Had a fun morning, poking about thrift stores and feeding Canada geese and enjoying the sunlight and the day off work, not tethered to my computer.
And I had some good luck thrifting, including a fun used doo-wop/ R&B anthology, and stumbled into a nice lot of Science Fiction Book Club Anniversary Collection hardcovers. I had to walk away from a few of them (out at BASES in New West), but this was about all I could get in my backpack, anyhow!
I have not read all of these, but Greg Bear's Blood Music would make an amazing David Cronenberg movie: a socially awkward, obsessive scientist awakens higher consciousness on a cellular level and suddenly bodies start disintegrating, their cells breaking up and forming new shapes, in a sort of mass-scale revolution. But human consciousness survives, transformed. It's the creepiest body horror at times, but also contains a transformative meditation and an ending that takes on some pretty batshit-seeming "new" physics and a bit of the bugfuck "happy ending" quality that you find at the end of Phase IV. Recommended!
The Holdstock and Card books are good, too, and I once had a very deep affection for Harlan Ellison, especially Deathbird Stories, when I was young. Especially "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W", one of his most surreal and heartbreaking stories. The title story is pretty great, too.
I sincerely hope I get to do more reading as a result of my reduced employment, but some of these will no doubt make their way to my new job at Carson Books and Records on Main, if people are interested. They'll cost a bit, though: some of these are kinda pricy (the Deathbird Stories was around $50 US on Abe, plus $20 or so for shipping... but it won't be that much in store!).
Right now, I'm going to sit back and read Project Hail Mary. I'm only ten pages in and I'm already enjoying it much more than the movie.
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