Literally Geeky discussion

The Sleeping Embers of the Ordinary Mind - Ann Charnock

Back in January I was torn between selecting one of two award winning books. The Third Body Problem, about the aliens and The Sleeping Embers of the Ordinary Mind, not about aliens. I chose the former, and chose poorly....

The Sleeping Embers... is a Margaret Atwood sort of book. Margaret Atwood is another author I've been meaning to pick for Literally Geeky, but never quite have, she's not appearing in this list though as I'm pretty sure at some point I'll get around to finding something suitable (my favourites are Alias Grace, The Handmaid's Tale and The Penelopiad, which you need to have read the Odyssey to appreciate).

The Sleeping Embers ... is speculative near futurism with gender at the forfront. It combines the point of view of three women: a forgotten 15th C painter, a contemporary teenager, and a future parthogenetic female post-grad, and it's all about art and society, and what society recognises and rewards, and what it doesn't.

I can hear your sighs of weariness from here. You're wrong. It's a great and challenging book. and far more interesting than the stupid aliens in the Three Body Problem.

Carter Beats the Devil - David Glen Gould

I've ruled this book out from future picks as it's just too damn long. Shame though; it's a great story of a fictionalised version of Carter the Great and the death (or in this case assassination) of the useless bucket of winkles that was President Robert Harding.

It's got a lion, an elephant, Houdini, murder (so much murder), the foundation of the NSA, snobbish secret societies, pirates, historic San Francisco, cannons, blind girls, entrepreneurs, MAGIC, the devil, and SCIENCE!

... It's quite action packed. Maybe a bit too action packed at times, but I'm a sucker for magicians and spies and elephants and so on.

I was really tempted to keep the Jurassic June theme going next month and choose another dinosaur themed book.

Sure, we've read about shapeshifting and clone dinosaurs, but never a story told from the perspective of one!

I was going to pick Raptor Red by renowned paleontologist Robert T. Bakker, but had a change of heart once I got my copy and leafed through it.

It just didn't feel like a book that would garner a lot of interest from everyone. Which isn't to say that I won't read it on my own later...

Most books I want to pick, but don't have to due with being trilogies and too big (waits for Aaron...) A fine example of this would be Dune. I think it would be an awewsome pick for our bookclub, but it's just too massive (waits for Aaron, again...)

I found a good Jurassic June book which I will definitely be picking when it's my turn...

All this dinosaur favouritism. I'm going to find a book on giant sloths for Oligocene August.

But what about plants? I vote for February Devonian.
We shall read The Day of the Triffids

I love the Triffids book. It took years to own a houseplant again after that!