I hope they didn't get your mind...

We need to fetch back the time

They have stolen from us

So I figured a blow by blow review (Well, I don't really do reviews, it's more a general emotional response thing, no?) as I read each volume of The Sandman was going to be rather unsustainable. Especially the rate at which I've been devouring them :). So this seems like a good time to sort of pause a little. At the end of Brief Lives (aka The Sandman volume 7).

I shall borrow shamelessly from Tim Callahan over at Tor, the bit where he proposes the cycle of "quest, aid, pot-pourri" to summarise what the first six volumes seem to do, in turn. The point being, the first is where our dear Dream of the Endless (best character name, ever by the way) goes on a quest, the second where he helps someone else, and the third where, well, it's just a general messy bunch of stories clumped together.

I must admit I didn't particularly love volumes 3 and 6, the pot-pourri ones. There are undoubtedly some nice stories in there, but it's all just a bit too all over the place. So from volume 3 to 7, my absolute favourite is Brief Lives. And not just because of Delirium :). (That's just such a totally awesome character though! I mean, she can turn her eyes back to the same colour. But only if she tries oh so very hard. And it hurts. Jeez! Awesome!! Well, I suppose you'd have to read it for that to make any sense.) Anyhoo, more than Delirium, or even the prodigal Destruction, I like how everything just sort of makes sense! Even when it probably shouldn't. There is a random scattered logic to it all.

All labyrinths are one labyrinth, all mazes meet at the centre.

I mean come on! That's just brilliant :). A not that close second would be A Game of You. I should really stop reading the re-read thing till I'm done with it all though. Dude's really not all that careful about sideways spoilers about future volumes. I mean I get it, it's a re-read thing, but still!

--

So I went swimming again today, after close to a month I think. A couple of hundred metres in I got the feeling I've been reading a little too much Sandman a little too quickly. See, someone's been asking me recently what I see when I close my eyes. The first few times there seriously was just nothing. I mean, there's too many things, which is sort of the same thing. But I suppose that's the sort of thing where the more you think about it the more you keep thinking about it. Whatever.

Anyway, there I was, head properly and happily underwater after a long time, floating along, and I kept thinking, if I just close my eyes, I'll have no trouble finding my way right into the in-between places, the space between the realms. No real sounds, the occasional passing shadow, the even less frequent pressure of displacement as someone (or something?) passes by in a hurry. Hmm. I really need to finish off with this stuff before things get properly out of hand :P.

Also, new and entertaining music has landed on the radar.

Currently: hmm
Listening to: Milky Chance - Stolen dance

The sand of dreams

After what has to have been one the most relaxed vacations ever, it's a bit hard to get into the whole work thing. Not surprising, that. In between grumbling about alarms and digging my way from under two weeks of stuff not done, complaining about the weather, being generally surprised by the Wimbledon upsets and the frequency of matches going to extra time in the World Cup, I have managed to finish up with The Sandman 2.

Now, to be perfectly honest, the whole Sandman mythos for me had been a bit vague. As in, it's this thing I'd been hearing about for ages. But no details appeared to be particularly forthcoming. So when I did get around to reading Preludes and Nocturnes, I had no particular expectations, or benchmarks for that matter, except Gaiman's writing. And let's be honest, graphic novels are an entirely different beast compared to the  kind with more words and less graphics.

What I did decide to do though, was go back to this Sandman re-read I'd seen on Tor. All of a sudden things made a lot more sense. Why The Sound of her Wings had seemed so different from the others in that collection, among other things. So it was with renewed curiosity that I started with The Doll's House. And what a story that is.

Each issue is at the same time completely isolated yet part of a whole. As barely-there characters from Preludes and Nocturnes suddenly make appearances and the narrative strings start getting collected towards a conclusion it begins to appear, the notion that here is another story beneath the pages, hiding, that you can only catch glimpses of, that is waiting for you to work it out for yourself from the hints that are everywhere.

This is everything that I have come to expect from the darkly ominous Gaiman. Now I am really hooked. And I really like Morpheus :).

