Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Just started Lev Grossman's The Bright Sword and it is great so far.
What are you reading in 2024?
- Thread starter Nellisir
- Start date
overgeeked
B/X Known World
Reading Cheech Marin's autobiography. That guy has lived through some stuff. Really interesting read so far and really funny at times. Also really messed up at times.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
His Chicano art museum is apparently amazing.
overgeeked
B/X Known World
Yeah, I've heard that as well. Haven't had the chance to visit it but it's absolutely on my list.
Ralif Redhammer
Legend
Finished up Miller's Circe. Phenomenal, full of the glory and cruelty of Ancient Greece's legends.
Now I'm reading George Effinger's When Gravity Fails.
Now I'm reading George Effinger's When Gravity Fails.
trappedslider
Legend
finished up Out of the Dark #3 To Challenge Heaven By David Weber and Chris Kennedy. It was good and interesting world building for the other aliens they encounter.
JEB
Legend
Finished Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale, by Adam Minter. If you've ever donated stuff to charity, and wondered where it might wind up, this book answers that question in great detail. (It's much more interesting than that might sound.) Also asks some hard questions about how those in the "first world" perceive the secondhand market in "third-world" countries.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I just finished reading The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, by Tim Wu. I was gifted this book over a decade ago, but never sat down to read it before now, as part of a continuing effort to finish (or, in this case, start) the books on my shelves before acquiring (too many) more.
Part history lesson and part awareness campaign, Wu's book examines five information industries – telephone, radio, film, television, and the Internet – looking at the circumstances of their formation and their regulation/deregulation over time. He takes note of a "Cycle" (note the capitalization) whereby an industry will start out fairly decentralized, then gradually be consolidated into either a single monopoly or a handful of large industries over time, until a disruptive innovation comes along (in a nod to Joseph Schumpeter's "creative desctruction") and the entire thing starts all over again.
Of course, it doesn't always proceed this way; some industries are regulated virtually from their conception (television being one) while others try to avoid (or at least delay) the emergence of a disruptive power by stifling/suppressing a new technology that could displace them (FM radio is notable in this regard), in what Wu calls the "Kronos effect."
I'll take a moment to note that Wu's writing style is quite snappy and is very easy to read, never becoming dry while avoiding sensationalism. His overviews of the industries outlined above will strike experts in the histories of those areas as being fairly superficial, but that can't really be helped; much like Jared Diamond's famous Guns, Germs, and Steel, Wu is looking at effects that are spread out across more than a century and which span different industries; a high-level overview, avoiding getting into the weeds, is the only feasible way to do such a thing.
The final part of the book moves almost into advocacy with regards to the importance of keeping the Internet decentralized (which is no surprise, given that Wu is the one who coined the term "net neutrality"). In this regard, he makes for a persuasive point (which I'll illustrate here with my own example): today, we all take it for granted that movies and TV shows will be found on some streaming services and not others; if a given film/show isn't found on a service you have, your only options are to buy access to that service, acquire it some other way (e.g. pirating, buying/renting an offline version, borrowing a copy from a friend, etc.), or simply waiting for some licensing deal to bring it to a service you have.
By contrast, the World Wide Web portion of the Internet is (site-specific paywalls notwithstanding) open to everyone, regardless of who your ISP is. Imagine if you had to sign on with (i.e. pay to subscribe to) one Internet service to get to Facebook, and a different one to get to Youtube, and a third to get to Amazon. Compared to the level of Internet access we enjoy now, such a thing would never be publicly acceptable.
While Wu never outlines this particular comparison (the book was written in 2010, before streaming TV shows and movies had become so ubiquitous), I'll flatter myself by saying that it goes to the heart of what he talks about at the end of the book, in terms of what he wants people to be aware of and to safeguard. The next turning of the Cycle is ever around the corner, and as unthinkable as a less-open Internet might seem to us now, there's someone out there with a lot of money and a great deal of corporate power thinking about how to make that happen in order to enrich themselves.
Part history lesson and part awareness campaign, Wu's book examines five information industries – telephone, radio, film, television, and the Internet – looking at the circumstances of their formation and their regulation/deregulation over time. He takes note of a "Cycle" (note the capitalization) whereby an industry will start out fairly decentralized, then gradually be consolidated into either a single monopoly or a handful of large industries over time, until a disruptive innovation comes along (in a nod to Joseph Schumpeter's "creative desctruction") and the entire thing starts all over again.
Of course, it doesn't always proceed this way; some industries are regulated virtually from their conception (television being one) while others try to avoid (or at least delay) the emergence of a disruptive power by stifling/suppressing a new technology that could displace them (FM radio is notable in this regard), in what Wu calls the "Kronos effect."
