India's Invincible River

River of Gods was a very slow long book. For the longest time it wasn't explained why there were nine people in the book and how they were connected. Not until the second to the last chapter did everything come together in a rather nearly pointless way. The very last chapter isn't even worth mentioning because it is the most pointless thing I have ever read.
There was so much information stock piled in that chapter that it was hard to remember what was going on when. The Tabernacle was something that was super awesome, and it was a such a great mystery throughout the book and it actually made sense in the end.
One thing that angered me was the amount of time it took him to truly explain what a nute was and why it was always called yt. The chacter relations in the book devople very quickly and somethings just happen so fast it was like the point of reading four hundred and something pages was? One Chapter that could have siummed up the whole book would be the second to the last chapter everything is finally explained and everything happens in that chapter.
Another thing..why did it have to take place in India? Words that weren't explained...and no I will not look in the back it should explain to me what that word means right after that word appears. India is a place that I know nothing about and it made it seem like the rest of the world was sleeping in the dust it had technology so advanced. Lame.
However it did make an overall complex chacter book to read. There was a lot of remembering on what one chacter did as well as eight others and about them.

The Slow Lesbian River

First off I have nothing against lesbians but I would prefer to read a book that doesn't use it as a major plot element two thirds of the time. I did like that everything in the book was simply there and did not try to explain the how or why of things being the way they were. The cyberpunk elements were downplayed even the biotech that made up most of the tech in the story was barely used. It was strange reading a book that tried to encompass three stages of the same persons life with a minimum of time involvement. The characters were remarkably shallow for how much of the story was spent building them up and were unrealistic, even for a future society. Slow River is a good title for it because it takes a very long time to wander to a point that is not far from where it starts just like a slow moving river does in reality, except for the fact that real rivers are faster and accomplish more with less wandering.

my opinion

I do bot think Slow river was all that feminist. At least not in the traditional sense.
There can not by gender distinction when all the major characters and most of the minor ones are female the is nothing to be feminist about.
also i do not think there was enough tech in this book to be considered cyberpunk

Slower... slower... too slow! too slow!

Now, first of all, I must comment on the author's projection of herself on the story. I understand she's gay and everything, and that's fine, but did she have to make everyone else gay too? I mean aside from the men, I can hardly find a woman in the book who wasn't a lesbian. Her boss, her rescuer, her mother even...kind of... It was a good book, no question, but I find it rather unprofessional to make almost every character in the author's image- at least so far as sexual preference anyway. Was the author really preposing that everyone in the future will be gay? Or does she justify all of this with a string of coincidences? And I mean a lot of coincidences. Whatever...
Now, on to the book itself. Is it cyberpunk? I don't think so. There was really no matrix-style computer interfacing in the book. Mainly, the futuristic aspects were the slates and the PIDA's. Aside from the casual references to the tubes and the "library", this book was pretty straight forward. At times, I felt as if I was reading a space opera. The pages weren't exactly soaked with drama, but it was still there- just, not in space... But it's not space opera. It's not cyberpunk. And it's definitly not hard science, so what is it? Why are you asking me? I'm no sci-fi geek. I'm a horror man.
Frankly, I really like the way the book read. It was kind of like Deepness in the Sky, except there were three different narratives, and they were in shorter sections, which I think is better. No matter which part I was reading, I was gaining a deeper insight as to who this "Lore" character was. And I was never disappointed when one section ended and the next began, because then I was able to apply what I had learned to this next perspective. This system made for a very enjoyable read.

Slow Rivers.

I have to disagree with people who said that this book is not sci-fi, it very much is, I think it made me believe the world it was in more than any other book I have read so far.

It is slow, but the slowness is thorough, every chapter ties in with the next, it is an easy read which makes it quite enjoyable, the elements of cyberpunk? Slates, pretty much Spanner is the biggest element of cyberpunk in the book, the science? Hello biology chemistry and prosthetic-limbed-Paolo? There is your science, mind you in some parts it is very hard science, which made me dislike the book a little, I am not a fan of biology.

