| written by Speeder on Jun 07, 2009 02:57 |
 | |  | | ![]() I dunno  I don't speak english (I write english only...)
I now finished reading the "Doomsday Book" pretty awesome, similar to the other (ie: alternating between somewhere in the future and a medieval thing), but this one was not about cheap sci-fi excuses, it was about time-travel (altough it does not explain how time-travel work... Only that paradoxes were impossible)
But I dunno, the Doomsday book has less action, in fact it manage to be annoying, several characters are totally annoying (like a mother that all the time bother other characters about her son and a grandma that accuse eveyrone of sinning) or because the antagonists is in the future a flu, and in the past the black plague, thus most of it is about going to hospital or dieing.
But this book was seemly a bit more well written, and it covered a shorter period of time and so you do not lost yourself wondering what, or when something happened, or not happened...
The other book (A Fire Upon the Deep) has more action, it has a ambush, firefight with powered exoskeletons and aliens (on exoskeletons too), melee one-on-one fights, crash landings, a space battle during a FTL flight, and a castle siege with guns to tear down the walls, melee ambushes, arrows and a spaceship acting as impromptu beam weapon, shooting on the gorund forces using its ion thrusters.
But it is easy to lose track of time on this book, several times it speak of the future (some character will learn x about x in x years...) sometimes you think that it is talking like several years passed, but in fact was just someone thinking about the future, and several times ACTUALLY a good time has been skipped but not really explained, you think that only some days was been passed and when you see it is months, you think that like 3 months has been passed, and it is 2 years... But this way the book stay more or less paced faster, skipping only to the intersting parts, and keeping much of the drama down (the inverse of Doomsday, that is all about drama, in the book there are not a single fight), but sometimes the book is like those japanese anime, with some actions taking so much time that seemly the author is doing it only for synchrony (ie: some characters spend half of the book flying on space, and the only thing that they do inside the ship is reading online forums and zero-gee sex)
In the terms of sci-fi hardness, Doomsday book has less inplausible things (in fact the only thing seemly impossible is timetravel, and is the only unexplained thing too) than A Fire Upon the Deep (full of bizarre technology, FTL flight and FTL radios, galaxy-wide entities... and no explanation for any of those, only a cheap trick of "zones" to explain why in some parts of the galaxy, like here on Earth, FTL is not possible) | |  | |  |
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  | written by Megagun on Nov 10, 2009 15:11 |
 | |  | | ![]() New load arriving soon:
Dune (Frank Herbert )
Footfall (Jerry Pournelle & Larry Niven )
Lucifer's Hammer (Jerry Pournelle & Larry Niven)
The Mote In God's Eye (Jerry Pournelle & Larry Niven)
Crashlander (Larry Niven)
The Ringworld Engineers (Larry Niven)
Starship Troopers (Robert A. Heinlein)
Revelation Space (Alastair Reynolds) | |  | |  |
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| a title is a curious thing... |
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 | | | | ![]() A series I read a while back is "The Lamb Among The Stars"(Chris Walley) trilogy.
It's science fiction that has a very deep, interesting plot towards the beginning(could be boring for some), this means a slowly developing story, but also makes the climax feel so suspenseful, even scary. | | | | |
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| i do my own stun-- avatars |
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 | | | | ![]() I just finished reading Flatland: A romance of many dimentions. Pretty good for a book over a hundred years old. | | | | |
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| written by Magnulus on Nov 13, 2009 10:42 |
 | |  | | ![]() I want to get that! And I want to see the indie film that was made, too. | |  | |  |
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| i do my own stun-- avatars |
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| | | | ![]() There were two films that came out in the same year. I haven't seen either, but the indie one looks good. The other one looks more hollywood, in that they have 2D shapes moving in front of each other, because, Oh no! If it is scientifically accurate, people won't understand or like it!
Bull. | | | | |
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| written by Magnulus on Nov 13, 2009 13:07 |
| | | | ![]() The high-budget one is also not a feature-length film, it's a 20-minute short. But it does star Martin Sheen! | | | | |
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 | | | | ![]()  | Albeyamakiir said: | There were two films that came out in the same year. I haven't seen either, but the indie one looks good. The other one looks more hollywood, in that they have 2D shapes moving in front of each other, because, Oh no! If it is scientifically accurate, people won't understand or like it!
