“I wonder... What's in a book while it's closed... Because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventure and deeds and battles... All those things are somehow shut up in a book. But it's already there, that's the funny thing. I just wish I knew how it could be.”
Michael Ende, The Neverending Story
“A wild dream and a far one -- but no wilder and no farther than some of the dreams of man.”
“That's the reason they're called lessons: because they lessen from day to day.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
“Think of a computer program. Somewhere, there is one key instruction, and everything else is just functions calling themselves, or brackets billowing out endlessly through an infinite address space. What happens when the brackets collapse? Where's the final “END IF”? Is any of this making sense?”
Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
Book In-Jokes
Here I try to maintain a list of book in-jokes: little jokes that most readers won't notice, hidden in otherwise serious books (for more about
what "in-jokes" are, see at the end of the list).
I'll need your help: if you find any such in-jokes, let me know. Please include the word “injoke” in the subject.
The books are listed in no particular order.
Book Reviews / Read LogBook Reviews: FictionScience-Fiction Book ReviewsNon-Fiction Book ReviewsComputer Science Book Reviews
[1999-08-28]
There is something inherently wrong about continuing the work of a dead writer. Blade Runner 2, however, is more of a sequel to the movie than to Philip K. Dick’s book.
Alfred Bester wrote what some consider the best “space opera”, while other consider it the earliest work of cyberpunk. I guess The Stars My Destination is a little of both, and certainly an enjoyable read.
The future history of mankind is presented from a unique point of view in one of Clifford D. Simak’s best novels, City. A collection of short stories that follow one family over numerous generations, the book is most original and highly enjoyable.
Orson Scott Card was the first author ever to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards for two years in a row, let alone for a book and its sequel. The first book was Ender’s Game, the sequel was Speaker for the Dead, and together with Xenocide and Children of the Mind they form Card’s Ender Wiggin Quartet.
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