Techie, software developer, hobbyist photographer, sci-fi/fantasy and comics fan in the Los Angeles area. He/him.
Mostly reading science fiction these days, mixing in some fantasy and some non-fiction (mostly tech and science), occasionally other stuff. As far as books go, anyway. (I read more random articles than I probably should.)
Reviews are cross-posted on my website and I have a blog dedicated to Les Misérables.
Fediverse Main: @kelson@notes.kvibber.com (GoToSocial) Websites: KVibber.com and Hyperborea.org
This link opens in a pop-up window
In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future. …
Renowned author Peter S. Beagle returns to the world of The Last Unicorn in this resonant and moving two-novella collection, …
The high percentage of psychopaths, the sabre rattling against Canada, and people pondering whether their country still means anything hit even harder now.
But what he saw as important was the fact that, just as the Corporations had, he controlled the net. The news, the information programs, the puppets of the neareals, all danced to his strings. Against that, what harm could a lot of teachers do? Parents who had no schooling had children who entered the net to hear and see and feel what the Chief wanted them to know: that freedom is obedience to leaders, that virtue is violence, that manhood is domination. Against the enactment of such truths in daily life and in the heightened sensational experience of the neareals, what good were words?
Depressingly familiar, but then Le Guin was very well-versed in history and anthropology, and authoritarians often work from a common playbook.
(It's not stated explicitly, but I've gathered that "nereals" (near+real) are virtual reality experiences.)
Originally published as Four Ways to Forgiveness, but then she wrote a fifth story.
I'm finally reading this. It's been interesting to look at the chapters on space colonization, asteroid mining, robot swarms, fusion and so on where things are either still just as far away or have otherwise turned out to be more complicated (see: A City on Mars)....
...and then I got to the chapter on Augmented Reality, which they had to revise hastily just before print to account for the arrival of Pokemon Go....
...and the chapter on this cool new genetic modification technique called CRISPR...which has been making headlines with treatments that have been approved and gone into practice this past year.
Some things have been moving faster than others!
Cordwainer Smith was one pseudonym of Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, a U.S. Army officer, scholar …
I still think "cranch" sounds like an unholy combination of cranberry and ranch dressing.
Cordwainer Smith was one pseudonym of Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, a U.S. Army officer, scholar …
Not so much a thematic collection as the three stories that have both entered into the public domain and already been transcribed at Project Gutenberg. Plot and characterization are just enough to explore, or at least express, the concept.
War No. 81-Q: Short, bird's eye view of a "war" fought entirely using remote controlled drones...on a designated battlefield with a time limit, like a tournament, with spectators. So you want to settle your international disputes with violence. Why harm actual people?
Scanners Live In Vain: Very much worth reading. The main character is a "scanner," a man who has had all his senses and emotional centers surgically cut off so that he can endure the "pain of space," a neurological effect that prevents normal people from traveling across deep space except in suspended animation. Between missions, they can use a wire to literally reconnect to their humanity for short periods …
Not so much a thematic collection as the three stories that have both entered into the public domain and already been transcribed at Project Gutenberg. Plot and characterization are just enough to explore, or at least express, the concept.
War No. 81-Q: Short, bird's eye view of a "war" fought entirely using remote controlled drones...on a designated battlefield with a time limit, like a tournament, with spectators. So you want to settle your international disputes with violence. Why harm actual people?
Scanners Live In Vain: Very much worth reading. The main character is a "scanner," a man who has had all his senses and emotional centers surgically cut off so that he can endure the "pain of space," a neurological effect that prevents normal people from traveling across deep space except in suspended animation. Between missions, they can use a wire to literally reconnect to their humanity for short periods of time. He's called up for an emergency meeting while "cranched," a meeting that calls the scanners' whole purpose into question. And he's the only one there who's in a state to understand how disastrously people would react to the course of action they choose.
The Game of Rat and Dragon: Not as serious a story as "Scanners..." but fun and still thought-provoking. There's something malevolent out in interstellar space preying on our starships. Something disrupted by bright flashes of light, but only detectable by telepaths -- and it's faster than human reflexes. Fortunately, not all telepaths are human. It starts off being very coy about the "Partners," but manages to avoid "tomato surprise" territory by making the big reveal in the middle of the story, at the point where exposition gives way to plot.
Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful …
Cordwainer Smith was one pseudonym of Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, a U.S. Army officer, scholar on East Asian matters, classmate …
Dragons are common in the backwater kingdom of Bellemontagne, coming in sizes from mouselike vermin all the way up to …
