"The Time Traveler's Guide to Restoration Britain: A Handbook for Visitors to The Seventeenth Century 1660-1700" by Ian Mortimer

Publisher: Pegasus Books

Copyright: 2017

ISBN: 9781681773544

The Time Traveler's Guide to Restoration Britain is a fascinating look into what life was like in the mid to late 17th century in Britain (in particular 1660 to 1700). This was a time that has been portrayed in a number of movies, and books, but there were many details that the film makers got wrong. Whether this was due to lack of research, or they just didn't think anybody would notice is questionable, but Mr. Mortimer's book should hopefully eliminate any future errors, assuming that the movie types bother to read it.

This book is Mr. Mortimer's 8th dealing with history, which is where his expertise is as he is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and has been described by the London Times as "the most remarkable medieval history of out time." He has two other books in the Time-traveller's series one on Medieval England, and another of Elizabethan England, both of which are fascinating as well.

"Restoration Britain" delves deeply into a wide range of topics such as living in London, as well as outside it ad the differences can be quite startling to say the least. He also discusses the people themselves, their character, the basic essentials of life, the colette they wore, travelling, where it is possible to stay when travelling, what you as a traveller could eat, drink and smoke, the health and hygiene of the peoples, the law, and entertainment.

This book as well as the two others in the series would be priceless resources for any author writing historical fiction set in Britain in any one of the three eras. I hope Mr. Mortimer will consider expanding this series with other books as well.

Highly recommended.

"Cibola Burn" by James S. A. Corey

Publisher: Orbit
Copyright: 2014
ISBN: 9780316217620

Cibola Burn is the fourth book in the Expanse series and carries the storyline into the far reaches of space.

The Ring Gate has opened access to thousands of new worlds, but this has caused some problems in that some people decide to stake a claim on an unoccupied planet. Seeing nothing wrong with this they choose one, after all there were thousands to choose from, however it turns out the planet they chose was rich in Lithium, and they didn't consider the fact that a major corporation might want it instead.

These two opposing views end up in violence, as can be expected. Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are dispatched by Chrisjen Avasarala and Fred Johnston to act as mediators in the dispute. As expected though it turns out to be more than a simple mediation trip however, as many other factors come into play the least of which is the Holden soon comes to suspect that maybe his mission was meant to fail.

An excellent continuation of the series, I found the 4th season to parallel the book quite well, but as expected there were some changes, but none that seriously detracted from the storyline. As so far they have done a very good job of adapting these books into the series.

"How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution" by Lee Alan Dugatkin & Lyudmila Trut

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Copyright: 2017

ISBN: 9780226444185

This book is a detailed and fascinating account of the experiments undertaken to determine if it was domesticate the silver fox in Russia, in the early to mid 20th century, under the guidance of the Russian geneticist Dimitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut.

It also details a lot of the political intrigue that had to be dealt with in the early years due to the way the communist system at the time worked, or rather didn't work due to the overbearing hatred of genetics and science in general by Stalin and Trofim Lysenko. Luckily for science shortly after Nikita Kruschiev came to power in 1953, Lysenko was sacked.

Due to Lysenko’s influence / over bearing hatred of science the experiments had to be disguised as breeding experiments to increase the fox population for the production of furs.  

When the news got out of what they were really doing and the fantastic benefits to science that they were discovering the entire scientific community got behind the project.

The fox farm project continues to this day, and the advances and discoveries they have made continue to astound those in the field of animal research.

This book would be a great read for anybody who is interested in seeing how science actually works, and some of the pitfalls they have to deal with.

Highly recommended.

"Clockwork Angels: The Novel" by Kevin J. Anderson

 

Publisher: ECW Press
Copyright: 2012
ISBN: 9781770903371

This is a rather unique book in that it is the novelization of the song lyrics written by the late Neil Peart who was the drummer for the iconic Canadian rock group Rush. The story is essentially a coming of age story of a young man Owen Hardy or as he is primarily known in the book Owenhardy, an assistant orchard master from the village of Barrel Arbour in the land of Albion.

Albion is ruled by the supposedly benevolent Watchmaker who controls the entire culture with clockwork precision. Young Owen is soon to become an adult, and he is then elected to marry the love of his life, and then take over the orchard from his father, etc. The Watchmaker knows about Owen, and is watching him, however, so is the Anarchist who is the Watchmaker's opponent who wants to disrupt the society and allow people to think for themselves.

The book is set in a "steampunk" style world and Owen is exposed to the reality of world he has always believed in and accepted as normal when various circumstances force his hand.

This is an excellent book, and highly recommended.

