Solid post. I somehow must've misspoken about the two main characters meeting. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I recommend reading it on kindle -- the search function helped me recognize that one character who stands watch for them and had to reread the section thinking "WTF on earth are they doing?" There are, I'm sure, quite a few sections like that which would wrap up the remaining questions I still have about the novel, like who picked up the gun, etc. (It's also nice to think that maybe DFW was just ****ing with Chekov and shows the gun without having it go off.) I still maintain there's no third act, though! Maybe my opinion will change after a second reading, which I'll probably do in the next couple years before I forget everything.

******************

Somehow, I cornered myself into reading two God books at once:

Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer, narrated by Johnathan Davis. Pop scifi a la Michael Crichton. It's basically like the tagline says -- an alien parks in front of the Royal Ontario Museum and asks to see a paleontologist. Much of the book is discourse between the two of them concerning cosmology, genetics, biology, creationism, intelligent design, and so forth. The story itself is pretty well done, if schmaltzy, even though Sawyer definitely takes some liberties with the science, sometimes for the sole purpose of maintaining the schmaltz.

I've also embarked on Philip K. Dick's VALIS trilogy. Book one is down and so far I'm not very impressed. I've read a fair amount of PKD, and I usually love his whacked out ideas, but this first book doesn't seem to go anywhere. The story focuses on Dick himself and his schizophrenic alterego, Horselover Fat, who has had a religious experience and is determined to find a savior. Not surprisingly, the novel is semi-autobiographical. Unfortunately, it reads like a pet project, something he felt was really important to him to put out there. There are long interludes where Fat describes his "Exegesis" (which Dick apparently wrote for real over the last decade of his life -- a million plus pages, in all) in detail, which involves overlapping realities, reincarnation, alien intelligence, and a particularly nutty spiritual framework. Many of these themes occur in his other works, but here they are laid bare with little story to go with them. I've started on the second book, The Divine Invasion, and the story seems to be picking up, so we'll see how it turns out.

I believe Robert Anton Wilson said in one of the Cosmic Trigger books that some entity from the dogstar Sirius communicated with him and that Phillip K. Dick after reading that said he had the same thing happen to him. That seems to be the inspiration for the VALIS book which seems rather incomprehensible to most. Likely a bit too much LSD was had by both.

Started Sleeping Beauty by Ross Macdonald. The last Ross Macdonald I haven't read; I needed something to balance what I've been reading recently, nothing like some escapist crime fiction.

Damn, I suck at proofreading....

Yeah, after reading book one, I decided to scope out his wiki. I knew a few things about him, like his meth addiction, his paranoia regarding the government, and the house break-in (I think most of my knowledge comes from the Rolling Stone article about him). But I didn't know about the schizophrenia, the suicide attempt, the pink beam of light from Sirius that saved his son, and the constant questioning of reality throughout his entire life. Strange to think that he actually lived a lot of the stuff he wrote about, especially considering how absurd most of his work is.

Not a fan of Calculating God. I thought it wasn't that interesting. I did read it when I was stuck in bed with strep throat and very high fever, so maybe I judged it too harshly at the time.

I think the major problem with Calculating God is that it seems to take the easy way out whenever possible. It's trying real hard to tug at your heartstrings, which makes it, well, not tug at your heartstrings. Some of the hand waves Sawyer gives to actual science -- like discovery of the fifth fundamental force, the mention of the tenth planet, and some of the misused time dilation stuff -- are maddening, and that's not even bringing up the genetics discussions, which I don't know enough about to dissect. But he also brings up a couple interesting points along the way. I hesitate to criticize the story itself, though, because it's not badly told, just very vanilla. I suppose that's what Sawyer aims for -- the largest possible audience. Hard to fault him for that (even if I don't personally love it), but I also find the book hard to praise. It's the kind of book that I think someone who thinks Stephen Hawking is the greatest physicist ever would like.

In regards to Philip K Dick I've read recently that Amazon has done a pilot of The Man in the High Castle. This has always been my favorite of his...my college advisor in the 70s called it Borgesian.
I'm in a rural cable less area but wonder if anyone has watched the pilot.

I have, it was pretty good. Season starts in a few weeks.

I enjoyed it. Didn't realise they had gone on to make a full series.

The pilot was good. I get the impression that the series won't stick too close to the source, but the premise is interesting enough to yield a ton of storylines.

Also, for anyone with credits on Audible, they're having an unadvertised sale on nonfiction that ends tonight. http://www.audible.com/sp/2for1

So I had an interesting night with a major literary figure...

My GF is the Artistic Director of the Black Mountain Institute, UNLV's literary center that sponsors writers and events. This weekend, they sponsored the Las Vegas Valley Book festival, and the keynote speaker was Irish novelist and National Book Award winner, Colum McCann. He read from his latest work and my GF led a panel discussion with him on stage. And it was pretty damn awesome. He wrote one of my favorite novels of the last decade, Let the Great World Spin.

After, there was a reception and Colum and I hit it off, drank a lot, and then I took him back to where he was staying - the Golden Nugget. This was his first time in Vegas, and he was fascinated by the awfulness of it all. He insisted on playing poker with me - I had to teach him how to play - and we drank and played and laughed and had a blast. Stayed up until 4am.

Nothing is more fun than drinking all night with an Irish writer.

Super jelly.

Lock it and new thread after Dom imo

Couple of literary leprechauns at the golden Nugget?

I'm jealous of Dom drinking all night with a famous Irish writer. Also I looked up pictures of his gf, but not in a creepy way.

I spent Good Friday 1992 bar hopping with Hunter S Thompson. What do I win?

It's awesome having her as a GF...her position puts me in some heady company.

So McCann and me were walking through the Golden Nugget and some young, hot blonde sitting at a cocktail table held her hand out for me to high-five as we walked by, so I did.

McCann was impressed.

M: "How do you do that?"
Dom: "What?"
M: "Get hot girls to high-five ya?'
Dom"I don't know"
M: "That was brilliant."

M "...If we were walking through a literary conference, I'd be the one getting high-fives, ya know."

He also had great fun telling everyone at the poker table that he and I had just gotten married.

He also called a $300 all-in with Queen high.

M: "Figured I'd bluff some, ya know?"

Solid brags

Incredible, Dom. Straight up Irish folk have to be the most fun on the planet.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, narrated by Kristoffer Tabori. It's fun and quick, good ol' fashioned sci-fi horror with obvious political undertones. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect (although a different ending than the movie).

And I'm finally caught up on the main novels for the Expanse, though I still want to get to the novellas. Nemesis Games by James SA Corey (narrated by Jefferson Mays, who is a better narrator than Erik Davies) could be my favorite yet in the series. The authors do a great job of addressing any character issues I had from previous books: Naomi, Alex, and Amos all get some much needed development. And as usual we get a special guest appearance of a character we'd probably left for dead. The story itself keeps getting better, more intense, higher stakes. Can't wait for the next book.

I love my Irish cousins. Even [esp?] if I can only understand 50% of what they say over in Eire.

Dom,


I loved that book too, and I just have to tell that story to my colleague working on her dissertation in Irish Studies.

You win the obligation to elaborate in a long post on the twoplustwo forums.

I finally finished Franzen's Purity. I think it's very good, but I didn't like it quite as much as The Corrections or Freedom. I do think Franzen has a special talent for describing the way people relate to each, especially couples and families. He's also hilarious when he wants to be, like scream-out-loud funny.

anyone who likes soccer should totally pick up Das Reboot. I crushed it.

Awesome story, Dominic.