military science fiction

Away from the central action this is not an impressive war, the interception of incoming rockets–silvery elliptical explosions seen through the clouds–reminding the viewer, at best, of the closing sequences of This Island Earth: special effects put together long ago by a team not of the first rank. Missiles that get through make a hole [...]

depaysment

September, the month of re-reading.
What can be recovered of “Ursula” from T Behrens’ oddly unsatisfying memoir of her ? He erases her identity so carefully that she has no substance except as his brother’s lover, anima & nemesis–existing, in fact, only as an exotic accessory to, or ravager of, the Behrens family life. He claims, [...]

note made in a hotel bar, 1991

However dark it gets outside, the window is an imperfect mirror. Through it you can just see the billowing exhaust smoke of cars stopped at the junction, pedestrians in winter coats.
I’m waiting for someone. I’m reading the Gunn & Guyomard introduction to A Young Girl’s Diary– “Why from the moment one feels desire is there [...]

erl-king, sussex

Clive built a horse-drawn caravan by scaling up the plans for a model. He travelled round Britain in the caravan for a decade, with his dog, doing agricultural work.

When the dog died he buried it in the wood, & made it a monument like a low curved wall out of Horsham stone, where it lay [...]

ghost of a ghost

It’s rare that being an HE Bates obsessive born in Warwickshire is of any use in the wider world: but it enabled me to add my tuppenceworth, some months late & somewhat oblique to the point, to this excellent discussion of Sarah Waters’ Booker-shortlisted “ghost story” The Little Stranger.

an imaginary review (6)

A clear & useful bridge between science and the public is constructed in this empathic literary novel of a boy & how he comes to terms with his world. Explanations of everything from black holes to epigenesis demonstrate the author’s engagement with the scientific worldview, & act as the pivots of metaphors for a full [...]

sf retrospective

Stan Robinson’s spectacular at New Scientist is a mini-magazine of the 1980s, including a polemic by Stan himself, reviews & futurological speculations by everyone from Ian Watson to Gwyneth Jones, & flash fiction by many of the core authors of Brit SF. There’s even a review of Margaret Atwood. Very satisfying, although I could have [...]

transvestite SAS 1, ranulph fiennes 0

What can you say ? God knows what state Eddie Izzard’s feet are in. Next: trimming the gangrenous bits off with a hacksaw. Then it’s off to do Everest a couple of times, inappropriately dressed. Respect.

running down

September. The season can’t make up its mind. Will it clutch at summer or declare the death of history & move on ? I remembered that running always gets harder for me in September. Even at 30-odd, with the whole Peak District outside my front door (to be strict, my only door at that time), [...]

strange bedfellows episode 6: n to p

Further scandals, intellectual, linguistic & sexual, from my stripped-down shelves. Not long to go now, then we can all forget what turned out to be, like the best efforts of sf writers from time immemorial, more notion than content: the idea that should have stayed an idea.
Eric Newby
Anais Nin
Cees Nooteboom
Sean O’Brien
Heinz R Pagels
Elaine Pagels
Chuck Pahlaniuk
Kenneth [...]