enter the Goatlady

I posted previously about my new obsession with Sergei Lukyanenko’s Watch series (that’s Sergei himself on the left, looking very Russian): well, I got and finished the last book. Contrary to expectations this volume was called Last Watch in the English edition published in Australia, not “Final Watch” or “End Watch” as Wikipedia led me to believe. I stretched the reading of it out over three days because I didn’t want to get to the end.

Now, I’m slightly encouraged because on the cover it’s referred to as “The sequel to the Watch trilogy” – and it’s definitely not an end to the story, which I thought it would be – so I think there’s a possibility that Lukyanenko could write more sequels. I think there’s plenty of scope in the Watch universe, plenty of characters that could be further developed, and plenty of plot threads that could take on lives of their own. I certainly hope so.

I seem to have encouraged a few others to check the books out, and I’m really pleased that people are enjoying them.

I’m also trying to read Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle at the moment – I’m only at the beginning, about a third of the way through Quicksilver – and I’m having a really hard time getting into it, despite the fact that I have adored every other book Stephenson has ever written up until this one. I realise I’m a couple of years behind everyone else – as I’ve written about before, I’ve had a hard time reading fiction on paper for quite a while.

Difficult as it is though, I’m really trying to stick with it. I feel sometimes like the internets are taking my attention span away, one 140 word update at a time. Whereas Neal Stephenson’s novels seem to be getting longer and more epic with every new release, demanding more and more of that elusive and rapidly disappearing attention. So I figure that by persevering, I’m doing my brain a service.

Makes sense, right?

~ by goat_admin on January 20, 2009.

Posted in fiction