Posted at 09:00 on November 29th, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Retired Gumby Posts: 964 | See http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2005/11/09/top_20_geek_novels_the_results.html So far, I've read only two of them (2 and 3). Not enough to consider myself a full geek. |
Posted at 16:42 on November 29th, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Admin Reborn Gumby Posts: 11097 | I read 1, 2, 4, 12 and 17. What really surprises me is that Nineteen Eighty-Four is listed as a geek novel. I'd call it anything but that... ----- Now you see the violence inherent in the system! |
Posted at 02:17 on November 30th, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Dr Gumby Posts: 267 | The real question would a real geek read a novel ----- Lets make this a beefy place |
Posted at 09:12 on November 30th, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Retired Gumby Posts: 1092 | 2, 4, 6, 12 and 16. And I have been looking for the sixt, neuromancer, which I don't find around here. Anyway, I find that label, geek, too ambigous, and those books too different for joining them in a list. |
Posted at 14:11 on November 30th, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Admin Reborn Gumby Posts: 11097 | Quote: The real question would a real geek read a novel Why not?Quote: those books too different for joining them in a list. Hmm.... most of them are either Fantasy or Science Fiction. Very geeky genres if you ask me.----- Now you see the violence inherent in the system! |
Posted at 06:31 on December 1st, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Retired Gumby Posts: 1092 | Well, Science-Fiction maybe, but fantasy usually is too ambigous, practically all the fiction is some kind of fantasy. But anyway, I have not read all of them, so they can be similar. |
Posted at 13:19 on December 1st, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Prof Gumby Posts: 607 | Haven't read any of them... but the list reminds me I should read the Hitchhiker's Guide. ----- "One Very Important Thought" |
Posted at 01:29 on December 4th, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Student Gumby Posts: 29 | I've read the Top 3 of the list. And I've seen two more as a movie, I think. |
Posted at 20:49 on December 10th, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Retired Gumby Posts: 936 | 1, 2, and 7. I have to agree on 1984. It is chilling. Quick question about 1984. I've never read any critical analysis about it or heard anything, but in the book are there really only three 'countries' or is Airstrip One just a tolitarian society warping the news? ----- Keep your stick on the ice |
Posted at 10:47 on December 11th, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Retired Gumby Posts: 1092 | All what can be said is indudable discutible as the book says few about the other countries, but I think that as they work for the same objective they are more or less joined or allied in secret. |
Posted at 05:07 on December 12th, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Admin Reborn Gumby Posts: 11097 | I can't remember exactly if there were two or three countries, but I took it as a given fact that there aren't more and that they're using Africa as a playground for their wars. It's really not the point of the book since there close to no information at all about the other countries is given, so one has to assume that it's more or less the same there. Still, no reason to doubt they're all waging war against one another. If you want to go for the conspiracy theory like Wandrell, I recommend The Penultimate Truth by P.K. Dick. At the expense of spoiling you that story, it deals with exactly this topic. Another very geeky novel ----- Now you see the violence inherent in the system! |
Posted at 15:45 on December 13th, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Student Gumby Posts: 22 | I haven't read THE DIAMOND AGE (number 18 on the list), though I expect I'll get to it eventually. I have read the rest, some this year (AMERICAN GODS), some about the time they came out (MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, DUNE, etc.) That said, it doesn't strike me as an especially "geeky" set of books. AMERICAN GODS is a riff on long ago Norse mythology. MICROSERFS is pretty much a straight comic novel about characters who happen to be early Dot-com-era programmers. Almost anything by Arthur C. Clarke would seem to be more geek-ish than John Wyndham's novels. Dick's DO ANDROIDS DREAM became a classic SF-noir film, but the original novel was pretty minor stuff -- I suspect that most people who believe they read the book have gotten it confused mentally with the film. ----- ming |
