Book Review of The Loch by Fran Dorricott

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A gripping mystery with several twists and a shocking but redemptive conclusion.

This review was based on a free review Epub from the publisher via Net Galley UK

 

Set in Scotland over a bitingly cold holiday weekend (Dear readers, you’re identifying with this already, aren’t you?) three female graduates from the University of Leicester are trying to maintain their friendship now that they have (or have just lost) different jobs in different fields. One of them wonders just who she is and what her roots are, because all her adoptive parents have been able to tell her is that she was left outside a police station as a baby. The holiday arrangements and bookings are in the hands of a friend who’s secretly plotting to help her find out the truth about herself, which turns out to be the most dangerous plan possible. (Actually, we all learn much faster by doing dangerous things than we do by being sensible and keeping things safe.)

The underlying themes are love and courage rather than blame and “justice.” Both the least culpable and the most culpable adult characters spend their final moments trying to protect someone else. Even the reckless plan which places the three young women in danger, is born out of love. It is not a cosy read (the characters don’t manage to heat their holiday home effectively or even feed themselves) but it is an intellectually and morally engaging one.

The Loch by Fran Dorricott is published in the UK by Avon Books on 16/3/2023.

Book Review of The English Fuhrer by Rory Clements

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The best of the Tom Wilde spy series so far.

(This review is based on a free review copy from the publisher via NetGalley UK)

A political-context spy thriller set in England during the run up to Hugh Dalton’s first post-war budget when the future of Great Britain was about to be redefined for generations to come, even if there were neither external threats nor internal plots. The Chinese see such moments of uncertainty as having the potential, for those willing to take action, to change the future when at most other times such actions will fail no matter how hard the protagonists strive. The Chinese appear in this story only as victims of Japanese atrocity, but I find it interesting that the author chose to set his novel at a time when Chinese philosophy might expect such a plot to be potentially decisive, whereas the Gunpowder Plot, for example, was probably destined to fail in its ultimate objective whether the explosives did their murderous work or not.

This is about biological warfare and “Camp 731” in Manchuria, where ruthless experiments on many innocent people were used to develop a number of deadly diseases as weapons. The author has done his research well enough to know that “Porton Down” was actually two separate establishments at the time: MRD Salisbury was the Biological laboratory and CDE Salisbury was the much older Chemical Research Establishment: they shared a canteen building and, post-war, a civilian director. But staff stuck to their own laboratories in their own buildings (in whose technical procedures they were experts) for very compelling safety reasons as well as any reason of national security.

Neither MRD or CDE ever exclusively concentrated on military work, let alone chemical or biological warfare work and in the story the main contribution which MRD experts make is to contain a disease outbreak, understand what the causative agent is and supervise the care of those afflicted by it. This is perfectly credible, when so little of what is written about Porton Down is.* And it is worth noting that while Japanese scientists at Camp 731 were committing countless atrocities to develop the most demonic biological weapons possible, the mundane sanitation and hygiene work done by MRD and CDE to protect Commonwealth and Allied soldiers from naturally-occurring tropical diseases was credited by Lord Louis Mountbatten with being the single most important factor in the Fourteenth Army’s success in liberating Burma from Japanese occupation.

This is also a story about the main protagonist’s experience and extensive knowledge of fascists and NAZI’s being exploited to mislead him, and there are very considerable plot twists (which might challenge our assumptions about the present day) towards the end of an exciting, gripping and readable story. Which also gets the period social background about right.

* The exception is Alistair Maclean’s “The Satan Bug”. Someone who worked at MRD at the time read a copy I gave her and said that he got everything right except that the high security fence was around CDE and he put it, for dramatic purposes, around MRD -and in one sentence he confuses “toxin” with “virus” which is a mistake you’d expect a classical languages teacher to make, because in that context they both mean “something that makes one ill.” The same former MRD researcher also said that almost none of the “investigative reporting” of the journalist Chapman Pincher about Porton Down was accurate and that staff played a game, via a noticeboard in the canteen whereby, every Christmas, the employees who’d got Pincher to publish the most ridiculous story AND buy his informant a nice meal won a share of a kitty that had accumulated throughout the year. You pinned up the article you’d got him to publish with a summary of the meal he’d paid for and put a few shillings in the kitty towards the handsome prizes.

The English Fuhrer by Rory Clements is published by Bonnier Books UK on the 19^th of January 2023.

