I’d SURE love to have such an almost omnipotent Personal Digital Assistant – but I’d certainly prefer it outside of me, and to connect with me in a non-invasive manner.
Always been a fan of Gyro Gearloose, his thinking cap, and, of course, his Little Helper:
A very interesting article about this in New Scientist, which I fear means it is behind a paywall 
A research team think they find evidence of dementia as early as The Last Continent (published 1998, not one of my favourites), but Rob Wilkins warns of confounding factors such as increasing pressure on Pratchett’s time, and mentions seeing (in hindsight) warning signs around the time of writing Night Watch (~2000).
I actually liked The Shepherd’s Crown (to my relief), but I found some passages in Raising Steam heavy going. But the last one I give full marks is Thud.
I am in another race to finish by Saturday my book-group book, After the Flare by Deji Bryce Olukotun (2017). Our group read the author’s prequel, Nigerians in Space, last autumn. I didn’t read that because it looked uninteresting and did not appear to be SF. Good decision, because its SF aspects are in fact minimal, and only two of the people who read it liked it.
This book looked much more promising, and I’m already 100 pages into it. It’s about the apocalyptic effects of a massive solar flare (like the Carrington event of 1859). I love apocalyptic SF, so this snagged my attention. However, the story skips over the apocalyptic events with a few pages of summary description (not a good technique, as most people know) and is instead concentrating on the long-term aftermath.
It posits a zone around the equator that was protected by the mass of the Earth and therefore escaped the effects. Nigeria, at the center of the zone, has become the center for reestablishing science and is the destination for refugees. This is an interesting and provocative idea. The other good aspect is that the story has a lot of innovative technological ideas that are plausible and scary. Unfortunately, the author is very fond of digressive description that contributes nothing to the story, in my opinion. And now, he has introduced an apparent fantasy element that really turns me off. If it’s not rationalized well, I’ll probably give up on this book.
P.S.: I wrote that yesterday, but held off posting it, because I don’t like to step on someone else’s recent post. It looks like no rationale is forthcoming, so I have given up on this book. It also displays a fault that was more common in the pulp days: where the story has little to do wth the SF background (such as space operas being westerns set in space). This story seems to be no more than a quotidian drama set against an unusual event. In great science fiction, the SF element should be the thing that drives the drama. Very disappointing.
I had to give up “Way of Kings Prime” by Brandon Sanderson… I had stopped around 50% earlier and made a detour to re-reading the Pratchett books I had mentioned earlier and I thought I’d give it another spin. Had to stop again at around 65% and won’t continue reading it.
It is an ok read if you have not read the “actually published” Way of Kings, but it is not good if you have read it, since it really pales in comparison. You get to see which good ideas Sanderson kept for his books and how many bad ideas he ditched, which is interesting to notice, but the bad ideas outweight the good ones, which makes the “Prime” edition, much worse.
To be fair, the author warned about that when he offered the book as an “extra” in his kickstarter campaigns and what-not, so I have no complaint on that and I knew what I was buying.
The book’s main problems are two:
a) Some illogical things happen because they “have to”
b) A lot of the main characters have powerful attributes and are pumped up to be of great quality, but they cannot live up to them, in the way they act within the book.
That last one is a usual problem in a lot of books in general, but it mainly happens in D&D campaigns, where you make an “intelligence 16 wizard” or a “wisdom 16 cleric” or a "16 charisma bard, but you, the player, do not possess 16 intelligence or 16 wisdom or 16 charisma, so you have no clue what those things mean, therefore the character you are roleplaying falls flat.
In this book “character A” is wise and noble and the greatest tactical mind of that era, but doesn’t act like it. “Character B” is smart and conniving, but gets tricked all the time and so forth…
Moving into re-reading “The Will of the Many” by James Islington, so I can read the second book (“The strength of the Few”) of the series that was recently released.
Book 1, “The Will of the Many” was very good… it had its issues (nothing is perfect, after all) and some “here comes the plot armor moments” that were a bit forced, but the overall book was worth overlooking such things and make me buy “book 2” on release.
