"since Card was the biggest kissless virgin nerd in sci-fi history and therefore the existence of a “Cyberpunk Card Story” removed any possibility of the genre ever being cool again." This is great and I suspected as much!
It was always the (occasional) great ideas behind the good stories (SF or not) that made it worthwhile. Or great ideas hidden inside great stories. The SF part didn't matter much. But I too have had a hard time finding good books in the morass of choices following the golden age(s).
This kind of unfiltered, depressing work is like what you'd get if you combined emo with the standard Conservative Op-Ed Media website's view of the world, and added some Ghost in the Shell.
It makes me pine for the comforting darkness of illiteracy.
OK. A literary post. Please excuse this intrusion into your SciFi stuff but I just read my first Cormac McCarthy novel (no, I don't know what took me so long) and I have a question.
"The Passenger" involves many locales from New Orleans to Knoxville to spots out west to Ibiza. All are areas that have figured in Cormac's life. The outlier is Akron. Akron is featured and I can't figure out why. Growing up in a suburb of Akron this particularly interests me (Well....the whole book interests me. It will be read multiple times). Do any of you learned gentleman have any ideas on this?
I read that and did not enjoy it much but it was better than Stella Maris by a mile. Both felt directionless, which was perhaps the point. Perhaps either would make for a better screenplay.
The Woke Nation would prefer it not be read. I would be stunned if it was put on film. That said I would love to see Alicia waking from her shock treatment on the screen.
I read The Road when I was just an overly-benevolent uncle and it was terrifying. I now refuse to read it as a father, but would still recommend reading it once. I've tried getting through Suttree a few times but am not dedicated enough to finish it.
I started The Road when my son was eight and couldn’t bear it after a chapter or so. I read it through a few years ago.
In the same way that it’s hard to believe that air pressure on sheet metal can make airplanes fly, it’s hard to believe that ink on paper can conjure such deep emotions. But McCarthy sure did it.
After reading The Road I made up my mind that if the world as we know it ends, I'm making a run on the closest prepper. The logic being they will most likely kill me quickly before I have to suffer much, (ideal result). Or I get lucky and have ample supplies to wait out the initial wave and hopefully make it onto one of the Roadagent style death squads.
I felt the movie was harder to consume because there was no way for my brain to find away around the strife, it was right there in front of you. The movie came out when I was in college and no other moment in that house was as quiet as when the end the credits played.
I don't think so. Akron is where the protagonist's father is born and where he finds his inheritance. I think the grandfather was a chemist in a rubber factory but I can't find that sentence again. Rita Dove's father was a chemist at Goodyear so I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it. I did find a mention that Cormac was in Akron in 2010 but I don't know for what.
The funny thing is that a street was mentioned that I didn't recognize. I checked a map and found a very short road next to one of the highways. Wondering if highway construction shortened the road I returned to the book. Two paragraphs later it mentions a house being torn down because of the new highway coming through.
This novel is a work of genius. Everything in it means something.
The Piëchisode is the long awaited episode of the Carmudgeon podcast, part of the Hagerty Podcast network, in which hosts Jason Cammisa and Derek Tam Hyphen Scott, a millennial Stanford grad who casually owns a Lamborghini Miura, will discuss the life and achievements of Ferdinand Karl Piëch.
China’s People’s Liberation Army is reportedly designing advanced weaponry that is capable of disrupting brain function in order to influence leaders in government or even entire populations of people.
According to Washington Times, multiple intelligence analysts have indicated that China is developing weapons that can directly attack or control people’s brains by utilizing microwave or other energy weapons in the form of electromagnetic beams fired from both handheld guns and larger weapon systems.
Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our [readers] to crack each others' heads open and feast on the goo inside?
"oh shit they are booting self-aware people on silicon and forcing them to work on menial tasks until they go insane."
It's been a long time since a playthrough but I recall in the Marathon series of games part of the reason the AIs go bonkers is because they're these incredible constructs tasked with jobs like regulating airlocks.
"Reverse primary thrust, Marvin." That's what they say to me. "Open airlock number 3, Marvin." "Marvin, can you pick up that piece of paper?" Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper.
I would think that if the mind of the average woke twentysomething was uploaded to a computer and used to boot the thing, why SHOULD we be surprised when it kernel-panics?!
Joseph Campbell, huh? Most of the PBS episodes were filmed at the right place.
