Buux
Earlier in the year Purrdence and I purchased a fair chunk of transcendancing's library before she moved interstate. I've been reading as fast as I can, but as you're all no doubt aware work has been insanely busy. Still, the heap is slowly shrinking. Among the loot acquired - Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Yes, I know the book is 21 years old, but this is the first time I've read it. You'll be seeing that sort of thing a lot as I work through the heap. Anyway - while I've never read it before, the central idea in Snow Crash was one I'd used for inspiration in the Laundry game at Swancon. One of the things I enjoy about science fiction, and that I'd missed because of lack of time to read, is the ability to come up with a mad idea and run with it. And the Snow Crash of the title is a wonderfully mad idea.
Plus it's amusing to read these ideas about a wired civilisation (what Stephenson got right, and what he didn't) and the coining of 'avatar' in the modern usage. Lots of fun.
American Gods, another work that I'm catching up with decades after it came out. Neil Gaiman's novel about the various pantheons that have being carted over to the US, and an utter joy for anybody who's picked up a bit of comparative mythology here and there. Gaiman's plot hits every resonance, and the actions and personalities of the various characters comes across as note-perfect poetry. Perhaps not surprising, given that walking bundles of tropes and poetry is what gods are. I was grinning widely for most of the book, and laughed myself sick at the line about the new goddess, Media. "Isn't she the one that ate her children?" "No, that was Medea. Same deal though."
Plus it's amusing to read these ideas about a wired civilisation (what Stephenson got right, and what he didn't) and the coining of 'avatar' in the modern usage. Lots of fun.
American Gods, another work that I'm catching up with decades after it came out. Neil Gaiman's novel about the various pantheons that have being carted over to the US, and an utter joy for anybody who's picked up a bit of comparative mythology here and there. Gaiman's plot hits every resonance, and the actions and personalities of the various characters comes across as note-perfect poetry. Perhaps not surprising, given that walking bundles of tropes and poetry is what gods are. I was grinning widely for most of the book, and laughed myself sick at the line about the new goddess, Media. "Isn't she the one that ate her children?" "No, that was Medea. Same deal though."