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What Cardiac did is fine. Read the thread before mousing over spoilers that crop up around the time of a book's release, when people know there are a bunch of ARCs out there.
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Jul 11, 2014 11:34
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Yeah once the physical copy is out in the wild, all bets are off and I don't see any problem since he labeled the spoilers. 'Course with this series, I can't say that seeing those spoilers has really ruined anything for me!
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Jul 11, 2014 17:14
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Srice posted:'Course with this series, I can't say that seeing those spoilers has really ruined anything for me! Don't know about anyone else, but I half expect the whole thing to end with, "and the whole thing was someone's very complicated Simcity 2000 save after all."
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Jul 11, 2014 23:59
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I don't know what god drat time zone you live in kindle, but it is 1:00am. Give me my loving book.
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Jul 15, 2014 06:00
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Benson Cunningham posted:I don't know what god drat time zone you live in kindle, but it is 1:00am. Give me my loving book. I am in Australia and have to wait two days, so gently caress you and be patient you ungrateful poo poo.
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Jul 15, 2014 06:34
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My copy will be delivered to me tonight. I almost declined on going to a movie so I could just read all night. 
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Jul 15, 2014 15:08
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Neurosis posted:I am in Australia and have to wait two days, so gently caress you and be patient you ungrateful poo poo. I fell asleep reading it. 
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Jul 15, 2014 15:45
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And I'm done. It's pretty good. It missed a few beats I thought it would hit, but I can't complain. The first half is a little formulaic. There was one thing at the end I didn't quite understand. spoilers When Jean and the All-D go at it again, does he create branching vir's containing All-D created simulations of himself, each one intent on breaking out of it's own vir to assist him in his vir? So he uses the All-D's scenario running to give himself billions of possibilities to save himself?
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Jul 16, 2014 06:12
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Benson Cunningham posted:
I'm pretty sure this part is true, but not quite for the same reason? The All-Defector um, all-defects by running a simulation of his opponent to see how to beat them. Jean forces him to run so many sims at such deep detail that the sim-jeans start breaking free, i think? On the whole, i liked it a lot, so instead of gushing praise i'm just going to complain about what bugged me. Very spoilers: Was it particularly necessary to fridge all of Mars? It's nice that Mieli gets a happy ending, but boy she sure dropped her lifelong quest in a hurry. The Aun don't really get explained, and they keep getting brought up without actually being made relevant. Deus ex machina - or rather, ex quanta - rings a bit cheap. Still, the parts i liked outweighed the things i didn't, and if nothing else it completes the Oubliette-Sobornost-Zoku tour of the two main powers and their buffer state which is fascinating in its own right.
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Jul 17, 2014 04:52
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I agree with a lot of your criticism. Overall, he did a good job wrapping up the series before the setting became stale. To do so, he cut some narrative corners with character goals and macguffins. Nothing too egregious, but enough to take notice. This is definitely a trilogy I won't mind rereading in a few years.
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Jul 17, 2014 06:07
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What do you see when you look up a Founder's nose? Sobornostril. I loved it, frankly. Some great lines in there. And the nod to The Laundry Files made me chuckle.
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Jul 17, 2014 08:09
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I'm in the same boat; I loved the book but picking a couple complaints is a lot easier than pointing to all the things I loved. I was a bit disappointed the remaining Founders never got fleshed out. I was rather looking forward to more Sobornost politics; Chitragupta in particular, I thought he'd be playing a role what with the deliberately cryptic way everyone talked about him. I was impressed with how well he handled the All-Defector, though. I was always sort of on the fence about him, but he wound up believable and scary and fit into the conflict perfectly. It was fun seeing more zoku life, except the video game stuff remains really tiresome. Tonally it's really jarring to have "Epic Fail" tossed into such nice prose, and combined with all the it also really contributes to this feeling I occasionally got that their culture froze in 2014. quote:Was it particularly necessary to fridge all of Mars? I don't know; I thought this part was rather beautifully written.
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Jul 17, 2014 15:31
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McNerd posted:I don't know; I thought this part was rather beautifully written. I agree. It was very much a "no victory without consequence" moment. And given the magnitude of the revelation involved, it's hard to see the Great Game not killing Mars to keep it secret.
