Mare Somniorum

I’ve been reading “The mind’s I” and “Labyrinths” on and off for a while now, and as good as both works are, they’re just not the type of book you sit down and read until the end.  They both practically beg you to stop for a bit, think about that last bit, and contemplate yourself relative to what you’ve just read.  This is just dandy, but it leads to a confusing jumble of reading material on my desk.

So, to solve the problem, I picked up “Redemption Ark” by Alastair Reynolds with rather high expectations — and the intent of having something less surreal to read on the way to work in the mornings.  After reading a hundred odd pages in “Redemption Ark” all I can say is that Reynolds is quite the weaver.  Yes, the book does draw on “Revelation Space”, yes, it’s a good idea to have read it beforehand (the opposite order spoils things like who survive and such), but the concepts are new.  It’s not a rehash, a “Revelation Space” remade and refitted.  I have to admit I find the book really hard to put away.

There once was an idea to buy some books. Some books became a few more books and suddenly there were a lot of books being bought. I don’t exactly want to check how many it ended up being, but there were a lot of them. The first one reached the door today, and I suppose there is some subtle irony that the first arrival was Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Commemorative Edition) (Princeton Classic Editions) by John von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern, Ariel Rubinstein, and Harold William Kuhn. The math will be a bit of a challenge, but most of the content seems quite approachable, and it was a book I really felt I should read and own.

On the other hand, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World by General Sir Rupert Smith is still upstream somewhere and is one of the first books I wish to devour once I finish my current reading list, which include Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds, Permutation City by Greg Egan as well as a re-reading of Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter.

Somewhere in the river of books we also find I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century by USMC, Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings (New Directions Paperbook) by Jorge Luis Borges, Andre Maurois, Donald A. Yates, and James E. Irby, as well as Two-Person Game Theory by Anatol Rapoport. Oh, and The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, and some more random stuff, like Feynman Lectures On Physics (3 Volume Set) by Richard Phillips Feynman, duh.

If you’re seeing a pattern to this I’d suggest you seek professional help, and welcome to the boat — the river of books is frothy today.

I just got a hold of someone I hadn’t talk to in years.  Well, close to a decade probably at this point.  The upside?  I got to extend some birthday wishes and a dinner is in the works.  Good tidings! It’s also great to hear that peope you knew are doing well and essentially living the life you expected them to want — at least in the general sense.  Sometimes I almost believe this pale blue dot can be a happy place.