Neuromancer read!

Already started Count Zero and also started playing Cyberpunk 2077 on PC

Overall it’s a pretty cool book and considering it was written like 50 years ago he got a lot of shit right

The beginning was rough not because the story isn’t interesting but because he starts at 100 and takes almost no time to explain the world. Also I’m not a native English speaker but I usually don’t don’t issues with reading novels in English (haven’t read one in my native language in more than a decade probably) but his writing style was super hard to follow. He jumps a lot and it was many times difficult to know who said what. Definitely had to keep myself fully focused most of the time. Overall pretty cool book. Super imaginative world

It’s all good share how much you want.

That sounds like a cool friend. Thank you for your recommendations as well :)

I see

Thanks anyway for the input

I realize now that you probably have like twice my age and I’m very much an adult. Which is pretty cool, don’t get me wrong :)

Noted

I don’t really listen to audiobooks but it’s always good to know.

Also what’s your opinion on the rest of the trilogy that neuromancer is part of? I have the second book as well as my gf bought it but she didn’t have the courage/will to actually read it after neuromancer. Just curious

And yes I’ll let you know how it goes :)

We got our own book club in this thread haha (at least what I read)

Hey!!

Contact is read!!

I really liked it. In a story about ET contact, the focus is basically almost 100% on humans but I actually liked the approach. Halfway there were some chapters where it went on some tangents and it seemed weird filler but by the end it all wrapped up rather nicely.

It was also a much easier read, having taken like 1/10 of the time Red Mars took me.

I’ll probably read Neuromancer next, even if my gf found it a hard read.

Ok I guess

But ChatGPT is way too polite for such a comment

Just because you disagree doesn’t mean I am a bot

But you are welcome to explain your logic (if any) if you are interested in actually having a civilized discussion

His audience is mostly kids yes but not all of them.

His content can and is too annoying for a lot of people and that’s fine but it’s also entertaining to a lot of other people. I’m sure that you’ve had the situation where the most famous band, sport, food etc isn’t something you like. And that’s totally ok. It turns out we kind like different things. I’d argue it’s a good thing.

Also people severely underestimate him just because they don’t like his content or for some other reason. Pretty much every big YouTuber will agree that he is extremely good and optimizing the algorithm and that’s not an easy thing. If it were everyone would be doing it and the truth is that not a lot of people get close to his success.

Some of his videos are just for shits and giggles but a lot of them in does give a ton of money to people in need. Some people dislike that he does this for his channel and don’t like him for it. However the truth is that in the end he gave more money to people in need than everyone in this comment section combined.

I mean yes but isn’t that being extremely pedantic?

Take Mr Beast or an hypothetical example. Give 1M to strangers in need, record it, upload it to YouTube make 4M on ads and other sponsors (content is still free). Pocket 2M, make second video where he gives 2M to other strangers in need. Record it, upload it to YouTube etc etc

Now I agree with you, philosophically it’s best to give without expecting or earning anything in return. But is that really the best outcome? Isn’t it actually arguably better to publicize it and with it reach and help way more people?

For me the answer is clear. I’d rather have someone record and even make money of this type of content (as long as there’s no exploitation or slimy shit) than have that same someone not do that and instead only help a fraction of the people. I’ll argue that the people being helped don’t give a crap about it, so it feels a bit patronizing to say that they shouldn’t be helped because of X or Y

This isn’t specific to Mr Beast, I don’t even know the details of the recent scandal. I just see this argument everywhere and I feel it’s very naive

At work atm so I’ll keep it succinct but definitely the giant cast of mostly uninteresting characters. The politics were actually quite ok but I usually like that sort of things.

Also sometimes he goes on these long paragraphs were he describes all the driving instructions in mars and expecting the reader to have lived on Mars for 10 years as well XD

He also gave as much emphasis to a teenager-like love drama as to a global scale terrorism operation which is, let’s say interesting

Hey!! I’m done with Red Mars

If you are still around I can add some of my thoughts.

The TL:DR is that I like it enough to read through the first one but not enough to buy/read the second and third books (at least for now).

Will probably read Contact by Sagan next.

The murderer is the one doing the burying. This is so that other people don’t accidentally uncover the body.

Or at least that’s what my friend Steve tells me. I have no clue.

Merry Christmas!!! In the end I had to choose one quickly before I went home for the holidays so I quickly read one page or so from these two and decided to go with Red Mars.

I’m now about 100 pages in and while I’m not in love with it, it is definitely intriguing. The writing style is very sober and not embellished almost at all. He does also go on quite a bit about random stuff from time to time but it’s quite clear that he put a lot of thought into so many things so I’m curious to see how it will pan out. The book is also rather long so I feel ( and in a way hope) that it will pick up a bit more and soon.

Thanks a lot for your comment!!

Yes I understand that the Weir books and Teixcalaan duology are not that similar :)

I’ll keep that one on my list once I go on another shopping spree. Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve seen all of the expanse and really like it but because I’ve seen it I’m not too keen on reading the books. Even though I’m aware that there are differences.

Regarding the ones I had, yesterday I read more and yea 3 Body Problem seems like I’ll leave it aside for now.

I’m currently debating between the Mars Series or the Cyberpunk. I guess the question is if I want hard SF like you mentioned or not. There was this Mars TV show that I watched a few years ago and I really liked it so maybe there’s that, but I watched Cyberpunk EdgeRunners on Netflix and also liked it and made me want to try the game again. So it’s a hard call.

The Mars series seems quite beefy (in terms of size/pages) while Necromancer is like half the size. Would you say however that the Mars series is an “easy read”? What about Necromancer etc? What I mean by this is that the Weir books are quite easy to go through, especially PHM which both me and my gf devoured. Not only is the story more linear (not necessarily a thing I want it’s just a reason) but it’s also more simple language? The first Teixcalaan book was very interesting but at some point I was a bit lost with all the names and hidden plots.

As you can see I also like to write testaments in comments so no need to refrain. I will take any info/feedback that you want to share :)

As someone that absolutely love the Hail Mary, as well as the Martian and literally just finished the teixcalaan duology (and quite liked it) is there anything else that you recommend? That way I don’t have to ask Bard.

What I really love about Weir’s books is that he goes quite deep into the engineering and math of his story, and as an engineer that is right up my alley. But I also enjoy good world building and politics.

In my shelf I have:

• The three body problem
• Children of time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Contact by Carl Sagan
• Neuronancer by William Gibson (and the sequel)
• Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

Since I have those I will read one of them next but if you have other recommendations outside of these let me know :)

That sounds good in theory but with layoffs you tend to at least aim to let the worst employees go. With resignations you have literally the opposite. The best people are the ones that will go and the best ones will go first as they can and will find a new job more easily.

Not saying that they don’t do it for that reason but sometimes (and I’d say most times) people are just incompetent and do stupid shit like this.