A Good Summer Read?

binaryhead asks: "Well, the semester has just ended, and I have graduated from school! :-) I start my full-time job in a month and want to read a good book in the mean time. Having read Snowcrash, Neuromancer, and most of the hacker biographies, I am trying to find a scifi-geek-hacker book that people like. I might try the new Kevin Mitnick book, but I wanted to see what Slashdot preferred. Thanks."

ok

[eightball01]

A complete Unix manual.

Read?

[knightinshiningarmor]

Didn't you read slashdot? You'd be better off playing video games then reading!

Re:Gibson....

[farrellj]

I am about 80% through this book and I am greatly enjoying it....film clip to be found on the internet...(inside joke!).

ttyl
Farrell

Re:Read?

[isa-kuruption]

And if you continue to read Slashdot and playing video games, you'll continue to misuse 'then' in your sentences when you should be using 'than'.

Well, there's nothing like a good Porno mag after

[Martin Marvinski]

a hard day coding. A hot 22 old whore getting her pussy fucked in the bright pages of a magazine makes my day. It'll make yours too.

Good Omens by Niel Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

[Hollinger]

Absolutely stellar story. Check Amazon [amazon.com].
Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Re:Read something that will FUCK with your head

[FearUncertaintyDoubt]

Naked Lunch

"I can think of at least two things wrong with that title" - Nelson Muntz

Depends. Enjoy sanity?

[pla]

Anything not tech-related (sci-fi excluded, of course).

Seriously, books with pictures of obscure animals on the cover, done in a faux-woodprint style, count as what we call "reference books".

When you have a specific question about how to use a particular construct in Malbolge [mines.edu], you pick up the book with the woodcut of the naked molerat(tm) and turn to the chapter on painless suicide methods.

You don't just READ such a book from cover-to-cover, a feat only slightly less painful than Vogon poetry.

Which brings me to my real suggestion - Reread the entire works of Douglas Adams. Most folks know the HHgttG series, but not the joys of "Dirk Gently's Holsitic detective agency" or "The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul". Great books in their own rights.

Re:Dune

[El]

Yes and no. If Frank Herbert had stopped at two books, I would have said it was a great story. Unfortunately, after the second book they get more and more incoherent and harder to follow. The theory is he was able to afford too many drugs after selling the first two...

To which 90% of the /. community replies...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sex is nataural and healthy, and masturbation is no different.

Huh? What other kind of sex is there, other than masterbation?

whereis /usr/man/ROMEO?

[coupland]

I've got it! Are there any books about two young lovers who meet in a chat room, but they are destined never to be together because one is a Mac user and one is Linux user? They try to pursue their love in secret chat rooms using fake handles, but then the LUG/MUG finds out and forbids them to ever speak again! In desperation she pretends to have switched to Windows, and he in his despair formats his HDD and really does install Windows! She comes online, realizes her lover has been seized by the cold, inhuman clutches of Redmond and she formats and installs Windows too! No greater a love story has ever been told.

Now that's literature, why didn't anyone ever come up with an idea like that!

Re:ok

[nomadic]

A complete Unix manual.

He said he only had a month.

Re:Sci-Fi Fantasy books on a 1-10 scale

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you read "alot", but you still haven't clued into the fact that "a lot" is two words...

Re:Gibson....

[hdparm]

Yeah but the one that definitelly matches scifi-geek-hacker spec and comes to mind first is a 'Batbook', Costales&Allman.

Ender's Law

[sakusha]

I have postulated a new law, entitled "Ender's Law"

"Every time the subject of science fiction is raised on Slashdot, Ender's Game will be mentioned in the first 10 messages."

I think Slashcode needs an Ender filter, just like it has a First Post filter.

Re:Ender's Game

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, I finished all three books of LotR when I was 11...

Make you feel better? ;)

Required Slashdot reading list.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Bill Gates: Portrait of Evil
2) New Guide to learning Hindi
3) Linus Torvalds: Savior of the Multiverse
4) How Things Work In Soviet Russia
5) Why employers are evil, and why I still insist of working for them
6) The Theory of How to Date Women
7) Physical Exercise: Tips On How To Avoid It
8) How To Get Used To Bathing
9) Hottest IT Jobs/Trends In India
10) The Essential Goat.sx Reference
11) Creating Beowulf Clusters From Anything

Re:What??

[Findel]

Well, you see. Most true Geeks have read this by the time they are off their mums milk, and dont need to be told about it when they are old enought to leave school! duh.

Just kidding. I recomend this book too, but if you havn't already read it, I will be very supprised.

Re:Required Slashdot reading list.

[chad_r]

12) ???
13) Secrets to Maximizing your Profit

Re:Try Stanislaw Lem!

[wagemonkey]

Yea! That was one of the first Lem stories I read when I was 12 (which was a long looooong time ago...). I've read everything he wrote since then...

My favourite was his "Shopping List 4th April 1980" :-)

I recommend "Tales of Pirx The Pilot" - at least I think that's the title.

Re:I hope this is fair use:

[cybercuzco]

The Lord of the rings (abridged)
Frodo gets a ring from his foster father Bilbo. Frodo finds out the ring is evil. Frodo and some friends go to rivendell to ask elrond what to do with the ring. Along the way they meet strider and are chased by ringwraiths. At rivendell frodo is given the quest to destroy the ring in the cracks of dom. Frodo and several companions set out to do so. Gandalf, one of the companions, is killed in the dwarven mines of moria. The remaining companions pass thorugh the forest of lorien and split up at the falls of rauros. Frodo and same go to mount doom, followed by gollum. The rest of the companions fight some orcs and two of them are abducted. Strider, an elf and a dwarf follow the kidnapped companions. They have some adventures and eventually find them with the ents in orthanc. Gandalf apperently didnt die in moria, and is actually alive. Frodo and gollum team up and eventually make it to mount doom. Strider and the rest of the companions go to the white city and have a big battle. Frodo throws the ring into mount doom and strider is made the king. Everyone then goes back home. The End

Now you dont need to read it, cause thats the same thing, right? ;-)