I know I’ve mentioned this before, but if you’re not signed up for Warren Ellis’ newsletter, Orbital Operations, you’re missing out and you owe it to yourself sign up immediately. Go ahead and do it now. I’ll wait.
For the most part, I dislike reading reviews of books because that almost invariably leave me less excited about picking up the book. Even glowing reviews have this effect, which probably says something about me, but let’s not go there. Contrast that with this, the final paragraph from this week’s discussion of Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station:
And, yes, it does tell its own story, one that is as much myth and legend as sf. Interrupted love, the culture of abandoned robots, designer babies with imaginary friends and released AI as wild djinni. The book is bigger than it seems, and I’m still thinking about it, unpacking the layers of it. I recommend it highly. It’ll stay with you for days, because every idea in it has more ideas under it. It’s all of science fiction distilled into a single book.
That is a how to get me excited about a book. Seriously, sign up for the newsletter. You won’t regret it. Or, if you do, I probably won’t hear about it so I’ll just assume you had no regrets.