I do not know the purpose of these balls. I assume it’s intended as an art installation. They are strangely interesting. That was posted by Nathan Fillion. Yes, I follow Nathan Fillion on Twitter – one of only three celebrities I follow. He also mentioned that there was a Firefly reference in last night’s Castle and it occurred to me that I probably shouldn’t be reading his tweets this morning because I haven’t seen last night’s episode yet. We always watch it on Tuesday but this week we might not get around to it until Wednesday. I could watch it anytime of course but I’m waiting to watch it with the Husband.

I am almost 80 pages into Anathem. I do have some complaints but I think, overall, I’m going to like it. Right now I’m feeling like, “There’s a story in there somewhere and it looks like it might be interesting; can we please just hurry up and get on with it.” I had sort of the same complaint about Cryptonomicon but it turned out okay and all the stuff that seemed like unnecessary side trips ended up all fitting together and making sense. It’s not that these are long novels. I like thick books. You might even say that I am irrationally attracted to thick books. I see a book that’s over a thousand pages long and think, “Oooo! Big book!” like finding a box of donuts with zero calories. But these two books by Neal Stephenson, at least in the beginning, feel very padded. However, in Cryptonomicon there was just enough to keep me going and at the end I felt like it was a pretty good book after all and I hadn’t really wasted my time.

A lot of people have complained that there are too many made up words in Anathem and at first I was prepared to dismiss this because I’m used to science fiction and fantasy novels having made up words but now, I have to admit, I understand. There are two reasons that Stephenson’s made up language is so annoying. One is that he’s so ostentatious about it. You get the feeling of him standing there saying, “Look how clever and brilliant I am. Look at all these lovely words I invented.” And the other annoying thing is that some of the words are totally unnecessary and silly. He has characters using something called a “jeejah” and after about the third occurrence of this word you realize that it’s nothing more than a damned cell phone.

But anyway, as I said, I’m only on page 70-something. I’ll probably finish it in something like three to six months and I’ll let you know what I think then. I’m also still slowly slogging my way through Dante’s Inferno at the rate of about one or two “Canti” a day. In spite of the fact that I have half a year’s worth of reading (more actually; there are still all those Andre Norton books) I’m craving more books. I received an email the other day from Amazon, pushing a new novel by Robert J. Sawyer. I’ve read one book by Sawyer, Calculating God, and it was interesting and had unique ideas but it felt too mundane, somehow so I wasn’t exactly excited about reading more books by this author. But this new one, WWW:Watch is part of a series about a sentient World Wide Web. Hey! Wait just a darn minute! That was my idea! I’ll never be a great science fiction author if people keep stealing my ideas before I write them myself. (Hah!)

It’s going to be a beautiful week – temps up to 80° F! Yay! I have to resist the temptation to go out and plant a lot of stuff. We still have Oklahoma’s infamous late freezes to think about. I do have lots of stuff to do outside though, which will be a nice change. Not that I am bored or burned out with the inside stuff. I’m still very much in a sewing mood. I started the summer top that I mentioned before. I’m using a new pattern, which always makes me a little nervous. I love this fabric and I want to like the finished garment. I’m already afraid this top is going to make me look like a pregnant wine barrel in a table cloth. But then what doesn’t?

One final thing before I force myself away from the computer: Via Dustbury, I found Kia. I think I’m going to add her blog to my list. Someday, when I get around to it.