Tag: science fiction

Speaker for the Dead

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Card, Orson Scott. Speaker for the Dead. Macmillan Audio, 2006.

Reason read: to continue the series started in October in honor of Science Fiction Month.

As a small child, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin saved planet Earth from war with the Buggers. Now as an earthly yet ageless thirty five year old adult, Ender is faced with a second alien invasion with the piggies. War seems to be inevitable. Ender has transformed himself into a Speaker for the Dead and must reconcile his horrible past as Ender Wiggin the Xenocide. Not many know he is one and the same. It is a dance of identity to come to terms with the past.
I found it interesting to learn that in order for Speaker for the Dead to work Ender’s Game had to be a full blown novel. The sequel actually birthed the first book’s existence.
As an aside, I do not know how Speaker for the Dead can be pigeon holed into the genre of science fiction when it carries themes of philosophy, religion, family, psychology, religion, socio-economics, ethics, ecology, genetics, mysticism, hatred, and science.
I applaud any book that makes the reader feel something whether intended or not. If the author can be clever enough to hide personal feelings while promoting an unfavorable view, more power to him or her. Speaker for the Dead made me laugh and cry, hate and love, all at the same time.
The best part of Speaker for the Dead was Ender’s conversation with the Bishop about death – how another culture could see death as the greatest honor.

Line I liked, “I think, said Ender, that you should not plant anymore humans” (p 415).

Author fact: to look at Orson Scott Card’s list of books is impressive. I am only reading seven Ender books for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Speaker for the Dead is an indirect sequel to Ender’s Game. You can get by without reading Ender, but why would you want to?

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).

Ender’s Game

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Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game. Read by Stefan Rudnicki and Harlan Ellison. Macmillan Audio, 2004.

Reason read: October is Science Fiction Month.

Planet Earth is prepping for a galaxy war against the Buggers. The last skirmish was eighty years ago and Earth barely survived. Recruiting this time around has to be aggressive and highly tactical. Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, born in a society of limiting offspring: only two children per family, is known as an extra or Third. As a Third Ender must leave planet Earth at six years old for a boarding school where he trains to be a soldier. He leads an army of other children and it is here that he proves to be a natural-born leader and a prodigy at winning battles. So the saga begins.
Back home, the proverbial power struggle between good and evil begins. While Ender grows into a tactical fighter, his brother Peter demonstrates increasing violent tendencies every day. Their sister, ironically named Valentine (the symbol of love) as the token female, stands in the middle of the two brothers.
One of the most fascinating elements of Ender’s Game is that Card challenges the assumption about reality and what is “normal.”

Author fact: the idea for Ender came when Card was sixteen years old. He was fascinated by the idea of a Battle Room.

Book Audio trivia: listening to the audio was a treat because Orson Scott Card explained his process for writing Ender’s Game. I had no idea the book was meant to be read aloud. Also, when Card first presented Ender’s Game he was told it was fantasy. He needed to change some details, bring in aliens to make it science fiction.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).

Galatea 2.2

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Powers, Richard. Galatea 2.2 Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995.

If you know the story of Pygmalion than you will recognize Galatea 2.2 as its clever reinterpretation.
Interestingly enough, Galatea 2.2‘s fictional protagonist is named Richard Powers and is a writer, using the names of books he has written like Gold Bug and Prisoner’s Dilemma. Richard is also a Humanist-in-Residence at an unnamed research facility. His failed relationship with a former student is woven in with his present day life and colors his thinking on the daily. During a year-long residency, he and a colleague embark on building a thinking machine. With his long term relationship in shambles and writer’s block stalking him daily, training a neural network seems like the perfect diversion. As an aside, why anyone would want to create a computer that can pass a comprehensive exam in English literature is beyond me. The whole story reminded me of the movie Short Circuit when #5 learned to think for himself. There is always a vector involved somewhere.

Quote I liked, “And chaos chose that moment to hit home” (p 3). I love the imagery. Can you just see chaos as a cat, perched on high, waiting for the perfect moment to attack?
As an aside, could Powers be talking about someone else when he wrote the line, “He looked as though he took tanning cream orally” (p 16)? <Insert thinking emoji here.>
Here’s another quote I loved, “No one knows how full my hands were, or care” (p 171).

