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cosmolinguistIn Barnes & Noble Saturday, Katie and I were delighted beyond belief at the release of the latest book in a series we happen to love. We were so happy it hurt, because we knew we couldn't live without it and yet both are used to not spending money whenever possible. We bought a copy anyway--having decided that splitting the cost makes it more acceptable to both of us.
No, it's not Harry Potter, stupid.
It's Shadow Puppets, the latest sequel to Ender's Game (which I always declare my favorite book whenever I have to choose one). The book has been around for a while, in hardcover, but if we're cheap enough to worry about spending eight dollars, it should be obvious that Katie and I are not going to shell out the money for hardcover, no matter how much we thnk we're going to like the book.
Since she's in the middle of reading something else (a book I'm lending her, actually: Robert Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset), I get it first. I'm about halfway through it now. I'd have finished it if I had any diligence for the task, but the last couple of days have been odd for me. As I told somebody today: when I don't really sleep, it feels like I'm never really awake. I do like the book, though. I can honestly say it's the best book I've read since the last book I read. That was Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon; I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed it. I finished it a week or so ago and had to take it back to the library; that was sad. To cheer myself up I'm plotting to own my own copy someday. It's so good. It might even make my top five.
(What are the other four, you ask? Well, you probably don't, but I'm wondering myself. Let's see ... the aforementioned Ender's Game, and Contact, by Carl Sagan--way better than the movie; I hate that movie because I read the book first. And probably because I usually hate Jodie Foster anyway. Anyway, moving on. I'd have to include Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow; it's just incredible. Cryptonomicon makes four. Close enough.)
All four of these books could be called science fiction. I've seen them all on shelves labelled "science fiction," anyway. Yet anybody who's read even two of them will know that they're not really much alike ... except I guess you could say that all contain science to some degree and, while all are fiction, none are fantastically impossible, they actually have a nice basis in reality.
No, it's not Harry Potter, stupid.
It's Shadow Puppets, the latest sequel to Ender's Game (which I always declare my favorite book whenever I have to choose one). The book has been around for a while, in hardcover, but if we're cheap enough to worry about spending eight dollars, it should be obvious that Katie and I are not going to shell out the money for hardcover, no matter how much we thnk we're going to like the book.
Since she's in the middle of reading something else (a book I'm lending her, actually: Robert Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset), I get it first. I'm about halfway through it now. I'd have finished it if I had any diligence for the task, but the last couple of days have been odd for me. As I told somebody today: when I don't really sleep, it feels like I'm never really awake. I do like the book, though. I can honestly say it's the best book I've read since the last book I read. That was Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon; I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed it. I finished it a week or so ago and had to take it back to the library; that was sad. To cheer myself up I'm plotting to own my own copy someday. It's so good. It might even make my top five.
(What are the other four, you ask? Well, you probably don't, but I'm wondering myself. Let's see ... the aforementioned Ender's Game, and Contact, by Carl Sagan--way better than the movie; I hate that movie because I read the book first. And probably because I usually hate Jodie Foster anyway. Anyway, moving on. I'd have to include Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow; it's just incredible. Cryptonomicon makes four. Close enough.)
All four of these books could be called science fiction. I've seen them all on shelves labelled "science fiction," anyway. Yet anybody who's read even two of them will know that they're not really much alike ... except I guess you could say that all contain science to some degree and, while all are fiction, none are fantastically impossible, they actually have a nice basis in reality.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-23 06:03 pm (UTC)Hard-cover even!
Re:
Date: 2003-06-23 06:28 pm (UTC)Heinlein...
Date: 2003-06-24 12:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-24 12:24 pm (UTC)I vaguely remember reading small amounts of Philip K. Dick and would like more. I remember reading Anne McCaffrey five or six years ago, but it isn't my style; I've tried hard to like fantasy, but magic and dragons and that ilk have never really done it for me.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-24 12:33 pm (UTC)I'd also recommend Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan...great stuff...