The Power of Myth is a book based on the 1988 PBS documentary Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. The documentary was originally broadcast as six one-hour conversations between mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) and journalist Bill Moyers. It remains one of the most popular series in the history of American public television.[1]
Overview
The interviews in the first five episodes were filmed at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in California, with the sixth interview conducted at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, during the final two summers of Campbell's life. (The series was broadcast on television the year following his death.) In these discussions Campbell presents his ideas about comparative mythology and the ongoing role of myth in human society. These talks include excerpts from Campbell's seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces[2]
.....
The interviews between Campbell and Moyers are recorded at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch. Campbell and Lucas became friends when Lucas publicly acknowledged the influence Campbell's writings had on the development of his hugely successful film "Star Wars." Campbell expresses great enthusiasm for this film; a film that he says conforms to classical mythological legends. So it is not surprising that there are many references to the characters from "Star Wars" throughout the book. In a similar fashion, John Wayne is identified as a modern myth and Campbell recalls Douglas Fairbanks as having been a boyhood hero.
immanuel velikovsky wrote a series of books explaining ancient legends by historical reference and scientific conjecture. i cannot recommend them too highly. my favorite is that venus being born out of jupiter's brow is the story of some passing large mass ripping a hunk out of jupiter (thus the famous red spot) which became the planet venus. the asteroids are the remains of that other celestial body--i think! oedipus and akenaten is anoher good one. i think i'll read 'em again, along with pilgrim's progress
Well... While I liked some of the cyberpunk out there, I don't like writing cynicism. It's easy to bring people down, bringing them up is harder, and more rewarding.
I did have a hard sci-fi novel traditionally published a few months ago, BTW, and it was up for the Prometheus Award - though sadly I didn't win (though an acquaintance did, so not going to complain). My scifi, nor pretty much any of what I write, are obsessed with race or gender or any of that nonsense and yes, I'm not a fan of 'Token' either (note, I did not say Tolkien). Which is probably why I do so well.
Now as to Cyberpunk.... I'm a week or so away from finishing my next tradpub novel for Baen. Once that's done, I've got a little something different that I'm going to write. I'm looking to combine cyberpunk and another similar genre and put it all in a post-apocalyptic world. As I've taken two 'dead' genres and pretty much resurrected them I'm kinda hoping for a third. But again, it's not gonna be a downer and cynical type story - thought it's definitely going to come out of that sort of setting.
The biggest problem with a lot of this are the tradpub gatekeepers, and the simple truth that MOST indy writers, only write to market and only write to already successful markets. I'm one of the few folks out there always looking for something new. Because I get bored. I also think that if it's done correctly, the market is ripe.
Joseph Campbell and the hero's journey will always be with us. Because people love that story.
As for any story being told in three 250 page books? Any story can be told in a hundred words if you got the skill and think about it enough. It's not the story so much as the -ride-. I wrote an 18 books series that perhaps could have been told in less books (I forget how many words that is - over a million - we don't go by page numbers as you can trick those quite easily) but it could NOT have been told as well. Nor would it have made me as much money.
Nor would my fans have begged me to write a sequel (up to 8 books at this point - yes they waved money at me and I'm weak).
There is more to writing a book than telling a story.
As comedians love to say: It's ALL in the delivery.
I don't particularly like the advice of "Write to the market!" I'm sure it makes people a certain amount of money, but if all you're doing is retreading the same ground over and over again, well, that seems boring to me. Boring to write. Boring to read. Part of why I'm writing my series the way I'm writing them is so they have an end and everyone has to move on.
There's room for both viewpoints. I have no beef with any writer who cranks out sequels to make money. That's real work just like delivering pizzas is real work. But I don't personally want to read that sort of thing.
What I hate is when they come into a Market I all but created and shit all over it like monkeys flinging poo. There is a fine art to writing to an existing market, but writing something that isn't obviously a rip off of the best sellers out there with just a few things changed here and there to keep from violating copyrights.
Too many people just come in and try to make a cash grab and the drown the market with utter dreck.
There was a guy who copied every plot point EXACTLY. Originally he didn't even change some of the names. I had a fence who was a goblin and acted like Louie Depalmer from Taxi.
he put in a fence who wasn't a goblin, but who was green skinned and ugly.
I blew up two houses, as a minor side plot point, to help show how dire the situation was.
He just blew up two houses and they had ZERO connection to the hero.
I had my hero learn magic quickly because he's a gamer nerd with a CS degree and he treats magic like a computer language.
HE did the same exact thing.
