Crystalised

It feels like its been a month of two halves. It's possible some of this may have to do with the weather. Apparently it's rained a fair bit less than normal through the summer months this year. Well, that's definitely factually correct, seeing how the local weather station has pretty accurate records for the last few decades. But for the last week or so I think we've been making up for it. Which is not a bad thing of course.

Somewhat independently of that, I started off August feeling quite keen about cycling, but then overdid it a bit :/. Since then the outdoor activities have tailed off rather a lot, and not all of that can be blamed on the weather or even the physical state of my legs. Oh well. I have managed to not be too anti-social at least, which has been nice :).

So here's a tangent apropos of nothing.

There have been long periods of my life where listening to and exploring new music was a constant. But you know, life happens, and slowly I've found myself doing less and less of the exploring. I probably still listen to music, particularly during my commute, most days. Barring some stretches when life has felt like it was getting altogether too much, and a bit of time with no active inputs felt relaxing.

At various points I've wondered if this (the not exploring new music) is a question of prioritizing different things, or just a natural consequence of growing older. By a certain point in life one has landed on a set of preferences and while there may well be new music fitting those preferences, it's easier to just fall back on the known.

For somewhat unrelated reasons, I'd never been on Spotify until quite recently. Yes, to the massive shock of many of my colleagues. I used to actually quite enjoy the look on people's faces when I told them that :D. A bit like when I tell them I've never had Netflix :P. Anyway, I did get on to Spotify, partly because I found out in the spring that Linkin Park were in fact making music again! Which makes me happy, mainly for Mike Shinoda and co.

And while I was there, I came across The XX. Now, for the last decade or so, one of my favourite pieces of music has been one of their instrumental pieces that was used on the soundtrack of Person of Interest. Yeah, blast from the past, right? Indeed. But I somehow never really got around to finding more of their music. Cue Spotify, and now xx, Coexist and I See You are all I seem to be listening to when I actually want to pay attention to what I'm listening to :).

Ok, so what else has actually been happening? Well, like I said last time around, I've been home alone, so keeping the plants alive has been one thing I can count as a success :). And yes, the rain has helped no end!

Decided to go watch the Liverpool season opener with the local supporters' group. Played out a bit differently than last year, but fortunately with the same result. It felt comforting at some level to have paid my respects to the memory of DJ20 during the game. Sport is an odd thing. As some have said, the most important of the least important things.

On to some other important unimportant things then. I've already posted about Dark Matter. Since then I've been reading more sci-fi. First it was Service Model. I've seen books by Adrian Tchaikovsky at the local library for years, just never got around to picking on up. This one is a stand alone novel. One that I rather enjoyed :). I could honestly say that this is the happiest dystopian novel I've ever read :D.

It felt like a social commentary wrapped in a science fiction setting. Definitely some philosophical ideas to ponder. Reminded me of Asimov in some ways. Actually makes me think I should re-read the Robots and Foundation books. It's been fifteen years since I last read them, so I'm curious how they'd read now.

Despite the broader arcs in the background though, the story of the journey itself, one of self discovery, and the two central characters felt very well characterized. I particularly enjoyed the way that Uncharles remains (wilfully?) unaware of The Wonk's human/machine nature until the end :). The thing I didn't get at all were the chapter titles, until I saw some commentary online..

This didn't really feel like a book about plot though, more about ideas. And in the age of AI, particularly timely. Makes me think I should actually go and read some of his series :). Ah yes, more sci-fi series :D. Speaking of which, after finishing Service Model I decided to proceed with the first book of The Expanse, Leviathan Wakes.

On the one hand, launching into a nine book journey feels a bit daunting, on the other hand, it's felt like a pretty relaxed read so far. Which is not to say the action has been at all relaxing. Just that the pacing of the narrative doesn't feel like it's dragging me along willy-nilly, but at the same time is easy to read :).

I have to admit, a third of the way into the first book, this is no Culture, but hey, it wasn't until I got into the second book that I was really beginning to appreciate the genius of Iain M Banks. So I'm taking not only Leviathan... but also Caliban's War with me on holiday tomorrow :D.

Yup, it's finally holiday time. Heading back to the UK for a week and a half, and this time it's just chill time. Having not had a proper holiday since the beginning of June it feels like I really need the break :). I guess by the time we're back, autumn will be well and truly underway. Well, summer's felt like it's been on the way out for a while anyway.

Dark matters

It's quite unusual these days for me to post at any point other than at the end of the month. Go through a bit of a recap of life during the previous circuit of the moon (well, sort of). Usually this includes some of my thoughts and feelings about books that may have been read during said period. Not this time.