Currently: being not particularly productive :(
Listening to: Ramin Djawadi - 2500 toms of awesome

Blame it on the Martians!

There you have it, you can never really judge an author by any one book. Despite almost giving up on it a couple of months ago, I decided to finally make it all the way to the end of Stranger in a Strange Land. I'm not saying that I wont read another Heinlein again, 'cos that would be overly harsh, but...

It is just so completely different from the other two books I've read by him though! For the latter half of the book I kept being reminded of Atlas Shrugged and I deem that very unfortunate indeed. Oh the preachiness of it! If there even is such a word.

The concept might be entertaining enough, I grant you that, but by the last quarter of the book I probably had a rather pained expression on my face as I read :(. I suppose some of it might have to do with the gap of a couple of months in reading the first half, which I kinda enjoyed, and this last bit, but there's no denying that I'm definitely allergic to the reduction of a species to a collection of subjects of some grand experiment.

On to Greg Bear then!

Currently: sleepy
Listening to: Edward Shearmur - Constellatoin Lyra

How would you feel about life..

.. if Death was your older sister?

Best back cover ever! :D With the parental units in town for a couple of weeks, it appears I finally have some time! Go figure. But between trips around the fjords and the World Cup and sundry other things, I did manage to get my eyes over The Sandman vol 1.

What madness!! What glorious insanity! I'm not saying that I didn't go a bit 'whaaaaaat?' every now and again, but this is Gaiman, so that's more or less par for the course. But as far as opening instalments go, I was mighty impressed!

Currently: unimpressed by Spain
Listening to: Thomas Newman - Kill them first

Summertime madness!

There are orders of magnitude to cover everything on every scale I suppose. But every so often something so outrageously fantastic happens, as to be truly off the charts of awesomeness :). Our road trip to Åndalsnes, for example.

Four days of pure brilliance, and it began with a ten hour journey through landscape that was a constant reminder just how beautiful Norway can be! I hadn't actually been on a proper road trip in quite some time, and what a way to get back to it. The brilliant thing about driving here is that if you have the weather for it, there isn't a dull moment. I mean that in a good way :D.

500 kilometres is a long way to go, but it went by unnoticed, especially as the views got ever more spectacular as we neared our destination. The town is right on the edge of the fjord, but surrounded by precipitous ranges. We had planned on hiking along the ridge on top of one of these the next day, Romsdalseggen. The views, we expected, would be amazing.

Unfortunately, a sky blanketed by low clouds greeted us when we woke. It wasn't looking pretty, but we decided to go for it anyway. Climbing a good 1200 metres through damp clouds doesn't qualify as the definition of fun for most people, but we were egged on by a couple of people heading back down, with promises of sunshine further along the ridge.

I cannot say how glad I am that we kept going, as before long, we went clear through the clouds and could see the highest of the surrounding peaks piercing through a sea of white all around! The feeling was rather indescribable :). The following several hours were spent trying to find a proper vantage point (read highest spot in the vicinity) and hunting for views as the sun eventually burned off the clouds, revealing quite the vista.

It would have been difficult to beat that hike, but the drive down to Geiranger the next day came pretty close. Again, the weather started off overcast, especially the valley down from Trollstigen. To be honest though, I was entertained enough by the roads to mind too much, and anyway, things got way sunnier in the subsequent valleys, so all was good.

The final day brought the brightest morning, so we decided to explore the views a bit before heading homewards. I think we got a little carried away, but eventually managed to leave Åndalsnes by midday :). All that remained was another few hundred kilometres of twisting spectacular Norwegian B-roads before we were back in the now familiar crush of Sunday evening traffic converging on Oslo from all directions.

The hiking and driving had taken a bit of a toll, and my legs weren't very happy climbing down stairs for a few days, but by the time the next weekend rolled around (another long one) everything was feeling more or less ok. So what did I do? Ended up cycling over 100km in a day for the first time. What can I say, good weather here makes one do strange things :).

Currently: almost there!
Listening to: Craig Armstrong - Gentle piece