More of wot I have read…

Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce

I bought this book recently while bored one lunchtime wandering around the shopping mall near work, I think I might have read a positive review about it somewhere. Anyway it is an interesting read and I liked the idea that a belief in a fantasy world and mental illness might get mixed up by a rational world and I wonder if that idea could be worth further investigation (I might have to jot that down as another possible story to write).

‘It is Christmas afternoon and Peter Martin gets an unexpected phone call from his parents. It pulls him into a bewildering mystery. His sister, Tara, has come back home. Not so unusual you might think, this is a time when families get together. But twenty years ago Tara took a walk into the woods and never came back, and as the years have gone by with no word from her the family has, unspoken, feared that she was dead.

But now she’s back, tired, disheveled, but happy and full of stories about twenty years spent traveling the world, an epic odyssey taken on a whim. But her stories don’t quite hang together and the intervening years have been very kind to Tara . . . She really does look no different from the young women who walked out the door twenty years ago.

Peter’s parents are just delighted to have their little girl back, but Peter is not so sure. There is something about her. A haunted, otherworldly quality. Some would say it’s as if she’s off with the fairies. And as the months go by Peter begins to suspect that the woods around their homes are not finished with Tara and his family…’

Wired by Douglas E Richards

The first of two e-books that I have read that propose a possible man-made evolutionary step towards an enhanced human and the possible consequences should the technology and subsequent power it brings fall into the wrong hands. Although the ideas are interesting (I have often thought I would like to be able to take something that would make me smarter) I found the characters to be lacking in depth and the plot line to be quite naive in execution, nevertheless it was an easy read and quite entertaining.

‘Kira Miller is a brilliant genetic engineer who discovers how to temporarily achieve savant-like capabilities in all areas of thought and creativity. But what if this transcendent level of intelligence brings with it a ruthless megalomania?

David Desh left the special forces after his team was brutally butchered in Iran. Now he has been reactivated for one last mission: find Kira Miller, the enigmatic genius behind a bioterror plot that threatens millions. But when Desh learns that the bioterror plot is just the tip of the iceberg, he is thrust into a byzantine maze of deception and intrigue, and he becomes a key player in a deadly game he can't begin to understand. A game that is certain to have a dramatic impact on the future course of human history.’

Amped by Douglas E Richards

‘Kira Miller is a brilliant scientist who discovers how to temporarily boost human IQ to dizzying levels. But this transcendent intelligence brings with it a ruthless megalomania. Determined to use her discovery to propel human civilization to a higher plane, despite this side effect, Kira and ex-special forces operative David Desh recruit a small group of accomplished scientists, all of whom are safely off the grid. Or so they think . . . 
Soon Kira and her team are in a desperate battle for their lives. And to make matters even worse, while on the run and being relentlessly attacked from all quarters, Kira comes across evidence of savage acts that the enhanced version of Desh kept hidden, even from himself. Now both she and Desh must question everything they think they know. Can they trust each other? Can they even trust themselves? 
And all the while, the greatest threat of all may be coming from an entirely unexpected direction. A threat that could lead to devastation on a global scale. And time is quickly running out . . .’ 

More of wot I have seen...

In The Flesh

A short romzomcom (3 episodes) drama has just finished on TV and I wanted to share it with you. Set in a post zombie apocalypse Britain where the humans have successfully subdued the undead horde we find the remaining PDS (Partial Dead Syndrome) suffers being treated and re-introduced into an understandably wary and shell shocked community and having to deal with a situation not of their making, of actions they had no control over and of the sometimes overwhelming return of humanity. The very human themes of love, loss, fear, hate, guilt and mortality are tackled sensitively and with more than a hint of irony where required to make this a very enjoyable short series. 

Check out the Government Announcements on the BBC website on how to survive a zombie rising.

Who are the monsters?

Wiki

Imdb

BBC

More of wot I have read…

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

This was one of the books I got for my birthday by an author that I had not read before and taking the Amazon recommendation. I enjoyed the first one (Windup Girl) very much and this one was very different from the start.

The feel of this story was in keeping with the subject matter, outsiders, criminals and dropouts, characters with their own way of talking, with different morals and values and a pragmatic approach to problems that befall them. Some of the references were lost on me being unfamiliar with the use of South African slang or tribal cultures, but still it was an exciting and exotic world that was brought to life and the Animaled concept was fresh and interesting.

