Fresh from a historical fantastical romp in Cormyr, it was a choice between three books.
There was a possible re-reading of the Legends of Dune trilogy starting with The Butlerian Jihad. But a recent trip to Booksale yielded a couple of new books -- Brent Weeks's The Way of Shadows which starts off his The Night Angel trilogy and then an Asimov installment, The Caves of Steel.
While it is exciting to read a new author (who's a year younger than me) in Weeks, I deferred reading The Way of Shadows until I get hold of at least the other books in the series, Shadow's Edge and Beyond the Shadows. That's the problem with series -- whether trilogies or pentads or seven-bookers or more -- it's hard to buy them one by one as you won't know when the next book in the eries appears or if it's a book written some years ago, if they'll ever be reprinted. That's the problem I had when I was initially collecting the Eddings's fantasy series. I had to scrounge bookstores, bookbins, and even trawled through used books at the UP Shopping Center one time to get myself a missing volume just to complete the series. Even now, the Eddings' last series, The Dreamers, I have yet to complete with one volume just missing. And yes, I need to replace another volume because it became rat-infested.
It's also the same problem I'm having right now trying to complete the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins in that I'm trying to complete the series but due to budgetary constraints (mostly self-imposed as I'm buying the soft-bound bigger edition, not the pocketbook-sized ones, which tend to be pricier when bought brand new) need to scrounge the used book bins of BookSale or Books for Less.
There's no problem if the author is quite famous like Tolkien. At anytime of the day or year, there's always a Hobbit, or a Ring trilogy on hand.
That got me started to buying books in threes or more, when the budget allows it (or the plastic allows it). I remember when I bought the Prelude to Dune series, I bought all three volumes at one time. I also bought the three Dragonlance books that comprised The Chronicles all at the same time for fear that they might run out. Although there's a rising trend nowadays for trilogies to be bound in one volume like the ones being done by Wizard of the Coast for their books as well as the franchise that handles Warhammer. I'm eyeing the War of Souls Dragonlance volume but am keeping myself in check as I would rather, at this point in time, wish to read Forgotten Realms' Elminster series but there's none available yet locally.
Going back to my choice of reading before I got side-tracked with the mumblings ...
Since I have all three books in the Legends of Dune series, I could always read that one of these days so I opted to read Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel, a book in his Robot Series.
I've always been intrigued by Asimov's sci-fi after being introduced to his via an anothology of his (can't remember which one, at the moment) and have been meaning to build up on the Foundation and Robot Novels but haven't gotten around to doing so.
I've picked up a good condition copy of The Caves of Steel at BookSale for Php 70 last week however (brand new retails at around Php 300) and have been reading it ever since. It's a fairly short book at 270 pages and could be finished off in less than a day but as my reading time has diminished, reaching almost a third of the book after three days is already an accomplishment. Without giving any spoilers, it's a fantastic read and for someone who only has read an Asimov anthology of short stories, it's classic Asimov. Fast-paced, it's now building up on the climax that's about to happen in the next 30 pages or so.
What's it all about? Murder. Murder in the future Earth where Cities are domed (hence, the Caves of Steel) and humans have populated fifty other planets in the Universe and a schism has happened between Earthmen (those who are born on Earth and live on it) and those who were born offworld called the Spacers. A prominent Spacer has been murdered on Earth and it's up to an Earthman detective and his robot partner to solve the crime with the fate of the cosmos on the balance.
Beyond the murder and the frentic action to solve it, Asimov also paints the future of mankind -- it's actually up to you to determine whether the future painted by the author is a utopia or dystopia. My own take of the scenario, Asimov paints a society that somehow follows norms and ideals from communism, socialism, the caste system, capitalism, and aristocracy. According to Asimov, the future of Earth is a delicate balance between available resources and quality of living -- the age old supply-and-demand theory. The need to conserve resources has led to a communist/socialist-like system of government whereby everyone is provided what is due to him but those whose skills and talents allow them to rise above the common man are afforded better privileges.
Read the book. Be engaged. Be inspired.
A complete review to follow when I finish the book this Christmas weekend, most likely.
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In case I don't go online this week, Merry Christmas, folks! Have a good one.
