Books, books, books...

[Tanukitsune]

Mysterious Affair at Styles was the first one for me and I loved it and Poirot Investigates, the next one, was one of the worst? No wonder I hated it, going from the best to the worst makes the worst look, well... even worse!

[ThunderPeel2001]

I've read all the Gibson stuff (including Agrippa when it was put on the web) except for Zero History (waiting for paperback). The bridge stuff is likewise probably my least favorite. Of those, Virtual Light is the one I probably like the least.

I like the other sprawl stuff and Difference Engine, for whatever that's worth.

That's good to know. It'd be interesting to hear how your rate all his books (if that's not too tedious) to be able to measure the things I liked about them compared to you.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Some of the complaints about Poirot sound like they could be levelled at Holmes, too, but really I don't think any of Conan Doyle's stories were ever "fair play", and if you try to read them like that, you'll probably get very frustrated. Of course, just going along for the ride and not paying attention, isn't much fun, either.

I think it's a balance of paying attention to all the clues, so you appreciate the solution when it comes, but not really expecting to be able to solve it yourself.

[Thyroid]

I think it's a balance of paying attention to all the clues, so you appreciate the solution when it comes, but not really expecting to be able to solve it yourself.

That's Holmes. You can do that with Christie too, obviously, but most of the time the problem is entirely solvable. Holmes has adventures; it's the adventure that really counts.

[ThunderPeel2001]

That's Holmes. You can do that with Christie too, obviously, but most of the time the problem is entirely solvable. Holmes has adventures; it's the adventure that really counts.

Cool. I've never read Christie, so it's interesting to hear the difference.

[juv3nal]

That's good to know. It'd be interesting to hear how your rate all his books (if that's not too tedious) to be able to measure the things I liked about them compared to you.

I was thinking about this and it's been too long since I've read some of them to have a good idea myself, but roughly

1. Neuromancer

2. Everything else not listed below

3. All Tomorrow's

4. Spook Country

5. Idoru

6. Virtual Light

I like the overall plot arc of Count Zero more than Mona Lisa Overdrive, but there are parts of MLO (the little girl plus cyber assistant scenes) I like better than parts of CZ.

The high points in the Burning Chrome short story collection are really good and I'd probably rank them higher than Neuromancer. There's probably some nostalgia at play in ranking Neuromancer first because I read it first.

Difference Engine, I don't remember much about other than it was a neat setting.

The bridge trilogy had it's moments, but I didn't much like Chevette or Rydell.

I didn't really like Spook Country all that much despite liking Pattern Recognition. Not totally sure why. I think maybe there's a bit of a tourist feel to it like "here's a character and we'll follow them as they see a neat thing or see a neat thing happen" instead of the characters themselves participating in the neat thing.

Oh, also of note which folks may have missed as it's not fiction was this article which Gibson did for Wired.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Thanks for all that detailed breakdown! It seems that, apart from Pattern Recognition, I've read just about all his worst books, lol. But it also means I've missed out on some of his best. Looks like I should finish reading the short stories in Burning Chrome, primarily. As I said, the titular story was quite simply the best thing I've ever read of his... looks some of the others might be on an equal footing.

Thanks again! I've been wondering about his other stuff for years.

[elmuerte]

Read Masters of Doom. I think this was the first non-technical book in 11+ I finished (or even read beyond a couple of pages).

It's quite an interesting reed on the history of Id software and the early days of PC video games.

From the book it looks like Carmack was pretty much the sole factor in Id's demise. He drove away all the major players in one way or the other. Sure, at some point Romero's ego got out of hand due to the fame. But I doubt this would have happened if they didn't boot Hall out of the company.

Carmack's tech might have been ground breaking, but if they did went the way of Halls ideas we might have had an Half Life like game in 1994.

[Sully907]

Read Masters of Doom. I think this was the first non-technical book in 11+ I finished (or even read beyond a couple of pages).

It's quite an interesting reed on the history of Id software and the early days of PC video games.

From the book it looks like Carmack was pretty much the sole factor in Id's demise. He drove away all the major players in one way or the other. Sure, at some point Romero's ego got out of hand due to the fame. But I doubt this would have happened if they didn't boot Hall out of the company.

Carmack's tech might have been ground breaking, but if they did went the way of Halls ideas we might have had an Half Life like game in 1994.

