I imagine there are quite a few people on the list who like Vernor Vinge's books. He's one of my favourite writers, and A FIRE UPON THE DEEP (1992) and A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY (1999), his last two novels, are excellent. His new one, just out in the last week or so, is RAINBOWS END, and I recommend it to anyone here. It's shorter than the other two, and set in the near future, in the same place as his recent short story "Fast Times at Fairmont High." A library and a digitization project are at the centre of it, and those are always fun to read about. Beyond that, though, there's much to think about relating to our field: if the future is like what Vinge describes, what the hell will we be doing? What will our roles be? What is librarianship in a world just on the verge of the technological singularity? Read the book and try to imagine what code4lib will be like in twenty or thirty years. Bill -- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : www.miskatonic.org : www.frbr.org