Ooh

[jack]

Ooh, boooks. PSA: I am *not* a materialistic book whore.

I have acquired:

The Hallowed Hunt (Bujold's latest Challion!)
Several Greg Egan
Atrocity archives (second hand, still on its way)
Wacom graphics tablet. Grpahical representation of my humours, here we come!

It all makes a surprisingly small compact package[1].

I don't think I deserve the tablet though, we may agree to make it a retrospective early christmas present from family, on account of if I keep buying cool and unnescessary stuff myself there'll be nothing anyone can get for me if they want to.

[1] Typo of the week: passage. Ick :)

Comments

Several Greg Egan

[mair_in_grenderich]

diaspora?

Re: Several Greg Egan

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

*peeks* Yes. Sorry, it would be nice to have yours, but I didn't see any point waiting -- someone will certainly read that, and it's quite nice to have new books when they're good ones.

Don't not come to cambridge, though, we can offload it on someone who will appreciate it :) As a matter of fact, I'm going to take next week as holiday, mostly roudn cam, so if you were travelling *soon* that would work out really well :)

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Greg Egan rocks :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I read that as rocks(n) rather than rocks(v) -- it was very surreal :)

So, I expect to like them. Which Egan books should I read *second*? :)

Re: Several Greg Egan

[mair_in_grenderich]

I'm going to London to see Sound of Music on the 23rd. But I think whether I tried to fit anything else in with that might depend on how much work I've achieved beforehand.

What I'm doing this weekend remains very uncertain. (btw, has your phone number changed since you came to Edinburgh?)

Re: Several Greg Egan

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ooh, singing nuns! I'm such a softie :)

No, my phone hasn't changed *ever* :) I'm very proud :) If you're coming through I'll likely but not certainly be free on no notice (but can still do crashspace if necessary), and can arrange something a couple of days before if your plans crystalise.

my phone hasn't changed *ever* :)

[mair_in_grenderich]

mine neither \o/

no, wait, my *phone* has. Just not the number :-)

Re: my phone hasn't changed *ever* :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry. The physrep of my phone has changed a few times (shiny!), but the interface as exposed to the public has remained backwards compatible and essentially the same.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Axiomatic!

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

You're reading Diaspora first? I agree that Axiomatic is a great collection; the story "Learning to be Me" was a personal favourite. Of other novels, I liked Distress a lot too.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

From scattered recommendations I have Diaspora, Axiomatic, Permutation City and Luminous. I don't know what order I will read those in. After which, I'll see. I didn't have a single advisor anywhere, so I don't know what I maybe should have started with instead :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Thanks! (Also see below)

[mair_in_grenderich]

read a chapter of each in turn. vary the order in which you read the chapters after each cycle[1].

[1] cycle is not the right word there, but I can't think of the right word and hope it will be sufficient to convey my meaning.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

OK, I've only read Axiomatic and Luminous, the two collections of short fiction, of which Axiomatic is superior - Luminous has some really excellent stuff but also a couple of duff moments.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't you be winking already? :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Cool, that sounds familiar :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

No? :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

But cycle works. In fact, it'd be quite like ringing a change, really.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

I read Permutation City first out of those, and really liked the first half. The second half went a bit strange, to my view (I don't think that's really a spoiler!). His more recent books seem to have suffered from that sort of thing less. Luminous was another good collection of shorts, but I think Axiomatic was more memorable.

Rather like Baxter in his own area, Egan seems to have "strip-mined" a well-defined set of SF concepts through his writing :-)

[mair_in_grenderich]

yes, I thought that :)