Last week, I finished a book that I’ve been working on since Christmas*: aaa|The Neutronium Alchemist Part 1: Consolidation|0446605174|aaa. This book is part of a science fiction saga created by Peter F. Hamilton. Hamilton has created a huge universe, with a vast array of characters, cultures, settings, technologies, and concepts. I enjoy reading science fiction books such as this for the sheer escape value of far-out science fiction. Imagine if you will, sentient, biological starships that gestate their human captains. Or nano-scale implants that can enable humans to run programs on their own nervous systems, for example to block out emotional impulses, or tactical programs that coordinate your body’s nervous and muscle response without you even needing to think. Or souls that have come back from the dead by way of a dimensional rift, and are possessing the living, endowing them with energistic abilities and bringing some of history’s most notorious personalities back to life.

That, in a nutshell, is the universe that Hamilton has created. If you’re into far-out science fiction, with lots of weird technology, aliens, etc… this is the book for you. My one complaint is that Hamilton includes too much gratuitious sex and gore in his narrative… if it was toned down, I think it would still be a great story. But I have been able to look beyond that and enjoy the rest of the fictional universe he has created.

* It’s not a long book, and I’m not a slow reader or anything, I just don’t spend as much time on reading as I used to. These days, reading serves as a nice diversion in the middle of the work day, when I spend my 30 minute lunch break reading and eating.

My train reading the last two weeks has consisted of two completely different novels.

The first was my sophomore experience with the author Adrianna Trigiani. aaa|Big Cherry Holler|0345445848|aaa did not disappoint. Trigiani writes the ordinary stories of extraordinary women. I think this is the second in a series, but I never felt as if I was coming in late in the story. We follow a year in the life of Ava Maria, Jac Mac and their daughter Etta as their relationships grow and change. Trigiani offers the reader an indepth look into life in Southwestern Virginia as well as Northern Italy.

In stark comparision to Big Cherry Holler’s easy going style, aaa|The General in His Labyrinth|1400034701|aaa was a struggle from the start. Gabriel Garcia Marquez recounts the last 6 months of Simon Bolivar’s life. General Bolivar, after being ousted from the presidency of Colombia, is taking a long slow trip out of the country with the shadow of death close at his heels.

Marquez weaves the story back and forth between the current time and flashbacks from the past. These flashbacks give the reader a look in to the General’s military conquests, interactions with other historical figures, and his former loves. Even my careful reading style found me constanly trying to figure out whether we were in the present or the past. I often had to reread passages to get my facts straight. The General was interesting as historical fiction, but I just didn’t enjoy reading it as much as I did other books by Marquez.