site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3671 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 19, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So, what are you reading?

Still on Count Zero. It lacks the unbearable tension and intellectual fervor of Neuromancer, but it somehow feels more workmanlike. It's considerably more heavy on the jargon, and with little explanation. A pleasant read so far.

I'm rereading Christopher Columbus, Mariner by Samuel Eliot Morison. Morison is a mariner himself, and sailed the routes Columbus took on his four voyages to the Americas. Morison's experiences in seamanship give him insight where book-learning is likely to fail, such as in this anecdote, from just before the actual sighting of America:

At 10 P.M. ... Columbus and a seaman, almost simultaneously, thought they saw a light, "like a little wax candle rising and falling." Others saw it too, but most did not; and after a few minutes it disappeared. Volumes have been written to explain what this light was or might have been. To a seaman it requires no explanation. It was an illusion, created by overtense watchfulness. When uncertain of your exact position, and straining to make a night landfall, you are apt to see imaginary lights and flashes and to hear nonexistent bells and breakers.

Morison's characterization of Columbus, aided no doubt by their shared experience on the open water, is generally favorable. Columbus was guided by strong religious sentiment, ambition, and greed -- motivations shared in varying proportions by nearly every European explorer during the period of discovery following the Reconquista. Morison plainly discuss the sufferings inflicted on the American Indians. But unlike many modern retellings of this story he doesn't allow this to dampen the feelings of admiration toward Columbus' courage, nor to obscure the obvious fact of how immense and profitable Columbus' discovery was.

You know, I actually found Count Zero and other, later Gibson works very hard to deal with for specifically that reason. A friend of mine keeps trying to get me to read The Peripheral, but I spend so much time just trying to understand what is going on that I end up bailing out. I do understand the appeal I think, but a little bit more explanation than what he gives us would be welcome.

I'm nearly at the end of Haruki Murakami's Novelist as a Vocation, in which he reflects on his process and on his career. There's something about the way Murakami writes about writing, that makes you the reader think you could do it too: that while there is a minimum talent threshold, if you clear that then it's just a matter of having enough work ethic and self-reflectiveness. Perhaps that's true. But another takeaway from the work, and something which Murakami never truly addresses or reflects on, is that he obviously has a really immense work ethic himself. He drives himself quite hard, and also seems to have no interest in the kinds of distractions which are so disruptive to younger generations. To hear him tell it, he genuinely spends all of his time writing, exercising, reading, and listening to music. Good recipe for productivity if you can stick to it.

In the end, it's a crime story. The jargon, infighting and dubious motives honestly makes it feel like a good novel to read on vacation to me. Trying to analyze it deeply would lose the momentum. Neuromancer only seemed different because it pulled you into Case's mindset so deeply that one only notices at the end that the story had little intrinsic drive beyond being a crime story. Of course, that was also where the greatness lay.

Have you read 1Q84 by chance, I've often wondered how much autobiography there is in his characters, and one of the main characters is a male writer. I'll have to keep my eye open for a copy of Novelist at my local used book shop.

I have, and I think it's quite wonderful. The feeling I got when the buildup in that book finally pays off, it still sticks with me now. I remember where I was and what time of day it was, when I read the pivotal moment in that book.

Having said that - I think South of the Border, West of the Sun and Hear the Wind Sing are the Murakami books with the most autobiographical elements. Especially the first one: the protagonist actually runs a jazz bar as Murakami did in his 20s. (Also: South of the Border, West of the Sun is my favorite novel ever, largely for personal reasons. No other novel so perfectly captured so many things that I felt at a particular time in my life.)

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll look for those. I think Wild Sheep Chase had the best written one I've read so far, but Wind Up Bird Chronicle is a personal favorite.

Wow, I just finished that today! It was a much better book when it was named A Deepness in the Sky.

Mildly interesting that both it and We Are Legion (We Are Bob), another book about humans shuttling about in spaceships and describing aliens in a dry, uninteresting manner were published the same year. Something in the air I guess.

