David’s
Comments
(group member since Mar 06, 2010)
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I read this back when it was first released. I thought it was good, not nearly as good as The Martian, but good.
I happened to read this book in the last month before it was chosen. I have to say that I found the book very interesting, especially what was proposed related to (very minor) (view spoiler)It was also interesting from the perspective that I do not think that I have ever read a novel that was faithfully translated from Chinese. I found the cultural differences as interesting as the story itself, and I want to heartily thank the translator for including footnotes to explain cultural touchstones as appropriate.
Once I finish up The Spin trilogy, I am planning on tackling the next book of this series, The Dark Forest. Maybe this can be a contender for the May book of the month!
I agree with the threads for spoiler vs. no-spoilers.. Since this looks to be the book for April on the Facebook side, I will adjust it here to match.
I bit late to the game but I just started reading this one. So far, I am enjoying the writing style. Not sure what's going on story-wise yet.
So, as many of you know, I have been kicking around how to deal with the book of the month for this group that spans multiple sites. I tried using an anonymous polling site with mixed results. I also know that many/most/a lot of you also visit the Facebook site, so what I have decided to do is allow Facebook to be the place where the Book of the Month is chosen and I will still post the results here as the books are chosen. I will also start a book of the half-month (i.e. the 15th) for members here. I will use the Goodreads polling to select them. For this month, I will use the results of the poll tool which shows the overwhelming chose of The Three-Body Problem. The slated start-read date is April 15th, so there's no sudden surprise for anyone.
As always I solicit any feedback/comments.
I just finished the book. It was OK for me although I suspect the recent U.S. elections may have had some impact on my feelings/enjoyment of the book. The other problem that I had was that there was not a lot of development of the major governmental groups. (view spoiler) I would have preferred more closure, but perhaps I do not like it because, like real life, I did not get all my questions answered.That being said, I found the concept of micro-democracies interesting even if they would be impractical. Imagine trying to manage several hundred small enclaves spread throughout the world, especially the landlocked ones without an airport? I could see some customs extortion going on.
(view spoiler)
These are just some of my initial, rambling thoughts right after I finished. I may review and extend my remarks at a later date.
The other alternative is to run duplicate polls on the different platforms and then manually add them together. But, even then, I could vote twice - once on Facebook and once here.
So, I guess the question is how much are we worried about cheating?
Here is a test poll where I have added restrictions. If you try to vote again, it changes your vote:https://goo.gl/s8GXVG
I think that there was some blocking available of to prevent double voting but, you're right, without a logon, there's no way to enforce one person one vote. We are trying to come up with a way for the members on the various systems (Goodreads, Facebook, Yahoo) to all vote on the same poll without making them sign up for something
I tired to blast this as a notification but, some reason, Goodreads stripped off the URL.
We are trying a cloud-based survey tool to select the book because this group is hosted in multiple places and we want to be able to offer a combined survey. Please provide feedback, positive or negative.The survey is here https://goo.gl/A4Hlw6
I wanted to see what everyone thinks about reusing books that have been previous choices for Books of the Month. Is there a statute of limitations?As a specific example, I am considering nominating Spin as a choice for BotM but I see that it's already in the group library, apparently added in 2006. That's 11 years ago. Is that fair game, or do we think that only previously unread books are appropriate?
So, I have to ask, is anyone other than me reading this? I asked the same question on the Facebook side as well and all I got was crickets.
An article on the book written by the author. I wasn’t even trying to be predictive there. I was describing the political situation I saw in the present, refracted through an imagined future political system to emphasize some elements.
It does get a bit political.
Not Predicting the Future Just Observing the Present
A real-word look at the themes raised within this book. It could be considered somewhat scary, or perhaps "Fake News" depending on your political persuasion.The Rise of the Weaponized AI Propaganda Machine
Sharing this article posted from the Facebook club. It summarized the book and some of the themes raised, as well as a brief bio of the writer. It's an interesting read.What Does the Future of Democracy Look Like
Username wrote: "David wrote: "I will initiate a discussion about running the clubs together with us and them matching book choices ..."I would love it if we could do that, it would make both groups stronger. The..."
I apologize for not having the discussion up yet but real life intrudes.
What I was thinking was using Facebook for the polling, but since it does not lend itself to discussions, we can use Facebook for the flyby, quick-hit comments with this site used for greater, in-depth discussions. We can also offer additional monthly reading recommendations based upon the choices of the poll. For example other books with similar themes or plots, or perhaps other books from the same author to compare/contrast against.
This article talks about schools using a cleaned up version of "The Martian" to use in schools to teach and encourage science.New York Times Article
