What I'm Reading

Here's what I'm reading right now, for those who are interested:

Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan. This is a Future Noir story in the mold of Blade Runner or Neuromancer, which for me is a very good thing. It makes use of the classic SF "one weird idea" approach where there is one unusual concept, social institution, or technology that plays a major role in the story (even if the book isn't about it per se). Here, the idea is sleeving, or moving one's consciousness between physical bodies in order to travel between planets or even live forever. The implications of this technology are quite important to the novel, but I won't give them away here. Overall, I'm pleased with this book and will probably want to read the rest of the series (this is the first book of a trilogy), though it seems like it will end up being about 100-150 pages longer than it needs to be.

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. I've been working on this beast of a novel for a very long time -- over ten years, as a matter of fact. I read it for a while and then leave it for something else; I enjoy it a lot when I'm in the mood for Hugo's obsessive detail and narrative meanderings, but sometimes (okay, most of the time) I want something more to the point. Plus, I'm already quite familiar with the story, having seen the stage play once, the musical twice, and listended to the original cast recording I don't know how many times. I'm not reading this one to learn what happens; I'm reading this one for the language. I'm quite a ways through, so my goal is to finish it by the end of January.

Successful Writing at Work (Concise Edition), Philip C. Kolin. This was the textbook for my class that ended two weeks ago. We didn't get through all of it in the seven weeks of the course, so I'm finishing it now. It's pretty good as books on writing go; even though it's the "Concise Edition", it still manages to cover topics in sufficient depth. It makes me wonder what the "Verbose Edition" is like.

Once I finish these, there's a lot more on deck, including The Last of the Mohicans, The Elements of Technical Writing, and Naomi Novik's Temeraire series.