Top to bottom:
The Wayfinders by Wade Davis
The Lost Origins of the Essay edited by John D’Agata
Borges: Selected Poems by Jorge Luis Borges
A Buddhist Bible, by Dwight Goddard
Freedom by Daniel Suarez
In Such Hard Times by Wei Ying-Wu, translated by Red Pine
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The bald fella with the big facial hair is Neal Stephenson, author of many wonderful books including Cryptonomicon – my freshly-signed copy of which he is holding – and Anathem, which is his latest book. He was at Schuler Books and Music on 28th Street yesterday for a reading and Q-and-A session. He was very personable, if quite tired-out from the book tour, which has taken him all over the country in a fairly short amount of time.

During QA, I asked him what he thought the next Age might be, in the context of the ages he described in his early novel, Interface  (A run-down of those ages is here). He got a funny look on his face and said “You’re asking me to predict the future.” Then he went on to opine that people nowadays seemed to be increasingly afraid of anything of significant complexity, and they were looking for simpler lives. One way they (we) are doing this is to latch onto people with powerful personalities and let them lead the complicated lives while we follow safely in their wakes. This is an observation toward which I will need to direct some significant thought.

After I finish reading Anathem.

If your answer to the above two questions is “Yes”, then there is a book you need to read. It is call Blindsight and the author is Peter Watts.

Blindsight is a first-contact novel set in the year 2082. I don’t really want to give any details, other than the fact that the ship is captained by a vampire, which Watts makes plausible by demonstrating that, in fact, it is not entirely out of the question that vampires could have existed once upon a time. He even throws in the hard science explaining how it could be possible, which is – in my experience – absolutely unprecedented in vampire novels. But don’t just take my word for it: You can read Watts’ research notes here (PDF), or watch a powerpoint-ish presentation (Flash – highly recommended) from a the Big Pharma company which successfully brought vampires out of extinction. And if that isn’t enough, you can read Blindsight online, for free.

Aaaaannnndddd, if Blindsight makes you hungry for more Peter Watts, you can read his other books – Starfish, Maelstrom, and Βehemoth for free as well.

One warning, though: The other novels are much darker than Blindsight.

But wait: There’s more! Watts is working on another novel, which takes place on Earth at the same time as Blindsight is happening in space. The title is State of Grace, and an excerpt can be read here.

Enjoy!

Another science fiction great has left us. Arthur C. Clarke, author of Rendezvous with Rama, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and many other works of speculative fiction, long and short, died earlier today in his home in Sri Lanka.

I have not read many of his books; 2001, 2010, Rama, and perhaps one or two others. One of the earliest serious science fiction works I remember reading was The Nine Billion Names of God (warning: spoilers), which left me in equal part awestruck and deeply spooked for some time.

In case you are wondering why Mr. Clarke should interest you, or how he has been a part of your life, ecce: Communication satellites in geostationary orbit were pretty much his idea.

And people say science fiction is only so much stargazing.

Well, the past couple of months have been wild ups and downs in the book department. Over the holidays I read the three volumes of the Wild Shore Triptych by Kim Stanley Robinson. Each of the books is a possible future for Orange County, CA — The Wild Shore, which was post-apocalyptic, The Gold Coast, an urban dystopia, and Pacific Edge, an up-and-coming ecological utopia. All of them were good, but the last was probably the best read.

I have also been diving head-long into John Varley, who writes some of the most enjoyable science fiction I have read in a long, long time. Several months back I read his Gaea Trilogy — Titan, Wizard and Demon. Very good. More recently I picked up Red Thunder, which was AMAZING; Mammoth and The Ophiuchi Hotline. The latter two were good, but not great…but still well worth the read.

Robin Hobb’s most recent book Forest Mage, the second in the Soldier;s Son trilogy, came out a few months back. The first in the series took off rather slowly, and didn’t seem to have a specific direction, but this one was well worth the effort. Hobb just keeps getting better at writing fantasy novels.

And finally, one which caught me by surprise, kept me up at night, and left me awe-struck: The Terror, by Dan Simmons.

The Terror is historical fiction mixed with some gothic horror and a light touch of the supernatural. It explores the Franklin Expedition, where 128 men disappeared while looking for the Northwest Passage.

I wish I could find the words to express the wonder of Simmons’ books. If you have read the Hyperion Cantos, or any of Simmons’ horror novels then you have an idea what you may find here. It is not a quick read, being almost 800 pages, but if you do dive into The Terror you will find your time and money very well spent.

Things have been pretty busy the past month or so, but I have managed to find time to crack open a couple of new books.

The first one was The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. This is not the first alternate history book I have read, so it felt just a little cliche. Then I remembered that this was one of the first of that sub-genre, and in that context is was BRILLIANT! Basically, America lost WWII and was divvied up between the Germans (east of the Mississippi) and the Japanese (west of the Rocky Mountains), with a no-man;s-land in between. The stories are told from the point of view of several characters, Japanese, German, and American.

Next — and one I am still working on — is the ecological thriller The Swarm by Frank Schatzing. The overall plot is nothing new — the abused Earth begins fighting back against her tormentors — but the specifics of the story are fresh and engaging, and the characters are sympathetic without being preachy.

Finally, the one I just finished, and one which caught me by surprise: The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Normally I am aware of when interesting books are published, but I didn’t hear about this one until after the fact. McCarthy has (finally) published a post-apocalyptic novel. He has written several apocalyptic novels — Blood Meridian being the most obvious — and now he has written the book he was meant to write. The entire novel follows an un-named father and son as they travel west from the mountains to the coast of southern California in an America gone to nuclear winter where nothing is left alive but human beings. Gangs of cannibals roam the remains of the world and a can of peaches is the most magnificent meal to be hoped for.

There is nothing dignified or romantic about the end of the world here — everything is ash and rain and snow, and a simple thing like a shopping cart losing its wheel can be a life-or-death experience.

I read The Road too quickly the first time — punctuated by moments of having to put it down and let my emotions settle — and I will probably pick it up again around the holidays.

Thomas Harris has a new book coming out in three weeks: Hannibal Rising, the story of how Hannibal Lecter became one of the greatest literary monsters of the twentieth century. Saying I am looking forward to this one is an understatement.

That’s all for now. I want to get in a solid hour of reading before I go to bed. I suggest you do the same.