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Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks. Disappointing. So little shrift is paid to the Culture that I never really got a firm grip on what the Culture was all about. I never bought into the conflict. Banks needlessly sold out the Yalson character right before the climax, which really pissed me off. And it’s got one long, drawn out, and insanely unpleasant passage.
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The Cassini Division, Ken MacLeod. Great read despite tangling quantum computing, questions of “artificial” sentience, genocide, and socialism. Once again, I enjoyed MacLeod’s differing perspective on political systems.
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Kop, Warren Hammond. Essentially a straight-ahead noir dirty cop story with a light dusting of science fiction. Not particularly brilliantly executed but a nice wrinkle in the portrayal of poverty despite advanced technology.
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The Road, Cormac McCarthy. Worthy of all the accolades. Hope, despair, perseverance and love, brutally and searingly etched into the reader’s imagination. A surprisingly quick and “easy” read for all of its brilliance. Amazing how a great author can make one word (Okay) so powerful.
That makes 14 for the year. This was an especially productive month. Not quite on pace for 35, but closing the gap. Just have to avoid dud 500 pagers like Consider Phlebas.