Conspiracies in literature

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
How did you get bogged down with it? I was hooked from the first page. The bit where he mercilessly rips it out these smug po-mo Californian social-science academics had me piddling myself with joy. :D

I read The Wild Highway last year courtesy of IdleRich - fantastic stuff, I need to read the others in the series now.

I just kinda lost interest in the character, then forgot that I didn't care about him, so start to read ti again, and then....

Yeah I was well surprised at Wild Highway, much funnier than I thought it would be, and they tie it up really well.
 

swears

preppy-kei
How did you get bogged down with it? I was hooked from the first page. The bit where he mercilessly rips it out these smug po-mo Californian social-science academics had me piddling myself with joy. :D

Which bit was that? I haven't read it for years. I just got the Diamond Age from a charity shop for a quid, so I'm enjoying that at the moment. He makes all his far-out technology seem almost plausible, to a layman at least.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Which bit was that?

It's very near the beginning - Randy is having dinner with his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend and a bunch of her mates, before he gets a call from Avi (I think) about the new business venture they've been talking about, i.e. the Kinakuta data-haven project.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I love conspiracy theories too. or at least mysteries that unravel, or never completely do. House of Leaves I loved for this, though not a conspiracy as such.

Dan Brown's precursor, the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, I loved for this, though it falls somewhere between factual and literature.
 
D

droid

Guest
The new Neal Stephenson was very readable, but disappointingly dull in concept.

Anathem though, is probably the best si-fi book so far this century.

Foucault's pendulum is the both the daddy and the destroyer of the conspiracy genre in every way. Also - Baudalino.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Definitely gotta read that just on Dissensus recs alone.

Droid, you cleared your inbox lately? Got something that might be up your street. Could just post it here of course, though it's a bit off-topic.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Foucault's pendulum...Also - Baudalino.

except neither of those will ever be half as awesome as In the Name of the Rose, which is basically Umberto Eco's Da Vinci Code .

Q (yunno Luther Blissett) is ok too. especially if you're into really detailed accounts of Anabaptist uprisings during the Protestant Reformation as a very extended metaphor for post-60s radical disillusionment + recuperation. plus some po-mo bollocks about identity + art, or something.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I read Gibson's Virtual Light recently, which was...OK, kinda silly though. I do like how all his characters are too cool to speak in complete sentences.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Q (yunno Luther Blissett) is ok too. especially if you're into really detailed accounts of Anabaptist uprisings during the Protestant Reformation as a very extended metaphor for post-60s radical disillusionment + recuperation. plus some po-mo bollocks about identity + art, or something.
I thought Q was pretty awful, actually. It's an interesting enough idea, but the actual book is boringly conventional in style and ploddingly tedious in execution.
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Anathaem or the baroque trilogy though

Stephenson's just so tedious + wordy + I dunno, boring. the only great Gibson work is the Sprawl trilogy but I'll take it hands down over any 1,800 pages about cryptography + quantum mechanics + whatever.

also you're joking yourself about In the Name of the Rose. its genre fiction clunkiness is a large part of the appeal. I like his other stuff but most of it is, like, a bit up its own arse of semiotics yunno?
 
D

droid

Guest
Stephenson's just so tedious + wordy + I dunno, boring. the only great Gibson work is the Sprawl trilogy but I'll take it hands down over any 1,800 pages about cryptography + quantum mechanics + whatever.

You havent read anathaem though have you? What Stephenson excels at is combining compulsive narrative and action with theory and high concept. When he fails it gets dull (cryptonomicon), but when he succeeds hes brilliant. Ive read everything Gibson has written and am a huge fan, but his ambition is much more limited.

also you're joking yourself about In the Name of the Rose. its genre fiction clunkiness is a large part of the appeal. I like his other stuff but most of it is, like, a bit up its own arse of semiotics yunno?

Each to their own of course, but IMO Pendulum is his crowning achievement, the weaving in of acres of history, theories and references couldnt be more suited to the topic of conspiracy (or meta-conspiracy in this case). Baudalino is flawed, but has this amazing dream like mythic sequence towards the end.. I loved the island of the day before as well.
 
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