Rapnatida made me remember The Island of Dr. Moreau, only not so. It is a well-written book, it is very laid-back I have to admit, for sci-fi at least, but it's enjoyable and I have to say my favorite book thus far in the series, I think the only reason it didn't win more awards is because it wasn't as "hardcore" as say, Neuromancer, I still really enjoyed it.

Slow River and such....

Well, while some parts seemed to really drag before jetting off the ground, I did end up liking the book. Kinda. It had interesting albeit seemingly unnecessary science (I think this novel could have played closer to modern times and been just as good), and the story really did keep you intrigued by tossing you just a sliver of information and then following it up satisfyingly (unlike Cosmonaut Keep, which tossed you a sliver and then did nothing with it). It also had fascinating gender reversal in a lot of key roles, including one that was disturbing in new ways. And that's why one part of this novel really puzzled me.

Male characters. I'm not saying I need male characters to be interested in a story, but if you're going to have them...use them. The male characters in this story serve largely as foils for other characters, especially Lore, to appear stronger in the comparison. Which really isn't necessary because Lore, as well as the other female characters, are well rounded with flaws and strengths already. 

Her relationship with Tok is a glaring flaw with this. Sure, she was close to him. Why? Because she says she was? That is not enough for a narrative this deep, this character driven. There is a law in most narrative mediums, that characters only use words to lie, even to themselves. While this isn't literally true, what it means is that you must back up what a character says with actions and events, or the words feel hollow, which is how I feel in this case. 

Now male writers do this quite a bit, but they don't get to walk away unscathed. Nicola Griffith does this and wins awards. Not that this isn't a great book, award-winning indeed, but almost no one criticizes her writing for this. Whilst male SF writers, and to a lesser degree, male writers in general, must tread eggshells when it comes to their female characters. This double standard is ever-present in many aspects of modern society, especially our expressive forms. And I thought double standards were what feminists were against. 

But, in the end, I still thought it was a good book, and if Paul hadn't practically forced us to look at this from a "This is how a girl writes Sci-Fi" perspective, I probably wouldn't even be talking about this. 

WTF?!

Should this book even be considered sci-fi? I feel that achieves the bare-minimum requirement to get into the genre, if there is such a thing. Not that it isn't a bad story or anything, better than all the others we've read already. A good conflict starting slowly and building up at a reasonable pace until the conclusion, a likeable protaganist, villains that I really wanted to throttle on her behalf, the whole shebang. Some of the sexual stuff kind of got to me though, and not in a good way either. Sure, I've gotten used to it happening in our reading assignments by now, and the fact that it was a lot of lesbian stuff was just fine. But that stuff that Lore did with porn and sex clubs and all just made me want to kick the crap out of her parents for being so damn negligent. On a lighter note, Spanner throwing a party just to get a load of people uncontrollably horny so they could be caught on camera just struck me as the funniest thing in this book LOL. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is this: is it just me, or is it a bit sad that this book would be more interesting because of sexual content than for it's sci-fi content, despite being in the sci-fi category? I also couldn't help noticing that this is the fourth book with smut and an award attached, coincidence? Not bloody likely. These academics giving out these awards need to get their heads out of the gutter and start noticing all the zombies that need to be shot, 'nuff said.

Slow River indeed.

