I’m still nominally reading Kraken. I admit I have elaborate plans to dispose of it. OK, I’m dumping it in the local library’s book drop with the hope someone else will enjoy it more than I have.
That said, I’m reading Hardwired an ancient (early 80s) example of Cyberpunk that heavily shaped a lot of gaming and such since then. I’m only mid way through and going fast after initially bouncing, but it’s really, really good. Some thoughts:
The protagonists are not the typical jaded cyberpunk stereotypes. If anything, a major flaw with both is they have too much empathy for others. The two main protagonists have to buttress each other at times as both have serious exploitable mental weaknesses due to caring about people that can be taken advantage of by their myriad enemies.
The setup is much more an influence to the old Iron Crown Enterprises Cyberpunk RPG than it is the better-known Shadowrun or even Cyberpunk 2020 (which had a licensed supplement to make it closer to this book). One thing that was big in CP2020 and somewhat in Shadowrun is the fractured USA which leads to fun like a main character in this book being a smuggler in a hovertank.
Minimal ‘Matrix’ stuff. There’s a lot of interfacing to vehicles and some suggestions of it being used to access an internet analog, but there’s no “big VR adventure time” suggested.
Oddly, characters smoking in hospitals somehow bothered me more than the constant references to other drug use either as a ‘focus aide’ or entertainment, including constant references to what is presumably ‘safer’ cocaine usage.
The “succesful orbital colonies” may be an early 80s assumption. I feel like a lot of cyberpunk basically made space travel as anything more than a dirty, unpleasant job a failed dream. (I feel like in a lot of cyberpunk fiction working in space is akin to working an offshore oil rig nowadays.)
in general for an early 80s book it hasn’t aged too badly.
Female protagonist has some agency and is the less emotional one of the two.
I know I have a copy of it in a box in storage. I know I read it when it first came out.
Bored of what I’m reading now, so I’ll find a copy of that and enjoy a good re-read.
It looks like the sequels are kind of “distant sequels in the same setting” but essentially like if your knowledge of Star Trek was a couple episodes of the Original Series followed by a bit of TNG. Minimal overlap even if some concepts are the same.
I’m reading Crowbones by Anne Bishop. The Others books are really good. Set in an alternate great lakes area where humans live only due to the tolerance of Others, the least powerful of which are shape shifters.
I have yet to read anything by Anne Bishop that I didn’t like.
I just recently plowed through the three available books in the Locked Tomb series: Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth, and Nona the Ninth.
The series is billed as “Lesbian necromancers in space”. It is SO DAMN ACCURATE, and I hate that the fourth book isn’t going to be out until at least next year sometime because I NEED MORE OF THESE DISASTER LESBIAN NECROMANCERS HOLY JKFHDSLKJSDH
Im back on my Brandon Sanderson kick, i read the first 2 books of his cytonic trilogy ya series and while fun they are not a good as his flagship books, and im now reading book 4 of stormlight archive. god so good.
I’ve had Gideon the 9th in my list for a while. It’ll be a whole, but I’ve heard it’s good. I think it got recommended to me by the Incomparable podcast.
I’m between books (other than, let’s be honest, hate-reading Kraken) and can’t decide between popcorn reading, something serious, or some non-fiction.
Just finished Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. Not my normal fare, but I enjoyed it.
High Fantasy with a double-shot of self-reinvention
Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv the orc barbarian cashes out of the warrior’s life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen.
However, her dreams of a fresh start pulling shots instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners and a different kind of resolve.
A hot cup of fantasy slice-of-life with a dollop of romantic froth.
I like to read old science fiction stories on Project Gutenberg. Just finished something called ‘Siren Satellite’ by Arthur K. Barnes.
As typical for stories from the era, most of the science is laughable. But this one had a plot point, a heavy g world that rotates fast enough that it counter balances the gravity somewhat at the equator that Hal Clement used for Mesklin in his book ‘A Mission of Gravity’.
The story was published 1950, the book in 1953. I’m left wondering if Clement was inspired by the story or came up with the idea on his own.
I may have mentioned it earlier but I went on a Cordwainer Smith binge a while ago and he’s got that weird vintage vibe. I think he has the weird eccentricity of writing about space travel literally as it was starting to happen so some of his early stories have weirdness like space being incredibly painful requiring crew to have their nerves detached, while later works in the same continuity kind of admit that was a weird era and we shouldn’t talk about it because we’re busy using trained cats in tiny spaceships to hunt space dragons or whatever.
Very intelligent writer, but went to some weird places.
Have just finished ‘Hail Mary Project’ (or is it ‘Project Hail Mary’??) by Andy Weir, and can recommend it to people who like an interesting sci-fi read. (As opposed to a space-opera-sci-fi like Star Trek or Star Wars.)
Currently reading "Wings on my sleeve’ by Eric “Winkle” Brown. I’m only up to chapter 4, but the author is a very matter-of-fact writer describing the horrors of being a Fleet Air Arm fighter pilot during WW2.
PDFs are free, but I do recommend sending the author a few bucks if you can.
The three books cover core video game topics in extreme detail:
The Book of CP-System was the first I read, and breaks down the technical details and history of a platform used by CapCom for several arcade games including Street Fighter 2 and Final Fight.
Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D covers Wolf3d.
Game Engine Black Book: DOOM covers DOOM.
These are in-depth technical books. There’s a bit of history and discussion of personalities and eras, but it’s mostly a very technical review of the technologies. A lot is way beyond my skill level, but the explanation of how certain key features works is pretty good: Explaining how Wolf3d is basically all about drawing columns for most of the engine, for example.
The CPS book is big on the choices made in a big hardware project: The CPS board was expected to be the basis for games for years (and it was, with enhanced versions and CPS2 and CPS 3).
The Doom book gets a little sarcastic at points: it and the Wolf3d were intended tone a single volume I think, and there’s a point where explaining a dozen options for audio that are actually labeled with useful names is hard to describe interestingly.
Definitely recommended for anyone into these old games.
‘The Archive of the Forgotten’ by A. J. Hackwith. It’s the sequel to ‘The Library of the Unwritten’, about the keeper of the library in Hell where the unwritten books are kept.
I started reading the first of the series in the bookstore then bought them both on the spot.
Now that my library is mostly unpacked, I’m enjoying print books again. I’m reading Kris Longknife Mutineer by Mike Shepherd now. I’ve read it before, but there are quite a few books in the series, and they belonged to my old roommate. He was not as organized with his books, so I only read the first couple. I have 7 of the series, it turns out, and they are in order, so I’m looking forward to reading them all.
Afrikaner scapegoat? The life of Hans van Rensburg, Leader of the Ossewa Brandwag.
It gives a detailed introspection of his life from a young age, throughout WW2 while being the leader of the OB, and everything he had to deal with during his leadership.
Dry reading, but fascinating as it gives me some insights into his life and why he made the choices he did.
