Ender's Game & The Baroque Cycle
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I just got back into San Diego, CA from Austin, TX last night. (I got out of sharing any of the driving load since I broke my wrist a month or two ago. Yes! I knew there was at least one advantage to it! :-D) And I finished reading some books along the way. I thought I'd share. :) Ender's Game[^] was fantastic. I loved every minute of it and just couldn't put it down. On its surface, it's an action/adventure novel. But there's so much more to it than that. The characters were rich and I could totally empathize with Ender. Not in the sense that I'm a super-genius who's supposed to save the world, but in the sense that, not being that far removed from my own childhood, I remember what it was like to not really fit in with kids my age. (So I, of course, just hung out with kids who were older than me. Almost all my friends are a few years older than I am, even now that I'm at university.) I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it. It's very approachable. Parents could even read it with their kids. Right before that, I just finished up Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle[^]. These novels took me almost 2 years to read (it's almost 3000 pages in total!), since I'm busy most of the time with schoolwork and actual work and that "having a life" thing. But they were fascinating. If you've read Cryptonomicon[^], you'll feel right at home with Stephenson's style in these books. It's historical fiction, set around the time of Newton and Leibniz. Stephenson does a masterful job of drawing you into the time and really making you care about the characters and their adventures. Reading the end was almost bitter-sweet because I'd been with the characters for so long, I wanted there to be more pages. :) Anyway, don't let the length disuade you from reading it. It's really a great book. What are the rest of you reading for pleasure? (Codin
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I just got back into San Diego, CA from Austin, TX last night. (I got out of sharing any of the driving load since I broke my wrist a month or two ago. Yes! I knew there was at least one advantage to it! :-D) And I finished reading some books along the way. I thought I'd share. :) Ender's Game[^] was fantastic. I loved every minute of it and just couldn't put it down. On its surface, it's an action/adventure novel. But there's so much more to it than that. The characters were rich and I could totally empathize with Ender. Not in the sense that I'm a super-genius who's supposed to save the world, but in the sense that, not being that far removed from my own childhood, I remember what it was like to not really fit in with kids my age. (So I, of course, just hung out with kids who were older than me. Almost all my friends are a few years older than I am, even now that I'm at university.) I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it. It's very approachable. Parents could even read it with their kids. Right before that, I just finished up Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle[^]. These novels took me almost 2 years to read (it's almost 3000 pages in total!), since I'm busy most of the time with schoolwork and actual work and that "having a life" thing. But they were fascinating. If you've read Cryptonomicon[^], you'll feel right at home with Stephenson's style in these books. It's historical fiction, set around the time of Newton and Leibniz. Stephenson does a masterful job of drawing you into the time and really making you care about the characters and their adventures. Reading the end was almost bitter-sweet because I'd been with the characters for so long, I wanted there to be more pages. :) Anyway, don't let the length disuade you from reading it. It's really a great book. What are the rest of you reading for pleasure? (Codin
Just about anything by Orson Scott Card is worth reading. :) Currently, I'm reading Steiner's "The Esoteric Aspect of the Social Question", my dad's book "Music as Heard", and this book called "Nanocosm". Marc
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I just got back into San Diego, CA from Austin, TX last night. (I got out of sharing any of the driving load since I broke my wrist a month or two ago. Yes! I knew there was at least one advantage to it! :-D) And I finished reading some books along the way. I thought I'd share. :) Ender's Game[^] was fantastic. I loved every minute of it and just couldn't put it down. On its surface, it's an action/adventure novel. But there's so much more to it than that. The characters were rich and I could totally empathize with Ender. Not in the sense that I'm a super-genius who's supposed to save the world, but in the sense that, not being that far removed from my own childhood, I remember what it was like to not really fit in with kids my age. (So I, of course, just hung out with kids who were older than me. Almost all my friends are a few years older than I am, even now that I'm at university.) I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it. It's very approachable. Parents could even read it with their kids. Right before that, I just finished up Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle[^]. These novels took me almost 2 years to read (it's almost 3000 pages in total!), since I'm busy most of the time with schoolwork and actual work and that "having a life" thing. But they were fascinating. If you've read Cryptonomicon[^], you'll feel right at home with Stephenson's style in these books. It's historical fiction, set around the time of Newton and Leibniz. Stephenson does a masterful job of drawing you into the time and really making you care about the characters and their adventures. Reading the end was almost bitter-sweet because I'd been with the characters for so long, I wanted there to be more pages. :) Anyway, don't let the length disuade you from reading it. It's really a great book. What are the rest of you reading for pleasure? (Codin
David Stone wrote:
I just got back into San Diego, CA from Austin, TX last night.
