Having polished off ‘Eifelheim’ just as I was finishing up the biking for today, I quickly transitioned (over beer at the Tap House) to Ian M Banks’ ‘Consider Phlebas’. I can’t begin to describe the transition. Whereas ‘Eifelheim’ said nothing while talking a great deal, ‘Phlebas’ moves with all the speed of your average sci-fi novel: screw characterization, to hell with motives, who needs scene descriptions anyhow, let’s get to the fucking action!

‘Eifelheim’ has its merits, of course. Rapid progression of the plotline is not one of those. Hell, there isn’t much of a plotline. Most of the story is spent discussing the Christian holidays and rites and exactly how different those are from the post-Einsteinian aliens. There are, as mentioned earlier, snippets from the present time, but these are nothing more than interjections and, sometimes, spoilers. Nothing of interest actually happens for most of the book. And I was kinda OK with that. Hell, I was expecting just that after having read Flynn’s “The Wreck of the River of Stars”. Come to think of it, this book also progresses from death of characters to death of more characters to death of most characters. Quite original.

‘Phlebas’ is completely different, and for that I am thankful. The story – so far – actually has action, space-ships, hyperspace, a galactic war, shape-shifters, aliens… And that’s just the first three (short) chapters. I must say, it’s quite a shift. Like going from Corona to Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA: you can tell the difference!!

Will comment on the book some more, once I finish it off. Shouldn’t be more than a week, seen how it’s a fairly quick read.

Maybe it has something to do with me being in a Tron-mood and seeing the name Flynn on-screen, or that the book’s name triggered some subconscious memory I didn’t know I still had, but a few days back I started reading Michael Flynn’s “Eifelheim”. As mentioned before, Flynn uses 5-dollar words wrapped up in a pound of carbon pulp to make his point. And in that respect, “Eifelheim” is no different from “The Wreck of the River of Stars”: a long-ass book, plentifully seasoned with character descriptions, grad-level vocabulary and an incomprehensible number of segues. But it’s still one hell of a ride!

I’m only half-way into this tome and… well, it’s still trying to grab my attention. With every electronic page turn I feel that all-too-familiar sensation of “next chapter, shit gets real”. And it never comes. And I still continue, still I push through the verbiage and find myself more and more mystified.

The plot? Oh, there is one, but it’s difficult to explain when nothing much really happens. I’ll try: it’s Germany, The Black  Forest in 1348, and aliens crash-landed by a small town called Eifelheim. Interleaved with this curious premise is the present-day snippets (I can’t really call these weak collections of words anything as expansive as “chapters”, so snippets it is) concerning two scientists: Tom is a cliologist (“cliology” is the mathematical study of history, something that I am currently inclined to call pseudo-science) and Sharon, a physicist. Tom is investigating the disappearance of Eifelheim (at some point, after 1348, it was deserted and never resettled, something that he is not expecting), while Sharon seems to be on track to… shit, I have no idea. Snippets Isaid and snippets I meant.

And that’s where I find myself, trying to grasp the main character’s religious ramblings (he’s a pastor of Eifelheim), attempting to care about a story that moves with all the speed of a sloth or an anime plot, while at the same time working on getting my heart-rate up while cycling for an hour at the gym. Two awesome challenges, I must say.

And that’s another thing (pardon the OT, but this is, after all, my blog, so I’ll blog as I wish): I’ve gotten back into that wonderful swing of things where I disappear from the office for a few hours every afternoon, to come back nicely refreshed and tired from biking some 30 km. It was swimming before that, but then, like the idiot that I am, I realized that there are birds to be killed: if I’m going to spend an hour exercising, might as well combine it with an hour of reading! And here is were I find myself. It’s a great thing really: leave work for a while, get some exercise and do a hell of a lot of reading.

That’s all for now. May post a mini-review of the book once I’m done with it. Or may just go on another multi-month blogging hiatus. Whatever.