All gone soon............................

Just Finished Reading: The Captive Queen by Alison Weir

The small Kingdom of France in the year 1151. Queen Eleanor, late of Aquitaine is bored with her life in the North and with her less than attentive husband. She dreams of having a passionate lover and returning to her beloved southern homeland. Almost as if fated she meets Henry of Anjou, known as Henry Plantagenet and start a torrid affair. Scheming to be together Eleanor manufactures a divorce settlement with Louis of France and runs into the arms of Henry to become his wife and with their marriage creating a vast empire which expands further with Henry’s ascension to the English throne. But slowly, despite their continued passion for each other, Eleanor’s grip on power begins to recede as her husband reduces her role within what he regards as his domain. Even producing a series of children that will continue the Empire into the future – including two future Kings of England – fails to secure her position. As battle lines are drawn – both literally and metaphorically – the whole of Europe holds its breath awaiting the start of a drawn out and bloody civil war. Central to its outcome is the tempestuous relationship between two of the towering characters of the age: Henry II and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine.

After reading two of her previous novels – Innocent Traitor and The Lady Elizabeth – I was really looking forward to this one. I hardly know anything about Eleanor or about that historical period so hoped to get at least some insights into it before reading actual history books on the topic. I was however more than a little disappointed. I had heard that Eleanor was something special, a strong and forceful character that inspired women down the ages. She certainly came across as a woman who knew her own mind and as someone used to getting her own way even, which was still fairly unusual in that time, ruling over men who had, apparently, the greatest respect for her. Unfortunately she also came across as someone ruled by her passions and as someone who was ultimately impotent against the power of her husband who repeatedly overruled her, repeatedly impregnated her and for over a decade had her imprisoned for daring to question his authority! This was, I couldn’t help thinking, not exactly the feminist icon I was expecting. After reading about, and being very much impressed with, both Lady Jane Grey and the Lady Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth I) I’m afraid that Eleanor came across as a great letdown as far as strong women go. What made it worse for me, and made this novel somewhat of a slog, was that not a great deal happened to Eleanor. Much of the action in her life too place, as it where, off camera and she only heard about battles and deaths through letters delivered to her either at her own court or later under house arrest. Many of the great characters of the age – including her favourite son Richard who became know as Lionheart – came across either as petulant teenagers or two dimensional actors in someone else’s play. I honestly found most of this novel to be rather dull which came as somewhat of a disappointing surprise after enjoying her previous works so much. Maybe I simply looked forward to it too much or maybe I simply didn’t like Eleanor in the same way that I admired Jane or Elizabeth. Whatever it was it seriously diminished my enjoyment of this book.  

Cartoon Time.

My Favourite Movies: Fargo

Jerry Lundegaard (played by the always superb William H Macy) needs money badly. So badly that he hires two petty criminals (played by Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to ‘kidnap’ his wife so that he can pay them part of the ransom he plans to get from her rich father. What could possibly go wrong? Answer: Everything. Practically from the beginning things begin spiralling out of control – the criminals (who have only just met) develop a deep loathing for each other, the kidnapping is botched and almost immediately the police become involved as they follow a trail of dead bodies across the state. Headed up by Police Chief Marge Gunderson (played absolutely superbly by Frances McDormand) the investigation slowly but inexorably begins to focus in on Jerry’s activities which only make matters worse as he begins to panic.

From the very outset we are presented with a very different kind of film-noir or even neo-noir. Indeed because of the washed out colours against a predominantly white background the movie has, rather tongue in cheek, been called film-blanc. Between the sober music and the hostile weather we imagine that this will be a dark and forbidding movie. Of course in many ways it is – there’s plenty of violence, swearing, threats, a kidnap and plenty of blood all round. But at the same time this is a deeply comic film pointing the finger at the absurdity of the human condition all, as Marge comments later, for a bit of money. Marge is central to the whole film and McDormand deserved the many accolades she received for her portrayal of this down to earth, heavily pregnant and relentless police officer who appears to have seen everything and seems to view crime as deeply disappointing and the people who commit them as worthy of her pity more than anything else. She is obviously bemused by the criminal mind and can’t understand why some people go to great lengths – or great shortcuts – to get ‘things’ whilst outside is a beautiful day they singularly appear to be unable to appreciate.

