So, tomorrow I’ll be on my way back to the east coast and next week may be a busy one for me. Between work stuff and visiting people and eating bagels and pizza I should still find some time to blog (and read).
On Tuesday night I did end up starting The Gone-Away World. I don’t read a lot of science fiction but I suppose I do read a fair number of books similar to this one. I’m about 150 pages in (of 500) and so far it reminds me a lot of Jasper Fforde—the tone, the vague sci-fi/alternate history aspect, the humor, the way you’re thrown into a world that’s a little silly and mostly off. I like the Thursday Next books a lot and I’m sure this one will end up quite different from those but it should still be fun.
One of my thoughts on it is: it’s big and heavy and long and my per-page reading rate is a little slow, it’s dense and I immerse myself for what seems like ages but is only five pages or so. Isn’t it strange when a fluffy book takes so long to get through? And I don’t mean fluffy here in a bad way, but I admit to getting a little frustrated when I feel bogged down in lighter reading. I may also be tired after the work week from hell—did I mention my job involves reading all day long and it’s a bit insane that I do it for pleasure too?
I haven’t had a chance to start this one yet, and I think it will be a week or two before I do. I noticed that the blurb on the back (funny that we’re talking about blurbs again) compares it to Catch-22 ,/i>, which I loved but took forever to get through for the same reasons you described above. Will be interesting to see if I have a similar feeling on this one.
okay, so the italics in that previous comment got all wonky. forgive me :)