Of canals and frozen ponytails

Something of a mixed day today. We'd arranged to meet up some friends — including J and her husband, who were over from Connecticut for a week — at The Boot at 11:30 for a walk and a long lunch. Unfortunately, just as we were about to leave, we had a huge screaming row about our imminent tardiness and almost didn't go.

In the end we did go and, once we'd arrived only a few minutes late, we had a nice time walking along the frozen canals to Packwood and then back to Lapworth. Along the way, I had a nice chat to J about parental foibles and the fact that she was still frustrated by some of the things her parents did cheered me up greatly. The lunch was upto the usual reliably good standards: I had a supremely nice peach and spinach tart starter and a elegant goat's cheese and thyme risotto main. More than enough to make up for the bad start to the day.

Pushing Ice

As part of my holiday reading binge, I've just blazed through Al Reynolds' Pushing Ice, and my verdict is seriously positive.

The story, set in the near future, kicks off with the departure of the Saturnian moon Janus from it's orbit. The only craft able to intercept, the comet mining ship Rockhopper, is sent out to rendezvous with the object, perform a few days worth of tests and return to Earth. Trouble is, by the time they actually reached Janus, the crew have noticed a problem with the fuel situation, they've lost communications with Earth (maybe their AE-35 unit has gone on the fritz?), and the crew are divided on what to do &mdash whether to ride on out to Spica or whether to make a break for terra firma.

Slightly unsurprisingly, the crew are forced to opt for a prolonged stay on Janus and a one way trip to α Virginis. After a quick change of leadership following the disagreement over the fuel situation, the Rockhoppers knuckle down to the tough business of attempting to work out what makes their weird faux moon transport tick before they run out of energy. As they approach Spica, the maybe-moon grows a funky new ceiling and, when it opens again, they discover a whole nother world.

Pushing Ice is a clever, interesting book that knows its literary roots. There are hints of classic A.C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama in the mysterious Janus object and suggestions of 2001 in some of the systems failures experienced by Rockhopper. The two main characters, Bella and Svieta, one time friends and later political rivals are convincingly drawn — they're almost mirror images of each other, one slightly more forgiving than the other, each equally certain of their own rectitude — and the way that Reynolds finally resolves their near insurmountable differences is strangely satisfying.