This was a fascinating read.

‘Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job – missing persons.
Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions live in the shadow of hell’s undertow.
Instead, it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she’ll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives – including her own’.

Vurt by Jeff Noon

 

Another unknown for me this author has a unique voice and I was quickly immersed into his strange and twisted world. The story played heavily on the drug induced virtual (vurt) reality and gang culture in a disturbing and psychedelic roller coaster ride that made you feel you were tripping along with the characters.

Some of the twisted mutation imagery and shocking character attitudes jarred and highlighted the dystopian aspects of this world. A world that was left mostly unexplained as the main characters concentrated on struggling to survive on the fringes of society leaving us to wonder on how it all came to be.

A baffling and exciting read.

‘Take a trip in a stranger’s head. Travel rain-shot streets with a gang of hip malcontents, hooked on the most powerful drug you can imagine. Yet Vurt feathers are not for the weak. As the mysterious Game Cat says, ‘Be careful, be very careful’. But Scribble isn’t listening. He has to find his lost love. His journey is a mission to find Curious Yellow, the ultimate, perhaps even mythical Vurt feather. As the most powerful narcotic of all, Scribble must be prepared to leave his current reality behind.’

Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts

Different again I hadn’t realised until I started to write this review that this author was also responsible for the satirical The Soddit a parody of the Hobbit that I read many years before. This is much different and although it has satirical and humorous passages all through it there is a more sophisticated story and intriguing idea carrying this work along.

I like the more measured pace of this story that plays well with the elderly main character, an anti-heroic ‘ironist’ who is taken from his quiet and drab life that he has resigned himself to and thrust into a strange new world where his preconceptions are constantly challenged as are the reader’s as we are drawn ever deeper into the bizarre.

This book has some wonderful twists and turns to it and the Russian flavour to the dialogue, the superbly stylised characters and the way the author lures you into believing in the unbelievable makes this well worth the read.

‘Russia, 1946, the Nazis recently defeated. Stalin gathers half a dozen of the top Soviet science fiction authors in a dacha in the countryside somewhere. Convinced that the defeat of America is only a few years away, and equally convinced that the Soviet Union needs a massive external threat to hold it together, to give it purpose and direction, he tells the writers: 'I want you to concoct a story about aliens poised to invade earth…  I want it to be massively detailed, and completely believable. If you need props and evidence to back it up, then we can create them. But when America is defeated, your story must be so convincing that the whole population of Soviet Russia believes in it - the population of the whole world!' The little group of writers gets down to the task and spends months working on it.
But then new orders come from Moscow: they are told to drop the project; Stalin has changed his mind; forget everything about it. So they do. They get on with their lives in their various ways; some of them survive the remainder of Stalin's rule, the changes of the 50s and 60s. And then, in the aftermath of Chernobyl, the survivors gather again, because something strange has started to happen. The story they invented in 1946 is starting to come true…’

More of wot I have seen…

Recently Sue was invited out with her Aunt’s birthday treat with several of the ‘girls’ from the family. They were going off into London to see A Chorus Line before coming back to have a meal in an Italian restaurant where I was going to join them. Overall the ladies were not impressed with the show and Sue found it quite boring so I was quite pleased that I had gone off to see the Life of Pi at the movies. I did enjoy the film very much and I found it was quite faithful to the book (though like most interpretations from the written word to visual media there is often a difference between what you imagined something to be like and what the film maker has).

Auditions…

This year’s birthday is a significant one for Sue and so as well as a dream holiday we are planning a party for friends and family at the newly refurbished local pub that is now branded as a Bar / Deli and is called Bertram Bees. This place has become a favourite location for us to go for a drink in the village as our bank statement can attest.

As part of the celebrations we would like to have a live band playing to our guests and it just so happens that the bar has been putting on music to attract patrons. So naturally we need to audition the various groups and if it necessities having a couple of drinks at the same time then so be it.

All of the groups so far have been good but one, a skiffle band that played well know hits in a foot stomping vintage style were fabulous but unfortunately they were booked at a beer festival on the date we wanted them, so the search goes on.