My Eclectic Reading Interests

I’m reading Sea of Rust, by C. Robert Cargill.  It’s a post-war, post apocalyptic, post-human world.  The machines won the war and got rid of us all because we didn’t treat them well.  But things aren’t turning out as planned.  Sometimes liberation is awfully confining.  The machines are suffering existential angst because it turns out machines don’t treat machines any better than humans did . . . and to make things worse there are a couple of badass mainframes rounding up liberation loving machines for spare parts.  And as if that isn’t enough, there is a shortage of WD-40.  What else could go wrong?

I might be confusing that last one with something else, but you get the idea.

It’s truly amazing how human-like these oppressed machines are.  It’s as if we are still around.  I think the author wants to say something profound about the plight of humanity, and to do so he needs all the machines to be as human as possible.  After all, readers don’t care about alien existential angst.  They have their own angst to care about.

Next Up, The Prize, by Daniel Yergen.  This book is all about oil.  The greatest, most powerful, most influential commodity in the world.  Whoever controls energy runs the world.  The book is massive, and the story of oil is fascinating.   Yergen starts at the beginning in the U.S., back when oil just oozed onto the earth’s surface, and a passerby could scrape it up and make a quick million.  If this reminds you of Jed Clampett and the Beverly Hillbillies, join the club.  I can’t wait for the sequel.  They say it reminds people of Green Acres.  My favorite TV sitcom ever.  Eva Gabor was a comic genius.


Before I left the bookstore, my eyes caught a glimpse of Chernov’s Grant, and I just had to have it.  If there is a book in this world bigger than the Prize, it has to be Grant.  I need a forklift to move these two books, but they are multi-purpose.  Not only do I while away the hours reading them, I can also stack them on top of each other in the hall and replace that light bulb that burnt out back in the days when books were normal size.  

Have a great day! 

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