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What I just read
The Cambrian Explosion, by Douglas H. Erwin and James W. Valentine. A pretty thorough discussion of the origins of animal diversity: a fair amount of background on the Ediacaran, lots on the Cambrian, and some discussion of the Ordovician and even the present. This book is slightly above my level, and I occasionally wondered what the target audience was: they explain or define a few things I would have expected to be taken as given, and then didn't define more complicated or technical terms. Worth reading if you're interested in the subject and have some background in biology (a good recent high school bio course might count, but mine is three decades out of date); you might want to skip some of the more technical bits.
Dark Integers and Other Stories, by Greg Egan. Five not-so-short stories, two math-based and set more or less here and now; the other three are far future sf. I skipped one story, "Luminous," because I'd read it before, and it turned out I remembered enough to serve as background for the title story of this collection. Fun.
What I am reading now
A Stranger in Solondria, by Sofia Samatar. I've just finished the first section, and so far am enjoying the narrative voice and such of the world-building as we've seen.
What I am likely to read next
I don't know.
The Cambrian Explosion, by Douglas H. Erwin and James W. Valentine. A pretty thorough discussion of the origins of animal diversity: a fair amount of background on the Ediacaran, lots on the Cambrian, and some discussion of the Ordovician and even the present. This book is slightly above my level, and I occasionally wondered what the target audience was: they explain or define a few things I would have expected to be taken as given, and then didn't define more complicated or technical terms. Worth reading if you're interested in the subject and have some background in biology (a good recent high school bio course might count, but mine is three decades out of date); you might want to skip some of the more technical bits.
Dark Integers and Other Stories, by Greg Egan. Five not-so-short stories, two math-based and set more or less here and now; the other three are far future sf. I skipped one story, "Luminous," because I'd read it before, and it turned out I remembered enough to serve as background for the title story of this collection. Fun.
What I am reading now
A Stranger in Solondria, by Sofia Samatar. I've just finished the first section, and so far am enjoying the narrative voice and such of the world-building as we've seen.
What I am likely to read next
I don't know.