Raymond Chen, celebrity blogger, gave a talk at my place of employment yesterday. Afterwards, I went up to ask him a question. (Well, OK, to request that he apply his combination of knowledge of English, Swedish, and puzzles to blog a report of what goes on at Rebusrally.) But before I asked, he looked at me and asked if we'd already met. That was spooky. And he looked at me pretty closely. Spooky. He was just trying to figure out if/how he recognized me. Still, spooky. I haven't spent that much time in the Seattle area. And it's been a couple of years since my last visit. Spooky. I think that was the feeling that Dan Simmons went for when he wrote Ilium.
This book is sci-fi. It starts out pretty strangely. I wondered how the author was going to explain how things had reached such a strange state. Then I reached the explanation. It was pretty dumb. It might not be the "real" explanation, maybe just a wrong theory by one of the book's characters. Maybe I'm supposed to pick up the sequel to find out what's really going on. I don't think I'll bother. Still, I have no regrets about buying this book--it was something to read during a flight from Chicago when it was too cloudy outside to look down at the geography sliding past.
Labels: book, puzzle scene, snore
If you're a fan of Simmons' Hyperion Cantos, I'd suggest picking up Olympus and reading the fleshed out explanation of what is going on. Its a little derived, but its enjoyable and interesting nevertheless.
I took a look, and it's, well, what it sounds like - a bunch of Swedish rebus puzzles. Example:
"Inringad födelseannons i Dagens Nyheter" - "Birth announcement circled in The Daily News" = "Dungen" - "Unge" (little one) inside "DN".
Language puzzles don't really translate.
Gee, Raymond Chen found my blog. That's kinda spooky.