I’m fortunate enough to be closely related to someone (my mum) who is something of an authority on the state … More
Author: Oli
I'm a fool for words.
Light touch, heavy themes
I inhabit a timeline in which the definitive version of Michael Moorcock’s huge fantasy sequence is The Tale of The … More
Mumbling in the pocket
On the last day of last year, the death was announced of one of the most enigmatic and under-recorded figures … More
Surface is depth
Orlando is a very complex and sophisticated film based on a very complex and sophisticated book which I haven’t read. … More
No conflict
The American economy has had its ups and downs—in the 1970s manufacturing crashed so badly that several large cities were … More
Open worlds
Aladdin Sane was my first Bowie album. Not the first Bowie I heard, and not even the first of his … More
Everything happens only once
My exploration of Kim Stanley Robinson’s oeuvre is proceeding in a kind of pincer movement, reading books alternately from either … More
My grandfather’s hats
It’s a strange privilege to have had a grandfather who was, as he once put it, ‘world famous to five … More
A work of play
This Neal Stephenson dude likes to go large. Enormous books, with vast casts of characters, containing epic and sprawling storylines … More
The source
Reading the second volume of Rebellion’s sumptuous collected Nemesis The Warlock has been a real pleasure. It hasn’t been a … More
A joy
One of the leading South American festivals of electronic and experimental music, I gather, is Novas Frequências, held somewhere in … More
Indulging in the immediate future
In Red Moon Kim Stanley Robinson turns his attention to the Earth’s satellite in much the same way that he … More
Mystery abides
First-person narratives often use the grammatical device of the first-person pronoun to solicit the reader’s close identification with the narrator, … More
Difficult questions
Josienne Clarke has a vocal style. Some of its appurtenances, such as its precise diction, its half-rounded vowels, its purity … More
