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Overclocked (Cory Doctorow)
I spent a lot of time today, once I wandered over there somehow, on Cory Doctorow's site, looking at his opinions and downloading his books and thinking about it all. I decided I'd read Overclocked, since it's short stories and I didn't feel like reading anything long and drawn out. Of course, the short stories added up to more or less the same amount of reading time, but oh well.
There's six of them. I liked the first one, which is more or less microfiction -- I liked the end, anyway, and the concept. I'd have wound it tighter, hit harder, but I like the idea.
When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth made me laugh in places. I felt like it was a little dry in places where it could have been heart-rending, and skipped where it could have been interesting and got drawn out where it wasn't. Probably my least favourite of the six.
Anda's Game was quite interesting. The extra detail of Anda's life seemed a little dry, at times: it didn't live in my head, I couldn't really sympathise. I wish I had, it could have been awesome.
Next up, I, Robot. I liked this one a lot: it was a world I could get interested in and characters I could get somewhat invested in. I'd have liked more of it.
I, Rowboat made me laugh a good bit, at the start. I like the references to Asimov and the use of the three laws of robotics here. I also liked the introduction: "If I return to this theme, it will be with a story about uplifted cheese sandwiches, called “I, Rarebit”."
And After The Siege... I possibly liked the best. The version I downloaded was badly edited -- I don't know about all versions ever -- and there was some confusing name switching for some reason. But I liked the ideas, although again I felt like some of the emotional life of the story fell flat.
Definitely interesting, and worth spending the time with, but I probably won't revisit it. It feels very focused on the points Cory Doctorow's trying to get across, rather than the lives of his characters, but his ideas are interesting nonetheless. I did like that it's accessible speculative fiction -- no impenetrable technobabble.
I spent a lot of time today, once I wandered over there somehow, on Cory Doctorow's site, looking at his opinions and downloading his books and thinking about it all. I decided I'd read Overclocked, since it's short stories and I didn't feel like reading anything long and drawn out. Of course, the short stories added up to more or less the same amount of reading time, but oh well.
There's six of them. I liked the first one, which is more or less microfiction -- I liked the end, anyway, and the concept. I'd have wound it tighter, hit harder, but I like the idea.
When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth made me laugh in places. I felt like it was a little dry in places where it could have been heart-rending, and skipped where it could have been interesting and got drawn out where it wasn't. Probably my least favourite of the six.
Anda's Game was quite interesting. The extra detail of Anda's life seemed a little dry, at times: it didn't live in my head, I couldn't really sympathise. I wish I had, it could have been awesome.
Next up, I, Robot. I liked this one a lot: it was a world I could get interested in and characters I could get somewhat invested in. I'd have liked more of it.
I, Rowboat made me laugh a good bit, at the start. I like the references to Asimov and the use of the three laws of robotics here. I also liked the introduction: "If I return to this theme, it will be with a story about uplifted cheese sandwiches, called “I, Rarebit”."
And After The Siege... I possibly liked the best. The version I downloaded was badly edited -- I don't know about all versions ever -- and there was some confusing name switching for some reason. But I liked the ideas, although again I felt like some of the emotional life of the story fell flat.
Definitely interesting, and worth spending the time with, but I probably won't revisit it. It feels very focused on the points Cory Doctorow's trying to get across, rather than the lives of his characters, but his ideas are interesting nonetheless. I did like that it's accessible speculative fiction -- no impenetrable technobabble.
