A preview of summer

It's been a month that went by rather quickly. For a variety of reasons. There was a distinct feeling of drowning in work and sundry other things that tend to pile up slowly while one is not noticing till it all feels like a bit too much. So the holiday was timely. And very much appreciated!

Direct flights to a very popular destination for Norwegians were made good use of and a very relaxed and warm week in Gran Canaria ensued! I'd never really been to that part of the world before. In fact the closest I'd come would have been sailing out from the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar. Which is not that close really.

We were staying on the south coast in a relatively quite part of the island, which was really nice. Good weather, great food, nice beaches and warmer pools :D. And to top it all off some of the family from the UK had made it over as well, so great company too!

I was particularly impressed by the variety in the beaches, rocks and boulders littering some, nice sand in others. And, in the case of the famous Playa del Maspalomas, quite an impressive expanse of sand dunes! The water felt a bit too cold for me to actually go for a swim though. Especially given those heated pools :).

Special mention has to be made of the hike to a hill top not too far away from where we were staying that Google Maps provides the name of in Norwegian :). The views were great too! Another highlight was the day spent on the slides at Aqualand north of Maspalomas! A bit of an active end to an otherwise very relaxed trip.

An upshot of the nearly six-hour long flight to Las Palmas, as well as the relaxed nature of the holiday meant that I managed to finish off the final book of the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. In short, there's a lot to take in with this series. Light reading it is not. There definitely was a lot of hard science, yet, as with all good writers, the science wasn't allowed to get in the way of the story. At least for me. There was also a lot of food for thought.

There are so many different threads to my feelings about these books though. It's quite hard to unpack it all, but I'm going to try anyway. Hopefully without too many spoilers, but please beware, there might be some.

One very interesting thing was how the original Chinese story surfaced in different ways at different points in the books. In many ways the first book The Three Body Problem, partly being set mostly in China and also with its heavy referencing of the cultural revolution at the very beginning makes this quite obvious. The latter two books, The Dark Forest and Death's End are progressively less and less tied to Chinese territory physically and yet the narrative is rich with a lot of social and cultural references.

One interesting thing I noticed was that two different translators have worked on the three volumes. One who did the first and last and another did the middle one. I'm not sure why, but I was much more comfortable reading the two volumes translated by Ken Liu than the one by Joel Martinson. Whether it was a different way of writing or just how the translation was being done... Or even the fact that The Dark Forest transitions from Earth to Space, so to speak.

(Interestingly enough, this week I found out that a friend had read the series, also in English, and had had the exact opposite experience. Although, he hadn't even realized that there were two different translators involved!)

As for the story itself, Liu Cixin definitely weaves a mesmerizing set of ideas together masterfully. A philosophy of civilizations seen through a prism I couldn't necessarily identify with myself, but one that was nonetheless fascinating to explore. The whole Dark Forest idea itself is a mind bender. And then there are the dimensional tricks which ultimately lead to the unspooling/zooming out of the timeline that left me rather breathless at the very end!

There was also an almost deliberate casualness with which protagonists were treated which I felt somewhat unsettled by. Appearing, disappearing, appearing again. In many ways this was particularly pronounced in Death's End since in the other two books one more or less follows a single protagonist.

To be fair, the same is also largely true with Death's End, but somehow the darting, speeding timeline made it harder for me to connect with Cheng Xin than it was with Luo Ji in The Dark Forest or Wang Miao in The Three Body Problem. I suppose there are also others, so one could argue if these three were indeed the primary protagonists at all. Maybe they were merely faces of humanity as it traversed the story. In many ways my favourite character was probably Da Shi anyway :).

So yeah. Happy that I read all the books. Probably never going to read them again (which means getting them from the library worked out quite well). Very different from anything I've read before. There are, nevertheless, echoes of some of  the ideas in this series that I feel I've come across elsewhere, and probably will again.

It was such a huge contrast starting Rejoice after Death's End that I actually had to take it easy for a few days. Just let all my swirling thoughts and feelings from Remembrance.. settle a bit :). Now that I'm properly getting into Steven Erikson's sci-fi though, I have to say it feels more like philosophy and satire wrapped in a thin layer of science. I guess probably best to give the man the final couple of hundred pages before jumping to too many conclusions, he is my favourite fantasy author after all :).

Of course, in a constant undercurrent to life, the war goes on. Each day I feel a little more used to it, which makes me feel a little more terrified. The missile strike that interrupted the Saudi GP though was a reminder that this is not the only one.

