Another month gone, and we're nearly halfway through the year already!! Crazy how this year seems to be disappearing. (Or do I feel like that every year? Hmm.) One contributing factor is the travelling that's ramped up again after the Covid enforced hiatus. Most of this month though, has been spent mainly at home.
Looking back now, the drive back from Trondheim at the beginning of the month feels like a distant memory. Since then, work's been busy, but cycling has begun somewhat more in earnest :). We've had nice weather for it, generally, and made reasonable use of it!
So far it's mainly been the regular haunts, but there's been the odd foray further afield along stretches I haven't cycled in a couple of years or more. It's funny how some things remain clear in my memory and others fade. For example, the steep climb up from Nærsnes to Slemmestad is probably something I've only done a handful of times, but remains vivid in it's misery :P.
I feel like I'm back to reading a bit more again. Finished with Consider Phlebas with a distinct sense that here I've found something really interesting here!! The books definitely do have a sense of being self-contained. Each a novel on it's own, but together, building on the legend of Culture. I'm now about halfway through the second book, The Player of Games, so this sense is less imagination and more observation :).
The couple of things that I'm particularly fascinated with (trying not to give away too many details here) are the timeline and the extent of volume in space the series seems to be dealing with. On the first point, there are definitely aliens, but the majority of the protagonists are humanoid. Whenever I've come across such a setup before, it almost invariably means that said humanoids have in some way or other descended from humans from Earth (aka us).
Contrary to said assumption, just by way of some comments in passing, one realizes that the history of Culture is proceeding as we speak! And our solar system just happens to be some backwater neighbourhood where the locals have yet to crack faster-than-light travel and is just an offshoot of general humanoid development ongoing in the rest of the Galaxy.
Speaking of. Despite the clearly fantastic hyper spatial travel capabilities of the Culture, they only really speak of the one Galaxy! Ok, so TPoG is already reaching out into the nearby clouds, but that's still a far cry from say The Remembrance of Earth's Past -like idea that intergalactic travel as merely a natural extension of interplanetary travel.
As I said, interesting. And there are other ways in which Iain M Banks seems to be the purveyor of a very different brand of space based sci-fi than what I've come across before. Which I'm thankful for, and enjoying greatly :).
In between the two though, I finished reading this month's book club book, The Sympathizer. I'm not sure I liked it very much. To be fair, there's a lot that was new to me, historical context-wise, which I suppose I appreciated. But there was a sense of jumpiness. Restless angst. Frustrated sarcasm. Maybe that was intended, given overall how the story went, but it left me rather unable to empathize with any of the characters. This I suppose left the overall reading experience feeling a bit flat.
Then, on a brief foray to the library, I decided to somewhat randomly pick up a couple of graphic novels. The first, Blade of the Immortal (Omnibus vol1), was immensely fun! It's been a long time since I've come across anything like it. But manga, especially samurai stuff, seems to be quite popular among the local youth these days, hence the volume's in the library I suppose. I don't think I'm going to go find any more volumes, but I'm very happy I read this one.
Loki: Mistress of Mischief on the other hand was less fun. I guess it was just a bit too straight and simple in some ways. Straczynski, while perfectly good, doesn't really operate in the same rarified atmosphere as say Gaiman or Miller. Shame. So after that I figured I was done with further distractions and went happily back to Culture :).
The end of the month brings with it another short trip over to the UK, for yet another long overdue family get together. Then hopefully July will be another nice and cycling-filled month in Norway. One I hope is a bit less stressful workwise, given most people will be on holiday, but who knows. At least some of the local trains are still running through the summer this year :).