The two petty criminals aren’t the only ones who can’t see how good they’ve got it. Jerry (played convincingly by Macy) is at the end of his tether after a deal goes wrong and can’t see any easy way out so fabricates a lie that quickly gets completely out of his control. Because of that at least 5-6 people die and his world collapses around him - again all for a little bit of money. Marge is very disappointed in him too, you betcha. Marge and her husband, who paints and dreams of having his artwork on a postage stamp, are deeply in love and very happy although in a subdued no fuss way. They don’t have to say much or do much because both of them know how good they’ve got it. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the cast who have no idea what they want but only know that they want more and they want it now! Beyond the tale of deceit and bungled crime this is the heart and soul of the movie. Be happy with simple things and don’t expect unearned money to bring you anything but trouble and lots of it. As my regular readers will know I’m a definite fan of the Coen brothers who produced, directed and wrote this film. It is certainly the best movie of theirs I’ve seen (I haven’t seen them all) and honestly one of my all time favourite films. It is a delicious black comedy about human folly and human greed which can still reduce me to howls of laughter after repeated viewings. If you haven’t seen this you’ve really missed out on something. I’d rectify that ASAP if I was you.

Cartoon Time.

Ignored Exoplanet May Be a Watery World

By Mark Brown for Wired

May 18, 2011

Gliese 581, a red dwarf star some 20 light years away in the constellation of Libra, continues to excite planet hunters despite a checkered and controversial history.

Gliese 581g, a habitable Earth-like exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf, thrilled astronomers when it was discovered in September 2010 as it was the most feasibly habitable exoplanet yet observed. But a few months later its entire existence was brought into question — no one has seen any significant signal from 581g since. It could have just been noise in the stellar wobbles of the faraway red dwarf. The mysterious 581g sat in the so-called Goldilocks zone, where it orbited at just the right distance from its roasting parent star that water, if it existed on the planet, would neither boil nor freeze. But now a group of French researchers, led by British scientist Robin Wordsworth, have taken another look at the data for 581d — another of the red dwarf’s planets — performing a comprehensive 3-D climate simulation on the planet. The simulation uses fundamental physical principles to look at a wide range of conditions, and account for any atmospheric cocktail of gases, clouds and aerosols.

To the team’s surprise, it believes that 581d would have a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, which would give the planet a stable and warm climate. In a press release, France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) concluded that 581d is likely warm enough to hold liquid water, in “oceans, clouds and rainfall”. Anyone who stood on the planet would probably see clear blue skies, like on Earth, also. Most planets’ thick atmospheres bounce the majority of sunlight back into space. On Earth, and potentially 581d, the Rayleigh scattering phenomenon lets more sunlight in, leading to blue skies and a warmer climate. But if humans ever did walk on 581d they’d still find a pretty bizarre planet with very un-Earthlike conditions. The dense air and thick clouds would drape the surface in a perpetually murky red twilight, and its hulking mass (at least 5.6 times that of Earth) means surface gravity would be double that of Earth’s. “The most important implication of these results,” a spokesperson for the Scientific Research center said in a press release, “may be the idea that life-supporting planets do not in fact need to be particularly like the Earth at all.”

[Of course for me the most exciting thing about this discovery is that 581g is only 20 Light Years away. I’m guessing that, given enough incentive, we could probably have probes capable of travelling that distance – maybe in 40 to 60 years – within a century or so. We could have a probe orbiting the planet – with a number of ground-based smart probes reporting back more detailed information – within 150 years (and the way technology advances I’m probably being very conservative here). It’s exciting stuff!]  

