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Re: READING?
At 01:58 PM 3/11/2005, Jon Southwood wrote:
>Yep, I'm on a Neil Gaiman kick. Never read his Sandman graphic novels,
>but a friend gave me "Neverwhere" as a gift a number of years ago and
>I was completely enthralled by his use of language and his ability to
>tell a damn fine story. His "American Gods" is even better.
Nice one. I'm a Gaiman fan as well from way back (used to buy Sandman and
Books of Magic religiously). I can hardly wait for him to finish "Anansi
Boys". While not really being a sequel to "American Gods", it's supposed
to feature a lot of the same characters.
Myself, other than trade mags and tech manuals, I've been reading Kim
Stanley Robinson's "The Years of Rice and Salt". I've loved Robinson's
soft-science writing since his story "The Lucky Strike" won the Nebula
back
in the eighties. I'm not so crazy about his Mars trilogy ("Red/Green/Blue
Mars"), but my tastes in science-fiction generally run more toward the
speculative Ellison/Zelazny/PKD stuff, than the Niven/Pournelle/Bear
school
of hard SF.
Anyway, "Years of Rice and Salt" rewrites history as it might have
occurred
had the total population of all Europe been wiped out by the Plague around
1000 CE. Thus, the course of history would have been shaped by the
cultures of Asia, the nations of Islam, and the Native Americans, rather
than the influences of Western Europe.
I also just picked up William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition", which is new
in paperback. Haven't gotten a chance to start on it yet,
however. Anybody have any thoughts on that one yet?
--m.
_____
"i want to reach my hand into the dark and *feel* what reaches back"
-recoil