Tag Archives: science fiction

From Easter to Volcano Days

2010-04-27 – 22:56:05

I don’t get round to these things quickly, but this is, at least in part, a report on my family’s visit to Eastercon. This year the British National Science Fiction Convention was practically on our doorstep, just the other side of London, at Heathrow. As with two years ago, my son wanted to come. And […]

By Martin McCallion | Posted in events, sf | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

A Dream of Wessex, by Christopher Priest (Books 2008, 9)

2008-06-20 – 17:26:37

This is the motherlode of all brains-in-jars/life-is-a-computer-simulation-type stories. Gibson’s and the Wachowski’s Matrixes can both trace their origins back to here – or at least, they should be able to. I’m not aware of anything older than this that quite deals with this idea. At Maiden Castle in Dorchester in the near future (of the [...]

By Martin McCallion | Posted in books, books 2008, lj, sf | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

British Summer Time, by Paul Cornell (Books 2008, 4)

2008-05-05 – 11:46:37

Paul Cornell wrote some of my favourite episodes of Doctor Who‘s recent years: ‘Father’s Day’, and the ‘Human Nature’/’Family of Blood’ two-parter. After the latter, I downloaded and read the ebook of his original novel (on which the episodes were based). So I came to this with some knowledge of his writing. But not with [...]

By Martin McCallion | Posted in books, books 2008, lj | Also tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Matter, by Iain M Banks (Books 2008, 1)

2008-02-25 – 21:24:22

So, the latest Banksie. Always a treat, of course, and especially so when it’s a novel of The Culture. This one, though, is slightly disappointing. It’s not actually bad — certainly not badly written (though he does overuse the phrases “appeared to be”, and “looked like”, when describing things; I was told off years ago [...]

By Martin McCallion | Posted in books, books 2008, lj | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (2)