I think the only thing he changed was instead of walking when the first confrontation with the hero happens, he has him riding a unicycle.
Oh, and he added a lot of rape. Apparently he (the writer is into rape). Even the hero was effectively doing it, because he (the guy ripping me off) was a Male Feminist and apparently they all harbor some serious rape fantasies.
I have limited free time so I stay away from things like that. If given the choice between reading someone else's schlock or writing/editing my own schlock, I'm choosing my own probably 99% of the time. But I'm happy for (and a little envious of) people who can promote themselves enough to make a living doing it!
All in all, the best thing I’ve ever read has been the twenty books in the Aubrey-Maturin series by O’Brian. I’ve been through them three or four times now.
Way off the cyberpunk topic here, but I’m a big fan of McNab’s Nick Stone series. Don’t even care if he’s cranking out books for cash, just keep ‘em coming.
I tried three times over the course of my life to read Neuromancer, never could get more than halfway thru it. IDK. Just didn't vibe with me. I recall reading several compilations of short stories in the cyberpunk genre, I could handle that. More than a short story just felt like too much work. Most of my reading is more sheer entertainment rather than anything thought provoking. Just like watching action movies, I ain't interested in deep thought, just give me big explosions. The monster hunter series by Larry Correia fits the bill nicely.
I'm decidedly in the first camp in regards to Neuromancer.
Snow Crash was number two for me though. While Neuromancer may be a Joseph Campbell novel, Snow Crash, at least for the first third of the book, feels to me like a Vonnegut novel. While the hamfisted linguistic plotline could be tough to push through sometimes, the world building and snark made the book hard to put down.
No commenter seems to have addressed the qntm book. It looks like the guy can write well, which is really important to me, and the Kindle version is just four bucks. I don’t like reading books on a device much, but since these are snack-size stories, it seemed appropriate. Thanks for recommending it.
That usage is ancient... even 25 years ago people said "gump", not "punk". I don't know the etymology of "punk" but I'd guess it came from derogatory use in the Fifies for worthless youngsters.
I remember reading Michael Crichton’s “Timeline” wherein one of the protagonists, when asked how they know how to reconstitute their time-travelers on the “other side”, told the soon-to-be travelers that he didn’t know, but that they will be reappearing in a reality where they’ve figured that out. That struck me as something that would have killed the plot in the real world…So I die here, and someone else just like me is reconstituted on the other side? Seems like a deal breaker.
Thank you!
"since Card was the biggest kissless virgin nerd in sci-fi history and therefore the existence of a “Cyberpunk Card Story” removed any possibility of the genre ever being cool again." This is great and I suspected as much!
total waste of time--reading any of this stuff. lotta better ways of wasting time--that's just my opinion!
My time would be better spent watching monkeys pick corn out of piles of crap.
you've just described the experience of scrolling most any social media site.
I watch British Columbian Chipmunks on Youtube that are domesticated by a Korean woman living on a lake with her husband. No joke. "ChooChoo's Story".
It was always the (occasional) great ideas behind the good stories (SF or not) that made it worthwhile. Or great ideas hidden inside great stories. The SF part didn't matter much. But I too have had a hard time finding good books in the morass of choices following the golden age(s).
This kind of unfiltered, depressing work is like what you'd get if you combined emo with the standard Conservative Op-Ed Media website's view of the world, and added some Ghost in the Shell.
It makes me pine for the comforting darkness of illiteracy.
OK. A literary post. Please excuse this intrusion into your SciFi stuff but I just read my first Cormac McCarthy novel (no, I don't know what took me so long) and I have a question.
"The Passenger" involves many locales from New Orleans to Knoxville to spots out west to Ibiza. All are areas that have figured in Cormac's life. The outlier is Akron. Akron is featured and I can't figure out why. Growing up in a suburb of Akron this particularly interests me (Well....the whole book interests me. It will be read multiple times). Do any of you learned gentleman have any ideas on this?
Sorry. Please carry on.
I read that and did not enjoy it much but it was better than Stella Maris by a mile. Both felt directionless, which was perhaps the point. Perhaps either would make for a better screenplay.
The Woke Nation would prefer it not be read. I would be stunned if it was put on film. That said I would love to see Alicia waking from her shock treatment on the screen.
I’m about halfway through Stella Maris and liking it more as I progress through it. Intriguing interplay between the characters
I primarily know Akron for BMX racing and Goodyear tires.