The "cooperating is good, war is always bad" theme was slathered on, but not quite as heavily as Perihelion Summer, Greg Egan's global warming book, which I also read recently, and had prose as leaden and mechanical as a row of bricks. I could easily imagine Greg pounding out the entire novel in a month to pay for his mortgage.

I agree with @basalisk_respecter that Vinge's Zones of Thought books are better, but I did really like Children of Time.

If you want to see uplift done better, though, try David Brin.

Deepness is dramatically better in every respect. Read A Fire Upon the Deep first, though. (Which takes place later in-canon but several minor plot points only make sense if you have read that book)

Yeah I had to quit that series too. Disappointing because it's a fascinating world, but the writing and plot are just not great.

Tales of the Ketty Jay is a light fun read if you are interested. It’s steam punk fantasy.

No worries. I’ve got a whole list with rankings if you’re interested, mostly SFF

I'm reading Atlas Shrugged. It started out pretty good but man did it slow down a LOT. I'm pretty much just wading through miles of chest-deep sewage in the form of essays delivered directly from author to me, through the character's mouths.

I enjoyed The Fountainhead more, because to me it seems to have less of that, and more of actual story. I actually think Rand is a pretty good storyteller and prose stylist - but she spends so little of her novels on that. I wish she had tried her hand at a romance or an adventure story. Imagine.

Good fucking luck. I ended up skipping the last 20 (?) pages. It's far too long, it should have been 2 separate books.

I'm rereading Designing Data-intensive Applications. I read a few chapters from it when I needed them, but I want to give it a thorough read-through. I'm actually quite annoyed at how terrible my attention span has gotten, I used to swallow a hundred pages and now I want to switch to another window after a single one. I should try picking up a paper book to see if a more distraction-less experience will improve it.

Finished When Money Dies, and the FM Encryption paper from last week. Still working through Titanicus w/ the kid which ironically the recent few chapters have some tangential motte culture-war relevance. Mom has sent me a bunch of God-botherer books (commentaries on the bible, historicity of Jesus, and such) of which I should probably read at least one to make her feel appreciated but haven't gotten around to it.

Spent an inordinate amount of time reading an alternate history of NASA on another internet forum that while entertaining and well written ultimately left me feeling a bit frustrated, dude was an obvious STS fanboy and I find myself becoming less and less tolerant of such the more I learn about the historical program.

deleted

I’m reading Legacies by L.E. Modesitt Jr. it’s a good read, start of an epic fantasy series. Pretty standard so far.

On a side note book prices annoy me. I respect this author, but it’s an 8 book series and the first two are $8, then the last 6 books are all $28 a piece, with no option to bundle!! That’s over $150 on a series that will likely take me about a month to read and isn’t necessarily a show stopper, or super ground breaking.

I get that authors need to make money under the thumb of Amazon, but I hate it. This is why I pirate ebooks.

Check out eBay. I haven’t bought a new book in years.

Amazon also sells used books. If it's a reasonably popular book, and you're willing to read a less than pristine paperback copy, you can pay two or three dollars a book, and two dollars more Media Mail shipping.

Amazon does sell used books, but in my experience eBay is always the cheapest. I used Thriftbooks for a while because they used to have $1 shipping and if you combine orders over $10, shipping is free. But recently I’ve found them to always be more expensive than eBay.

Have you read his other stuff? My favorite is the Imager Portfolio, though I also liked Recluce and Soprano Sorceress.

Yep I loved the Recluce Saga and Gravity Dreams is one of my favorite books.

I just finished listening to Middlemarch in audiobook form by Audible. It has the most excellent performance by a narrator I have ever heard; I highly recommend it. I am now listening to their audiobook of Jane Eyre.

I tried listening to the audiobook of Middlemarch a few years ago but gave up. I'd like to say my dislike was something profound but I just found it really boring.

Incidentally, if you're looking for another audiobook, I recommend Heart of Darkness with Kenneth Branaugh narrating. Best narrated audiobook I've ever come across.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats