Saturday 12 September 2009

'Available wherever books are sold'

Pretty cool gag eh? :D

It's been a while since I read a book at once this hilarious and with such a breathtaking pace :). Yes, I've been temporarily weaned off the planned Asimov 15 book run by an almost accidental interception by The Bartimaeus Trilogy.

So since I'd started with the Robot novels some time back, my plan was to follow through all the way, I, Robot, the 4 Robots, the 3 Empire books and finish off with the 7 Foundation books, this time in chronological order. One thing got in the way. I didn't realise the Empire novels, not Asimov's most famous or celebrated, would be this hard to find in paperback!!

Right, so I have nothing against hardbacks per se. It's just that with my kind of luggage restrictions, the extra weight is a major, major pain. To date though, I've only managed to get Pebble in the Sky, that too, only thanks to some enterprising second-hand book searching by friends looking for an ideal birthday gift. Needless to say, I was quite thrilled :).

In the mean time, I'd started getting together the Foundation books, and even started reading Prelude to Foundation. I was looking for some more Asimovs, incidentally, when I noticed The Amulet of Samarkand in a nearby rack. Almost on a lark, (and a suddenly remembered suggestion from long ago) I decided to get all three books and started reading.

Took me less than 2 days to get through the first :). I'd say closest to this much fun was probably the first Game World book. But not really. I guess it's just the irreverence that brings a similarity to mind. That djinni is definitely one major piece of work :D.

Having started with the second book, I'm going a lot slower. It might be all the visa and flight drama that's somewhat overbearing at the moment, and the packing. But I'm also carrying only these two books with me this time, so in case I can't get The Currents of Space and The Stars, Like Dust (the two Empire novels I haven't got yet) any time soon, I don't want to run out of reading material :P.

The other good thing is, this way I'll get to keep the Asimov reading in proper order, hopefully :).

On a completely unrelated note, it looks like I might get a day in Madrid on my way to Colombia next week. I will probably have only about 24 hours. Any suggestions would be welcome :). Oh, right, and tomorrow I'm off to Delhi to get that elusive Colombian visa first.

Currently: already beginning to miss the unlimited sleep schedule :)
Listening to: The Fray - Look after you

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