Your lack of Swenson's knowledge is distressing.
i always think DEVO
DEVO's from Kent! Some of us get kind of snippy about that.
and the Great American Soap Box Derby.
Oh yeah! We used to wander around the hill during BMX nationals.
Blood Meridian next.
I read The Road when I was just an overly-benevolent uncle and it was terrifying. I now refuse to read it as a father, but would still recommend reading it once. I've tried getting through Suttree a few times but am not dedicated enough to finish it.
So many great lines in Suttree but my lord is meanders
I've read the majors. Orchard Keeper or Child of God next, anyone?
I started The Road when my son was eight and couldn’t bear it after a chapter or so. I read it through a few years ago.
In the same way that it’s hard to believe that air pressure on sheet metal can make airplanes fly, it’s hard to believe that ink on paper can conjure such deep emotions. But McCarthy sure did it.
I tried to watch it with my son. We made it half an hour before I called time on the endeavor.
"Will I see you again?" Christ.
I don’t know how he could bear to write it.
After reading The Road I made up my mind that if the world as we know it ends, I'm making a run on the closest prepper. The logic being they will most likely kill me quickly before I have to suffer much, (ideal result). Or I get lucky and have ample supplies to wait out the initial wave and hopefully make it onto one of the Roadagent style death squads.
I felt the movie was harder to consume because there was no way for my brain to find away around the strife, it was right there in front of you. The movie came out when I was in college and no other moment in that house was as quiet as when the end the credits played.
Akron could be his “anywhere USA” stand in. Sometimes the easiest answer is the best answer
I don't think so. Akron is where the protagonist's father is born and where he finds his inheritance. I think the grandfather was a chemist in a rubber factory but I can't find that sentence again. Rita Dove's father was a chemist at Goodyear so I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it. I did find a mention that Cormac was in Akron in 2010 but I don't know for what.
The funny thing is that a street was mentioned that I didn't recognize. I checked a map and found a very short road next to one of the highways. Wondering if highway construction shortened the road I returned to the book. Two paragraphs later it mentions a house being torn down because of the new highway coming through.
This novel is a work of genius. Everything in it means something.
One theory: I believe McCarthy was for at least part of his life a teetotaler. Akron is the birthplace of Alcoholics Anonymous.
You really need to read Pretty Horses. It’s just gorgeous. Not happy, but heartbreaking in it’s beauty.
Agreed.
Stella Maris is next. I bought the cased set the evening he passed. Then I'm going to start at the beginning and work my way through.
speaking of books - Jack, when is your long promised book coming out??
At about the same time The Carmudgeon show will release the Piechisode.
That's correct, assuming these people whom I do not know need several years to release this thing of which I am ignorant!
The Piëchisode is the long awaited episode of the Carmudgeon podcast, part of the Hagerty Podcast network, in which hosts Jason Cammisa and Derek Tam Hyphen Scott, a millennial Stanford grad who casually owns a Lamborghini Miura, will discuss the life and achievements of Ferdinand Karl Piëch.
Oh.
I would rather be tied to a rock while an eagle continually ties out my liver than listen to any of that for any amount of time whatsoever.
Today in the news
China’s People’s Liberation Army is reportedly designing advanced weaponry that is capable of disrupting brain function in order to influence leaders in government or even entire populations of people.
According to Washington Times, multiple intelligence analysts have indicated that China is developing weapons that can directly attack or control people’s brains by utilizing microwave or other energy weapons in the form of electromagnetic beams fired from both handheld guns and larger weapon systems.
"Would you say it's time to panic?"
"Yes I would, Kent."
Kathleen Kennedy of Lucas films mutters "If we had that, the latest Indy movie would be doing gangbusters".
Fuck her for real.
Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our [readers] to crack each others' heads open and feast on the goo inside?
"oh shit they are booting self-aware people on silicon and forcing them to work on menial tasks until they go insane."
It's been a long time since a playthrough but I recall in the Marathon series of games part of the reason the AIs go bonkers is because they're these incredible constructs tasked with jobs like regulating airlocks.
Possibly I'm misremembering - might be time to revisit https://marathon.bungie.org/story/rampancy.html
Tasking significant intelligence with repetitive tasks is how you get violence, for sure.
It's why most people hate their jobs.
I'm glad I can Bangkok Joe my way through 75% of my stupid, repetitive job. It makes the whole thing utterly worth it.
"Reverse primary thrust, Marvin." That's what they say to me. "Open airlock number 3, Marvin." "Marvin, can you pick up that piece of paper?" Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper.