If I’m understanding you right that this is an early draft of a book, I’ve read The Last Unicorn: The Lost Journey, which is that for “The Last Unicorn”, and quite enjoyed it, though it is a very different story in many respects from what it ended up as
Yes, in its case it was the book as it was in its earlier form before Sanderson was ever a published author, so the tale was different, the characters were different and the worldbuilding, the scope and magic system were different (and worse) as well.
I just looked it up for some details and it appears that the audiobook for it is free.
The Way of Kings Prime is the original draft of The Way of Kings, written in 2002. It is the thirteenth novel Brandon Sanderson wrote, and the last one that he wrote prior to becoming a published author.[1]
Plotted as the first in a ten-book series, at the time of its writing it was by far the most ambitious project Brandon had attempted. Brandon was generally happy with the book when he completed it, but he knew that his publisher might balk at publishing an extremely long novel, especially since he was still relatively unproven at the time. He decided to revisit the series after he had progressed in his career.[1] Upon reflection years later, Brandon believes that this was for the best, as he considers elements of Prime to be a “failure” compared to the standards that he eventually set through other works.[2] After many revisions, The Way of Kings was published in 2010 as the first book of The Stormlight Archive.[3]
After finding success in his career, Brandon wanted to share draft versions of some of his works in relatively “raw” form to show fans his process and evolution as an author.[4][5] The Way of Kings Prime became the first of these drafts to be released as a “Sanderson Curiosity”. Dragonsteel Entertainment published it in-house in 2020 as a free ebook and limited edition hardcover as part of The Way of Kings leatherbound Kickstarter. It was also included as an add-on for the Words of Radiance leatherbound campaign on Backerkit. The book can be downloaded here. A free audiobook, narrated by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, is available here.
Reading at the moment …
A biography of the Dutch poet/author Nicolaas Beets.
Now forgotten but at one time famous in the Netherlands.
Not altogether forgotten, at least not by me!
I read Een onaangenaam mensch in den Haarlemmerhout, Hoe warm het was, en hoe ver! and similar stories when I was familiarising myself somewhat with Dutch language and literature in the 1980s. I found his sensitivity quite intriguing, almost feminine in his observations. The only story I recall really disliking in that collection was Teun de Jager, where he seemed to want to play idly on one’s emotions without having anything to say. I forget whether my curiosity was originally aroused by Godfried Bomans, who seemed to have a bit of a thing about Beets.
Do please report back about whether the biography is interesting!
Wow. I am impressed.
Up until chapter 6 I think this book is really interesting. I like the style of writing. It is easy reading, not too much complicated stuff.
I finished “The Little Schemer”. And it was an absolute joy. Would recommend it to people who want to learn (and get rid of their fear of) recursion. This was my first time using a Lisp-family language.
I’ve been reading a biography, The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett the Third by Peter Byrne. The book is subtitled Multiple universes, mutual assured destruction and the meltdown of a nuclear family. That first item dominates the book, the second becomes prominent in the middle portion, and the third is interspersed throughout.
Hugh Everett (1930-1982) is the American physicist and probability theorist who introduced the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics. It appeared in a 1957 thesis at Princeton University. The original thesis was much longer than the final product. Everett had condensed it at the urging of his supervisor. John Wheeler was sympathetic to the theory, but also a disciple of the great Danish physicist Neils Bohr, and extremely reluctant to rock the proverbial boat. Controversy had revolved around the so-called wave function collapse. It was known that the quantum world exists as a kind of cloudlike array of superpositions. Why then does the act of observing and measuring such a system seem to fix a position? The default explanation that emerged was that the micro and macro worlds simply operate under different rules. There was a strong suggestion that human perception, human agency ultimately governed the result. We could interpret the quantum world only through classical physics.
Everett considered this to be mystical nonsense. There was no reason, he said, to go on pretending that the superpositions don’t exist. He envisioned a reality governed by a consistent “universal wave function”, and that all possible outcomes have an actual existence. The macro world was to be understood through the micro, not the other way around. This idea generated intense scrutiny early on (much of it dismissive) then went into a dormant state for about ten years before interest revived. There’s much more to be said about it, but it surpasses my understanding (yeah, no kidding) and I suspect I’m on thin ice already.
