Episode 1177: Everyone Who Loves Science Fiction, Read The Quantum Thief!

Back and unpacked, just need to shift books around to accommodate the ones that I've brought back. Almost done with The Quantum Thief, and it's pretty clear why Hannu Rajaniemi has been garnering praise for his 2010 debut. Like the best science fiction, I think where it succeeds is in establishing depth for its fictional universe without needing to spell everything out for the reader. There's the feeling that there's heaps of material that just hasn't made it into this story, but that it exists anyway and can be deployed to tell other, equally fascinating stories. I haven't spoilt the ending for myself, so I don't know if there's room for Rajaniemi to continue writing stories about Mars and the Oubliette (exomemory and gevulot are intriguing concepts, especially when you think about the current growing concerns surrounding privacy in our digital lives), but then again, Greg Egan doesn't write linked novels either and each still makes for astonishing reading. Probably going to have to hit the academic stuff pretty hard after I'm done with this novel, apart from the poetry that I'm reviewing for Sabotage Reviews over the holidays. At least I'm reading about something that I'm interested in on a personal level, even if I don't necessarily write that sort of poetry myself.