The Book Thread - fiction, nonfiction, reference, etc

nnodley · Apr 29, 2025, 09:22 PM

heh. I'm onto Cibola Burn(book 4 of Expanse). They are really good books, and the show surprisingly adapted it pretty well with some decent changes here and there. Now that I'm fresh into the books I wanna go back to the show to see the greater differences.

One thing I wish was that we got more Avasarala in the books. She was a main viewpoint in book 2, but she's barely been in the books since. She was one of my favorites in the show.

the-pi-guy · Apr 29, 2025, 09:27 PM

Quote from: Legend on Apr 29, 2025, 08:48 PMI guess this is just my book thread

About to start Blindsight by Peter Watts. Lots of people have hyped this book up as some next level hard sci fi, so hopefully it is.

All I know is alien invasion story.

I wish I had more opportunities to read.

And energy mostly.

Legend · Apr 29, 2025, 09:44 PM

I don't think Blindsight is hard sci fi. Maybe it's a metaphor, but one of the guys is a vampire...

Quote from: nnodley on Apr 29, 2025, 09:22 PMheh. I'm onto Cibola Burn(book 4 of Expanse). They are really good books, and the show surprisingly adapted it pretty well with some decent changes here and there. Now that I'm fresh into the books I wanna go back to the show to see the greater differences.

One thing I wish was that we got more Avasarala in the books. She was a main viewpoint in book 2, but she's barely been in the books since. She was one of my favorites in the show.

Interesting that the show expanded her so much. Normally I'd think of shows and movies condencing things.

Quote from: the-Pi-guy on Apr 29, 2025, 09:27 PMI wish I had more opportunities to read.

And energy mostly.

Just give up video games

the-pi-guy · Apr 29, 2025, 10:01 PM

Quote from: Legend on Apr 29, 2025, 09:44 PMI

Just give up video games

I pretty much already have

nnodley · Apr 29, 2025, 11:18 PM

Yeah they gave her much more early on in the show. She's not even in book 1 but is in season 1 from the start. But they did take elements from the first 3 books and blended them into the first few seasons

Legend · Apr 29, 2025, 11:23 PM

Quote from: the-Pi-guy on Apr 29, 2025, 10:01 PMI pretty much already have

oh

Legend · Apr 30, 2025, 03:17 AM

Update on the vampires. The book does seem to be hard sci fi, just a bit loose.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Overall, very interesting book. I'm ~70 pages in. Very dense which is cool. I will absolutely love if this density stays even for the alien stuff. Also I think I found a typo. Chelsea was Chelse a few pages back. Also some of the science seems questionable, and one quantum particle thing seems clearly wrong. Could have easily been a figure of speech though.

The writing style is what I'd describe as purposefully obtuse. At least in this early part, it's like a puzzle figuring out what the situation is when a chapter/section starts. "Oh I just returned from the gates of Heaven and mourned a father who was dead, even though his mind didn't know it" like what!? Makes complete sense once you read a bit more.

nnodley · Apr 30, 2025, 03:46 AM

May have to give blindsight a go at some point. I have a huge backlog of books that I need to work my way through after the expanse

nnodley · Apr 30, 2025, 02:10 PM

@Legend do you know much about copyrights for novel titles? As far as I can tell novel titles aren't copyrighted in the US. I have a name that I really like for mine that I'm writing, but I found there is one other book out that has it. It's not any book that is huge, but I always like to try to have a name that's fairly unique.

Currently my title is very fitting for my book so I'm probably gonna keep it unless a better name comes into my head.

Legend · Apr 30, 2025, 02:33 PM

Quote from: nnodley on Apr 30, 2025, 02:10 PM@Legend do you know much about copyrights for novel titles? As far as I can tell novel titles aren't copyrighted in the US. I have a name that I really like for mine that I'm writing, but I found there is one other book out that has it. It's not any book that is huge, but I always like to try to have a name that's fairly unique.

Currently my title is very fitting for my book so I'm probably gonna keep it unless a better name comes into my head.

You need to check for a trademark. Titles in general are too short for copyright.

Copyright protects the art itself, trademark protects the branding.

nnodley · Apr 30, 2025, 03:17 PM

Quote from: Legend on Apr 30, 2025, 02:33 PMYou need to check for a trademark. Titles in general are too short for copyright.

Copyright protects the art itself, trademark protects the branding.

yeah, not seeing anything trademarked for it.

the-pi-guy · Apr 30, 2025, 07:13 PM

Quote from: Legend on Apr 29, 2025, 11:23 PMoh

The movie and TV show life is so much more exciting, I got multiple big releases coming up every month for the next few months.

(I've been trying to come up with some better ways to game and read, but I haven't had any big shifts with life yet.)

Legend · May 01, 2025, 09:27 PM

Really cool going from Rendezvous with Rama to Blindsight.

I'm a bit over half way through it. In many ways the books are identical, yet in many other ways they are worlds apart.

Liking it a lot.

Legend · May 02, 2025, 08:03 AM

Finished Blindsight. Great book, 10/10 even though it's loose hard sci fi.

Might be my number one now, above the Orthogonal trilogy. Will have to think about it. Both are very different.

the-pi-guy · May 09, 2025, 06:25 PM

I got my first two books in like the first time in a couple years I think.

They're these Japanese learner books.

A bunch of short stories with English translations and vocabulary lists.

They're simple 3-10 page stories that a kid could read.

One of them gave me a bit of a chuckle, there's a bit of drama for like two pages - where a woman is telling a man to not talk so loudly in the field, because he's asking about a seed. He's like oh it must be a rare seed, and then it ends with "oh I just didn't want the birds to hear talk about the seeds."