I'm not reading as much this month too many family things to attend and whatever. The book that might be of the most interest that I've read is The Peace War by Vernor Vinge. It's one of those books that I've heard of a lot but for some reason had never read, although I had read and enjoyed A fire on the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. So when I learned here that he'd recently died I decided that now was the time.
It's important to say that this book has aged pretty well. This is a pretty realistic post-apocalyptic story. At the time of the Apocalypse the world looks a lot like what we would expect our world to look like in maybe 25 years or so, except there is nothing which would even nod at climate change. I liked the story and the characters very well at the beginning of the book. The story was engaging, and although it is sometimes portrayed as hard Science Fiction both of the key innovations that drive the story are only named and described with no hint at all of the possibile science involved. It could just as well be magic in a war between governmental mages and rag tag group of independent wizards. I'm sorry to report that as the story closed in on its conclusion I found myself less and less caught by it. I'm not completely sure why, maybe it just seemed too unlikely or maybe because the result seemed to be such a foregone conclusion. I must in honesty admit that the ending was not so neat as I expected, but it did seem to leave room for a sequel, which did come about, which I have no desire to read.
