81–90 of 291 posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quantum_Thief
Highly praised by Charlie Stross (http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross), and recommended by me. Be warned, though, bloody hard work - the criticism mentioned in the "Reception" section of the WikiPedia page is accurate. I think it adds to the experience.
Probably the most surprising thing about this list is that whoever made it didn't insert Amazon affiliate links into it. Anyway, these lists always raise the question of what does "good" mean exactly? Inevitably they're dominated by books that were, in their time, incredibly significant. You see the same things in computing books. Someone will always recommend "Design Patterns" but (IMHO) it is the dullest, driest bo…
"Cyberpunk is largely an expression of fears about an Asian (Japanese more often than not) 'takeover' of Western society." I would argue that this has largely already happened. There is sort of a battle between liberal jewish culture and fundamentalist christian culture for being the official US mythology, but on a day to day basis Japanese culture and values are largely what have filled the power void. I would argue…
But even then, everything imported is bastardized in some way. For example, Japanese reality shows are about cooperating to achieve a difficult goal (and sometimes failing in that task). The sympathetic emotional content as you vicariously experience their trials and challenges is the appeal.
American reality shows are about fucking each other over in order to be king of the hill. The drama of intrigue, revenge, and defeating enemies to reign supreme is the appeal.
This is a really interesting list! You've got the predictable ones, e.g. Snow Crash (man, did the conclusion of that one suck !) and juvenile SF, like Startship Troopers (an example of Heinlein's early phase), but really niche ones toward the end (not many would think Atwood as a SF writer). Two gaping holes: Any SF list that doesn't include Stanislaw Lem (e.g. Cyberiad ) is incomplete. Also missing is James Tiptree…
How is Atwood not SF? Have you read Oryx and Crake?
"Atwood was at one time offended at the suggestion that The Handmaid's Tale or Oryx and Crake were science fiction, insisting to The Guardian that they were speculative fiction instead: "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen."
Later she retracted from this position, but this shows that her understanding of SF is (or was) quite limited.
Missing: Eon by Greg Bear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eon_(novel)
http://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/brm9y/have_you_seen_t...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Cyberpunk is largely an expression of fears about an Asian (Japanese more often than not) 'takeover' of Western society." I would argue that this has largely already happened. There is sort of a battle between liberal jewish culture and fundamentalist christian culture for being the official US mythology, but on a day to day basis Japanese culture and values are largely what have filled the power void. I would argue…
Can you offer some examples? I was surprised by this statement.
I'm not really an expert on why this is, but from what I can see protestantism sort of hit its high water mark shortly after WWII. Around this time we had an enormous rise in summer camps, spiritual retreats, folk music, sort of a pre-environmental movement, etc. that was all basically a reaction to the atomic bomb. Not to mention the birth of rock & roll, which came out of protestantism as well. All of this eventually led to the counter culture, which protestantism sort of pulled back from. These loosely affiliated movements were then basically embraced by liberal judaism. So today even though judaism proper is in the background, many of its values have still shaped those of the progressive movement to the point where liberal jewish values and progressivism are largely intertwined.
In terms of Japanification, one pretty clear example in schools is high stakes testing. In the workplace it's characterized by how bureaucratic large companies have become, and the way the people at the bottom are treated. I think it's in the movie The High Cost of Low Prices that there are videos of Wal-Mart employees doing their morning dance or whatever that corporate makes them do every day when they open the store, stuff like that is straight out of Japanese business culture. In general you see an increasing amount of abstract ideas being productized so that they can be sold as part of new fads, whether we're talking about rock band, credit default swaps, politicians, etc. It's essentially a glorification of surface appearances.
From everything I can see, the U.S. is basically becoming like Japan except without the ideas surround honor and the other spiritual norms, and without enough money to facilitate the same level of pop culture fads. Again I'm not a historian so if you want to call bullshit on me then go for it, I'm just calling it as I see it.
Probably the most surprising thing about this list is that whoever made it didn't insert Amazon affiliate links into it. Anyway, these lists always raise the question of what does "good" mean exactly? Inevitably they're dominated by books that were, in their time, incredibly significant. You see the same things in computing books. Someone will always recommend "Design Patterns" but (IMHO) it is the dullest, driest bo…
"Cyberpunk is largely an expression of fears about an Asian (Japanese more often than not) 'takeover' of Western society." I would argue that this has largely already happened. There is sort of a battle between liberal jewish culture and fundamentalist christian culture for being the official US mythology, but on a day to day basis Japanese culture and values are largely what have filled the power void. I would argue…