Books Read in 2005

Theroux, Paul: Picture Palace (unfinished)
Clarke, Arthur C: Nine Billion Names
Lyotard, Jean Francois: The Postmodern Condition
Habermas, Jurgen: The Philosophical Discourse on Modernity
Monaco, James: How to Read a Film (unfinished)
Bryson, Bill: Down Under
Williams, Tad & Kiriki-Hoffman, Nina: Child of an Ancient Time
Biskind, Peter: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (unfinished)
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment
King, Stephen: Thinner
Calvino, Italo: Invisible Cities
Hacker, PMS: Wittgenstein
Bryson, Bill: I'm A Stranger Here Too
Dick, Philip K: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Hanfling, Oswald: Ayer
Bryson, Bill: An African Diary
Self, Will: Scale
Palin, Michael: Around the World in Eighty Days
Appolonius: Jason and the Argonauts
Kerouac, Jack: On The Road
Hobb, Robin: The Mad Ship
Leyer, Seth: The History of the English Language
Williams, Tad: Caliban's Hour
Hobb, Robin: The Ship of Magic
Asimov: Gold (unfinished)
Clancy, Tom: Red Rabbit (put down)
Burgess, Anthony: A Clockwork Orange
King, Stephen: Dolores Claiborne
Masur, Louis & Staloff, Darren: The History of the United States (unfinished)
King, Stephen: Nightmares & Dreamscapes (unfinished)
Steinbeck, John: The Pearl
King, Stephen: From a Buick 8
Koontz, Dean: The Watchers
Adams, Douglas & John Lloyd: The Deeper Meaning of Life
Silverberg, Robert: Lord Valentine's Castle
Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness (unfinished)
Leiber, Fritz: Coming Attraction
King, Stephen: Everything's Eventual (unfinished)
Clarke, Susanna: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Extract from 'The Genesis Cycle'

I think this was my first major attempt at writing, it was intended as a fantasy, exploring life and creation. It never really got of its feet, and I got sidetracked by another story (which incidently hit a brick wall). It was inspired by a piece of electronic music I wrote called 'The Genesis Cycle', which gave me an image of the birth of good and evil, fighting from the off. I may continue it one day.


The moon was slowly sinking down in to the depths of the dawn, the day light coming to replace it. The sky turned from black to blue. A single white orchid hidden amongst a congregation of bamboo canes, was preparing to receive the new day and the chorus of birds was slowly turning from a few disparate voices into a mad frenzy. Meilim could feel the dew on his legs, crawling up to his waist, it had gradually been scaling him as he sat there fixed on the book. Kundae finally turned to Meilim, his deep brown eyes catching the last glimpse of the moon. For a few moments he just stood watching the small boy in deep concentration, he watched every expression in his face, transfixed with the beauty of the letters of the ancient language, but almost fearful of the other sketches. This troubled Kundae, as one so young should never know fear and certainly never experience it. Fear was an emotion of the elders and known only to the third generation as a description. It seemed to pass as soon as it arrived. Kundae moved closer to the child, encompassing him in his shadow. Meilim looked up at Kundae, a little smile etched it’s way onto his face. Meilim knew it was not for him to study the books, not yet anyway.

Extract from 'Of The Dark'

This are the first three paragraphs from my first short story, which was written in two chunks over the space of six months. I was basically testing the water, trying my hand at putting a thought into fiction. The story (3000 words) explores the rationality of nyctophobia (the fear of the dark). This is copyrighted 2005, please leave a comment if you want the rest.


We are taught from an early age that the darkness is simply a lack of light. A shadow is the place where the light cannot see. The world cools when the light departs, and warms when it comes again. It wasn’t always like this, before the light, the earth was void and without form and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Then the light came and captured the darkness in its brilliant cage, forcing it into eternal submission. But light is easily distracted, and chases itself around the world, like a dog playing rabbit with its tail.

It was dark outside, it had been dark when Charlie had left earlier in the day, and it was dark again now. There’s something unusual about only breathing the night’s air - something unnatural. The quite of night brings all the sounds to the fore; they’re brighter, more distinct. Under the orange glow from the sulphur streetlights, the stone bricks that made up the outer walls of the terrace took on a deep, almost moist texture. The shadows were long and thick and bled into the pavement. The thin strip of grass by the road showed nothing of the dead breeze that drifted by, floating endlessly onwards. A moth, that was little more than a blur, circled upwards towards the street light, his street light. The tiny creature filled the cone of musty light with its little dance.

