Drumroll, Please

[aesmael]

    And last night I finally finished reading Arthur C. Clarke's Collected Stories. A Meeting With Medusa gets much more interesting after the opening two sections. Though I did not mention it before I have actually read that story before, which is part of why I did not claim the scenarios in this post to be original. In fact all the stories collected in Expedition to Earth and The Wind From the Sun I had read before, as well as a couple of other classics like All the Time in the World and The Nine Billion Names of God.  The whole thing ended (not quite) full-circle with a reworking fifty years on by Stephen Baxter of Clarke's first published story (Travel by Wire! becomes The Wire Continuum and much more quantum). Which reminds me, I need to get copies of Vacuum Diagrams, Traces and Phase Space.
    That's three of the eight books I bought last year out of the way now (I got distracted - read more than a dozen others along the way) but before I get to the next one it is on to a volume of Dickens: Oliver Twist, Hard Times, A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities. Started Oliver Twist, just the first chapter so far but I like his style already. I think a few years ago I tried reading it but grew quickly bored. Shows what a few years can do for you.