Author fact: I am reading a total of nine books by Powers. Two of them he mentions in Galatea 2.2: Prisoner’s Dilemma and Gold Bug Variations.

Playlist: “You’re the Top”, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, “Three Blind Mice”, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir Sings John Philip Sousa, Traverner’s Western Wynde Mass, “Amazing Grace”, Diana Ross, Purcel’s “Evening Hymn”, Alfonso Ferrabosco, and “Old Black Joe”.

Writing in book on pages 4, 11, 30, 31, 63, 79, 171, 188, 270, 279.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Mechanical Men, Robots, Automatons, and Deep Blue” (p 150) and again in the chapter called “Richard Powers: Too Good To Miss” (p 191).

Man Who Fell to Earth

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Tevis, Walter. The Man Who Fell to Earth. Narrated by George Guidall, Recorded Books, 2018.

Reason read: February is Science Fiction month.

Meet Thomas Jerome Newton, a humanoid alien from the planet Anthea. Standing rail thin at 6’6″ with pale skin and odd features, Newton has come to Earth in a desperate attempt to save his dying planet’s population. Less than three hundred souls are clinging to life while the planet dies away from drought and mismanagement. Newton’s brilliant plan is to use the earth’s resources to build a spaceship large enough to bring the surviving Antheans to Kentucky, of all places. Only, as time goes on, America’s vices get the better of him. Alcoholism and loneliness start to cloud his judgement. As suspicions about him grow, the question of human destiny becomes philosophical in nature.

Author fact: Tevis also wrote The Hustler, The Color of Money, and The Queen’s Gambit. All titles on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: The Man Who Fell to Earth was made into a movie starring David Bowie. This is one that I will watch because I borrowed the DVD from a library.

Music: “Oh Lordie, Pick a Bale of Cotton!”, “Faith of Our Fathers”, “I You Knew Susie, Like I Know Susie”, Haydn, “Jingle Bells”, Mozart Clarinet Quintet in A Major, “Rock of Ages”, Strauss’ The Poet and the Peasant Overtures, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”, “White Christmas”, and “Adeste Fideles”.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Child Prodigies” (p 43). So. The Man Who Fell to Earth does not have a child prodigy anywhere in its plot. This, and other Tevis books, should not be in this chapter.

Childhood’s End

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Clarke, Arthur C. Childhood’s End. Random House, 1981.

Reason read: October is Science Fiction Month for some people. I also needed a book set in the future for the Portland Public Library 2023 Reading Challenge.

Confessional: this review will be very brief. As I have said before, I am not a fan of science fiction. Boo. The first section of Childhood’s End is based on a short story called “Guardian Angel”. Earth is controlled by the Overlords. They provide security, peace and prosperity but their interests lie in human psychology, mysticism, telepathy, the occult, second sight, and psychic phenomena. Fact meets fiction. The Republic of South Africa had racial tensions for over a century. U.S. and Russia did have a race to space. I found those elements to be interesting. The other aspects of Childhood’s End I found curious were the social commentaries Clarke was making about the human race. When we cannot pronounce a name that is unfamiliar to use (like Thanthalteresco) we come up with nicknames (like the Inspector). The Overlords are like parents, banning something (space) because they think their children (humans) are not ready for it. My favorite part was when Jan Rodricks, a Cape Town engineering student, pulled a Trojan Horse stunt and stowed away in a giant whale replica to visit the Overlords on their turf.
The moral of the story could be that without conflict there is no passion. Without passion there is only apathy and with apathy comes boredom. With boredom comes the need to rile things up.

Author fact: Have you seen the list of books Clarke has written, both in fiction and nonfiction? It is impressive. I am only reading Childhood’s End for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Childhood’s End was originally published in 1953 and considered way before its time. It took almost a year to write.

Nancy said: Pearl said Childhood’s End was a great read.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fictions, Fantasy and Horror” (p 213).

Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy

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Barlowe, Wayne Douglas. Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy: Great Heroes and Bizarre Beings from Imaginative Literature. Harper Prism, 1996.

Reason read: this was a very short read that satisfied two categories of the Portland Public Library Reading challenge for 2023. I needed a book under 150 pages and a book with a cryptid or mythological being as a character.