I loved how quick and easy this book read. There was a lot of things about Lore that I couldn't figure out until they actually said it. One thing that did anger me is that it seemed every woman in there was lesbian.....obviously one wrote but not every woman is one. With each book in the past, a man had wrote and woman were pretty much sex objects or poorly/very messed up chacters. But this one has woman being the strong creatures and men as weak. A lot of people don't like to think of woman being strong minded indivaduals. But when you think about it most woman in this world would choose a man only because it is convenitent and they don't get in the way...notice how I didn't say all, I do know some women so dependent on men that it isn't worth breath trying to talk them out of it. Anyways, I really thought the ending was twisted, most people assume that the father does all the molesting and whatnot, but here it was the mother, which also brings another point, that even though all the woman in this book were strong and powerful, they were also twisted. Which makes this book more like a role reversal, in other books the men would have done what the women did and the women what the men did. So in a case of role reversal this book was extremly well written.
However, I think that some of the men should have played a more important role in this book, like not being as stupid...........
Lore's father and her brother, are not very well rounded chacters, they are one sided and it is very poor, I would have loved to see more Lore and Tok, they could have been very close, but the family could have been to messed up for any family relationships to contuine further then they would have.
Spanner...didn't like her much, a simple mind for a very messed up person. I really did not like her in the end when she said there was no choices for her, she had to stay where is was and couldn't change it. Lore should have gotten rid of her a long ass time ago...

forrests neromancer thoughts

Cyberpunk goes against the clean-cut scientist archetype. Case is an intelligent no nonsense coder, but he is also a career criminal. The underbelly moving from one high to the next. Life simplified to one half remembered memory to the next. He is truly a punk. The matrix itself is a drug case uses to manipulate pure information.
Problems to solve, obsession. Reality disappears, many drug users defend drug use as a way to understanding abstract. Consumerism in itself is an addiction. Humans are taught from birth that one object can never hold one's interest indefinitely. By nature we will be bored, and by nature lust for bigger, and shinier widgets, and fashions to achieve the cool. What is cool you might ask? cool is as it's dictated by corporations and the God capitalism. Case is an antihero he is not struggling for the greater good, but his own survival. Love is as it's dictated by 21st-century standards focusing on the moment and the situation more than the everlasting. At one point in case does indeed love Molly, but easily parts with her after all the loose ends are tied. In real life, we fall in love, and in turn love dies and in turn turns to resent

The technology defined in neromanmancer is completely dominated by the Japanese. Technology is only describe by brand-name. The matrix itself is defined as a living organism. Viruses are described as living entities of color and shape. The only connection case has with the physical is his fingers tapping. Technology goes beyond simple convenience into a form of religion.nermamaner is the guardian of the coders/Cowboys. Wintermute who in many resembles a demon using deception and trickery using his own memory against him. On a sidenote, I believe this is much scarier than simple robotics taking over the world in one's own mind is at the mercy of sentient being that terrifies me.. When an artificial intelligence you controls your own consciousness, and literally has to kill you. Being addict of technology, and in favor of most things I would pull the plug in this instance.

The details! Oh God, the details!

It seems I'm a little late to the party, huh? No matter- my words now are just as useless as they would be a few days ago. Fact of the matter is I'm not a big sci-fi buff like most of you. My interests are mainly in horror novels. So I apologize if the things I have to say about this Neuro-thingy book are less than substantial. As far as I'm considered, without zombies, why even bother reading it? (Too biased? Get out of the graveyard you pansy)
Anyway, the first and foremost thing I noticed about this book is the over-attention to details. Might of well been reading a futurized Tale of Two Cities. At times, the amount of descriptions in the story were so thick, I wouldn't understand what was going on if a hacked through them with a metaphoical machete. Hell, I'd have a better chance at comprehension if I used an actual machete. Least then I'd be entertained...
So yes, I will admit, I really haven't much of a clue as to what this book was about. If someone asked me to sum it all up, I think my response would be something along the lines of "um, it was about this hacker guy who is hired to steal...something. And he's got this chick with like razor-nails backing him up and...yeah..." Sometimes I was fortunate enough to understand what was going on in certain scenes, but overall, this book was all nonsense to me. From what I picked up, Armitage(or whatever) wasn't real, the main players were in space at some point for some reason, and then something to do with 3Jane? I don't know... Cool name though.
I guess I should still try to talk about something worth your time, right? Okay, here goes: the main character was a criminal. Fun, right? As previously mentioned (in the cyberpunk blog), not many books feature criminals as the main character. It certainly offered a unique role to readers who are used to happy-go-lucky "good" characters. Instead of Bambi, we followed a guy who steals information for a living (yes, I did gather that much), tries to get high every chance he gets, and seems to be an overall sleezebag. So doublecrossing, he even stole from his clients; which of course ended him up with a fried nervous system. Bambi would never do that...
Well, seeing how most of this book flew right over my head, I suppose that's about as much as I have to say about it. Neuromancer, while I'm sure is widely enjoyable to all you sci-fi geeks (no offense), was simply beyond me. Am I not smart enough or open enough to comprehend such a so-called revolutionary book? Or do my tastes for horror blind me to this futuristic vision? Who knows? All I know is, there are not even science fiction novels out there with a splash of good ol' fashion horror in them. But don't worry, I plan to change that.
-King Steve

