Personal computing discussed
Moderators: askfranklin, renee, emkubed, Captain Ned
Gerbil Jedidiah wrote:Iain M. Banks’s Consider Phlebas - Just finished it
I'm now reading The Watchmen... Over half way through and it's not doing it for me really... I guess I am not into comics as much nowadays.
just brew it! wrote:Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. It's odd that I haven't read it before now, considering how big a Rush fan I was as a teenager...
Gerbil Jedidiah wrote:Iain M. Banks’s Consider Phlebas - Just finished it
I'm now reading The Watchmen... Over half way through and it's not doing it for me really... I guess I am not into comics as much nowadays.
ssidbroadcast wrote:Vrock wrote:titan wrote:Foundation's Fear? That must be one of his later books. I've read Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, and the Robot novels that tie in with them. I may have to check those other Foundation books out.I've been reading a bunch of Isaac Asimov's stuff. Namely, the Foundation series. I'm on Foundation's Fear right now.
Don't bother Vrock I just read the first one, Foundation and it was *alright* but the sequels get progessively convoluted, and Asimov's caricatures are all ham-fisted actors.
Props for predicting the personal calculator, though (As described in Foundation, yet the book pre-dates the integrated circuit.)
Although I liked Foundation better than I liked Starship Troopers. My opinion of that book is... neutral... at best. Not a lot of action. Mostly about the future concept of Conscription, and Nationalism.
Darkmage wrote:I just finished World War Z - An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks and I'm on to The Count of Monte Cristo.
gerbilspy wrote:Right now I'm looking for something new to read, and will probably pick something from this thread, just for fun.
gerbilspy wrote:I do not remember Hari Seldon and Hober Mallow being "ham fisted", and I would describe the theme as complex, but not convoluted...but that's a matter of semantics.
Voldenuit wrote:The Endymion novels in the Hyperion series are not quite as good as the original 2, but still worth reading for closure and completeness.
Captain Ned wrote:Voldenuit wrote:The Endymion novels in the Hyperion series are not quite as good as the original 2, but still worth reading for closure and completeness.
The last act and epilogue of Rise of Endymion never fail to have me sniffling as I read them. I never got that from Meina Gladstone's self-sacrifice after she ordered the destruction of the farcaster network.
Voldenuit wrote:I definitely had the same connection to Sol and Rachel Weintraub* in the first novel as I did to Raul and Aenea in the second act. But somehow it felt more overt and manipulative in the Endymion series, as if the author were deliberately provoking your empathy responses. I also feel that Rachel's story was the most tragic in the first 2 books, and her appearance in the second 2 to be rather weak and pointless.
Captain Ned wrote:gerbilspy wrote:Right now I'm looking for something new to read, and will probably pick something from this thread, just for fun.
If the original Foundation Trilogy appealed to you, then I think you'd like:
Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos and his Ilium/Olympos duology.
Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space books (now up to 5, 3 connected and 2 standalones in the same universe). His other stuff is excellent as well.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy.
Neal Stephenson's stuff is OK and has great ideas, but the sheer number of words in each book makes them daunting tasks, especially if they're library borrowings.
Given that you read Foundation back in the '60s, I'll assume you've read the Dune universe as well as Heinlein & Clarke.