Just Finished Reading: Risk – A Very Short Introduction by Baruch Fischhoff and John Kadvany

Risk is a part of life. We take risks every time we cross the road, buy food or date on-line. We also perform ad hoc risk assessments throughout the day when we decide to overtake a slower vehicle or when we assess the freshness of the fish in our local supermarket. Many of us are tasked to make formal risk assessments at work on the small scale when we adjust our workstation chair or display screen or on a much larger scale when we initiate projects that can cost a great deal of money. Personally I deal with risk on a daily basis – though fortunately I’m not high enough up the food chain for it to be a huge issue. After years of experience in the job I can pretty much automatically list the risks to what we are planning to do, rank order them by likelihood or impact and draw up risk mitigation plans and contingency procedures if things go wrong – as they often do.

Being a rather busy person (at work anyway) I’ve never actually managed to have any formal risk training. One reason is that I’m not a huge fan of training which I usually find deadly boring. The other factor is, again at the bottom of the pool, such training is not normally considered to be hugely cost effective. We simply don’t play with that much money for it to have too much of an adverse impact if we fuck things up. But some time ago I noticed this book (inevitably whilst looking for other books in the series) and thought that it might be worth a read to see if I was doing anything hugely wrong – I didn’t think I was – or to see if I could improve things or at the very least understand the official basis of what I was doing anyway.

As it was a bit more out of my comfort zone than I’m used to I did find this book a little difficult to get into. I think that was clearly my fault as the authors clearly set out exactly what they were talking about and had some pretty good examples of the kinds of things that needed to be taken into consideration. Inevitably they bandied about terms I’d never come across before to explain things I had either picked up along the way or had explained to me quite differently. Once I got the hang of things however it all made sense. I don’t think that I learnt a great deal from this slim volume but it was nice to actually have a formal foundation and a deeper understanding to risk, risk assessment, risk perception and risk communication. I certainly found the whole thing generally more interesting than I thought I would. If you deal with risks over and above the sorts of things we all deal with on a daily basis or even if you want to understand how risk affects us all on every level you could do worse than work you way through these 150 pages.  

Cartoon Time.

Winter is coming...... or at least snow.......(finally).

OK, I understand about Bella... but the sandwich...?

Just Finished Reading: Heretic by Bernard Cornwell

France in the year 1347.With the fall of the port of Calais the English now have a secure base of operations to prosecute their war. As the city is fortified against predicted attempts to retake it Thomas of Hookton is tasked by his liege lord to travel to Gascony to look for the Holy Grail. Taking a group of archers and men-at-arms with him he begins a process of raiding in the hope of bringing his cousin Guy Vexille out of hiding and within striking distance of his longbow. Needing a secure base of operations Thomas and his men take a small fortified town as their own. In its jail, awaiting execution by burning in the morning is a heretic woman accused of many things including witchcraft. Dismissing the charges and smitten by her ethereal beauty Thomas lets her free much to the annoyance of the townsfolk and several of his own men. But dissent within his troops are the least of Thomas’s problems. News of his actions in Gascony have reached the ears of the authorities – both temporal and ecclesiastical – and their forces are gathering against his small band. Meanwhile in the East and in the ports of the Mediterranean a strange sickness that kills without note of rank, age or sex is growing and could be the end of everything than man has built in his hubris.

Until the publication of his latest novel this was the last book in Cornwell’s Grail Quest trilogy which followed Thomas of Hookton’s journey from obscurity, through the Battle of Crecy and deeper still into the opening conflict that would become known as the Hundred Years War. Heretic would have been a fitting end to the series but now, I’m guessing, we’ll find out more about Thomas and his adventures against the French. As with all of Cornwell’s heroes Thomas is a misfit everywhere he goes. Although his family – or at least part of it – is highborn Thomas is far happier with the common men of his command. At the same time, because of his education, he can hold his own with the knights and lords he, through necessity, must serve with or serve under. Cynical of both church and state he is his own man with his own sense of personal honour and his own code of ethics he lives by. A consummate warrior he leads by example though constantly worries that he isn’t good enough to complete his mission or keep the men in his charge alive. Obviously Thomas can be compared to Cornwell’s great hero character Richard Sharpe and at first I thought that Thomas was just Sharpe transported 500 years into his past. Not so. Both Sharpe and Thomas are products of their time. Although they have much in common they are still very much their own men. After being gripped by Thomas’s tale in France I look forward to following him wherever he goes next. Recommended.  

