What are you reading right now?
Nearly through Trouble on Triton, by Samuel R. Delany. Best summed up as "Christ, what an asshole: The Bron Helstrom Story".
The first (and only previous) time I read this, it was for Marc Zaldivar's class (either sophomore English or F&SF, I forget which), well over a decade ago. I have distinct memories of enjoying the book, and thinking there wasn't a lot of plot but there were some really interesting philosophical ideas in there. This time I'm mostly enjoying the book, and though there's not much plot it's a fascinating character study of an unpleasant frustrating person, and the character study has some neat parallels in the interesting philosophical ideas. I am also not infrequently wincing in recognition and semi-recognition.
I am both a better reader and a more self-aware human being than I was in university. I knew both of these things, more or less; I just haven't really had the first driven home to me recently.
What did you just finish reading?
The March North by Graydon Saunders (ebook only, alas). It's... "military fantasy" is I guess the best descriptor, and it's not inaccurate, but it's painfully incomplete. Anyone with any interest in subtle deep worldbuilding, and incidentally things like giant warsheep and chemistry a la Ignition! / Sand Won't Save You This Time, ought to check it out.
Several people have compared it to the work of John M. Ford, which is also not inaccurate, but gave me very much the wrong idea. I don't think of Ford's books as dense or impenetrable or subtle, although they very much are. The first thing I think of when I think of a Mike Ford book is the emotional depth of the characters. That's less present in The March North. This is not really a criticism; that's not the point of the book, and it's well worth reading anyhow!
What do you think you'll read next?
Probaby the first of Delany's Neveryon books (there's an umlaut and an accent in that word somewhere). I never got around to reading all of Neveryon, and Trouble on Triton, its second appendix, and some scattered bits of the Neveryon cycle form a loose collection entitled "Some Remarks on the Modular Calculus," which is why I picked up Triton in the first place.
Somewhere in there I will almost certainly read Graydon's second book, A Succession Of Bad Days. I am not devouring it immediately in the hopes that the delay will tide me over until the third thru Nth come out.
Nearly through Trouble on Triton, by Samuel R. Delany. Best summed up as "Christ, what an asshole: The Bron Helstrom Story".
The first (and only previous) time I read this, it was for Marc Zaldivar's class (either sophomore English or F&SF, I forget which), well over a decade ago. I have distinct memories of enjoying the book, and thinking there wasn't a lot of plot but there were some really interesting philosophical ideas in there. This time I'm mostly enjoying the book, and though there's not much plot it's a fascinating character study of an unpleasant frustrating person, and the character study has some neat parallels in the interesting philosophical ideas. I am also not infrequently wincing in recognition and semi-recognition.
I am both a better reader and a more self-aware human being than I was in university. I knew both of these things, more or less; I just haven't really had the first driven home to me recently.
What did you just finish reading?
The March North by Graydon Saunders (ebook only, alas). It's... "military fantasy" is I guess the best descriptor, and it's not inaccurate, but it's painfully incomplete. Anyone with any interest in subtle deep worldbuilding, and incidentally things like giant warsheep and chemistry a la Ignition! / Sand Won't Save You This Time, ought to check it out.
Several people have compared it to the work of John M. Ford, which is also not inaccurate, but gave me very much the wrong idea. I don't think of Ford's books as dense or impenetrable or subtle, although they very much are. The first thing I think of when I think of a Mike Ford book is the emotional depth of the characters. That's less present in The March North. This is not really a criticism; that's not the point of the book, and it's well worth reading anyhow!
What do you think you'll read next?
Probaby the first of Delany's Neveryon books (there's an umlaut and an accent in that word somewhere). I never got around to reading all of Neveryon, and Trouble on Triton, its second appendix, and some scattered bits of the Neveryon cycle form a loose collection entitled "Some Remarks on the Modular Calculus," which is why I picked up Triton in the first place.
Somewhere in there I will almost certainly read Graydon's second book, A Succession Of Bad Days. I am not devouring it immediately in the hopes that the delay will tide me over until the third thru Nth come out.