May 7, 2022 - News Post

Book club time!

Tobey over at King of Slackers has been rubbing in my face how many books he's read this year. He's up to 30ish, and I find that intimidating.

Nevertheless, I've also found it inspirational. Here's a quick rundown of the books I've read (or had read to me in audiobook form) in the last six months or so. For me, this is an extremely long list:

• Spin by Robert Charles Wilson - I hesitate to say too much about this one. It starts with all the stars in the sky disappearing and gets crazier and more mysterious from there. Decent science and relatively modern. This is probably my favorite, most satisfying book on the list.
• The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter - A book on the commercialization of quantum wormholes. For a book that's around 20 years old, it's fun to see what predictions have come true and what was way off the mark. This has an extremely satisfying, intriguing last third of the book. The first 2/3 seem a little dated. I loved it, but it took a long while to get to the good stuff.
• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu - The first Chinese sci-fi novel I've read with a very Chinese perspective. It is quite realistic, hard sci-fi. I was truly excited for the upcoming Netflix tv series, until I discovered it involves the producers of Game of Thrones.
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman - Fun, quirky, gothic horror-ish. I read this when I was in a sci fi mood. This was not scifi.
• Who Censosred Roger Rabbit? By Gary K. Wolf - So very very very different from the movie. Still intriguing.
• Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward - Some interesting concepts in this one. It involves communicating with an alien race who lives their lives over a vastly different timescale from our own. It lost me a few times, but I liked the idea.

If you can think of any books that are similarly engaging, let me know! I think nearly all of these were recommended by you readers. I have a few others to read next, including some stuff by Hemingway and Ray Bradbury. Sadly, I've never ready a single sentence from either author.

That's the latest list. If you have something you like, I'm always looking for suggestions for the next book club newspost.

-Jeff