Where To Buy The Farshoreman

 

Amazon Kindle and Paperback versions:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B47FLBDS
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B47FLBDS
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0B47FLBDS
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0B47FLBDS
https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0B47FLBDS
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0B47FLBDS
https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0B47FLBDS

 

Paperback via Barnes & Noble:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-farshoreman-matthew-k-spencer/1141809025

Smashwords Store (choice of E-book formats):

 https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1291276

 

(NB: the Smashwords mobi version is formatted to Smashwords specs rather than Amazon specs; but works fine on an original Kindle. Depends what you prefer.) 

Smashwords Affiliates (EPUB format Ebooks):

Apple:

https://books.apple.com/us/book/x/id6445158728

 

Barnes & Noble:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940165985522

 

Kobo:

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-farshoreman

Odilo:

https://marketplace.odilo.us/opac/?query=9781005315016

Scribd:

https://www.scribd.com/book/614856445/The-Farshoreman

Elon Musk: Energy Density is More Important than Twitter!

Dear Mr Musk.

What was important about Twitter: the corruption, bias, censorship, ruthless data harvesting and the so-far unexplored reality that personal data being harvested by AIs is indistinguishable from that which an AI might fabricate and is therefore not worth anybody paying money for (which Twitter has in common with all social media save Flickr (where people share beauty rather than opinions)), was important only as long as it remained unexposed. Now it has been exposed, anybody who seeks to address those evils is probably well-equipped to do so. As for AIs fabricating (with or without the knowledge of the relevant CEO) personal data with a market value, it is likely that by exposing the huge number of completely bogus accounts on Twitter you have already done enough to give those footing the gigantic bill for the Social Media Oligarchs and their agendas pause for thought! The business model of ALL the big social media companies depends on the data they are selling being genuine stolen data and not synthetic data on individuals who do not actually exist. Assuming that your purpose in getting Twitter to force you to take control of it, was to destroy the business model of social media companies your work there is either already done, or no longer the best use of your time.

The projects that you are known and widely respected for, have all been in the real world or at least the real outer space surrounding it. PayPal and anything else which makes the internet a tool for people to use in real life, is of more value than social media, whilst the "Metaverse" seeks to create an income-stream entirely divorced from any reality, especially any economic reality. I have a feeling that the Metaverse is about to make Richard Branson's move into the airline business look financially astute! It is time for you to get back to the real world, even if you believe the real world to be a simulation. (There are some cosmologists who think it might actually be easier to create a new real universe than to build and sustain a simulation of one.)

Critics of your real-world activities complain that they cannot tell the difference between many of your business plans and Science Fiction. As a Science Fiction author I am actually rather pleased with you in that respect, because proper Science Fiction should ideally be one scientific or technological change away from becoming reality. In the case of the "far-fetched" projects of yours that matter to the real world, what stands between you and their realisation always boils down to an "energy density of the complete solution" which you have not got. 

You've got a good-enough energy density for electric cars, but to really make a breakthrough into electric trucks (HGVs, not pickups) you need something like one order of magnitude better than you have got, especially in the wide-open spaces of Canada, Australia and South Africa. With Space-X, the energy density of the complete solution you've already got, will get you to the moon. But to get to Mars and back quickly enough for humans to survive the trip, again you need an energy density about an order of magnitude better than what you have got. 

Now then. If you were to make the breakthrough that stands between you and your "far-fetched" dreams becoming reality, so many other things would become possible, for so many other inventors and entrepreneurs, that problems which currently terrify half the world would be solvable and solved. When we do difficult things in the real world, the world does change and the general trend is, despite the never-ending chorus of doom, towards change for the better. For all the hatred and anger against "Big Pharma" engendered by some pretty blatant (and inexplicable) wrong-doing by very powerful people over the Covid Pandemic, it remains true that before the anti-ulcer drug, "Tagamet" was developed and licensed in the mid nineteen-seventies, complications from stomach ulcers were the single most common cause of death, worldwide, in peacetime for persons under fifty years old. Nowadays, almost no-one dies from stomach ulcers and Tagamet and its successors save more lives than any of the vastly more expensive anti-cancer and anti-HIV drugs do, especially in the developing world. (It's not just about funds: publicity for the efficacy of established and non-controversial medicines is absolutely nil; that is both why Big Pharma so frequently does the wrong thing and why it is hated even when it is doing the right thing.)

