re:mote voices

reading - i have been reading look to windward by iain m. banks this week, and i have to say i've been struggling. while i have had a certain amount of time for space opera styled fiction, i increadingly find myself bored senseless with long, drawn out descriptions of galaxies and terraformed planets. banks seems to spend too much time doing that in this case, the actual interaction of characters is where his strength is, he can be quite witty, and particularly with his most culture based material can set up a nice intrigue. however, barring suggetions of that, he just isn't working for me.

of course i have plenty of other options that i could switch to, but i was in a certain mood when i went round the shops on thursday night. so i decided to buy a couple of books i actually wanted, rather than continually scouring special offers and bargain bins for things that might appear. with that i followed up my recent interest in the work of russell hoban, going through the books on offer i decided to go with Kleinzeit, partly because of the description, and partly because i happened to have enough cash on me to cover that and my other choice. my other choice being a surrender to my ongoing a.l. kennedy habit, one which i am doing my best to resist. teasing myself book by book, rather than splurging on her entire catalogue in an unpleasant exhibition of excess. following on from everything you need, so i am glad and indelible acts, i decided to go for original bliss (read an extract).

saturday, at the end of a long day, not really doing much at all, i decided to chill out some. so rather than going for look to windward i decided hoban was more suitable, so i made a start to Kleinzeit. originally written in 1974, this is a somewhat older book than Amaryliss which i read the other week. it seems strange and off kilter, even more reminiscent of Brautigan than before. especially with the sheet of paper that starts to ponder what is going on. but anyway, i've only made a start, but an enjoyable one.