I loved this book as well. It prompted to me to write the author to see if he was planning on doing a similar history for the Duke Nukem Saga. He said he wasn't but, there was a great article in wired that covered some of the history. It made me want to take out all my life savings, take 3 years off, and write the book myself.

That's interesting that you came away from the book with the view of carmack being the reason for the breakup. One thing to consider, Id never had a demise, they are still going strong. Id tech 4 was the engine behind the massive modern warfare franchise, Rage is one of the best looking games out there right now. Carmack is notorious for being bad with people, and not a very good businessman, but he's a coding genius, evidenced by his consistent pushing of technological boundaries in Video game engines.

[elmuerte]

Id tech 4 was the engine behind the massive modern warfare franchise

oh? mobygames says otherwise: http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/3d-engine-id-tech-4

[Patters]

It's a heavily modified version of Id Tech 3's source code, or something.

[Snooglebum]

Read Masters of Doom. I think this was the first non-technical book in 11+ I finished (or even read beyond a couple of pages).

It's quite an interesting reed on the history of Id software and the early days of PC video games.

From the book it looks like Carmack was pretty much the sole factor in Id's demise. He drove away all the major players in one way or the other. Sure, at some point Romero's ego got out of hand due to the fame. But I doubt this would have happened if they didn't boot Hall out of the company.

Carmack's tech might have been ground breaking, but if they did went the way of Halls ideas we might have had an Half Life like game in 1994.

Agreed!

I heard the analogy of it being like some sort of rock band, where a great team gets together, is awesome for a while, and breaks up in a dramatic way.

[a purple future]

It's a heavily modified version of Id Tech 3's source code, or something.

yeah it's definitely some iteration of Idtech, it even says it in the opening splash screens if you read quickly.

[dpp]

I'm not a big scifi reader, but my friend suggested me to pick up Ender's Game. And so I did, since I had a long flight and needed something to read.

This book is amazing. It's incredible that it was written 20-some years ago and still holds up well. Also, it hits our demographic square in the jaw.

If you're a gamer (I know you are) and mildly interested in scifi literature, you should give it a shot, if you haven't already. I know I'm totally late to the party, but I wanted to share

[Nachimir]

Really good book

Would not recommend the sequels, especially Xenocide (

Contains a very lengthy description of FTL travel that amounts to "If we all sit in this pod and wish really hard, we'll appear where we want to be"

). I was about 14 when I read them, and they just seemed to have this kind of indulgent bollocks in while being nowhere near as pointed as Ender's Game.

[Ben X]

So as not to derail the Movies thread:

I can't agree that she rips off Tolkien

You read Deathly Hallows, right? Where The Dark Lord has imbued part of his essence into a trinket which must be destroyed in order to kill him, and the trinket is carried on a chain round the neck of two relatively powerless characters who start out as best friends but slowly become victim to the negative influence of said trinket? Not to mention other stuff like the forest full of giant spiders, straight out of The Hobbit.

[Sully907]

So as not to derail the Movies thread:

You read Deathly Hallows, right? Where The Dark Lord has imbued part of his essence into a trinket which must be destroyed in order to kill him, and the trinket is carried on a chain round the neck of two relatively powerless characters who start out as best friends but slowly become victim to the negative influence of said trinket? Not to mention other stuff like the forest full of giant spiders, straight out of The Hobbit.

Oh yea, I guess Tolkien has a copyright on all appearances of giant spiders now. :\

[ThunderPeel2001]

So as not to derail the Movies thread:

You read Deathly Hallows, right? Where The Dark Lord has imbued part of his essence into a trinket which must be destroyed in order to kill him, and the trinket is carried on a chain round the neck of two relatively powerless characters who start out as best friends but slowly become victim to the negative influence of said trinket?

Yeah, true. I must concede that sounds very similar, especially the way you put it. Of course that was only one aspect of seven books. I don't think you could say that the universe, the majority of her storylines or characters or ideas, were in any way influenced by Tolkien -- let alone stolen from him.

[Roderick]

In an article on Chud it was put rather succinctly: Deathly Hallows borrows a lot of elements, not just from Lord of the Rings, but also Arthurian legend (the sword in the lake!). It's rather plain to see, but it doesn't have to be all bad. The elements are used in a rather effective way, it's almost an homage. Furthermore, in the breadth of scope throughout the whole story, it doesn't feel unhinged -it's balanced out by plenty of original stuff.

