Books: SciFi & Fantasy

[thinking]

“ Neal's mathematics are interesting ”

It's not his mathematics. He's just using and passing on existing concepts.

its what I thought , some how

if thats true , then it puzzles me why nobody seems to be aware of these mathematical concepts

hence cesspool

 

[Dywyddyr]

its what I thought , some how
if thats true , then it puzzles me why nobody seems to be aware of these mathematical concepts
hence cesspol

There's a difference between "not being aware" and "there being something to reply to".
You could have Googled for at least some background and then asked pertinent questions.
You didn't even bother acknowledging Capt. Bork's post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_(physics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_action

IIRC Feynman was something of a wizard with action principles, using that method in preference to others at times.

 

[thinking]

There's a difference between "not being aware" and "there being something to reply to".
You could have Googled for at least some background and then asked pertinent questions.
You didn't even bother acknowledging Capt. Bork's post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_(physics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_action

IIRC Feynman was something of a wizard with action principles, using that method in preference to others at times.

I didn't ackowledge anybody's response , I was too busy explaining what Neal was trying to get at

it took awhile

 

[thinking]

There's a difference between "not being aware" and "there being something to reply to".
You could have Googled for at least some background and then asked pertinent questions.
You didn't even bother acknowledging Capt. Bork's post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_(physics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_action

IIRC Feynman was something of a wizard with action principles, using that method in preference to others at times.

yet as brilliant as Feynman was and he was , is he now out dated in his thinking ?

 

[thinking]

look again in Neal's book

how to get 8 pieces from 4

if you have a square 2 by 2

by adding an extra row , vertically and horizontally you get 9 , 3 by 3

the only way to get 8 is by dividing the square , ( 2 by 2 ) diagionally

 

[Dywyddyr]

yet as brilliant as Feynman was and he was , is he now out dated in his thinking ?

Er, no.
Action principles is another way of looking at things.
Not a different method of thinking.

look again in Neal's book
how to get 8 pieces from 4
if you have a square 2 by 2
by adding an extra row , vertically and horizontally you get 9 , 3 by 3
the only way to get 8 is by dividing the square , ( 2 by 2 ) diagionally

And?
Nothing to to do with action principles.
It's about cutting squares only.

 

[krokah]

Hey, just found this thread...
Lincoln Childs and Douglas Preston: "Relic" and "Thunderhead", then just Childs's "Terminal Freeze". Also, Dean Koontz's "Watchers" and "Phantoms" are great reads. Of course Asimove, Bradbury, Stephenson, Wells, and many others...

 

[Shogun]

Ender's Game series is pretty decent. We had to read it for novel study and this is one of the few novel study books I enjoyed.

 

[Escaped Goat]

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It started semi-slowly but ended up being one of my favorite fantasy reads ever. It was typical fantasy but still great.

Also, the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin is obviously wonderful.

 

[synthesizer-patel]

a science Fiction writer who probably hasnt quite managed to cross the atlantic yet is a scottish guy called Ken MacLeod.
For those who know their SF but havent heard of him yet, he's one of Iain M Banks' best friends - in fact it was IMB who persuaded him to become a writer because he liked his ideas so much.

High praise indeed.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...pe=ss&index=books-uk&field-author=Ken MacLeod

I can definitely recommend the Fall Revolution series, The Execution Channel, and The Night Sessions - I havent read any of the Engines of Light, and Newton's Wake is a bit shit

I also just finished Halting State by Charles Stross and it is by a very long way the best bit of near future speculative fiction I've read in a very long time.

It was called in as a robbery at Hayek Associates, an online game company. So you can imagine Sergeant Sue Smith's mood as she watches the video footage of the heist being carried out by a band of orcs and a dragon, and realises that the robbery from an online game company is actually a robbery from an online game. Just wonderful. Like she has nothing better to do. But online entertainment is big business, and when the bodies of real people start to show up, it's clear that this is anything but a game. For Sue, computer coding expert Jack Reed, and forensic accountant Elaine Barnaby, the walls between the actual and the virtual are about to come crashing down. There is something very dangerous and very real going on at Hayek Associates, and those involved are playing for keeps. No cheats, no back doors, no extra lives - make a wrong call on this one and it's game over.

Nerdgasm or what? lol!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Halting-Sta...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262128418&sr=1-1

 

[glaucon]

a science Fiction writer who probably hasnt quite managed to cross the atlantic yet is a scottish guy called Ken MacLeod.

