Second Variety by Philip K. Dick

  

Second Variety

Volume two of the Collected Stories by Philip K. Dick

published 1987

Philip Kindred Dick was born on 16^th December 1928 and died 2^nd March 1982, before the collected stories was published. His twin sister died shortly after their birth and their tombstone was inscribed with both their names. He died, at the age of 53, due to complications after a stroke and his Father had his ashes buried with his sister.

He started publishing si-fi short stories in magazines in 1953, at the age of 23. Volume 2 of his collected stories contains ones written between 1952 and 1955. They are dystopian and, although written over 70 years ago, contain some things that are currant such as fighting robots and the idea of a Planet B. Nothing good comes of these things, robots are in charge of their manufacture, they develop new and more efficient fighting robots who decide that the humans are the problem, kill them off on earth and then fight amongst themselves, leaving earth devoid of life. In another story people travel back in time to find out how to make robots so that they can use them to restore earth to a living planet. The people take the plans for the robots and their inventor accidentality dies whilst they do this, leaving them with the problem of what to do to correct their problems. They go forward to find out the effect of their actions and find earth is a green and pleasant planet, so they burn the notes they took.

The story with the planet B had earth laid waste, probably due to war, so the survivors decided they needed a new world. They thought Mars looked possible, so they sent out a survey team to check it out. They found the ruins of a city, deserted about 6,000 years before and information to show that they had headed for an alternative planet, unfortunately that one happened to be earth. So they decided they had to look outside the galaxy for a Planet B.

There are 27 stories in this collection, there are five books in the series, He also wrote about 45 novels, many of which were made into films. He is considered to be one of the greatest dystopian si-fi writers of the 20^th century. There is one thing that does date it, all his characters smoke and he mentions it a lot.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

  

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

by Mark Haddon

Published 1988

The story starts with a dead dog, it was on the lawn of the narrator, Christopher Boone’s, neighbour.

Christopher has Asperger’s Syndrome and the story is told from his perspective.

As the events progress, we find out about Christopher and his neighbour, Mrs Shears, her husband and Christopher’s Mother and Father. We find out how Christopher’s behaviour has affected the lives of the two couples living opposite each other and how this has lead to the death of Wellington, the Shears dog.

It is well written and gives an insight into the way that Christopher reacts to situations, how he can get overwhelmed by them and how he behaves when this happens and how this affects those around him. There is no resolution, but then it isn’t important, life goes on, but differently. I think the importance of the book is that it has the narrator as someone with Asperger’s Syndrome and the story is told from his point of view and through his logic, not from the view of someone observing his actions, but not understanding them or realising that sometimes he just needs space to reduce the number of thoughts dashing round his head.

The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway by Kathryn M Janeway

  

The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway

by Kathryn M Janeway

edited by Una McCormack

First Published 2020 by Paramount Pictures Corporation

It is odd to read the autobiography of a fictional character who wont be born for a couple of hundred years, especially, as it is an autobiography, and therefore it is written by that person, but, if you accept that person as real, then it works.

Her early childhood is happy and secure, she grows up wanting to follow in her Fathers footsteps, and join Starfleet. She works hard and gets in a year early, with the intention of becoming a Captain. Things don’t go that smoothly at the Academy, there are those who think she got her place because she is her Father’s daughter. Nothing she can do about that, except work extra hard to prove that she got there on her own merit. This doesn’t end when she graduates, there is always someone saying she got what she got because of her Father.

The book fills in what we don’t know about her before she became Captain of Voyager. I didn’t know it was her first command, though I think I knew it was a new ship, I didn’t know that her previous Captain thought that she got the post because of her late Father and not on her merit. It would have been interesting to know how he felt when the ship was reported missing, though it wouldn’t have fitted in with the narrative.

The journey through the Delta quadrant is well documented in the tv series, so it is well that she doesn’t go into too much detail, though there were a few things that I thought should have been included, but I suppose there always will be. It is what happened next that I find difficult, everyone seems to have left Voyager and lived happy lives. Though in Picard, 7 of 9 is looking for revenge after Icheb dies in her arms. Also, there is a movement towards accepting holograms, like the Doctor, as having human rights, which leads to a backlash and civil unrest. Of course, this could be accounted for in alternatives realities, there are several stories in which things go wrong, badly and then something is done that takes everyone back to before it happened and they go down another path that takes them away from the bad ending.

Whatever, it takes you into the reality of Kathryn Janeway and her life and leaves you wondering if the older Janeway, turning up to help at the end of Voyager’s journey, manages to do it without ending up dead, and if so, what did she do next, how did she get home this time, did her daughter help in that return.

Atlantic City Proof by Christopher Cook Gilmore

Atlantic City Proof

by Christopher Cook Gilmore

Copyright 1978

The book was serialised on Women’s Hour, sometime in the 1980’s, but we could never remember how it ended or what happened, apart from the fact that the engine’s on Garvey’s boats kept getting bigger and faster in an attempt to out run the coast guard. My husband found the book, so that we could find out what happened.

The book is written from Garvey’s perspective, who’s family moved into an elephant after their farm was washed away by a storm and a very high tide. His Father was always waiting for the sea to bring the farm back, but year after year, it remained under water.

Garvey loved the sea and sailing, all his endeavours are about enjoying the speed of the boats he was sailing and finding out how to make a living whilst sailing.

