Book completed

Rendezvous with Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke. From my husband's book club. This was an interesting, yet quirky, book. It's the story of humans about 150 years from now sending a spaceship to intercept and investigate a huge spaceship that's apparently headed toward the sun. On the one hand, it was a compelling story and generally fun to read. Yet on the other hand, it felt very much like Clarke had posed himself some interesting scientific and technological challenges that he wanted to answer, so he wrote a story around them, and since it was set in the future he figured he'd better throw in some cultural changes too, so many people had names that were ethnically mixed (like a Russian first name with a Latino last name, or English first and last names but Chinese middle name), and both homosexuality and polyamory with multiple families were ordinary - which was certainly not the case in 1973 when it was published. Yet there were also little things that were jarring to a reader today, like referring to a female crew member as a "crewman." Other things horrified me - genetically engineered monkeys as crew members who happily did all the physical labor, a scientist who starts merrily dissecting a creature while it might still be alive. I guess that's a gamble an author takes when they write about the future - readers in the future will complain that they didn't foresee quite well enough.

Afternoon fun

This afternoon I was just settling in to do some work, when J messaged me.  He and D were over at DG's to sort out the prizes and expenses from their Chicago trip, and AA was about to order and then pick up some pizza, and I was invited!  So I got to do something fun and social instead!  After that I went to see if there were any wildflowers blooming in the woods where I like to walk.  Only the very ordinary spring maids - it's still early.  I did see, though, that two benches had been installed.  Also, there were quite a few birds calling, including a great horned owl!