Nice recommendation.
I actually found him via Charles Stross' blog...

For those who know their SF but havent heard of him yet, he's one of Iain M Banks' best friends - in fact it was IMB who persuaded him to become a writer because he liked his ideas so much.

Banks is a genius.

I also just finished Halting State by Charles Stross and it is by a very long way the best bit of near future speculative fiction I've read in a very long time.

If you like that, you've barely scratched the surface of Stross.
Halting State is easily one of his 'softest' SF books.

Start with Iron Sunrise. Besides Banks, Stross is my favourite contemporary SF writer.

 

[synthesizer-patel]

Nice recommendation.
I actually found him via Charles Stross' blog...

Yeah - I think him and Stross are good buddies too - a little scottish cabal of great SF writers

have you read any Macleod yet?

The Fall Revolution series is very good - and can be read in more or less any order if you want - or pretty much as standalones which is a very nice touch and shows how nicely written they are - I started with the second book The Stone Canal, which is probably the best in the series, and in many ways does a better job or introducing the important recurring characters and themes in the series, so its interchangeable with the first book in some respects.

If you like that, you've barely scratched the surface of Stross.
Halting State is easily one of his 'softest' SF books.

Start with Iron Sunrise. Besides Banks, Stross is my favourite contemporary SF writer.

thanks - I'll give it a look - but I'm not really a huge fan of Hard Sci Fi just for the sake of it - I'm interested in ideas.
Halting state came from Stross reading about a divorce case where the two parties divided up their virtual possessions gained from online gaming together ( I think that was how they originally met) as part of the settlement.
He just made a very neat extrapolation of the idea that "virtual" assets are fast becoming interchangeable with their real-world contemporaries and ran like hell with it.

McLeod's recent books The Execution Channel and The Night Sessions do similar things albeit with different things that are going on right now - namely, the war on terror, the emergent power of blogging, and the culture wars

 

[glaucon]

Yeah - I think him and Stross are good buddies too - a little scottish cabal of great SF writers

Seems to be.

have you read any Macleod yet?

Not yet, though planning on it.
I'm currently finishing of the Stross collection "Toast", as well as Banks' "Matter".

The Fall Revolution series is very good - and can be read in more or less any order if you want - or pretty much as standalones which is a very nice touch and shows how nicely written they are - I started with the second book The Stone Canal, which is probably the best in the series, and in many ways does a better job or introducing the important recurring characters and themes in the series, so its interchangeable with the first book in some respects.

Nice.
ta

thanks - I'll give it a look - but I'm not really a huge fan of Hard Sci Fi just for the sake of it - I'm interested in ideas.

I'm definitely a fan of 'idea' writing myself, though, happily, Stross does tend to go towards the 'hard' SF as opposed to fluffy space opera.
Nonetheless, he's a heavy 'idea' guy... so it's always a good read. He doesn't get bogged down in the 'hard' details [like Reynolds... IMO], so the concepts flow nicely.

 

[Celt]

...

 

[Celt]

Vacuum Diagrams is a novel about the human race as a whole. It looks at humanities future, right up until the last star in the universe has long burned out (you will see why if you read the book ). Not only does it deal with many interesting technologies

If you like this book, you will more than likely enjoy Terraforming Earth by Jack Williamson. It is a little disturbing, and has more to do with the human condition than terraforming.....

 

[glaucon]

Also, the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin is obviously wonderful.

I agree.
Ever since Donaldson's Covenant Chronicles series, given how brilliant it was, I had pretty much given up on fantasy.
I was happily surprised at how good Martin's stories are.
Sadly, we've been waiting for the next book, A Dance with Dragons for 5 years now. I know it's difficult work but come on....

 

[ricrery]

No one has brought up the Horus Heresy series, shame on you bad people!

 

[glaucon]

No one has brought up the Horus Heresy series, shame on you bad people!

??

Never heard of it..

 

[Dywyddyr]

Ever since Donaldson's Covenant Chronicles series, given how brilliant it was, I had pretty much given up on fantasy.

I'm still waiting for the final volume of that. Not due out in hardback (and I generally buy paperbacks - less shelf space taken up, not to mention cover price) until October this year.
Edit: oh hell! It's apparently the last two volumes - The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a quadrilogy... October 2010 and sometime in 2013. I hope I live long enough.

No one has brought up the Horus Heresy series, shame on you bad people!

Aaargh!!
Not Evil Empire Warty Thou potboilers...

 

[ricrery]

Well, it's a good read.