Borgus Reviews of Literature
Finally caught up on my reading this weeked… finished re-reading “The Barsoom Project”, read “Idoru” and “Snow Crash”, and checked out some half-remembered passages in “1984”.
“Barsoom Project” is one of my favorite books – it’s set at a Disneyish corporation that runs incredibly realistic Live-Action Role Playing games in a pair of titanic Star Trek-style holodecks. (Paid for by the movie they’ll edit out of the footage, the home game cassettes, and the novels and tie-ins.) It’s three stories at once – you want to find out how the LARP will work out, who commited the act of industrial espionage that drove one of the last group of players insane, and what the game controllers will do when that player inexplicably pops up again in this run-through of the LARP.
“Idoru” is the sixth William Gibson book I’ve read, and the third in a row that I just didn’t like. In “Difference Engine”, “Virtual Light”, and “Idoru”, he writes of helpless characters who mostly stand around open-mouthed as the book happens around them. It’s kind of dull, and uninteresting… you finish the book thinking, “what was that about, and why would I care?” It’s a darn shame, ’cause “Neuromancer” was so good.
“Snow Crash”, on the other hand, more than made up for that. Excellent humor, interesting characters who matter greatly to the plot, intelligent writing, and intriguing speculation about the fragmentation of human language. I just told a friend that the story “begins with a guy who delivers pizza for the Mafia, and ends with a futuristic Ted Turner’s attempts to enslave the population of the world”. If this is the quality of the author’s work, then I am absolutely picking up “Cryptonomicon” as my friends have been advising me.
Finally, after looking at the portions of “1984” where George Orwell (as Emmanuel Goldstein) describes the method by which the Party came to power and maintains it, I have arrived at the uneasy conclusion that the world is still traveling smoothly in that direction, just a lot of years behind schedule. However, I can’t think of a dang thing I can do about it, so I’m not going to stay up nights worrying about it.
Oh yeah, and I finally beat a sub-boss in the fifth act of Diablo 2 that has been giving me serious trouble on “Nightmare” difficulty. So that’s good.
Tags: books, diablo, science, software, technology, videogames
Wait… You have the interests you do, and you’re just *now* reading Snowcrash? spanks michael. Bad borg.
Neal is one of those writers where after doing battle with one of his books, you emerge victorious, but changed in subtle ways, and no longer able to look at things the same way. I’d recommend any of this books, and they’re all as different as night and day. Diamond Age, which is set in a nano-tech laden future victorian-punk era. Zodiac, which is a straight modern eco-thriller that’ll leave you never wanting to touch the water again. The Big U, which I only dimly recall, but which is a hillarious dark send up of the university life. His non fiction ‘In the Begining’ which takes on the modern world of computing. And, last, but far from least, the book that’ll suck you in, churn you for a while, and spit you out in bloody chunks, Cryptonomicon… The chapter on writing the business plan for the stock holders should be required reading in business school alone. Or possibly clown college. Or both.
Rule 2
Oh…. I didn’t need the picture of Ron spanking Michael in my head… I don’t think I’m going to sleep much tonight.
Hey, that’s been on my list for a while, but this was the first time that three important factors were in a Barnes & Noble at the same time:
1) A copy of Snow Crash
2) Me
3) Money for buying books for me
But, as I said, I expect I’ll be reading more of his stuff. It’s so nice to be reading a book that exposes me to new ideas and concepts, and actually makes me think about them. So many books at the bookstore are ones that I have already read, just with different character names and a different author. I’m getting to be a bit of a hard sell in the sci-fi / fantasy section.