Whatcha Reading?

I’m going to find that now

12 posts were merged into an existing topic: The Devaluation of Music…?

Once Upon A Time In Shaolin does sound interesting. I don’t know the story behind this album at all, so I don’t know why they put it out. I will have to check it out.

But yeah, the value (and propagation) of music interests me. How does the music we hear everywhere get to be everywhere, especially since I have heard way better music from relatively obscure artists, and this music oftentimes influences the next generation of ubiquitous artists.

One interesting question that Ripped didn’t answer was, why are the record labels the bad guys? I understand they need to make a profit, and exactly how they do that needs to be hammered out so that it’s more equitable to everyone involved. So, if bands can promote themselves more efficiently without the labels getting involved, this should encourage the labels to step up their game.

And as for corporate music, Dave Van Ronk railed against this in The Mayor Of MacDougal Street as well… but Death Cab For Cutie or Bright Eyes is not Dave Van Ronk. Passing up an influential but obscure folk artist for someone more marketable is something I can see, but most of the bands mentioned in Ripped have huge followings. Did the labels miscalculate by passing these bands up when they were starting out, or is there a trend where artists who traditionally wouldn’t be marketable are now starting to become more marketable without corporate influence? Why does there have to be any corporate influence whatsoever? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the bands to do their thing, whatever it was that makes them unique and got them a following in the first place, and not interfere with that energy?

Basically, it just doesn’t make much sense to me that there’s corporate interference in music, and that the labels are taking so much money off the top when it’s doing them no favors. The record industry just can’t be that dickish for no reason.

We have a whole thread on this now!

Should we move this comment over, too? @waetherman?

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I was replying to your comment in this thread, and I’m talking about the books, but we can move it over to the thread. Right now, it’s on topic, but if we keep discussing it, it will derail the thread. Best to move it then.

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It can stay here and we can continue to talk in the other thread!

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I remember enjoying InterstellarNet: Origins a few years ago, a story collection where extraterrestrial contact is through AI brokers who are licensed to exchange information. Space is too vast to travel, but even newer sentient races have some kind of info or unique tech worth trading. Stories are set up like small puzzles almost in the Asimovian “robot” mold.

There are later books in the series but IIRC at some point (3rd book?) the author introduces superluminal flight which kinds of ruins the premise. Anyway the first set of stories stands alone.

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I think as is typical of having read stories in multiple translations, I have my own private version of Borges which does not exist in any volume. I’m sure I’ve tried to source an exact quote before only to realize those words were an amalgamation of various versions I’ve read. Much like my experience with the Bible, I guess.

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Sorry for multiple posts, just revisiting this thread for the first time in awhile…

The Vorkosigan Saga has become a series I’m patiently reading through, saving each book for a pick-me-up when I really need it. It hasn’t failed yet. Brilliant pacing in just about every novel once you get to Miles.

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Spoiler alert :stuck_out_tongue:

One of my great joys is loading a bunch of books on my kindle, forgetting which ones are romance, and discovering during the readthrough…

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Just finished (in the last week):

This was quite good. I’m not sure it is actually “#2” as it is a pair of short novels, each about one of two twins. I haven’t read the other yet.

This was very good and a bit sad.

This was…long. It was good but it was…long.

“Just kill Caesar already, forchrisake.”

Reading right now (still):

and

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So far, so interesting…

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The Forever War.

I’ve seen a few things saying it’s relevant again, but it’s got some really gross sexism that does not play well today. I just about stopped reading because of it.

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I’m about halfway though this

It needs updating, as Rojava wasn’t a libertarian socialist region in 2010. Carne Ross hasn’t mentioned the Kurds so far in the book so I don’t think that he thought anything would happen there (to be fair, I doubt that most of the Kurds thought that things would change so quickly).

The parts where he talks about his work as a British diplomat are interesting, as it explains how he started off believing that the state was a force for good, then as time went on he realised the harm he caused in Kosovo and Iraq. He compares the situation to the Milgram experiment.

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I haven’t read this in a while; I don’t recall the sexism, but that’s just my lack of memory. Overall, Joe Haldeman is one of my favorite writers. My favorites are Camouflage, The Accidental Time Machine, the Worlds Trilogy, and The Coming.

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I like Haldeman as well. The Accidental Time Machine was cool. He does strike me as vaguely sexist though, but not that sexist compared to everything else that’s out there.

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Just kind of part of the era, I think. But the bit about female soldiers having to be “receptive and promiscuous by custom and by law” really squicked me out.

Also as I read further, the attitude toward homosexuality is weird, in an outdated sort of way. And the book is super depressing, too (though I kind of expected that). I’ll have to find something lighthearted and fun afterward.

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The main female character in The Accidental Time Machine was a bit antifeminist, but she was definitely a product of her environment.

The zero-g ejaculation scene in that book was also kinda squicky, and the lead-up to it was squicky in a completely different way.

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You two are much more perceptive than I am. My main complaint with Haldeman is that so many of his novels have a deus ex machina ending – e.g., aliens appear out of nowhere to bring the novel to a conclusion.

He is an interesting guy, though. We saw him do a reading at an sf convention, of a work that I guess was based on experiences in Viet Nam (like so much of his writing - The Forever War among them). It seemed that he was almost in tears. I gather he has suffered a lot with PTSD.

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Fiction: I just finished reading Stories of Your Life and Others, the short story collection by Ted Chiang (the one the film Arrival is based on).

It was excellent. I liked how many of the stories explored linguistics, and the use of language in the writing itself was wonderful – warm but in keeping with the topic at hand.

Non-fiction: I just started The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. He’s the one the concept of Norman Doors is named after:

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