four different times as a total of sixteen books. It started to
I'm glad that I wasn't the only one who noticed that...
Josh
--
I don't wanna ride the piggy.
J. Brandt / mu...@sidehack.gweep.net
Eric The Read
> In article <384693c3...@news.dynamite.com.au>,
> Meg Thornton <mag...@megabitch.tm> wrote:
> >I mean, it was interesting when David Eddings managed to sell the same
> >story four different times as a total of sixteen books. It started to
>
> I'm glad that I wasn't the only one who noticed that...
Heck, he said so himself, the second time around. One of his characters
commented something to the effect of, "Doesn't it seem like we've done
all this before?"
I could never get around the next few incarnations, but they appeared
different, at first glance, anyhow.
Rebecca Gray
wrote:
>Doesn't anyone *write* stand-alones anymore?
One of my favourite "newfounds": James Alan Gardner.
He's released three books so far, none of which have anything to do
with the others. I've read _Expendable_ and _Commitment Hour_. I
own, but have not yet read, _Vigilant_. Both of the books that I've
read had the feel of science fantasy to them. Then both, in their
last chapter, come back around to science fiction.
IMHO, they're worth the read... _if_ you can tolerate being inside one
character's head for the entire book and being privy to their every
(and I do mean "every") thought. Some people don't go for that. I
find it enjoyable, when it's well done.
--
Rebecca Brooke Gray O- "Scritcher of Dogbert's Ears"
"A nameserver is a waitroid carrying a tray of cards, where the cards
all have the line "Your name is Bruce"." -- Rob Evans, ASR
Greg Andrews
>On 30 Nov 1999 19:16:45 +1030, Joel Gluth <jo...@n-space.com.au> wrote:
>
>>Ben Pfaff <pfaf...@msu.edu> writes:
>>
>><SNIP content="cryptonomicon may have a sequel"/>
>>
>>First of a trilogy, IIRC.
>
>about *everything* you buy these days in the fantasy/sci-fi section is
>
Stand-alones like _The Diamond Age_, _Snowcrash_, _Zodiac_, and
_The Big U_?
How many stand-alones do you want written before the author is
permitted to indulge in a trilogy?
-Greg
--
::::::::::::::::::: Greg Andrews ge...@wco.com :::::::::::::::::::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Meg Thornton
>Ben Pfaff <pfaf...@msu.edu> writes:
>
><SNIP content="cryptonomicon may have a sequel"/>
>
>First of a trilogy, IIRC.
What is this thing with trilogies, by the by? I mean, it's like just
about *everything* you buy these days in the fantasy/sci-fi section is
meant to be read either before or after something else by the same
author. Doesn't anyone *write* stand-alones anymore?
I mean, it was interesting when David Eddings managed to sell the same
story four different times as a total of sixteen books. It started to
get dull when Robert Jordan started churning out "The Wheel of
Doorstops". When Feist started grafting onto the end of the Riftwar
saga (which had got rather dull by the third book anyway), I started
to get irritated. Then McCaffrey started sequelising and prequelising
as though she had a fifth mortgage to pay off, and the whole damn mess
seems to have gone to hell in a handbasket. Even new Australian
writers seem to have got hooked into the whole "sell them one story in
three parts" business. Complete with its sister "add enough padding
so that your rather minor story looks like an epic in three doorstops"
(and if you don't know what I'm talking about, try reading the "Axis"
trilogy by Sara Douglass, and its successor "The Wayfarer
Redemption").
Thank gods for Pratchett, who at least tends to try for the
stand-alone feel, even if you *do* have to have read the previous four
or five books in the particular mini-series if you want to get all the
jokes. He also tends to understand the meaning of the word "concise",
thank heavens.
Whoops. I'm ranting. I shut up now.
--
Meg Thornton (mag...@megabitch.tm)
Abusive email *will* be forwarded to ab...@your.ISP.
Joe Moore
>about *everything* you buy these days in the fantasy/sci-fi section is
>meant to be read either before or after something else by the same
>author. Doesn't anyone *write* stand-alones anymore?
In my CFT, I'm gonna write the great ASRian novel, and I'm gonna have it
published in 3 volumes. And they're gonna be collated in a RAID3-style
page striping structure, so you can't read 'em unless you have all three
books.
I'll make sure the cover notes say something along the lines of:
"You know you're going to have to buy the other 2 books in the series
to make sense of this anyway, so I've just taken away the option."
