11 Jul 2019

What I'm reading ...

I have started reading Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. It was time for some fiction and I haven’t read any sci fi in a while and this book was recommended by a friend whose input I respect. Here’s the blurb:

The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender.
Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, to actually find it - and with it their own destruction.

The Salt Path - by Raynor Winn

This book entirely delivered on my expectations. It is very well written, with good descriptions of places and people, without too much flowery prose. It is in places funny, moving and informative. As it is a memoir, I have to assume that some interpretation and/or embellishment occurred, but that is to be expected.

I was left wondering what happened next. I know that, as of a few weeks back [at the Hay festival], Moth was still alive, but would like to know more. I will be looking out for further work by the author.