I just finished reading “Night Train to Rigel.” I began reading it Sunday March 9th and completed it at about 8:40pm this evening March 21st.That's record time. I don't think I've ever read a novel in 12 days before.

Actually I spent the whole afternoon reading and took a break to watch the news and have supper as Anne was fighting with me on and off all day. So, I wasn’t having a very good go of things this weekend. This happens mainly when there’s a long weekend. Next one won’t be until Victoria Day, Monday May 19th. And when that rolls around, I’ll be working that Sunday and Tuesday. Next time she encourages me to take another day off on a weekend with her, forget it. I’ll take my 2 days off in the middle of the week instead next time I need 2 days off! Say, have a Tuesday and Wednesday from now on. Live and learn Jimmy boy. Here's a brief review of the book.

Night Train to Rigel by Timothy Zahn:

The skinny: Ex-UN agent Frank Compton stumbles upon a murder and is hired by the mechanical Spiders to locate the threat to the Quadrail train system that allows alien races to quickly travel throughout the galaxy. The previous said murder has our hero discover a massive conspiracy to take control of the Galaxy.

Pros: This is a fun SF action adventure. It’s plot is very detailed and sometimes loses itself in the details. The book’s flow is somewhat disjointed but in the end Timothy Zhan wraps everything up nicely.

Cons: Our hero didn’t seem to have enough of a hardship thrust upon him. Everything seemed to fall into place to easily. He didn’t have to work for anything.

I found Night Train to Rigel to be a fun read and had me going right through the bitter end. The villian/s of the story were not made clear until about the end of this novel. In some ways this story reminded me of Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the orient express.” with space opera elements worked into the fabric of the story. Zahn keeps you reading right up until the end. I’ll be ordering the sequel when it comes out as mmp: “The third Lynx.” already out in HC.

Overall: This is a fun book. I give this 9 e.Jim’s/10.

I didn’t get any writing done on H yesterday but I will later today (Saturday)

So right now I’m reading:

Seedlings of the Solar Winds. I just finished reading the first story “Opium of the people.”

By now you have most likely noticed the cartoon word meter in my last entry. I’ve seen this before and again recently on Elizabeth Bear’s blog. I think it’s cute but the novel I’m writing isn’t 50K. It’s more like 100K. There’s a way to change it but my source code is misbehaving. I’ll try again when I have more time and get it fine tuned properly. I’m watching only ECW tonight. I don’t care to much for the other wrestling show. I like Raw because it’s live and has a sense of continuity about it. I’m not watching the news because I’ve seen it all earlier and nothing much is going on around here on the weekend. Seems most of the Blog sphere is quiet this weekend.

Just listened to a YouTube video of Harlan Ellison and Robin Williams talk about L. Ron Hubbard. Excellent stuff. Pizza at .15 cents/slice? I‘m thinking what people 50 years from now will think about a can of diet Coke for $1. In the early days they got paid 1 cent a word and a 3k story was worth $30. Weekly rent would be $10. LHO in 1963 was living at $8/week. Our 2 bedroom apartment here is $815/month. Or $204/week. Inflation being relative and all of course.

What I like about J’s writing is it’s simplistic down-to-the-point approach. His opening story for Seedlings is; “Opium for the people.” didn’t really do anything for me. I didn’t see any connection with the title for the story and the story itself. The story left me with a bland taste in my mouth and it certainly wasn’t memorable. His 2nd story: “Sad Grey eyes on Tharsis.” just sort of went in one ear and out the other but I noticed his writing grew in strength. His characters in this story especially the MC laugh a lot. There are still a lot more stories ahead but I’m getting comfortable with his style. I’m still waiting to find his best in this book but it’s early yet into the read. This by no means is a review just a first impression so far. The stories are short and I like that. Reading this book doesn’t seem like a waste of time to me, and I’m enjoying the stories so far.

Speaking of books, SF Signal has announced the 2nd volume in the Fast Forward anthology, good stuff. I’ll have to place an order while I’m at Audrey’s this afternoon.

I went to bed when Anne came in about 2am. She had another look at the 50” HD LCD TV and hopefully after my midnight lunch tonight we’ll go over and take a look at it again, it comes with a 2 year guarantee. For $1,200 the price is right. Then we’ll need the Shaw cable box and that’s another $450. But this TV has to say 1080P aspect ratio of 16. No projection. If it is then I’d approve of a sale. I’m suggesting that Anne takes the money out of one account and I’ll give her my vacation pay at the end of the year and that should be about half plus my income tax refund and my gst cheque. All she‘s doing is she‘s just taking the money out initially and I‘m paying for it later. I‘ve got plenty of time to riae the funds for my website and pay my lodge dues.

Anne made me lunch about midnight. Split pea with ham soup and a couple of slices of her home made ham. More then I could eat. Then she went off to Walmart up the street as it’s opened 24 hours now. I watched ECW and did some computer stuff while reading “Seedlings of the solar winds.”

I went to bed finally about 4:30am and managed to fall asleep for an hour and a half. I don’t feel to bad right now. By noon, I‘ll be exhausted. But here‘s what‘s going down for today: I’m out of here in about an hour and a half to get my Tim’s sandwich and coffee and into work. The morning will go fast. I’ll get my pay cheque and we’ll put the Oiler game on at 1pm (for a Saturday game? Yeesh!). The afternoon drags on as they work us now right to the end of the shift these days. No more credit card for minutes off early deals. Then I’m going over to Audrey’s to get my books and head for home. By this time, I’ll be so beat and tired, I may pass out on the train ride home. Then by this time Anne will still be in bed by the time I get into our apartment. There may be a bit more of the Oiler game on but I’m not holding my breath for an Oiler victory here. The Ave’s this year out of all 8/9 games have owned the Oiler’s and won in all 8 occasions. It doesn’t look good for the copper and blue this afternoon.

Most likely I’ll do some work on H as everything is more or less framed in my head and written down on the screen. In SD. Not HD. San Disk media card that is. I’ve got a 2Gb card here I haven’t used yet and when I get my W98 machine fixed up I’ll be burning all the MP3 tracks I downloaded from Arez last spring. Once I pass them through a filter to get all the pops and hisses out of them. I’ll be working on H today, which is why there is no word counter for yesterday. I still need to optimize this.

I checked my stats yesterday and found for Friday I have 11 returning visitors. Wow. I think that’s a record for me. Today, I’ll probably have like about 2. Markus included for me an interesting link on how to improve my chances to get subscribers. Feedburner is saying I have 0 subscribers. I find this kind of strange. My stats told me that for Friday most of my visitors (1st time visitors most likely) went directly to my Top 20 pages. Page loads are not registered on the Stat counter Visitor map. I need to work at improving my content for this blog and the link Markus gave me has some interesting ideas to help me do this. The more traffic to my site the more my site earns income. Like I said, I’m not in this to get rich. If I can generate enough income to have it pay for itself, then great.

Anyway Bloggers, that’s all for now.

e. Jim