(Very very happy that Ferrari are doing well, by the way. Finally! Long may it continue. I'm not even going to say anything about Liverpool.)

When the unthinkable became reality

It's an odd time to be living in. Earlier this month Norway practically ended all Covid-19 related restrictions. Especially if one is vaccinated. No, life didn't switch back to the normal from two years ago, but there was definitely a sense of breathing a bit easier. But now this.

I'm not exactly a politically active person, and by no means knowledgeable in any of the historical context that is being bandied about as to the causes. Regardless, I'm deeply unsettled by the events of this last week in Ukraine. Actually it's more than that. Somehow I almost feel like parts of me have become paralysed. Not an hour goes by without my thoughts turning to the war. And of course there's the sense of utter helplessness.

We can of course pray, and I do. For sense to prevail. For solidarity and love to overcome anger and hate. For people to come to their senses? But what do I know about what makes sense. That's one of the worst things about the last four days. There seem to be no easy answers, or even right answers. I guess as they say, in war everyone loses.

(And then there is another part of me that points an accusing finger to say, why is it that I feel so much more strongly about this than the wars that have gone on for decades in the middle east? Purely because I know friends whose families are in Ukraine? Or maybe because it's so much closer to home? I don't know.)

In situations like this I feel the happenings in one part of my mind colours pretty much everything else. Keeping that in mind, my current feelings about the last few books I've been reading should be taken maybe with a pinch of salt.

I've been going to the local library a lot. They do seem to have a pretty decent collection of fantasy, sci-fi as well as graphic novels. I found a couple of Frank Miller Batmans! The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again. Now, the only other Frank Miller stuff I've ever read is the Sin City series. So the hard hitting, gritty, tough as nails story-telling did not come as a surprise. But I feel like the sense of foreboding and being trapped was amped up even more. Especially in the latter.

On a happier note, I was so pleased with Project Hail Mary that when I found another book by the author in the library I snapped it up. Fortunately, Artemis did not let me down :). It was maybe a bit less awe inspiring compared to the previous book, but thoroughly enjoyable. I must say, while there was a distinctly recognizable writing style across both books, the protagonists were thoroughly different characters and as such not at all one-dimensional like they can be sometimes.

No such luck with Armada. So, I remember being distinctly underwhelmed by Ready Player Two, but still, when I found Ernest Cline's non-Ready Player.. offering in the library, I figured, let's give it another shot. To be fair, it's probably better than RP2, but that's not saying too much :). I guess I was just not particularly sold on the underlying premise. And the tone of the narrative was too similar to the previous books to make this a clean break from all the negatives of the past. I now wonder if I somehow enjoyed Ready Player One because, a) that was the first time I'd ready a book by Cline and/or b) I'd actually really liked the film!

Anyhow, I then decided to go for something entirely new (to me anyway) and when I found the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy on the sci-fi shelves, I thought, why not? So now, a third or so of the way into The Three-Body Problem, I'm wondering if I really can get through it all. It's a dark book. As in, not Frank Miller dark, just, disturbing around its edges and unfriendly. But at the same time really intriguingly enticing. There are hints of great things, of mystery, haunting memories that I'm having a hard time telling if they are past present or future.

Or is this all purely a function of my current state of mind? Who knows.

New beginnings

When was the last time I was this excited about a film? To be honest I can't remember. I mean, I was pretty excited about Endgame. But mainly to see how things would end. This was altogether more exhilarating! After all, for nearly twenty years, I hadn't expected there to be another Matrix! :)

(In fact, I was so excited that I started writing this post about The Matrix Resurrections several weeks ago. But then, one paragraph in, normal life kicked in and this is just getting rolled into my usual monthly one :P. Sad. Or maybe not :). You've gotto be happy with the life you've got right? I mean, of course, if it really isn't working out, then change some stuff. But to be honest I'm pretty happy most of the time with being able to post about life once a month, so...)

But yeah! I was excited enough to actually go to the cinema to watch it! We even did the right thing and re-watched The Matrix up front. And the experience was just awesome!! I mean! It's different! All for the better, if you ask me. There's more colour, a lot more fun! Yeah, humour, straight up! In a Matrix film, who'd have thunk it!

