Deborah Pickett commented on Final theory by Mark Alpert
David Swift, a professor at Columbia University, is on the run for his life from …
I have a suspicion that I have read this book already, years ago, as an ebook.
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Technical nonfiction and spec fiction. She/her. Melbourne, Australia. Generation X. Admin of Outside of a Dog. BDFL of Hometown (Mastodon) instance Old Mermaid Town (@futzle@old.mermaid.town). Avatar image is of a book that my dog tried to put on their inside.
My rating scale: ★ = I didn't care for it and probably didn't finish it; ★★ = It didn't inspire but I might have finished it anyway; ★★★ = It was fine; ★★★★ = I enjoyed it; ★★★★★ = I couldn't put it down.
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Deborah Pickett started reading Final theory by Mark Alpert
Final theory by Mark Alpert
David Swift, a professor at Columbia University, is on the run for his life from the FBI and a ruthless …
Deborah Pickett reviewed Double planet by Marcus Chown
Forgettable pulp
2 stars
I have to remind myself that this book is more than thirty years old, which helps to explain the typecast nature of some of its tropes such as the all-male moon mission. The mutiny-in-space trope also pops up, as well as the disaster-movie vignette of complete strangers coming to a bad end, but nearly at the end of the book rather than towards the start as is traditional. Indeed, the pacing just feels off the whole way through the book, and for a novel which tries hard to stick to real-world physics, the way that spaceships just flit about the solar system like passenger cars undermines it all. At least it is a mercifully short book.
I’ll probably come back to this review in a year and have no recollection of the book at all.
Deborah Pickett finished reading Double planet by Marcus Chown
Deborah Pickett replied to Daniel Keast's status
@dmk@ramblingreaders.org One of his better works. Keep in mind as you read it that it was groundbreaking at the time, and while it feels a bit samey now, a lot of cybertropes exist now because of this book and not the other way around.
Deborah Pickett commented on Double planet by Marcus Chown
Gribbin and Chown are both names I know from non-fiction science writing. This could be good or it could be dire. Let's find out!
Deborah Pickett reviewed Lessons From Lucy by Dave Barry
Like Lucy, Dave Barry is past his best days
3 stars
I’ll put this up front: the dog does not die.
When a comedian gets old, they often descend into the “you can’t say anything”/“everyone gets offended” trope. One chapter of this book is this trope, almost unadulterated. It was painful to read.
The theme, that there are things that Lucy can teach the author, feels a bit contrived, and at the end Barry even gives himself a report card and admits that he hasn’t taken Lucy’s lessons on board. So what was the point of this book again?
Dave Barry’s columns, collected into book form, are some of my most cherished memories from the 1990s. Sometimes I would even emulate the structure of his humour in my own writing.
The lesson I have learned from Lessons from Lucy is that I will stick with his classic works.
Deborah Pickett started reading Double planet by Marcus Chown
Deborah Pickett finished reading Lessons From Lucy by Dave Barry
I regret to inform you that Dave Barry has became That Old Guy Who Used To Be A Humour Columnist.
Deborah Pickett reviewed Existence by David Brin
In a future world dominated by a neural-link web where people can tune into live …
Overlong and indulgent, a short story in 880 pages
2 stars
Two stars for me means "I pushed through and finished it."
I haven't read any David Brin before, so all I knew was that he existed and that he had a series of books in his Uplift universe, which this wasn't part of.
This feels like a book in two parts: the first three quarters, full of detailed worldbuilding and a great deal of prose that turned out to be irrelevant, and the last quarter, featuring main characters that were only part of the ensemble cast in the first part, and a nemesis which was only mentioned in the barest of ways until then. I estimate that of that first three quarters, two thirds of it could have been safely edited out to make a lean 440-page novel with a coherent message.
Stylistically, Brin is pretty mediocre at writing women, so it's fortunate that there aren't many in this book. …
Two stars for me means "I pushed through and finished it."
I haven't read any David Brin before, so all I knew was that he existed and that he had a series of books in his Uplift universe, which this wasn't part of.
This feels like a book in two parts: the first three quarters, full of detailed worldbuilding and a great deal of prose that turned out to be irrelevant, and the last quarter, featuring main characters that were only part of the ensemble cast in the first part, and a nemesis which was only mentioned in the barest of ways until then. I estimate that of that first three quarters, two thirds of it could have been safely edited out to make a lean 440-page novel with a coherent message.
Stylistically, Brin is pretty mediocre at writing women, so it's fortunate that there aren't many in this book. His writing of autistic characters is similarly stereotyped and awkward.
Based on Existence, I'm not rushing out to read the Uplift series.
Deborah Pickett finished reading Existence by David Brin
In a future world dominated by a neural-link web where people can tune into live …
Thank goodness that's done. A bit turned off Brin as a result of this. Review to follow.
Deborah Pickett commented on Existence by David Brin
In a future world dominated by a neural-link web where people can tune into live …
Content warning Plot element major spoilers
Still slogging through it! Haven't seen all the threads tie together yet but I'm sure they will. It wouldn't be like Brin to sneak one of his other novel's themes into this standalone book, would it?
I figured out the twist about 50 pages ago: the races represented in the worldstones are long dead, and only live on as uploads in these stones. But I didn't twig that the "you" the worldstone species were using was singular. Wouldn't the Chinese-speaking stone that Bin is talking to have given this away?
Deborah Pickett replied to Ben Harris-Roxas's status
Content warning TV adaptation related
@ben_hr This book will, for me, always remind me of the Norwegian Lumber Industry.
Deborah Pickett replied to Ms Kat's status
@pelagikat@bookwyrm.social There’s a tie-in book, The Martians, if you’re keen for more. 🙃
Deborah Pickett quoted Existence by David Brin
In a future world dominated by a neural-link web where people can tune into live …
Calling up a smart-mob was tricky. People might already be too scattered and distracted by the rumor storm. The number to respond might not reach critical mass—in which case all you'd get is a smattering of critics, kibitzers, and loudmouths, doing more harm than good. A below-zero-sum rabble—or bloggle—its collective IQ dropping, rather than climbing, with every new volunteer to join.
— Existence by David Brin (Page 256)
Brin seems to know a bit about how people behave in numbers online.