Off in the distance

The real problem is that a species that lives inside its own fictions can no longer imagine a healthy fiction to live inside, and this failure of the imagination stops us from steering towards the better versions of our potential futures. [p. 19]

The Future Starts Here: An Optimistic Guide to What Comes Next is a cultural analysis of how we view the future, focussing very much on the positive. The book ranges from an overview of why colonising Mars is a daft idea to explorations of the Knebb rewilding project, of natural versus artificial intelligence (and why Higgs feels his cat is smarter than Alexa), and of the ways in which virtual reality can be more than just entertainment. ( Read more... )

“... they began to exhibit afflictions.”
“Apophenia being the worst, and most notable,” said Ghrelin. “An uncontrollable, debilitating impulse to spy patterns in everything.”
I glanced at Ana, but she only smiled and wryly said, “Oh, I’m familiar with that one..." [loc. 3361]

Sequel to The Tainted Cup, and second in Bennett's 'Shadow of the Leviathan' trilogy. While this didn't wow me quite as much as the first book -- which was so utterly novel in setting and ambience -- it's still a marvellous read. Bennett continues to explore the Empire of Khanum, in this case by venturing outside it. ( Read more... )

...that’s the problem with rich people in the UK – not only are half of them clinically evil, they’re clinically evil bastards who all went to school together and still haven’t grown up. [loc. 2457]

Maisie Baxter works for Novum, a boutique ethical assassination agency. Her boss is the charismatic Gabby Hawthorne (played, in my head, by Helen Mirren); she shares a flat with Beth, who knows nothing about Maisie's job; she's been single for a while, because she can't have a relationship without revealing her secret double life.

But when a man named Will shows up at two of her jobs, and the target is killed before she can take care of business, she becomes suspicious ( Read more... )

I do know the look of a ruby, in the same way that I know sable and ermine and mink. One always knows where one is going, even if one doesn't quite know how to get there. [loc. 2096]

Reread of a novel first read in the 1990s, which I don't think I've revisited since. Certainly I had forgotten all but a few details: melon balls, a corpse on a horse, boring brother.

Ibiza Surprise is set in the late Sixties. Sarah Cassells is twenty years old, the daughter of impecunious Lord Forsey, and (possibly) 'the swingiest chick this side of Chelsea'. She has trained as a cook, lives in London in a flatshare, and makes a living by catering extravagant dinner parties. Her primary aim in life is to find someone 'decent' (i.e. rich) to marry. ( Read more... )