Neuromancer

It is rare for an entire book to be written from the perspective of a criminal but this one does just that. There were several ideas that were very interesting and the criminal viewpoint allowed the author to show more of the potential than a different perspective would have allowed. This is most evident in the ideas of drugs, hacking, and Riviera's holographic projections. The drug use is very casual for Case seemingly because of his criminal existence which in turn makes the drugs easily accessible. As a criminal he is most upset when his ability to use drugs is taken away which he eventually circumvents and finally restores at the end of the book. Almost everything that occurs in cyberspace during the book has criminal purposes considering that respectable programmers or cyberspace users would not view ICE or programs in the way Case and The Construct do. Riviera's holographic projection is versatile and demonstrates both legitimate and criminal uses because he uses it primarily for nefarious purposes, but it is also used as entertainment at one point. If Riviera had not been a criminal it is unlikely that his abilities of scaring people with scorpions, protecting himself with false images, or blinding people would have been demonstrated.

Personally I would have a tough choice deciding between Molly's claw/combat upgrades and Riviera's holographic projections if I could choose one myself. Solution: get both technologies and formulate ways of using them to compliment each other.

I miss Molly already.

The book was blissfully short, yay! I sure did space out on blogging for awhile though, oops. Thinking back to our discussion in class though, I can understand why Case was on such a self-destructive path, and that personality quirk alone makes the characterization in this book much better than in the other two we've read. Also, I didn't get to say this before, but in regard to the feminism theme in this book I think that Molly was supposed to be some kind of "girl power" symol in there, mainly because anyone that messed with her was bound to get killed, end of story. Then there was the fusion of Neuromancer and Wintermute, it makes me wonder if the writer of Ghost in the Shell read Neuromancer first because it's so similar to that AI in that movie trying to fuse with Major Kusanagi's consciousness in order to attain freedom and some higher plane of existence. I think that the old greek philosophers would love to read this story just to have something to think about.

Not sure where my original post is...but once again, my thoughts on Neuromancer

This novel continues to be one of my favorite books i have ever read. not only are things fantastic and imaginative, but they are within the realm of plausible. the book takes place in the future, but not a future that is too far away. it is easy to see how the world might end up like that in the next 15 to 20 years, or perhaps even sooner.
my favorite aspect of the book is its depth. even after reading it several times, there are still things in the book i dont fuly understand or comprehend. i find that as my mind expands...so does my understanding of this complex story. many novels are over one thousand pages long, but can easily be explained in one or two sentences. nueromancer is a little under 300 pages, and yet i could easily wright over 100 pages of my thoughts about the novel. that is something only a truly brilliant book can acomplish.
the characters are realistic. they do not adhere to typical archetypes that have flooded the sci-fi genre, nor do they fit into any kind of stereotypes brought on by modern culture. there are nood good guys or bad guys. the cast is comprised of mostly criminals, whose moral code has been skewed from the beggining of the book. but even though they do not adhere to socioties moral standpoints, thaat does not mean they are bad people. in fact no person can be labeled as good or evil in this book. some people go out of their way to do the right thing, while still being under the influence of blackmail and extortion. Case...our unwitting hero, has no intention of doing anything good up untill the last few pages, he is just doing what he wants for himself. he has no lofty goal of saving people...he just wants to save himself and make money in the process. it is unfair to say he hasnt changed by th end of the book, simply because a novel isnt an end-all summary of morality. peopel can go through great odeals, and in the end can come out the same as they were. case come out with nothing ore than a set of skills he lacked at the beginning, and the knowledge of what has passed. he wont go on to use his computer skills to save lives, he will use them to steal and make money. all i am really saying, is that in the end, everythign changed, but not in the typical fairy tail novel ending.