Charlie picked the key out of his pocket, and slid it into the slot. He turned it slowly, the click propagating through the air with a resonance that briefly filled the terrace and then ceased just as quickly. When the silence returned, Charlie realised that he wasn’t the only one in this alien environment, but that someone else was making waves in the quiet. Someone else a fraction more tense in the sulphur night. Someone else.

...

Books Read in 2004

Brown, Dan: The Da Vinci Code
Scott Card, Orson: The Grinning Man
Silverberg, Robert: The Seventh Shrine
Williams, Tad: The Burning Man
Downer, John: Wierd Nature
Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird
King, Stephen: Dreamcatcher
King, Stephen: Bare Bones (interviews)
Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Men
Gleick, James: Faster
Herbert, Frank: Dune
Fitzgerald, F Scott: The Great Gatsby
Preston, Richard: The Demon in the Freezer
Palin, Michael: Full Circle
Attenborough, David: Life on Air
Salinger, JD: The Catcher in the Rye
Gleick, James: Isaac Newton
Martin, Paul: Counting Sheep (unfinished)
Moore, Michael: Stupid White Men
Schama, Simon: The History of Britain
Baron-Cohen, Simon: The Essential Difference (unfinished)
Hobb, Robin: The Assassin's Quest
King, Stephen: The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Brewer, Gene: K-Pax
Hobb, Robin: The Royal Assassin
Hobb, Robin: The Assassin's Apprentice
King, Stephen: Skeleton Crew (unfinished)
Kafka, Franz: The Trial (unfinished)
Adams, Douglas: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Bryson, Bill: Mother Tongue
King, Stephen: The Body

Scott Card, Orson: The Grinning Man

This is why I read Sci-Fi. If someone asked me to define what appeals to me about Sci-Fi, I would read them this short story. It is great. I read it in the Robert Silverberg editied collection Legends (Silverberg, King, Brooks and other feature in this outstanding book). The mini-narrative is a side-line (like a lot of these types of stories) from Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series, and is a wonderfully warm anecdote. The characters are joyful and funny without spoiling into silliness, the scenes are believable and the story is sugar-coated with imagination. This is story telling in the vein of the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. Perhaps it won't e remembered, but it should - it's a warm cup of tea on a cold winter's morning. It would only take an hour to read, so find this book and read it - rarely have I spent such a fulfilling hour in the world of commas and full-stops.

King, Stephen: Dreamcatcher

We were holidaying in beautiful New England. It was fall, the leaves had just started to rust, and the wind of the Atlantic started to chill. Clear, blue skies covered Acadia National Park and the Green Mountains were lush. Everywhere was beautiful... except, in the world of Stephen King. In his New England aliens had invaded and disease was preparing to spread through the Maine counrtyside like a forest fire. We passed a number of the places that I was reading about, which was interesting and gave a snug a feel to the story, like when the winter comes and the open fire is sparked up for the first time since Spring. But what of the story?

Well, Mr King is varied in his writing. I have always thought that. He has a noticeable style, one that's consistent, witty, interesting and colourful. Each sentence flowers, intertwining history, current events, philosophy and emotion. You find out interesting little facts and explore the local towns and countryside. It's always good entertainment, it's always fun.

Dreamcatcher is a hybrid of SciFi and horror; aliens harboring fatal diseases, crashed spaceships and long, slimey worm-like creatures known, peotically, as Shitweasels. The story has all the props, but with an added Stevey-Bonus - Four childhood friends, reunited and reliving the events that brought them close as Primary school kids. Like IT years before, it has the seeds for a wonderful creation.

