Why This Is Hell

You know, I've lost track as to whether I did any writing today... Not a good sign. Tinkering if any. Mostly reading - I tried to watch Heroes but the snooker overran and I only got the first five minutes of the two episodes. Better record them Saturday morning. An unusually Tuesday without the therapy session, and tried to get into town asap after lunch to drink coffee and read, but after paying bills and diversions to Chaucer Books and Oxfam, it was four o'clock. Finished a book and started another, mind. Oxfam finally yielded Ragtime, which obviously I'll read next.

( LIV: C.J. Cherryh, Well of Shiuan (1978). LV: C.J. Cherryh, Fires of Azeroth (1979). )

( LVI: Ursula Le Guin, Lathe of Heaven (1971) )

( XLII-XLIV: C.J. Cherryh, The Faded Sun Trilogy (1978-9) )

I was thinking more about the paradigm of the privileged human who joins a (supposedly) technologically less advanced society and risks going native, which was also there in Brackett and I suspect the John Carter/Barsoom books. I had a moment of thinking Lawrence of Arabia, but that's about the same time. Kurtz, too, but a bit earlier. And when Mr Privilege turns out to be able to teach the simple folk his ways, you get Avatar.

I am about to order the collection of essays on Cherryh, and I ridiculously amused by it taking four weeks on Amazon but five days secondhand because it's POD. But, surely, a used POD should take longer to get to me? I'll pay the extra 50p.

Whilst it might be sensible to read another Cherryh trilogy next - the Vanye/Morgaine books - I think I'll lighten the load by reading a Dick or two. If only because a minor character in Faded Sun is George Stavros. And Dick wrote a novel called A Time for George Stavros. Odd.