Friday, March 09, 2007

KSR



My Krodie and I went to a book signing for Kim Stanley Robinson's latest book tuesday night. "Sixty Days and Counting" is the third and final book in his global warming trilogy. I said what the book is before (here) so I'll just write about the talk.
He does a decent Q&A session, but the reading itself wasn't anything thrilling. He's just not someone who should do his own audio book. Neil Gaiman is great. Gaiman's last novel is better when he reads it than when reading to yourself. But Kim just doesn't have it.
Sadly enough he refers to this trilogy as his comedy. Clearly he's using a definition of the word "comedy" that I wasn't previously familiar with.

I am looking forward to fighting my way through this book. And you do have to fight the book in much the same way you have to fight the "Lord of the Rings" books. All of his books shift from interesting to drudgery until the last 100 pages or so. Which sections are interesting and which are drudgery vary with the person. He's very thorough with his subject. He's pretty much killed Mars terraforming books for several decades with his Mars Trilogy. There's just nothing else to write about. But those books really drug until the last 100 pages or so.

1 comment:

Mike Rhode said...

Oooh, harsh. I thought he was entertaining enough as a reader - unfortunately he read a bit too many Thoreau quotes for a late evening.