I took some time over the Thanksgiving holidays to read three good books
Replay by Ken Grimwood tells the story of Jeff Winston, a man re-living his life several times, meeting a woman who is doing the same thing. He knows the actions and their outcomes from each life and continues to make adjustments. It’s a novel about second chances–many second chances–and learning that there really aren’t any second chances. It’s a novel about middle age, opening as it does with the Jeff’s fatal heart attack at 48 (or 30H) and chronicling his coming to terms with regret and the need to make choices and move on. Daniel Shade reviewed Replay in 2001 on his Lost Books site:
First, life is full of endless happenings that we have little control over. We should live our lives with our eyes set upon the horizon and never look back; controlling those things we can and giving no second thought to those events out of our hands.
Second, given that we only have one life to live (Jeff is never sure he will replay again with each heart attack) we should live it to the fullest extent possible and with the least regret for our actions. Everybody makes mistakes; the point is not to dwell on them but to pick ourselves up and keep on going. Keep moving ahead.
Third, choices must be made – we cannot avoid them. The only failure is to live a life without risks.
The Creatures of Man by Howard L. Myers is a collection of short stories by a very prolific and very thought provoking author whose career was cut short by a heart attack at the age of 41 in 1971. I originally got it for one story “All Around the Universe” which was one of the first to detail the “admiration economy” (later popularized by Corrie Doctorow as whuffie) but started the book and was unable to put it down. It’s also available in the Baen Free Library (what a great idea) where you can read ithere.
Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko had been on my shelf for a while. I had rented the movie and then postponed reading it. The movie was wildly inventive but a little scattershot and hard to follow. The book has a number of very complex interacting plots. It’s something like watching a chess game where the White grandmaster has to allow his pieces the free will to do what they want and the Black grandmaster has to convince his pieces that a each move is what’s best for them.
It’s the first book that’s been translated in his four book “world of watches.” I am eagerly awating the English lanuage version of Day Watch, Twilght Watch, and Final Watch.
