Run 371 Average pace: 5:36/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 28:13
Weather: Cloudy, some sun
Temp: 14-16ºC
Wind: moderate
Calories burned: 384
Weight: 165 pounds <1
Total distance to date: 3065
Device used: iPhone 6
After the abysmal effort of last Sunday I knew I was bound to do better today. And I did, hooray!
My pace of 5:36/km is slow in the grand scheme of my running but is my best pace so far this year. I didn’t feel tired heading out and even had enough pep to push a tiny bit during several stretches. I started out strangely disoriented, as for the first time in awhile I began thinking about other things while running (good) and was taken by surprise by the announcement that I’d hit the 1K mark (neither good nor bad). Surveying my surroundings, it seemed I was farther ahead than seemed plausible to have hit 1K, suggesting the GPS was going nutty (bad). As it turned out, I was thinking I was running counter-clockwise when I was actually going clockwise.
I blame it on being so fully absorbed in the task and not going loopy.
The run proceeded without any cramps or other issues and only one cyclist, a little kid on a bike following a jogging parent. It was almost cute (no cyclist is ever cute). The main complication came at the second boardwalk, where a large group of adults, kids, dogs and strollers were assembled and largely not moving, part of some gathering or another. This is the primary reason I don’t like weekend runs, the trails are often filled with people on official outings. Surprisingly, they parted not unlike the Red Sea and I threaded my way through only having to ease up on my pace a little.
The rest of the run was uneventful and the left foot, though sore again on the walk back, was tolerable.
Overall, an encouraging run after last week’s terrible slog.
Bonus Prompt: One of a pair of genetically cloned babies robs a bank.
Story:
Babies are small and weak and lack the necessary muscle strength needed to properly hold and handle guns. They also lack the cognitive skills to think through and design a plan to successfully rob a bank, unless the bank is their diaper and their goal is to rob it by peeing in it.
But if the other cloned baby–the one that doesn’t rob banks–could form complex thoughts, this is what it would think: this is one of the dumbest writing prompts in the history of the universe.
The End.
Prompt #4: You go to donate blood, but something goes terribly wrong (click link to read the story)
I’ve decided that doing all of the writing prompts from 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2 will make me crazy and while that may lead to some inventive writing in its own right, I cherish my mental well-being just enough to not risk it for the sake of describing if I was a piece of macaroni, what shape would I be?
Having said that, I am still going to work from a prompt each day, whether it’s from the above-mentioned book or elsewhere.
Prompt: Write about nature. Include the following words: hard drive, stapler, phone, car, billboard.
Story:
When the time for my vacation came around I decided to go on vacation, being a logical and sensible person. I was tired from working in my high-tech position at a powerful technology company, working on super computers and other technical machines. I needed a break, to get away from it all for a little while. Two weeks, to be precise. I needed to visit Nature and touch trees and roll in the grass.
I booked a week at a fabulous yet quaint resort a co-worker recommended. I was going to have so much fun it would be illegal, as they say. I wouldn’t do anything actually illegal, of course, because that would be against the law.
I arrived at the resort right on time and checked in at the front desk upon arrival. The nice young lady at the counter handed me a small envelope. Inside it were two key cards.
“Gosh,” I said to her, “I was hoping for a simple key. I work with these fancy cards every day!” I laughed and she smiled and then turned away from me. I went to my room, changed into a snazzy pair of plaid shorts, a nice t-shirt from my company and a pair of open-toe sandals. It was warm so I took my socks off, allowing my toes to wiggle freely. Wiggle, toes, wiggle. Ah, vacation!
I went to a bar near the pool and ordered a drink. “I’d like something fruity and sweet, with one of those cute little paper umbrellas in it,” I told the bartender. “Of course, you can substitute some other object if you don’t have little paper umbrellas,” I added. He smiled and turned away from me. When he turned back he offered me a wide, fluted glass filled with a lime green fluid of some sort. Sticking out of the fluid was a miniature hard drive. I noted to the bartender that while this was very cute, it was perhaps not entirely sanitary. He laughed and laughed and told me I was crazy and please just go away. I laughed, too, it was all pretty crazy and funny. I found a free chaise lounge and sat down, putting the drink on an accompanying table. The hard drive looked like it was leaking grease. The bartender never asked for money so I didn’t mind too much.
