it's a constant balance between something shiny and new to read and rereading for the sake of catching up in the series for when the shiny and new comes along and rereading because i didn't feel like i got enough out of it the first time or because i just really want to read it again.

seriously so many books so little time.

example: i have a wishlist on amazon that far exceeds the realistic amount of time that i have to consume them. so. on the one hand i want to read them. on the other hand i want to read the books i already have. on the one hand i save money by rereading. on the other hand i don't care.

currently i'm rereading the revelation space trilogy by alastair reynolds mainly inspired by mass effect and i've forgotten how really good they are. not perfect, but really great space opera sci fi. starting absolution gap this morning. it's strange that such a recent piece of work had such a big impact on a person that they made a game in such close homage to it. normally it's something far more nostalgic that influences a person's work, either game designer, writer or film maker.

i love the story arc of revelation space and because i read them as they came out, never in succession like this, i'm understanding and appreciating far more than i remembered the first time of reading. so in this instance reynolds justifies his reread, but things like WoT holds absolutely no real reread interest for me.

the main problem for me is my need to finish the book as quickly as possible, so i can read the next. there are anomalies to this, books like remains of the day or the siege of krishnapur, which are a treat to read rather than a storyline to frantically finish. i could never read WoT to marvel at the quality of writing, only to find out what's going to happen? who did what? why? where? when?

get me?

back to revelation space. great characters. unbelievably awesome use of technology. mind boggling terminology. epic timescales. concepts. concepts. concepts.

at times the words and terminology will go waaaaay over my head. reynolds is clearly an expert in space and stuff (my understanding of science being severely limited to "stuff" and at times you just have to let it flow over you and accept the feel of the story rather than looking up and understanding the reason why two gees of acceleration will increase pressure on the third plane of relativistic axis to the solid state. it reads fine without needing to be understood.

so after much ramble...not sure what my point was.

oh yeah so little time, back to absolution gap.