It's first glimmer was spawned when one day, as I was working very hard in the library, I cast mine eyes across the shelves where the SciFi and Fantasy collection was ghettoised. Letting out an uncharacteristic big dramatic sigh I lamented that there were so many authors in the genres whose works one had not tried.
One was, however, struck down by the big dilemma of where was one to start when there were so many authors clamouring to be sampled. After a few months ruminating on the problem it developed into the idea of starting with Authors beginning with A and grabbing the first unread author on the shelf and then when ready to progress to the next letter head to the relevant shelf at whichever branch I happened to find myself solving the perennial problems of libraryland that day and following the process at the Bs.
Given one's reading speed - and the desire to read one's favourites new releases along the way - the endeavour calculated out to something in the nature of 3 or 4 years.
Anyway, it was one day about a month back when one was into the second or third hour of settling Hulk that one's mind wandered from the task at hand and too in the contents of the nearby bookshelf. Said bookshelf was festooned with many a volume brought home from the library once discarded as no longer required. It was amongst those volumes that I espied the nigh perfect tome to begin this great undertaking - it could only have been more fitting had Aaron A Aardvark stepped off the pages of Judge Dredd to write the great Mega-Cityan novel.
The Last Legends of Earth by A A Attanasio
At first I thought there may have been just cause for the librarians to remove this novel from the shelves. However somewhere between fifty and a hundred pages in it began to really grow on me until I was immersed.
It is a SciFi but of such high tech that it is effectively magic however the time-travel and tech is all framed with an eye to physics.
In the end quite enjoyable and awarded a 3.5 out of 5.
Now I believe I have my B lined up already but I may be back to canvass the crowds opinion for my C - in about 6 months.
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