Archiving my Twitter, Facebook and other social network activity
I’m seriously impressed by the concept of the sophon. It’s one of the most overpowered pieces of impossible tech and yet it’s a simple extrapolation from string theory – and making use of known quantum effects gives it a lot of other abilities that handily explain the mysterious happenings early in the book.
#ThreeBodyProblem #SFFBookClub #amReading
I’m still reading through #ThreeBodyProblem, up to the 1980s, and another new book on my must-read list has come out. I think I’m going to skip September for #SFFBookClub, catch up on the pile a bit, then depending on what the October pick ends up being, either come back to the club selections at that point or pick up Dark Forest.
I don’t quite buy the game as a recruiting tool.
They’re supposedly all about replacing human society with the aliens’ (one way or another), but the game doesn’t tell you much about that society except that it’s persistent, can hibernate for eons, and coming for us.
It conveys key facts about their environment and biology, but doesn’t present a culture to emulate. Unless it’s in the chapters Wang misses?
#SFFBookClub #ThreeBodyProblem #AmReading #books
Or is the vagueness itself part of the appeal? Anyone dissatisfied with the world as it is can project their own ideals onto the aliens?
I love the idea of using NPCs to simulate a computer in-game. It reminds me of the working CPU models made in Minecraft with redstone, except more creative because NPCs aren’t designed for circuitry.
I also like the way the author mixes up the narrative structure, with documents, a personal statement, and of course the game interspersed with the regular narration.
#sffbookclub #books #amreading
Now that I’ve gotten through another cycle of the VR game story, it’s become more intriguing. Presumably we’re going to work through a bunch of cosmological models as it goes on.
I’m also really curious as to how the trick with the cosmic background radiation is supposed to have been managed.
And of course, is the countdown really leading to something, or is it, as Shi suggests, just a way to mess with Wang’s head?
#amreading #sffbookclub #books #scifi
Three-Body Problem ch5-7:
The mystery, the questions about the nature of fundamental laws of physics (i.e. are they actually fundamental?), and the countdown have all been fascinating.
I’m up to the introduction of the VR game that lends its name to the title, and for the first time I feel like the story is getting bogged down.
I know it’s symbolic. I figure it’s a way to get ideas across to the players without discussing them openly. But it’s still dragging.
Three-Body problem ch1-2, Silent Spring:
I find it bizarre that a book that criticized excesses of capitalism would have been characterized as counter-revolutionary, capitalist propaganda.
But of course both capitalism and communism are quite capable of environmental destruction. Rapacious state, corporation, or individual, it’s a universal human failing, like the image of an iceberg in the ocean that Wenjie imagines, independent of ideology.
#sffbookclub #environment #amreading #books
To clarify: I don’t disbelieve it. I would not at all be surprised if it had actually been portrayed this way, particularly knowing China’s environmental record.
I’m just saying it’s a weird contradiction. One more thing I have to wrap my mind around to read a story set during the cultural revolution.
My original plan was to move on straight to the sequel, which came out earlier this summer, but I’m really intrigued by The Three Body Problem, so I’m probably going to pick that up so that I’m not *too* far behind all the other #sffbookclub discussion!
@zephasaurus_hex I’ve only been following the #sffbookclub, but I’m beginning to think I may not get to The Three-Body Problem until everyone else is finished. Sparrow Hill Road is taking longer than I expected, and I want to go straight into the sequel when I’m done.
@stefanhayden @andeluuu @Mastodon We have book clubs at https://booktoot.club ! #sffbookclub, #nfbookclub, #storyclub & a few others.
@andeluuu @stefanhayden @Mastodon Just check out the hashtags to see what people are reading. There’s a master list at https://fediverse-reads.dreamwidth.org
Joining the specific instance isn’t required, since hashtag columns will federate.
@andeluuu @stefanhayden @Mastodon I mean each server will be able to see tagged posts from others, so you don’t have to move to a specific one to participate in a conversation around a hashtag.
So, I was following a link trail through Cracked.com (dangerous, if not as dangerous as TVTropes), and stumbled on this article: 6 Times Mankind Tackled Problems Like Insane Supervillains
The first item will be familiar to readers of #sffbookclub, and has links to several more serious articles with more background on the scheme that never materialized in our reality.
http://www.cracked.com/article_25079_6-times-mankind-tackled-problems-like-insane-supervillains.html
Ok, this isn’t the kind of thing I usually read (but when it comes to killer hippo westerns, that probably goes w/o saying), but it’s oddly compelling.
I do wonder just how many niches hippos fill in this world: cattle AND horses AND Bond-villain alligators? What else?