i think that i will talk about what makes something sentient. i believe that wintermute was sentient because a. he could clearly think at a human level coming up with all his crazy schemes. b. because he had desire he wanted and that is why i think he was senteint

Yay, looks like I wasn't the only one that totally spaced blogging!

Anyway, Neuromancer. I really liked it, but I've been finding it hard to consider it in its own right because of how much of an influence it's had on a lot of recent media. The world Gibson writes in is realized in surprising detail. 

This is the second book we've read where the use of drugs was a plot device, and I've decided that I like the way sci-fi treats substance use. It just is, it's a personal choice to someone; either way I found the treatment that Case's pancreas got amusing. I suppose that such casual treatment of illicit substances is easier in a genre where the question of what it means to be human is so prominent. 

And oh boy that one was all over the place. Molly's whole idea about how what she is being dictated by what she does [or vice versa] was a part of that. The flesh doll thing was also... interesting, as a girl. It raises that interesting question of whether it matters that someone was having sex with my body if I wasn't technically aware of it. People that get date raped and aren't conscious for it still wind up feeling like they were violated; given there is the issue of choice, ie Molly had chosen to be a flesh doll, but it's still an interesting issue. Just that women would choose to not be conscious during the act is somewhat of an indication that they don't enjoy it, but to what extent? 

What is really interesting to me is how all of this points to a nice big theme of the question of how much our consciousness makes us us versus our physical shell making us us. Obviously there's the matrix, but on top of that there's the issue of the drugs, and then the nice glaring issue of the implications of self aware AIs. Overall I thought it was a crazy interesting read and I definitely want to check out the rest of the series. 

Good Show Laddie.

First off let me say that I am writing this blog even if I am not currently in class, I have an ear-infection that just won't go away, and humorously, it prevents me from walking anywhere since it made my balance crap, I'm dizzy 24/7, fun times.

That aside, I enjoyed this book greatly, sometimes it would confuse me with the terminology about computer things, but I suppose after you read into some of them you start to realize things. One I was really confused about was ICE, but then I realized it was just like a fire-wall, so I begun to understand more.
I kinda felt bad throughout the book for Corto/Armitage, I don't know why, maybe because he was just some tool.
I also think this book was well-written, with short chapters after all of that terminology; the end kinda sucked, but as I found out, Molly refers to Johny Mnemonic when she leaves Case, so it sort of makes sense that she leaves him like that, he was killed apparently and she couldn't save him, so she payed for that already.

Overall the book was enjoyable, much much better than the past two books.

nueromancer a la carte

I'm not quite done with Nueromancer. I've got maybe another 50 pages to go, so I'm almost there. I contemplated just finishing before writing the blog, but then I kind of realized that the thing I wanted to write about was happening now, and not 50 pages from now.

Let me say that so far this book is the best of the three we've read. It's got technology that almost seems more fantastic than anything in the prior two mainly because it seems achievable, and it seems practical. Sure, flying kittens is a wonderful thing, and they probably look majestic under a rainbow, but compared to being able to “jack in” to the internet and see concrete representations for mostly abstract things sounds a whole lot more useful, and as I mentioned, a lot more likely. It's because it seems more likely that the technology seems more fantastic than Deepness specifically. For example: copying a person's consciousness into a computer simulation, and mechanical implants both sound like things being actively developed today. It also feels like McCleod borrowed extensively from this book for his cyberpunk espionage portion of Cosmonaut Keep.

