Prestige Format

Category: Book Club

  • Cryptonomicon in January: Week 4

    (I finished the book at some point in March, and basically have been processing and procrastinating this last entry since then. Here comes the chapter recap, with some freeform thoughts at the end.) The Most Cigarettes: Randy and Avi talk about Andrew Loeb who is suing Epiphyte(2), backed by The Dentist. The Feds show up at Ordo headquarters to…

  • Cryptonomicon in January: Week 3

    At this point, the “in January” and “week 3” are just a joke. But I really like this book and want to finish it and I’m honor-bound to write chapter summaries because I can’t find good ones online. Here’s week 1 and week 2. Outpost: Goto Dengo makes it back to “civilization” but is reminded that war…

  • Cryptonomicon in January: Week 2

    It’s looking much more like this is going to be a 2-month book club considering that I’ve gotten halfway through the book at the end of the month. Anyway, a lot of stuff has happened in the book and I still want to finish it. The chapter-by-chapter summary I found online and mentioned previously peters…

  • Cryptonomicon in January: Week 1

    I decided to read Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon this January for a slightly delayed resurrection of my previous December book clubs. I thought that maybe January would be better because the hectic schedules of the Holidays were over people like to start the year fresh sometimes and decide “this is the year I get back to reading”.…

  • On Book Clubs

    For four years running now, I’ve hosted an internet-based Science Fiction/Fantasy book club. Mostly inspired by how much I enjoyed reading Infinite Jest with most of the Internet, It’s never been that wildly successful, but it has been fun. I think I started the book club, and keep doing it, to make personal connections with…

  • Decembarsoom: The Last Half of the Book

    (originally posted here) The Last Half of the Book (Chapters 19-28) What a wild group of chapters (and a wild few weeks for me—sorry for the delay, dear readers). The book seems to veer in three or four directions from the midsection to the end, as if Burroughs was unsure what he wanted to do…

  • Decembarsoom: Week 3 Recap

    (originally posted here) Chapters 12-18 Is it just me, or does it feel like this book still hasn’t really started? I have certainly enjoyed all of the exposition we’ve received in the last seven chapters—the impenetrable wooing customs that Dejah Thoris expects and John Carter understands about as well as us, Sola’s parentage, the political…

  • Decembarsoom: Week 2 Recap

    (originally posted here) For such an upstanding southern gentleman, I couldn’t help notice that maybe John Carter is just a little bit racist. He keeps excusing some of the barbaric activities of the Green Men of Mars by saying, in essence, that they’re just not smart. And they only love killing. And they’re irredeemable barbarians.…

  • Decembarsoom: Week 1 Recap

    (originally posted here and here) What an introduction! Edgar Rice Burroughs goes for the classic Literary Agent Hypothesis framing story (“I found this story and here I am publishing it for you”) and basically says that John Carter is immortal. Pretty ostentatious way to start the story! I love cowboy comics. I’m a longtime fan of Jonah Hex, Bat…

  • Decembarsoom: Reading Schedule and Sources

    Reading Schedule (originally posted here) We’re starting on a Thursday, but the reading week will be Monday through Saturday with a recap here on Sunday afternoons. Thursday, December 1 – Sunday, December 4: Introduction through the end of chapter 4 December 5-11: Chapters 5-11 December 12-18: Chapters: 12-18 December 19-25: Chapters 19-24 (that includes a day…