I settled back into the chair, relaxing in the cool shade of a stapler tree. Wait, I thought, that can’t be right! I looked up and the tree was indeed a large red stapler, standing on end, topped with the fronds of a palm tree. This must be a theme resort, I thought, which made sense since my co-worker was a “nerd” and loved these kinds of things. No wonder he recommended it!
My eyes fluttered open and I realized I had dozed off. How relaxing! The sound of my ringing phone had stirred me out of my slumber. I flipped it open and took the call. It was my car telling me it had run over a billboard. It was crying. Stupid car.
I wasn’t going to let a “smart” car ruin my vacation, though. I told it to clean up the mess and have the bill sent to the company, as it was technically a company car. It honked affirmatively and hung up.
I went back inside and asked the young lady at the front desk if she knew the best place to find trees, to get close to nature. She suggested Yosemite Park, which was over two thousand miles away. Then she laughed and turned away from me. I knew she wanted to make it an adventure, so I also laughed, then did a Google search on my laptop and found a local park that was filled with trees. I called the car to ask if it could pick me up and it had composed itself enough to assure me it could be at the resort in fifteen minutes. I told it to drive carefully and it growled its engine at me. What a saucy car.
Unfortunately the car did not diagnose its condition properly after the billboard incident and it plowed into a copse of trees when we arrived at the park, due to malfunctioning brakes. I broke both legs, bringing my vacation to an early end.
I did touch a tree, though, albeit with my head when I went through the windshield. I think about the irony and laugh and laugh. Ah vacation!
~fin~
Alternately, this is what I first wrote after looking at the prompt. It actually follows the rule of being short-short:
On vacation I relaxed in the cool shade of a stapler tree, sipping on my hard drive julep. Suddenly my phone rang. It was my car telling me it had just run over a billboard. It was crying. Stupid car.
Prompt #2: What past memory do you cherish the most and why? If you could trade that memory for something amazing to happen in the future, would you do it? Why or why not?
Story:
I remember the day I learned to ride a bike. It all happened on that one day, not because I was a fast learner, but because I was determined beyond all reason.
It started out with my father, a man of limited patience, helping to guide me up and down the driveway, having first moved the family car and his beloved Ford pickup out onto the street in front of our house. I sat tentatively on the banana seat of my bike. I called it a mustang for some reason, though I don’t remember the brand now. The training wheels had been screwed off earlier and were sitting in the workshop, ready to be fastened to the future bike of my baby sister. My dad and I were equally confident I would no longer need them.
My dad guided me up and down the driveway a couple of times, holding onto the bike with an increasingly looser grip until he finally let go. I moved forward under my own momentum, wobbly but still upright. Then I toppled over. I wasn’t hurt because I was barely moving, a contributing factor to the toppling. I walked the bike to the top of the driveway and we tried again. My dad released a little earlier this time, probably trying to show his confidence in me. I rewarded this show of confidence by crashing even faster than before.
He muttered something under his breath and we made a third attempt, then a fourth and a few more after that. It was like watching a film of the Titanic striking the iceberg. The result was always the same: disaster.
I walked the bike up to the top of the driveway, not in the least bit discouraged by the setbacks, but dad was done. He expressed his dismay through the use of colorful metaphors, careful to not actually blame me for being an uncoordinated putz.
I felt bad. I also felt clumsy, a bit stupid and a little bruised. The bruising was part ego and part left knee. I’d landed on it at least three times going down.
I got on the bike and took a breath. I knew if I crashed now it would be worse somehow. A secret shame. Plus landing on the left knee a fourth time would hurt like hell. I pushed with my left foot and began coasting down the gentle slope of the driveway. I wobbled, I nearly yanked the handlebars too hard to the left, then too hard to the right, but somehow I managed to keep the bike moving forward.
And then it happened. The wobble vanished. The handlebars became steady in my hands. I was riding and not crashing. I felt giddy. I wanted to whoop in triumph but that might bring me crashing down. Instead I rode down the street to the cul-de-sac, then back to the driveway, reveling in my secret victory.
I knew how to ride a bike. And just like the old saying goes, I didn’t forget. I never had another crash again. I was on a high for the rest of the week.
I would never trade the sweet memory of that day, the gleeful sensation of overcoming what seemed like an impossible task. Well, actually, I suppose I would trade it for world peace. I mean, I could always just walk and world peace is probably more important than riding a bike, even one with a cool banana seat. But it would have to be genuine world peace and not some surprise twist like “all humanity is wiped out, therefore peace” or “humans revert back to protoplasm, incapable of shooting rifles or tossing fragmentation grenades.”
