This is a very strong debut novel, a thrilling ride, and an interesting concept called Thalience – I found it very hard to put down.

Imagine trying to define “punk” to a machine. That’s the problem we’ll have in ten or twenty years. Now imagine a machine trying to explain a semantic concept as culturally dependent to machines as “punk” is to humans. That’s Thalience.

Oh, and cc-licensed – free ebook version here which is how I found it. But when next I go on an SF-paperback binge and I happen to see this guy’s name I will certainly grab a copy.

I really enjoyed this. When I totally expected not to. Wanted not to, even. Ultra-cheesy, over the top, cartoonish and just plain fun.

So bad it is funny. From the badmovies.org list.

Like it couldn’t decide whether it was horror or SF in the second half of the movie and the plot sort of meanders all over the place. Final verdict: very forgettable.

but in any other time period, this is a huge steaming turd. And yet, the complete WTFness of it all – the storyline which in no way resembles the game, Bob Hoskins looking profoundly uncomfortable, the meandering plot (or lack thereof, really); it was somehow entertaining. Like how I imagine a full frontal lobotomy must be entertaining because the patients are always smiling afterward.

I watched this because I am chewing my way through the badmovies.org list.

I can’t believe this was directed by the same people who wrote/directed the UK version of Max Headroom.

say, half the book. I have started to read this and consequently put it away three times. It has been on my shelf for years (I also have the other two volumes). One of the main problems would be that I don’t like Daniel Waterhouse very much, unfortunate as he is one of the principal characters. I do like a lot of the other lead characters and the various plot lines and very much enjoyed the pseudo-historical sketches of some of the scientific (and/or political) movers and shakers of the time; the descriptions of life in general for a variety of classes of people, the lively descriptions of major cities in Europe and I guess the care and level of detail Stephenson puts in all of these.

The huge size of the (lovely hardcover) book also didn’t help, it is not very luggable. At the time I didn’t have my Sony e-ink reader yet or I would have loaded it on that, so instead I read it on my blackberry using the Mobipocket reader, which made reading this ginormous pill an epic challenge – some 5900 pageturns.

This also meant that reading it became a strict “nothing better to do and no chance to escape” thing; waiting in various and sundy lines/queues, sitting on the can (ayup), smoke breaks, public transport, waiting for a server to restart/upgrade to finish, that sort of thing. It took me months and months to read the whole thing.

Okay, two paragraphs on how I read it and one on the book. Way to go. In closing, I did enjoy it and will start on the next volume, I just haven’t decided on the format yet – BB or e-ink.

<3

But hey, I enjoyed memento too. A bitter feud between magicians with several twists and turns down the road as each man makes enormous sacrifices to keep or gain the upper hand.

I’m actually rather keen to read the book now. In fact I will.

Some people I respect (and I sort of wonder what they are doing in this thing) and complete posers in a hacked-up quote-mining interview-style ‘documentary’.

Still, I liked it. It will probably offend a lot of people. Fun.