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newnumber6Finished: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
This is a bit of an odd book, and hard to describe. It involves a guy in a time machine who gets caught in a time loop, and also looking for his father who invented time travel, but it's also... not. It's very metafictional, with science fiction in-jokes and plot twists that are more about being cute or clever than making sense.
The writing itself is beautiful, and there are incredibly poetic passages contained within, as well as visuals and ideas that could form the basis of a book by itself but are tossed off casually and never really developed. However, I felt myself not all that impressed by the story, so I'm not sure I can say I "liked" it. It was interesting, at least at times, and probably worth reading, but not the type of thing that I felt especially drawn to. It also wound up depressing me, but that was more about me than the book, I think.
Finished: Jumper by Steven Gould (reread)
Finished: Reflex by Steven Gould (reread)
Reread both of these because in about two months the third book, Impulse will be coming out. Really looking forward to it.
Finished: Digital Domains: A Decade of Science Fiction & Fantasy (short story collection)
Short story collection, blah blah blah, usual mix of good and bad. In this case, too many sort of gimmicky fantasy stories, and too often, where there was actually a good idea that I got into, the story ended and I wanted more. Favorite stories were probably "Tomorrow Town," by Kim Newman, and "Russian Vine", by Simon Ings.
Finished: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (reread)
Read this so many times there's nothing really more to say.
Started: The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
Started: The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
Is there anything else going on in my life?
No. Not really. The usual occasional family stuff. Writing's still pretty slow going. I traditionally take December off from writing, but I've done so little good this month I don't feel I earned it. I probably will take it off anyway though, because I'm lazy and it's more about holiday stress than anything else.
About a week or two I purchased a bottle of Sriracha sauce (also called Rooster Sauce because of the picture of a rooster on it). It's my first. Because I often find myself liking a little more spice in what I eat (and life in general, but that's not going to happen). It's pretty good... not as hot as I'd like (and the hotness seems to vary widely based on what I put it on... sometimes I can barely taste it, sometimes it's pretty pleasingly hot). Lately I've been putting it at least a little on every dinner. So far best results are using it on pizza crusts, which I always eat anyway but they're a bit of a chore, but toss some rooster sauce on it and it's a nice little zing to it.
I've been having rather weird and/or fantastical dreams lately, on a fairly regular basis, which is really nice... for too long I've been in a dry spell where they've been pretty mundane or falling into the trap of "I get something I want and then have to wake up and realize it was just a dream"... which, technically happens in some of the weird dreams too (zombie apocalypses are on my wishlist, nothing wrong with that, right?) but at least after I wake up and realize I'm still stuck in the real world, I can enjoy the memory of the story of the dream rather than the bitter ashes in my mouth of dashed hopes. Of course, I can't actually remember any SPECIFICS of the dreams much longer than a few hours for the most part, so I can't relate any examples (and let's face it, nobody really cares to read them anyway), other than some generic descriptions like 'zombies took over' or 'the government was installing internet in people's heads' or 'I was being cloned and found I had a telepathic connection to all of my clones' (all real, btw, but they were details thatwere seemed much cooler at the time that I can't remember at all now) but at least sleeping is a little more fun lately.
I seem to have been getting a lot of comment spam on my LJ posts lately. They're always old posts and I always delete them within a few hours (more often minutes) of receiving them, so really, I don't know why they bother.
This is a bit of an odd book, and hard to describe. It involves a guy in a time machine who gets caught in a time loop, and also looking for his father who invented time travel, but it's also... not. It's very metafictional, with science fiction in-jokes and plot twists that are more about being cute or clever than making sense.
The writing itself is beautiful, and there are incredibly poetic passages contained within, as well as visuals and ideas that could form the basis of a book by itself but are tossed off casually and never really developed. However, I felt myself not all that impressed by the story, so I'm not sure I can say I "liked" it. It was interesting, at least at times, and probably worth reading, but not the type of thing that I felt especially drawn to. It also wound up depressing me, but that was more about me than the book, I think.
Finished: Jumper by Steven Gould (reread)
Finished: Reflex by Steven Gould (reread)
Reread both of these because in about two months the third book, Impulse will be coming out. Really looking forward to it.
Finished: Digital Domains: A Decade of Science Fiction & Fantasy (short story collection)
Short story collection, blah blah blah, usual mix of good and bad. In this case, too many sort of gimmicky fantasy stories, and too often, where there was actually a good idea that I got into, the story ended and I wanted more. Favorite stories were probably "Tomorrow Town," by Kim Newman, and "Russian Vine", by Simon Ings.
Finished: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (reread)
Read this so many times there's nothing really more to say.
Started: The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
Started: The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
Is there anything else going on in my life?
No. Not really. The usual occasional family stuff. Writing's still pretty slow going. I traditionally take December off from writing, but I've done so little good this month I don't feel I earned it. I probably will take it off anyway though, because I'm lazy and it's more about holiday stress than anything else.
About a week or two I purchased a bottle of Sriracha sauce (also called Rooster Sauce because of the picture of a rooster on it). It's my first. Because I often find myself liking a little more spice in what I eat (and life in general, but that's not going to happen). It's pretty good... not as hot as I'd like (and the hotness seems to vary widely based on what I put it on... sometimes I can barely taste it, sometimes it's pretty pleasingly hot). Lately I've been putting it at least a little on every dinner. So far best results are using it on pizza crusts, which I always eat anyway but they're a bit of a chore, but toss some rooster sauce on it and it's a nice little zing to it.
I've been having rather weird and/or fantastical dreams lately, on a fairly regular basis, which is really nice... for too long I've been in a dry spell where they've been pretty mundane or falling into the trap of "I get something I want and then have to wake up and realize it was just a dream"... which, technically happens in some of the weird dreams too (zombie apocalypses are on my wishlist, nothing wrong with that, right?) but at least after I wake up and realize I'm still stuck in the real world, I can enjoy the memory of the story of the dream rather than the bitter ashes in my mouth of dashed hopes. Of course, I can't actually remember any SPECIFICS of the dreams much longer than a few hours for the most part, so I can't relate any examples (and let's face it, nobody really cares to read them anyway), other than some generic descriptions like 'zombies took over' or 'the government was installing internet in people's heads' or 'I was being cloned and found I had a telepathic connection to all of my clones' (all real, btw, but they were details that
I seem to have been getting a lot of comment spam on my LJ posts lately. They're always old posts and I always delete them within a few hours (more often minutes) of receiving them, so really, I don't know why they bother.
