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The Penguin History of the World
Review: A superb achievement. From prehistoric man to the rise of civilizations, right through wars and famine and religion and science, all the way up to the world reacting to climate change. Fascinating yet challenging, you have to pay attention closely, as three pages could take in a century or two dynastic changes. A hard,
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Klondike
Review: An outstanding record of an unusual and fascinating period of Canadian history. It races along, just like the stampede itself. You start in the silence of the forest, and go right through until it’s silent again after one of the most peculiar mass migrations in modern history. It has made me want to learn
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Ender’s Game
Review: Challenging. I can see why this book is in all the top 10 lists. But… it’s got issues. The children think and act like experienced men and women. No way. Too much of a stretch for this to really work for me. The adults are also way too cut and paste, the scheming bureaucrat,
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Stranger in a Strange Land
Review: Fabulous concept! Human born on Mars, raised to an adult with Martian ideals and ways of thinking about time, space, sex, family, property, etc. Written in 1961, it shows its age more than some others from the period, but less than some. Women are not potted plant, but do tend to be fanny wiggling
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The Deep Range
Review: Written in 1956, it stands up well today. Great concept, spot on science and technical details. This is my first A.C. Clarke read and it won’t be my last. Ending was a little contrived, characters a little too heroic, but this was the standard for SF in the golden age. Particularly in its treatment
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Vitals
Review: An excellent, thrilling, spooky, paranoid journey into what was (in 2000) the near future, now the near past. You see this with references to VHS, and the differing formats, as well as “the team set to work with digital cameras.” Like there are other types of camera, still were in 2000. It was fast
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The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories
Review: An excellent selection of tales from the mid 19th to the early 20th century, the golden age of spooky stories, séances, and spiritualism. Not horrifying, but terrifying. Mood is created and well created too. Lots of lonely heaths and dark mansions. Excellent! Overall rating: How I discovered or acquired this book: Finishing half-read books
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The Wild Frontier
Review: Seven superb stories of characters from Canada’s past. Well researched and with contemporary comparisons to 1978 politics and economics. I couldn’t put it down. You just get sucked in to the history, almost (fortunately) like being there. I say fortunately because its always frozen, knee-deep in snow, and/or starving in the forests and tundra.
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Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Short Stories
Review: Harold Bloom hated Poe. I can understand that now. He has one or two outstanding stories, then you wade through a bunch of oddities, articles, hoaxes, and sub-par parables, analogies and other distractions. It was good to get it all read, so you don’t just listen to the singles, you made it through the
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The Mill on the Floss
Review: The remarkable Maggie Tulliver. The unremarkable family from an unremarkable village who have an extraordinary story. Or at least, a story made more remarkable by it being an experience that to varying degrees we all experience: interfamily squabble, intrafamily disputes with our extended relations, money worries, frustrated goals and having to adapt or present
In His Own Words