In this post I'll try and restrict myself specifically to the thoughts and feelings evoked by the book I finished reading today. The book club book for this month, Dark Matter. Partly this is because I'll not actually be able to attend the next meeting of the book club and I'd rather like to put my thoughts down, maybe to be shared electronically, maybe not. Partly it's because I do feel rather strongly about the book and there's a few things that might be good to just get out of my system.

So, one indicator of how much I like a book is how deeply involved I get with the characters. Not all of them necessarily, but some. And when I do, it comes as a shock when something horrific happens to them. Particularly if it's seemingly out of nowhere. A memorable occasion of this happening (oh, by the way, spoilers ahead, for Dark Matter and probably other books, so be forewarned) was when Ned Stark gets unceremoniously beheaded half way through book one of A Song of Ice and Fire! This was a couple of decades ago, but I still remember I was so shocked that I stopped reading the book and didn't pick it up again for months, maybe even a year or two. And I feel that on my many subsequent readings of anything GRRM, I have never really let myself get as engaged as that first time.

Of course since then I've become more cynical of authors' motives in general and also read a lot more shall we say violently dramatic literature and considered myself perhaps not as easily shocked. Imagine my surprise therefore when I found myself feeling utterly outraged when Daniela Vargas (she of Jason2's world) gets shot in the head "just to clean things up"!!

Ok, so maybe I should back up a bit.

I'm generally a fan of science fiction. And I'm not particularly fussed how hard the sci in the fi is. But I have to say as someone who did study quantum mechanics in university, I felt this was a reasonable enough attempt at laying out a plausible enough paradigm. In fact working out a pseudo logical way of figuring out how one might traverse a superimposed set of realities was actually pretty cool.

I'm still not sure I'd have called them "worlds" though, but I can see how that helps on one level.

The mansplaining was generally kept at a minimum, but I was still annoyed at how long it took for Jason to figure out that he'd been done dirty by himself and shoved off into an alternate reality. I mean, I suppose it's possible the author was trying to get across just how bizarre the whole situation was... so there's that.

And it was working! The entire episode where Jason gradually accepts the enormity of his situation was really drawing me in, and in my mind Daniela Vargas was pretty central to that. So imagine my shock when she just gets killed, seemingly completely out of the blue!! I mean, yes, I suppose one could argue that this is exactly what the author wanted to convey, but man, I kinda had to disconnect. And I don't think I ever got properly involved in the story from that point on!

I mean, I read it, and at a certain level enjoyed some of the sub plots and minor arcs in alternate worlds and all that. But it felt like hard going from time to time. Particularly annoying when the writing did seem to be rather nice! I think I just kept expecting things to go catastrophically wrong again and again. I mean that Leighton was a piece of work, wasn't he!

It was only when the multi-Jason UberChat stuff started happening that I found myself engaging a bit more. Although even that was a somewhat arms-length sort of engagement. Which, given there was so much cool in this book, feels really unfortunate. 

<aside> Another time I remember getting shocked by a character I really really liked getting deaded completely out of the blue was when River Cartwright seemingly gets shot by his grandpa in Spook Street. Except he doesn't and, whether that was the reason or not, I did find myself managing to get back into the characters properly. (Although it turns out I had to stop reading that time too, and only got back to finishing the book a couple of years later.) I mean, I know he's not the main character in that series and all that, but honestly, who's actually ever rooting for Jackson Lamb?! Although, I didn't really feel nearly as bad when River gets shot, again, at the end of Slough House. But there I think part of me felt maybe he's not actually dead, again? Hmm. Should probably find and read Bad Actors at some point and find out. </aside>

So, in case this isn't apparent, apart from the whole why-did-you-have-to-kill-off-my-favourite-side-character thing, I think I rather enjoyed the book :). I mean, some of the things don't make sense when you try to work backwards I guess, but that's not too surprising in this sort of a story. 

There were some really cool explorations of what makes things similar and what makes them different. I particularly enjoyed the Amanda thoughts around what makes something more real, externally observed things or internally felt things, and how this supposedly helped the mind bring into focus a particular alternate reality. I mean there's obviously lots of holes there based on what worlds Jason does end up in, but still, cool idea.

I have to say the ending felt a bit rushed. I mean, how convenient that JasonADMIN seemed to be one of the decent ones. (Somehow the Jason that lets them through the crowd in my mind was ADMIN. :D). And also, why did Jason2 keep his spare ampoules of magic world walking juice in the car?!! Yeah, makes no sense, except to get the story to the end.

Oh yeah, and no one other than one gun shop owner notices the hundred plus Jasons proliferating in a very concentrated part of Chicago?!

One final thought, which I'd not really considered until I started typing Jason a bunch of times: is the similarity between Jason and JSON a completely random coincidence? Hmm.

Well, it does feel good to have externalized some of that! And now that that's done, I've gone and got myself some options for the next read. Choices, choices...