📙 Part 2: Describe a book that you have read many times

This episode's vocabulary

To tire (verb) - to begin to feel as if you have no energy and want to rest or go to sleep, or to make someone feel this way.

Series (noun) - a number of similar or related events or things, one following another.

Hard/soft science fiction (noun) - hard sci-fi deals with sciences such as math, physics, computer science, engineering, and chemistry.

To feature (verb) - to include someone or something as an important part.

Cast (noun) - the actors in a film, play, or show.

Doorstopper (noun) - a large book, which by implication could be used to stop a door.

To dip into something (phrasal verb) - to read small parts of a book or magazine.

Overrun (verb) - to continue past an intended limit, especially a finishing time or a cost.

Unhinged (adj.) - mentally ill.

Goody-two-shoes (adj.) - someone who is too ready to behave in a way intended to please people in authority.

Members of the landed gentry - those who own a lot of land.

To glaze over (phrasal verb) - if your eyes glaze or glaze over, they stay still and stop showing any emotion because you are bored or tired or have stopped listening.

To gloss over something (phrasal verb) - to avoid considering something, such as an embarrassing mistake, to make it seem not important, and to quickly continue talking about something else.

Questions and Answers

R: I used to never tire of reading the Knights Dawn trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton, especially the first book of the series, which is called The Reality Dysfunction. It's a mix of very hard and soft science fiction and features a huge cast of characters from very different backgrounds. It must have taken ages for him to write. In more detail, it's set about, what, 500 years into the future when humans are exploring and colonizing space, but taking all of their emotional and psychological baggage with them, despite access to this amazing technology. On one isolated planet, a chance encounter with an alien starts a kind of plague which brings the dead back to life by granting them control over the bodies of living people. And the reality of dysfunction details the initial stages of this outbreak and how people react to it. As you might guess from what I've just said, they don't react to it very well. I think I used to read it at least once a year until I went to Russia because the book itself is so massive. It really wouldn't be a good idea to take it in my luggage. It's like well over 1000 pages. So it's an absolute doorstopper, and that would take up precious space and parts of the weight allowance. But now I'm back home, I still dip into it occasionally because some parts of it are amazing like the escape from a doomed planet absolutely overrun with all these completely unhinged dead monsters that can manipulate reality. I also like how it features living starships with their own personalities, which adds an interesting aspect to the characters. And like I said, the human cost is already very diverse, ranging from the survivors of genocide to like two goody-two-shoes ladies from a noble family on a planet, which has got this really primitive system of government with the landed gentry. Every time I read it, I find something new to enjoy, because it's so long, you could easily glaze over or gloss over things and when you come back to it, you find them. If I hadn't read this book, I doubt I'd have developed my grasp of science fiction conventions as much as I have. And I wouldn't have tried my hand at writing stories in the way I do. So I'm glad I picked it. And I'm glad it picked up. And I always recommend it to other people when I can.

M: What about your friends? Do they enjoy this book?

R: I don't think any of them have read it. We all have very different reading tastes.

M: Thank you, Rory, for your story!

R: No worries.