But I didn't much care for it. Like IT, the plot starts of thoroughly introducing us to the characters, describing their varied upbringings and their more varied adult lives. Up North, strange things are happening, we are drawn into the plot. The winter scenery is described with a clarity as crisp as the snow, and the isolation from the outside world sounds more like Vladivostok than Northern Maine. There's a wonderful scene, possibly one of King's greatest, where the woodland creatures are all fleeing, the wolf and the rabbit, the deer and the bear, and none of them paying attention to what would normally be their prey or predator. The horror is rife, as always, King takes the Western World's fashionable fears, chops and dices them and sprinkles them between the lines - in this case, at the beginning of the 21st century, Cancer. But, sadly, as with a few of King's books, the plot looses momentum and withers away to a few fast-paced threads without much reader-relation, and ultimately the Humvee speeding down route one doesn't synchronise with my slowing pulse. I feel a little disappointed; the time I've invested in getting to know these characters all seems a little wasted. Then I take a look at the book I'm reading, it's horror, from the man who defines the genre. So why am I looking for emotion? Perhaps it's me, I think; I like to relate to the characters. But no, I feel let down because I know what Stephen King can deliver, he gave us the Shawshank Redemption, the Body (stand by me) and numerous others. He brought in all the props, and a great plot, but like the Shitweasels, they never really got anywhere.

Books Read in 2003

Orwell, George: 1984
Bryson, Bill: Notes From a Small Island
Truss, Lynee: Eats, Shoots and Leaves
Johnson, Stephen: Emergence
Freud, Sigmund: The Interpretation of Dreams (unfinished)
Franklet, Duane: Bad Memory
Straub, Peter: Pork Pie Hat
Donaldson, Stephen: The Gap into Conflict
Twain, Mark: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Dick, Philip K: Second Variety
Turtledove, Harry S: Into the Darkness (put down)
Hawking, Stephen: A Brief History of Time
Higgins, Jack: Wrath of the Lion
King, Stephen: Pet Sematary
Dick, Philip K: The Electric Ant
Dick, Philip K: Minority Report
Dick, Philip K: War Game
Herbert, James: Others (put down)
King, Stephen: Bag of Bones
Dick, Philip K: Imposter
Platt, Charles: The Silicon Man
Elton, Ben: Gridlock
Dexter, Colin: Last Bus From Woodstock
King, Stephen: Four Past Midnight (unfinished)

Platt, Charles: The Silicon Man

It was in the bargain bin at a local bookshop, it looked a bit SciFi and a bit Cyberpunk, the blurb was interesting and it had a shiny cover. So I bought it. I didn't really expect I would read it, but I took it on holiday with me to Egypt, just in case.

The book was appealing from the off. Themed in Cyber culture, with Techie characters and a Californian backdrop. The story revolves around the upload of a personality into a computer, the personality is then dropped into various environments and scenarios. It was an interesting concept, one which has been jostled with since artificial intelligence was first concieved. The narrative, though not of a high standard, was interesting, and built the tension throughout. Essentially a tradgedy, the plot takes a couple of shallow bends and though I never felt I liked the characters, I did feel for their peril. There was nothing strikingly original or intriguing about the book, it was just nice to read. I find very few books I read are page-turners, though I think this may be due to my slow pace of reading, but this was one of those rare occasions. It conjoured up images from 'The Matrix'; contact to the real world via telephone, big empty environments and a few others, and the book was written a few years before the film.

Overall, it was enjoyable. The plot never really went into much depth, and it did seem a little weak. But it was quite a chilling rendition of a future that becomes more feasible by the day.

Herbert, James: Others

Thanks to Mr King and teenage years smirking over hours of low-budget horror movies, I liked the horror genre, so decided I'd venture into the world of British author James Herbert. The first few pages set an interesting scene, a little dark, a little creepy. But as I started to unravel the lead character, I started to get a little unnerved. The lead is horribly disfigured, and as this is written in the first-person, it left me with a ill-feeling. I felt a little shallow at this, but put the book down, and never picked it back up.

Books Read in 2002

Torres, Edwin: Carlito's Way
Torres, Edwin: After Hours
Robertson, Gavin: 1000
Pelzer, Dave: A Boy Called It
King, Stephen: Apt Pupil
Fukuyama, Francis: The History of Man
Buchan, John: The 39 Steps
King, Stephen: The Shawshank Redemption & Rita Hayworth
Calvino, Italo: Invisible Cities
King, Stephen: IT
Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver's Travels
Dickens, Charles: Hard Times
King, Stephen: The Gunslinger
King, Stephen: The Stand (uncut)
Attenborough, David: The Life of Mammals
Homer: The Odyessy
Darwin, Charles: The Voyage of the Beagle (unfinished)
Tolkien, JRR: The Silmarillion (put down)
Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe