What I've been 'reading'

[johnridley]

Lately about all I have been getting to is audiobooks, during my commute. I am down to only one magazine subscription, Sky & Telescope, and I haven't even taken the plastic wrap off more than 2 issues in the last year. On paper, I am lucky if I get through 2 books a year lately. Audiobooks have let me get through several books in the last month.

The last thing I finished in print was Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot". I know this is supposed to be a classic, but damn it was dry, dry, dry. It's obvious he had a lot of wonder in him, but IMHO he doesn't get it across very well. He seems much too concerned with not appearing to be a wacko; he spends chapters detailing facts and trying to convince the reader that what he's talking about is feasible, and only gets to dreaming for a few pages near the end. It took a long time to get through this.

Audiobooks: Most recently I finished up Ben Bova's "Mercury". Pretty good, I thought, I don't often agree with a character who's out for murder. It was hard to say which characters were good guys and bad guys for sure, so that's good. I contrast that with his "Saturn" which IMHO was completely predictable; by the time I was 1/4 through the book I already knew the ending.

I also listened to his "Moonrise" a few weeks ago, and enjoyed that story as well, again, it was not too predictable. I still have a couple of his Grand Tour series to go but not right now.

In between those two I listened to "Shadow of the Hedgemon". I really like Bean at least as well as Ender. I just have one or two books left to go and I'm done with the Ender/Shadow set. I have those ready to go but I need to take a break from that for a while. I have been going through them out of order, but I think as long as Ender's Game is read first, it doesn't matter that much.

It was interesting that at the end of Hedgemon, Card had a 10 minute monologue where he said that he thinks audiobooks are actually the best way to experience his stories; he writes them as though he were telling a story aloud.

I do need to diversify my reading quite a bit, but at my speed it's tough to do. Once I find a series I like I tend to want to finish it, and I don't like to start a series unless it's completely done. The other "problem" that I have is that I don't really care whether I'm reading something that's 2 months or 80 years old. In fact in a lot of cases I really don't care for newer stuff, but that's probably because I'm not reading the right stuff. But a lot of what I hear I "must read" I wind up not really liking that well, so I go back to authors I know, even if they've been dead for 30 years.

I've been pointed towards Alan Steele's Coyote books, but they don't seem to have been done as audio books. I also have a ton of Doctor Who radio plays that I need to listen to one of these days...