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behndy wrote:

grindonomicon wrote:

behndy wrote:Murakami rokks.

i just went through all Rochard K. Morgans cyberpunk stuff again. always meant to read Confederacy Of Dunces, just started that.

I LUV me some Altered Carbon, I keep a copy in my vehicle, but wasn't wowed by the other two books in that 'series'. The Steel Remains was pretty kick ass S&S if you like the genre, Morgan writes it really well. Little too gay for me, but oh well, it's a book.

lol. a LITTLE gay? i've read slash-fic that was almost cuddly in comparison. he always has a few extrememly explicit sex scenes, cool that he didn't shy away just cause it was doods.

yeah, Altered Carbo is by far the best of the trilogy. i just liked the character a lot. Market Forces was fun, not stellar. 13 is a better than average sci fi book but a lot of the character is taken from Kovacs. i liked the Steel Remains a lot, i hope the series stays strong.

reminds me of Stephenson. Snow Crash is one of my favorite EVAH books, but i didna love anything else he did until a Lady's Illustrated Primer.

Emphasis more on 'TOO' than 'LITTLE'. haha. It's like dayumm, I guess if I was a demon I'd want to be ballin' all the time too, but let's get on with the actual plot. I feel that way about sex in fiction in general tho. 'Cept for Edward Lee books. You know what you're getting into when you open the cover with Mr. Lee.

I need to try reading the third Kovacs book again. And his other SF, but I'm just not big on the genre anymore.

Interesting @ Stephenson too. I love Snow Crash, then never thought he summoned the same mojo. I'll have to check out the other title you mentioned.

yeah, i was so happy to find Stephenson when i read Snow Crash. blew me away. it was like a huge breath of fresh air breathed into cyber-punk. i get that a dystopian future would be grim, but there has to be SOME humor and warmth in a story. even if just to contrast the horror and make it that much more effective. then Cryptonomicon was good, in parts, but about 2,000 pages that ends like it's a prequel to a series? meh. and i'm not enough of a history buff to enjoy all the Baroque stuff.

i think the full title is Diamond Age: Or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, it's hearkens way more to Snow Crash. a more concise story.

behndy wrote:Diamond Age: Or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

Ah, that one is totally excellent. I liked it more than Snow Crash even. To me the whole babylonian stuff was nearly impossible to relate to and thus threw me out of the book all the times. Diamond Age on the other hand pays tribute to victorianism and a little of pre-mao chinese history. Was easy to read up a little of what I did not understand and then we were on our way. I loved that book!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion
^ this should give you all the background you need.

Any new recommendations for manga? I think I started reading all the ones that sounded appealing that people recommended last time.

I like things that read more like literature than a comic.

So far my favourites are: Deathnote, Bakuman, Pluto, Monster, and 20th Century Boys.

HAVE TO WAIT 2 MONTHS IN BETWEEN EVERY VOLUME OF BAKUMAN =

Oct. 4th - "Thank god, the new volume is finally out."
[One hour later]
"Fuck when is the new one coming out..."
Oct. 5th -
Oct. 6th -
Oct. 7th -
...
Dec. 5th -

i'm probably going to re-read Simon Schama's Citizens again. it's a huge history of the French Revolution which was somewhat controversial in its day (the mid 80s) for noticing that the whole edifice of modern Euro-totalitarianism was built on the foundation the Jacobins laid, but its great strength is its fascinating character studies of major figures, compelling narrations of historic events such as the storming of the Bastille and the Conventions, and the masterful way he ties the narrative together. i'm a great lover of large, well-written histories; when Barbara Tuchman died i was a sad kitty, and given the current Weltanschauung i should probably put The Guns of August on hold at the library.

i'm also thinking of getting the English language anthology of Tomas Transtromer, the Swedish fellow who won the Nobel the other day. i saw a few of his poems on the Internet, and though they weren't all striking to me a couple were truly remarkable.

___________________

After Someone’s Death

Once there was a shock
that left behind a long pale glimmering comet’s tail.
It contains us. It blurs TV images.
It deposits itself as cold drops on the aerials.

You can still shuffle along on skis in the winter sun
among groves where last year’s leaves still hang.
They are like pages torn from old telephone directories–
the names are eaten up by the cold.

It is still beautiful to hear your heart throbbing.
But often the shadow feels more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armor of black dragon scales.

___________________


Open and Closed Spaces

A man feels the world with his work like a glove.
He rests for awhile at midday having laid aside the gloves on the shelf.
They suddenly grow, spread,
and black out the whole house from inside.

The blacked-out house is away among the winds of spring.
"Amnesty," runs the whisper in the grass: "Amnesty."
A boy sprints with an invisible line slanting up in the sky
where his wild dream of the future flies like a kite bigger than a suburb.

Further north you can see from a summit the endless blue carpet of pine forest
where the cloud shadows
are standing still.
No, are flying.

jfrey wrote:Any new recommendations for manga? I think I started reading all the ones that sounded appealing that people recommended last time.

I like things that read more like literature than a comic.

So far my favourites are: Deathnote, Bakuman, Pluto, Monster, and 20th Century Boys.

HAVE TO WAIT 2 MONTHS IN BETWEEN EVERY VOLUME OF BAKUMAN =

Oct. 4th - "Thank god, the new volume is finally out."
[One hour later]
"Fuck when is the new one coming out..."
Oct. 5th -
Oct. 6th -
Oct. 7th -
...
Dec. 5th -

This reminds me of waiting for Ciguatera to be finished. It was my favorite.
The group translating it is awesome, excellent localization without taking it too far, great use of slang and everything. It's not overly formal like a lot of projects.
Second-to-last volume: "Okay guys, looks like we'll have this up by next month!"
A year goes by. Another group promises to finish where those guys left off, and uploads one chapter of very sketchy quality. Then they also go silent.
I happen to check the first translator's page one day and it's up.
There's a note that says something like "Oh, we had it all done, it was sitting around on my PC and I never got around to uploading it!"

lol. dirty Manganese.

i.... wasn't digging Confederacy Of Dunces. maybe later. bouncing between Palahniuk's Survivor and A Practical Guide To Racism.

both good.

Just finished "Tea with Hezbollah" which is written by a Christian author, which would turn most people off, but it's a travelogue his and another mans travels through the middle east, in which they speak with many Islamic leaders whom we view as terrorist leaders. Ever since my time in the middle east I have had a rather large interest in the misconceptions both cultures share of another, which was brought to light while spending time with muslims my age while there.

^ keep meaning to read that. I liked The Road enough to read it twice.

grindonomicon wrote:^ keep meaning to read that. I liked The Road enough to read it twice.

Yeah, The Road might be my favorite book. I started this once but very early into it I...did something else...that distracted me...that I can't remember now.

Psyre wrote:Just finished "Tea with Hezbollah" which is written by a Christian author, which would turn most people off, but it's a travelogue his and another mans travels through the middle east, in which they speak with many Islamic leaders whom we view as terrorist leaders. Ever since my time in the middle east I have had a rather large interest in the misconceptions both cultures share of another, which was brought to light while spending time with muslims my age while there.

that's fucking awesome. i'll check that out. i've always believed, as trite as it is, that if people spend some time around people they "hate", they'd realize how asinine they're being.

jealous.

also, got done with Survivor, i have the A Dance With Dragons on my Kindle, so i'm re-reading the 4th book before i get into that. MEATY FANTASY.

I just started "The Scarlet Letter" in English class, it's aight.

behndy wrote:A Dance With Dragons