What an odd book! A melancholy erudite prolix meditation on the follies of the drive to procreation, or rather, the act of procreation.
Perhaps it is more profound than that. But after an initial flush of pleasure I found it tedious.
Fascinatingly nasty. Difficult to read the made-up language. The language gets easier as you get used to it, just as you get more into Alex’ mind.
I didn’t like this much when I was required to read it in high-school freshman English class. It was bleak and creepy and predictable. I should probably re-read it.
A lovely book on how to think geometrically and algorithmically, using a simple programming language to produce pictures and prove theorems, starting from Euclidean Geometry and ending with the curving space-time of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity.
Sounds like a tall order! But the reader is led to develop the mathematics herself, by working through examples, learning to develop and prove theorems and write programs to explore examples. The language is LOGO, which was designed for teaching elementary school children to program. The semantics of LOGO are quite advanced: but the syntax is straightforward and, as with the mathematics, the reader is led more-or-less gently along the path of acquiring the sophisticated ideas.
A wonderful book.
(See also The Shape of Space, Visual Modeling with Logo and Exploring Language with Logo)
A gentle novel, suspenseful, melancholy, a little tragic. Reminds me, in its cosmic viewpoint, of Olaf Stapledon and of Arthur Clarke at his best. I just finished the book and it hasn’t settled in my mind yet. This review is a placeholder. I can’t wait to read Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.
This book teaches how to think in Lisp. Read it after Norvig’s Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming, which is really a general Lisp programming book in spite of the title. Graham is a very good programmer and you will learn a lot from reading his code.