Last week I plowed through Angels & Demons by Dan Brown. I liked it a lot better than The DaVinci Code. The guy just knows his plot and conflict. Silly contrivances aside, it was hard to put down. And all those fancy European locations… I’m not sure how he gets in all that research without spending a lot of money, but I’m sure that’s not much a problem anymore. Must be nice to whisk yourself away to Italy for ‘research.’ Ahem, yeah. Well, back to the real world.

Earlier this week I burned through Tunnel In The Sky by R.A. Heinlein. I really liked this one. It’s one of smArtist’s favorites, and I can see why. A bunch of kids are required to pass a ‘survival test’ by being beamed through a portal to a random planet, where they have to survive from anywhere up to 48 hours to 10 days. When the test is over, a portal will open and the authorities administering the test will come through and round up the kids to bring them back home. As you might guess, something goes wrong and the kids get stuck there. I really liked this story. It was like a cross between Battle Royale and ‘Buffalo’ Bill Cody’s memoirs of the wild west. It was fun to follow the protagonist Rod Walker, as he stays alive, groups with other kids, and tries to form an outpost of civilization.

I’m now reading the A.E. Van Vogt Sci-Fi classic The World of Null A. In a world where the government is managed by a computer and non-Aristotelian logic rules the day, one man who follows in the shoes of Aristotle can save the day. Yadda yadda. This one is a little weird. I really liked Van Vogt’s Slan, but this one is a little less… coherent. Vogt’s narratives seem to race and jump from place to place without much in the way of explanation or connecting points. This keeps his stories interesting, but at the same time makes them a little confusing. I’ll have to read more and finish this one before I give my full report.

On the topic of fiction for various meals of the day, I found Book Burger. How cute. Found that from Jennifer’s Then There’s Writing.