141–150 of 160 posts
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hacker_War
Reamde , by Neal Stephenson. Yeah, the big daddy of cyberpunk ("Snowcrash") also wrote a contemporary technothriller set in organized cybercrime organizations.
Bit of a stretch to call out Stephenson as a "big daddy of cyberpunk"? What title would you give to Sterling and Gibson?
Reamde , by Neal Stephenson. Yeah, the big daddy of cyberpunk ("Snowcrash") also wrote a contemporary technothriller set in organized cybercrime organizations.
I'm a big Stephenson fan, and I thought Reamde was terrible. His usual quirky pacing just turns into a dragging nightmare that never pays off, it's uncharacteristically full of questionable technical premises, and if it weren't for a few islands of genuinely entertaining scenes I would not have made it through. I honestly believe it's the result of some suit pressuring him to write about topics people see on Dateline
Fortunately seveneves was again spectacular.
I would recommend "Underground", a text-only e-book about (perhaps even by?) Kevin Mitnick, how the entire hacker scene got started, and through the cat-and-mouse game that led to Mitnick's eventual arrest. Unfortunately, I cannot find a link to this work; although I did find uncountable similar books and movies on the topic. Perhaps this will suffice as a teaser? "Catching Kevin" at Wired: https://www.wired.com/1996…
I'm not sure which specific Kevin Mitnick book you're actually referring to or looking for but the book "Underground" is actually by Suelette Dreyfus and is about the nascent hacker/cracker subculture of the late '80s and early '90s. It was researched by/with Julian Assange (not written by him as another commenter has stated) who is known in the book as "Mendax". [1] Interestingly, the book was released for free onli…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking back on it now, I think the one thing that's really not plausible is the idea that someone could write a system that can anticipate anything that can happen. It was a little too Foundation/Psychohistory for me. But it was still a fantastic novel, I loved reading it, and will probably re-read it again and again.
Did you read Freedom(TM)? It's a "sequel" but is really the second half of the novel. Addresses your critique in a very interesting way.
I don't think it address it enough; it made it more plausible by admitting that it can't be completely autonomous, but I'm not entirely sold. Having said that, I still love the series, much like I love any fantasy novel :P
In a hard SF rather than contemporary context, A Deepness in the Sky , by Vernor Vinge, is an absolute delight (and a Hugo winner for best novel). Vinge was a mathematics and computer science professor, and very much knows what he's talking about. Part of the fun is that, on a 5000 year old spaceship set arbitrarily far in our future, long past the end of Moore's Law, all the systems are still running Unix. And one o…
In a hard SF rather than contemporary context, A Deepness in the Sky , by Vernor Vinge, is an absolute delight (and a Hugo winner for best novel). Vinge was a mathematics and computer science professor, and very much knows what he's talking about. Part of the fun is that, on a 5000 year old spaceship set arbitrarily far in our future, long past the end of Moore's Law, all the systems are still running Unix. And one o…