"Venus and Aphrodite: A Biography of Desire" by Bettany Hughes

Publisher: Basic Books, New York

Copyright: 2020

ISBN: 9781541674233

This is the marvellous biography of the goddess Aphrodite, that takes the reader from her origins – which predates her appearance in classical mythology - right through to the present day.

Ms. Hughes examines the history of Aphrodite, as well as her links to the various cultures she was worshipped in. Although Aphrodite is typically considered to be a Greek goddess, who was then adopted by the Romans to become Venus her origins are much earlier than the classical Greek civilization many people are familiar with. Such as "Lady of Lemba" a statue found on the island of Cyprus and dated to approximately 5000 years ago. As most people know the history of Aphrodite revolves around sex, procreation, love, and other forms of spirituality. Therefore this book does focus on that a fair bit, but in an extremely informative and fascinating way.

Since the time of Greek and Roman dominance in the world she has been transformed, and excepted in numerous other cultures up to and including modern day. Is the fantastic book with lots of information, and Ms. Hughes obviously did a fantastic amount of research to put this together.

Highly recommended.

 

"Stories of Your Life and Others" by Ted Chiang

Publisher: Vintage Books

Copyright: 2002

ISBN: 9781101972120

My primary reason for picking up this book of short stories was after seeing the 2017 movie "Arrival" by director Denis Villeneuve, which was based on the short story "Story of Your Life", and which follows the plot fairly well. Yes, I realize I am totally destroying my record of slamming Hollywood, but in this case they did a good job. Prior to this I hadn't read anything by Mr. Chiang at all, much to my dismay.

This book is a collection of eight short stories: the Tower of Babylon, Understand, Division by Zero, Story of Your Life, Seventy-two Letters, The Evolution of Human Science, Hell is the Absence of God, and finally Liking What You See: A Documentary".

All of the stories are very well written and quite thought-provoking. Of the eight stories though the first four are definitely my favorites. I'm not sure if I can say why they are my favourites, but I think it's possibly due to the fact that the characters and the storyline are very well developed and quite interesting.

Mr. Chiang has written the second book entitled "Exhalation", which I'll definitely be looking to get my hands on to read in the near future.

Definitely recommend it.

"Outlaws of the Atlantic: Sailors, Pirates and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail" by Marcus Rediker

Publisher: Beacon Press

Copyright: 2014

ISBN: 9780807033098

This book gives a well researched introduction to the various pirate groups that operated in the Atlantic during the 17th and 18th centuries. Most people know some of characters due to the various pirate movies that have been released over the years, but for the most part these movies deal strictly with what is known as "The Golden Age of Piracy" and focuses on the Caribbean. The range of piratical activities however extends for many centuries prior to this.

Mr. Rediker also gives a great deal of information on what life was likely like onboard a pirate ship (not as bad as typically portrayed in the movies) vs. what life warlike in the Royal Navy (much worse than what is typically portrayed in the movies) - which in a number of cases led to common sailors becoming pirates.

Two examples of this are Edward Barlow and Henry Pitman. The first chose a life at sea at the tender age of 13, while Pitman was transported to Barbados as punishment. Other men were pressed into service, and never saw their families again.

A very good read.

"Neuromancer" by William Gibson

 

Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group

Copyright: 1984

ISBN: 9780441012039

Neuromancer was William Gibson's first novel, and it took the science fiction world by storm due to its realism, interesting characters, and well thought out plot.

The story tells the adventures of Case, a hacker that is being forced to complete a mission to stay alive. In his bloodstream is a toxin that will release after a certain amount of time if there's no antidote given to him. He teams up with an agent (for lack of a better term) named Molly Millions. A lady with Mirror shade implants in her eyes, and 4 cm retractable razors in her fingertips (I haven’t quite figured out how this would work, as the first knuckle on most people is an average of 1.5 cm behind the finger tip).

The story revolves around two artificial intelligences named Wintermute, and Neuromancer. The two AIs, along with Case, Molly and the rest of the crew are also up against the Turing Police, who keep an eye on the doings of AIs, and those that try to hack into them. There isn’t a lot of background information given on why the Turing Police exist, or why they have to watch the AIs, so I found this to be a little off-putting as I happen to like these world-building details.

Molly is a character that also appears in Gibson's short story Johnny Mnemonic, which takes place before Neuromancer, but was written a few years afterwards.

Gibson has also written two more novels set in the same universe entitled Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive. However, I haven't read either of these yet.

This is an excellent book with great characterization, that makes you think and feel with the characters. The plotting is also very tight and well done, and the world building excellent. It however hasn’t quite kept up with the way technology has actually developed and changes since 1984, so I think it might have been better to set it further into the future - but that just my opinion.

Highly recommended to anybody who enjoys good science fiction.