Ha! Well done. Love Marvin.
I need my bablefish, a towel, and I am out of here.
I just picked up a copy of a collection of all the novels to re-read. Haven’t read it since I was a young, hoopy frood.
"Black Mirror" took that idea and ran with it in more than one episode, and did a pretty good job, too.
I would think that if the mind of the average woke twentysomething was uploaded to a computer and used to boot the thing, why SHOULD we be surprised when it kernel-panics?!
Joseph Campbell, huh? Most of the PBS episodes were filmed at the right place.
The Power of Myth is a book based on the 1988 PBS documentary Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. The documentary was originally broadcast as six one-hour conversations between mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) and journalist Bill Moyers. It remains one of the most popular series in the history of American public television.[1]
Overview
The interviews in the first five episodes were filmed at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in California, with the sixth interview conducted at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, during the final two summers of Campbell's life. (The series was broadcast on television the year following his death.) In these discussions Campbell presents his ideas about comparative mythology and the ongoing role of myth in human society. These talks include excerpts from Campbell's seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces[2]
.....
The interviews between Campbell and Moyers are recorded at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch. Campbell and Lucas became friends when Lucas publicly acknowledged the influence Campbell's writings had on the development of his hugely successful film "Star Wars." Campbell expresses great enthusiasm for this film; a film that he says conforms to classical mythological legends. So it is not surprising that there are many references to the characters from "Star Wars" throughout the book. In a similar fashion, John Wayne is identified as a modern myth and Campbell recalls Douglas Fairbanks as having been a boyhood hero.
immanuel velikovsky wrote a series of books explaining ancient legends by historical reference and scientific conjecture. i cannot recommend them too highly. my favorite is that venus being born out of jupiter's brow is the story of some passing large mass ripping a hunk out of jupiter (thus the famous red spot) which became the planet venus. the asteroids are the remains of that other celestial body--i think! oedipus and akenaten is anoher good one. i think i'll read 'em again, along with pilgrim's progress
Well... While I liked some of the cyberpunk out there, I don't like writing cynicism. It's easy to bring people down, bringing them up is harder, and more rewarding.
I did have a hard sci-fi novel traditionally published a few months ago, BTW, and it was up for the Prometheus Award - though sadly I didn't win (though an acquaintance did, so not going to complain). My scifi, nor pretty much any of what I write, are obsessed with race or gender or any of that nonsense and yes, I'm not a fan of 'Token' either (note, I did not say Tolkien). Which is probably why I do so well.
Now as to Cyberpunk.... I'm a week or so away from finishing my next tradpub novel for Baen. Once that's done, I've got a little something different that I'm going to write. I'm looking to combine cyberpunk and another similar genre and put it all in a post-apocalyptic world. As I've taken two 'dead' genres and pretty much resurrected them I'm kinda hoping for a third. But again, it's not gonna be a downer and cynical type story - thought it's definitely going to come out of that sort of setting.
The biggest problem with a lot of this are the tradpub gatekeepers, and the simple truth that MOST indy writers, only write to market and only write to already successful markets. I'm one of the few folks out there always looking for something new. Because I get bored. I also think that if it's done correctly, the market is ripe.
Joseph Campbell and the hero's journey will always be with us. Because people love that story.
As for any story being told in three 250 page books? Any story can be told in a hundred words if you got the skill and think about it enough. It's not the story so much as the -ride-. I wrote an 18 books series that perhaps could have been told in less books (I forget how many words that is - over a million - we don't go by page numbers as you can trick those quite easily) but it could NOT have been told as well. Nor would it have made me as much money.
Nor would my fans have begged me to write a sequel (up to 8 books at this point - yes they waved money at me and I'm weak).
There is more to writing a book than telling a story.
As comedians love to say: It's ALL in the delivery.
I don't particularly like the advice of "Write to the market!" I'm sure it makes people a certain amount of money, but if all you're doing is retreading the same ground over and over again, well, that seems boring to me. Boring to write. Boring to read. Part of why I'm writing my series the way I'm writing them is so they have an end and everyone has to move on.
There's room for both viewpoints. I have no beef with any writer who cranks out sequels to make money. That's real work just like delivering pizzas is real work. But I don't personally want to read that sort of thing.
What I hate is when they come into a Market I all but created and shit all over it like monkeys flinging poo. There is a fine art to writing to an existing market, but writing something that isn't obviously a rip off of the best sellers out there with just a few things changed here and there to keep from violating copyrights.
