... to everybody. And health, and wealth and happiness. And may your resolutions become fulfilled.

Saturn's Children didn't quite make it for me, at least not like the other Stross books. I even read Iron Sunrise before Singularity Sky and I still liked each separately and both together better than Saturn's Children.

I can get Stross' (masterfully achieved) attempt to emulate Asimov and Heinlein. I can identify Asimov's linearity in the plot, relative scarcity of characters and of characters' characters. It's oh so endearing to find here Heinlein's ideas about a solar system economy based on gravity gradients. And these I liked very much, both at a basic emotional level and as an intellectual exercise.

But sex robots with sentiments? The fudged over motivation of the droid slave society issued from the death humankind? Well, I believe the ideas have high value but it seems like the author was bullied (by his editor?) into finishing faster and thus the treatment of these ideas lacks Stross-like depth.

But all in all, a good book, that clings to memory.

I finished reading Richard Dawkins' latest book a few weeks ago and it was a great experience. I am a follower of Dawkins' writings. Yet, I still didn't get accustomed with his ways of surprising (in all the best senses), teaching, informing me, even there where I thought I had a sound foundation myself.

Before taking up this book, I pondered if I needed to read it, as it seemed to be targetted at those not knowing about evolution and those needing more proof. Thinking of myself as convinced that evolution is a fact, I didn't believe I would find new, interesting things in a book presented as a fundamental introduction. I thought I already knew those basics.

Yet Professor Dawkins managed to surprise me, proving that indeed evolution is the greatest show on Earth and no amount of learning about it would cease my sense of wonder and awe.

There is a way of presenting matters in this book that just pushes me to reflect at evolution as a cosmic phenomenon. In my reflections, the proof for evolution is the basis for the natural consequence of humans spreading to the stars. Reverie ensues...

I particularly liked the way Dawkins writes off the "gap in the fossil record" pseudo-arguments against evolution. It is a classic exercise in scientific logic and analysis. This chapter of the book in itself is worth the whole price of admission.

Not all is rosy. There are arguments that aren't as well developed, some others that might be helped with a sound debate, to counter the "weighing in from high off" effects that sometimes the academic language provokes. But these are perhaps understandable forgettable flaws in a book it such a high and perhaps frustrating goal: writing anew in support of a topic that should be self-demonstrating.

There's also the constant mentioning of the young earth creationists that could easily become annoying to more sensible eyes. But I tend to not only understand the reasoning of Richard Dawkins behind this insistence, but also strongly approve of it. It is ridiculous to think that, 150 years after proof was made, there still be as crazed a debate on this fairy tale topic of full on earth creation by supernatural hollow figures.

I loved this book and I strongly recommend it.

I finished the re-reading of Marin Preda's Most Beloved Man on Earth. It was strange, as relectures go, because I remembered very little of my first reading in the beginning of the nineties. Also, my brain (spirit? hmm....) seems to still digest the rather challenging imagery and thought-food Preda has put in there. All the long of the three volumes, I hated the main character for his procrastinations. But, little by little, I grew fond of the intricate humanity the author masterfully instilled into him. So much so that I regretted reaching the last page. The main conclusion is a more generic one: for all the mediatic noise about globalization and death of local cultures, having the priviledge to get one's brain steeped in such different cultures as are illustrated by the western and the central european litteratures, makes one painfully aware of the differences and dissonances, much more so than spotting the similitudes.