Book: Aurora, Kim Stanley Robinson

I've always maintained that there is Science Fiction and there is Science Fiction. Aurora can be firmly placed in the more genuine of the two buckets, appealing not to popular sentiment or in anticipation of a TV deal but setting out to tell a hard story (with hard science) answering hard human questions.

It's this "rough around the edges" feel that makes the book so great - that's not to say it is of low quality, since however abrupt the prose seems the plot, characterisation and narrative are all as polished as it gets. Indeed the real genius in the book is being both authentic while keeping its depth accessible.

Perhaps a bit over long, the story remains gripping throughout. I'm left hopeful that modern robust Science Fiction can be a thing, even if it remains rare. Recommended.

Umrah 2026

I was going to full tilt rant about how each trip to the two holy cities is less pleasant than the last, about how there are too many Muslims there now, and how the whole thing feels like a Disneyland resort what with all the selfies and content being generated.

Except that it turns out I had exactly the same thoughts the last time we visited, down to the Disneyland quip. So much for originality then, but at least the consistency in my feelings lends some robustness to them.

New this trip was us flying Wizz Air, a budget airline. This isn't my first taste of a cheap flight to Saudi - last time I flew there via Pegasus and that long haul flight destroyed me even with the stop in the middle, so the thought of a long haul 6 hour flight was a little scary. Turns out that it's not too bad - the return leg from Madinah was worse than the trip going out but we'd probably do it again in order to keep to a budget - it may even lend itself to a new model where we go for an even shorter amount of time to a single city and instead include a day trip to the other.

Otherwise the trajectory is the same: more people, more problems and more changes. Of note: all of my post-Umrah tawafs were done in outdoor footwear which was a bit of a sad indictment. To the credit of the Saudi authorities they seem to be doing okay managing the crowds, but until they do something extreme like banning smartphones I can't see any kind of reversal in the lack of etiquette shown by the great unwashed.