Posted at 15:26 on December 14th, 2005 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Admin Reborn Gumby Posts: 11097 | American Gods: Sorry, but I can hardly imagine anything geekier than a fantasy novel about 'gods' from all ages and all cultures walking across the earth and fighting amongst themselves. I doubt anyone but geeks is interested in such a topic. Also, the author is only known to geeks, really. Do Androids Dream of Electic Sheep: I do agree that it most likely owes its place in this list to the movie, and I also agree that other books by the same author should probably be ranked higher if it comes to the 'geek factor'. However, I certainly have read the book (got it as a present when I graduated from school - the headmaster presented it to me for being the top student of the year; totally irrelevant trivia ), and I was strongly impressed by it. It's one of the two books which I just (literally) couldn't put down once I got into it until I got to the end (the other being Watchmen). The movie is great on its own right, though it doesn't owe much more than the general setting to the book, of course. It didn't try to be like the book, as far as I can see, and that's alright with me. So, to recap it, while it's certainly sad that the book is listed for the wrong reasons (link to the movie), it absolutely deserves to be remembered. ----- Now you see the violence inherent in the system! |
Posted at 21:10 on January 23rd, 2006 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Baby Gumby Posts: 5 | I only read 1, 2, and 6. I'm also surprised 1984 is listed. |
Posted at 06:59 on January 25th, 2006 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Dr Gumby Posts: 261 | My pics: 1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams Read. 2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell Not read. It's just to often cited. This annoys me, also it's too negative... "Uhh! Mankind is so evil...". Don't want to read it. (...) Mostly heard enough about those book and their plots, I didn't wanted to read them anymore. But 19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy is just too stupid to even bother! Currently I'm reading a lot of Hermann Hesse. That was a great writer! ----- Being fat is no illness, but ideology |
Posted at 12:22 on January 25th, 2006 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Admin Reborn Gumby Posts: 11097 | I didn't read Nineteen Eighty-Four as "Uhh! Mankind is so evil...". More like "mankind is passively accepting pretty much every situation" which as far as I can tell isn't far from the truth. Illuminatus: Agreed Edited by Mr Creosote at 20:23 on January, 25th 2006 ----- Now you see the violence inherent in the system! |
Posted at 14:12 on January 25th, 2006 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Retired Gumby Posts: 1092 | The main point of 1984 is that too many things of the book aren't invented, they are based in Stalin's Russia. In the book they have to keep the TV all day on, in Russia they had to have a radio wired to a special network all day conected and turned on to receive special broadcasts. In the book the dissidents are sent to psichological prisons similar to the gulag network. In the book the mythical "great brother" is threated as a god. In Russia the "great father" Stalin was treated as a god. And so on. There is a book about the gulags called "Gulag archipielago", by Alexandr Soljenitsin, who was in one of those prisions. What he tells reminds me of 1984, even though the pessimism of the book, it is not worse than what it is based in. |
Posted at 15:07 on January 25th, 2006 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Dr Gumby Posts: 261 | Quote: Posted by Mr Creosote at 20:22 on January, 25th 2006: I didn't read Nineteen Eighty-Four as "Uhh! Mankind is so evil...". More like "mankind is passively accepting pretty much every situation" which as far as I can tell isn't far from the truth. Yes, this ability of adaptation in any environment has brought mankind onto the top of the food chain. Quote: Posted by Wandrell at 22:12 on January, 25th 2006 6: The main point of 1984 is that too many things of the book aren't invented, they are based in Stalin's Russia. (...) Yes, in Stalins USSR, but not the whole world. IMHO there will be always opposites in the world in every kind it's possible. Even by the USSR-administration that followed, stalinism was frown on. 1984 is just too one-sided and often cited, in too many discussion, by too many wannabe-intellectuals. Maybe I'm only annoyed of that. ----- Being fat is no illness, but ideology |
Posted at 15:19 on January 25th, 2006 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Member Retired Gumby Posts: 964 | Quote: ...wannabe-intellectuals... :D |
Posted at 15:56 on January 25th, 2006 | Quote | Edit | Delete | |
Admin Reborn Gumby Posts: 11097 | Talking about Stalinism, Animal Farm is a better suited example of criticism about that. One thing I especially like about Nineteen Eighty-Four is that it's pretty much 'neutral' when it comes to the political systems of the world back then, because they all degenerated into the same thing in the continuity of the book. I do understand your point, though, dregenrocks. Of course it's 'over-cited' and it's hardly the first book of its kind. In many ways, it can be called overrated. Still, it's a good read in my opinion. ----- Now you see the violence inherent in the system! |