“Chasm City” by Alastair Reynolds.

“Chasm City” is the second book I’ve read written by Alastair Reynolds, the first one being “Revelation Space“. I had a bit of a hard time with Revelation Space as Reynolds totally lost it during the last one hundred pages and started rambling like a madman.

So naturally I was a bit skeptical when I picked up Chasm City. The reason why I bought the book in the first place was that it was not part of the same series as Revelation Space, but the events of Chasm City still takes place in the same fictional universe as Revelation Space - and if it’s something Alastair Reynolds is very good at it’s creating thrilling, fictional universes.

Chasm City starts out well and Reynolds is keeping a good pace through most of the book, he is only side stepping once into what might resemble the ramblings of Revelation Space and for only a few pages. Unlike Revelation Space, most of Chasm City is written in first person with the occasional jumps back in time with stories told by a third-person narrator.

There is no requirement that you have to be familiar with Reynolds’ first book to enjoy Chasm City, but it’s without doubt a plus if you do as it enables you to enjoy all the more or less intricate references to Revelation Space.

Water of Life.

Yesterday night me and Gine went to Terje and Inger’s annual stick meat Christmas dinner. Good food, good company and good drinks. Akvavit is what Norwegians traditionally drink with their Christmas meals, it’s served at room temperature but it still burns in your throat. Neither does it take long before you realize you’ve had enough for the evening. I recommend drinking about twice the volume of water as Akvavit as it seems it prevents you from being sick the next day. At least it works very well for me.

We got back home at around two in the morning and I might accidently have stayed up playing EVE Online until half past six or so. I’m really not sure what time it was when I finally got to bed nor what kind of missions I completed, if any, but at least I have proven that it’s possible to fly a large space ship without smashing it into anything while drunk. Continue reading "Water of Life."

Dictionary.

Over the last couple of months I’ve read one great book, Hyperion, and one good book The Fall of Hyperion. Since I finished the last book yesterday, I decided to visit a book store after work today to find what I thought was the third book about Hyperion. Actually, I went to three book stores, but I was unable to find it anywhere.

Just as well, because I was looking for Hyperion Omnibus. Since I’m a moron, I didn’t actually know the meaning of the word “omnibus” and thought it was part of the title of the book.

Omnibus, noun, a book containing reprints of a number of works.

So now you know, too.

A Better Block Quote.

From time to time, I nick ideas from other sites. I’m a bad boy. This site design was heavily influenced by Subtraction, a blog I read for a brief while before getting bored with it. And today I changed the way block quotes are displayed.

Now block quotes are displayed like this.

Much nicer than the old way that you probably don’t remember anyway. The block quote design was borrowed from A List Apart, but I really doubt that that’s the only site on the interweb that display their block quote in that way. Credit is due to ALA anyway, since that’s where I got the quote graphics. Besides, it’s a great site with some good reads if you’re into web site design and usability.

I’ve found a site today that looks somewhat interesting, jogin.com. The site belongs to Tomas Jogin, a Swedish programmer and designer who also knows how to write entertaining entries.

Yesterday I missed Battlestar Galactica because of work. I really need a PVR, but they are still a tad expensive.

This is just incoherent rambling.

Scientific.

Around the time I started to play Eve Online, a Norwegian TV station started airing the “re-imagined” version of Battlestar Galactica based on the original 1978 TV series. So far I’ve watched three episodes, it’s OK, but not gotta-get-this-on-DVD-good.

Science fiction is probably the one genre I like the most, both in literature, movies, TV series and computer games. I’ve been through tons of science fiction books, including the extremely well written original Dune series and the infamous Neuromancer, the book that in many ways defined cyberpunk when it was released in 1984.

My favorite movie of all times, Strange Days also has a science fiction-ish theme as it’s set around new years eve 1999, about five years into the future relative to 1995, the year it was released. Of course, that’s all ancient history now. The movie also has other elements that makes it a hell of a movie.

When it comes to TV series, Babylon 5 is without doubt the best science fiction series I’ve ever watched. I never got the hang of Star Trek, it takes itself too seriously, while Babylon 5 had just the right attitude.

Babylon 5 is, as opposed to Battlestar Galactica, gotta-get-this-on-DVD-good. Or maybe it will just ruin everything. After all, it’s over 10 years since I watched it.