I really really liked the self-referential loops and the ways the new film takes in how the original film has affected pop culture! Is that because The Matrix affected my sense of popular culture in an outsized sort of way compared to most of the rest of the world? Who knows. But hey, I'm a total fan of the first film. In fact, I'm even a fan of Reloaded and Revolutions! Yes, they had their flaws, but I was invested enough in the world to accept them anyway. (We actually watched the sequels back to back one evening after watching Resurrections, and yeah, that was fun too! :) )

I honestly don't get how so many people are dissing Resurrections. Honestly! Get over yourselves! If you're a Matrix fan, go watch it. If you've never ever heard of The Matrix, watch the first one, then go watch Resurrections. If you like it, watch the other two too, just to fill in some of the narrative gaps. (Although.... I mean, I'm not so sure the prime narrative works if you don't at least know how Revolutions ends... so yeah, maybe watch all three first :). Whatever.)

(Also, I was so taken with Neo and Trinity being back, I ended up watching a lot of the casts' interviews around the premiere and on one of them Keanu Reeves ends up mistakenly plugging Revolutions instead of Resurrections =))). What an absolute legend!!)

So yeah, that was a lot of fun. But that was also the first weekend of the year :P. And for the first ten days or so of the new year, the snow was great! So we went cross-country skiing a bunch of times! I have to say, the new skiis make a huge difference! No prep, no problem, no matter the conditions :D. The downside is that I'd gotten very used to my old skiis, so I had to do a bit of re-learning, the hard way. A few bumps and scratches, but no stress :).

Since then though, some rather weird weather has come by and melted most of the snow and turned what remains into treacherous ice :(. Not cool at all. But hey, such is life. At least for the first time in a while the forecast seems to be predicting some actual snow in the near future. We'll see how that works out :).

To be fair, Resurrections wasn't the only awesome film we've watched lately. Our Kind of Traitor, for example. What a cool little film! Twists in the plot, solid acting, and really thought-provoking. Into the Spiderverse on the other hand was all about the awesome visuals for me. As in, using the visuals to really push home the narrative. I'm also happy I saw that before No Way Home :). Planning to go see No Way Home soonish, but there seem to be too many other people doing that still, so we wait..

Then there was Chaos Walking. I think I was more enamoured with the idea of it (and Tom Holland :)) than the film overall. But the idea of thoughts and memory being projected visibly is pretty cool, right? I think it may have had something also to do with the book I was reading at the same time, Americanah, but it made me think a fair bit about how there are so many layers to thought. What we think, what we think we think. What we think we aught to think. What we think others think we think, or think we should think. You get the idea.

The book itself has quite a lot more to it beyond just exploring the levels of self awareness to thought. The layers that exist to identity, racial, national/geographical, gender based.... How we each live our unique lives with each of our unique set of experiences in life. But part of that is also how those around us group is into imaginary boxes. And we do it right back I suppose. Because as humans it's quite hard to treat, or even see, another person as who they are. Perception, assumptions, prejudices, bias.

On a more concrete level, it was a revelation to see how much of the author's exploration of getting to and settling in a foreign culture seemed directly relatable. And the parts that were not. So yeah, definitely a thought provoking read.

Since then I've moved on to Project Hail Mary. Which is a lot more light-hearted in many ways. A thoroughly enjoyable and rapid read. And my first time back into anything resembling hard sci-fi in quite a while. (Asimov really doesn't count :).)

In the real world, there's also been something of an evolution. A change I was expecting to happen at some indeterminate point in the future suddenly materialized, leaving me slightly off balance. Yet, excited at the same time. I suppose there remains the question of how much of one's identity is really tied to a 125mm x 88mm booklet.

Oh, the feeling of skis gliding on fresh snow!

The snow has, indeed, stayed!! Which has made for an excellent December, I have to say. For the first time since I've moved to Norway full time, I can say that the snow that first fell in November is sticking around, while more has come to join it, more or less regularly. The end result has been an excellent white December, and Christmas!

We've even managed cross-country skiing a few times, and with more snow coming, likely to go out again before long :). Which is great, because I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a new pair of skis, wax-free ones at that! No more messing around with trying to get the right amount of the right coloured wax applied in the appropriate manner to a) have enough grip but at the same time b) not clog up the underside with snow. (Yeah, I was getting a bit pretty annoyed with my waxing results the last few trips of the previous season and the first one this season went just as badly :P.)

