...but it's way better than that. I particularly love the thunderstorms.
Watch "What does it feel like to fly over planet Earth?" on YouTube
Sunday 18 September 2011
It looks like science fiction...
Monday 5 September 2011
I'm too easily excited...
A new "lifeless thing" came to my attention this week. A new novel from Neal Stephenson!
Reamde
Now, I have not read this - I've not even seen a copy, so I can't, hand on heart, recommend it - but I can say that Neal's last four novels were absolutely magnificent (and his previous ones pretty fine too). They are, by and large, great monsters of books, and every page full of invention and fun. I don't re-read too many novels these days, but happily spent some weeks buried in The Baroque Cycle again last year. Isaac Newton jumping up, in a grotty tavern, in disguise, to apprehend a counterfeiter! What's not to love?
Scarily, the thing I probably like best about Anathem is that, even though it is a real feast for the brain, with plenty of genuinely interesting philosophy (natural and the other kind), and also a rip-roaring story line - It's the fact that it makes me feel pretty smart that really does it for me. Oh yes. If I'm getting all this, I must be a pretty clever guy. (I wonder if that was part of the attraction of Christopher Nolan's Inception; certainly lots of people said it was hard to follow, but they all managed it - perhaps it just seemed hard to follow).
Anyway - Reamde is right on the top of my Christmas list. Let's hope it's in paperback by then. I don't begrudge paying the hardback price, but I read my books on the train, and the Anathem hardback was a full weight training exercise on its own, when I carried it in my laptop bag to work every day.
Now, I have not read this - I've not even seen a copy, so I can't, hand on heart, recommend it - but I can say that Neal's last four novels were absolutely magnificent (and his previous ones pretty fine too). They are, by and large, great monsters of books, and every page full of invention and fun. I don't re-read too many novels these days, but happily spent some weeks buried in The Baroque Cycle again last year. Isaac Newton jumping up, in a grotty tavern, in disguise, to apprehend a counterfeiter! What's not to love?
Scarily, the thing I probably like best about Anathem is that, even though it is a real feast for the brain, with plenty of genuinely interesting philosophy (natural and the other kind), and also a rip-roaring story line - It's the fact that it makes me feel pretty smart that really does it for me. Oh yes. If I'm getting all this, I must be a pretty clever guy. (I wonder if that was part of the attraction of Christopher Nolan's Inception; certainly lots of people said it was hard to follow, but they all managed it - perhaps it just seemed hard to follow).
Anyway - Reamde is right on the top of my Christmas list. Let's hope it's in paperback by then. I don't begrudge paying the hardback price, but I read my books on the train, and the Anathem hardback was a full weight training exercise on its own, when I carried it in my laptop bag to work every day.
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