o, books

[jazzfish]

So I finished rereading the Hitchhiker's trilogy, for the first time in, oh, probably fifteen years. (Side note: holy cow is Mostly Harmless ever a depressing book. It's really good-- it may be the best novel of the lot-- but, yow.) And now I find myself with an embarrassment of riches.

In Vancouver I picked up a copy of Anathem, which I am told is a Neal Stephenson book with an ending. Thing is, it's Big, and bulky, and kind of annoying to carry around. It's much easier to carry Heat of Fusion, and I've been meaning to get back to that for awhile, prompted by a reread of "Chromatic Aberration" for a sadly moribund discussion forum. But I've also been meaning to reread Wolfe's Long Sun and Short Sun series, so I can pick up on some of what I missed the first time through. (devouring The Sorcerer's House last week did not help matters here.)

Or I could go with my original plan and reread the Dirk Gently books. I worry that that'll be too much DNA all at once. I did pick up a copy of King Rat at Stone Ridge last weekend, I could always finally read some of Mieville's stuff. And of course there's Ratio, a book about cooking, which I got from uilos last year and have been slowly wending my way through.

And then I remembered, I have a paid account for just such an eventuality!

[Poll #1554467]

Comments

[mikailborg.livejournal.com]

I rather enjoyed the sixth Hitchhiker's book, "And Another Thing..." and would recommend it to folks who won't mind that it's not a perfect DNA imitation. It's not *quite* the same continuity as any other Hitchhiker's tale, but that somehow seems quite appropriate.

[shield-toad111.livejournal.com]

I vote for Dirk Gently purely because you got the Hot Potato song stuck in my head, but I just packed my copy of the Omnibus away a couple days ago, so it would be Effort to go get it and read the book myself. And now the song will be stuck there forever. (Well, or until something else comes along. Bits of Candide have been popping up a lot recently.)

...and I should really go to bed soon, because if I don't, this may very well turn into the longest and most unrelated comment I've ever written. That and I have to be up in less than 6 hours.

[merseine0613.livejournal.com]

I listened to Anathem on a drive to-and-from my Mom's place in South Dakota... long stretches of southern MN swooped by quickly during that story. I know you've got the paper copy, but if you can swing an audio version - check your library - it was a good "listen" (as opposed to a good read...). I quite enjoyed the book, so I recommend it.

The "something else" depends on if you have any sort of e-reader available. I HIGHLY recommend the Baen library. They've got a bunch o' stuff for free and a whole lot of other stuff available for sale. I'm re-reading the Miles Vorkosigan series right now, thanks to Baen and my Nokia-810.

[uilos.livejournal.com]

Palwick's The Necessary Beggar and/or Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road. Both are pretty quick. Palwick is (of course) very good and Chabon is amusing.

[rbandrews]

Anathem is the best thing Stephenson's ever written. But don't go in expecting Snow Crash, or even Cryptonomicon, it's a really different book. Think something like a happier version of Canticle for Leibowitz.

I think you'll like it though. It goes by a lot faster than its mass would have you believe.