Bwaaaahahahahaha
--Joe
--
IBM's vision is apparently to make IBM hardware "scream with Microsoft
software" --The Register, http://www.theregister.co.uk/990927-000003.html
I have visions of screaming with (at and about) Microsoft software, too.
David Jacoby
>mag...@megabitch.tm (Meg Thornton) writes:
>: Thank gods for Pratchett, who at least tends to try for the
>: stand-alone feel, even if you *do* have to have read the previous four
>But as someone else on this newsfroup pointed out, this is made much
>much easier by the fact that he only ever has had to churn out the one
>book - complete with a change of cover each time.
>Tho personally, i think that Piers Anthony is much more of an offender
>on this front.
It is slightly more difficult than that.
cat $LAST_STORY | sed s/$LAST_STORYS_MAIN_HERO/$THIS_STORYS_MAINHERO/\
| sed s/$LAST_STORYS_MAIN_VILLIAN/$THIS_STORYS_MAIN_VILLAIN/ | sed \
s/$NAME_MINOR_LOCATION_IN_XANTH_1/$NAME_MINOR_LOCATION_IN_XANTH_2 \
| mail $PUBLISHER
(I don't use sed that much, so I don't know if I used it right. But
the point stands.)
--
David Jacoby mailto:jac...@ecn.purdue.edu
Lead Web Technician, ECE http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~jacoby/
CS Major I bet the human brain is a kludge. --Minsky
---------------------------------------------------------------
Jasper Janssen
>In article <826chg$2tu$1...@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>,
>David Jacoby <jac...@shay.ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
>: cat $LAST_STORY | sed s/$LAST_STORYS_MAIN_HERO/$THIS_STORYS_MAINHERO/\
>: | sed s/$LAST_STORYS_MAIN_VILLIAN/$THIS_STORYS_MAIN_VILLAIN/ | sed \
>: s/$NAME_MINOR_LOCATION_IN_XANTH_1/$NAME_MINOR_LOCATION_IN_XANTH_2 \
>: | mail $PUBLISHER
>
>Yeah, Piers Anthony would be the sort to use a Useless Use Of Cat.
Nah, not useless. It makes the sequence of events clearer.
Jasper
Christian Bauernfeind
Jasper Janssen <jas...@janssen.dynip.com> writes:
>
> Nah, not useless. It makes the sequence of events clearer.
>
< /dev/lart mail jasper
The stdio redirectors can appear anywhere on the line, it is just
customary to put them at the end.
Christian
--
Christian Bauernfeind
Not speaking for Infineon
Not even working for IBM
e-mail: v2ba...@fishkill.ibm.com
Simon Cozens
>v2ba...@fishkill.ibm.com (Christian Bauernfeind) writes:
>> The stdio redirectors can appear anywhere on the line, it is just
>> customary to put them at the end.
>
>amor$ < cat /etc/passwd
>ksh: cat: cannot open
I think Christian implied anywhere (so long as they're still attached to
their files.)
</etc/passwd cat
works everywhere it should.
--
"If a computer can't directly address all the RAM you can use, it's just a toy."
-- anonymous comp.sys.amiga posting, non-sequitir
Christian Bauernfeind
Ingvar Mattsson <ing...@bofh.se> writes:
>
> [case the first]
> amor$ < cat /etc/passwd
> ksh: cat: cannot open
So what's your problem? You just told your shell to run /etc/passwd
and connect its stdin to ./cat, and it tried to do that.
Jasper Janssen
>In article <diaf4s4k051qtls5b...@4ax.com>,
> Jasper Janssen <jas...@janssen.dynip.com> writes:
>>
>> Nah, not useless. It makes the sequence of events clearer.
>>
>
>< /dev/lart mail jasper
>
>customary to put them at the end.
How does this have anything to do with what I said? Look, I _know_. Of
the set of things that are possible and the set of things that are
easy to follow (therefore good code), the latter is much smaller.
Now wouldn't that sentence read easier if it said "the set of things
that are easy to follow (therefore good code) is much smaller than the
set of things that are possible"? Same thing.
Jasper
void
>
>In my CFT, I'm gonna write the great ASRian novel, and I'm gonna have it
>published in 3 volumes. And they're gonna be collated in a RAID3-style
>page striping structure, so you can't read 'em unless you have all three
>books.
You're going to have a hard time moving the parity book off the shelves,
though.
--
Ben
[X] YES! I'm a brain-damaged lemur on crack, and I'd like to
order your software package for $459.95!
