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.
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.
I’m Back
So it's been awhile since my last post. Partly because I had a short week at the office last week and a normal workload. I got everything done, then blew town for Vegas, which was awesome, as usual.
The first thing you'll have noticed is that I reverted back to the old theme I'd been using. The garish one was too damn obnoxious for my tastes. The second thing you'll notice is that I deleted all the accumulated spam in here. (Okay, maybe you didn't.)
Life: Wedding preparations are starting to roll. We've got a location, but it's going to necessitate two separate lists -- one for the ceremony (small) and one for the reception (huge). I want Kate to walk down the aisle to "Brick House" by the Commodores. She's having nothing of that.
Bike: 'Cross season starts this weekend and I'm not really ready. But I'm going to hit it anyway. Might as well suffer a bit and use it as training. Worst case scenario is that it becomes training for next year. Framebuilding class is starting soon. Real soon. Oh yeah, and the debacle with my RA'ed mountain bike shoes has been resolved. Got them. Heat treating them tonight.
Writing: I think I'm finally completely burned-out on reading. Vacation'll do that. To maintain my relationship with the written word, I'll be trying to wrap-up the rough draft for Bubble over the next few weeks. Hoping to keep it under 130,000 words. Going to be close. After that, I have to start my next novel, which is about humanity's first (indirect) contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.
Another Weekend in the Books
So I had this awesomely huge to-do list for the weekend, and was all gung-ho about getting through it. Saturday morning, I woke up, attacked it and lasted until about 1pm before I decided that I was done. I did manage to get in a good ride, hit up Target for some necessities, and wash both the WRX and the Fit.
I did read a few hundred more pages of Stephenson's Anathem. Like everything he wrote after Cryptonomicon, it's kind of slow going. It's not that it's boring, it's that it's dense with ideas. And that slows me down a bit. There's the paperback edition of another book (not by Mr. Stephenson) I've been wanting to read and that's coming out tomorrow, so I'll be hitting up B&N and shoving it to the top of the to-read list.
In addition to my reading, I also watched the entire first season of Big Bang Theory, which I scored at Target for $16 on DVD. (Awesome show. Something you should really be watching, particularly if you're a geek.)
Dinked around with the money a bit -- planning and thinking work.
Had a great talk with Kate. Aired out some of the emotional difficulties surrounding her long business trip, and as a result, I think we're on the same sheet of music, and stronger for it. Have I mentioned that I love that woman? Yeah, well, I do.
So I've gone and done it again -- another post laden with trivia about how I spent my weekend, and how I'm goofy-in-love with my fianceé. I've got some more interesting/substantive stuff forthcoming, I swear.
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Why does everyone assume I'm in my twenties? #helpidontunderstand [fontosaurus]
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Beat. 3 hours on bike. 8 hours at shop. 2 hours rearranging. Day's not over yet. Contacts pick-up and the Northeast Palace yet to come. [fontosaurus]
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Checked in at SuperAmerica - Lynlake
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I'm at SuperAmerica - Lynlake (801 W Lake St, Aldrich Ave S, Minneapolis). http://4sq.com/5GaQUl [fontosaurus]
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I'm at Penn Cycle Uptown (710 W, Lake St., at Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis). http://4sq.com/7Xn9Ev [fontosaurus]
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Checked in at Penn Cycle Uptown
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Shared 2 photos.
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First day back at @penncycle. Excited for another season at the shop. [fontosaurus]
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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
