Day: July 31, 2005

Since I knew I would finish Calculating God on the flight, I bought Tom Clancy’s latest paperback, The Teeth of the Tiger. I think I’m caught up now with the Ryan novels, at least to date. This one, though, includes Jack Ryan, Jr., instead of his father. Guess it’s hard to do much with a character after he’s been President of the United States. Ask Bill Clinton about post-Presidency life… even non-fictional characters can find the aftermath less compelling. Jimmy Carter has gone on to do more with his life (impressively so), but my imperfect view of history tells me that’s rare. But I digress… this is normal Clancy. Nothing special, but perfect airplane fare, and full of wishful thinking — a successful, secret non-governmental agency, privately funded, with Presidential authority (hidden and private) to be proactive in taking out terrorists. Riggghhhhttt.

Flying back to San Francisco alone a week ago gave me plenty of reading time, so I finished off Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer. Thanks, Mom… I’ll definitely have to pick up some more Sawyer, since it’s clearly intelligent, approachable science fiction. And I appreciate an author forward thinking enough to use sfwriter.com as their personal/professional domain.