Today I am starting a new writing project. I am dispensing with both quality and quantity in favor of regularity. Think of it as Metamucil for the mind. Or maybe don’t do that.
Specifically, I am going to use the prompts featured in 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2 (Goodreads link) to write ultra-short stories that are no more than a few paragraphs long. I will work through the prompts in order, one per day. After that, I will perhaps have a party of some sort.
Sometimes instead of a story I will simply answer the questions (most of the prompts are in the form of questions).
Note that in my first attempt below I completely blow the concept of “ultra-short” with a story that is 1123 words long. Whoops.
Prompt #1: If you could travel back to any time in the past, what date would you choose and why? Would you attempt to influence past events while you were there? Why or why not?
Story:
Bradley had been a barista at a Starbucks knock-off for five years and as he mindlessly sprayed whipped cream on top of yet another large mocha he thought that this was about four years too many. Maybe even five. He wanted to do more with his life. He wasn’t sure what that would entail except that it wouldn’t include spraying whipped cream on large mochas.
He finished his shift and as he walked through the cooling air of evening toward his shoebox apartment the sounds of downtown seemed muted and distant. It was a weeknight and things were winding down. His walk was short, only eight blocks. Once home he’d watch Game of Thrones or something else. It didn’t matter, he never really paid attention, anyway. He’d nosh on a nuked pizza pop and burn his tongue like he always did. Then it would be off to bed, followed by a Groundhog Day-like repeat of everything the next morning. It was life and it was quietly horrible, but Bradley was not a man of action. If there was to be a plan that would change his course, it would need to be delivered.
As he reached the halfway point of his short trip home, the delivery arrived. It came in the form of a nondescript man dressed so blandly that Bradley’s eyes couldn’t properly focus on him. He was wearing some sort of jacket and pants and a hat. A fedora, maybe, like hipsters wear. All of these items only registered at the most basic level, colorless shapes stuck to a human form. Bradley never saw the face of the man or if he did the face left no impression.
The man shoved a small box toward Bradley as he brushed past and Bradley took the box without thinking. A moment later he assumed it was a bomb and almost chucked it in the street, but that struck Bradley as a very bad idea just before he released the package. Instead he thought to gently set it down on top of a trash receptacle and let some city worker deal with it, hopefully without blowing himself or others up.
But he could not let go of the box. It was neatly wrapped in plain brown paper. It bore no writing or markings of any kind. Bright white string was neatly tied around it. Bradley put a finger on the string and as if by magic it unraveled and fell to the ground. He pulled at the paper and it, too, slid away, leaving him with an unadorned wooden box. It had a simple lid with no hinge and Bradley pulled it off. Inside was a small device that looked a bit like a TV remote. A slip of paper was underneath it. He took out the paper and written on it was the following:
Hello! This small device is a battery-operated time machine. Simply punch in the time you wish to visit and you will be taken there immediately. You can return to your own time by simply entering the appropriate date. Don’t be afraid to experiment! Time has a way of healing all wounds, even those to itself. Want to stop Hitler? Go ahead and give it a shot!
It was ridiculous and Bradley was hungry, so he went home and nuked a pizza pop. But he brought the device with him, and sat it on the coffee table. When he had finished dinner and salved his tongue with some Pepsi, he grabbed his laptop and did a search on when Hitler was born. He was no dummy. If he was going to take out Hitler it would be when he was a tiny baby, not a Nazi leader surrounded by other Nazis with guns and tanks.
April 20, 1889, in some town called Braunau am Inn. It seemed like ancient history to Bradley. Did they even have cars in 1889? Bradley tried riding a horse once when his family went on vacation to Wyoming and his ass had hurt for a week after. He didn’t like the idea of chasing down baby Hitler on a horse. He would add 15 years to the date because Hitler would still only be some brooding high school punk and he could run him down with a new-fangled automobile.
He went to the bathroom and checked his hair in the mirror. It seemed important to look decent for time travel.
He returned to the living room and took the device from the box. He punched in April 20, 1904 and wondered how it would know where to send him. Maybe he just had to concentrate on the name of the city. He said out loud, in a stupid-sounding German accent, “Braunau am Inn!” He pressed the neon green button on the device labeled GO.
