I seem to have slept through the 5am alarm, but I woke up in time anyway. The journey from Tucson to Boulder went without a hitch, and I am now ensconced in a hotel suite which includes among its amenities a staircase, a rather better kitchen than I have at home, two bathrooms -- one up and one down -- and two TV sets likewise. The wired broadband connection doesn't seem to be working, but I can pick up the wireless from the lobby, so that's OK. Boulder is chilly and grey and not at all photogenic at the moment, but there's no snow so far. The deciduous coat has not so far shed any buttons; neither has it yet succeeded in tripping me, though not for want of trying.
I'm sure there's more development between here and DIA than there was even last summer. When I first came here, in the summer of 1995, the area around Interlocken and Flatiron Crossing was one construction site, if that, in the middle of nowhere; now it's starting to look remarkably like a small town, and half-built houses are spreading over the brown-grey swells of land around the airport. The old Stapleton airport is being developed, too, I think as some kind of business park.
I passed the time on the journey by reading Charles Stross's The Atrocity Archives. That was ... well, it was the first book in a while that I've felt a strong urge to plonk down in front of someone else and say 'Read this!' It's a blend of Lovecraftian horror and spy thriller, dense with ideas, heavily spiced with puns and allusions and geek humour; I suspect that my reading pleasure was enhanced by long acquaintance with the rasf* newsgroups, but maybe those in-jokes are in to a slightly wider group than that. I want more!
That makes two 'backlog' books in a row that I've thoroughly enjoyed; the other was Lee and Miller's I dare, which is the last of a sequence and thus less suitable for unqualified recommendation to newbies, but very satisfying. I'm quite happy to recommend the whole Liaden series, anyway. I started with Local Custom, which is chronologically first though written later. This is space opera with regency echoes and psychic abilities that start to look a lot like magic. Also cats.
I'm sure there's more development between here and DIA than there was even last summer. When I first came here, in the summer of 1995, the area around Interlocken and Flatiron Crossing was one construction site, if that, in the middle of nowhere; now it's starting to look remarkably like a small town, and half-built houses are spreading over the brown-grey swells of land around the airport. The old Stapleton airport is being developed, too, I think as some kind of business park.
I passed the time on the journey by reading Charles Stross's The Atrocity Archives. That was ... well, it was the first book in a while that I've felt a strong urge to plonk down in front of someone else and say 'Read this!' It's a blend of Lovecraftian horror and spy thriller, dense with ideas, heavily spiced with puns and allusions and geek humour; I suspect that my reading pleasure was enhanced by long acquaintance with the rasf* newsgroups, but maybe those in-jokes are in to a slightly wider group than that. I want more!
That makes two 'backlog' books in a row that I've thoroughly enjoyed; the other was Lee and Miller's I dare, which is the last of a sequence and thus less suitable for unqualified recommendation to newbies, but very satisfying. I'm quite happy to recommend the whole Liaden series, anyway. I started with Local Custom, which is chronologically first though written later. This is space opera with regency echoes and psychic abilities that start to look a lot like magic. Also cats.
