Read/reading: Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi, QI

Pump Six was gleefully black-hearted, fascinating from one story to the next, and wonderfully apocalyptic in a way I haven’t really seen for a long time. It’s good to see violence be treated in fiction as something worth exploring for its own sake, rather than a convenient plot beat or something to heighten the mood. Bacigalupi is a master at his darkest - occasionally, the stories try and mire themselves in politics for a little too long, and that’s where the immersion’s slightly broken. But this was remarkably solid. Definitely check it out.

QI - or, specifically, the QI iOS app, comprising both The Book of General Ignorance and The Book of Animal Ignorance in a more digestible form - is something I’ve been meaning to plough through for a long time, and I’ve cleared some of the individual chapters. Given that I’ve had this for over two years, though, it’s about time I got me some learnin’. Also, I’m going to have my editing head on for the next couple of months, and I could do with having my head a little clearer.

Read/reading: Codename Prague by D. Harlan Wilson, Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi

D. Harlan Wilson is the sort of writer who’s either terrifyingly intelligent and shrouded in shocking imagery, or a nightmarish Andy Warhol - creating meaningless artifacts out of the wildest parts of pop culture. Either way, Codename Prague isn’t for everyone, and it definitely isn’t his most accessible work. He used to be my favourite writer, but as time’s gone by I’ve fallen out of love with him in favour of other, arguably more measured writers, but ones who see writing as a human project rather than a metafictional exercise.

I know absolutely nothing about Pump Six, other than it was part of the Humble eBook Bundle (which is how I got it). That’s fine with me. I’m up for something new.