that no one can hear the whispers
they’ve lit the world so bright
that no one can see in the dark
they’ve told so many lies
that no one knows the truth now
they’ve ruined all of nature
and told us to play in the park
Belladonna Nights — Alastair Reynolds
You can find this in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories
Sadly, i lost the review of this book when my old website died. But rest assured it’s great, as is the rest of the trilogy.
Alastair’s Page
#scifi #alastairreynolds
House of Suns — Alastair Reynolds
This follows Thousandth Night and is before Belladonna Nights in the trilogy.
One word: genius.
This book is superb from beginning to end, and it also leaves it open for a good follow on at some time in the future if Alastair feels like continuing the series at some point. I certainly hope he does.
Not only does this book demonstrate Alastair’s knowledge as a physicist, but it also demonstrates his incredible imagination and writing skills.
If you want a taster of Alastair at his best and you don’t want to go through all of Revelation Space just yet, then i suggest reading the House of Suns trilogy, sci-fi fans won’t be disappointed.
Alastair’s Page
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Thousandth Night — Alastair Reynolds
Originally published in One Million A.D., and also available in the collection, Beyond the Aquila Rift.
It soooo good to be back from all that multi-universe nonsense and into some real sci-fi from Alastair once again.
This story is superb. Essentially, it’s fracture yourself into one thousand clones, known collectively as a “line”, and send them off on a trip around the galaxy to see what they can discover. At the end of the trip all the clones meet up a pre-determined place and time and download each other’s holiday journal, known as a “thread”, into their own minds. Whoever is determined the best thread gets to decide on the location and setting of the next reunion after the next trip around the galaxy.
There’s quite a few rules and a fair bit of etiquette to all this to keep things interesting and sensible, but when some people don’t appear to be playing by the rules and conforming to the etiquette, others start to have suspicions.
I really like the idea of this and if you do too you’ll be happy to know that House of Suns is next in the trilogy with Belladonna Nights straight afterwards, so there’s plenty more still to come.
Alastair’s Page
#scifi #alastairreynolds
Return to Pleasure Island — Cory Doctorow
Available in the collection, A Place So Foreign and Eight More.
This story is a bit hit and miss for me. A lot more miss than hit. A bit of background and context might have made things a lot better.
After i finished reading it, i discovered that, apparently, it’s a Pinocchio spin off. Which is a bit late to find out. And maybe that’s the background and context that is utterly absent from this story. If a writer is going to use another book as background and context to a story then it might be a really, really good idea to at least mention in a fore-word to the story.
I’ve never read Pinocchio, so maybe i’ll go and read it sometime and then give this
Cory’s Page
#corydoctorow
Craphound — Cory Doctorow
Available in the collection, A Place So Foreign and Eight More.
Cory’s first story from way back in 1998. Definitely a story for those of us who love thrift shops, junk shops, auctions, yard sales, charity shops, etc.. The extees remind me of the groks who come to Devon on holiday and deplete all our wonderful charity shops, only difference between extees and groks is that extees actually bring something decent to the table whereas groks only bring their rubbish, noise and pollution. Groks don’t follow the craphound code.
Cory’s Page
#corydoctorow
The Sledge-Maker’s Daughter — Alastair Reynolds
Available in the collections, Beyond the Aquila Rift and Deep Navigation.
Another one i lost the review of when my old website crashed. I seem to remember it being quite good.
Alastair’s Page
#scifi #alastairreynolds
The Fixation — Alastair Reynolds
You’ll find this in Deep Navigation.
Yet another one of Alastair’s parallel universe, ridicilous nonsense stories. Utter rubbish, to put it mildly.
I live in hope that he will soon get over this bizarre phase in his bibliography. Next up in the timeline is The Sledge-Maker’s Daughter, and i think i’ll throw my Kindle across the room if there’s even a hint on one single parallel universe, let alone an infinite number of them.
Alastair’s Page
#scifi #alastairreynolds
The Six Directions of Space — Alastair Reynolds
Originally published in Galactic Empires
More of that parallel universe nonsense that Alastair is obviously having a thing for during this period of his writing: 2006/2007. Fingers crossed it should be over soon and we can get back to some proper good sci-fi.
The next story from Alastair’s timeline will be The Fixation.
Alastair’s Page
#scifi #alastairreynolds
Gourmet Rhapsody — Muriel Barbery
Although translated one year after The Elegance of the Hedgehog, this is actually Muriel’s first book and was published in French 6 years before. And that’s why i read it first.
I’m in two frames of mind about this book, my first one is that it’s an incredibly well written descriptive narrative that i thoroughly enjoyed, especially being a life long foody myself, to the point i found myself happily picking it up at every spare minute to read some more. However, my other frame of mind comes from my utter contempt for people who look at food as a medium for art when the best part of i billion people don’t get enough calories every day while many many more get absolutely no choice what to eat and very rarely have access to a full range of essential nutrients. At the same time, over 1 billion other people in the privileged developed world gorge themselves on highly processed foods to an obesity epidemic (creating an obscene amount of waste while doing so). A system of food preparation, presentation, advertising and marketing that caters for nothing but a ridiculous conception of what good food is. This system being pushed wholesale through advertising and television cookery programs: Master Chef being a prime example.
Good food is as it comes from the ground with the most minimal processing, just enough processing to maximise the digestion of the nutrients, and each meal should aim to be completely nutritionally balanced. Instead we have these so called master chefs, critics and their sycophants parading food on television that bears no resemblance to reality, is nutritionally corrupt in the extreme and does nothing but titillate people’s mouths and give them a spike of neurotransmitters that they fallaciously perceive as delicious while fuelling a pandemic of obesity and chronic diseases, causing years of suffering before sending them all to an early grave.
So yeah, i loved the writing and enjoyed reading it, but i really hated the main protagonist’s attitude to food, life and everything: the only thing he didn’t treat with utter contempt was his own gluttony and i was quite pleased when he died without the choux pastry he wanted so much.
Anyways, i’m certainly looking forward to reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog.
Muriel’s Page
#murielbarbery
Tiger, Burning — Alastair Reynolds
You’ll find this in Deep Navigation.
It seems that someone’s been leaking top secret information from a top secret facility in a different reality and a detective is sent to investigate. The only problem being that the only way to get there is to have his consciousness uploaded and sent by signal and then put into a new body at the other end: exactly like in Altered Carbon. But for some reason the detective finds himself re-sleeved into a bit cat’s body: hence the title Tiger, Burning.
Really good, Alastair at his best, as usual.
Next up in Alastair’s timeline will be Signal to Noise, from 2006.
Alastair’s Page
#scifi #alastairreynolds
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