I think a more accurate title for this book would have been Barlowe’s Guide to Fifty Fantastic Heroes and Bizarre Beings in Fantasy. Too long? Okay, we can drop the “in fantasy” because it is kind of redundant. Seriously, I did not find this to be a guide to the genre of fantasy, but more of a who’s who of popular characters from authors such as Peter S. Beagle, Robert Jordan, Clive Barker, and Stephen Donaldson. The illustrations of insects, monsters, dragons, beasts, unicorns, and the whatnot are truly beautiful. From fashion to faces, each creature comes alive in Barlowe’s guide. I imagined Barlowe pouring over every descriptive element of each creature in order to get features, costumes, and weapons as accurate as possible. Even though the list of characters is short (there are only fifty), this must-read for fantasy readers of all ages.

Confessional: There is a book from my childhood that I like better. I still have it. It’s called Fantastic People: Magical Races of Myth and Legend by Allan Scott and Michael Scott Rohan. It includes chapters on dragons, trolls, vampires, witches, demons, and more.

Author fact: besides being an illustrator, Barlowe is an author.

Book trivia: Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy was coauthored by Neil Duskis.

Oryx and Crake

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Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. Read by Campbell Scott.

Reason read: Atwood was born in the month of November. Also, I needed a book for the Portland Public Library reading challenge for the categories of speculative fiction and a book I have read before.

I need to condense the plot of Oryx and Crake for simplicity’s sake. There is a lot going on in this dystopia drama. Here is the shortest recap ever: Snowman was once a boy named Jimmy. He lived in a world dominated by bioengineering companies capable of creating new species of nonhuman lifeforms and genetic modifications for future humanoids. Jimmy befriends a boy named Glenn (who becomes Crake). During their pubescent years Jimmy and Crake spend an inordinate amount of time doing drugs, playing over the top violent video games, and watching live videos of murder, beastiality, and child pornography. This shapes Crake’s future invention of a health and happiness pill with an unadvertisized side effect of sterilization. Another result of this happiness pill is a lethal and extremely contagious global pandemic. When Jimmy goes to work for Crake he discovers a woman he recognizes from the porn videos he and Crake used to watch. Crake introduces her as Oryx and Jimmy becomes smitten. Does he dance with the devil? Yes, yes he does.

Confessional: I had completely forgotten how disturbing Oryx and Crake is.
Second confessional: I read Oryx and Crake while our world is still struggling with Covid-19. I couldn’t help but make comparisons to O&C.

Lines I liked, the phrase “turn memory into white noise” was the best.

Author fact: Atwood has called Oryx and Crake as romance. She is both brilliant and twisted.

Book trivia: Oryx and Crake is the first book in a trilogy. While this is a reread for me, I have not read the other two books in the series.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anthing specific about Oryx and Crake except to include it in the list of other dark and stormy novels.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “It was a Dark and Stormy Novel” (p 129).

Dune

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Herbert, Frank. Dune. Ace Trade, 2005.

Reason read: Herbert began his career as a novelist in November 1955. I also needed a book with a one-word title for the Portland Public Library’s Reading Challenge.

At the center of Dune is a drug known to be a truth seeker called Melange. It acts as an extension of human youth and has the ability to produce multidimensional awareness, the foresight ncessary for space navigation, increased mental abilities, and vitality in the form of being able to diagnose illnesses and treat them accordingly. Quite the wonder drug and in obvious high demand. It is the proverbial fountain of youth and very addictive, as one might suspect. It is mined on the planet of Arrakis, otherwise known as “Dune” the desert planet. As mentioned earlier, Melange gives people the ability to change metabolism with each wound or injury, making survival that much easier when faced with a poisoned blade which makes an appearance frequently.
When it comes to the subject of breeding, I was reminded of The Handmaid’s Tale. Jessica, Paul’s mother, was “ordered” to give birth to a girl but ultimately disobeyed to give her husband a son. Mothers can chose the gender of her child. Imagine that. Another simularity to Handmaid is the idea of a strict caste system society.
Dune is the kind of book that drives me crazy. Suspensor lamps and glowglobes abound. WTF are they? Despite the “otherworldly” details, there is a fundamental truth within Dune. Water is precious in the desert. After the drought we just endured last summer, I can relate. In Dune people can be killed for the fluid in their bodies.

