Our world faces Trump, global warming, the pandemic, and a host of other disruptive game-changers. Heather Murata’s novella ‘Koraalen: Planetary Symbiosis’ makes a change from these troubles. Murata presents readers with an exquisite planetary analogue of Hawaii. Verdant islands rest in a sea teeming with vibrantly described life. The plot concerns sapient coral, and its…
Take off your pants in just 22 steps!
Don’t worry, the pants are those you wear if you write by the seat of your pants. If you prod your keyboard and hope your characters will develop in fascinating ways and have heaps of scintillating yet coherent adventures, you’re a pantser. I was a pantser. Lightmaker took five years to write. I had hair…
Resistance isn’t futile: it’s a darned good read.
‘If they wanted to stay at the top of the pile they had to preserve the pile!’ I’ve just finished Jay Aspen’s novel ‘Resistance’. What if growing your own food brought harsh punishment; what if a bloated bureaucracy used hunger to keep hold of power? A lesser author might have handed us a society to…
Review: Mother of Eden, by Chris Beckett
The scientist J.B.S. Haldane described Arthur C Clarke as one of the few people who had said anything new about theology in the last 400 years. Perhaps we can add Chris Beckett to the list; a single name isn’t really a list. His novel, ‘Mother of Eden’, sequel to ‘Dark Eden’, takes place a sunless…
Review: Dark Eden, by Chris Beckett
A novel showing survival isn’t enough. Dark Eden describes a culture born from ours, but one where time has turned technology into relics, stamped its mark on the language, and turned adult minds stagnant. People appear content to scrabble for survival in a world of dwindling resource, unwilling and unable to plan for any…
Review: Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
A superb example of what science fiction can achieve. Tchaikovsky takes us on two different journeys, and deftly interweaves the story threads in a way which would make a spider envious. We’re shown one species slow ascent to consciousness and technology, while another struggles through a chaotic journey, never able to leave the mistakes of…