I’ve got quite a few very good hard sci-fi books I’d like to read. I knew that each one was good, since I read a book by each author before getting the subsequent ones, except for Project Hail Mary. In this case, I saw the recent movie first and boy it was good.

Now, usually, I read books in a sequential manner. I start to read a book and finish it. Then, I take another book and continue with the same approach. I think I might change how I read books going forward, or at least I’ll try a nice small reading experiment.

Having finished reading Pandora’s Star, a very long novel, by Peter Hamilton I think I am ready to try reading, say, four or five sci-fi books at once. If you don’t know, Peter Hamilton’s books are very long, the one that I finished reading recently was 988 pages long. It was the first such a long book I ever read. Despite the length, the book actually was an easy and joyful reading. Peter Hamilton is writing hard sci-fi novels and is renowned for his worldbuilding, detailed and vivid descriptions and interesting plot twists, all carefully intertwined with captivating sci-fi ideas.

Readers’ feedback on his novels was that they, and Pandora’s Start in particular, read like a collection of stories. While the same approach to writing was praised by other readers, who liked a careful worldbuilding and plot lines that coalesce and make perfect sense later in the book. I belong to that second category of readers. I think the book only gains from such composition. And here comes my reading experiment. It feels like reading five different books in total by Stephen Baxter, Greg Bear, Peter Hamilton, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Andy Weir is a doable thing. I agree that they won’t coalesce into a coherent narrative, but still it can be an interesting endeavor to try.

Also, if you studied in college or university, you may have a familiar feeling if you recall taking a number of very different courses there at once. It may be daunting to have courses on, say, chemistry, mathematics, electronics and programming in parallel. Which all are technical subjects, but very different in nature and require different textbooks, which you need to read in parallel.

I’ve already read about 40 pages into each book and, mostly, have been focusing on Judas Unchained the second novel in the Commonwealth Saga by Peter Hamilton. So far, it doesn’t feel confusing or overwhelming, as I said, it reminds me of college times.
So there you have it, reading can be tedious, it can be also fun and it can be challenging on a good side of an intellectual challenge.

Stay tuned.