Ask HN: Recommend any good business/hacker fiction? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Recommend any good business/hacker fiction?

#31

Post by jjburka » Sat, Apr 25, 2009, 3:51 AM UTC

whughes wrote: post #23

dangrover wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my roommates here at the Hacker House uses two copies of Atlas Shrugged that happened to be laying around the house to adjust the height of his monitor. It never occurred to me that the book might have other purposes than that. I think I'm going to check out The Fountainhead first though.

I read both (Fountainhead second), and I preferred the Fountainhead first. It's a lighter read and will give you a taste for Rand's style. If you can stand the heavy ideological slant, then you might want to look into Atlas Shrugged. I don't think that they are for everyone.

Another good introduction to Ayn Rand is the 'Virtue of Selfishness'. Its a collection of her essays with some that were written by people in her group. Its pretty short (100ish pages) and in my opinion says about everything she was trying to say in Atlas Shrugged.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend any good business/hacker fiction?

#32

Post by jjburka » Sat, Apr 25, 2009, 3:56 AM UTC

davi wrote: post #11

The Man Who Sold the Moon, by Robert Heinlein http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Sold-Moon/dp/0671578634 (spoilers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sold_the_Moon ) Then, for fun, go on to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, wherein a great acronym TANSTAAFL is introduced.

'For us the living' is also another interesting book by him. Sorta the anti-Atlas Shrugged.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend any good business/hacker fiction?

#33

Post by rsheridan6 » Sat, Apr 25, 2009, 4:08 AM UTC

kiba wrote: post #7

I read the Diamond Age, but I didn't finish it(Mostly because I read it in store). Someday, I'll finish it. What is really interesting to me because it feature an anarcho-capitalism model of society.

Yeah, the idea was that the government couldn't collect taxes anymore due because they couldn't get an accurate idea of what transactions were going on due to cryptography. I figured that it didn't occur to Stephenson that, if you can't crack the crypto one way or another: http://xkcd.com/538/ You could just raise property taxes, because it's hard to encrypt land.

But Stephenson made a reference to exactly that idea in Cryptonomicon, so I don't know what he was thinking.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend any good business/hacker fiction?

#34

Post by rsheridan6 » Sat, Apr 25, 2009, 4:11 AM UTC

>A book about a hacker/entrepreneur who sets out to change the world and comes across all sorts of wacky scenarios?

Charles Stross's Accelerando fits the bill perfectly, but it's way out there with singularity stuff, unlike Cryptonomicon, which may not be what you want. His Halting State is set in the near future, with a robbery of an MMORPG that involves real money with real bad guys getting involved.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend any good business/hacker fiction?

#35

Post by jwb119 » Sat, Apr 25, 2009, 4:22 AM UTC

"The New New Thing" is not fiction, but it reads like it is.. Basically a bio snapshot of Jim Clark written by Michael Lewis (author of Liar's Poker, another good business book about Wall Street)

Re: Ask HN: Recommend any good business/hacker fiction?

#36

Post by frossie » Sat, Apr 25, 2009, 4:54 AM UTC

I'd like to recommend Melissa Scott's The Jazz. It is out of print but available on the Kindle. It's a light, fun read, (not Stephenson style, that is for sure) but quite perceptive in how one can use the net to spin misinformation. A few of the stories on HN have reminded me of that book - most recently the twitter fake news story: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=577700

Re: Ask HN: Recommend any good business/hacker fiction?

#37

Post by jongraehl » Sat, Apr 25, 2009, 5:08 AM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #29

jseliger wrote: post #16

* If you've already read Cryptonomicon (see more here: http://jseliger.com/2006/11/29/cryptonomicon ), you're going in the right direction, but you should skip the Baroque cycle and Anathem. * David Leavitt's The Indian Clerk deals extensively with math ( http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/the-indian-clerk ). * Joel Spolsky's The Best Software Writing isn't fiction but is worth reading. * I'll reiterate Tom Wol…

I enjoyed both Baroque cycle and Anathem, they build slowly but I like the long-term immersion and intricacy.

Anathem is better than Cryptonomicon.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend any good business/hacker fiction?

#38

Post by grinich » Sat, Apr 25, 2009, 6:41 AM UTC

whughes wrote: post #23

dangrover wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my roommates here at the Hacker House uses two copies of Atlas Shrugged that happened to be laying around the house to adjust the height of his monitor. It never occurred to me that the book might have other purposes than that. I think I'm going to check out The Fountainhead first though.

I read both (Fountainhead second), and I preferred the Fountainhead first. It's a lighter read and will give you a taste for Rand's style. If you can stand the heavy ideological slant, then you might want to look into Atlas Shrugged. I don't think that they are for everyone.

Yeah. I'd say read the Fountainhead first, as to not get scared away by all the character-drive philosophy in AS. The Fountainhead is a pretty inspiring read, and a fun way to get your mind thinking a bit.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend any good business/hacker fiction?

#39

Post by bockris » Sat, Apr 25, 2009, 1:59 PM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #16

* If you've already read Cryptonomicon (see more here: http://jseliger.com/2006/11/29/cryptonomicon ), you're going in the right direction, but you should skip the Baroque cycle and Anathem. * David Leavitt's The Indian Clerk deals extensively with math ( http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/the-indian-clerk ). * Joel Spolsky's The Best Software Writing isn't fiction but is worth reading. * I'll reiterate Tom Wol…

From your review, I see that you have only read one book out of the BC trilogy. In this case, I'm pretty sure you can't dismiss it without reading all of it. After finishing BC, do a careful re-read of Cryptonomicon. You will find a lot of things that seemed inconsequential on the first read, have a huge backstory behind them and they mesh as smoothly as a planetary gearbox. This is Neal Stephenson at his best. You can really tell that he had the whole story in his head, he just chose to tell the modern-day one first. I really hope he picks up this storyline again. I liked Anathem but I really have burning desire to know more about the families in BC. It's not a fast read and you need to pay attention but the reward is there, IMO.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend any good business/hacker fiction?

#40

Post by bockris » Sat, Apr 25, 2009, 2:00 PM UTC

jongraehl wrote: post #37

lutorm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed both Baroque cycle and Anathem, they build slowly but I like the long-term immersion and intricacy.

Anathem is better than Cryptonomicon.

Totally a matter of taste. I, for one, completely disagree. :-)