Max Telford: The Tree Of Life Many years ago when the world was young I tried to explain, in popular science form, how scientists organise the natural world, all the better to understand the pattern of creation. The result was Deep Time. In The Tree of Life, Max Telford does the same thing but a lot better, bringing to a popular audience the very cutting edge of how scientists understand the pattern evolution has created. He does this with humour and a great deal of flair, though he is coy about exactly why John Ruskin gasped in horror on seeing his new bride naked for the first time (those who know, know). DISCLAIMER: The author is known to me personally and sent bound proofs so I could write an endorsement. I also feature prominently in the acknowledgements as the ultimate cause of this book, so if you don’t like it, you can blame me.
Bridget Collins: The Silence Factory Last month I read a sparkling collection of weird tales called Winter Spirits, each tale written by an author of whom I had not previously heard. Thus encouraged I found Natasha Pulley and her superb novel The Mars House. Another author was Bridget Collins, and I pulled her novel The Silence Factory down from the cloud for a listen. If you don’t like spoilers spiders spiders, look away now. On a remote Greek Island in the early nineteenth century, spiders weave webs of dream and deception, worshipped by the island’s women. Some of the spiders are captured and brought back to England where a descendant of the original explorer weaves the silk into a marvellous material which, on one side, offers a perfect soundproofing material, but on the other radiates maddening echoes. He does this in a factory that’s so noisy that it drives the workers deaf, mad, or both. That’s the concept, and the story is done well enough, but the theme of the male despoliation of nature in opposition to the female respect for it, though well taken, was perhaps too heavy handed for my taste.
Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell I had read this long ago but had forgotten most of it until encouraged to revisit it as an audiobook by Offspring#1. Now, this is a masterclass in how to write modern fantasy. The scene is set in the early years of the 19th Century. Napoleon is ravaging Europe, while in York, the Learned Society of York Magicians meets once a month. The gentlemanly mages are all theoretical magicians, for there has been no practical magic done for centuries, ever since the disappearance of the Raven King, the medieval and semi-mythical fairy ruler of Northern England. Until, that is, the York magicians meet the secretive and intensely jealous Gilbert Norrell, a gentleman magician from elsewhere in Yorkshire who can still do practical magic. He comes to London where he makes his name raising a titled lady from the dead. To do this he invokes — in secret — the help of a fairy. who, once summoned creates all kinds of spooky and tragic chaos. While in London, Norrell serves the war effort, conjuring illusions to deceive the French fleet, for example. Norrell has the field to himself until the arrive of Jonathan Strange, a Shropshire landowner unable to apply himself to any particular calling until he discovers that he is a powerful magician. Unlike Norrell, who prefers the comforts of home, Strange is not afraid to get his hands dirty and serves as Magician-in-Ordinary to Wellington in the Peninsular War, and at Waterloo. Strange gets caught up in Norrell’s fairy deceptions, but after many seemingly digressive adventures the tale ends mostly happily. It’s a vast book, and succeeds through the deft use of pastiche, for it is written in the style of the early 19th century, and has lots of absorbing footnotes, some of which extend to the length of fairy tales themselves. Some people might find this distracting. I found it utterly absorbing.
Adriana Marais: Out Of This World And Into The Next A summary of where we are in the Universe, how we got here, and how and why we should leave our home planet, by a very eager physicist and would-be astronaut. I can’t really say any more now as I have been asked to review this for another organ. Watch this … er … ‘space’.