Marshall McGowan
:
: Stand-alones like _The Diamond Age_, _Snowcrash_, _Zodiac_, and
: _The Big U_?
Erm,
The Diamond Age shares a character with Snowcrash, and is therefore a
sequel.
Marshall
--
Marshall McGowan | Heisenberg slept here, or somewhere else nearby.
mars...@sonic.net | W J Williams, Days of Atonement.
Peter da Silva
Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
> mars...@sonic.net (Marshall McGowan) writes:
> > The Diamond Age shares a character with Snowcrash, and is therefore a
> > sequel.
> It does? Who?
It shares a history with Snow Crash, anyway... the old lady who runs the
young ladies' academy makes references to an ad campaign from Snow Crash.
I didn't notice if she's actually a character from the book.
David Moore
wrote:
>In article <m3bt87k...@flash.localdomain>,
>Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>> mars...@sonic.net (Marshall McGowan) writes:
>> > The Diamond Age shares a character with Snowcrash, and is therefore a
>> > sequel.
>
>> It does? Who?
>
>It shares a history with Snow Crash, anyway... the old lady who runs the
>young ladies' academy makes references to an ad campaign from Snow Crash.
>I didn't notice if she's actually a character from the book.
More than that: her wheelchair has intelligent spokes, just
like YT's board, and she attributes her need for said chair
to a board accident.
Dang, I just re-read Diamond Age and Snow Crash, and once
again forgot to search for YT's real name in SC.
--
Dave Moore == djm...@uh.edu == I speak for me.
"Kill whoever thought of it. Then go back in time
and do it again." -- Simon Oke
Will Rose
: In article <m3bt87k...@flash.localdomain>,
: Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
:> mars...@sonic.net (Marshall McGowan) writes:
:> > The Diamond Age shares a character with Snowcrash, and is therefore a
:> > sequel.
:> It does? Who?
: It shares a history with Snow Crash, anyway... the old lady who runs the
: young ladies' academy makes references to an ad campaign from Snow Crash.
: I didn't notice if she's actually a character from the book.
I assumed she was YT, but it wasn't made explicit.
coo...@ccooney.dsl.speakeasy.net
> mars...@sonic.net (Marshall McGowan) writes:
>>
>> The Diamond Age shares a character with Snowcrash, and is therefore a
>> sequel.
> It does? Who?
YT, who else?
--
The very concept of PNP is a lovely dream that simply does not translate to
reality. The confusion of manually doing stuff is nothing compared to the
confusion of computers trying to do stuff and getting it wrong, which they
gleefully do with great enthusiasm. -- Jinx Tigr in the SDM
coo...@ccooney.dsl.speakeasy.net
> v2ba...@fishkill.ibm.com (Christian Bauernfeind) writes:
>> In article <diaf4s4k051qtls5b...@4ax.com>,
>> Jasper Janssen <jas...@janssen.dynip.com> writes:
>> >
>> > Nah, not useless. It makes the sequence of events clearer.
>> >
>>
>> < /dev/lart mail jasper
>>
>> The stdio redirectors can appear anywhere on the line, it is just
>> customary to put them at the end.
> [case the first]
> amor$ < cat /etc/passwd
> ksh: cat: cannot open
> amor$ uname -a
> SunOS hpov 5.6 Generic_105181-12 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-4
> /usr/bin/ksh
[case the eleventy-first]
coonec@ccooney-1:/home/coonec ></etc/passwd cat
<many lines>
coonec@ccooney-1:/home/coonec > uname -a
Linux ccooney-1 2.2.10 #5 SMP Mon Oct 4 14:28:56 PDT 1999 i586 unknown
Check your order.
Joe Moore
void <fl...@incandescent.firedrake.org> wrote:
>In article <826k3p$n...@nfs0.sdrc.com>, Joe Moore wrote:
>>
>>In my CFT, I'm gonna write the great ASRian novel, and I'm gonna have it
>>published in 3 volumes. And they're gonna be collated in a RAID3-style
>>page striping structure, so you can't read 'em unless you have all three
>>books.
>
>You're going to have a hard time moving the parity book off the shelves,
>though.
Oh, no I won't. I'll introduce intentional errors into the others.
I might have meant RAID5. Parity striped across all volumes?
Hell, RAID0+1 would work well enough.
Greg Andrews
>Greg Andrews (ge...@shell.ncal.verio.com) wrote:
>:
>: Stand-alones like _The Diamond Age_, _Snowcrash_, _Zodiac_, and
>: _The Big U_?
>
>Erm,
>
>sequel.
