2011 books 55-63

 

( Incredible Hulk reading )

61) The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton by Larry Niven: This was a reread, read out loud to my son in my part of the nighttime ritual. He’s 7 months old at this juncture, and at this point his sister was listening to the Amber cycle, so hey, it’s all good. I just want to know why no one has licensed the Gil the Arm stories for movie treatments, as three of the four are tightly done SF mysteries with nice social SF explorations in them that would translate to the screen easily, at least in my opinion. (ARM wouldn’t as it’s a muddled mess, though some parts of it could be mined to fill out the other stories. But _Death by Ecstasy_, _The Defenseless Dead_ and _Patchwork Girl_ should all work fine).

62) The Planets by Dava Sobel: another reread, but it’s just so damn pretty. Zachary was hearing this one too. Get it, read it.

63) The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross: This was recommended by many people, and it was a fun read. I’m hard pressed to recommend it to non-SF fans as it’s so genre referential that I wonder how much a non-SF fan would really get from it. This isn’t a problem, as all genre fiction has the element of the author being in conversation with other writers in the genre, but it was very strong in this one. Still, the central conceit was a very nice one, and the book was peppy and fun.