difference engine

Russ Allbery · 14 May 2008, 00:50 · from 2008-May.txt.gz

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From: rra at stanford.edu (Russ Allbery)
Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 17:50:25 -0700
Subject: (urth) difference engine
In-Reply-To: <821849.49873.qm at web81403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> (Stuart Hamm's
	message of "Tue\, 13 May 2008 16\:39\:36 -0700 \(PDT\)")
References: <821849.49873.qm at web81403.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <8763thk8tq.fsf at windlord.stanford.edu>

Stuart Hamm <hammstu at sbcglobal.net> writes:

> Hmm...should I go back and re-read it?

> I am a huge W Gibson fan...my 2nd CD was "Kings of Sleep",,,but I really
> didn't like DE and read a book by the co-author (Islands in the Net ??)
> and thought it was, as Roddy Doyle says.."A Gob of Shite"

I personally have not read it, but from having discussed SF quite a bit in
other places, my estimate is that about 95% of the people who have read it
didn't like it and only about 5% liked it.  So probably not.

The general consensus seems to be that it was a low point for both
authors.  I've read other things by Bruce Sterling that I quite enjoyed
(_Heavy Weather_, for example, although it's not what I'd call great
literature).

Sometimes the collaborations work and sometimes they just don't.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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