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perhaps the third time's the charm

So far I am Underwhelmed. Perhaps cyberpunk Japan was a far cooler and more revolutionary idea to an American teenager in the 80s

reread in anticipation

this book is set in 1830s london but so clearly written by someone who was on the Internet in the 2010s

mcs have just concocted the stupidest most pointless plan known to mankind... it's not looking good folks

giving it another go

I am really really really struggling to get through this

D-4 to end promos

Giving up here. Life is too short to force myself to enjoy things.

Literal 9 year old Remedios Moscote being married off to the 40+ Aureliano (who straight up says Oh she hasn't reached puberty yet? I've waited this long and I can wait a bit more) is really ruining my enjoyment of this ngl... in general all the female characters encountered so far have been coerced or forced into nasty sexual situations that is never viewed as a bad thing by the text.

OH... oh man...... so this is what this book is about...

I am sick and miserable and I cannot look at a screen for more than 30 seconds. I have tried doing work or listening to lectures and unfortunately this audiobook is the most I can handle right now. Thank you Libby <3

I know that this predates it by 30 years and the thing is quite popular but I keep thinking "wow this is reminding me of 15 million merits"

The Future Eve's Wikipedia page: Edison created Hadaly in an effort to overcome the flaws and artificiality of real women and create a perfect and natural woman who could bring a man true happiness. Edison himself has no interest in questions of consciousness, especially in women: ‘A woman may be married ten times over, be sincere every time, and yet be ten different persons’ (p.85).

been stuck at chapter 7 for the past three days

parallel between AI as we understand it now and objects imbued with intelligence through some supernatural means. in both cases how do we draw distinctions between artificial and human minds?

The ships accordingly think like the humans who program them, but—just like the machine-slave devices in Hephaestus’ workshop—are dependent upon the higher-order cognition of their human masters to command and control them.

parallel between AI as we understand it now and objects imbued with intelligence through some supernatural means. in both cases how do we draw distinctions between artificial and human minds?

The ships accordingly think like the humans who program them, but—just like the machine-slave devices in Hephaestus’ workshop—are dependent upon the higher-order cognition of their human masters to command and control them.

I am over a third through this and I have no clue where it is going. I knew this was about the war; I did not know this involved time-travelling aliens. Why is everyone liquid except the hobo (who is stone)?? I am very confused. I am enjoying this.

Hello does anyone here own a physical copy of this and if so would you mind lending me to read

man will not stop referencing his previous work.

Noa 3 almost done and the abruptness with which me meet and leave different characters is still disconcerting.

Borrowed on a whim because - a book titled The Sea under 128? fascinating! - but after struggling through the intro and two chapters having to Google something every other sentence I must sadly conclude that this is not for me at this time.

Malaysia - Lord of the Ringgit. ha ha !

Only (exactly) halfway through the Singapore chapter does Strangio start actually focusing on Singapore.

I have just realised that this book was written in English by a non-Japanese author. The writing in the Japanese books I've read (No Longer Human, Totto-chan, The Makioka Sisters etc.) invariably had a stilted quality to it because of the translation. Now that I know that this is Not a translation I'm not sure if the style here is deliberate or "poor writing". Either way it works.

You are never gonna guess how Colquhoun is pronounced

tl;dr "In Indochina, Washington's anti-Communist crusade erased human life on a truly colossal scale, with no appreciable positive results."