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Re: suggestions, please...
Rhys wrote:
> Cryptonomicon - William Gibson
Neil Stephenson wrote this book. Gibson, along with Sterling, founded the
Cyberpunk movement; _Neuromancer_ is the definitive text. He also wrote a
quite good short story called _Johnny Mnemonic_, which was butchered in a truly
wretched film treatment with Keanu "Whoa" Reeves. Neil Stephenson is one of
the latest (and best) participants in cyberpunk. His other three novels are
brilliant, too, although Cryptonomicon is the best of them, I think.
What would I recommend? Hmmm... I was very struck by _A Winter's Tale_ by Mark
Helprin. It's a sort of a history of 20th Century New York City, but in a
world that borders on the fantastic. He's got a writing style that revels in
the luxury of words, and flings you into bizarre situations without any warning
that you are leaving the pavement. One of my favorite bits involves a
despairing man who calucaltes how to sink all the pool balls on the break,
using the people in the hall as an abacus to figure out all the gravitational
and quantum effects. Wild stuff.
Have you read _Pilgrim at Tinker Creek_ by Annie Dillard? Linford tipped me
off to that book, and it's a real eye-opener. If you've ever stared in wonder
at the teeming life in a tidal pool, you'll love this book. If you haven't,
this book will show you why you should. Full of spiritual wonder at the
natural world.
Other favorites: _The Sandman_, by Neil Gaiman, _The Greater Trumps_ by Charles
Williams (anything by Williams, really), _Foucault's Pendulum_ by Eco, the
_Ender_ books by Orson Scott Card, the abovementioned Bruce Sterling's
_Distraction_ is a fascinating extrapolation of current trends in media,
economics and politics; I found it had some fascinating things to say on the
interplay between pure research and funding and the nature of science (and the
personalities of scientists, for that matter). I'm enjoying Tad Williams
_Otherland_ series, although I'm not sure it's as good as Stephenson.
Certainly Stephenson packs his ideas in more densely. :-)
Those are the first (fiction) books that come to mind... hope that was
useful...
--
Don Smith Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
dasmith at rotse2_physics.lsa.umich.edu http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/
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