May. 13th, 2008

Stabbed

May. 13th, 2008 09:29 pm
threemonkeys: (Waxlion)
I've had a bit of a cough as an after effect of being sick. Nothing too nasty - just some aggressive throat clearing. Except that I was coughing yesterday morning and felt a crunch and a stab of pain from my ribs - just above the stomach area on the left. Really quite painful. The doctor says I've strained a cartilage in my rib cage - well where two join in fact. I was feeling a bit silly injuring myself coughing but the doc explained that he has treated people who have actually fractured ribs by coughing so it isn't that unusual. It should take 2-4 weeks to come right. In the meantime pain when I cough, pain when I bend and pain when I laugh. Especially the last - I had to stop watching Top Gear because it hurt too much.

While not without some wry humour there aren't many laugh out loud moments in Ken MacLeod's Learning the World. I enjoyed it a great deal. It is a first contact story which helps - I've always liked that type of story. I think its because there is always a puzzle solving aspect to such stories as well as being an examination of a different society. Actually two different societies. It is hard to say which was the more alien - the far future humans or the non humans. Being a MacLeod book there is lots of examination of the political and economic mechanics of the societies. It's what he does best and this is him at his best.

One other point about this book is that it looks like another one-off (after Newton's Wake). In the two big series that MacLeod did, I felt that the quality of the story construction fell away badly in the second and subsequent books to the detriment of the overall quality. The first books of both series were by far the best. By writing one-offs then this problem does not arise. Its a good move - I'm really looking forward to the next one-off much more than I would a sequel.

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