Although the many worlds idea become Everett’s signature achievement, he actually devoted most of his working life to probability theory. He had modified and greatly improved a mathematical tool called the Lagrange multiplier, and this made him a crucial figure at the pentagon as the military ran numerous simulations of nuclear war, nuclear fallout, cost/benefit analysis, what you could most efficiently destroy with how many warheads and so on. The author explores the process in detail and comments on the problematic mindset that enabled the emergence of the “military-industrial complex” that alarmed President Eisenhower.
As for Everett as a husband and father, he comes off looking cold and disengaged. As he himself was a product of emotionally distant parents, he became such as an adult. And yet those who knew him best maintained that he was actually capable of great warmth and compassion, that his aloofness had more to do with an absence of social skills than with anything fundamentally callous about the man. He longed for the emotional rewards but found himself at a loss as to how to go about it.
The author has suggested that there’s a thematic link to all this, and I’ll confess that I don’t see it with great consistency. It might be said that the book is no more than the sum of its parts. But it might also be said that the individual parts are quite good in themselves.
The two American wars that seem to be the least known by the public, as well as by me, are the French and Indian War (the North American component of the Seven Years War) and the War of 1812. I have somewhat remediated my ignorance of the latter in recent years by reading some general histories, specific studies, and the book on the Napoleonic connection, which I discussed in this thread. The best of these was 1812: The War that Forged a Nation by Walter N. Borneman. Now I am reading Borneman’s other excellent general history: The French and Indian War: Deciding the Fate of North America (HarperCollins, 2006).
In elementary school, we learned about George Washington’s failed diplomatic mission to the French (1754) and surrender of Fort Necessity (1754), as well as about his involvement (as aide de camp) in General Braddock’s march on the French (1755). I have run or driven past the Braddock Cannon monument many hundreds of times since I was a child, and still pass it whenever I visit my favorite used book store (https://www.franconiahistory.com/historic-sites/braddock-cannon).
I have also visited Fort Ticonderoga, which played an important role in the war, and knew about Rogers’ Rangers (sometimes compared to the Green Berets), because of the historical adventure movie, Northwest Passage (1940). And I read The Last of the Mohicans when I was about 10. That book and its two excellent movie adaptations (1936 and 1992) are loosely based on the Fort William Henry Massacre. That was the sum total of my knowledge about this war until now.
First surprise has been learning about the 1754 Albany Congress in New York. Representatives from seven colonies and from the Six Nations (formerly the Iroquois Confederation) met to improve relations and (from the colonial perspective) to try to gain allies against the French Canadians. Its real significance, however, lies in a plan of union for the colonies drawn up by Benjamin Franklin (in order to have a united front against the French and Indians, not as a form of rebellion). Although it was rejected, the plan remarkably foreshadowed many of the elements of the U.S. Constitution.
It has also been very gratifying to learn that the story of The Last of the Mohicans has a substantial historical basis for the events. Although the main characters and personal drama are invented, the details about the siege of Fort William Henry, the disparity of force, the French capture of General Webb’s letter denying succor to Colonel Munro (which the French did share), and the generous and stately surrender are all true. The massacre, with 700 casualties, is controversial. The movie shows it as a wink and a nod from the French to the Indians, but the evidence suggests that the French had no authority and little control over their allies, who were intent on revenge and plunder.
Ironically, the victory at Fort William Henry was hollow. The subsequent massacre inspired a large increase in militias who flocked to nearby Fort Edward, thwarting the French General Montcalm’s plan to attack the fort.
Like 1812, this book is full-bodied, but easy to read.
Islington’s “Strength of the Few” was very good indeed and I will definitely buy book 3 whenever it is written and published. I liked the progression and the plot, though in a couple of cases there were logical holes (in the sense of obvious traps that the reader could see from a mile away and it really made no sense for the characters of the book to miss), but those were not very serious and didn’t really break the immersion.
After that I pivoted to Emberdark by Sanderson. Another of his “extra” books on Cosmere. It was good and fun to read and it really built up a lot on his overarching world. The only gripe I had is that after Sanderson finished the book he obviously turned it over to his editor and the “things we need to put in to pass HR inspection” department, which made a couple of serious blunders with words that are normal in our world, but have no place in that specific fantasy setting. It is hard to imagine that Sanderson himself made such glaring mistakes or even used those words, so I’ll attribute that to editing errors. Also editing error: a couple of pages could have just been totally deleted from the book and noone would have noticed. A minor issue though for a book of 400+ pages.
