Nutcote. Nutlog. Travel. Webcams. Sierra Leone. Tokyo. Sagas. Diego Rivera. Sydney. London.
Since writing the below, Jane Palmer
has mailed me and pointed me
to
her website.
I do recommend that you take a look.
My comments about 'The Planet Dweller'
apply in bunches to
'The Drune', her latest. It's fab and
funny and surreal - read it!
The Planet Dweller - Jane Palmer.
Unfortunately I couldn't find a decent synopsis
on the web, probably because it's out-of-print.
It was published by The Women's Press, which
published a fair selection of high-quality
science fiction written by women, both
with and without a feminist message.
I think this is a great, funny book,
with a nice underlying message, and the
underdog wins out in the end.
The Mott, the most greedy and power-mad
species in the universe (very aggrssive and
not too bright,
with no moral sense beyond their own
narrow interests,
but with the biggest and
nastiest toys; remind you of anyone?) are
searching for new worlds to possess. They
have enlisted
the help of the genetically-engineered and
psychopathic mad genius Kulp (who is an Olmuke;
the Olmuke are almost as nasty as the
Mott but with much less mean toys).
They have decided to conquer Earth. Two
unlikely characters must stop them - Diana
(a middle-aged mother who hears voices) and
Yuri (a rarely sober Russian scientist).
The 'Planet Dweller' of the title is Moosevan,
a benevolent superbeing who possesses the
planet Earth, and who has developed a crush
on Yuri. Other important characters are
the Old Ones, ethereal superbeings who
can possess the bodies of other creatures;
they live in another galaxy and are many millions
of years old, but have been summoned to help
save the day by the Torrans, a species of
basically benevolent cat-like aliens.
I like this book a lot because it's very
funny and is not too polemical; the characters
and different species are quite well built up
too. There is a twist in the plot at the end,
when the Old Ones teach Kulp the better side of
his nature (which had been suppressed by
generations of genetic engineering) and he
joins the resistance. Basically, power and technology
do not add up to enlightenment; but good wins out
in the end. A good read.
The Rediscovery of Man - Cordwainer Smith.
Classic science fiction. The future history
of an interstellar utopia which enslaves
and deadens human creativity; and the rediscovery
of the human spirit - ironically involving
the liberation of an underclass of genetically
altered animals.
This is a very influential if little read book,
covering many different levels; a satire on
utopian ideals, an investigation into poetry
and passion which make life meaningful, cultural
clashes, and lots of strong plots and
strong characters. Great.
Confessions of a Yakuza: A Life in Japan's
Underworld - Junichi Saga.
Memoirs of a Japanese gangster - entertaining
and interesting. I'd recommend this book
more to the Japan-phile than the average
reader, though; but if you're interested
in this kind of thing, it's a good read.
Derailed in Uncle Ho's Victory Garden: Return to Vietnam
and Cambodia - Tim Page.
Tim Page was a war photographer during the
Vietnam War; this book is the story of
his return. It's offbeat and funny and moving
and contains lots and lots of interesting
stories - the search for the remains of a colleague
lost to the Khmer Rouge, a reunion between an US
general and the Vietnamese mastermind General Giap,
and lots and lots of smaller, irreverent tales.
Very good.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone -
J.K.Rowling.
As one of the online reviewers said,
'The book is superb and a brilliant
fantasy' - for children of all ages.
Recommended.
Introducing Chomsky - John Maher/Judy Groves.
An excellent introduction to Chomsky, his
linguistic ideas, the concept of 'universal
language' as part of human inheritance,
and his political thought and commitment to
social justice.
Portraits - Steve McCurry.
A photo-journalist's collection of photographic 'portraits'
of people all over the world. Itself an
excellent portrait of human resilience.
Highly recommended.
The Japanese - Joe Joseph.
A Westerner's view of Japan; interesting.
Up North - Charles Jennings.
Journalist from London goes to the North
of England in search of the spirit of the
place. Some people might find it a bit
smug in places, and it probably won't
tell you anything about the North
that you didn't already know, but
it does shed a lot of light on
Southern attitudes and prejudices towards the North,
and how this particular Southerner expected
to find the North.
It's also quite funny, in a good-natured
way,
especially towards the beginning. I should
note that I've seen just as much social
deprivation living in London as I ever
saw in any Northern city - probably more,
in fact.
The chapter on Blackpool reminds me
very much of Easbourne!
Maybe I should write 'Down South' about
my experiences living in London and Surrey
to balance it out ;).
Worth a look - Signed A. Northerner
(transplanted)!
Japanese Street Slang - Peter Constantine.
How to swear in Japanese.
Index on Censorship 1/2000.
Slavery.
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening
of the American West - Stephen E. Ambrose.
The exploration of the American west, lots of first-hand material.
Imperium - Ryszard Kapuscinski.
A journalists' view of the USSR - both funny and horrific.
The Motorcycle Diaries - Che Guevara.
Around South America by motorbike with the
Marxist revolutionary as a young man.
Memoirs of a Spacewoman - Naomi Mitchison.
An empath has a wild time in outer space.
Granta - Women and Children First.
New fiction.
Index on Censorship 6/1999.
The hidden history of the twentieth century.
The French - Theodore Zeldin.
A funny but revealing profile of the French by a leading
French writer.
Twenty Letters to a Friend - Svetlana Alliluyeva.
A record of Stalin's reign of terror, in the words of his
own daughter.
Revolutionaries - Eric Hobsbawm.
Lucid and readable historiography of revolutions by a leading
left-of-centre historian.
A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking.
At last I read it - and I understood it too! A very readable
overview of cosmology.
The Ages of Gaia - James Lovelock.
A view of the Earth as a living superorganism.
The Blind Watchmaker - Richard Dawkins.
Leading biologist evangelises on evolution and theology,
but entertainingly so.
Black on White - ed. David R. Roediger.
Views of race relations in the USA by black writers from
Frederick Douglass to James Baldwin to Toni Morrison.
Hiroshima Notes - Kenzaburo Oe.
Moving essays on the aftermath of the atom bombings
and their meaning for the world, by a Japanese Nobel
laureate.
Shaft. (USA).
Original blaxploitation. A bit silly, but
a lot of fun.
Planet of the Apes. (USA).
A classic science fiction allegory.
All About My Mother. (Spain).
Directed by the great Pedro Almodovar, and
in my opinion his best film. Full of puzzles,
humour and tragedy, and about various kinds
of quest for identity - but witty and engaging
with it.
Beautiful People. (UK)
The funny side of Bosnia and the British class system.
Eight and a Half Women. (UK/Netherlands/Germany/Luxembourg)
Peter Greenaway's latest, a comedy, but just as
visually stylish, eccentric and intellectually
engaging as all his others.
Afterlife. (Japan)
If you could choose, what single memory would you
take into eternity?
Favourite Saturday night CD -
'Cosmic Thing' by The B52's.
Favourite Sunday morning CD -
'Kind of Blue' by Miles Davis.
