B i b l i o f i l e

  
 (Published: SCRIBNER 2009. 193 pages)
No Tea Party: Love and Bigotry in a North American City

Map of Ireland opens with a quote from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “geography is fate.” Although it is indeed true that the fate of the protagonist of this novel would have been different had she not lived in South Boston, her [...]

[Read more →]

(Publisher: Little, Brown 2009. 404 pages).
PARALLEL WORLDS OF CAPITALISM, CHRISTIANITY AND TORTURE
 
 Iain Banks writes mainstream novels. He also writes science fiction (SF) novels as Iain M Banks. Potential readers aware of these facts may conclude that the omission of the author’s middle initial from the cover of this book guarantees that it is not [...]

[Read more →]

(Publisher: Europa Editions, 2009. 162 pages)
OF TERRORISM, WRITING AND AGING
Set in Italy and originally written in Italian, this novel initially appears to be about someone accused of terrorism (of the Red Brigades variety). Then it also becomes an account of an author trying to write a novel about said topic.
The characters, of which the author [...]

[Read more →]

 (Published: Serpent’s Tail 2005)
 
THE WORST OF TIMES: A TALE OF ONE CITY
 Set in the capital of Algeria in the early 1990s, this short novel is the story of a singer who is on the verge of stardom, for whom a number of things go wrong, resulting in a radical change in his attitudes and his [...]

[Read more →]

ET, Phone God
This readable but poorly imagined genre novel is notable for presenting natural theological arguments within the context of an account of First Contact with extraterrestrials.
“Natural theology” is the label applied to attempts to demonstrate the existence of an omnipotent creator by an examination of the characteristics of the natural world.
Contemporary science is agreed [...]

[Read more →]

The long dark night of the Edinburgh soul?
If you have ever wondered what kind of world will emerge from the current “War on Terror”, then you may enjoy reading the new novel by Ken MacLeod.
It is set some decades from now, in the aftermath of a series of conflicts known in the formerly US-allied countries [...]

[Read more →]