Will > Recent Status Updates

Yeah, I can dig why it's King's own favourite.

The Langoliers is a solid ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This could have been the start of a The Stand scope Opus, that would explain everything fully.

As it is, I headcanon it as nine passengers on Flight 29, LAX to Boston Logan, having been badly intoxicated by a bad batch of mushroom risotto, and the flight having to turn around whilst they are tripping balls, and them being de-planed, three of them hospitalised.

I'm halfway into this, and I'm starting to think I 's not about English boobs as the title would have me thinking...

Wow! Just wow!

About halfway through, the spiders invent the Turing Machine, and you know it's only going to get better from there.

I'm giving up.

GE seems to have (finally? ooooh!) struck the right balance between hard sci-fi alternative physics and human stories. The former has lost of its solid believability, to the tremendous benefit of the latter.

It's easier to relate to characters when they're not digitised consciousnesses or exotic aliens in strange space-time geometries. Who would have thought?

The actual horror starts 20% in, which may sound like good pacing, but, in the audiobook, that's more than five hours in!

Having said that, the fact I have listened up to that point does say something.

The best* part of an Egan story is the companion paper laying out all the science he couldn't smuggle in the book.

I only deplore he didn't bundle it in the book as an appendix (esp. simc eit was self-published as an e-book) like he did for Dochronauts.

https://www.gregegan.net/ALLSKIES/01/...

* conditions apply

I have really enjoyed George Saunders stories in the new Yorker, read by him on 'the writer's voice ' podcasr feed, so i jumped at the chance of grabbing this in audiobook. The authur, sadly, won't do any reading himself, but the voice cast includes David Sedaris and Nick Offerman!

Slow and a bit paint-by-numbers start, but now we're cooking with gas.

I don't mind the snotty woke footnotes, I just wish the asterisk referring to them in the main text were more visible!

Okay, so halfway through the book, they find out that the vacuum bubble expanding at the speed of light threatening to devour the galaxy,is ....alive with sub-particulate...life.🤯

The cutie: clever conceit but bordering on the farcical. Good twist, though a bit predictable. Would be a four starter of a lesser author, but that's an Egan ⭐⭐⭐
Into Darkness: excellent hard conceit and twist. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Appropriate Love: Shudder worthy body horror by way of captialism, but also arguably bit written-by-a-man. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Moral Virologist. Solidly executed - great punchline⭐⭐⭐⭐

The walk: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - as above: use tech to come up with a conceit with metaphysical implications, put a character in a situation where they arise, resolve with a twist. Very well done, if a bit paint by numbers (but then it is early Egan....)

The Moat: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Very well executed, touches on the concept without dwelling too much on it, teases and intrigues.

Sliding into the ludicrous, but, Sunk Cost Fallacy, imma finish it

A kidnapping (⭐⭐⭐) and Learning to be me (⭐⭐⭐⭐) both feature the thorny questions of sentience, consciousness and self that were such a joy in Permutation City.

Seeing: ⭐⭐⭐

The safe-deposit box: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Quantum leap meet metaphysics. Applied dust theory (q.v. Permutation City)

Axiomatic : ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Tight little techno-moral fable.

Blood Sisters: ⭐⭐

Story 's got too much crammed into it, it makes the arc and the pacing unbalanced.

The Caress: ⭐⭐⭐
Efficient and full of potential, but I am discovering that 90s Egan's capacity for an excellent premise overtakes his ability to drive it home, plot-wise.

Bit like Eugene in this respect. Still very effective, though