Reading, Listening, Watching

Reading: They'd rather be Right which is, apparently, the worst book ever to win a Hugo. It's not terrible but the prose is oddly stilted and the plot proceeds primarily through men having earnest conversations in closed rooms. One of said men is a telepath so there is a lot of description of exactly what each person is thinking and feeling to remove any possibility of ambiguity or misinterpretation. The SF is pretty soft for a Hugo award winner, the telepath is explained away by "many valued physics", good psychotherapy applied by a computer, we learn, can restore your youth and bestow immortality providing you are prepared to abandon your incorrect beliefs. There's some politics there that feels a bit Heinlein - the (very mid/late 20th century US) society depicted is seen as moribund, reactionary and in the process of a slow collapse with the future resting on people on the fringes who are not hidebound by things like prudish attitudes about sex. Democracy and the free press are critiqued for their tendency to become enslaved to the ignorant and fleeting attitudes of public opinion though it is unclear what alternative is envisaged - possibly government by youthful, immortal beneficiaries of correctly applied computational psychotherapy.

The physical book itself smells a bit odd (possibly stale cigarette smoke) which is a bit distracting. Anyway, it has the virtue of being short and as a curiosity is worth a read.


Listening: The sudden influx of new Doctor Who, plus the removal of my weekly 3 hour round trip to see my mother, means I now have more podcasts to listen to that time available. Currently listening to a three week old podcast on the history of Rice.

Watching: Marmalade Sparrow is a big fan of Taskmaster which we have been watching with her. We just started the latest series which has necessitated explaining both Julian Clary and Sue Perkins to her.