With the onset of summer, it must be time to head to the beach, back yard, couch or whathaveyou for some geeky lite reading. I don't know why I reserve the summer for only reading science fiction but that's how I roll. Maybe because it coincides with the summer movie season of occasional sci-fi visual treats. I guess I associate warm weather with dragon slaying, space exploration and the end of the world. And since it's turning out to be a rather dull summer at the movies, I'm depending more on the written word to satisfy that need.
My reading list so far consists of both old and newer selections. I just gobbled up Cormac McCarthy's
The Road (and promptly watched the
movie afterward). That was a dark 96 hours. One of the bleakest books I've ever read. Some real beauty within, but quite harrowing. The movie was also stunning. I was surprised how good it was. I cried crocodile tears at the end. Fair warning though, this is dystopia at its darkest. It's more fiction than sci-fi but the concept of the end of the world teeters in both genres.
Next on the docket is
A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1) by George R.R. Martin. This is book 1 in a series that takes place in Medieval Europe, except with dragons and sorcery. Sweet. I have no idea what I'm getting into, but HBO liked it enough that they're turning it into a new series (first trailer
here). Perhaps a result of the success of True Blood. Based on how much I enjoy it, I may proceed onward to
book 2.
Beyond that, I think Kim Stanley Robinson's Three Californias trilogy is next in line. I started the
first book years ago but never finished. The reasons why escape me. Basically, it chronicles three possible futures of Orange County, California, in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. Uplifting! Well, one of the possible futures is an ecotopia, I think, so it can't be all bad. But I loved Robinson's
Years of Rice and Salt and
Red Mars.
Also on the list.. We'll see how quickly I get through these...
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke
Watership Down by Richard Adams
To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Phillip José Farmer
At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
I'm always ambitious on the outset. But that's what lists are for. Ambition! Happy Solstice, folks!