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Jul 17, 2014 21:18
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I'm about a third of the way through. I did not expect a shout out to loving Everquest, of all things, in here. In addition to the Laundry and Watchmen...
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Jul 18, 2014 04:15
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Finished the book for the first time last night. Enjoyed it very much. Was hoping for more Sobornost rather than Zoku development like a previous poster said, but that's a minor complaint. Dig anyone else notice misspellings, imperfect word usage or word omitting in their copy? When I read through it again I'll have more examples, like in page 174, "transport bubble drift drown from it." These surprised me as there were no errors I saw in either of the previous two books.
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Jul 18, 2014 14:08
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Johnny Truant posted:Dig anyone else notice misspellings, imperfect word usage or word omitting in their copy? When I read through it again I'll have more examples, like in page 174, "transport bubble drift drown from it." I noticed a few errors here and there: "of" instead of "off", some seemingly-missing words, etc. Definitely feels like it didn't get as much editorial oversight as the earlier books, from a quality control standpoint. An enjoyable conclusion to the series. While it was fun to see a bit more of the Zoku (and I don't really mind their jargon -- inventing future-gamer-jargon is not something I've ever seen done very well), it would have been nice to get a bit more insight into some of the other Founders. On the other hand, at some point it's nice to wrap things up rather than open more new plot lines... So much good stuff, really. How can one not love things like: "We received a communication from him. He claims that in precisely fifty-seven minutes, he is going to steal a ring of Saturn." and [H]e is being an insufferable brat. "Matjek Chen!" I say firmly. "You stop playing with that doomsday weapon right now and listen to me!" He blinks, astonished, and suddenly I’m sure that no one has ever used that tone with him before. and poor Matjek feeling betrayed by the end of the Narnia series. We've all been there, I think. ^^
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Jul 18, 2014 14:44
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The video game lingo was really annoying. Supra City was the least well characterized of the three primary settings (four i guess if you count Oort) too. The book was entertaining but overall pretty weak compared to the other two IMO.
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Jul 18, 2014 23:50
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Ceebees posted:
My personal theory is that the All-Defector is, rather than a self-generated glitch, basically an instantiation of the Flower Prince fed through the Dilemma Prison until it forgot its origins. Josephine doesn't really know poo poo about the Aun, so she couldn't really finish the reasoning. Matjek Chen's hubris really does ruin everything. The video game lingo has basically been involved since literally Pixil's first appearance, and is pretty closely tied into the conceit of how the zokus came about. I didn't really mind it. I think Supra City's big weakness is just that there are so many zokus that it was tougher to cover things in any meaningfully cohesive fashion.
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Jul 20, 2014 02:30
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Just finished it, and I don't have a drat clue what happened to anyone who wasn't Mieli.
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Jul 20, 2014 05:34
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GreyjoyBastard posted:My personal theory is that the All-Defector is, rather than a self-generated glitch, basically an instantiation of the Flower Prince fed through the Dilemma Prison until it forgot its origins. I don't think that goes along with how Jean beats All-D in the end though, cause All-D runs an infinite number of prisoner's dilemma simulations in order to determine what you'll do and exactly when you'll do it. I think, at least. As to the gamer lingo, it was a little more noticeable in TCA I feel cause the book was just so zoku heavy. In the first two it was only present for an instant compared to TCA.
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Jul 20, 2014 15:04
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I just finished the book. Wow, that was great. The ending seemed in some ways a little abrupt, but I have enjoyed this series so much I don't really mind. Seeing more of the Zoku was interesting. I wonder what Rajaniemi will do next. And to echo what others have said, this book needs more editing. Lots of examples of omitted words, hyphens where they shouldn't be, a couple of misspellings. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Jul 20, 2014 |
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Jul 20, 2014 17:00
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I loved the finale. I didn't notice any major typos but at the rate I was tearing through it I'm not surprised.
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Jul 20, 2014 21:35
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Was the Jean who got released from the Prison at the end Prime Jean or just one of many? Not that it really matters I guess. I'm kind of confused as to why he sent himself to prison so he could possibly use the Kaminari Jewel to free himself from the prison he sent himself to.
