Abolition… Origin… Perdido Street

Reading for me is a kind of infinite chain of associations, or I suppose tree, as it keeps bifurcating and branching off in many directions. A regular where I tend bar lent me a copy of a book he had just reread. The Abolition of Species is a recent work of German SF by Dietmar Dath. Our regular, Jon, is never without a book or Kindle. Working in a bar without a television is nice. People actually carry on intelligent conversations (and some stupid ones). When Jon lent me the book, he said “no hurry.”

I’m not a slow reader, and it’s not that I get distracted, but I do get drawn along multiple paths at once. “The Abolition of Species,” I thought … an obvious riff on Darwin’s Origin of Species, which I immediately started reading. And the initial descriptions of creatures, some recognizable and some not quite reminded me strongly of Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Now I want to revisit that. And I’m only twenty pages into Dath’s novel.

This could take a while. Apologies in advance to Jon.

• The Abolition of Species* by Dietmar Dath
  
• On the Origin of Species: The Illustrated Edition* by Charles Darwin
  
• Perdido Street Station* by China Mieville