Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream

Summer is finally upon us :). Well, seeing how this is the end of June, that's not surprising, but what is surprising is that we've actually seen a nice amount of rain as well. Makes for the first properly green summer for a few years!

Happily, there have been enough periods of nice weather, particularly on the weekends to allow the cycling to continue. In fact, it's been on the edge of too warm on occasion, but nothing like what the rest of Europe is going through.

We did experience a bit of the proper warm weather on a short trip to the UK. 38°C isn't anything to be scoffed at. But honestly, the air was still pretty cool, so as soon as you got out of the sun, things were pretty manageable. I guess depends a lot on what you're used to :).

It was great to see the newest nephew! Which was mainly why we were there. But there turned out to be an opportunity to also go watch a live cricket match! The Women's T20 World Cup match between South Africa and The Netherlands. (Yes, you probably didn't even know that there was another world cup on! :D).

Given the small ground it was great to catch the action from pretty close! Close enough to be able to easily tell if the batter had made good contact by the sound off the bat! :) It was quite warm, but a really fun afternoon.

Now the summer holidays are beginning to roll in, which means Norway sort of empties out a bit. As usual, we're staying put, and hoping that the weather will stay nice and we'll get to keep enjoying it :).

And keep reading :). It has actually been quite nice to just settle back into the Foundation series. The travels were a good opportunity to complete the re-read of the original trilogy and then I started on Foundation's Edge. 

Given the gap of fifteen or so years since I last read them, there was a lot that I didn't remember. The broad strokes were there, but the details were great fun to discover again. I've also read a lot of varying science/speculative fiction in the mean time, which gives a different perspective. Some of the writing, particularly the older books, definitely shows its age. But the underlying themes continue to be thought provoking as ever...

Then there's the other world cup. The one that's hardly possible to miss seeing how Norway has qualified for the first time in nearly three decades :). Well, we'll see how long the fun lasts!

Oh for the love of lilacs!

This month seems to have gone by quite fast in a way. Yet, looking back, April feels like a very long way away! Funny how time moves, fast yet slow, or the other way around... Sometimes it even hides! Like the trip to Bergen I'd almost forgotten actually happened in May!

It was a long weekend, and circumstances conspired to find me on the cross country train passing the higher reaches of central Norway still shrouded in snow. It was a little surreal seeing that much snow given how early it all disappeared from around us. But then again, this is the part of Norway where people go to ski in the summer, so :).

Bergen itself was a mix of sunshine and not, but counter to reputation, it didn't actually rain on us at any point :D. Much of the weekend was spent taking relaxed walks around the centre and sometimes a bit farther afield. Eventually though it was time to take another train back. 

Unlike the train over, and despite the lengthening days, a fair bit of the return trip was spent in the dark. With me pondering how much difference a few hours can make, turning spectacular valleys and hillsides into blurs in shades of grey and black.

May being what it is in Norway, it was pretty much weekend after weekend of happenings. After Bergen, it was time for this year's Holmenkollstafetten! More or less as expected a couple of people had to drop out somewhat late in the game, but we still had the most runners since we started participating with Kezzler, and not that it matters too much, also the best time! :D

It's always fun watching Oslo transform into a bustling, almost unrecognizable version of itself for this event every year :). It had a bit of extra help this year with the Norwegian equivalent of the FA Cup being held the same evening! There was a bit of rain in the air, but all in all, a fun day (and we didn't actually get wet, which is always a plus :D).

Then the weekend after was the Norwegian National Day! We did what we usually do these days, watching the local school band and parade. Then did what we don't usually have to do, hide from the rain at various friends. This didn't stop us from enjoying the obligatory 17th of May barbeque though :).

So yeah, there's been a fair bit going on. But through it all the regular running is ongoing, and now that the temperatures have taken an upward turn, cycling has started again! This time I'm trying to take it easy and ramp up slowly. Recovery seems to take longer and longer as the years go by, so overdoing it does have rather more significant consequences :/.

