There's a real Deep South lynch mob feel to events in Southampton and Belfast. The idea that an offence by a Black against a White person is such a transgression against the natural order that it cannot be contained within the bounds of ordinary criminal justice but must lead to riot and rampage.

#booksky #books 6442 The King Of The Hill / Paul J McAuley (Orbit 1992) first short story collection from Brit hard SF writer (and botanist) who therefore diverges in some of these stories towards fantasy elements, given that we start at Arthur's Cadbury Castle & visit a fairytale nightmare universe

#booksky #books 6441 Janissaries : Clan And Crown / Jerry Pournelle and Roland Green (Orbit 1989) bringing peace to the warring factions of time-plundered soldiers takes all modern American technical & tactical know-how with the outposts of the galactic Roman Empire providing the stiffest resistence

#booksky #books 6440 Janissaries / Jerry Pournelle (Orbit 1981) small group of American troops are rescued by aliens from certain death to be re-deployed defending their weed-planet along with previously-deployed units from across human history - carving an independent future will prove challenging

#booksky #books 6349 Orbitsville Departure / Bob Shaw (Orbit 1991) after 200 years, virtually all of Earth's population have moved to live in the Dyson sphere discovered in "Orbitsville" but the deserted planet still holds its threats and secrets and the origins of the artefact also remain unknown

#booksky #books 6438 The Flight Of The Horse / Larry Niven (Orbit 1975) short story collection mostly featuring Svetz, sent from 1000 years hence to the past to retrieve specimens of lost creatures, unaware that he's actually slipping into parallel universes where they aren't all exactly...real

#booksky #books 6437 The Snow Queen / Joan D Vinge (Orbit 1981) cross-pollinization of Hans Christian Anderson and Graves' "White Goddess" on the edge of a blackhole where wormhole travel to the rest of the galaxy is facilitated - but that Stargate (sic) is closing and The Queen Must Die - in theory

#booksky #books 6436 The Net / Loren J Macgregor (Orbit 1989) not that net - it's the psychic link between buccaneering spacers and their ships as the billionaires battle it out across the cosmos fighting for the same ancient jewels that their ancestors had sought across Earth's oceans

#booksky #books 6435 Crisis On Doona / Anne McCaffrey and Jody Lynn Nye (Orbit 1993) humans and feline aliens had met on Doona a generation before and agreed to co-habitation but that treaty is running out & old tensions meet new circumstances : fair enough return farmed out to another collaborator

#booksky #books 6434 Brightness Reef / David Brin (Orbit 1999) start of a trilogy in his Uplift Universe where a transgalactic multi-species civilization adopts lesser species to develop them to higher levels of development & consciousness - though not humans who seem to have bootstrapped themselves

was in Sherwood Saturday - Post Office now shut; last bank in Beeston shut when i was there yesterday. It's an old man's moan : we evolve. BUT it all reduces choice in the name of progress

Nearly 100 fans from Morocco applied to go the USA. The US blocked nearly 90% of their applications. This is the most racist World Cup ever and it should be boycotted by everyone, the USA is refusing to let non-white people come.

#booksky #books 6433 The Death Of Sleep / Anne McCaffrey and Jody Lynn Nye (Orbit 1992) good use of the "cold sleep" macguffin to timejump our heroine through more than a lifetime engaged with the marauding planet pirates ( colonist raiders) ending with linking into the start of "Dinosaur Planet"

#booksky #books 6432 Dinosaur Planet / Anne McCaffrey (Orbit 1984) survey team finds dinosaurs (not evolved) on their target planet which is a big enough challenge before half the team go psychotic and start hunting the rest - shoehorning exercise but the big lizards have always been box-office

#booksky #books 5547 Penguin Viking Library 48 The Portable Coleridge / I A Richards (1980, Oxfam £3) American 50's academic editions crossed the Atlantic mid-70's and I disdained them. I was wrong and wish I'd snapped them up back then. Also : if only the editor was I V A Richards, a great compiler

#booksky #books 2561 Interworld / Neil Gaiman and Michael Reeves (Harper 2013, charity shop £1) I'm far too old for another "teen discovers extraordinary powers" story but I was early for the Doc so popped in the charity shop and started reading this & you can be damn sure I'll be finishing it ASAP

#booksky #books 6431 Lost Dorsai / Gordon R Dickson (Orbit 1991) the galaxy's most effective mercenaries have trained an army for a faraway ruler - but now the new-elite troops are revolting & there's only 5 Dorsai left to save their employer & defuse the situation. And one of those refuses to fight

#booksky #books 6430 All My Sins Remembered / Joe Haldeman (Orbit 1978) intergalactic adventures of an undercover shapeshifting enforcer fighting for human and non-human rights, compiled in the old SF style of stitching together old short stories with some linking material. Lovely harsh edges

#booksky #books 6429 The Ship Who Searched / Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey (Orbit 1995) paralysed by an alien virus young Tia's brain is wired into a spaceship that she'll then use to find the source of her infection and eradicate it. Also : young author piggybacks older writer's concept

#booksky #books 5651 Penguin 6418 Returning / Edna O'Brien (1985, charity shop £1) short stories from her rural Irish post-war girlhood - fondness for a gentle vanished world that she'd been quick enough to leave behind when heading for swinging stardom in'60's London

#booksky #books 2588 Wasting More Police Time / David Copperfield (Monday 2012, charity shop £1.50) challenging : these and related books of insider anecdotes promote a definite political agenda which I oppose and some are clearly fake but there's a ring of truth to him that means he should be heard

#booksky #books 2077 Penguin 25675 Heartache Spoken Here / Stephen Walsh (1998, bookswap) turning his life into a lied version of his beloved country and western songs by heading for he open road in a camper van when his wife ditches him - sad more than funny and an insight into a weird sub-culture

#booksky #books 12210 Penguin 18337 The Echoing Grove / Rosamund Lehmann (7th post-1958) not so hard to imagine complex & intense relationships when your own life's been unremittingly crazy : posh lovers in turmoil, effectively described & evoked, breaking no literary pots but gently assured quality

#booksky #books 148 Penguin 2365 Abinger Harvest / E M Forster (1974, Oxfam £2.49) effectively a collected non-fiction (volume one) gathered by subject : contemporary commentary; lit crit; historical musings; engagements with India ; & Olde English quaintness. The skeletons to his novels build here

#booksky #books 2549 A Guide To The Prehistoric Remains In Britain Volume One : South and East / Richard Wainwright (BCA 1978, charity shop £1.50) problems with archaeology have often stemmed from being too definitive - thus saying these are "the" remains implies a false limit to future discoveries

#booksky #books 20886 Pelican 2037 Towards A New Psychology Of Women / Jean Baker Miller (1978, charity shop £1) some feminist utopianism and conclusions from decades of practicing psychoanalysis that are sweeping and seem naive to me but I'm not qualified to judge and, more importantly, not a woman

#booksky #books 1223 The Concise Wisden / Benny Green (Queen Anne 1990, charity shop 50p) is there a any need for another anthology? Emphatically yes when the first thing I turn to is a scorecard from a match umpired by Notts' Legend J. Hardstaff and A. Dolphin - there's always a new angle

#booksky #books 1215 John Arlott's Book Of Cricketers (Lutterworth 1979, charity shop 50p) 25 personal favourite pen portraits from his all-time hero Sir Jack Hobbs to Sir Vivian Richards because the giants of this game above all others have been lavishly appreciated by the Establishment

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