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Jul 21, 2014 07:31
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Lyon posted:Was the Jean who got released from the Prison at the end Prime Jean or just one of many? Not that it really matters I guess. I'm kind of confused as to why he sent himself to prison so he could possibly use the Kaminari Jewel to free himself from the prison he sent himself to. The purpose behind sending himself to the Prison wasn't to use the jewel to free himself, it was to gently caress with reality in some fashion, and he needed to develop the attributes the jewel wanted. I didn't quite understand and thought the Jean partial's goals were a little nebulous, but a more astute reader might be able to offer some suggestions. We don't really know anything about the Jean that gets released at the end; is he arsehole Jean who initially went in or a more tempered Jean like the one we spend most of the series with? Who knows.
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Jul 21, 2014 08:04
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Neurosis posted:The purpose behind sending himself to the Prison wasn't to use the jewel to free himself, it was to gently caress with reality in some fashion, and he needed to develop the attributes the jewel wanted. I didn't quite understand and thought the Jean partial's goals were a little nebulous, but a more astute reader might be able to offer some suggestions. Hmm, thinking about it more now... I think it may have been Prime Jean who was freed. Prime Jean had to go into the prison to (or at least that was how I read it) so that one of his iterations could become something the Kaminari jewel would respond to. Prime Jean wanted main character Jean to fire off the Kaminari jewel to create their wish or whatever but also set it up so that the firing of the jewel would free him from the Prison? That way original Jean could then make use of whatever the Kaminari Jewel main character Jean had had it create. After all, Zinda asks Mieli if she thinks the Sobornost will follow them so it is possible and Prime Jean could theoretically have followed main character Jean into whatever he had created. It is 3 AM and I'm rambling so that might not make any sense.
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Jul 21, 2014 08:26
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Johnny Truant posted:I don't think that goes along with how Jean beats All-D in the end though, cause All-D runs an infinite number of prisoner's dilemma simulations in order to determine what you'll do and exactly when you'll do it. The two aren't inconsistent, to my mind. It's a natural tool to utilize as a trickster in a simulated environment.
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Jul 21, 2014 09:21
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andrew smash posted:The video game lingo was really annoying. Supra City was the least well characterized of the three primary settings (four i guess if you count Oort) too. The book was entertaining but overall pretty weak compared to the other two IMO. This is my major gripe. Here is my review from Amazon, bit rushed but w/e: I was wondering how Rajaniemi was going to pull this one off. I think he managed it, but only just, and this is something he seems to acknowledge after the books ending by thanking fans for sticking with him. The book flits from location to location in virtual space far more than I would have wanted it to. In the first book we get to spend time really getting to grips with the Oubliette on Mars, and in the second the city of Sirr on Earth. I was hoping for the same treatment with Supra City on Saturn, but it doesn't really feel like Rajaniemi gave the location enough time to develop and impose itself on the reader in the same way that Sirr and the Oubliette did thanks to the constant switching between characters and locations in the 'spimescape', 'virrs' and various other digital locations. The important questions are answered, but while Rajaniemi managed to avoid infodumps in the past it does feel like he's had to resort to using them for some of the really big answers that have been building up over the series, and it would have been nice to have seen these resolved more gradually throughout the book. All in all I did really like it but I couldn't help but feel that Rajaniemi was trying desperately to do the fans of this series a service by wrapping up rather than weaving a more focused story, which could have been a lot less 'flitty' and a lot more grounded in a new location like Supra City.
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Jul 21, 2014 22:25
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Ceebees posted:The All-Defector um, all-defects by running a simulation of his opponent to see how to beat them. Jean forces him to run so many sims at such deep detail that the sim-jeans start breaking free, i think?
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Jul 21, 2014 23:43
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BastardySkull posted:The important questions are answered, but while Rajaniemi managed to avoid infodumps in the past it does feel like he's had to resort to using them for some of the really big answers that have been building up over the series, and it would have been nice to have seen these resolved more gradually throughout the book. I agree completely. I felt like a whole couple of chapters of TCA were just infodumps. Especially at the beginning where he has Jean paraphrase what previously happened to him? Completely unnecessary.