And that's more or less it actually. Weirdly enough, haven't really managed to get much reading done. Not necessarily because I've been oh so busy or whatever. It's just that I've had a really hard time getting myself to pick up the book club book.

Babel is not a bad read or anything. A little full of itself maybe. Some of the author's underlying messaging bleeding through a bit too overtly some times. But somehow after getting through about a quarter or so I just can't be bothered. All in all I think I'm just not in the mood for it to be honest :/. And a half read Asimov doesn't seem like the most exciting alternative either.

Mainly I'm waiting for Platform Decay to land. I've managed to get the library to order a copy, but I guess it'll take as long as it takes. Hopefully not too long. In the mean time, hopefully I'll keep myself occupied with more hours outdoors, smelling the lilacs that have come out just about everywhere around here :).

Far side of the moon

It's such a hopeful time in Norway, April :). At least meteorologically speaking. The days are already really long, still light past nine in the evening, but still getting longer. It's starting to get warmer but still with a definite chill in the air. Actually, this is what May usually feels like, but you know, who's keeping track anyway?

And it's still not green and lush here at the end of the month in the way England was at the beginning :). But hey, geography. Anyhow, it's most definitely spring, and summer is just around the corner. Garden prepping and sorting has begun. You can already see people spending more time on their balconies and terraces than the weather strictly warrants, but there's that hopefulness.

So the England trip was really fun! Seeing family, hunting for Easter eggs, drama-free travel, what's not to like :). And since then it's mostly been weeks passing happily, if somewhat unremarkably on the whole. Except for the hail, of course! And the small matter of Artemis.

The running's is still happening, which is good, because Holmenkollstafetten is just around the corner, and for the first time in three years, we have a full team!! I mean, there's still a week to go, so fingers crossed, but I'm sticking with that hopeful theme :).

Been reading a fair bit too! Witch King didn't really throw any curveballs to speak of. Would I read the next instalment? Maybe? But given that it's not available in the local library, probably not any time soon.

Then it was back to Asimov. Prelude to Foundation, followed swiftly by Forward the Foundation. Even after a gap of sixteen years, I did remember the big reveal towards the end of Prelude :). But that didn't make it any less enjoyable. And Forward I think has always been my favourite of the whole series.

It's easy to read so much in retrospect isn't it? But it was his last Foundation book, and it's almost impossible for me to not think of Asimov looking back on nearly half a century of his work. The Hari Seldon who comes across as so distant, so all knowing, all powerful in the original Foundation stories, is just so different in the prequels.

Every single time I find myself moved to tears at the end of Forward the Foundation. And no matter what else people say about the quality of Asimov's writing, that always counts for a lot in my book. I did rather enjoy reading Foundation immediately after! As I have done in the past :). I suppose one could say that highlights various discrepancies here and there, but they always feel minor to me, in the grand sweep of history.

One thing I do have to say, I'd thought the beginning of Foundation was significantly more distant to the end of Forward than it actually is! Which makes sense I suppose. And then I started Foundation and Empire and hit a few roadblocks.

Firstly in the form of the arrival of this month's book club book, A Spy Among Friends. It's my second Ben Macintyre spy non-fic. And like the first, I did rather enjoy the book. I particularly like how the author weaves a coherent narrative through what could otherwise be a rather convoluted landscape. Naturally, liberties may be taken with the facts, but more often than not the reader is given enough room to reflect on what might actually have happened in a given situation.

The story overall seemed more about Nick Elliott than Kim Philby. The latter is of course the inescapable centre of the book, yet, Elliott seemed to me to be more the one the author wanted to explore. This may have been a matter of practicality, seeing how Philby spend the latter part of his life in Moscow, while Elliott remained in the corridors of MI6, and thus more accessible.

This feeling may well have been reinforced by the afterword by John le Carre in the copy I had. Fascinating, that - including as it did direct notes from conversations with Elliott mixed in with le Carre's observations. Overall though, the inescapable feeling I was left with was how inept capable human beings can become when blinded by their preconceptions and biases. The history of humanity in a nutshell in some ways. :/

Anyway, when I got back to Asimov, I seemed unable to get very far along. Having said that though, the original trilogy almost seems ideally read with random gaps. Maybe I'm only thinking that because I know that the book was put together after the fact, having originally been written as a series of short stories.

