Derik Badman's Journal

Back to work today after a fairly busy week off. I'm sure the glow of vacation relaxation, such as it was, will be worn off by this afternoon when I realize all the work I have to do and how behind I inevitably am on our main project. Alas, what can I do other than my best.

Started Gene Wolfe's The Book of the Short Sun over the weekend in a nice collected book club edition I found online. This one, contrary to Long Sun, is definitely a sequel to its predecessor. The narrator was a minor character in Long Sun (and narratively, the author of the in world book that is The Book of the Long Sun) and there are numerous other characters and references to characters and events from the previous series. My understanding is that this one then ties back around somehow to New Sun, and I'm quite curious to see how that happens. So far, this one, also starts off with a man going off on a voyage, with much less preamble to the voyage. It's also written as a partially retrospective autobiographical text by the protagonists. He is both writing about his past, which is so far the greater part of the narration, but also referencing his present (as yet mostly obscure) situation. That he is also referencing events from Long Sun or the time of that narration and events in between that series and the start of this one, provides quite the conflagration of timelines. This is definitely not a book where one should start reading Wolfe's work.

It was SPX weekend in the comics world this weekend. As usual in coincides with our usual (of late) vacation week so I've only ended up there once a bunch of years back. I did enjoy my time that year, though I'm probably a lot out of the loop by this point if I managed to go again. Seems like a big part of those types of events are the informal social activities and conversations that happen. But I always try to keep an eye out for anything interesting people found in the exhibit hall.