B.W.'s Book Report: Learning the World

Man, sorry, Ken MacLeod fans, this one just didn't do it for me. I've been trying and trying to get into this book, but after 2-3 weeks I was still stuck on Page 52. It may one day be one of my favorite books, but right now, right here, I couldn't get started on Learning the World. I even was afraid I'd lost my passion for summer reading.

Finally, I just picked up the next entry in my Hugo award nominees box, Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. Ah, now that's more like it! I'm about halfway through that puppy after one night and a lunch hour.

This was my first exposure to MacLeod, and he seems to have some imagination. Here's an ark-style world within a big spaceship, and over there's a winged species that calls itself humans. Very interesting stuff, you'd think, but my brain just wasn't turning the pages. Maybe I'll try it again after I'm finished with Wilson's end-of-time thriller.

It's been fun trying to read all five Hugo nominees for best novel before the awards are made, because it's an excuse to expose myself to five authors I woulda-shoulda-coulda exposed myself to years ago. Up to now it was hands-down Old Man's War by John Scalzi's contest to lose, but I don't know ... I'm ripping through Spin and really intrigued by the concept. If the payoff is as good as the setup, we might have a two-book race.

I've more or less abandoned the idea of plowing through George R.R. Martin's A Feast for Crows in the next month before the Hugos. A 750-page fantasy novel is a bit daunting to begin with (I thought these were science-fiction awards anyway), and learning that it's Book Four in a series further doused my enthusiasm. But I promise to give MacLeod another chance to win me over. That, and a couple of bucks, will get him a cup of coffee, as they say.