It's crocus time again!

And just like that, winter is over. I mean, if you go high enough up or far enough inland you'll still find snow. Although at this point you'd probably have to do both :/. But yeah, around us it's practically spring.. In a way I've made peace with it. Even decided to go walking instead of snowboarding in the slushy snow for what has become the annual work ski day. I mean, I've never really been the type to be too keen on snow activities out of season, and while a usual March should not be out of season for downhill, this year it certainly feels like it.

So it's probably a good thing that we're going to be in the UK for the Easter break this year :). No dashed expectations of wintry weather. The weather's actually supposed to be pretty similar, but I guess for England that's to be expected in spring, which is what the end of March is... And once we're back, I'm hoping the promised double digit temperatures are here to stay, maybe we can start cycling!

Otherwise the month seems to have sort of slipped by quite quickly! With that slightly unsettling feeling of not being quite sure what happened in the mean time. The running's something I've managed to keep up with, the change of season cold/sniffles/sore throat notwithstanding. And of course, reading!

The library finally delivered on the final three Murderbot books! So Prelude to Foundation got put on pause yet again while I finally got to read Fugitive Telemetry in what I think of as the right order! So the thing is, the first time I read the series, I was unaware of the fact that Network Effect and Fugitive Telemetry actually occur in reverse publication order! Why didn't they get published in order? I don't know, there's some weird stuff about the author wanting readers to meet certain characters in a certain order, but none of it makes any sense. Anyway, if you're reading them again, it most definitely doesn't make any sense to not read them in chronological order.

(For reference, a lot of people from the book club got really into the series after reading All Systems Red and all of them found it really helpful that I'd pointed out the problem with reading in publication order. Every single one that read it in publication order found ..Telemetry a lot less enjoyable and wished they'd listened to me, so there.)

This time around, I really enjoyed reading Fugitive Telemetry. It's a bit different from the preceding books, in that it all happens in "one place". Which does give it a bit of a different vibe in some ways, but given that I didn't read it sandwiched between what's basically a continuous story in Network Effect and System Collapse, I could just enjoy it for what it was, a nice little murder mystery. Murderbot style :D.

Another positive was that reading NE and SC back to back meant that I had a lot of the details from the first book really fresh in mind, which felt nice while reading the latter. I mean, the first four novellas basically read like a four part novel/space western. Then there's the murder mystery interlude at Preservation Station. And finally the Lost Colony drama.

In case you can't tell, I had a blast reading it all again :). I'm curious where Platform Decay is going to take things. I'm guessing (= hoping for) a multi novella/novel arc of the space adventures of ART and MB, but I'll trust Martha Wells to take the story to the right places :). (Even if it's not always in the right order :D.)

So then the book club book for this month arrived. One that I wasn't exactly looking forward to, but thought, well, there's been a number of books I've not expected to like, but did enjoy at least some aspects of, so why not try. Mistake. I mean, maybe the whole premise should have put me off anyway, but Missing Time just really felt like a big waste of time :/. It's generally a reasonable hint when not a single public library in all of Norway has a copy of a book. In this case the only copy was in the National library archive/depot ◔_◔. Oh, and in Norwegian. But you know, like I said, I figured I'd give it a go. And after a week and fifty odd pages, I gave up. (And discovered the relatively new addition to Goodreads.com, the Did Not Finish shelf :D.)

So, to try and break this down a bit - I've never really been that into the whole alien abduction and UFOs thing. And it seemed like the author knew it. Basically the book's written to a less than credulous audience, and the whole vibe is really tiring. There's all these attempts at dressing up what's essentially a series of inexplicable experiences as scientifically researched hypotheses. Which, sure, might have been a bit more interesting if the writing wasn't quite so incredibly dry and boring :/.