An acrid smell rose into his nostrils and the apartment went dark. Bradley felt a surge of panic and began groping about, trying to grab onto something, anything. The darkness lifted suddenly and Bradley found himself standing in the middle of a cobblestone street. Old timey, he thought, as he looked around at the buildings. He heard a strange and ridiculous sound and spun around toward it. It was a car horn. So there were cars! Good.
Except the car was bearing down on him and he had no time to move. The horn made its strange and ridiculous sound again but cut off when the car smashed into Bradley, sending him tumbling toward a gutter where he lay broken and bleeding.
The driver got out and raced to him. The passenger, a sullen-looking teenage boy, also got out, but he went to the device that laid on the cobblestone. He eyed the display, still showing April 20, 1904. He nodded, then threw the device into a nearby field. Out of sight in the tall grass, he could not see it burn a black patch into the grass before fading from view.
The boy walked over to Bradley. Bradley looked up, focusing with his left eye, the other shut tight and leaking blood. He could feel some parts of his body and couldn’t feel others. He was no doctor but he was pretty sure he had suffered fatal injuries. He asked himself if this is what dying felt like and the answer was a confident “You betcha.”
“Are you Hitler?” Bradley asked the boy.
The teen tilted his head, neither confirming nor denying. Bradley took it as confirmation because clearly things were not unfolding as intended.
“Nuts. I should have chosen baby Hitler.”
The possibly teenage Hitler shrugged and walked away. Bradley coughed a mix of blood and spittle, then closed his eyes. He rubbed his tongue over his teeth and vowed to let the pizza pops cool down properly next time. Then he remembered there would be no next time and felt a small twinge of regret as he expired.
Horrorstör is one of those horror stories that can be easily described in one sentence. Heck, just a phrase: a haunted Ikea knock-off. I found this book by perusing NPR’s Best Books of 2014 and couldn’t resist. I don’t know about you but I find the bewildering and deliberately maze-like design of Ikea stores scary even with the lights on.
Horrorstör leads the reader through a terrifying night where five employees of an Orsk store find themselves trapped in retail hell. Except this time it’s a little more literal. Riffing on the old ancient burial ground theme (this time a long ago prison), we find our plucky/weird/selfish heroes trying to survive a night of being locked in storage cases with names like Liripip by vengeful ghosts.
The story starts out light and funny, with Hendrix making witty observations on the retail experience. Somewhat predictably the funny stuff largely disappears once the horror starts cranking up. Apart from catalog illustrations of weirdly-named furniture that grace the start of each chapter, there is little humor to be found in the latter half of the book. This isn’t a bad thing per se, but it seems like a lot of authors who write comic horror tend to dispense with the funny once the gore starts flowing, making for an uneven tone.
Hendrix still does a nifty job in describing the horrors taking place within the cavernous confines of the Orsk store, though. You may never look at a sofa with an umlaut in its name the same way again. In fact, the liberal use of authentic-looking catalog pages and other related paraphernalia make me recommend reading this novel on a larger tablet (like the standard iPad), to better appreciate these illustrations. They’re neat and well-made additions.
If you want a short and (mostly) funny horror story, Horrorstör comes recommended.
Run 370 Average pace: 5:59/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 30:06
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 16-21ºC
Wind: moderate
Calories burned: 385
Weight: 166 pounds
Total distance to date: 3060
Device used: iPhone 6
I skipped the run last Sunday because I was feeling fat and lazy. I was also actually fat and lazy.
Vowing not to skip again, I suited up today under unusually summer-like conditions, with clear skies and the temperature climbing to a balmy 21ºC by the end of the run.
On the plus side, I experienced no issues in terms of cramps or other discomfort, there were no cyclists on the trail, the two large groups of walkers I encountered were well-organized and didn’t block my way and the weather, of course, was gorgeous. Although it felt warm it was not uncomfortable (the lip-smacking is in reference to my mouth and lips feeling dry, something I wouldn’t normally expect in mid-April conditions. The trail itself was in good condition, having been dry for some days, so no puddle-dodging required.
The one bad part, other than the left foot feeling sore post-run (most keenly on the last 2.5 km of the walk home) was my pace. I was super slow, managing to come in 17 seconds over my previous pace on Easter. It was my first 5K in a long time in which I finished with a time over 30 minutes. Within the first few hundred meters I knew it was going to be a slog and I simply could not muster any gas to even finish with a pseudo-sprint. Put it this way: my first km was 5:34/km. I was in danger of having feisty old grannies walking by me.
