Not too long ago, I decided to start tracking the books I read more closely. Though I had no particular goal in mind when I started this, I had been entertaining, for a while, the notion that I am not graced with much spare time.
The quantity of books I apparently read has given the lie to that particular notion. Somewhere, I am finding time to read hundreds of pages a week. This has greatly cheered me up. On the other hand, I am faced with the sad fact that I’m reading enough sci-fi to thoroughly rot my brain. I can almost feel the amyloid plaques coagulating in real time.
At least it’s good sci-fi. I am now, thanks to The Fifth Head of Cerberus, confirmed in my belief that Gene Wolfe has no equal as a serious writer of science fiction. His books are every part the equal of Calvino and Borges for playfulness and complexity, but they have actual plots. In which events occur, characters develop, the story arcs, and what have you.
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