Christopher Mocella > Recent Status Updates

Direct correlation between Viking and Mongolia-Chinese world-construction mythological lore? I may need to do some extra-curricular homework...

In expected fashion for the style of several of the authors, the excited page-turning begins.

Editors of trilogy series need to better manage the distribution of chapters, else number three manifestly sizes up to a cinderblock. I'm looking at you, Mongoliad...

So... is sitting at my cubicle my dharma right now? And if so, how does one "full out" a cubicle? Turning my cubicle over to God sounds pretty good, though...

At first this is a very interesting read, and informative to the lives profiled. At second, you get the "oh crap... did I not follow my dharma?!?!" panic set it.

What an excellent book so far...

"Avoid dishes that are ingredient-intensive. Raw ingredients in America... are below world standards... Go for dishes that are composition intensive... The United States is a country where human beings are extremely creative but the tomatoes are not extraordinarily fresh."

I alternate between utter boredome with these characters' their overdramatic thoughts and consideration to add this to my "Never Finished" shelf, and, oddly, wanting to hang out with a few of them and see what goes down. Drug overdose to the point that everyone thinks she's dead, but really isn't? Why not...

Up to this point, it has generally been a lot of bourgeoisie either expounding on their own high-minded personal philosophies or acting sullen about their upper-class-people problems. But I have to say: after reading some pulp sci-fi lately, they writing here is the only thing keeping me going. Even translated from French, the style, pace, syntax, and sentence structure are all a nice break from simplicity.

Whenever I see "Subutai" I can't help but picture the thief/archer from Conan The Barbarian.

I think that I had a geek attack when Stephenson amusingly described the epic combat sequences of the three times he and William Gibson have fought.

Blameworthiness goes only so far inasmuch as science can use neurobiology to explain actions otherwise beyond our notion of "free will."

Your brain will figure it all out, even without you knowing why, or even that it's happened.
Also: being a synthesthete sounds fascinating.

Not the greatest sci-fi that I've ever read, but it does keep the pages turning.

Not the greatest sci-fi that I've ever read, but it does keep the pages turning.

I was worried that all I would see the entire time was Keanu Reeves while reading Johnny Mnemonic. That was not the case. What was helpful was having seen the movie to figure out what the monomolecular wire might have looked like.

Not so much that it reminds me of other cyberpunk writers, it reminds me of Joseph Conrad, of all people. A book where missing a sentence, or the flow of a paragraph, could mean a complete break in the narrative. You HAVE to examine the text word by word, line by line, or it all disconnects. Slow read, but worth it.

I like hiking. I like camping. But go-light/leave-no-trace just sounds unpleasant. "Pack out your poo in the lightest bag possible" is probably not what Thoreau had in mind.

A little mid-Winter refresher course.

"Having settled all of that, he rounded up Yuxia, who was mugging in front of a mirror in a ghillie suit that made her look like the Littlest Ent." That would be the second sneaky LOTR reference I have seen Stephenson make this year...

Egdod litterly is the deus ex machinima, the "god" out of the machine world, but only when he needs to be. No doubt, when activates, he comes in grand, grand fashion. "Taking it easy not my intention. Enjoy piss." Only Sokolov...

I'll say this, Sokolov taking care of business is nearly as satisfying as when Jack Shaftoe had to do the same. Also: Stephenson researched a lot about the functional minutiae of various antiquated firearms. Engaging the safety de-locks the hammer? Sure, sure...

Oh good. MI6 is here now.

Stephenson, rightfully, had to explain the old-style fuse-boxes with these see-through rounded fuses, as opposed to the more modern switches. Stephenson needed to do this for his younger readers who may have neer had to deal with actual fuses, but boy did it make me feel a little old... (Hey, does Enoch Root show up in this one or what?)

"Richard's ex-girlfriends were long gone, but their voices followed him all the time and spoke to him, like Muses or Furies. It was like having seven superegos arranged in a firing ssquad before a single beleaguered id, making sure he didn't enjoy that last cigarette."

This would go easier if I carried a full physical dictionary around with me as I read this book. Also: his grammatical par-excellence has made me doubt my own writing as I type my own writing at work, which has become annoyingly stressful...

Reminds me of Chuck Klosterman. The essay on grammar SNOOTs is quite excellent indeed.

Peter the Great gives, who the reader presumes to be, King Solomon a full-blown noogie. Indeed!

At times, the book was ravishingly slow, to a point that it was probably intentional. But when Stephenson opens it up, the writing has a pace and rhythm that can be felt physically, implicitly. When he decides it's time for Jack to come to a head with one of the book's nemesis, oh, it's a viceral page-turner. It boggles my mind to comprehend how the scope, temporal and philosophical, ever came into Stephenson's head.

Now that you mention it, the idea of "currency" deriving from the word for "flow" does put intention behind a monetary system that one does not get with a simpler coinage...

Reading Scotish-accent English in a book slows page turning substantially.