I'll take a moment to note that Wu's writing style is quite snappy and is very easy to read, never becoming dry while avoiding sensationalism. His overviews of the industries outlined above will strike experts in the histories of those areas as being fairly superficial, but that can't really be helped; much like Jared Diamond's famous Guns, Germs, and Steel, Wu is looking at effects that are spread out across more than a century and which span different industries; a high-level overview, avoiding getting into the weeds, is the only feasible way to do such a thing.
The final part of the book moves almost into advocacy with regards to the importance of keeping the Internet decentralized (which is no surprise, given that Wu is the one who coined the term "net neutrality"). In this regard, he makes for a persuasive point (which I'll illustrate here with my own example): today, we all take it for granted that movies and TV shows will be found on some streaming services and not others; if a given film/show isn't found on a service you have, your only options are to buy access to that service, acquire it some other way (e.g. pirating, buying/renting an offline version, borrowing a copy from a friend, etc.), or simply waiting for some licensing deal to bring it to a service you have.
By contrast, the World Wide Web portion of the Internet is (site-specific paywalls notwithstanding) open to everyone, regardless of who your ISP is. Imagine if you had to sign on with (i.e. pay to subscribe to) one Internet service to get to Facebook, and a different one to get to Youtube, and a third to get to Amazon. Compared to the level of Internet access we enjoy now, such a thing would never be publicly acceptable.
While Wu never outlines this particular comparison (the book was written in 2010, before streaming TV shows and movies had become so ubiquitous), I'll flatter myself by saying that it goes to the heart of what he talks about at the end of the book, in terms of what he wants people to be aware of and to safeguard. The next turning of the Cycle is ever around the corner, and as unthinkable as a less-open Internet might seem to us now, there's someone out there with a lot of money and a great deal of corporate power thinking about how to make that happen in order to enrich themselves.
Eyes of Nine
Everything's Fine
The reading of the Hugo/Nebula/World Fantasy nominees that I own has begun! Starting with the oldest and moving forward.
While camping, I read CL Moore and Henry Kuttner’s Earth’s Last Citadel. Thinnest “novel” I’ve read in a long time, coming in at a whopping 128 1943 paperback sized pages. Today would barely qualify as a novella. Anyway, a good read. Reminded me of a modern (for 1943) Time Machine, where the modern protagonist and his “party” are transported to the end of time. Some surreal sequences that were interesting. Pretty mediocre characterization. Minimal racism (albeit the Nazi (an actual Nazi, it was 1943 after all) was described as “dark”, “murderous”, and “violent” multiple times). Sexism was not terrible, except it was boring. There was a faction who were “ethereal” (very Eloi-like) and there was a woman-presenting character who had the personality of a cardboard cutout, but was gossamer yet strong that was the love interest. In other words, read 80 years later, the book wasn’t appalling, had some interesting ideas, and was short. 2.5 out of 5 stars for me.
Then I read Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel from 1953 the first (I believe) of the Lije Bailey / R. Daneel Olivaw series. Fun mystery novel set in far future where earth’s population is at it’s maximum sustainable capacity (8 billion people - I laughed). Clever solution, that was somewhat plausible with the way the world was set up. No racism, but really violent anti-robot sentiment, with that sentiment standing in for modern racism and discrimination. Lots of heternormativity, not surprising for the time it was written. I’d give it a 3.5 of 5.
Currently reading Andre Norton's Witch World. Liking so far.
While camping, I read CL Moore and Henry Kuttner’s Earth’s Last Citadel. Thinnest “novel” I’ve read in a long time, coming in at a whopping 128 1943 paperback sized pages. Today would barely qualify as a novella. Anyway, a good read. Reminded me of a modern (for 1943) Time Machine, where the modern protagonist and his “party” are transported to the end of time. Some surreal sequences that were interesting. Pretty mediocre characterization. Minimal racism (albeit the Nazi (an actual Nazi, it was 1943 after all) was described as “dark”, “murderous”, and “violent” multiple times). Sexism was not terrible, except it was boring. There was a faction who were “ethereal” (very Eloi-like) and there was a woman-presenting character who had the personality of a cardboard cutout, but was gossamer yet strong that was the love interest. In other words, read 80 years later, the book wasn’t appalling, had some interesting ideas, and was short. 2.5 out of 5 stars for me.
Then I read Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel from 1953 the first (I believe) of the Lije Bailey / R. Daneel Olivaw series. Fun mystery novel set in far future where earth’s population is at it’s maximum sustainable capacity (8 billion people - I laughed). Clever solution, that was somewhat plausible with the way the world was set up. No racism, but really violent anti-robot sentiment, with that sentiment standing in for modern racism and discrimination. Lots of heternormativity, not surprising for the time it was written. I’d give it a 3.5 of 5.
Currently reading Andre Norton's Witch World. Liking so far.
Bedrockgames
Legend
This was one of the most fun Asimov books I remember reading. Much more ground level than say Foundation (liked that too but I found Caves of Steel more approachable). My favorite Asimov is The End of Eternity, which is about a time travel institute, but has a kind of love story at its core.
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