Bull. : P |
I just watched the trailers for the feature-length Flatland the Film and the half-hour Flatland the Movie, and both seem to take a fair number of liberties with their source material. From what I've seen, the shorter 'movie' might do a better job of its intended purpose of bringing the concepts to a wider audience though, even if it doesn't always perfectly depict those concepts. The longer 'film' seems less likely to hold the interest of a general audience, due to not only its lower production values, but also its length. I can't help but think they could have edited the script down to an hour or so and spent more time polishing up its visuals.
What we really need is a version of flatland shown entirely from the point of view of the square. Maybe it could be a game. That seems like it could be difficult and potentially unpleasant to play through though. : P
For anyone interested, you can read the original novel online. The story is relatively short, so you should be able to get through it in a couple sessions. | | | | |
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| i do my own stun-- avatars |
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| | | | ![]() Currently reading: Le Comte de Monte Cristo. (or "The Count of Monte Cristo")
Very slow going (although I think that's how they wrote books 200 years ago) and I suspect I would have gotten bored of it, had I not already watched the anime "Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo", which is awesome. As it is, though, I'm really enjoying the book. | | | | |
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| written by Speeder on Mar 27, 2010 17:37 |
| | | | ![]() I am reading The Courtier (the proper english translation for then name... For english speakers, the book is sold named The Book of The Courtier...)
The book is from a italian knight, named Baldassare, that worked in the city of Urbino (that still exists btw... I saw some photos, it is totally awesome...), and he narrates 4 nights of conversations (seemly real conversations... or inspired on real conversations, as the "character" personalities really match their real-life counterparts).
The book was published in Italy in 1528.
The theme is "what is the perfect courtier, lady and prince." (thus, describing the perfect knight and his wife).
Baldassare took so much time to read it, that the person that hired him to make the book died before he could finish (and he writes that in the book preface), and also die several of the people that are characters (in the fourth chapter he comment that some people died and what other people are doing, like moving to other city, etc....)
Btw: From the court of Urbino, came Rafael (still alive during the book writing, actually several characters knew Rafael in person), some famous Architect (I forgot his name), another math guy that wrote the book on Perspective (raytrace writers here... someone remember the name of this guy?) and several other cool science stuff (seemly they were like us here in ABB, science and game lovers... Always talking, inventing or using science or games...) | | | | |
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 | written by Ajax on Mar 27, 2010 17:53 |
 | |  | | ![]() I am currently reading "Blood of Elves" by Andrzej Sapkowski.
It is book two of two books that the game "The Witcher" are based off of. If you don't know of these books or haven't played the game, I would recommend reading the books first, then playing the game. | |  | |  |
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| written by Speeder on Mar 27, 2010 19:08 |
| | | | ![]() I already played the game... It is awesome 
Someday I will read the books (when I wanted to read them, only polish or some other langauges that I don't read were available) | | | | |
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| written by Megagun on Mar 27, 2010 19:17 |
| | | | ![]() I'm currently reading Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space (the last book on my stack of books! eep), which is quite interesting and well-written, but seems to lack any coherent direction... | | | | |
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└> last changed by Megagun on April 28, 2010 at 22:30
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| written by Ajax on Mar 29, 2010 07:21 |
| | | | ![]() | Speeder said: | I already played the game... It is awesome
Someday I will read the books (when I wanted to read them, only polish or some other langauges that I don't read were available) |
Yeah, and I just found out that there is going to be a Witcher 2... coming out next year, though... looks good: www.thewitcher.com | | | | |
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| written by Sirpaper on Apr 11, 2010 19:22 |
| | | | ![]() Getting farther in the Ender's Game series now. I've read:
Ender's Game
Speaker for the Dead
Xenocide
Children of the Mind
War of Gifts
Ender's Shadow
In that order.
Also catching up on some other books I got at my school's book sale by Anne McCaffrey
Freedom's Landing
Freedom's Choice
Freedom's Challenge
Enjoyed them all, and
Crystal Line
which was alright.
And now about to start:
"Tides of Light" Gregory Benford
"The Demolished Man" Alfred Bester
"Cosmic Tales: Adventures in Sol System" Collection of stories by multiple authors
"Coyote" Allen Steele
In no particular order. | | | | |
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