March: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse #1) by Dennis Taylor
Discuss The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein in the comments below.
Fiasco was translated into English in 1988 by Michael Kandel:
Fiasco (Polish: Fiasko) is a science fiction novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem, first published in a German translation in 1986. The book, published in Poland the following year, is a further elaboration of Lem's skepticism: in Lem's opinion, the difficulty in communication with alien civilizations is cultural disparity rather than spatial distance. The failure to communicate with an alien civilization is the main theme of the book.
Previously: Announcement post • Mars, Ho! • Foundation • The Three-Body Problem • Snow Crash
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday February 13 2019, @07:40AM (3 children)
I've read the book several times but wasn't able to get through it this time either in paper form or as an audio book. The characters were mostly quite engaging but I realize I must have skimmed or ignored the pontification the first times through. It was too much this time and I had to stop. However, what really put me off more than the politics was the emphasis on scams and grifts. On the one hand, he blathers about everyone pulling their own weight yet the main characters all had scams and ripoffs going, and not just on the side. Parasites, the lot of them.
What made the book worth reading the first times was the exploration of the computer's development of a personality. AI can't and won't work like that but, hey, this is fiction so let it be an embryonic human psyche.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @08:14AM
Could that be a type of sarcasm? Pontificating over something then blatantly keep rubbing it in that life just does not work that way?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @09:12AM
So, the Trump Administration, only on the Moon? Where are they going to build the Wall? Mikeal Jacksonovich and the Moon Wall?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by HiThere on Wednesday February 13 2019, @05:21PM
Yes, but that makes it "Science Fantasy" rather than "Science Fiction". I'll agree that most stuff labeled "science fiction" that shouldn't just be labeled "space opera" is science fantasy, but there are degrees and degrees. Campbell never lived up to his own definition/requirement that a science fiction story should have only one violation of currently believed correct science, but some things come closer than others. (OTOH, neither Politics nor Sociology currently a science, so I can't claim the social structure as a violation. It's just implausible.)
As for the political polemics...Heinlein was always full of them. Always. Before he got to be a big name editors often cut many of them out, but read "Beyond this Horizon" or "Farnham's Freehold" or ... (OK, there were a few exceptions...but I think they were all short stories.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.