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Well, once I'd broken the less antediluvian of the PCs, I had to do something with the weekend.


  1. Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
  2. Ulrich von Liechtenstein, The Service of Ladies
  3. Philip Roth, The Plot Against America
  4. ed. The Lifted Veil, 19th Century Women's Stories
  5. Bremner, Bird, Fortune, You Are Here
  6. Polly Bird, How to Be an Effective School Governor
  7. Jean Estoril, Ballet Twins
  8. Andre Norton, Judgment on Janus
  9. Granta 89, The Factory
  10. Gene Wolfe, The Claw of the Conciliator
  11. Gene Wolfe, The Sword of the Lictor
  12. Patrick McGrath, Dr Haggard's Disease
  13. James Barclay, Dreamthief
  14. Paul Cornell, British Summertime
  15. Ken Macleod, Dark Light
  16. Evelyn Lord, The Knights Templar in Britain
  17. Eric Brown, Deep Future
  18. Japanese Death Poems
  19. Jon Courtney Grimwood, Felaheen
  20. Iain M Banks, The Algebraist
    Sometimes returning to an favourite author's books is like meeting someone on a long boring journey who becomes an instant, tho' maybe temporary friend; sometimes the new book is like the smelly old man who insists on sharing the park bench where you're eating your lunch in the sun and to whom you don't actually want to lose your place and, well, you've shared the seat before, and it would be a little unmannerly to leave, and he's not such a bad old fellow, just a little inclined to tell you the same old reminiscence each time you meet.
    I bought The Algebraist as a pre-order on Amazon in keen anticipation. I gave up on Banks sans M about two chapters into Whit but I've continued with the SF. This may be the last I buy. The formula's staled. The whole did not come together. I felt that the circular quest had Shah Guido G carefully encrypted into the blue sky and clouds of the image on the leaf. I dutifully slogged through, irritated--with a hiatus that was getting long enough the book almost made it to the shelves unfinished. There were things to like: the travels through the gas giant with military escort and TIE fighter alien were fun; the prologue and epilogue had some charm (okay, I admit, I read the epilogue first, a bad habit). The villain and his tortures were predictable--and dull. And somehow I never quite cared about what happened in the Marabar caves. Still, I'm done. The pile of unfinished books has been reduced by one.
  21. Elizabeth Bear, Hammered
    (Okey doke, so I'm going to write this as if there was no possibility of the author reading the comments...)
    This didn't make the guilt-inducing pile of unread books beside the futon. It was intended to: I chose it from my Amazon wish-list as a makeweight (or make postage) on top of an order of workbooks for Looby Loo with the intention of saving it for later. No way. I finished The Algebraist yesterday morning and picked Hammered up and hardly let go of it until I was through (around 2.00 am this morning).
    The book sat on the dining table while I ate with interesting conversational results. Looby Loo looked at the cover, read the title and author and then saw the picture.
    "Does that lady have a metal hand?"
    "Yes. She's got a replacement eye too...
    "one she can take out?"
    "... more like a camera."
    "She could take pictures if she blinked."
    Much winking and blinking across the dinner table.
    "How's she going to look at these pictures? A printer in the palm of her hand?"
    "Under her eye."
    "Won't it be a bit big to fit in her head? She could have a little TV screen on her hand."
    Further miming--viewing photos in our hands.
    We didn't get round to talking about the contents.
    So, why was I so gripped? The pace. The collage of narrative voices. The switches of time and location. A recipe for confusion, but actually easy to follow, the pieces fitting into their proper places as the picture built up. The only small problem in this, I think, was my initial inability to distinguish the secondary female characters, Elspeth, Alberta. And sometimes the fitting together was too neat--Valens with his hold over every character he draws in to his enterprise, the repetition of the protective elder sister and protected younger sister and dead mother (Jen and Nan, Leah and Genie). But the voice of Jenny and her distinctive present tense voice pulled me through. I loved her, prostheses and all. And Feynman--always amusing. I'm rather sad he'll be out of her head.


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