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 :).
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