I dropped 19% after 2 km to 6:38/km before finding some small reserve of energy, finishing each of the next three km with a pace of 5:54 or 5:55/km. I am somewhat encouraged that at least the bottom didn’t keep falling out. I am further mollified by the fact that I ran at the same pace three years ago, on April 16 2012. I am less mollified that it was a 10K run. I probably would have ended a 10K today curled up in a ball near the side of the trail.
Still, my plan is to resume my thrice-weekly runs starting this week, so the next is set for Tuesday. I’ll gauge in the next week or so if I’m ready to jump back into 10Ks again.
I’ve also added my weight to the stats at the top of each jogging post to see if it correlates at all. I’m currently 166 pounds, with a target of 150 pounds (my average weight in 2012 when running was around 145 pounds). Will shedding those 16 pounds make me fly like an eagle, albeit an eagle with strangely human legs? We shall see.
This collection of short stories by Nathan Ballingrud could also be called Deeply Troubled Men and the Monsters They Hang Out With. Each story chronicles men who are trapped in unhappy relationships, who are spiritually lost or battling booze, drugs and shambling horrors, which are sometimes also their wives. The writing is full and ripe, like a bloated watermelon sitting on a picnic table under the furnace glare of the late August sun, ready to explode in a gout of watery pulp. Ballingrud loves similes (and metaphors) the way a cat loves a mouse. Both are sought after and mauled with great enthusiasm.
Do you like a little humor sprinkled about to lighten the mood of otherwise grim, dark stories? You will find none here. These stories may vary slightly in tone but they are all very, very serious. Whether it’s a boy becoming a vampire or a man running from a werewolf, these tales are relentlessly bleak. Do you want sympathetic characters? That’s also difficult to find. Most of the men are detached, emotionally distant/stunted, often the source of their own troubles, with the horror elements used to highlight how terrible and flawed they are (“Wild Acre”, the aforementioned werewolf story, is a good example of this, as the werewolf amounts to little more than window dressing for a story about a troubled man and his ongoing financial and marital problems, made worse because, well, werewolf).
The closing story and one exclusive to this collection, “The Good Husband” can be read as darkly humorous, given the increasingly ludicrous turns the story takes. Perhaps I wasn’t correctly seeing the earnestness of the prose as very dry sarcasm. It didn’t help that the characters felt somewhat unreal throughout (more understandable with the wife, with her being dead/not quite dead). Still a great premise, though.
There is no denying Ballingrud’s skill at creating evocative imagery (if sometimes going a bit further than needed) but after awhile I began to weary of reading about these very flawed, troubled, yet strangely uninteresting people. Maybe not caring about them makes ME the monster. Twist ending!
Also, if Ballingrud ever teamed up with Laird Barron, they should totally bill themselves as The Brothers Grim.
I picked up this book (well, it was an ebook, so the picking up was virtual) for three reasons:
1. It was on sale. Cheap is always a price I like.
2. I’ve loved these sorts of nutty topics (out of body experiences, telepathy, Bigfoot, ghosts, Bigfoot ghosts with telepathy, etc.) since I was a kid.
3. It seemed like good background material for a novel I’m writing that coincidentally embraces the subject of death and near-death experiences.
Journalist Patricia Pearson draws from a range of studies and personal accounts stretching back decades to dig into the near death experience (NDE) and other related phenomenon. The deaths of her sister and father serve as a framing device for the book and Pearson is up front about how their deaths and oddities around the deaths helped develop her interest in and shape her point of view on the subject.
Despite the title of the book, Pearson paints NDEs as more of a spiritual awakening rather than a religious experience. Indeed, more people have apparently turned away from religion after having an NDE while at the same time becoming more spiritual. Throughout the various studies and research Pearson shows how little science has been able to quantify what happens when someone comes close to dying and recovers or just plain dies. In the main the affected individuals seem to traverse into another realm or reality, out of their bodies, often meeting other people they know who are already dead, and for the most part the experiences are positive, even joyful. As you may suspect, conducting experiments around people who have just escaped death is a bit tricky, as scientists, smart and diligent as they may be, cannot hang around intersections indefinitely waiting for near-fatal traffic accidents to occur. Well, they could, but probably not with funding from a university.
