All Things Chill

Well hello there. Whoa, I just realized that I wrote another post with the same title. Weird. Anyway, I’m currently spending my time at bus stops, lunch breaks and those 15-20 leisurely minutes in bed before I sleep reading a book from Liana’s collection of fiction. The Time Traveler’s Wife deals with time travel (duh), misdemeanors, past (and current) hip Chicago spots and neighborhoods and an unreasonable amount of loyalty and romance. Yeah, I was surprised when it wasn’t in *my* personal library. Here’s a very very small excerpt from its Amazon page:

Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian with “Chrono Displacement” disorder; at random times, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life.

It’s all you need to know (and I honestly think that it’s still TOO much). Hee hee. I’m about 1/2 through, so PLEASE no spoilers. So far, I love it. The author, Audrey Niffenegger, uses so many different landmarks – The Field Museum, the Aragon Ballroom, Ann Sathers, and the ‘L‘ to name a few – that I can visualize the environments with clarity. Peeps back in Chicago should read it for the localization of it all! Haha.

The banality of time travel has become a bit of a tiring exercise in recent memory, but the book easily shifts ’round and ’round… because you’re instantly drawn into the romance. There is no “Choose your Adventure” type of page flipping here! Audrey has created marvelous cues to show where the characters are in a specific timeline and have beautifully matched their speech and mannerisms to their age… but rubberbands their overall personality in a seamless dance of consistency and congruence.

I’d go on, but I have to finish the book! I’d recommend this to anyone who likes a bit of humanity with their science fiction. A person cannot live on cortical stack uploads, virtual reality, super soldiers and inappropriate escapades alone! LOL.

Read it? Let me know!

~Spec

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 12:42 am and is filed under Books, Comics & Graphic Novels, Streaming Conciousness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.