difference engine

Lane Haygood · 14 May 2008, 03:30 · from 2008-May.txt.gz

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From: lhaygood at gmail.com (Lane Haygood)
Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 22:30:41 -0500
Subject: (urth) difference engine
In-Reply-To: <8763thk8tq.fsf at windlord.stanford.edu>
References: <821849.49873.qm at web81403.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<8763thk8tq.fsf at windlord.stanford.edu>
Message-ID: <0AF988B9-CEB1-4B11-88E7-C761425E7265 at gmail.com>

Sterling is a good writer; just not all the time!

I, too, liked Heavy Weather, but more for seeing my native land  
portrayed in fiction (not by Cormac McCarthy) and because it was a  
decent cyberpunk novel, but largely derivative.  His Schismatrix stuff  
is lightyears beyond the other books I've read by Sterling.

Lane

On May 13, 2008, at 7:50 PM, Russ Allbery wrote:
> 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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Best,
Lane

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