Confessional: how hated would I be if I said I never had the desire to read Dune? Everyone knows how I feel about science fiction in general, but there was something detracting about the vibe I got from the movie and (I say this with one eye open, cringing), I’ve never been a fan of self-centered Sting. There. I’ve said it. Sand worms aside, I wasn’t looking forward to Dune. I wasn’t even sure I would get through the requisite 50 pages. I opted for the audio version which was fantastic. I now want to see the movie. Imagine that!

Lines I connected with, “Dreams were predictions” (p 4). I believe that as well. Here is another phrase I liked, “sift people to find the humans.” I feel like I do that on a daily basis.

Author fact: Herbert based everything in Dune on magic mushrooms.

Book trivia: my audio version included a whole cast of characters. Instead of just one person reading the story, it was acted out by a bunch of people. In addition to that, sound effects were fantastic.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything in particular about Dune.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 215).

Neuromancer

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Gibson, William, Neuromancer. Read by Robertson Dean. Penguin Audio, 2011.

Reason read: October was once dubbed Computer Learning Month. I needed a book for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge under the category of speculative fiction. This also served as a book for the category of book with a one-word title.

I was pleasantly surprised by Neuromancer. I think it is fair to say, and I’ll say it again for the cheap seats, people know I dislike science fiction. This one was different. Very different. Gibson writes with such color and texture. There is brilliance in every fast-paced sentence and word. Combined with a razor-sharp eye for descriptive detail, I was hooked. Take Gibson’s phrase “insect-calm” as an example. Think about it. Insects do not have readable facial expressions. Everything an insect does is without so-called emotion. [As an aside, right after I wrote that sentence someone dropped a dead praying mantis on my desk.] Example number two: consider Gibson’s ability to take the absolute absurd and make it so commonplace it becomes believable. Learn his lexicon and a whole new world will reveal itself to you. Holographs abound. People run around with vaginas on their wrists. Aftershave does smell metallic. Really.
Our hero, Henry Dorsett Case, is a typical down-and-out character driven by guilt and addiction. He used to be the best data thief out there until ex-employers sabotaged and nearly destroyed his nervous system. Nowadays he’s broken beyond belief and mourning the fact the bad guys killed his girlfriend for revenge. He connection to life is only through his work. Sounds like a Hollywood movie. One that has tried but failed to get off the ground. Case has become literally a thing for hire. Paired with Molly Millions (aka Rose Kolodny, Cat Mother, and Steppin’ Razor), Case is blackmailed into working for an ex-military mercenary in need of a ROM module. I’m going to stop there.

Author fact: gibson has written a ton of other stuff but I am only reading Neuromancer and Pattern Recognition for the Challenge. I find it amazing that Neuromancer was Gibson’s debut novel.

Book trivia: Neuromancer has a huge impact on society. It became a movie (of course) as well as a video game and inspited hundred of science fiction “cyberpunk” writers. It is rumored the word “cyberspace” was coined by Gibson.

Nancy said: Pearl said to read Neuromancer as the book that started cyberpunk.

BookLust Twist: for all of the high praise, I am surprised Neuromancer is in only one Lust book, Book Lust in the sole chapter called “Cyberspace.com” (p 69). After some thought, I have decided Pearl was right to only include Neuromancer once. If you read the wiki page about the novel, you will see many, many people were interested in bringing Gibson’s book to the stage in the form of an opera or to the big screen as a movie. None of these endeavors panned out for one reason or another.

Left Hand of Darkness

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Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness. Ace Books, 1969.

Reason read: October is Fantasy month. Also, I needed a book for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge for the category of book published in the year you were born.

To read the classic Left Hand of Darkness is to discover a completely different way of thinking. To understand just how advanced Le Guin’s vision was in 1969 you need to consider at that time, in 1969, where society stood in regards to technology, human sexuality, and cultural constraints. When she describes electric vehicles with their super quiet hum and the gender fluid planet of Winter/Gethen, it feels very 21st century. Interestingly enough, the role of “pervert” on Gethen is assigned to what we would consider normal (assigned) gender today. I find that extremely interesting. As an aside, is it still true that Earth is freewheeling and without tact? I think so.
Mr. Ai (artificial intelligence?) is on a mission to bring an alliance between Gethen and Ekumen. The only thing I have in common with misogynist Ai in that I also like sour beer. His “friendships” are based on need and slim tolerance.
The message of Left Hand of Darkness is the tiny spark of hope despite all the darkness that surrounds us. It is worth rereading over and over again. As both authors of the foreword and afterword of the anniversary edition mention, there is something new to discover each time.