If we're going on the 'plagiarism!' tour, the first claim would be Anthony Horowitz's, for his monster school book series

[Orv]

Brandon Sanderson

"The Way of Kings" :tup::tup::tup::tup:

[Gwardinen]

Brandon Sanderson

"The Way of Kings" :tup::tup::tup::tup:

Been looking for more books to satisfy my Brandon Sanderson urge, cheers.

[ThunderPeel2001]

In an article on Chud it was put rather succinctly: Deathly Hallows borrows a lot of elements, not just from Lord of the Rings, but also Arthurian legend (the sword in the lake!). It's rather plain to see, but it doesn't have to be all bad. The elements are used in a rather effective way, it's almost an homage. Furthermore, in the breadth of scope throughout the whole story, it doesn't feel unhinged -it's balanced out by plenty of original stuff.

Oh sure, there's a ton of mythological stuff in Harry Potter. Probably more than most people pick up on, but like you say, I think it's done is quite a knowing way.

A friend of mine suggested that Rowling copied Jane Austen more than anyone, and this, oddly enough, has been confirmed by Rowling herself. Strange, eh!

[DanJW]

I recently finished reading the Harry Potter series, having given up halfway through several years ago.

To me it most resembles Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch and Diane Duane's Young Wizards series. There's also a little bit of Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea in there. Along with Pratchett and Tolkien and the other usual suspects.

That in itself isn't bad - those are all great books. But Rowling doesn't seem to understand her own source material. I seem to remember her saying something disparaging about fantasy and how she doesn't read it. I lot of her descriptions of mythological creatures seem like they were altered by accident - like she was told about them by a friend of a friend.

Most egregious is her lack of anything to say with the literary device of magic itself. In all the above authors' works they use magic as a central theme to examine something integral and meaningful. With LeGuin it is balance and hard work, with Murphy it is the uncertainty of self-change. For Rowling it is simply a deus ex machina to get her plots where she want them to go. Magic doesn't have to be systemized per se but the author should have a feeling for what it is and how it works.

The main characters are generally annoying and stupid. I spent a lot of the time angry at Dumbledore, Harry and his gang for being utter morons. I was constantly on the side of Snape.

Despite all that the books are an easy light read and really do keep you turning the pages to find out what happens next; I think that is the secret of their success.

[Gwardinen]

Starting to sort of despair for books based on games. I'm reading Stormrage at the moment, a World of Warcraft book that I've heard is one of the better of its kind, but I'm having serious trouble with it. As always with Blizzard lore, I feel like the world shines pretty brightly, but the implementation of the individual stories themselves can be somewhat trite.

Stormrage even seems like it has a somewhat interesting and relevant plot if you're curious about how various pre-Shattering events that are somewhat important in post-Shattering went down. But it also seems like it was written by a teenage boy. It's constantly explaining how big people are, and how great at martial arts they are, and how wise and powerful they are. When it's not harping on about their achievements it's harping about their failures! It swings wildly from convincing you that a given character is awesome to convincing you that they need to change their haircut to warn others of just how fucking emo they are.

In addition, the actual writing is, to borrow a phrase from the Harry Potter discussion, crying out for an editor. The use of ellipses is insane. Nobody... talks... like this... unless... they're on... CSI... Miami... I presume it's intended to represent all the meaningful pauses that a proper emo must observe, but it's starting to become distracting. It is by no means the only issue with the writing itself, though, and when I'm semi-regularly reading a whole page before realising that I haven't taken any of it in because I've been fixating on the crazy writing it's definitely a problem.

Help restore my faith in books based on games, Thumbs. There have to be good ones, right? Please recommend.

[Roderick]

About the Blizzard novels, I can only say that all are pulp, but some are definitely better than others. I enjoyed Day of the Dragon (Warcraft) for what it was, and was pretty happy with Liberty's Crusade and Speed of Darkness (both Starcraft). But then Shadows of the Xel'Naga (Starcraft) was absolutely atrocious.

As for other gamingrelated novels, I'm very interested in reading the Mass Effect ones. They're written by the lead writer of the games, so they should be, if not properly written, at least quite consistent with the tone of the game. Looking forward to reading those.

(Riiiiight after I finish Tolstoy, and Rand, and a book I have on Japanese history.)