[This is the first book in a series of 10 based in the Middle Ages. As with most of these things that period is fairly arbitrary and can vary from country to country. For the sake of convenience I’ve picked the English definition which is AD476 – 1485. Having basically a thousand years to work with should give me plenty of latitude. I’ll see what I can do with that!]  

Cartoon Time.

Sales of printed books slump in 2012

From The BBC

4 January 2013

Sales of printed books fell by almost £74m in the UK last year, according to data from Nielsen BookScan. In total, readers spent £1.514bn on physical books in 2012, down 4.6% from 2011. The rate of decline slowed slightly, principally because of E L James' Fifty Shades trilogy, which accounted for one in every 20 books bought last year. E-books continued to be popular, accounting for 13-14% of book sales. That marked an increase of about 5% from 2011, but the value of the entire book market shrank because of heavy discounting of digital titles - with many bestsellers retailing for less than a pound.

Data collected on the sales of physical books records around 90-95% of all consumer sales in the UK, but is less robust for the e-book market. However, Philip Stone from Bookseller said figures from Nielsen/Kantar show: "In essence, people are buying more books but they are paying less for them." The second half of 2012 was stronger for physical book sales, as blockbuster titles from authors including J K Rowling and Jamie Oliver hit the shelves for Christmas. In the 26 weeks to 30 June, sales were down by £51m year-on-year to £624m. Between July and December, sales were down £23m to £889m. It was only in July and December that print sales were up compared with 2011, in part due to the success of James' erotic series and the Christmas trade. The Fifty Shades trilogy is about a steamy romance between entrepreneur Christian Grey and literature student Anastasia Steele. It sold a combined 10.6m copies in print in the UK last year, making £47.3m.

The tally beat J K Rowling's record of £42.6m from 2007, the year when the final Harry Potter novel was released. The first book in the series, Fifty Shades of Grey, is now the best-selling novel of all time in the UK.

[Well, I can’t very well do it all on my own – despite trying hard! Apparently the average person in the UK reads 3 books a year. I regularly exceed 70 so I’m definitely doing my bit! But it does say a great deal about the average reader that 50 Shades is the best selling book ever. I do know lots of people who have read it/them (not me I hasten to add) but the overall comments have been generally very negative – but I guess it still counts as a sale. I suppose that if the worst happens and book sales fall so far that they’re no longer published in any great quantity I can take heart in the fact that at home I’ve got enough to keep me reading for the next 10-15 years. So no matter what happens you’ll still see me with a book in my hand whenever I have 5 or more free minutes.]

Before you buy.......

Make sure that they're real.......

Just Finished Reading: Witness to Myself by Seymour Shubin

Fifteen years ago, teenager Alan Benning had a moment of madness and did something he never thought himself capable of. So horrified and shocked by the event he buried it deep in his mind and hoped that he would never have to relive that terrible afternoon. Now a successful lawyer with the best years of his life ahead of him he is confronted with his crime when a body of a young girl is found near where his parents holidayed all those years ago. When a suspect is found and a national outcry builds Alan finds himself wondering if he actually did commit the crime or whether he imagined the whole thing. Determined to uncover the truth of his own childhood his sanity begins to unravel as he starts to question everything about himself he once took for granted. At the heart of it all is a chance meeting on a beach and a young life snuffed out.

This was quite a strange detective novel where the perpetrator of the crime and the primary investigator where one and the same person. Benning was a seriously messed up individual who had problems separating fantasy from reality and spent most of the novel being paranoid (not helped by the fact that some people were actually out to get him). He was also an unreliable narrator – one of my most disliked formats – which irritated me quite a bit as his memories of events – granted 15 years previously – didn’t quite tally with actual events. Overall the psychological aspects of the novel where quite well handled and the plot became increasing claustrophobic which I think is what the author was going for. None of the characters appealed to be much so I didn’t really care what happened to them which made reading a bit of a slog. Reasonable.  