While I was toying with the idea of giving up on Budd Hopkins, and not quite ready to give up on Martha Wells until the arrival of Platform Decay, I found a copy of Witch King in the local library! Much more my speed! I mean, I'd been meaning to try and find one or other of her non-Murderbot series anyway, and this felt like as good a place to start as any.

It's, unsurprisingly, quite different from the world of Preservation and the Corporation Rim. Weirdly though, it feels a lot more genre-standard than Murderbot felt. Fortunately, I wasn't really looking for another Murderbot :). The interwoven worlds are kinda fun! As are some of the characters. There's almost too many characters though. Which is not something I'd usually say about a fantasy series. I suppose there's definitely a feeling of things being set up. So far it's been a fun read, but I think after this I'll definitely head back to Asimov :).

One random night when everything changes, you won't reply and we'll go back to strangers

I've actually been thinking about posting for a few days, but between one thing and another didn't quite get around to it. The thing on my mind for the last week or so has been Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. It's been the book club book for February, and I'm still not totally sure exactly how I feel about it :|.

To be entirely honest, I don't think the week or so since I finished reading the book has helped at all! If anything, the strong feelings I was left with as I put the book down have dissipated somewhat, and I'm left with a sense of vague contrasts. Sweeping passages of time versus intense moments. Deep exploration of feelings in some relationships versus others left barely half sketched.

One of the things that does stick with me though, is how central gaming is to the characters. They aren't just making games, they live with them. In more ways than one. As someone who's gamed off and on for the last three decades, it was nostalgic to revisit the late '90s and early 2000s as an era of dramatic changes in the world of video games. The evolution of technology allowing people of interact with games and each other in profoundly different ways. A change that promises to continue, of course.

But personally what I found resonating with me much more was how gaming is treated as a properly "grown up" thing. I think it may well just be the company I keep. I'm not surrounded by avid, or even that many casual, gamers. So the world around me is not screaming - yes, gaming's a perfectly normal and sensible part of life. It's not just about unplugging from the daily grind, not just about passing a bit of time. That gaming can actually be about doing something you positively enjoy rather than just something you do to avoid things you don't enjoy much... I'm not sure I know quite how to express what I mean, exactly.

Going back to the story itself (be warned, possible spoilers ahead), I did rather enjoy, even though felt occasionally confused by, the sometimes dramatic shifts of style between chapters. The ones that stand out most obviously are of course The NPC and Pioneers. The first I found particularly poignant, I mean, you know what's happening, and it's gruesome, but it plays out so poetically... The second was pretty obviously in-game, but there were definitely sections when I found myself second guessing a bit. The end of the chapter of course makes things amply obvious.

When it comes to the characters, Sam and Sadie seemed to oscillate wildly between completely relatable and almost absurd. Although as place holders for how we humans can be irrational, loving, cynical, selfish, etc., they did very well. On the other end there was Marx. I mean, of almost all the characters in the book, if there was one who existed almost exclusively to be a contrast to Sam and Sadie, it was Marx. I'm left feeling the poor guy got hard done by, like seriously!

The other somewhat odd thing about the book was that when I got into it, it was almost impossible to put down! But there were certain points when I did feel like I had to stop, and then found it almost as difficult to pick it up again... So much so that I ended up re-reading Murderbot 3 and 4 in those gaps. So yeah, in the end how much did I like it? In some ways a lot, and in others not so much. But I'm glad I read it :).

As for the rest of the month, it was pretty cold for the most part. Sometimes really really cold. And there was some snow, so we went out cross-country skiing a bit. Maybe not as much as we could have, but oh well :). In the mean time though, I've actually managed to start up with the running again! It's quite different running in -11 °C and snow than in +11 °C and dry :D.

There were also the Winter Olympics, where Norway did amazingly well, and I discovered that watching cross-country races is a lot more fun when you know more about what's going on :). Oh, and ice dance is a fascinating new addition to the list of things I find simultaneously awesome and terrifying :P.

Since then though, the temperatures have shot up and the snow is slowly disappearing. One almost wishes that it'll get properly warm so that the footpaths and roads don't turn to ice every morning and slush every evening. I guess we shall see!