Lucy’s Comments (group member since Sep 08, 2014)

Lucy’s comments from the Discourse in a Digital Age group.

Well, rats! We'll definitely miss you. What did you think of "Fahrenheit"? I couldn't warm to his style at all, and in spite of our current world situation, Bradbury seems very '50s to my jaded eye. Of course he would...

Great write-up for Stars My Destination on Wikipedia, if you're a sci-fi newbie like me and never heard if it

I agree about something by China Mieville, and I like Teresa's and Anne's suggestions too. A few more, some with some female authors: Red Rising, by Pierce Brown (daughter devoured whole trilogy and loved it); something by Naomi Novik; Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel; and Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood (too soon for another by her?). Also, Being a Beast, by Charles Foster, for a very glowingly-reviewed 'true-science' choice.

And Nimona is an easy read, so you'd probably enjoy taking a copy to read after tonight's discussion.
This is a great group, and we read the most interesting (and discussable) books!

The millennials among us will be rolling their eyes, but this article confirms my paranoid suspicion that the Google-Facebook complex is incrementally taking control of our brains. Wish they'd put their combined power to the task of de-Trumping America...

Oh, totally! "pictures of other people's cats" will be the downfall of civilization as we know it -- productivity vanishes as one's social media usage becomes more feverish (and it ALWAYS does).

Food from any "franchullate" would be appropriate, but go easy on yourself and just get some cookies or cake. We'll nosh on anything. And 'Snow Crash' isn't massive, not on the Stephenson oeuvre anyway.
where to start with ideas for discussion - maybe with an interview with him to see what started him on the Sumerian/bicameral mind research?

Oh rats, Kim -- we need you for a balanced discussion, or as I privately think of it, to be the adult in the room!

Btw, has anyone else read "Girl Waits With Gun"? Almost finished, and enjoying it very much.

Ok, this is me chilling -- keep forgetting I'm luxuriating in retirement while the rest (most) of you are still wage slaves.

Well, what the hey?! Is no one else in our group reading this book? Isn't the discussion this coming Wednesday pm??
Feeling very lonely here...

Finished the book two days ago, and still pondering where it fits in the list of Stephenson's books I've loved. He just can't keep from stopping the action to tell us everything he's learned about his latest enthusiasm (see "The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind"), from Sumerian language to the fine points of programming. I loved that in "Reamde" and "Seveneves" but found it distracting and annoying here, mostly because it wasn't at all convincing coming in huge gobbets from Hiro's mouth. He hasn't been set up as a polymath, and even if everything he tells us he got straight from The Librarian, it doesn't ring true.
That said, I loved the satire, the characters of Y.T. and Raven, the scary concept of the Raft, and the crazy Kourier-pooner slang.

How about Nazi Germany as a good example of Darwin's "survival of the fittest" principle serving as an ideological underpinning?

I agree about the aptness of each of her observ'ns and how perceptive she is about behavior and phenomena. If our dreams are our brains' back files, though, I wish I could delete the recurrent "heading to final exam, can't find classroom, didn't study or open a book all year" nightmare...

Canned pears would be just about right for this hard-to-stomach book! I realize it's a classic, biting social commentary, full of irony and insight about how things are now (in some ways), not just in some dystopian future. But that doesn't make it pleasant to read or something I'm dying to get back to, each time I put it down. Call me shallow, and I am, but Atwood has always left me cold.

Loving humanity is a pleasant moral construct that my flexible mind is conveniently able to divorce from my intense loathing for Donald Trump...
Re Nova, I agree with Anne that much more background on Katin and Mouse, at least, would have made it a better story. As it is, Delany seems to be using the novel format mainly for scientific & literary/historical/cultural theorizing.

Katin for his obsession with history & culture, but also Mouse, because of the mystery of his Gypsy past.
Finished the bk an hour ago, and am still dealing with the feeling of "WTF kind of ending is that??!!

Ken -
I enjoyed both of these articles -- Delany is clearly a scholar/philosopher of science fiction. I confess I haven't started Nova yet (just finished the book for Travis' discussion), but look forward to it!

Anne, and anyone else that's read all three in this series: I just finished the last, Ancillary Mercy, and am truly sorry to be leaving this universe. If only I could see a pic of Translator Zeiat...
Very enjoyable last installment, tho' at times I wondered why we were spending so much time on Seivarden's relationship to Ekalu.
This review from Slate sums up my feelings, with one omission - it doesn't mention the humor in this last book (much of it thanks to the above-mentioned Translator). I'll always be thinking of the ending, and Sphene being grateful that the new Athoek system wasn't going to be called The Republic of a Thousand Eggs.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/bo...

Does this read like they could make a movie of it? I wouldn't have thought it could be done without ruining it, until I saw "The Martian". Trying to decide if I'd love "Station.." so much if it didn't take place in my home state.