Cartoon Time.

My Favourite Movies: Equilibrium

I watched this movie for at least the 5^th time over the Christmas break but still remained in two minds whether I should add it to my favourite movies list. After weighing the pros and cons I decided (just) that it made the grade.

The story is a familiar one. In the 21^st century, after a devastating nuclear war, the survivors decide that humanity cannot afford to fight a 4^th World War so outlaw what they see as the underlying cause of all conflict – strong emotion. To do this each and every citizen needs to take a drug (Prozium) every day to suppress the emotions. Also everything that is designed to provoke a strong emotional response – music, art, literature – is marked for destruction. Those who refuse to take their meds or deliberately ‘use’ art or music are labelled sense offenders and are hunted down by clerics of the New Order. As with any oppressive state there is inevitably a resistance and, equally inevitably, a desire to see it destroyed. Enter the states greatest weapon – Cleric John Preston (played by Christian Bale) – who dedicates his life to finding banned items and eliminating sense offenders. But there is a wrinkle – when he accidentally misses his daily drug dose he starts to feel emotions and slowly comes to realise that the society he is fighting for is hugely mistaken in its approach. He becomes appalled at what he is called on to do and resolves that rather than destroy the resistance he will become its greatest champion. But of course it’s never going to be that simple……

This was one of those films I liked in parts rather than for the whole. Despite the fact that it was highly derivative – in particular referencing 1984, Brave New World and The Matrix – it still maintained a nice ‘feel’ throughout most of its 107 minutes. Bale was reasonably well cast as the largely emotionless Preston as he wasn’t required to emote that much or that often (never one of his strong points in anything I’ve seen him in). The script was reasonable and reasonably convoluted to keep my attention and it introduced the intriguing idea of the gun kata – a sort of firearm martial art using science to predict the maximum kill and minimal possibility of being hit by an opponent’s weapon. On the face of it a great idea but likely to be total fantasy – it did produce some great fight scenes however where Preston killed multiple enemies on multiple occasions without it feeling too silly (though they pushed the envelope quite a bit).

As to the things I didn’t like about it I probably have just as many reasons why I liked it. After watching it many times I still find the story disjointed, poorly scripted in places or actually badly edited. To me some scenes seemed out of sequence and more than a little confusing and I don’t think it was just me getting lost in the plot – I didn’t think it was that difficult to follow to be honest. Some of the acting was pretty dire especially Preston’s nemesis Brandt (played by Taye Diggs). For someone supposedly on Prozium he sure did emote a lot! I also thought that the ending was particularly poor with the resistance raising up at the last moment and overwhelming the bad guys (I’m not giving very much away here honest!). It seemed to me that their actions pretty much made anything Preston did moot to say the least.

So overall the film was, in my opinion, rather finely balanced between being yet another botched attempt at a futuristic dystopia and a creditable tale of resistance and rebellion. It is most certainly not a classic of its type but it does bring in some interesting new ideas and some new angles on some very old ones. I think it’s worth seeing at least once when you have a spare 107 minutes and are wondering what to do with them. You could do a lot worse believe me!    

Cartoon Time.

It's looking like this won't be needed this year..... so far.....[crosses fingers]

Extreme Life Forms Might be Able to Survive on Eccentric Exoplanets

From NASA

Sept. 11, 2012

Astronomers have discovered a veritable rogues' gallery of odd exoplanets -- from scorching hot worlds with molten surfaces to frigid ice balls. And while the hunt continues for the elusive "blue dot" -- a planet with roughly the same characteristics as Earth -- new research reveals that life might actually be able to survive on some of the many exoplanetary oddballs that exist.

"When we're talking about a habitable planet, we're talking about a world where liquid water can exist," said Stephen Kane, a scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "A planet needs to be the right distance from its star -- not too hot and not too cold." Determined by the size and heat of the star, this temperature range is commonly referred to as the "habitable zone" around a star.

