Wednesday Books, and Knitting

[akirlu]

Oh, what the hell.

I just finished a third (or possibly fourth) re-read of How I Saved the World by Philip Slater. I found a copy while browsing through the SF/F section at the singular gem that is Magus Books one lunchtime a while back. I already own another copy, but it's in a box in the garage somewhere and this was a near-pristine copy, whereas my first is severely dog-eared and annotated because it's so damned quotable. Also, it gives me a loaner copy.

Written in the middle of the Reagan years and at the height of nuclear proliferation and Cold War, How I Saved the World is a period piece now, but it's still a fun ride. It's a social satire, often laugh out loud funny, but I would also call it fantasy. In fact, if the term hadn't been so severely corrupted in the intervening years, I would call it contemporary urban fantasy. That would be astral projection, ESP, shaman-networks and secret societies of alchemists fantasy, rather than sparkly vampire and wizard fantasy. An adventure story of unexpected twists, with deft observations of friendships, academics, feminism, and humanity in general along the way. In some indefinable way, it reminds me of what I liked about the Illuminati trilogy. Maybe that's the satire component, plus the quotability. Anyway this is one that's always on my list of "Favorite Genre Books No One Has Heard Of."

So now I've picked Charles Yu's How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, which I had previously bogged down in because it seemed a little too caught up in its own cleverness (it is clever) to actually bother with a story, but now it seems like maybe there may be actual events on the horizon.

I also just finished the diagonally stripey infinity scarf I had been working on, and it wears well, and I like it, and I will take pictures of it soon to post to Ravelry, but in the mean time, I have no portable project for keeping my hands busy on trains and buses. I suppose I could go back to doing the applied I-cord for my sideways vest, but I-cord is so boring to knit and I find I am quite disheartened with the vest project ever since I became convinced that it's going to be vastly too big for me to wear, and I'm not sure who I know is a suitable candidate for a garment that is much too big for me. And no, it's not a good candidate for frogging and starting over because several of the yarns in it are the fuzzy kind that are absolutely nightmarish to rip out. Whine, whine, whine. I guess I'll pull out the toe-up recipe and start a pair of socks tonight so I have something for train knitting on Friday. Tomorrow is Thursday and therefore I will drive to work so I can go to square dancing afterwards.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

oooh, writing that Slater down. How did I miss that?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I think that may be the only fiction book Philip Slater ever got published, and I'm not sure it was reliably marketed as SF/F, so probably easy to miss. If you want to find it, I would either go for ABE books, where several dealers have copies, or else go to Slater's own home page, where he gives an electronic version away for free since it's been out of print so long.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

There's a birthday involved here somewhere, yes?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, not on Wednesday, no. :)