Too many people just come in and try to make a cash grab and the drown the market with utter dreck.
Just like if someone named Clom Tancy wrote a book about a CIA agent named Ryan Jack with a crackerjack sidekick, just because.
There was a guy who copied every plot point EXACTLY. Originally he didn't even change some of the names. I had a fence who was a goblin and acted like Louie Depalmer from Taxi.
he put in a fence who wasn't a goblin, but who was green skinned and ugly.
I blew up two houses, as a minor side plot point, to help show how dire the situation was.
He just blew up two houses and they had ZERO connection to the hero.
I had my hero learn magic quickly because he's a gamer nerd with a CS degree and he treats magic like a computer language.
HE did the same exact thing.
I think the only thing he changed was instead of walking when the first confrontation with the hero happens, he has him riding a unicycle.
Oh, and he added a lot of rape. Apparently he (the writer is into rape). Even the hero was effectively doing it, because he (the guy ripping me off) was a Male Feminist and apparently they all harbor some serious rape fantasies.
Oh, and btw SOMEONE DID. They even used almost the EXACT same cover on their book and then SCREAMED when Amazon pulled it.
I have limited free time so I stay away from things like that. If given the choice between reading someone else's schlock or writing/editing my own schlock, I'm choosing my own probably 99% of the time. But I'm happy for (and a little envious of) people who can promote themselves enough to make a living doing it!
All in all, the best thing I’ve ever read has been the twenty books in the Aubrey-Maturin series by O’Brian. I’ve been through them three or four times now.
I can't bring myself to read 21.
Stick to your guns on this, I wish I hadn’t read 21
Way off the cyberpunk topic here, but I’m a big fan of McNab’s Nick Stone series. Don’t even care if he’s cranking out books for cash, just keep ‘em coming.
I found your books here, enjoy your writing!
I tried three times over the course of my life to read Neuromancer, never could get more than halfway thru it. IDK. Just didn't vibe with me. I recall reading several compilations of short stories in the cyberpunk genre, I could handle that. More than a short story just felt like too much work. Most of my reading is more sheer entertainment rather than anything thought provoking. Just like watching action movies, I ain't interested in deep thought, just give me big explosions. The monster hunter series by Larry Correia fits the bill nicely.
I haven't read any of his books, but his blog is pretty great, too.
There are only three kinds of reactions to Neuromancer:
* the man who picks up the book and is immediately bored;
* the man who picks up the book and can't put it down;
* the girlfriend of the second man, who is forced to read it so she doesn't have to deal with total silence on their next roadtrip together.
I never read it. Meant to, but never got the chance. Snowcrash is really good though.
I'm decidedly in the first camp in regards to Neuromancer.
Snow Crash was number two for me though. While Neuromancer may be a Joseph Campbell novel, Snow Crash, at least for the first third of the book, feels to me like a Vonnegut novel. While the hamfisted linguistic plotline could be tough to push through sometimes, the world building and snark made the book hard to put down.
No commenter seems to have addressed the qntm book. It looks like the guy can write well, which is really important to me, and the Kindle version is just four bucks. I don’t like reading books on a device much, but since these are snack-size stories, it seemed appropriate. Thanks for recommending it.
There are many genres that are "-punk." Cyberpunk, dieselpunk, steampunk. Where'd the punk part come from?
I thought "punk" meant "prison bitch."
That usage is ancient... even 25 years ago people said "gump", not "punk". I don't know the etymology of "punk" but I'd guess it came from derogatory use in the Fifies for worthless youngsters.
Best SF book review I have read.
I remember reading Michael Crichton’s “Timeline” wherein one of the protagonists, when asked how they know how to reconstitute their time-travelers on the “other side”, told the soon-to-be travelers that he didn’t know, but that they will be reappearing in a reality where they’ve figured that out. That struck me as something that would have killed the plot in the real world…So I die here, and someone else just like me is reconstituted on the other side? Seems like a deal breaker.
Great book otherwise, don’t mean to crap on it.
I actually think you'd like Stross' Laundry Files series. It's a blend of Lovecraftian Horror with Spy Thriller that often manages to walk the line between playing the tropes of the genres straight and both parodying and satirizing them. I think this review sums them up pretty well: https://www.tor.com/2017/07/05/green-sky-at-night-hackers-delight-the-function-of-tropes-in-the-laundry-files/