Longstanding Art-Trade offer:

I'll draw a sketch / lineart for the first 10 people who reply, under the following conditions:

I. Total one character (Chibis count as 1/2). Please supply references.
II. No mature content requests (hentai, etc.)
III. Reciprical Clause: You must complete a drawing of one of my characters (and send me a note so I can Fav it)

Requests:

1. 's character Black -- done
2. 's character Aero -- done
3. 's alter-ego, Frenotx -- done
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Reading List:
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
(feel free to recomend more)


Recent Reads:
The Big U (Neal Stephenson)
Fairly short compared to any other novel Stephenson has published, also apparently an embarresment to him (or so he claims). Admittedly, it's not terribly amazing, but it's highly amusing and certainly not shabbily written. It basically takes all the weird and strange nooks and crannies of university life and environs and takes them to their logical (or not so logical) extreems, then follows some characters as they navigate through them according to their personalities and motivations. If anything, the main issue with it is that it can be seen as the output of a kind of thought experiment, or a dramitization of a simulation; Here is the environment and it's mechanisms and forces, here are factions and communities and people with their mindset and motivations, what might happen if we unpause and let it run? This is the other end of the spectrum from the usual story pragma, in which the characters and motivations are subject to the plot. In a poorly written novel, they are so subject to the plot that they might as well have no other characteristics; A well written novel will try to be closer to the middle of the spectrum. Very, very few seem to be on the other side of the centerpoint entirely, as this is. It is very interesting to read, but can come across as fractured and having indistinct beginings and endings.


Crytonomicon (Neal Stephenson)
This one is fairly long. You could almost see it being split into multiple books, except that there's not really good breaking points. There's about four intertwining narrative perspectives, three in the past (WWII) and one in the present (circa late 1990s). Also, lots of philosophizing on the side, in varying degrees of seriousness, on everything from tinfoil hat paranoia subjects to the varying effects of sexual tension on productivity. And obviously, lots of cryptography chatter. Defininately a good read, but as I said, long.

The Diamond Age (Neal Stephenson)
Wow. Stephenson's writing here is far and away improved since Snow Crash. He's started to use a third-person limited/multiple style reminiscent of Gibson. He also manages to use immersive exposition much more effectively, and thus avoids overly long exposition in narration and dialog. The presentation of nanotech in this story is unique compared to most of its peers in that it presents a Universal Constructor rather than Universal Nanobot concept. I personally find this to be a more realistic and interesting approach. (Also, for Alex's sake, I must mention: It features skull-guns. Within the first 10 pages.)

Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman)
A real treat. Dark, understated urban fantasy, with not a single vamp or were in sight. It never breaks down into overly long exposition, and manages to capture an appropriately disturbing atmosphere.

American Gods (Neil Gaiman)
Very cool book, manages to have quite a few twists literally staring you in the face, yet even the reader may not catch them until they're made explicit. Also, considering the complexity of the plot and concepts, its nice that it never breaks down into Exposition/Summary/Recap/Just-make-sure-we're-all-on-the-same-page-here mode, unlike Snowcrash.

Equal Rites (Terry Pratchett)
What can I say? It's a discworld book, and it's hilarious.

Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson)
Stevenson is not nearly as good a writer as Gibson, never-the-less, this is an excellent read; though the more technical reader may be head-slamming a bit at some of the reaches it makes. Many elements range between satire and serious, such as widespread openly mafia-run pizza delivery franchises ("Pizza in 30 minutes or less! Capiche, Deliverator?"). Others are deep in detail, but somewhat head scratching from the point of view of actual programmers (The "street", a highly detailed, immersive, Second-life-like construct, is apparently the only way people use the internet any more. You have to move in a faily euclidian manner in it, and take a fair amount of time. Compare to Gibson's matrix, where transit is as instantanious as you want, and everything you see is simply a generally agreed upon representation of the data and networks; a complex visualization of underlying systems, rather than a built-up virtual simulation that seems to exist solely for it's own sake.)

Good Omens (Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett)
It's a collaboration between Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Sacrilege, satire, and strange british humor abound; along with angels, demons, and the Four Horsemen Riders Bikers of the Apocolypse: War, Famine, Pollution, and Death (Apparently Pestulence retired in depression after the invention of pennicilin.). Seriously, how can you think it's not worth a look?

Pattern Recognition (William Gibson)
Very nice, Gibson seems to be moving closer and closer to the present. Or perhaps we're catching up. Neat use of shifts toward stream-of-consciousness style to indicate increasing amount of jet-lag in the main character.