A little Sunday reading: "Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store," one of several wonderful short stories by San Francisco writer Robin Sloan. It's sort of like magical realism for techies:
Back at Supply and Demand. The air is crackling with wi-fi; Kat and I are having the only spoken conversation in the entire place.
She's wearing the same red-and-yellow "BAM!" t-shirt as yesterday, which means a) she slept in it, b) she owns several identical t-shirts, or c) she's a cartoon character--all of which are appealing alternatives.
I don't want to come out and confess that I work at the official book store of the da Vinci Code, but I do want her mega-brain applied to this problem. So I just play the visualization.
"You made this last night?" she says. "Impressive."
We watch the lights curl around each other. We watch again. And again.
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Thanks for the link - that was engrossing.
Posted by: Bob O'H | March 21, 2010 10:03 AM
Thanks for posting this. I love books and stories about books, and this one's a keeper.
Posted by: Martin | March 21, 2010 11:31 AM
You can also listen to an audio version of it here: http://escapepod.org/2009/09/10/ep215-mr-penumbras-twenty-four-hour-book-store/
Posted by: MacBean | March 21, 2010 3:14 PM