gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (Default)
Douglas Berry ([personal profile] gridlore) wrote2005-09-02 05:59 am
Entry tags:

What are words for? Reading!

Been catching up on my far-too-tall stack of books to be read.

First up was a re-reading of Tim Powers' Last Call. Still freaks me out, but this time around I think I managed to follow the various threads better and keep track of who was who, and their various significances. But one thing still bothers me.. had Scott already become the King after the Assumption game by the dumpster, or did he have to play the final game on the lake? Clues indicate that he had already taken the role, and the rest wasn't really needed.

At the same time I was also reading Greg Bear's The Forge of God. Entertaining, but somehow unfullfilling. The ideas were good, and some of the characters were interesting, but it just seemed a bit predictable to me. One wonderful anachronism in the book. At one point some characters are driving across the Bay Bridge into SF. Bear has them take the 480 to the Embarcadero. The scene is set in 1997. The 480 was severely damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, and was torn down in 1992. :)

Next up is S.M. Stirling's Conquistador, a novel I'd never heard of until I saw it on the bargain shelf at B&N. It looks interesting, a novel about encounters with an alternate universe where Europeans never reached the Americas. I'll let y'all know what I think.

But now I have to run off to work. Have a good one!

OT

[identity profile] biomekanic.livejournal.com 2005-09-02 02:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Did the package arrive?

Re: OT

[identity profile] gridlore.livejournal.com 2005-09-03 02:15 am (UTC)(link)
Picked it up at the post office today, thanks!

[identity profile] jackwalker.livejournal.com 2005-09-02 02:19 pm (UTC)(link)
The sequel to Bear's novel, Anvil of Stars, is rather better. Grand-scale, space-operatic war story with lots of highly speculative physics and some neat character development.

[identity profile] isomeme.livejournal.com 2005-09-02 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
I was coming in here to make the same recommendation. Forge of God is mostly an excuse for some very good descriptions and set pieces; Anvil of Stars works much better as a story.

[identity profile] gridlore.livejournal.com 2005-09-03 02:16 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, so I know what to buy next, thanks!

[identity profile] gridlore.livejournal.com 2005-09-03 04:42 am (UTC)(link)
By the way, someday you are going to have to explain half the symbolism in Last Call to me.

Conquistador

[identity profile] redroach.livejournal.com 2005-09-02 07:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Conquistador, like most of the author's works, left me feeling empty.
Good idea, but just didn't work. I compare it to Kim Stanley Robinson's "Years of Rice and Salt".
They both have great premises, but come off like a happy meal, just not hitting the spot.