The problem I have is that there have been a few parts of this book where I'll be reading, and reading every word (not every other paragraph or every other page as was the case in both the space opera books), and genuinely enjoying what I'm reading, then all of a sudden, I don't know what's happening. I flip backwards a few pages and reread what I've read, and sure enough, I just don't have any idea what's happening. I can't say if this is a flaw in me, or with the book, but I'm curious to see if anyone else experienced something similar. It's particularly frustrating because in a book like Deepness, I read maybe 70% of it, but I felt like (and our discussions confirmed it) like I understood 100% of what was happening, at least as far as recorded events are concerned. Here, I'm reading 100%, but sometimes I feel like I understand 40% of what's happening. As I said; frustrating.

The other two things that do stand out about this book, however, are much better characterizations than the space operas, and better writing overall (despite the lost feeling). The characters feel more believable and like autonomous individuals compared to the past two books where they mostly felt like hollow vehicles to move the mammoth plot along. And as I said the writing is much better. Much more descriptive. I feel like if I were a police sketch artist, I'd have enough information to draw up a convincing Armitage, and a convincing Molly and be able to find them off of the information I had, which is more than I can say for any character from the two prior books.

Along the writing thing: despite this being limited 3^rd person, sometimes I'd pick the book up and forget that it wasn't 1^st person. This writer has made me feel more in tune with Case's thoughts than did a 3^rd person omniscient Vernor Vinge, and he wasn't once done that doofy Hmmm thing that Vernor was so fond of. Or italicized thoughts in general.

so... that's what I got.

Divination by Way of the Nerves and Brain

I had to expect a lot coming into this. Gibson's work has been so built up over the years. Also, this is supposedly the main source of The Matrix plagiarism scandal. So I had a lot of preconceptions "jacking in" to this story.

And I must say, I was largely not disappointed. The characters and story kept me invested. The tech was fascinating, and the Wintermute/Neuromancer AI concept was downright revolutionary.

But then the ending happened. And I was left with a sour taste in my mouth. The ending was rushed, and it essentially screwed a couple of the reasons why I kept reading. The most important one being Case. You grow to love Case as Linda Lee loved him. You grow to hate him as he hates himself. And then, after all that investment, boom. Story ends. And despite all thats happened, Case regresses to being the way he was before the story began. Except that now he can jack in. Yay.

Ever seen the movie Lord of War? You go on this long journey with Nick Cage's character, and after all he has lost, and all he has learned, he chooses to be exactly the same. And he disregards all the emotional trauma and character develop you've been watching for the last 1 hour 50 minutes. That is exactly how I felt after this book.

The shuriken moment at the end was practically a metaphor for Case deciding to disregard all that had happened since before page 1. So, one would ask, why? What was the point? Why did I bother reading all the emotional and character based development before this point if it adds up to dick?

Beats Me.

Overall I enjoyed the ride, but at the end, the roller-coaster derailed, I jumped off, but then the coaster cars landed right on top of me.

Story time

I did like how quickly the book read it was very fast about half way though. Chacters were well thought through and the settings were intresting. The story line was quiet strange especially when you read the date at the end.
The random sex scene two chapters in was the most random I have ever read, a little childish, but when I saw the author it was figured.
I honestly don't remember the ending, too well, but I think it was amazing as far as endings go, the chacters end up in the same exact places, with the same problems, from the beinging of the book, how amazing is that?

Neuromancer

Gibson is an original and a master. He is as tuned into the zeitgeist as he is curious. The locations in his novels are as much characters and the citizens who inhabits them. With just enough explaination, he tooks his readers through neo-Tokyo, black market surgeries, criminal undergrounds, a cyber war, and someplace they had never been, Cyberspace.