A wonderful novel, it tells the story of a star ship that leaves a dieing earth behind to continue human life on a new planet around a different sun. On the way they stop at a planet to make repairs and discover that human life is already there. There is a lovely part about how the ‘president’ of the planet is chosen not by volunteering and asking for votes, but by random choice. The theory being that anyone who wants to be president would automatically be a bad choice. There are other interesting ideas and theories set out in the book, all plausible if not actually (yet) possible. I love also the way Arthur C Clarke uses and creates language, once you’ve read this book you’ll understand why I can use “Kumar’s Kayak” as a metaphor for this web site 😉
Month: April 2006
Blast from the past!
Just heard from an old friend called Adam. We met some 15 years ago at Chatham Ski Centre. A group of blind skiiers were looking for guides so I volunteered (and ended up managing the log book of available guides for when someone wanted to go skiing). We’ve booked a ski session for a few weeks time. Adam is totally blind so my job as a guide is to shout “left” and “Right” at the appropriate time so he stays on the slope and doesn’t bump into anyone.
A Dawn Like Thunder (Douglas Reeman)
I saw this in the second hand bookshop and it brought back memories of when I was growing up. Douglas Reeman has writen a lot of fiction about the Navy in World War 2 and I remember reading abridged versions of them in Readers Digests compendiums (the consolidated 4 books in to one slightly larger volume).
I actually found this one quite hard to read. Perhaps it was because I’ve got two books on the go at the moment but I often lost track of which character was which. The story line was good and I found myself picturing with ease the circumstances and surroundings the characters were living through. I don’t think this is a book that will leave you feeling happy at the end, but then I don’t think any book with a wartime theme will – in war, heros and villains die alike.