>
If I understand you correctly, you're saying the director's cameo
appearances make all Hitchcock films sequels. I don't buy that.
The head of the girl's school is YT, but her presence is merely a
cameo. Nothing in TDA depends on her identity, nor on any character
or plot point of Snowcrash.
Ralph Wade Phillips
Joe Moore <jmo...@rios85.sdrc.com> wrote in message
news:826k3p$n...@nfs0.sdrc.com...
> In article <384693c3...@news.dynamite.com.au>,
>
> In my CFT, I'm gonna write the great ASRian novel, and I'm gonna have it
> published in 3 volumes. And they're gonna be collated in a RAID3-style
> page striping structure, so you can't read 'em unless you have all three
> books.
Be a true bastard - print them all in one volume <grins>
ObASR - "But why can't we raid the partitions on this one drive?
Won't that give us enough of an increase in speed?" Gah!
RwP
Peter da Silva
Greg Andrews <ge...@shell.ncal.verio.com> wrote:
> If I understand you correctly, you're saying the director's cameo
> appearances make all Hitchcock films sequels. I don't buy that.
You're mistaking the map for the territory, the actor for the character.
But that aside...
> The head of the girl's school is YT, but her presence is merely a
> cameo. Nothing in TDA depends on her identity, nor on any character
> or plot point of Snowcrash.
As I said, the two share a common past. But there is no way you could get
from the events at the end of Snow Crash to the society of The Diamond Age,
not unless everyone simultaneously forgot about the whole Nam Shub thing.
I mean, can you imagine packaging human metaprogramming code in mites? It'd
make the Drummers technology look like stone knives and bear skins.
void
coo...@ccooney.dsl.speakeasy.net wrote:
>Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>> mars...@sonic.net (Marshall McGowan) writes:
>>>
>>> sequel.
>
>
>YT, who else?
Oh, come on, I know you weren't in Snow Crash.
void
>In article <slrn84gt0a...@incandescent.firedrake.org>,
>void <fl...@incandescent.firedrake.org> wrote:
>>
>>You're going to have a hard time moving the parity book off the shelves,
>>though.
>
>Oh, no I won't. I'll introduce intentional errors into the others.
>
>I might have meant RAID5. Parity striped across all volumes?
>Hell, RAID0+1 would work well enough.
RAID0+1 would work fine; it would be the same as RAID0, if RAID0 is
striping without any redundancy (I can never remember for sure). Straight
striping would be the most elegant way to do it, I think, now that you
mention it. RAID5 would be okay, because although the readers could
reconstitute any one missing book from the others, they probably wouldn't
bother.
Paul Mc Auley
| >In article <m3bt87k...@flash.localdomain>,
| >> > The Diamond Age shares a character with Snowcrash, and is therefore a
| >> > sequel.
| >> It does? Who?
| >It shares a history with Snow Crash, anyway... the old lady who runs the
| >young ladies' academy makes references to an ad campaign from Snow Crash.
| >I didn't notice if she's actually a character from the book.
| More than that: her wheelchair has intelligent spokes, just
| like YT's board, and she attributes her need for said chair
| to a board accident.
Which could point to _any_ thrasher. She could be 15 years younger than YT
for all we know.
Being set in the same universe, many years later, doesn't make it any more
a sequel any more than 'Guards, Guards' is of 'Mort'.
| Dang, I just re-read Diamond Age and Snow Crash, and once
| again forgot to search for YT's real name in SC.
It appears? 'Yours Truly' is not, IME, a real name.
Paul
--
--- Paul Mc Auley <pmca...@iol.ie>
--
- "The medium is the massage."
-- Crazy Nigel
Lee Maguire
> : young ladies' academy makes references to an ad campaign from Snow Crash.
> : I didn't notice if she's actually a character from the book.
> I assumed she was YT, but it wasn't made explicit.
[from a Neal Stephenson interview - SFX Magazine]
Talking of education, at the end of Snow Crash we're left wondering
what might happen to one of the characters, YT, and in The Diamond Age
there's this prim and proper pseudo-Victorian schoolma'am racing her
wheelchair and coming out with phrases like "chiselled spam." So tell
us - is Miss Matheson actually YT?
"I prefer not to issue a definitive opinion on that."
So she might be?
"I prefer not to issue a definitive opinion on the subject."
(AFAIK reusing the same characters can complicate movie rights - hence
no Molly in _Jonny Mnemonic_ )
--
Lee Maguire <{$news-reply$}@wetware.demon.co.uk>