Author fact: Le Guin died in 2018.

Book trivia: this is a reread for me. I read it in high school as well as grade school.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about Left Hand of Darkness.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 215).

Kindred

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Butler, Octavia, E. Kindred. Read by Kim Staunton. Audio Books, 2007.

Reason read: The audio book for Kindred was released on September 12th, 2007. Read in honor of that event. I also needed a book with a one word title for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge.

This was a hard read. I know what Butler was trying to do and it worked almost too well. Even just reading the fact that nigger was not a derogatory term in southern Maryland in 1815 was painful. I didn’t know how I would get through the much, much, much harsher treatment of slaves, but I did. Dana, a modern woman from the 1970s, finds herself time-traveling back to pre-Civil War Maryland. At first it seems as if Dana is going back in time to protect the future of her very existence. It’s much deeper than that. There were many themes introduced in Kindred. Probably the most profound theme surrounded literacy. The ability to read was controversial in the mid 1800s. Seen as a threat to whites, cherished as a secret communication for slaves, the ability to read symbolized power and a different form of freedom. Confessional: after Dana’s first jump I was disturbed by her early acceptance of time travel. She wasn’t as freaked out about time jumping between present day Los Angeles and slave era Maryland as I thought realistic. Add in the fact she accidentally took her white husband with her and a whole other dynamic gets introduced. Another confessional: I read this so fast I can barely remember the details except to say the violence stayed with me for a very long time, even if the entire plot didn’t.

Author fact: Butler passed away in 2006.

Book trivia: I could picture this being a movie.

Nancy said: Pearl only includes Kindred in a list of books about time travel one might enjoy.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Time Travel” (p 221).

Feed

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Anderson, M.T. Feed. Read by David Aaron Baker. New York: Random House Listening Library, 2002.

Reason read: May is considered Birds and Bees month and since teenagers have raging hormones I thought I would combine the two and read Feed.

Confessional: I am not a big fan of futuristic, dystopian novels. Feed is Anderson’s commentary of big corporation greed and its power over society in the form of extreme consumerism. Additionally, information technology and data mining are taken further by the invention of a brain-implanted feed network capable of scanning and collecting people’s thoughts and feelings and regurgitated back as commercials. Told from the first person perspective of Titus, we meet Linc (cloned after Abraham Lincoln), Marty (the guy with the Nike speech tattoo which causes him to insert the word Nike into every sentence), Loga (ex-girlfriend of Titus), Calista (the first girl to get lesions as a fashion statement) and Violet (Titus’s new girlfriend and the one to reveal the dangers of the feed). Violet is the most interesting of the group. As an underprivileged teen, she did not get a feed insert until she was older. This causes malfunctioning and Violet’s ability to “fight” the feed. Although it is a predictable ending, I appreciated Anderson’s reality of the situation.

As an aside, definitely find the audio book read by David Aaron Baker. It is a spectacular performance.

The popularity of having lesions to the point of creating them reminded me of the Seuss book, Gertrude McFuzz, the story about the bird who wanted glorious tail feathers and got so greedy collecting them she could no longer fly.

Author fact: Anderson also write Thirsty which is on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: Feed was a National Book Award finalist and winner of the Boston Globe Horn Book Award and the Golden Duck Award (Hal Clement).

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about Feed except to include it in the list of sure teen-pleasers.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Teens” (p 23).

Riddley Walker

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Hoban, Russell. Riddley Walker. New York: Summit books, 1980.

Reason read: Hoban’s birth month is in February. Read in his honor.

I wanted to like Riddley Walker. I really, really did. The problem is that I am not a science fiction consumer by any means. This book will demand your entire attention and hijack your time, thanks to a language that at first blush just looks like horribly spelled English. It’s trickier than that and way more brilliant. I didn’t have the time or inclination to get into it beyond fifty pages. The story opens with Riddley becoming a man at twelve years old. In post-apocalyptical English Kent, civilization is starting over from tribal scratch. Men carry spears and need to relearn skills like rediscovering fire in order to survive. Once man’s best friend, dogs are now killing machines that roam the streets in packs. Riddley finds symbolism in everything.
As an aside, the salvaging of iron reminded me of the opening scene of the movie “The Full Monty.” Aha! A movie I have seen! 😉

Lines I managed to like, “I don’t think it makes no differents where you start the telling of a thing” (p 8). Too true.

