From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V3 #142 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Sunday, May 31 1998 Volume 03 : Number 142 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Alloy: Help save Robin's brain! [Paul Baily ] Re: Alloy: Help save Robin's brain! ["icehouse" Subject: Re: Alloy: Help save Robin's brain! [a little while back, Robin said:] >What are your favorite books, members of Alloy? I need something new >to read & could use some good advice. If you have any suggestions for >me, can you name the book & author as well as what it's generally about? >Thank you for helping me!!! Well, as you know, my reading tastes lean towards sci-fi with a few others thrown in there. All time fave: Ender's Game/Orson Scott Card (I know, you've read it already!) - Sci-fi, but even if you're not into this genre I think you'd enjoy it. It's a moving story that I've read too many times to count and still get a bit teary at parts. The story revolves around a gifted young boy who's a misfit, his deep love for his sister, and of the innocence of childhood stolen by a government intent on manipulating/conditioning him to destroy a race they know nothing about. You really feel like you're in Andrew's (Ender's) mind, you feel the heartbreak, you admire the spirit. Close second: Speaker for the Dead/Orson Scott Card - the second in the Ender's Game story. Revisits Ender a number of years on. Here you experience his isolation. He's known in history for committing genocide: hated and feared. No mention in that history that he was manipulated into doing what he did. So, he remains anonymous, setting down no roots, staying in no place for too long: only two people know who he is, his sister Valentine, and a beautiful ethereal entity (soulmate?) called Jane. The human race has discovered a second alien race on a lush, remote planet - very alien, in fact - a 'murder' is committed and humanity stands poised to make the same mistake again: fearing and destroying that which they do not understand. Songmaster/Orson Scott Card - Another beautiful story told with delicacy and eloquence in the class of Ender's Game. Others: Currently reading Sundivers/David Brin. It's the first in the Uplift series. "Uplift" is the term given to a race being given a leg-up by other races in respect to technology and perhaps culture. It's shaping up to be an interesting read. Also reading: The Laws of Love/Anne Larquette (? Can't remember the name with certainty, it's the same author who wrote Like Water for Chocolate) Entrancing, soothing, touching. Very good soul/heart-food. The Peace War, Marooned in Realtime/Vernor Vinge. An unusual couple of novels. The concept is a technology that allows you to encapsulate something in an impermeable sphere, called a bobble. Time stands still inside for years at a time. The first novel deals with an oppressive government using the technology to suppress. A problematic entity is simply taken out of this timeframe. The second, Marooned in Realtime, deals with what is in essence a whodunit murder mystery. Imagine if you will a community of time jumpers. People who bobble themselves and their formidable technology for decades, even centuries at a time, briefly surfacing to experience each timeframe. Now imagine that you're a part of this community. You're making your way home, only to suddenly discover everyone else has bobbled without you. You're marooned. Rama/Arthur C. Clarke - If you liked his 2001/2010/2061/3001 series (the second reason why my Mac's hard disks are named Europa, Io and Callisto), you'll like this too. After centuries of reassuring itself that it's alone, humankind is forced to realise this is not so when a colossal craft enters the solar system. A pandora's box not only in itself, but in the facets of humanity and human nature it causes to come to light. There are four novels to this series, all well worth a read. We can remember it for you wholesale/Philip K. Dick - This is a collection of short stories. Some of his best work. The title story is the one on which the movie Total Recall was based. The Damia series, the Ship Who Sang series/Anne McCaffrey - I really like this author's work! Not really sure I can articulate here why, but it seems everything I read of hers is really moving. Riven - I agree with the others, I have this for PlayStation. Team it up with a good video monitor and the best headphones you can find and you have an instant - and very therapeutic - escape to a completely different world. The sounds and imagery of Riven have to be experienced to be believed. Breathtakingly beautiful in parts, entrancing in others, but always compelling. It leaves you in awe of the attention to detail. If, as I, you lost yourself in Myst, expect to lose hours/days at a time playing this! Oh, one other book I didn't mention. The Reality Dysfunction/Peter E. Hamiltion. All 1225 pages of it. This is a big story, hard to describe; it's a story of humanity 600 years hence discovering the remnants of a highly intelligent, advanced, and flourishing race that abruptly committed suicide. They soon discover why, and that they're faced with the same decision. Paul. [who's looking forward to bawling his eyes out watching City of Angels tomorrow night with a new friend.] This message highly powered by Welcome To The Pleasuredome - Brothers in Rhythm Rollercoaster Mix off Reload!/Frankie Goes to Hollywood. ________________________________________________________________________ Paul Baily paulb@thehub.com.au JustSomeGuy http://www.thehub.com.au/~paulb Brisbane tel: +61-7-3857-8048/+61-411-875-009 Australia Moving at one million miles an hour ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 May 98 15:42:40 PDT From: "icehouse" Subject: Re: Alloy: Help save Robin's brain! Anybody want my copy of Astronauts and Heretics for 12 bucks includes postage (let me know) Thanks Gordon - ---------- > > > >What are your favorite books, members of Alloy? I need something new > >to read & could use some good advice. If you have any suggestions for > >me, can you name the book & author as well as what it's generally about? > >Thank you for helping me!!! > > > >Robin > > Well, I'd be abliged but I don't know if you would enjoy them. Not much > in to fiction, mostly studies of various sorts. > > Here's my list: > "The Vegetarian Handbook" - Gary Null - ISBN#0-312-14441-5 > I'm attempting to go all veggie, but I have a problem with