You passed within 10 miles of my house and didn't even bother to say hi. Geez.
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I just got back into San Diego, CA from Austin, TX last night. (I got out of sharing any of the driving load since I broke my wrist a month or two ago. Yes! I knew there was at least one advantage to it! :-D) And I finished reading some books along the way. I thought I'd share. :) Ender's Game[^] was fantastic. I loved every minute of it and just couldn't put it down. On its surface, it's an action/adventure novel. But there's so much more to it than that. The characters were rich and I could totally empathize with Ender. Not in the sense that I'm a super-genius who's supposed to save the world, but in the sense that, not being that far removed from my own childhood, I remember what it was like to not really fit in with kids my age. (So I, of course, just hung out with kids who were older than me. Almost all my friends are a few years older than I am, even now that I'm at university.) I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it. It's very approachable. Parents could even read it with their kids. Right before that, I just finished up Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle[^]. These novels took me almost 2 years to read (it's almost 3000 pages in total!), since I'm busy most of the time with schoolwork and actual work and that "having a life" thing. But they were fascinating. If you've read Cryptonomicon[^], you'll feel right at home with Stephenson's style in these books. It's historical fiction, set around the time of Newton and Leibniz. Stephenson does a masterful job of drawing you into the time and really making you care about the characters and their adventures. Reading the end was almost bitter-sweet because I'd been with the characters for so long, I wanted there to be more pages. :) Anyway, don't let the length disuade you from reading it. It's really a great book. What are the rest of you reading for pleasure? (Codin
I just finished Hunters of Dune. It's readable, but not nearly as good as the original Dune, but even Frank Herbert's later Dune books weren't either. I'm now reading "Story" by Robert McKee (a very good book about about screenwriting) and the latest "Dirk Pitt" crap from Clive Cussler. I can't get through any of Stephenson's books. I tried, but I just couldn't.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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I just finished Hunters of Dune. It's readable, but not nearly as good as the original Dune, but even Frank Herbert's later Dune books weren't either. I'm now reading "Story" by Robert McKee (a very good book about about screenwriting) and the latest "Dirk Pitt" crap from Clive Cussler. I can't get through any of Stephenson's books. I tried, but I just couldn't.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
Joe Woodbury wrote:
and the latest "Dirk Pitt" crap from Clive Cussler.
Well, I'll say one thing about Clive. It makes the time on a cross country flight pass fairly well. Marc
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I just got back into San Diego, CA from Austin, TX last night. (I got out of sharing any of the driving load since I broke my wrist a month or two ago. Yes! I knew there was at least one advantage to it! :-D) And I finished reading some books along the way. I thought I'd share. :) Ender's Game[^] was fantastic. I loved every minute of it and just couldn't put it down. On its surface, it's an action/adventure novel. But there's so much more to it than that. The characters were rich and I could totally empathize with Ender. Not in the sense that I'm a super-genius who's supposed to save the world, but in the sense that, not being that far removed from my own childhood, I remember what it was like to not really fit in with kids my age. (So I, of course, just hung out with kids who were older than me. Almost all my friends are a few years older than I am, even now that I'm at university.) I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it. It's very approachable. Parents could even read it with their kids. Right before that, I just finished up Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle[^]. These novels took me almost 2 years to read (it's almost 3000 pages in total!), since I'm busy most of the time with schoolwork and actual work and that "having a life" thing. But they were fascinating. If you've read Cryptonomicon[^], you'll feel right at home with Stephenson's style in these books. It's historical fiction, set around the time of Newton and Leibniz. Stephenson does a masterful job of drawing you into the time and really making you care about the characters and their adventures. Reading the end was almost bitter-sweet because I'd been with the characters for so long, I wanted there to be more pages. :) Anyway, don't let the length disuade you from reading it. It's really a great book. What are the rest of you reading for pleasure? (Codin
The Enemy's Gate Is Down :cool:
