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

Needful history

A book with a title like The Cambridge History Of Medicine makes an obvious claim to be definitive, but also … More

Complicated fun

In my current mission to read Neal Stephenson’s entire oeuvre, I’ve been zigzagging between his earlier and later publications. If … More

Culturing flavour

The world of ‘elite food’ raises certain questions. It would be easy to write off entirely, from a social justice … More

Speculative non-fiction

In the interests of easing myself gradually into research, I’ve continued my investigation of historical bread-baking with quite a modest … More

In black and white

Having dipped into Kim Stanley Robinson’s work at intervals during his career (whether retrospectively as here, or contemporaneously), I’m starting … More