On Sat, Apr 14, 2001 at 11:46:41AM -0700, hal@finney.org wrote:
> New Mars, with its human-equivalent machines, its violent anarchy, and
> all its futuristic technology, is far more comfortable and understandable
> to me than 1970s England.
I think you are right; New Mars has to make some sense, but the 70's
doesn't.
> I think I see why The Cassini Division was released first in the U.S.
> It doesn't suffer from this problem. Without being motivated by wanting
> to see what came before, I suspect that American readers would give up
> on The Stone Canal in the first hundred pages.
Which is a pity, since it is IMHO the central book in his tetralogy. It
ties together the other books and gives the only clear look at the
singularity in his timeline. It has some flaws like a rushed ending, but
I think that it is the one most relevant to extropians.
When I think about it now in the clarity of early morning, a book where
both leftist factions, sex droids and the singularity play important
roles is a also wonderfully odd book :-)
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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