Kane and fellow Exoplanet Science Institute scientist Dawn Gelino have created a resource called the “Habitable Zone Gallery.” It calculates the size and distance of the habitable zone for each exoplanetary system that has been discovered and shows which exoplanets orbit in this so-called “goldilocks” zone. But not all exoplanets have Earth-like orbits that remain at a fairly constant distance from their stars. One of the unexpected revelations of planet hunting has been that many planets travel in very oblong, eccentric orbits that vary greatly in distance from their stars.

"Planets like these may spend some, but not all of their time in the habitable zone," Kane said. "You might have a world that heats up for brief periods in between long, cold winters, or you might have brief spikes of very hot conditions."

Though planets like these would be very different from Earth, this might not preclude them from being able to support alien life. "Scientists have found microscopic life forms on Earth that can survive all kinds of extreme conditions," Kane said. "Some organisms can basically drop their metabolism to zero to survive very long-lasting, cold conditions. We know that others can withstand very extreme heat conditions if they have a protective layer of rock or water. There have even been studies performed on Earth-based spores, bacteria and lichens, which show they can survive in both harsh environments on Earth and the extreme conditions of space."

Kane and Gelino's research suggests that habitable zone around stars might be larger than once thought, and that planets that might be hostile to human life might be the perfect place for extremophiles, like lichens and bacteria, to survive. "Life evolved on Earth at a very early stage in the planet's development, under conditions much harsher than they are today," Kane said.

Kane explained that many life-harboring worlds might not be planets at all, but rather moons of larger, gas-giant planets like Jupiter in our own solar system. "There are lots of giant planets out there, and all of them may have moons, if they are like the giant planets in the solar system," Kane says. "A moon of a planet that is in or spends time in a habitable zone can be habitable itself."

As an example, Kane mentioned Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, which, despite its thick atmosphere, is far too distant from the sun and too cold for life as we know it to exist on its surface. "If you moved Titan closer in to the sun, it would have lots of water vapor and very favorable conditions for life."

Kane is quick to point out that there are limits to what scientists can presently determine about habitability on already-discovered exoplanets. "It's difficult to really know about a planet when you don't have any knowledge about its atmosphere," he said. For example, both Earth and Venus experience an atmospheric "greenhouse effect" -- but the runaway effect on Venus makes it the hottest place in the solar system. "Without analogues in our own solar system, it's difficult to know precisely what a habitable moon or eccentric planet orbit would look like." Still, the research suggests that habitability might exist in many forms in the galaxy -- not just on planets that look like our own. Kane and Gelino are hard at work determining which already-discovered exoplanets might be candidates for extremophile life or habitable moons. "There are lots of eccentric and gas giant planet discoveries," Kane says. "We may find some surprises out there as we start to determine exactly what we consider habitable."

[Of course that’s the core of the issue – what exactly is ‘habitable’? We have been surprised time and again when we find life not just struggling to hang on but actively thriving in environments most people would think are hostile to life. Although life – and certainly life as we know it – is far more likely in the goldilocks zone we should dismiss any environment that isn’t so lucky. I’m sure that once we get our probes further out we’ll find very ‘exotic’ life-forms indeed. We should be prepared to be surprised.]

Just Finished Reading: Echo City by Tim Lebbon

The history of the City goes back countless generations to before the war that devastated the rest of the world leaving it the last refuge for humanity. Surrounded by a toxic bone strewn wilderness reputed to the home of demons it is the only safe place left – although safety is definitely a term open to interpretation. Living proof of this is rebel and exile Peer Nadawa – tortured by the ruling elite and banished to a walled off section of the city she fully expects to live out the rest of her no doubt short life away from everything and everyone she loves. Until that is she sees something that at first seems completely unbelievable, something which goes against everything she believes and everything she has been taught – a human figure walking towards the city from the desert, a place supposedly deadly to all life. Hiding him from the authorities who would have him executed for undermining the cities belief structure Peer needs to get the stranger to the organisation who abandoned her to the rulers of the city and who stood by as she was exiled. For only they still have the contacts which will uncover the mystery of who this man is and just exactly where he came from. Meanwhile miles below even the most ancient of the cities foundations something monstrous stirs, a creature created in the very earliest years, a creature abandoned and left for dead, a creature who seeks revenge against those who created it and left it to rot in the dark depths, a creature capable of finally destroying the city itself.

