New Review: Patrick Suskind's Perfume
August 15, 2003 (7:34 PM) ( link )

ADDED a review of Patrick Suskind's Perfume. A strange little novel, that one was.

I'm currently about halfway through Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships, abandoning my previous idea of skipping it in favor of something different. It's ok: not as exciting as I would have hoped. Baxter seems to be the kind of writer for whom the story is merely a convenient way of explaining some nifty ideas that he has. Certainly the protagonists of The Time Ships don't do very much; or when they do, external events intrude to give Baxter an opportunity to expound on his next nifty idea.

In other words, it really doesn't look like The Time Ships is going to end up being one of my favorite books. C'est la reading based on awards (The Time Ships has won a bunch of them).

At five books already this August, I'm on my way to a record-breaking month! Last year I read books in the double-digits in two months: December and August (corresponding with my two longest vacations). This past December I wimped out at three books; hopefully I'll make up for the shortfall over the next two weeks.