Weekend was good. Was able to read to my heart's (and eyes') content. Without further ado, here is what.
Dracula: A good novel. Typically victorian, with hardly any grey shades (did I say I enjoy its kind?). But instead of writing more about how good it is, I'll mention a couple of other things I noticed along the way..
Bram Stoker (the author) graduated in pure mathematics from Trinity College, Dublin. How many good novelists you know fit that criteria?
Dracula was first published in 1897. Early in the book, a character mentions using his 'kodak' to take photos of the dreaded castle. I knew the dates, but snap clicking tourists are hard to reconcile with castles, counts and horse driven carriages, and it still came as a surprise.
Hothouse: It is a science fiction novel, published by Penguin (lest you be confused). The story of earth in the far future (talk billions of years), with sun on its way to extinction, and its energy output gone through the roof. Unlike most science fiction, humanity does not occupy centre stage in this future; plants reign, animals are few and far between with their niches occupied by still more plants, and humans have returned to their ancestral home, trees. You'll meet ever stranger things along the way; plants which grow crystals to focus sunlights on their enemies; plants which drop cages onto their victims, using their dung, and later when they die, their bones to make their own compost; and mysterious entities which transplant beings in this world to other realms of existence in an attempt to control overcrowding of the planet. And if this sounds too weird, just imagine how weird you reading these words (and me writing them) would have seemed to someone in the cambrian. Seriously. Boring at places, fascinating at others, but probably not for everyone.
Enjoy!
Dracula: A good novel. Typically victorian, with hardly any grey shades (did I say I enjoy its kind?). But instead of writing more about how good it is, I'll mention a couple of other things I noticed along the way..
Bram Stoker (the author) graduated in pure mathematics from Trinity College, Dublin. How many good novelists you know fit that criteria?
Dracula was first published in 1897. Early in the book, a character mentions using his 'kodak' to take photos of the dreaded castle. I knew the dates, but snap clicking tourists are hard to reconcile with castles, counts and horse driven carriages, and it still came as a surprise.
Hothouse: It is a science fiction novel, published by Penguin (lest you be confused). The story of earth in the far future (talk billions of years), with sun on its way to extinction, and its energy output gone through the roof. Unlike most science fiction, humanity does not occupy centre stage in this future; plants reign, animals are few and far between with their niches occupied by still more plants, and humans have returned to their ancestral home, trees. You'll meet ever stranger things along the way; plants which grow crystals to focus sunlights on their enemies; plants which drop cages onto their victims, using their dung, and later when they die, their bones to make their own compost; and mysterious entities which transplant beings in this world to other realms of existence in an attempt to control overcrowding of the planet. And if this sounds too weird, just imagine how weird you reading these words (and me writing them) would have seemed to someone in the cambrian. Seriously. Boring at places, fascinating at others, but probably not for everyone.
Enjoy!
4 comments:
tar -xvzf
i want the untarred version!
hehe.. wo next set of books ke liye..
If I run out of a list of some awesome books, I always know where to stop and reload! :-)
:) Thanks man..
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