Reading Update
Digging into Karl Schroeder's Queen of Candesce right now. I love the guy's world-building, and Virga is a memorable locale. It's the last of the trio of books I bought at Uncle Hugo's a few weeks ago, and turning into the best of the three.
The others were Edelman's Infoquake and Morgan's Altered Carbon. The former is the first book in the Jump 225 trilogy, and the last one that I'll read. I really disliked this book a great deal. I won't delve into the why, however. Morgan's work was much better, and enjoyable. It felt a little long, but at the same time, I really enjoyed the noir feel of the plotting and writing, and will be picking up Broken Angels in the near future.
Also upcoming is my purchase of S.M. Stirling's By Heresies Distressed -- third book in the Safehold trilogy. Book one was awesome, book two was setting the stage for this one. I expect fireworks.
Also, slow-going, I'm reading The Paterek Manual, which is the mother-lode of framebuilding information.
On the writing side of the house, my re-write of Bubble is going well, and I have a short story ("In the Name of Love") that I'm getting ready to ship off to Strange Horizons.
Some Classic Books I Fucking Hate
Recently, J.D. Salinger packed his bags and headed off for a meeting with the Great Literary Agent in the Sky. This got me to thinking about The Catcher in the Rye, and how I really can't stand it. I mean, I understand the literary significance of the book, but that may well be its only merit. Holden Caulfield in the modern day would be a cashier at Hot Topic with black eyeliner with a secret addiction to playing Farmville on Facebook while listening to Dashboard Confessional. In short: he's a whiny little fuck that I'd mock incessantly.
So, now that my horrible, horrible secret about the hatred of such a classic novel is seeing the light of day, I may as well make a quick list.
Some Classic Books I Fucking Hate:
- The Catcher in the Rye
- Catch-22
- Brave New World
- The Heart of Darkness
Reading Blitz
So I've been tearing through my reading list the past few months, putting the kibosh on buying new books and focusing on the ones I've purchased in the past and not yet read.
Right now, I'm reading Eragon, which people apparently loved. I remember the ranting about how it was amazing that a 15-year old wrote the book. You know what? It reads like a 15-year old wrote the book. And it feels like I'm reading every knock-off of Tolkien all rolled into one. I've got the sequel floating around, too, and will probably read it anyway, to see if the author learned anything from writing his first book.
I've got a few other things coming into the queue, despite my plans to remain mostly new-book-celibate. For my birthday, my future in-laws gave me a $30 gift certificate for Amazon, which got me an English translation of a Japanese book on the history of bicycle components, and MAKE Volume 20. Also, as they're limited in availability, I spent some cash on Scalzi's The God Engines and Judge Sn Goes Golfing. Those should all be here relatively soon. (Amazon stuff today, the stuff from Subterranean Press -- who knows?)
And I still really need to re-read Stephenson's System of the World trilogy. I plowed through the first two books, then faltered on the third. Having no clear memory of the first two demands that I re-read before hitting the third. I hate it when that happens*
And of course, paperback editions of books from the Emberverse series and Safehold series are both forthcoming.
Argh.
* This is probably why I am done with George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series -- it's so long between books that I barely remember the events, and they're too long to go through and re-read at length to prepare for the newest book, which keeps getting pushed back.
Epic
So this morning, before leaving for the office, an idea for a book popped into my head. And I had to start writing. About six words in, I discovered that this idea for a sci-fi novel with an huge scale in space and time, with political intrigue, war, aliens -- all the things you'd associate with Dune, for example -- was also a comedy. And that was triggered by the name of the main character, which I'm not repeating here, yet. Why ruin the first good joke of the book?
Yeah, it's right up there with Stephenson's "Hiro Protagonist"...but, y'know, more crass.
When Sci-Fi Writers Quibble
A short while ago, John Scalzi had a post in his blog about the book Mirrored Heavens, in which there was much bantering by readers about regarding the ability of Russia to regain "superpower" status. While that was all entertaining, I felt it missed the point, and asked about whether it made sense to militarize space in a case where we've moved on to Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW). The author of the book, David Williams, responded to that question (poorly worded as it was) in his blog. And now I feel the need to respond here.
Looking Back
So last year, I made my comeback to racing on July 4th, at the Northfield Criterium. I DNF'ed (did not finish), as I was way out of shape and in no condition to race. In another of my blogs, three days later, I wrote a piece about the experience and why, at the age of 34, I was coming back to racing after a long lay-off. Here it is:
Unwelcome Bodies
My friend Jen has her first book out, a collection of short stories. And in the interest of helping a friend out, I'm posting a link to her work. If you like your sci-fi dark and -- at times -- squicky, this is your book. I've read her stuff, and while it's not my usual fare, I'll definitely keep reading.
Click to pay a visit to Apex's site to find out more.
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I'm at Surdyk's Liquor (303 E Hennepin Ave, at University Ave, Minneapolis) w/ 2 others. http://4sq.com/6n6XNM [fontosaurus]
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Checked in at Surdyk's Liquor
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.@nickhobart dude this one is SLAYING me. http://www.dontevenreply.com/view.php?post=84 [fontosaurus]
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Dude. Last hour VERY productive. Spent it trying to get a migrated contact lens out of my eye. Fuck. [fontosaurus]
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I'm at Wells Fargo (425 E Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis). http://4sq.com/6e3CnI [fontosaurus]
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Checked in at Wells Fargo
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I'm at Don Pablo's - Roseville (2700 Lincoln Dr, Roseville). [fontosaurus]
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Checked in at Don Pablo's - Roseville
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I favorited a YouTube video -- Cycles http://youtu.be/-0Xa4bHcJu8?a [fontosaurus]
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have my Friday off, so here's my Follow Thursday: @mightywombat, @veloveggies, @Scoutwell_Cat, @kilgette, @actualmiles, @DoWhatITellYou #ff [fontosaurus]
