It's the author of this particular review of TEA. A few Fforumites have lowered their opinion of the person in question after reading it, so it's become sort of an in-joke.

[www.jasperfforde.com]

They could write that after reading the blurb!

He even ignores the three best supporting characters - Colonel Next, Victor Analogy and Mycroft! But you have probably all heard that before…

What makes it worse is that Mr. H**t is a fantasy author himself, and his last offering (Wish You Were Here) was so dire and awful that we generally reckon that curmudgeonly review was mainly sour grapes. (And bet he doesn't put bad bad reviews of his books up on his website, either).



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

AAC: I like the reasoning. Not true I'm afraid. My mum had the opposite experience the one time she and Dave and Eddie were round at mine.
He was being naughty so Dave said "Eddie Graham come here" and mum wondered if he'd deliberately been given the same middle name as me...

jon, Wish you were here was nowhere near the last....or is that just wishful thinking?

welcome to all new random people... and all new specific people also...



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Do something pretty while you can...

Thanks so much - we're doing pretty well, even though it's only been a month. Like I said, he was pretty serious about stuff, so we're Ok. Not to mean he was stiff - quite the contrary. He loved his Mustang convertable (his "second wife"), skateboarding (still at 28), and was a magnificent artist. He just knew the consequences of war, you know? He told his wife, "Some men go to the office; I go fight."

I don't know who Mr. H**t is either.

Did anyone from the US ever get the book situation straightened out? I found one from a dealer on amazon.com, but it's going to cost me $50 to get it. Also, it's going to be a British hardback, and all my other hardbacks are US editions.

See the thread titled "A low grumbling....." for my resolution of the situation with Amazon. I'm getting the UK paperback, with shipping, for about 14 pounds ($23). Which is probably less than I'll pay for the US Hardback when it comes out next spring.



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

Hooray! That's not a bad price, actually!

Dave; was it Only Forward that used words out of "They Have A Word For It"? Cos I ordered it out of my (allegedly SF&F) book club and it just got here, it's great!



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Do something pretty while you can...

Yep, and the paperback has now changed from "usually dispatched within 4-5 days" to "usually dispatched within 24 hours".

Of course, the hardback edition still says "Not yet published"....

dante: I'm not sure. It's a great book though. I love the idea of the neighbourhoods, especially 'Cat'.

'Cat' sounded good, yes! I liked 'Colour', too...the walls changing colour and all that.

'The Diamond Age' by Neal Stephenson has a similar concept of neighbourhoods, although there are sort of franchises of them.



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Do something pretty while you can...

Diamond Age was good - Snow Crash had the same idea, and I think I preferred that to Diamond Age. Though it could just be because I read Snow Crash first.

Hey, I could be Da5e!

Ah, I love them both, but I think I like Diamond Age better. Probably just for the Books Are Good message.



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Do something pretty while you can...

I'd meant to recommend 'Only Forward' in the fforum, as I thought it probable that quite a few of you would enjoy the Cat Neighbourhood, but must have misplaced the scrap of paper on which I made a note to do so. I'm glad that somebody else has now mentioned it, and second (or third?) the recommendation.

Re 'Snow Crash', have any of you also read Stephenson's novel 'The Big U'?

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"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."

I haven't, yet. Not sure if it's in print here just now? I might have it on the computer, actually, but I've never read it.

I discovered something he'd co-written with, er, someone else, in the bookshop the other day. I didn't buy it, because I'm still sulking a bit about Cryptonomicon being far inferior to the others...



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Do something pretty while you can...

Sorry, I can't tell you for certain whether 'The Big U' is still in print. I read a friend's copy of it, about eight years ago (and strongly suspect that that edition is now out-of-print...), but don't recall ever seeing it in the shops.

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"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."

Ah, T** H*** - all is now understood. A slight case of 'I'm so up myself that no other writer could possibly count, even though most of the population of the world has never heard of me'.

A common problem

Ria:- Condolence's.

No glasses here, I used to have to wear them but I reckon all that reading helped my eye's out.
I picked up 'Only Forward' last year, only for the reasons (at the time) that it was second hand, and therefor only about £1, and the cover loked interesting. It's a good book, I remember thinking one neighbourhood in particular would suit me. It might have been colour, but I maybe not. I'd look it up now but all except about 7 of my books are back home now.



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Another MMS reader here, although I read 'Spares' first and then 'Only Forward'. I loved the idea of the Cat neighbourhood, and that the cats could choose who they would allow in or not.
I liked the storyline of Spares a little more, particularly the descriptions of the unreality of The Gap. Seems a shame that he's mined those particular ideas and moved more into the crime/horror writing with his last, I really missed his previous style and the cat references.

Dante - You're not alone with feeling disappointment over 'Cryptonomicon'. I read it all and came away with the thought "What was the point of that?", and have now forgotten at least 99 per cent of the plot.

I enjoyed Cryptonomicon, but did end up with a 'so what?' feeling at the end - it was a bit mundane considering what had gone before.

I've read all of MMS's stuff, have to say I was quite disappointed by his latest 'The Straw Men' - again, promising premise, but let down by the ending. His early scifi stuff is far superior (Only Forward, Spares, and What You Make It).

I've not read The Big U, but have got Interface to read (presidential candidate wired up to the opinion polls so gets instant feedback on his actions). Also read his 'In the Beginning Was The Command Line', a potted history of computing and why Unix/Linux is Good For You. Well written and well argued. It's available electronically for free on the net. I can email a copy if anyone can't be bothered to look...