I’m reading 20 classic, modern-classic or cult books. I aimed to read them all in 2011, but that’s beginning to look unlikely. Read more about this project here. Why did I want to read it? I had vague ideas about Gulliver’s Travels. I remembered Ted Danson being tied up by some little people in a film version I [...]
Tag Archives: sci-fi
Guest review: Lyndon Riggall on Embassytown by China Miéville
May 6, 2011 – 9:11 am
9780230754317 Pan Macmillan, May 2011 (Aus, UK, US/Kindle) Reviewed by Lyndon Riggall I admit defeat. I’ve been trying to present these events with a structure. I simply don’t know how everything happened. Perhaps because I didn’t pay proper attention, perhaps because it wasn’t a narrative, but for whatever reasons, it doesn’t want to be what I want to [...]
20 classics in 2011 #6: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
April 28, 2011 – 7:15 am
I’m reading 20 classic, modern-classic or cult books in 2011. Read more about this project here. Why did I want to read it? I love Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and dystopian fiction in general. Plus, the sections of my work-in-progress that people have read have been compared to Brave New World. I thought it was about time I read it [...]
The moody city: Meg Mundell on Black Glass
February 26, 2011 – 11:49 am
Black Glass Meg Mundell Scribe, March 2011 9781921640933 (Aus) In Meg Mundell’s dark and stylish debut, two sisters and a cast of characters from different tiers of society fight for survival, recognition and connection in near-future Melbourne. The novel is in some ways about maintaining some kind of hope or dreams in a fractured, controlling [...]
Guest review: Chris Flynn on Justin Cronin’s The Passage
September 7, 2010 – 5:30 pm
The Passage Justin Cronin (Aus, US) Orion 9780752897851 Reviewed by Chris Flynn It’s funny how movies influence books so much these days. The fact that The Passage was optioned by Sir Ridley Scott for $1.75 million within a week of Cronin settling on a $3.75 million publishing deal for his vampire apocalypse trilogy is unsurprising [...]
Guest review: Rhys Tate on Eoin Colfer’s And Another Thing…
November 24, 2009 – 7:55 am
And Another Thing… Eoin Colfer Penguin 9780718155148 (Aus, US) Reviewed by Rhys Tate I’ll admit when I heard that Eoin Colfer was ghostwriting a sixth Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy volume, nine years after the death of original visionary Douglas Adams, I fired up the torches and pitchforks and got me a good old fashioned [...]
Eric Garcia’s The Repossession Mambo
August 11, 2009 – 8:08 am
9781921372810 Scribe 2009 (Australia) (and Harper US) In the near future, artificial organs (artiforgs) can be bought to save a person’s life – or simply enhance life’s quality. From kidneys to central nervous systems, the expensive artiforgs can be bought on credit, and if you miss too many payments, they can be repossessed. When we [...]
Steven Amsterdam – a ‘responsive’ interview
March 23, 2009 – 7:56 am
Read the LiteraryMinded review of Steven Amsterdam’s Things We Didn’t See Coming, Sleepers Publishing, 9781740667012, 2009 (Aus, US) Prompts – LiteraryMinded. Responses – Steven Amsterdam. Beginnings I was inspired by a few loose pieces in the news, from life, the partisan splay of the 2004 election in the US, and my nervous mind, so I [...]
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Melbourne Writers Festival 2009 diary part three: future cities, beautiful rhythms and a literal ending
‘I just blogged’ I said to my friends when I ran into them, flustered, between sessions. Chris Flynn looked at me and said ‘that sounds dirty’, like ‘I just did a blog’, ‘I just dropped one’ and other variations. And now, the word blog is RUINED for me. But I was enlightened by two things: [...]