(no subject)

Just finished K J Bishop’s The Etched City, which is a very interesting tale in the same vein as China Miéville’s work, with a great deal of lush description and occasional vocabulary that sent me to the dictionary. (And sometimes online when the little Merriam-Webster in my Palm failed, on such terms as “ekphrastic”.) It’s an unusual construction: the plot takes its time creeping into the story, and only begins to show itself more than halfway through the book. A very interesting piece of work.

I’m just starting to re-read Charlie Stross’ Singularity Sky before plunging into Iron Sunrise. One of the benefits of being forgetful is the amount of delight I can find in re-reading books, as I remember ideas and general plots, but seldom the details, and a bit like this, from the first passage in the prologue:

By the end of that day, when the manna had begun to fall from orbit and men’s dreams were coming to life like strange vines blooming after rain in the desert, Rudi and his family— sick mother, drunken uncle, and seven siblings— were no longer part of the political economy of the New Republic.

War had been declared.

can provoke great glee as I anticipate the story’s unfolding.