Otherwise, the year got just as crazy busy as expected towards the end, so I have really enjoyed the last couple of weeks. Time off, with no big plans, relaxing and having fun making yummy food, walking around in the snow, the occasional skiing trip, a couple of social calls with a very small number of friends and good Norwegian Christmas beer. What's not to like?!

While it's not cool to be missing the family Christmas get-together in England for a second year in a row, the fact that we could be there as recently as this autumn meant that it didn't feel as bad. Plus the upsides of a quiet holiday at home are definitely growing on us :).

Spent quite a bit of time watching films, for a change a lot of Marvel and DC stuff we'd generally steered clear of or just hadn't managed to catch in the cinemas for some reason or other. The Star Wars sequel trilogy was finally watched in full. With mostly meh-ish responses. The second Spiderman (Far from Home) and the first Venom were generally hilarious. Captain Marvel and Black Widow less so, but still generally enjoyable.

And then there was the DC stuff :|. I think there can be no doubt that the Marvel stuff just makes for more enjoyable film watching :D. The DC films are all so dark and broody. OK, maybe it's just the Snyder ones. We decided to watch the marathon Justice League: Snyder Cut which was a bag of laughs (not!) but did seem to at least follow through with most of the subplots and such. In some ways the two Wonder Woman films and Aquaman were ones I enjoyed the most.

The two films that I watched and thought, now this is stuff I really want to talk about, though, were Tenet and Dune. What an awesome pair of films! For completely different reasons I guess. But both left me with a definite sense of awe, pleasure at having watched them, and thoughts, questions and a sense of wanting more! Not something I've experienced often lately. To be honest, I really want to go back and watch Tenet once more. I was definitely reminded of the magic of Inception (rather than the bit of a let down that Interstellar was for me). Whereas with Dune I was left wondering (again) why I hadn't picked up the books yet, despite having crossed paths with the series several times in the past.

Speaking of books, I finally finished The View from the Cheap Seats! Some five years after I bought my copy, in the end :). And loved it! I think I just generally love the way Gaiman writes. Anything, novels, comics, short stories, introductions, afterwords, speeches... Speaking of the introduction (to other people's books), as I mentioned last time, some of them I found rather compelling! To the point where I've actually decided to base my upcoming book club suggestions entirely on books the introductions of which are to be found in The View from the Cheap Seats :).

Continuing on the Gaiman theme, I also got hold of his Eternals work and MorrorMask. The former I loved! The latter, I'm not sure. MirrorMask gets a couple of entries in ...Cheap Seats, and the feeling I am left with overall is that it's probably best experienced as a film. Which is what it was made as first. Who knows. But with Eternals, it was very much in the classic Gaiman mould. Great story, amazing characters, and a sense of action despite, as he says afterwards, lots of characters just standing around and talking :D

In between, I also managed to read the book club book of the month! Once I finally got it! This has to be the longest it's taken Adlibris to deliver me a book! Near about five weeks since I ordered it, when they'd claimed two to start with :|. Anyhow, Zealot, when it did arrive, was an odd read. I mean, the blurb wasn't really in keeping with the book itself I thought, in a good way. 

The flow of the book overall felt very jumpy. A lot of events referenced and cross-referenced in apparently random order. Added to the very non-linear way in which time flows in terms of what is being talked about, it can make for a pretty confusing read. In the end the overarching feeling I was left with was that at least the author seemed clear and open that this was their view on things and that in the end, faith is really a matter of personal choice. Or at least it should be. But I suppose that's just my take on the matter.

Hmm, this is kinda turning into a longish post :). And I haven't even done the usual look back on the year yet! I suppose the lazy and generally inaccurate way of dealing with that would be to say something like, oh well, not much really happened this year :P. Even on a personal level that would be entirely untrue.

We did manage the one trip abroad. And that was definitely a blessing. Up until a couple of years ago, many people didn't think too much about having family spread out across different countries or continents I suppose (or maybe that's just me). Taking somewhat for granted the ability to be able to just go see folks when one felt like it. I suppose gratuitous international travel may never be the same again. But there's something to be said for people being able to see new places and people. Experiencing new things, cultures, ways of life. Hopefully there'll remain some way to sensibly do that going forward.

I'm glad cycling was back on the menu this year! With some short trips and some long. I hope we'll continue to use this as a way to see more of Norway in the coming year. But first, I would really really love to have a cross-country season that's anything close to what we had this year :). I mean, what's the point of living in Norway if you can't go cross-country skiing right? :D I kid of course (well, maybe only partly).