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.

 

The Great Hippopotamus Hotel by Alexander McCall Smith

  

The Great Hippopotamus Hotel by Alexander McCall Smith

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

published 2024

This is a detective book, but not like so many other detective books, there is no body count, there are no car chases or fights. Things go at a more sedate pace, there is a great deal of thought going into finding the solutions to the problems, thought and diplomacy and a lot of tea and cake.

Mma Ramotswe doesn’t rush anywhere, nor does she jump to conclusions, Mma Makutsi can tend to do that, but she isn’t the one in charge. Mma Ramotswe, listens to everyone, she never rushes them, and then asses the facts before she comes to a conclusion. Then it is a case of working out how to solve things, once she has worked out what has happened, where they go from there. It is detection, but it is gentle and polite, a summer afternoon, sat on a veranda with tea and cake.

The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson

The Invention of Air

by Steven Johnson

Published 2009

This book is more than just a history of Joseph Priestly, amateur scientist, minister and radical thinker, than a description of the discovery of oxygen. It places him in the age of enlightenment, where science was not the preserve of professionals, but it was the preserve of people who had the time to observe the surrounding world. It places him at a time when Coffee Houses were a hot bed of discussions on all subjects and a network for passing on information on scientific experimentation.

The book also asks the question of why all this was going on then. Why were the questions being asked and answers found. It takes us back in history to when plants developed lignin, which could stiffen them, help them to grow larger, but which could not be digested by anything around then. Hence, when the plants died, they fell to the ground and lay there, this became the foundation of the coal seams, gas and oil deposits a source of energy which was later to power the industrial revolution which helped to provide the finance for Joseph Priestley’s experiments.

It is an interesting book, though not the easiest of reads. It draws connections between politics, science and religion. It shows that even someone as dedicated to discovery as Joseph Priestley, could not ignore the world around him, the French Revolution and the American War of Independence affected the people with whom he would discuss his latest experiments.