William Gibson

Immediate gratification*

Posted on January 21, 2020 by albrooke

I was wildly amused to finish re-reading The Peripheral [link] last night and go to sleep realizing that the sequel, Agency [link], would be released and on my Kindle in the morning. (Yes, I realize the irony, Mr. Gibson.)

*It actually wasn’t all that immediate, since I pre-ordered the book in the spring of 2017.

Anticipation!

Posted on February 27, 2019 by albrooke

I am re-reading one of my old favorites, Reamde, by Neal Stephenson () [amazon], because I heard the other day that Stephenson was writing a sequel. I understand perfectly well that either Cryptonomicon (1999) [amazon], or The Diamond Age (1995) [amazon], or even Snow Crash (1992) [amazon] is a cooler favorite,* and indeed I love all three of those, but as I am reading Reamde for the third time, I realize that because of the excellent dialogue and complex, multifaceted narrative, combined with Stephenson’s normal dry comedy and dizzying excursions into technical detail, this is really my favorite.

In any case, Stephenson has written a sequel of sorts Fall; or, Dodge in Hell which is coming out on June 4, 2019 [amazon]. He also has a novella, Atmosphæra Incognita which sounds like a re-telling of the Tower of Babel being released on July 31, 2019 [amazon].

In a similar vein, I just received a review copy of The River (2019) by Peter Heller [amazon], which I hope will be as entertaining as The Painter (2015) [amazon] or The Dog Stars (2013) [amazon]. I also have the newest Adam Roberts The Black Prince (2018, adaptation of a script by Anthony Burgess) [amazon] on the shelf beside my bed.

With William Gibson still on track to publish Agency (a sequel to The Peripheral) in September 2019 (though the date keeps on being moved) [amazon], I now have new work by a number of my favorites. I am still waiting on Neil Gaiman, Emily St. John Mandel, David Mitchell, and Donna Tartt.

*seveneves (2015) is also very good, while Anathem (2008), The Mongoliad (2010–2012) and The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (2017, with Nicole Galland) are also entertaining. I could never quite mesh with The Baroque Cycle (2003-2004).

Reading, 2017

Posted on January 16, 2018January 16, 2018 by albrooke

This was a full year of reading for me, 38 volumes of (more-or-less straight) fiction, another 28 science fiction novels, and 28 volumes of non-fiction. Some could slide from one category to another, I suppose (is Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology science fiction?).

Interpreterofmaladiescover I read three books by Adam Roberts (The Real-Town Murders, Bethany, Jack Glass); three by C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, The Abolition of Man, The Weight of Glory); three by Neil Gaiman (Norse Mythology, The View from the Cheap Seats, and with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens); three by Peter Heller (The Dog Stars, Hell or High Water, Celine), and four by William Gibson (The Peripheral, Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow’s Parties).

The best new finds in fiction I read this year included Peter Heller, The Dog Stars (The Last 1956 Cessna 182); Adam Roberts, The Real-Town Murders, (R!-town) and Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies (a marvelous series of short stories).

Two excellent new non-fiction offerings were Michael Lewis, The Undoing Project and Philip Allen Green, Trauma Room Two.

TraumaRoomTwo I think that Martin Luther King, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, and Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem should be required reading, but I had read neither of them before 2017 (see Jerusalem and Birmingham).

In 2018, I am hoping for some new fiction from Donna Tartt and Neil Gaiman (no novels since 2013); William Gibson, Emily St. John Mandel and Stephen Carter (no novels since 2014); and Mary Doria Russell and David Mitchell (no novels since 2015).* Indeed I have Agency, Gibson’s next, on pre-order from Amazon.

But there are lots of great books out there already.

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*David Mitchell wrote From Me Flows What You Call Time, but that won’t be published until 2116, so I need something in the interim, I think.

Unpredictable technology

Posted on August 17, 2016August 20, 2016 by albrooke

I was reading an old interview with William Gibson, one of my favorites:

[Gibson:] The strongest impacts of an emergent technology are always unanticipated. You can’t know what people are going to do until they get their hands on it and start using it on a daily basis, using it to make a buck and using it for criminal purposes and all the different things that people do. The people who invented pagers, for instance, never imagined that they would change the shape of urban drug dealing all over the world. But pagers so completely changed drug dealing that they ultimately resulted in pay phones being removed from cities as part of a strategy to prevent them from becoming illicit drug markets. We’re increasingly aware that our society is driven by these unpredictable uses we find for the products of our imagination.

David Wallace-Wells, “The Art of Fiction: No. 211,” The Paris Review (Summer 2011) [link]

Reflection on a Year’s Reading

Posted on October 25, 2015October 25, 2015 by albrooke

One nice thing about this site is that it gives me a place to keep track of the books I am reading. It has allowed me to be a little more introspective about what I read. (I seem to require a couple of books a week to maintain my sanity.) About a third of my reading is re-reading, which makes sense to me, anyhow. Wouldn’t you want to go back and visit old friends in addition to meeting new ones?*

My favorite newly-discovered author of the last year is probably Emily St. John Mandel. I read Station Eleven, then picked up Last Night in Montreal, and The Lola Quartet, and enjoyed all three. Yes, they are quirky and have some repetitive elements, but I liked Ms. Mandel’s writing and will continue to follow her.

The best new** fiction I read this year includes (in no particular order) Andy Weir, The Martian (2014), Stephen L. Carter, Back Channel (2014), Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (2014), William Gibson, The Peripheral (2014), Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (2014), David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks (2014), and Neal Stephenson, seveneves (2015). All were well-crafted and enjoyable, but I will let you look elsewhere for reviews. I usually pre-order anything by Gibson, Carter and Stevenson, and will probably add Mandel and Weir to that list.

I read two excellent new** nonfiction books: Margaret Lazarus Dean, Leaving Orbit (2015); and Jeff Smith, Mr. Smith Goes to Prison (2015). Mr. Smith was the most horrifying book I read recently,*** as it was an account of a politician who was sent to prison for a year for lying about a fairly minor campaign violation.

Eric Metaxas’ Miracles (2014) was strikingly different from C.S. Lewis’ book of the same name. Tim Keller’s Every Good Endeavor (2014) was an encouragement about the significance of work. Roger Kahn’s Rickey and Robinson (2014) was a great story about baseball and society by someone who lived through those important years when baseball was being integrated.

And how did I miss this one when it first came out: Cheryl Strayed, Wild (2012), a fascinating account of a troubled woman who walks the Pacific Crest Trail? Rick Atkinson’s The Guns at Last Light (2013) (last part of WWII in Europe) was well worth the 900-page investment.

Caveat Lector. It should go without saying that some of these will be uninteresting, unedifying, or even upsetting for some readers. What I think I can assure you is that none of these books are poorly written. Let me know if you have any thoughts about these or others on my sidebar.

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*My favorite old friend this year was probably Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow (1996), though I did love (again) the Sword of Honor Trilogy, Pattern Recognition, LoTR, and That Hideous Strength.

**Published since January 2014.

***This is saying a lot since I also read Michael Faber, Under the Skin (2000) and Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1998), two astoundingly creepy books.