Then there was Minnie. Her family worked on the end of the pier, until one night the sea took away the end of the pier and her parents with it. Garvey meets Minnie whilst clam fishing and a friendship begins. It could be described as a romance, between Garvey and Minnie. It is set in Prohibition America, Garvey considered that transporting the booze from the boats in the international waters to the shore was more lucrative than digging around in the mud for clams and things moved from there to getting bigger, faster boats and riding the wave the of prohibition till it was repelled and seeing what the next big thing was after that. Minnie is an important part of the team, as it is she and her knowledge of how things work, who keeps the engines running smoothly thus enabling them to out run anyone else.

It is an easy book to read. Garvey is an easy character to feel sympathy for, he has fallen for someone who doesn’t like to make commitments. He’s in it, more for the thrill of speed than anything. He never drinks any of the booze he transports, unlike so many others connected to the network.

Dr Who The audio scripts

  

Dr Who The Audio Scripts

published 2002

This is a selection of 4 scripts from the radio Dr Who stories. I found the format a little difficult at first, but you can get used to it. They are all 4 part stories.

Loups-Garoux by Marc Pegg

The fifth Doctor and Turlough

A story of werewolves. A woman, with her heavily sedated son, flee through the night on a private train trying to evade a werewolf. The son is sedated because he is a werewolf, in fact most of the people on the train are werewolves. One of the people who isn’t is a Doctor who is trying to cure the son of being a werewolf and therefore get rid of werewolves, this is not a popular idea with the werewolves.

The Holy Terror by Robert Shearman

The Sixth Doctor and Frobisher

The Emperor and God has died, long live the next emperor and God. All who follow the old Emperor and God are now heretics and must pledge allegiance to the new one or be tortured and killed. The Emperor’s widow must also be tortured and killed. The new Emperor isn’t sure, his wife isn’t happy, she faces the same fate as the old Emperors widow if he doesn’t become God and Emperor. His brother wants to be Emperor. There are a lot of people in the story that don’t seem to mind the idea of torture and death, except non of them really exist.

The Fires of Vulcan by Steve Lyons

The seventh Doctor and Mel

The story starts in 1980 in Pompeii where an archaeologist uncovers an English Police Box under the ashes. UNIT is called in and they take the box away, the Doctor is informed.

Next, the Doctor and Mel arrive in Pompeii, the day before the volcano erupts, the problem is, how do they get away from Pompeii, but leave the Tardis to be found in 1980.

The appendix contains an alternative Part 1 to this story, where it is Ace that accompanies the seventh Doctor. She says, mostly, the same words, but it is odd how different it feels with Ace instead of Mel.

Neverland by Alan Barnes

The eighth Doctor and Charley

Charley was born on the day the Titanic sank and stowed away on the R101 when it caught fire and crashed. She was supposed to die on that day, but the Doctor intervened and this caused problems with time and space, not only there but in every place they visited. The Time Lords in Gallifrey weren’t happy, they forced the Doctor to return to help solve the problem. I’m not sure it ended all that well for the Doctor, I suspect that will be resolved in the next story, but that isn’t in this book.

The format took a bit of getting used to, but the stories were difficult to put down and it  would be interesting to hear them.

Threads of Life by Clare Hunter

  

Threads of Life

by Clare Hunter

published 2020

Clare Hunter was introduced to sewing, at an early age, by her Mother. As a banner maker, community textiles artist and curator she has learnt a lot about the place and purpose of needlework, through history and around the world. This book is part a memoir of her work and part a history of the needlework she has come across through her life and work. She sees it as a means of expression about the lives and experiences of people who would have gone unheeded and unheard, mainly women. She considers it to contain a language, known only to women, used to pass knowledge on from Mother to daughter, as such, the language is in danger of being lost.

Needlework was something I was taught at school, if there is a language, they failed to teach it to me, which makes me feel that I have missed something. Sewing was something used to produce garments, embroidery was not important, sidelined as something women did.

It is a good book, not easy reading, a few pictures might have helped or descriptions of the needlework.

A Short History of the World According to Sheep by Sally Coulthard

A Short History of the World According to Sheep

by Sally Coulthard

published 2020

History is generally seen from the point of view of humanity. I think it was Churchill who once said “History shall prove me right, because I shall write that history.” Since then more people have come along and written history, but not from his view point and come to different conclusions. Of course sheep are not known, by us, to be great writers so we can not be sure what they think. According to Douglas Adams the world is an experiment observed by mice, he might have been wrong and it could be being observed by sheep, they have spread across the world to most of the places that man inhabits.

This book covers the effect that man has had on sheep and the effect the sheep have had on man. For example, when the black death wiped out about one third of the world’s population agriculture changed because there were insufficient people to tend the fields, but a field of sheep only required one or two shepherds to mind them. Sheep flourished, especially in the UK, where the climate suited them and they produced high quality wool which was good for weaving. At first the wool was exported to Europe, where it was woven into cloth. This encouraged the development of the weaving industry in the UK and brought prosperity to the depleted population.

The book is full of many examples in which sheep shaped the development of England and it’s relationship with the rest of the world. I am sure they also did the same for other countries. What does the future hold for sheep, there are some that want to remove them from the Lake District, they claim sheep brought about deforestation, yet they have been there for over 6,000 years and it is hard to imagine the hills without Herdwicks, I think they know the land better than most people.

It is an interesting book and shows that sheep are much more than just woolly blobs that graze the hills and produce the cutest of creatures, lambs.