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Jul 22, 2014 01:43
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Ani posted:Is this what happens? I thought it was either (i) Jean made the All-Defector use so much computing power that it was unable to keep Jean restrained or (ii) Jean dug into his memory and found some action he could take that the All-Defector couldn't model because it didn't have full knowledge of Jean. I'm still confused though. I agree with Ceebees' interpretation. Computational power could never be an issue given the hardware environment they were running on. I also had the impression All-Defector would have had full knowledge of Jean by copying his gogol.
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Jul 22, 2014 03:49
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Reading through TCA for my second time, and I couldn't find the definition of deep Dyson sleep, from page 95, where the Joséphine who's trapped is sharing some of her Prime memories. When I googled it I just got... dyson vacuums for the most part.
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Jul 23, 2014 23:53
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TCA audio version has a new narrator. He pronounced words differently. This is terrible.
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Jul 24, 2014 18:23
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Johnny Truant posted:Reading through TCA for my second time, and I couldn't find the definition of deep Dyson sleep, from page 95, where the Josephine who's trapped is sharing some of her Prime memories. When I googled it I just got... dyson vacuums for the most part. Since the next line after 'sleep' is 'wake to see the Andromeda Galaxy fill the sky', i just assumed that they wanted to take their guberniya matrioshkas (or possibly upgrade to a full dyson sphere to make really sure it lasts) and hibernate out the three-and-three-quarter billion years until the expected galactic collision. So, to my mind it's more of the vehicle in which they intended to slumber than the nature of the nap itself?
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Jul 25, 2014 01:10
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Ceebees posted:Since the next line after 'sleep' is 'wake to see the Andromeda Galaxy fill the sky', i just assumed that they wanted to take their guberniya matrioshkas (or possibly upgrade to a full dyson sphere to make really sure it lasts) and hibernate out the three-and-three-quarter billion years until the expected galactic collision. So, to my mind it's more of the vehicle in which they intended to slumber than the nature of the nap itself? That seemed like a velleity to me, since a lot of them spend a great deal of their existence in Deep Time which moves much faster compared to normal consciousness (or maybe those are just the slave gogols idk).
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Jul 25, 2014 04:13
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Basically what Neurosis said, I was just seeing if anyone knew what weird branch of whack physics Rajaniemi was pulling from to coin the term, "deep Dyson sleep." I just finished TCA for the second time and it made much more sense. Although at the end, in the epilogue, it mentions the Pellegrini Prime watching the battle, then watching as the ekpyrotic shell is detonated. My question is, why would the All-Defector allow some of the Founders to volunteer to its cause as opposed to just devouring them? I forget where, but earlier in the book All-Defector mentions how the pellegrini Prime volunteered. Wouldn't it benefit the most by just devouring everything?
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Jul 29, 2014 01:06
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Johnny Truant posted:Basically what Neurosis said, I was just seeing if anyone knew what weird branch of whack physics Rajaniemi was pulling from to coin the term, "deep Dyson sleep." It couldn't get to the other ones. Keep in mind the Primes were not subservient to each other, though Matjek was a sort of first among equals.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:31
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What other books would you guys recommend for people who liked this series?
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Aug 3, 2014 07:51
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Anticheese posted:What other books would you guys recommend for people who liked this series? If you haven't read Neuromancer yet, I'd recommend that. It might seem somewhat dated since it basically envisioned the internet before it was a thing, but I keep selling to people that TQT is like this generation's Neuromancer in how much it takes theoretical technology of the day and ties it all together in a well realized world.
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Aug 3, 2014 09:30
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The Golden Age series by John C Wright has some commonalities with the series. It's an extremely imaginative depiction of a far future solar system human society. Like the le Flambeur books it is very, very idea dense.
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Aug 3, 2014 10:21
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Finished the last book over the weekend. Really loved it, unlike some others, I actually enjoyed the slightly more straight forward approach to the plot in this one. This is probably one of my favourite series now. RE: The ending so, they used the giant black hole nuke to send a ripple through spacetime that sends Meili and Matjek into vir hidden 'under' the universe, where they use the Jewel to wish for a new universe for Saturn and the Zoku to chill out (A universe where you can sing virs into existence and you don't need supertech to do it), leaving the Sobernost to do their thing in our universe however they want to does that sound about right?
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Aug 3, 2014 16:52
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