(urth) difference engine
Dave Lebling
dlebling at hyraxes.com
Wed May 14 16:50:41 PDT 2008
Rob, I grew up in Bethesda and Rockville, MD myself, and attended
Richard Montgomery High School. I've lived in the Boston area for
umpty-foo years now though, after being engulfed by MIT and never quite
getting over it.
I find that many of the authors I really like have been mentioned
previously. To those who found Crowley a tough read, I suggest trying
"Engine Summer" as a starter, just as "The Crying of Lot 49" makes a
good start on Pynchon (I recently reread "Gravity's Rainbow" and am
working on "Against the Day").
I'm very partial to Bruce Sterling (his short stories are better than
his novels, as a rule: try "Bicycle Repairman" and "Kalamantan"),
William Gibson, Michael Swanwick ("The Iron Dragon's Daughter" is
steam-elf-punk), Charlie Stross ("The Atrocity Archive" and "A Colder
War" and several others), Ken McLeod ("The Execution Channel" is not his
best; start with "The Cassini Division"), Iain Banks (I just finished
"Matter" recently), Ian McDonald ("River of Gods"), Neal Stephenson (I
am inordinately fond of "The Baroque Trilogy"), John Scalzi, Rudy
Rucker, and even China Mieville (who seems to be less-than-favored
locally). I wish Jack Vance were still writing (though I hear he is
dictating an autobiography, which should be interesting).
My tastes in non-SF fiction are fairly pedestrian: Patrick O'Brian,
Cormac McCarthy, Carl Hiaasen, Alexander McCall Smith, etc. I
periodically reread George V. Higgins ("The Friends of Eddie Coyle" is
one of those nearly perfect novels) and wish he was still around, but I
console myself with Dennis Lehane.
I love history and have been reading up on my Byzantine and late Roman
stuff, which is actually pretty useful if you want to reread the New Sun
books.
-- Dave Lebling, aka Vizcacha
Robert Thornton wrote:
>
> I agree about Schismatrix. It is a great book and his most ambitious
> work though later books are better written IMHO. As far as his later
> work, I am a big fan of Distraction but otherwise I'm not very fond of
> them. I think his short stories are better. Of course I like the older
> story where my hometown Rockville, Maryland becomes the center of
> global power thanks to biotech....
>
> As for Difference Engine, I'd agree with the majority view. The ending
> was interesting but you had to slog through a lot of dreck to get there.
>
> rob t.
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