List: christmas

Light reading. Bob has to deal with Christmas terrors from beyond. Very Charly, Much Stross, Q'thulhu.

Hogfather is not quite peak Pratchett, but it's getting there. And, of course, even so it is better than most genre fiction by a margin. Hogfather beats you over the head with uncomfortable truths, while also having you giggle at Death trying to be jolly Father Christmas, because the cosmic bureaucrats sent out assassins against him. This is a slight problem because Hogfather is responsible for making the sun rise, naturally.

This story has potential, but rationalists and their aversion to humour ruins it. The Last Christmas is a fun premise, but way too short to build it up properly, and so it ends up all over the place. Still: It's short, and a nice read, so if you want to see how an engineer deals with suddenly being Santa, go check it out.

I find Gaarder grating when he's preaching about philosophy, I find him unbearable when he starts on religion. It doesn't help that every of his book has this "teenager stumbles on mysterious story, lets said story happily preach at him". I didn't enjoy the whole time travel thing either, and it didn't even put me in a Christmas mood.