cheese, ice > cream and anything pork. > > "American Diabetes Association Complete Guide to Diabetes" - > ISBN#0-945448-64-3 > Not diabetic but I've found a craving to learn anything I can about > health from a natural prospective. Don't know how natural this books > approach is but I rarely finish any book I start. I try, really I do. > > "Feng Shui - The Book of Cures" - Nancilee Wydra - ISBN#0-8092-3168-9 > The ancient Chinese art of architecture, space and all that fills it. > Fascinating reading! I believe that the Chinese (before Communism) had a > lot going for natural anything. I'm designing my new dream house around > the principles I'm learning in this book. > > "All You Can Do Is All You Can Do" - Art Williams - ISBN#0-8407-9010-4 > There is no end to what any one person can accomplish, and it helps to > get some insight from those who've been there. No one knows everything. > > Oh, and at work in my spare time, I read Microsoft Press' "Networking > Essentials" as I'm hoping some day I'll have the time to actually get > certified in what I do. It helps in getting better jobs anyway. > > ___________ > JAMac (Dennis S. Alexander) > www.dennisa.com - Nutrition/Income Opportunities > > "Etch out a future of your own design..." - Thomas Dolby > > _____________________________________________________________________ > You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. > Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com > Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 15:43:05 -0400 From: "Mary A. Brown" Subject: Alloy: Help save Robin's brain I can't help myself, everytime I look at this subject header I think I ought to be offering some DMSO and liquid nitrogen or a large jar of formaldehyde... But since you specifically asked me, Robin, here goes. The book that I couldn't put down and which I gave to all my close friends (who then proceeded to lend it to other friends) is _She's Come Undone_ by Wally Lamb. I fell in love with it long before Oprah made it part of her reading list but was overjoyed to see her recommend it so Mr. Lamb could get more money and recognition. It's basically the story of an overweight girl growing up in the Northeast who has major emotional problems, not surprisingly, considering her whacked-out family. I kept looking at the cover, making sure it was really written by a man because his descriptions of the thoughts and feelings of the girl as she grows up and gets help are just dead on. The book is really funny and certainly true to life in some respects. It surprised me that so many of us who read the book identified with Delores, especially that my friend from Thailand saw herself in it too. One of my male friends (who is quite in touch with his feminine side) also ended up reading it in about 2 days because he just *had* to finish it. So that speaks for the universality of the story. Wally Lamb lives in the small town I lived in during the last few months of grad school. If you knew what that place was like (a faded mill town with high unemployment), you'd also marvel that such an engaging piece of writing came from there. I agree with Lissu about _Smilla's Sense of Snow_. I've never read anything like it. I enjoyed being taken away to a real place that is so unlike anything I know. I kept imagining Smilla to look like Bjork's older sister though I know Bjork is from Iceland, not Greenland. The other book that I keep buying for people is _The Natural History of the Senses_ by Diane Ackerman. Diane writes so fluidly and vividly that you don't realize you're learning about science. I enjoyed the chapters on smell and touch best and I'm not sure if it's because those are my favorite senses or if they were written more engagingly (I suspect the latter since my PhD advisor agreed with me). More science-oriented readings: Anything by Lewis Thomas. All collections of his short stories are excellent but I think my favorites are _Medusa and the Snail_ and _The Youngest Science_. He writes with a childlike wonder and gentleness about the world around us. I much prefer him to Stephen Jay Gould who seems to be more popular. Most things by Oliver Sacks. If you saw the movie "Awakenings", then you might want to start with that book. My frustration with him is that he is compulsive about details so nearly every page has footnotes which sometimes take up more than half the space. I can appreciate his desire for completeness (and I am equally compulsive because I found it impossible not to read the footnotes!) but it really breaks up the flow of his writing which is quite lyrical. _An Anthropologist on Mars_, one of his more recent books, has less of this annoyance, if I remember correctly. I don't remember the author, but the book, _The Man Who Tasted Shapes_ is also an intriguing treatment of folks with synesthesia (the condition in which one sense spills over into another, e.g. one man described that there weren't enough "points in the sauce"). I'll warn you though, if you're anything like me, you'll feel cheated that you don't have the same ability! And in keeping with your recent interest in nose art, well, sort of, there's _The Cannibal Queen_ by Stephen Koonts. It's a description of travels across the US in a lovely yellow Stearman, complete with a scantily-clad, man-eating woman painted on the nose (okay, so I'm a sucker for biplanes, especially when they're my favorite color!). It's rather touching to read the chapters where the author travels with his adolescent son. I lent this book to my ex-boyfriend (the first of 3, count 'em 3, pilots I've dated!) after he lent me _Fate Is The Hunter_ but I have to say, "Fate" is the much better book. I also highly recommend _Tracks_ by Robyn Davidson (I think that's her last name - damn that most of my books are in storage!). Anyway, it's the travelogue of a woman who decides to take camels on a trek across the deserts of Australia. A quick read but very enjoyable. You really come away with a lot of admiration for the strength and determination of the author. And lastly, just for the sense of history and weirdness of it, there's _Trilby_ by George Du Maurier. That's the source of the term "Svengali". It's not a fantastic book but it's an interesting look at the late 1800's and the attitudes about women and psychology. Oh dear, I didn't mean to prattle on so much. Please forgive! Europa ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V3 #142 ***************************