Next Tuesday, September 18, sees the publication (at last) of the Lucia Graves English translation of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's El Laberinto de los Espiritus. The novel, The Labyrinth of Spirits in English, is the final part of the author's cycle of stories set in Barcelona, sometimes referred to as the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. …
Witch Hunt
by Ian Rankin A Review 'No spies any more. Now there were only the technicians.' Witch Hunt is an early Rankin novel which features none of his now well-known characters. Published in 1993 under Rankin's pseudonym Jack Harvey, it is not exactly a spy thriller in the sense that heroes and villains are engaged in …
The Earth is Weeping
The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West by Peter Cozzens A Review 'Although scalps were most often taken off the dead, scalping in and of itself was not intended to kill. Unless grievously wounded, victims often survived the ordeal ...' It is about two months since I put the finishing touches, …
Computers Are Human Too!
Origin by Dan Brown A Review Dan Brown has established a very successful formula for his thrillers, entwining religious and scientific ideas with art and conspiracy theory. His latest, Origin, published in 2017, is no exception. It addresses two questions, posed by both science and religion for hundreds of years (in the case of religion, …
Cut Off
Unchosen Love by Ursula K LeGuin This, the third story in the collection The Birthday of the World, is set on a planet called O, where ideas of sex and family are even more bizarre than on Gethen or Seggri. [See my two previous posts, here and here.] 'When I explained our concept of incest …
Sixteen To One
The Matter of Seggri by Ursula K LeGuin 'Their gender inbalance has produced a society in which .... the men have all the privilege and the women have all the power.' The Matter of Seggri is the second story in LeGuin's collection The Birthday of the World. It depicts a planet where the ratio of …
Sex Without Gender
Coming of Age in Karhide by Ursula K LeGuin 'Until we come of age we have no gender and no sexuality, our hormones don't give us any trouble at all. And in a city Hearth we never see adults in kemmer. They kiss and go. Where's Maba? In the kemmerhouse, love, now eat your porridge.' …
