Something that annoys me to no end is when people avoid reading fantasy or sci-fi because it isn’t realistic. I argue that realism isn’t about the veracity of flying dragons or building a fusion reactor that can fit in our hands; it’s about the human elements in between. Sci-fi can be a reminder of the dangerous trajectory we are heading in. Fantasy can reflect inequality by condensing resources to one mystical gem. To this end, any book that ends with me understanding the danger of language by describing it as a virus or showing me how books can bridge the gap between past and present makes me grow as a person.
I wonder where humanity is heading. Somewhere around 2023, I fell off the deep end with my newfound love for the cyberpunk genre. I started with this classic. Just the opening has lodged itself in my brain: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
In the future, I wonder if the line between machine and flesh, digital and real, will be so blurred that it’s all the same to us. In many ways, the post-capitalistic cyberpunk world is already here, and I see that reflected in Neuromancer.
The book that defined the cyberpunk movement, inspiring everything from The Matrix to Cyberpunk 2077.
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
William Gibson revolutionised science fiction in his 1984 debut Neuromancer. The writer who gave us the matrix and coined the term 'cyberspace' produced a first novel that won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards, and lit the fuse on the Cyberpunk movement.
More than three decades later, Gibson's text is as stylish as ever, his noir narrative still glitters like chrome in the shadows and his depictions of…
A virus that moves through language? It's insane, and yet, I can’t stop seeing it in action.
When I first started the book, I had to roll my eyes at the cliché of a protagonist in a videogame who was also one of the most renowned samurais in the world. It explored themes that, at the beginning, seemed so comical. And yet, I finished that book and walked away feeling pensive.
I knew inherently that a language can be destructive. It can sow discord and preach hate. But the perspective of seeing it as a virus brought a whole new light to the concept. It’s something I never considered before, especially when imagining how hate can spread so virulently.
The “brilliantly realized” (The New York Times Book Review) breakthrough novel from visionary author Neal Stephenson, a modern classic that predicted the metaverse and inspired generations of Silicon Valley innovators
Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions.
Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords. His home is a shared 20 X 30…
Books are what connect us to the past and remind us of the present.
My love for Mark Lawrence’s work began when I saw the cover for King of Thorns at a bookstore. I went ahead and ordered Prince of Thorns the same day and never looked back. So it comes with a heavy heart when I say that this has taken the spot as my favorite book by Mark.
What a beautiful, simple idea to base a story around the library of Babel. Pop culture still invokes imagery regarding the library of Alexandria. Books, and by extension, libraries, connect us to our past. They are the legacy that we leave behind, and they are vessels for the zeitgeist that different points of existence embody.
All books, no matter their binding, will fall to dust. The stories they carry may last longer. They might outlive the paper, the library, even the language in which they were first written.
The greatest story can reach the stars . . .
This is the start of an incredible new journey from the internationally bestselling author of Prince of Thorns, in which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned...
Evar has lived his whole life trapped within a vast library, older than empires and larger than cities.
What is the essence of creating art? That’s what I took away from this book. The main plot of the book has to do with hamartia and the fall of an angel, but it is the commentary on the perfection of art that really stuck with me.
This is more so because Graham McNeil’s prior attempt to depict corruption in False Gods was such a disappointment, which turns Fulgrim into glorious vindication. Artists always lament and torment themselves over their work. Constant doubt makes an artist strive for perfection, with brief moments of feeling like we succeeded. No book encapsulated that for me like this did.
It is the 31st millennium, and humanity is at the peak of its powers. As the Great Crusade, led by Warmaster Horus, continues to conquer the galaxy, Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children, leads his warriors into battle against a vile alien foe. From the blood of this campaign are sown the seeds that will lead this proud Legion to treachery, taking them down the darkest of paths of corruption. Leading up to the carnage of the Dropsite Massacre on Isstvan V, this is the tale of Fulgrim's tragic fall from grace.
What responsibility does mankind have towards the universe and itself? What sort of responsibility do we have towards them, especially when actual humans are on the brink of extinction?
A book like this makes me think about a lot of abstract (and perhaps pretentious) philosophy. Do humans have a responsibility towards their own species or even the universe? By extension, what is the qualitative nature of a human? If we regress as a society, does that diminish our value? And what if there are space spiders who become intelligent beings? What sort of responsibility do we have towards them, especially when actual humans are on the brink of collapse?
I think what stuck with me most was the lesson at the end. (Which I won’t spoil)
Winner of the 30th anniversary Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Novel
Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed, stand-alone novel Children of Time, is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet.
Who will inherit this new Earth?
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life.
But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the…
On the subject of books that make you think about humanity’s legacy, I feel that Eleventh Cycle’s themes sneak up on you. It is slow, deliberate, and patient in this regard. Much of Eleventh Cycle is about rawness, especially the raw nature of humanity and what makes us human.
It explores suffering as a human trait, as well as raw intimacy and the feeling of acute sense and loss and what it means to have ego-death and pick up the pieces afterwards. In a world slowly fading into oblivion, I feel like these questions are the most important as mankind rages against the dying light. In the end, I trust that people are left with hope.
I have been to, and loved, North, Central, and especially East Africa for over fifty years. Only six times have I been to Africa on holiday; more often, perhaps twenty or more times, as a television producer. Working in Africa gains a perspective of reality that the glories of vacation do not. Each has its place, each its pitfalls like stalled plane rides with emergency landings in the bush or attacks by wildlife. But, in the end, the magic of the “otherness,” what an old friend called “primitava” captures one’s soul and changes your life.
Keen to rekindle their love of East African wildlife adventures after years of filming, extreme dangers, and rescues, producer Pero Baltazar, safari guide Mbuno Waliangulu, and Nancy Breiton, camerawoman, undertake a filming walking adventure north of Lake Rudolf, crossing from Kenya into Ethiopia along the Omo River, following a herd of elephant making their annual migration.
Stumbling onto an elephant poaching, the team become embroiled in true financing of terrorism for al Shabaab –ivory sales–and are determined to stop the slaughter at any cost. Ivory trade financing terrorism involves UN refugee camps with two hundred thousand displaced Somali persons, powerful…
A documentary team hiking through East Africa collides with a gang of deadly poachers, in this gripping adventure by the author of Kidnapped on Safari.
Years of filming, extreme dangers, and daring rescues have taken their toll on documentary producer Pero Baltazar and his team. To relax and reconnect with the East African wildlife they love, Pero organizes a walking safari for him, his camerawoman Nancy Breiton, and their elite guide Mbuno Waliangulu. Still, Pero has trouble truly disconnecting from work. When the team comes across a herd of elephants making their annual migration north of Lake Rudolf, Pero decides…
