Tigana
I read the fantastic book Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay in the last week. It is one of the best standalone fantasy fiction books that I’ve read, an incredible work of tragic heroism. It explores themes of identity, memory, loss, redemption, and revolution/freedom.
The characters, even the smaller ones, are very well developed, with rich histories: you feel for each and one of the characters when reading the book. There are many characters — Alessan, Dianora, Baerd, Dianora, Sandre, Catriana, and many smaller but important ones, like Erlien and Rovigo — but despite this, you fall in love with each of these characters and identify with their struggles.
The world-building is incredible too: you get a strong sense of the politics, history, and even the music and the food and drink of the world!
Through my journey back from the US, when I was in pain and then tired and recovering from my kidney stone, Tigana kept me company, and made life bearable.
The Köln Concert
I hadn’t heard of the The Köln Concert by Keith Jarrett before, and I happened upon it last week. This is an exceptional album, and the back-story is even more interesting: a young concert organiser, a broken piano, and a musician who ended up making the largest selling piano album in a night of genius improvisation, of working with the instrument to create great music.
If Tigana made life bearable, The Köln Concert recording made life almost good!
The backstory of the concert — the video that introduced me to the album:
Slow Horses
I finished watching Season 1 of Slow Horses on Apple TV, the first TV show I’ve binged on and enjoyed in a long time. Gary Oldman is exceptional in this slow-burn, ironic spy thriller. Highly recommended!
Situational Awareness
I’m working through the excellent Situational Awareness piece by Aachenbrenner. It is a detailed document on what’s going to happen in Artificial Intelligence in the next 3-5 years, from one of the pioneers in the field. It goes beyond the technology revolution that is coming to also detail the challenges to national security and sovereignty from the tremendous growth of AI. This is an important read, and has shaped my thinking on AI growth; I’ll have more to share about it in the coming weeks.
Stay healthy, and till next week!