This is another of those books I pick up ‘on spec’ because they look different and interesting. I don’t read much Fantasy (as you can tell from the labels over on the Right) and don’t, generally speaking, have a high opinion of it. Oddly, to my mind at least, it’s just too fantastic too often to not set of my sceptic alarm and ruin the suspension of disbelief so important to much of the fiction I choose to read. Bit I thought I’d give this a chance and I’m very glad indeed that I did because it turned out to be one of my top 5 books of 2012. It is indeed one of the best Fantasy books I have ever read and has almost single-handedly raised my appreciation of the entire genre to a whole new level. This was a complex, detailed and unapologetically adult Fantasy tale full of darkness – both metaphorical and real – and danger where characters are driven by fear as much by love and greed as much by duty. All of the characters (both the main 6-8 and the supporting cast of a further 15-20) are deeply intricate with individual histories that drive them in certain directions and are fully internally consistent. If these people actually existed I would not be in the least bit surprised – they were (and are) as far as I am concerned real people. The story itself is quite simply fascinating. The world that Lebbon creates is rich and is literally multi-layered with the existing city being built on the foundations of previous cities – called Echoes – going back (as they go down) generation after generation. The city feels as real as the characters that inhabit it and is practically a character in itself again with literally hidden depths (it is on that level alone a deeply psychological novel overflowing with metaphor). Full of surprises, delights and a fair few stomach churning moments this is not a novel for the faint of heart. Certainly don’t expect a light, fluffy or comfortable Fantasy that seems to be the flavour of the month these days. If this ever gets made into a movie – if such a thing is even possible – I’m guessing that it would need to be an 18 certificate to do it full justice. It’s not just the casual death and the frequent gore that would ensure such a certification but because of its genuine disturbing nature. Gripping, moving and disconcerting in equal measure this novel blew me away as few indeed have managed in my 40 years of reading. Quite superb and, not surprisingly, very highly recommended. I shall be sampling Mr Lebbon again I assure you. 

Cartoon Time.

The Best Books of 2012

I reviewed 73 books in 2012. Here’s the best of them:

Fiction:

Fairlyland – Paul J McAuley

Accelerando – Charles Stross

Sharpe’s Fortress – Bernard Cornwell

Master of Rome – John Stack

Set in Stone – Robert Goddard

The Lady Elizabeth – Alison Weir

Sharpe’s Prey – Bernard Cornwell

The Ten Thousand – Paul Kearney

[Honourable Mention: The Odin Mission – James Holland]

A good mixture I thought of SF, Fantasy and Historical novels. I’m not entirely sure what 2013 will bring so we’ll see how it goes. I think that the mix will probably remain fairly consistent with Historical dominating again.

Non-Fiction:

The Secret Life of Bletchley Park – Sinclair McKay

How to Survive the Titanic – Frances Wilson

A Brief History of The Celts – Peter Beresford

A Brief History of Fighting Ships – David Davies

A Brief History of Britain (1066-1485) – Nicolas Vincent

The Rebel Raiders – James Tertius deKay

Your Inner Fish – Neil Shubin

The Battle of Hastings – Harriet Harvey Wood

The Incredible Human Journey – Alice Roberts

The Sea King – Gary McKay

A Brief History of The Wars of The Roses – Desmond Seward

Nearly all History, as I expected, but with a few notable Science books too which I’m pleased by. More Science and a little less overall dominance by History in 2013 I think (probably). 

Happy New Year!

I hope that 2013 brings you a little of what you want and a little of what you need.