Just comics in September (or at least that’s all I finished reading).
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I finished Martha Well’s The Witch King and really enjoyed it. It was intriguing all the time. So it seems to be a stand alone novel but the world has a rich history and world building.
And I found out that book 2 came out last week. So I will look into that at some point. But first I will read The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour, a memoir about a British female secret agent working in France during WWII. Very intriguing stuff…
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If I’m reading this amen’t I technically already reading a tree?
Seriously, a pretty interesting read if you like trees.
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Where do podcasts fit here? I am restarting The History of Byzantium by Robin Pierson. I find this relatively more scholarly than Mike Duncan’s A History of Rome - which is still pretty good from what I remember more than a decade ago
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I am really struggling with Accelerando by Stross. I don’t find the protagonist remotely likeable, but more importantly I have very little idea what is going on about 1/3rd of the way through.
The pacing feels exceptionally slow. I like his new paramour, but other than that? Gosh it’s a lot of technobabble. And I love a good scifi technobabble! But this feels surprisingly obtuse.
I will probably try to finish it? But I am kinda shocked by how much of a struggle it is.
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It’s not that obtuse, half the ideas have been recycled in other science fiction in the 20 years since it was published.
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So, there are lobsters.
They apparently gained sentience (sure, not the species I would uplift first, but okay). They somehow get money, and then are transfered to a… shuttle? That launches them to an asteroid or ship that then travels away from Earth. Somehow. Built by unknown. And also they’re Communists, fine, but Mancx won’t help a KGB computer that also gained sentience for… reasons? And then his identity is stolen because apparently all his memories are stored in his glasses… fine… but that matters because the Italian Communists need a completely unanimous vote for… something… that has to do with declaring all sentients as rightsholders including maybe an alien intelligence that several big space agencies have detected but not shared and nobody believes they are aliens except maybe 7 people… and Mancx is simultaneously super rich but has no assets because of the… network of computer-owned shell companies that he kinda owns, but then also doesn’t, but that let him share all the combined audio media of all human history that he found in a random suitcase he bought from Lost and Found for some reason when his actual luggage was lost, and by releasing the music files to his ex-wife she suddenly has the money he owes the US government, kinda?
Like… I don’t get what’s happening. All I wrote is a series of barely related events, as far as I can tell.
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A lot of neuroscience is based on mollusc and crustacean studies as they have simpler nervous systems, hence the uploaded scans of lobsters as the first step to uploading humans.
Our main character is a Venture Communist (a spoof on venture capitalists) who helps others improve their business models in return to favours, hence why he has no cash and exists off favours, and why the US taxman hates him for not paying taxes when he should be charging a ton of cash for his services.
The loss of his glasses leading to identity theft is projecting what would happen if you lost your smartphone in the early 2000s forwards…and is very plausible from today’s viewpoint.
The communists are there to parody critiques of capitalism.
It all comes together if you understand all the memes flying around criticising capitalism and tech bros and you get the concept of uploading consciousness.
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It turns out there is a community-sourced Accelerando Technical Companion web site.
Stross’s book can be quite dense in unusual technical terms and concepts, which can sometimes be quite confusing to readers unfamiliar with them. The purpose of this companion is to help alleviate any confusions the reader may have, as well as to introduce new confusions by giving the reader an idea of the current state and expected future of the technologies described in the novel. Wherever possible, brief information on relevant research papers is provided.
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So I just finished Redshirts by John Scalzi. It was an entertaining and short read. I didn’t know he worked as a consultant on Stargate Universe. This show had a terrible start with some 4-5 bad episodes but then got really good and I enjoyed it a ton. Unfortunately it got cancelled after season 2? I believe.
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I can’t recall if I’ve posted it on the boards before, but a few weeks ago I noticed an ebook edition of The Pothunters with this inexplicable cover:
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The likely AI generated image makes me think someone’s set up a bot to grab public domain ebooks and package them up with generated covers in a hope to grab some easy money off gullible buyers.
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