And she who danced upon the darkness, breaks and thrashes on the floor. Throwing fits of rage and fury, torn and sundered to the core. Blistered through and through with wonder, blasted from the roles of fate. Ripped and wretched for a moment, crushed with woe upon the gate. No paraiah is more vanquished, than who buck the will of time. Seeking but to make a difference, though ’tis an eternal crime.

After three years of having our summers trumped by Jen pursuing her Masters degree, we decided to take a crazily overboard vacation to make up for it. As it happened, Hawaii won the coin toss, and Maui seemed a good start. We ended up tweaking our travel times just right and got a deal, so from June 14th to the 20th, the continental United States could no longer taint us with its relative banality.

And so, I’ve fallen off the planet once again. It’s not exactly like nothing has been going on, It’s just that my unparalleled boringness was eclipsed by my aggressive laziness. My vacation in Hawaii—which I returned from a month ago—still remains woefully unchronicled. Instead, my precious hours have been consumed by gambling and collecting bellybutton lint. Except for a few minor items . . . For one, my eternal tenure at Leapfrog Online has been trumped by an apprehensive incumbency with Peak6 OptionsHouse.

I’ve finally gotten The Windup Girl off my to-read list, and having finished it, I’ll have to watch Paolo Bacigalupi for future novels. The Windup Girl is something different than I’ve ever encountered. It’s part wild cataclysm, part dystopia, part social commentary, and all action. I’m not kidding on the last, either. Whether it’s Hock Seng shrewdly planning the rebirth of his financial empire, Anderson Lake pursuing an elusive new fruit on the behalf of shady agricultural megacorporations, Jaidee’s crusade against the corrupt Trade cartel that aims to hijack Thailand’s sovereignty for financial gain, or Emiko’s constant struggle against her lot as a Windup, something is always moving.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Peter F. Hamilton, even after the gigantic deus ex machina he used to conclude his Night’s Dawn trilogy. His writing is so compelling—to me, at least—that I can forgive that kind of transgression because the story itself is so interesting. And now with the second entry in his Void trilogy, The Temporal Void, I find another great novel that feels too short, despite its ponderous length.