Author fact: Hoban was inspired to write Riddley Walker after seeing medieval wall art in a cathedral.

Book trivia: Riddley Walker won a few sci-fi awards and was nominated for a Nebula in 1981. It was also the inspiration for many plays. The movie “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” used themes from Riddley Walker.

Nancy said: Pearl had a lot to say about Riddley Walker. She starts by calling it one of the best of the postapocalyptic genre of novels. She then goes on to say she “doesn’t know of another novel that could arguably be called science fiction which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award as well as the Nebula Award” (More Book Lust p 115). She finishes her praise by offering a suggestion for understanding the language: read it out loud, as her mother did.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter “Russell Hoban: Too Good To Miss” (p 114). This book finishes the chapter for me.

Pandora's Star

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Hamilton, Peter F. Pandora’s Star. New York: Random House, 2004.

Reason read: in honor of science fiction month, science fiction week, and science fiction day. all those things.

I have read many different reviews calling Pandora’s Star “epic,” a “space opera,” and “sweeping.” I have to wonder if that is because the book is so freaking long. And. And! And, it doesn’t have a conclusive ending. That’s right. You read over 900 pages only to find you end up hanging off a cliff. Yup. Pandora’s Star takes place in a time when re-life is a common occurrence. Individuals spend time in a womb tank and be reborn following a rejuvenation policy at age sixty-five; or they can modify their DNA and clone themselves. Memory edits are common. They can buy smart memories to give themselves an instant education while they boss around their e-butlers; or they can dump memories in a secure store for nostalgia’s sake. OCtattoos allow one to smell what other’s are up to. Can you just imagine?
This is a world where farms are mechanized. Native plants are destroyed and factories produce everything the inhabitants need. Power plants and super conductor cables rule the landscape. Domesticated beasts like tands, galens, longtrus, finnars, and barntran are as common as the Silfen alien population. Just look out for the armored six legged monster called the Alamo Avenger or the furry Yeti-like creature, the Korrok-hi. Departments like Planetary Science, the Alien Encounter Office, and Emergency Defense are necessary.
This is the best line in the whole book, “Astrogration, move the wormhole exit to geosynchronous height above the third planets daylight terminator” (p 191).
Ozzie Isaac, inventor of the gateways speaks in poetry. My favorite things about him is that he can switch his retinal inserts to ultraviolet. That’s just way cool. He’s only one of many, many interesting characters. My advice is pay attention to everyone you meet. Sooner or later they all come back into the picture.

Author fact: Hamilton has written an impressive list of books. I’m only reading two.

Book trivia: Pandora’s Star in continued by Judas Unchained. Phew, I say. Because otherwise how else would I figure out how it all ended?

Nancy said: Pearl said a lot about Pandora’s Star. She said she couldn’t praise it enough, that it was not to be missed, that the characters are three-dimensional, and that it compared to Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Space Operas” (p 210).

March Same As It Ever Was

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This March will mark my eighth time running the St. Patrick’s Day Road Race. When I lived in town I would watch the runners race by, seemingly effortlessly. I could spy on them from my third floor apartment; while I sipped coffee I wondered what it would be like to able to run six miles knowing believing I couldn’t run a single one. Look at me now, Dad.

Here are the books I’m reading for the month of March:

Fiction:

  • Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear – in honor of International Women’s month and to check off a category from the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge list (a cozy mystery).
  • Miss Mole by E.H. Young – in honor of Young’s birth month.
  • The Calligrapher by Edward Docx – in honor of March is Action Hero month.
  • On the Night Plain by J. Robert Lennon – in honor of Yellowstone National Park.
  • Pandora’s Star by Peter Hamilton – in honor of sci-fi month.

Nonfiction:

  • All Elevations Unknown: an Adventure into the Heart of Borneo by Sam Lightner, Jr. – in honor of the first time Mount Kinabu was ascended (March 1851).
  • Baghdad without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia by Tony Horwitz – in memory of the March 2003 bombing of Baghdad.

Series Continuations:

  • Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland – to continue the series started in January in honor something I can’t remember.

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • The 21: A Journey into the Land of the Coptic Martyrs by Martin Mosebach (started in February).