wombat_socho | Sunday Morning At Mickey's

I'm posting from the McDonald's on Duke Street up the hill from Foxchase because there's no internet at my place and won't be until (probably) Monday or Tuesday after I pay Cavalier what I owe them. Thank goodness McDonald's has the free wifi and isn't overrun with people; came in at 10 to grab breakfast and do the needful for Stacy before heading off to the ass-end of Loudoun County to help RS and Kimbie get their new place closer to habitability.

So, to get caught up on things...

I picked up Will Eisner's Life, in Pictures: Autobiographical Stories partially because I didn't really know that much about Eisner, who's one of the seminal figures in American comics history, and partially because I found the idea of an autobiography done as graphic novel interesting. And it is, but it's also a string of depressing stories about growing up Jewish in America, and I needed that right now like I need another hole in my head.

Greg Bear's Hull Zero Three is a another take on the old Robert Heinlein Orphans of the Sky story about a generation starship gone awry, but it suffers in comparison with Elizabeth Bear's (no relation) Dust, which P had given me a few months ago. Hull Zero Three is shorter, less detailed, and more than a little annoying thereby; its protagonist stumbles through a situation he doesn't understand with a near-complete ignorance of how things work or what he's supposed to be doing, and no notion of whether he can trust the others he encounters along the way. I found it terribly frustrating and can't honestly recommend it.

I am beginning to think that Iain Banks doesn't know how to end a novel without killing his protagonists. I've read Consider Phlebas before; in fact, it was the first Culture novel I ever read, loaned to me by

stuckintraffik when I was still living in Minnesota. So I shouldn't have been surprised by the way it ended, but still, it had been long enough since I've read it that that apocalyptic ending was a surprise, and it is rather a downer. I still recommend the book, but you probably shouldn't read it if you're already in a down state of mind.

I already discussed Agatha H And The Airship City here so I won't reeat myself. Good book, well worth reading.

And now I must do the linkagery thing.