The Dreaded Moment

Finally this blog has arrived at the point where no blog should ever venture: Holiday photos. If you don't know me, this will be absolutely boring. If you do know me, it most probably will be too.

Day 1

Started by going to Vienna by train on Friday Morning. The flight to Berlin went from Vienna at 8:00 on Saturday, so we had a day to kill in Vienna. We went to the Upper Belvedere where we saw "Das Neue Österreich" , an exhibition about post-WWII Austria on the occasion of the 50 year jubilee of the Austrian state treaty.


No photos from the actual exhibition, thanks to photographing being prohibited. Suffice to say it was quite interesting, if a bit skewed towards "oh woe is us, who were poor victims of the Nazi regime" (which does accurately reflect the sentiment held by Austrian officials until the late 1980ies, so the exhibition just shows things as they were).

Then we strolled through the historical centre of Vienna and visited the Naschmarkt.

Impressions from the Naschmarkt
Vienna Secession
Stephansdom
Haas Haus with crane

Not having had enough history for a day we also visited the National Library where we watched another exhibition about post-war Austria, "Die Junge Republik".

Having to kill some more time we also visited the Museum of Natural History. Yes, that's me, having a bad hair month.

Some more strolling around vienna (yes, I like clouds and photographing against light sources. You'll see much more of that later), then night broke.


As luck would have it, we were in Vienna just when "Rund um die Burg" happened, a 24 hour reading marathon with Austrian writers reading from their works. This is where we spend the wee hours till we caught our bus to the airport and flew to Berlin.



Actual Berlin photos to follow...

Holidays Are Fun

Went to Berlin for a week. Nice city, rather many trees and parks, absolutely worth a visit. Pictures to follow, when I've got the time to sort through them.

Books read there:

Larry Niven - Ringworld
Niven is one of the best known authors in Science Fiction, having won a plethora of Hugo and Nebula Awards. His ideas are usually grand, and he excels at the depiction of alien life (see The Mote In God's Eye for one of the best depictions of an alien race ever). Ringworld is no different here, the idea of a inhabitable Ring circling a sun (basically a slice of a Dyson Sphere) is impressive and the Pierson's Puppeteers as well as the Kzin are great alien races which aren't just disguised humans. The story lacks a bit in character development, but makes up for it in scope and vision. Good read.

Brian Aldiss - Non Stop
This one was a bit of a mixed bag. While the basic idea - a spaceship crewed by primitive savages who are the many generations removed descendends of the original crew - is great, the execution lacks a bit for me, because it is pretty clear what's going on early on. The twist at the end didn't come all that suprising for me, I pretty much expected what turned out to be the truth. Good bits are the Freud and Jung based pseudo-religion of the tribes on the ship and the personal growth of Roy Complaint, the main protagonist. Readable, but not a must read.

Now reading:

Neal Stephenson - The System Of The World
Halfway through the final part of The Baroque Cycle and glued to my seat, reading. Stephenson has always been a nerd's writer, but The Baroque Cycle is an absolute nerdgasm, especially if you happen to be interested in history. Pure brilliance. (note: This is NOT Science Fiction. It's different from Stephenson's previous body of work. Deal with it.)

Forever, My Dear!

Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is Science Fiction. It tackles themes that were relevant at the time of writing (in this case, the Vietnam War) and transposes them to the far future (of 1996, but don't let that take from your enjoyment of the story). Haldeman shows the alienation soldiers feel after coming back home from a long war by taking it to the extreme. His soldiers fight in space, and, thanks to time dilation, come back many years after they went, having aged only little. But the world they come back to has changed completely in the meantime and they have a very hard time fitting in.

Haldeman's future earth is mostly a bleak place, food riots having resulted in a despoctic UN world government with a inpenetrable calorie based currency system and rampant corruption. People over 70 are assigned a medical status based on their contribution to society and only get help if they are deemed important.

Alienation from society and the people is the main theme that runs through the book. It also is quite anti-war, the whole war is caused by human's tendency to shoot first ask questions later and can only be rectified when humanity evolves to be on par mentally with the aliens they fight.

The Forever War has been praised as its generation Catch 22 by critics, which I don't really see. Catch 22 is satire, while Haldeman's book takes itself seriously most of the time. Nevertheless a good read, although the space battles do tend to get a bit drawn out, especially in the latter half.