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I just got back into San Diego, CA from Austin, TX last night. (I got out of sharing any of the driving load since I broke my wrist a month or two ago. Yes! I knew there was at least one advantage to it! :-D) And I finished reading some books along the way. I thought I'd share. :) Ender's Game[^] was fantastic. I loved every minute of it and just couldn't put it down. On its surface, it's an action/adventure novel. But there's so much more to it than that. The characters were rich and I could totally empathize with Ender. Not in the sense that I'm a super-genius who's supposed to save the world, but in the sense that, not being that far removed from my own childhood, I remember what it was like to not really fit in with kids my age. (So I, of course, just hung out with kids who were older than me. Almost all my friends are a few years older than I am, even now that I'm at university.) I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it. It's very approachable. Parents could even read it with their kids. Right before that, I just finished up Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle[^]. These novels took me almost 2 years to read (it's almost 3000 pages in total!), since I'm busy most of the time with schoolwork and actual work and that "having a life" thing. But they were fascinating. If you've read Cryptonomicon[^], you'll feel right at home with Stephenson's style in these books. It's historical fiction, set around the time of Newton and Leibniz. Stephenson does a masterful job of drawing you into the time and really making you care about the characters and their adventures. Reading the end was almost bitter-sweet because I'd been with the characters for so long, I wanted there to be more pages. :) Anyway, don't let the length disuade you from reading it. It's really a great book. What are the rest of you reading for pleasure? (Codin
Yep, the Baroque Cylcle is good. Finished it about 6 months ago. Took me about 6 months on the tube to work and back each day. The Confusion was my favorite. G
"Je pense, donc je mange." - Rene Descartes 1689 - Just before his mother put his tea on the table. Shameless Plug - Distributed Database Transactions in .NET using COM+
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I just got back into San Diego, CA from Austin, TX last night. (I got out of sharing any of the driving load since I broke my wrist a month or two ago. Yes! I knew there was at least one advantage to it! :-D) And I finished reading some books along the way. I thought I'd share. :) Ender's Game[^] was fantastic. I loved every minute of it and just couldn't put it down. On its surface, it's an action/adventure novel. But there's so much more to it than that. The characters were rich and I could totally empathize with Ender. Not in the sense that I'm a super-genius who's supposed to save the world, but in the sense that, not being that far removed from my own childhood, I remember what it was like to not really fit in with kids my age. (So I, of course, just hung out with kids who were older than me. Almost all my friends are a few years older than I am, even now that I'm at university.) I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it. It's very approachable. Parents could even read it with their kids. Right before that, I just finished up Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle[^]. These novels took me almost 2 years to read (it's almost 3000 pages in total!), since I'm busy most of the time with schoolwork and actual work and that "having a life" thing. But they were fascinating. If you've read Cryptonomicon[^], you'll feel right at home with Stephenson's style in these books. It's historical fiction, set around the time of Newton and Leibniz. Stephenson does a masterful job of drawing you into the time and really making you care about the characters and their adventures. Reading the end was almost bitter-sweet because I'd been with the characters for so long, I wanted there to be more pages. :) Anyway, don't let the length disuade you from reading it. It's really a great book. What are the rest of you reading for pleasure? (Codin
I've been taking a trip down memory lane the last month or so, and have been re-reading a lot of Robert Heinlein. Thus far I've read Time Enough For Love, The Past Through Tomorrow, The Star Beast, and a couple others.
David Stone wrote:
Ender's Game was fantastic
Ender's Game was good, and I really like Orson Scott Card. His recent book Magic Street[^] was really good. Unfortunately, Card has a tendency to take a good story and then write sequel after sequel, running it into the ground. The Ender novels (of which there are a bunch, now) are probably his worst example of that.
David Stone wrote:
reading for pleasure
David Stone wrote:
Life's too short to live the entirety of it in front of a monitor.
Indeed. I used to be embarrassed by the fact that I liked to read science fiction, but then I realized life was too short to try and satisfy literary snobs. When I read for fun, I want escapist drivel, not some dry, existentially barren piece of literature that the local reading groups are exclaiming over.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Yep, the Baroque Cylcle is good. Finished it about 6 months ago. Took me about 6 months on the tube to work and back each day. The Confusion was my favorite. G
"Je pense, donc je mange." - Rene Descartes 1689 - Just before his mother put his tea on the table. Shameless Plug - Distributed Database Transactions in .NET using COM+
Giles wrote:
The Confusion was my favorite.