Apart from that the book itself was also impressive with their idea of printing the parts that take place in the emberdark (where there is no sun) in black paper and silver ink, though I have to say that it was a bit tiring for my eyes. A screenshot can be found here, in my previous post:
Still, a nice gimmick.
Now, time to read a suggestion made in this thread by @Atorrante, “The Stainless Steel Rat”. 
I bought the omnibus edition that contains all three first stories, so I am looking forward to it. “Make room! Make room!” was top notch!
我现在在用电子棋盘，方寸棋盘，有棋局分析，提示悔棋等等功能，AI真的是人类之光，再也不用到处找棋子了
Finished the French and Indian war history, which was thoroughly excellent, but I felt the need for a complete change. So, I’ve started The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. I picked this up for 50 cents, at the library about a year ago. It’s very famous both as a book and as a film, and I wanted to see what all the ballyhoo was about. I had previously read Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Although published as a mainstream book, NLMG is really dystopian science fiction. The writing and characterization in it are superb, but the concept, which blew the minds of non-SF readers, is disappointingly ho-hum and predictable for any seasoned SF fan. The mainstream praise for that concept is ignorant and insulting to the genre.
However, one cannot doubt Ishiguro’s mastery of style. The first-person story in this book concerns the ruminations of a butler in the disappearing, aristocratic would of post-war England. After just a few pages, I am completely invested. The nuance of tone is absolutely perfect. For example:
“Of course, I could not have expressed this view to Mr Farraday without embarking on what might have seemed a presumptuous speech. I thus contented myself by saying simply: ‘It has been my privilege to see the best of England over the years, sir, within these very walls.’
“Mr Farraday did not seem to understand this statement for he merely went on….”
Slightly off-topic but I saw the movie and enjoyed it. First time I’ve been in a theater since 2013! It was (unsurprisingly) very much like The Martian in its overall feeling, but the different setting made it stand on its own enough for me. It did feel a bit rushed, having so much to cover in just 2.5 hours. Still, I can’t think of better “hard” sci-fi movies than this pair.
I particularly enjoyed seeing the classic communication-with-aliens problem play out on the big screen.
I find this odd: the important thing about the situation is how the characters react to and cope with it, rather than some sort of guessing game about “what have I dreamt up now”, though a slow(ish) realisation of what is going on is part of the effect of the book.
Can you give examples of that insulting praise?
The situation described always feels to me like a metaphor for the human condition. While certainly dystopian, is it really SF? There is no science or technology involved that is not currently in use, as far as I recall, just one that is used more extensively than now.
I hope you continue to enjoy The Remains of the Day, with its tantalisingly restrained narrator. If you have read it or do so, I also wonder what you (will) think of his The Buried Giant, which divided the critics heavily, disappointing many. That is fantasy, and I found it touching and surprising.
I did say the characterization and writing are superb.
Only for non-SF fans.
No, I can’t. I don’t sit around documenting the things I read or hear in reviews, interviews, and casual chats. The book was briefly considered by our SF book group, but rejected, as a few others felt as I do.
Once upon a time, no one doubted that dystopian stories were SF. That galled literary critics and educators, because SF started gaining ground in terms of respectability in the 1960s and 70s, as fans pointed to books like 1984, Brave New World, and We. Beginning about 30 or 40 years ago the anti-SF crowd mounted a concerted effort to separate these books from SF by creating a new category of fiction—dystopian fiction—and, sad to say, they have largely succeeded in their manipulation of the language.
I am. It is an awesome book. It has convinced me to seek out some of his other works. Of course, I am overwhelmed with books I urgently want to read, even as I run out of time.
Not reading a book at the moment, but I expect to do so today or tomorrow when the postman will bring me Norbert Elias’s Civilising Process.
Read it sometime in mid eighties rather hurriedly in time pressure for some sort of examination.
Now I will reread it without any time stress.
