Echopraxia didn’t really work for me. I found the main character (Daniel Brüks) the least sympathetic of a bland cast. The novel is packed full of fascinating scientific ideas, but they came across as either too fleeting or overly didactic. In fact, the clearest presentation of the ideas came in the appendix at the end, which is richly footnoted and contains enough links for a solid year of further reading.
On the plane to Edinburgh this week I watched Killing Them Softly, which was tried to be earnest in its black humour, but only succeeded in being bleak and needlessly gory. The parallels between the underworld economy and the 2008 financial collapse are laid on thick and unsubtly. Two and a half stars, ish? My perception may have been coloured by the fact that I watched almost all of it while the plane was stuck on the tarmac for an hour waiting for an exit slot, after having already been delayed by an hour and a half because of thunder storms. At least it wasn’t cancelled.
Wednesday evening was a curry at Omar Khayyam’s and a drink at Thomson’s with Woody. Wasn’t feeling too great on Thursday; stayed in and binged on the first half of season 1 of Continuum on Netflix. I finished watching the rest of the season today, and it’s pretty decent. Not enormously original, but entertaining. The ten episodes risked falling into a repetitive pattern in the middle, but towards the end it kept raising more questions and introducing new elements that kept the tension high. Liked it.
Listening: Settle by Disclosure is hitting my EDM sweet spot right now. “Latch” is a radio favourite here in NL, but I’m not tired of it yet. The closing track, “Help Me Lose My Mind” features a shimmering tambourine that sounds like the ghost of a pneumatic drill just outside my window. If I’m deep in concentration, it really does occasionally make me look up and wonder why there are roadworks at midnight. Good work delivering on that title.