My biggest issue with the book is its relative shapelessness. Pearson writes well and has put in a lot of research on the subject (the bibliography and notes are extensive), the tone remains respectful and she never makes declarative statements one way or the other (“The Buddhists are right, if you screw up in your post-life you come back as a dung beetle!”), but the book has no sense of progression. She documents the subject and then the book ends. Maybe I’m trying too hard to impose a narrative structure on something that doesn’t necessarily need one.
In any case, if you have any interest in the subject matter–and yes, most NDEs center around being surrounded by glowing light, a tremendous sense of love and no fear of death–this is a sober and serious look at it.
Run 369 Average pace: 5:42/km Location: Burnaby Lake (CW) Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:44 Weather: Sunny Temp: 14-16ºC Wind: light to nil Calories burned: 385 Total distance to date: 3055 Device used: iPhone 6
I missed last Sunday’s run due to a flu-like virus that made bed more appealing than jogging, but was ready if not exactly raring to go today.
Conditions were once again terrific, with sun and mild temperatures. I expected the pleasant weather, combined with the holiday, to result in crowded conditions but while there were plenty of people about, it wasn’t bad at all navigating the trail.
However, I saw so many cyclists I lost count. The first was at the park entrance, contemplating the map of the lake while surrounded by conspicuous NO BICYCLES signs. I later saw him just after I’d finished the run, about 5 km in. Oddly he was off the bike and taking a photo of what seemed to be nothing in particular. The second cyclist was also at an entry point looking at a map. I didn’t see him again so maybe he got taken down by an off-leash dog.
A father and young son nearly plowed into me at a corner. Thanks for teaching your kid to be a Jerk, pops!
A pair of bikes were parked at Still Creek but I think they belonged to a couple of guys that were kayaking, so I give them a pass. A family of six starting in as I was heading out of the park I offer no such benefit of the doubt. May they all have suffered flat tires and collisions with each other.
There were probably more I’m forgetting but you get the idea–it was biking madness like I’ve never seen it before. Blergh.
As for the run, it went about the same as last time, only a few seconds slower. A stitch in my lower left side popped up to annoy me like a biker about the 3K mark but I pushed through it. There were no other issues to speak of, just the usual early season rust. I will start regular runs soon.
I’d probably give this book 3.5 stars but Goodreads (where this review originates) doesn’t allow half stars, so I’m giving it four, since I lean more toward that than three.
This 1987 novel is dated politically (set in 1996 but not foreseeing the collapse of the Soviet Union) and technologically (it predates the Internet so a lot of data in the story is gathered and stored on fancy optical disks) but otherwise feels fairly fresh nearly thirty years later.
The plot is a downer–mysterious aliens arrive to destroy Earth–and the resolution, such as it is, is a bit abrupt because the story continues in the 1993 follow-up, Anvil of Stars. But The Forge of God is more about the journey than the destination, as Bear unfolds what begins as a galactic mystery and ends with humanity reduced to a murmur in the great vastness of space.
The story almost feels like two different tales stitched together. There’s the initial mystery and scientific investigation–a moon of Jupiter disappears and months later strange artificial rock formations appear in Death Valley and other spots around the world. The leading characters are geologists and there is much speculation before an alien appears out of one of the formations with a dire warning that Earth is doomed, destined to be torn apart by a fun bunch described as “planet eaters.” The latter part of the story chronicles the months leading up to what appears to be the end of the world as we know it (and no one feels fine), with a plan by the mysterious but apparently beneficent warning aliens to cobble together the remnants of the world in order to create some aspect of it elsewhere.
These two halves also stand apart with distinct tones. The first half is filled with politics, scientific theorizing, investigation and generally lots of “big picture” stuff, while the second half zooms in on some of the characters and becomes more personal, following them as they grapple with a seemingly sealed fate. Bear does a good job transitioning from the big picture to a more intimate one, capturing the despair–and faint hope–as the last days of the story (and possibly the planet) play out.
If you like a good doomsday scenario supported by credible science, a chilling answer to the Fermi paradox, and have always wanted geologists to be the leads in a novel, The Forge of God comes recommended. My only regret is I didn’t research ahead of time to find out it was part of (an admittedly very short) series, so I know feel obligated to read the sequel, to find out how it all turns out (until the inevitable sequel after that one).
