io9 
Enter your username and password.
San Francisco, 9:44 PM
Tue Dec 1
29 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
Editor-in-Chief:
Annalee Newitz |
News Editor:
Charlie Jane Anders |
Associate Editor:
Meredith Woerner |
Assistant Editor:
Lauren Davis |
Weekend Editor:
Graeme McMillan |
Contributors:
Joshua Glenn
Stephen Goldmeier |
Ed Grabianowski |
Austin Grossman
Paul Hogan |
Lauren Davis |
Chris Hsiang |
Lynn Peril |
Ann VanderMeer
Alasdair Wilkins |
Graphic Designer:
Stephanie Fox |
Interns:
Tim Barribeau |
Julia Carusillo |
Alex Eichler |
Cyriaque Lamar |
Caitlin Petrakovitz |
Mary Ratliff |
Josh Snyder |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
05/06/09
04/24/09
His characters aren't relatable, mainly SF hipster cliches who come off like photocopies of the kids from "Hackers" and "Empire Records".
Doctorow's juvenile take on politics (THE MAN! HE COMES FOR YOU!) in this book is just a hoot. Apparently, the Dick Cheney's of the world have been just rubbing themselves to get a crack at beating up kids and scaring people. It's not that they're intellectually dishonest or products of a broken system or simply too scared/myopic to see that damage they're causing.
No, they're simply Cobra Commander and have all the nuance of Republic Serial villain.
As for his encouragements to get kids "making" (which they've been doing long before the BB mob decided to lay claim to the concept with their sloganeering) are tired as well. Some old man writing about xbox hacking to a generation that builds through torrents and facebook is just sad.
Now yell about how doomed the UK is and how we're all going to be spied on from inside our blood Cory. *Yawn*
04/24/09
I kept expecting the villains to say "MWA HA HA HA" or at least "Zip it!"
He's always ranting about how dooooomed the UK is -- one wonders why he doesn't just go home instead of put up with all their ebil, ebil ways? But then he'd have nothing to whine about.
04/23/09
DAMN YOU, DAMN YOU TO HELL!
04/24/09
04/24/09
04/23/09
Oh yeah, preachy as all get out, but the idea that we as private citizens have to take hold of information tech and surveillance is an important one. I'm too old and lazy to become a hacker but the teens I gave this book to are VERY INTERESTED now.
Go get 'em kids! heh heh heh...
04/23/09
2. I still can't believe THIS was nominated for a Nebula and Anathem wasn't. Tanj.
04/23/09
I think a lot of that has to do with his choice to go first-person with it. The main character, frankly, is really boring.
However! What he's doing - and how the world reacts to it - is really interesting! Unfortunately, the first-person perspective kind of kills that, too, as all the conclusions that Doctorow wants the reader to make are told to the reader flat out. It totally kills the drama.
I hereby give Cory Doctorow permission to do this book over. Cuz it's the internet and I can do that.
04/23/09
But then the adolescent and adolescent-at-heart wouldn't have loved it so much.
04/23/09
But third-person would have been better -- to see what's going on everywhere, and show what the Evil Grownups were doing (and the good grownups, too).
04/23/09
Wait, yes, he can.
04/23/09
Make them both black belts and you basically have this generation's Heinlein..
04/23/09
04/23/09
Just quietly shakes his head and walks away.
04/23/09
It was free, but I'll never get that time of my life back.
The best part is -- the hacked XBoxes were given away free by Microsoft.
Suspension of disbelief FAIL right there.
04/23/09
the last line wasn't supposed to be bold, but, hey, it works too.
04/17/09
My biggest suprise while reading came when I realized that all shatterlings are clones of one person (which does not become obvious before about 3/4 of the book) which might be hard to keep from the viewer if a movie is made. Oh well. :-)
04/17/09
04/17/09
04/17/09
04/20/09
Going Postal might be my all-time favorite, and works as a stand-alone.
04/17/09
He does Captain Carrot as kind of Welsh, though. Not sure I would've gone that way.
04/17/09
04/17/09
04/17/09
This man is a genius.
04/17/09
04/17/09
Pratchett is awesome. The discworld series is one of the best I have read, now if only Vetinari was president of the US....
04/17/09
@SF_iris: CRIVENS!
04/17/09
04/17/09
It's not inappropriate at all... I just have to wonder about the age gap.
04/17/09
04/18/09
Oh I realize you might be old enough, but the real question here is this: How old is vetinari?
04/18/09
04/16/09
So why the heck do I still like Alastair Reynolds? Well, he does have some bitchin' ideas on a cosmological scale nicely balanced with kick-ass action scenes; and although many of his characters are gruesomely unpleasant, it is on a glorious train-wreck scale that makes them difficult to ignore. Glorious bastards, every one.
Charlie hit upon something that I never realized before about Reynold's work. There is a blizzard of WTH just barely compelling enough to keep the reader going until the final chapters when he finally ties it up in a neatish little package. There's a lot to slog through, but I always find it fulfilling, unlike the work of Peter H. Hamilton (there, I said it). The ends justify the means. It is that quality that will make me pick Reynold's books up again and again.