Heh. Mine too. All that pirating and adventure. I liked the end of System of The World though...where he starts wrapping everything up and Jack reveals himself to Isaac and Daniel. :)
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I just got back into San Diego, CA from Austin, TX last night. (I got out of sharing any of the driving load since I broke my wrist a month or two ago. Yes! I knew there was at least one advantage to it! :-D) And I finished reading some books along the way. I thought I'd share. :) Ender's Game[^] was fantastic. I loved every minute of it and just couldn't put it down. On its surface, it's an action/adventure novel. But there's so much more to it than that. The characters were rich and I could totally empathize with Ender. Not in the sense that I'm a super-genius who's supposed to save the world, but in the sense that, not being that far removed from my own childhood, I remember what it was like to not really fit in with kids my age. (So I, of course, just hung out with kids who were older than me. Almost all my friends are a few years older than I am, even now that I'm at university.) I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it. It's very approachable. Parents could even read it with their kids. Right before that, I just finished up Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle[^]. These novels took me almost 2 years to read (it's almost 3000 pages in total!), since I'm busy most of the time with schoolwork and actual work and that "having a life" thing. But they were fascinating. If you've read Cryptonomicon[^], you'll feel right at home with Stephenson's style in these books. It's historical fiction, set around the time of Newton and Leibniz. Stephenson does a masterful job of drawing you into the time and really making you care about the characters and their adventures. Reading the end was almost bitter-sweet because I'd been with the characters for so long, I wanted there to be more pages. :) Anyway, don't let the length disuade you from reading it. It's really a great book. What are the rest of you reading for pleasure? (Codin
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I just got back into San Diego, CA from Austin, TX last night. (I got out of sharing any of the driving load since I broke my wrist a month or two ago. Yes! I knew there was at least one advantage to it! :-D) And I finished reading some books along the way. I thought I'd share. :) Ender's Game[^] was fantastic. I loved every minute of it and just couldn't put it down. On its surface, it's an action/adventure novel. But there's so much more to it than that. The characters were rich and I could totally empathize with Ender. Not in the sense that I'm a super-genius who's supposed to save the world, but in the sense that, not being that far removed from my own childhood, I remember what it was like to not really fit in with kids my age. (So I, of course, just hung out with kids who were older than me. Almost all my friends are a few years older than I am, even now that I'm at university.) I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it. It's very approachable. Parents could even read it with their kids. Right before that, I just finished up Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle[^]. These novels took me almost 2 years to read (it's almost 3000 pages in total!), since I'm busy most of the time with schoolwork and actual work and that "having a life" thing. But they were fascinating. If you've read Cryptonomicon[^], you'll feel right at home with Stephenson's style in these books. It's historical fiction, set around the time of Newton and Leibniz. Stephenson does a masterful job of drawing you into the time and really making you care about the characters and their adventures. Reading the end was almost bitter-sweet because I'd been with the characters for so long, I wanted there to be more pages. :) Anyway, don't let the length disuade you from reading it. It's really a great book. What are the rest of you reading for pleasure? (Codin
Loved Ender's Game and Cryptonomicon - I'll have to get the Baroque Cycle before I go on holiday in August - I'll have to do something to fill the two weeks next to teh pool/on the beach ;P
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I just got back into San Diego, CA from Austin, TX last night. (I got out of sharing any of the driving load since I broke my wrist a month or two ago. Yes! I knew there was at least one advantage to it! :-D) And I finished reading some books along the way. I thought I'd share. :) Ender's Game[^] was fantastic. I loved every minute of it and just couldn't put it down. On its surface, it's an action/adventure novel. But there's so much more to it than that. The characters were rich and I could totally empathize with Ender. Not in the sense that I'm a super-genius who's supposed to save the world, but in the sense that, not being that far removed from my own childhood, I remember what it was like to not really fit in with kids my age. (So I, of course, just hung out with kids who were older than me. Almost all my friends are a few years older than I am, even now that I'm at university.) I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it. It's very approachable. Parents could even read it with their kids. Right before that, I just finished up Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle[^]. These novels took me almost 2 years to read (it's almost 3000 pages in total!), since I'm busy most of the time with schoolwork and actual work and that "having a life" thing. But they were fascinating. If you've read Cryptonomicon[^], you'll feel right at home with Stephenson's style in these books. It's historical fiction, set around the time of Newton and Leibniz. Stephenson does a masterful job of drawing you into the time and really making you care about the characters and their adventures. Reading the end was almost bitter-sweet because I'd been with the characters for so long, I wanted there to be more pages. :) Anyway, don't let the length disuade you from reading it. It's really a great book. What are the rest of you reading for pleasure? (Codin