Update

It's been awhile since I wrote a post about books and, since there are few things that thrill me more, I think it's time I write another. I've covered a good amount of ground in my personal library and there are quite a few books I'd like to comment on. I can't remember which books I talked about last time, nor do I care to go back and look, so I'll just pick up where my fancy takes me.

It never ceases to amaze me how many fantasy authors not only can, but often do, develop completely new languages before writing their books. Knowing how difficult it is to even begin to learn a language, I find myself wondering if most of these authors were linguistics majors in college. I'm sure that at least a few of them were. Molly, Mandi's sister, loaned me an incomplete series written by an Australian (I think) woman, who's name I can't remember, but who's first book was titled "The Naming". It was good, as were the subsequent two, and I look forward to the next one. The amount of planning that the woman must have done is astounding. Aside from new languages, she developed support literature, fictional bibliographies, along with the usual maps, characters, magical theory, etc. This has to be one of the most daunting aspects to writing fantasy as opposed to contemporary fiction. It must be so much easier to write a story about North America in 2008 as opposed to just starting from scratch and developing all the details necessary to understand what you're writing about much less to make it believable and entertaining. (Run-on?)

This brings me to Science Fiction. (Not the same thing as Fantasy! Stop grouping them!) How much more difficult must it be to do all the things previously mentioned with the additional requirements of understanding advanced/theoretical physics/astronomy/technology? My mind shudders at the thought. If you ever see me write science fiction there will be lots of lasers, explosions, and weightless antics. String Theory there will not be. Unless, that is, my character says something like "Computer! Do stuff based on String Theory!" All joking aside, I just finished a series by Alastair Reynolds, a British astrophysicist, and it was incredible. He reminds me a lot of Carl Sagan, although a little less serious. As far as I can tell, which is obviously not very far, all of the science in the story was at the very least theoretically possible. He also went to great lengths to explain it to the reader while managing to make it seem like he wasn't explaining it at all. Very impressive and I'd imagine hard to do. I still felt dumb and there were more than a few points at which my mind was definatly bending in ways it's not used to. I think this is impressive if you keep in mind that I quickly and easily fall into stories about dragons and swords. My mind apparently has no trouble with that.

Over the past few years it seems like I've been hearing non-stop about Bill Bryson. Everyone, and I mean everyone, seems to be reading or have read Bill Bryson. This Saturday I found out why. While visiting the old bookstore I went through almost every section, as I usually do, but this time, surprisingly, Bryson kept popping into my vision. He was in Science and Nature, Travel, General Fiction, Writing, Classics, and everywhere else I'm guessing, though I stopped there. Apparently the man sits down once a week and thinks something like "Deep sea jellyfish? Why not!" More surprisingly, he seems to do it well. I think they've all been best sellers, they've all been suggested to me by at least one person, and no less than three people have loaned me a book by him. (I'll read and return them soon. I promise!) I've almost finished "Notes on a Small Island" a book about a solo trip he took around England and he manages to make it interesting and funny, even though you have no idea what he's talking about most of the time. It seems that the voice inside his head sounds a lot like the one inside mine. Take from that what you will. Let's just say that I look forward to reading the rest of his books.

On a sadder note, for those of you who haven't heard, Michael Crichton passed away a week or so back. For those who have only seen his movies/tv show, don't judge him based on those. If you've only read his most recent 3 novels, don't judge him on those either. Everything that came before "Timeline" was, in my humble opinion, impressively well done and interestingly unique. No one else wrote like he did, at least not that I've found. I was hoping, and he had hinted, that his next book would be more of a return to the type of novel he was writing 10-15 years ago. Sadly we'll never know. Regardless, he was one of my favorites and respectfully, he was one of the authors that made me love reading early on. I still remember reading "Congo"(I even made a diorama) in Mrs. Reagan's 5th grade reading class when I was supposed to be reading "Shiloh" or something along those lines. He will be missed. Also, if anyone wants to buy me the rest of the books he wrote under John Lange, you can find them on Barnes and Noble's used and out of print section. That would be greatly appreciated as they will now be exponentially even further outside of my price range. All interested parties can shoot me a comment and I'll let you know which ones I have. Predictably they're the three cheapest and easiest to find. Maybe we'll get lucky and his publisher will bring them out of retirement with a new printing like they've done with every single journal, note, thought, and doodle of Tolkein's. The market is obviously there.

That's all I have for now.