Comments | darthparadox: Books 74-76 (goal met!)

darthparadox

Books 74-76 (goal met!)

Dec 30, 2010 22:32

74. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
75. Variable Star by Robert Heinlein and Spider Robinson
76. Turing: A Novel of Computation by Christos Papadimitriou

75 was my goal. Hooray!

A Canticle for Leibowitz was technically a reread, as I first read it in my science-fiction literature class in college. But it was definitely worth coming ( Read more... )

2010, books

Comments 8

matt_doyle December 31 2010, 11:14:20 UTC

Variable Star is both one of my favorite Heinlein and one of my favorite Robinson novels -- while I like Robinson, writing a Heinlein plot covers a lot of his stylistic weaknesses (and definitely vice versa).

servalan December 31 2010, 17:54:26 UTC

I remember liking the beginning of Variable Star, but being disappointed by the ending and the sudden insertion of modern political commentary by Robinson (who I don't think shares philosophy with Heinlein).

Then again, I like my Heinlein old school. Nothing beats Double Star for me.

nightsinger December 31 2010, 21:01:10 UTC

YAY! Congrats on accomplishing your goal, beloved.

mcmartin January 2 2011, 22:40:21 UTC

If that's the same Christos Papadimitriou - and I suspect it is, since I know the one I'm thinking of also wrote a graphic novel about the life of Bertrand Russell - he was the chairman of the UC Berkeley CS department while I was an undergrad there.

Weirds me out every time his name comes up in a fiction context.

darthparadox January 4 2011, 04:18:42 UTC

Indeed; buying Logicomix was what caused Amazon to recommend Turing to me. I liked Logicomix better, though - it felt more comprehensible to me (even as covering some of the same ground).

I imagine he was a pretty good teaching professor, though? He seems to write lectures well.

pk2317 January 3 2011, 19:42:49 UTC

Huge Spider Robinson fan here, probably the most well-known work of his is the trilogy he did with his wife: Stardance, Starmind, and Starseed. For a good kind of introduction to him, I also like his collection of short stories called User Friendly. I own most of his books if you ever want to borrow any.

darthparadox January 4 2011, 04:21:47 UTC

Cool; I may take you up on that once I've pared down my reading list a bit.

What did you think of the Callahan series? Another friend of mine is a big fan...

pk2317 January 4 2011, 18:55:53 UTC

I liked them a lot as well. Not as "deep", really, or quite as thought-provoking. But definitely a very fun read, with a ton of little jokes and references to other works that you'd probably enjoy. It's also more of a short story type collection, with a bit more of a cohesive thread running throughout and an overall story arc, kinda.