The potential for good exists in every breakthrough in the real world. But those breakthroughs do have to be made. If the one order of magnitude breakthrough in energy density for both space launchers and electric trucks were made, not only would climate-changing emission targets that are currently politically and economically unthinkable become achievable, but whole fields of endeavour in climate-management which are currently not even doable, such as lofting either huge solar-power arrays or even larger "solar-shades" into appropriate orbits would become not just doable but affordable, too. It must be noted that we might not want the solar shades to orbit the Earth, but the Sun. This really would need a step-change in the energy density of our satellite launchers!

So, Mr Musk. I am not opposing you, or trying to drive you in any direction you do not want to go: I just think you can do the most good for yourself and the rest of us if you return to making a reality out of Science Fiction rather than sense out of politics! Because, with both our environmental and our economic problems (and the latter are quite capable of killing the most people) no application of existing technology, no matter how fervent the support or how much ideological correctness attends its application, is going to get the job done. 

Here comes an appropriate plug:

Mr Musk: to help you and your supporters I have written a Science Fiction novel (at 85,000 words it is hardly an exhausting read) which shows (amongst many other things) how improving the energy density of the complete solution by one order of magnitude, transforms our ability to achieve our dreams. (And if you increase the energy density of electric road vehicles by one order or magnitude the braking distance should at least halve (because the vehicle would be much lighter) and that might save quite a few lives!)

Smashwords (release date, by a happy coincidence, 22/12/2022):

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1291276

ISBN: 9781005315016

 This title will also be available on Smashwords affiliates, such as Barnes & Noble.

Paperback & Kindle (already in print and available):

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B47FLBDS

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B47FLBDS

ISBN:  9798837658099

Merry Christmas!

General Election as a Referendum on Scottish Independence

 

Having lost her IndyRef 2 case in the Supreme Court, Nicola Sturgeon has decided to fight the next general election solely as a referendum on Scottish Independence.

It's not as if there was any other question that Scottish voters might want to ask at all.

Meanwhile, the Tories have decided to allow Norfolk and Suffolk to enjoy a measure of devolution, (probably wisely) separately from each other. This seems to be based on the assumption that Rishi Sunak knows better than King Offa and Alfred the Great. The media are so wrapped up in the IndyRef2 story as to have barely noticed this: they may change their minds when they belatedly realise where the North Sea Gas actually comes ashore!

Book Review of Becky by Sarah May

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This review is based on a free review copy from the publisher via NetGalley UK.

This novel is billed as a modern work of fiction based on the framework of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. As legal fig-leaves go this is a trifle voile, but voile can be very enticing!

It is a fictionalised reworking of the past three decades-odd of tabloid history seen through the eyes of Becky Sharp, the orphaned daughter of a single mother who rises to be the campaigning editor of The Mercury newspaper and then CEO of its parent company, at which point the establishment (and her husband) decide that she is too powerful and she is taken down. (In astronomical terms, Mercury is the nearest object to the Sun.)

The narrative treads carefully at a safe distance around some of the real stories that inspire it, such as the Milly Dowler case, whilst quite cheerfully clipping the kerb on others. A sentence about the son of a prime minister and property fraud will probably stay out of court only by the author’s judicious use of the word “eldest”.

The heroine, Becky Sharp, pursues her career and her agenda very adroitly but also ruthlessly, upsetting and frightening the rich and powerful as she goes. But her downfall is engineered by those rich and powerful people around a case where she is genuinely doing her best to protect the most vulnerable and expose the way the establishment protects sexual predators, more than a few of whom are key establishment figures (as it turns out, Becky knew this from her own personal childhood experience). Her paper closes and Becky narrowly avoids jail, because of actions taken by employees and peers that she didn’t know about. There are obvious echoes, there, of real-life events.

But the idea that Becky’s downfall suits an establishment that habitually turns a blind eye to much worse things also has quite genuine roots in the real world. The News of the World closed because of a phone hacking scandal, but the BBC DID NOT close its doors (nor were ANY criminal charges even contemplated) when one of its reporters used forged documents and a false narrative to not only persuade “a princess” to grant him a career-defining interview, but to also shape and manipulate what she thought and thereby what she said in that interview. Nor did the BBC close when one of its much more respectable broadcasters wrote to three Appeal Court Judges instructing them to uphold the conviction of a mentally-vulnerable man for a very high-profile crime, apparently because if it wasn’t committed by him, it must have been committed by someone like him! Which neatly encapsulates the way many establishment figures view us peasants and all our rights!

The rich and powerful in Britain hold SO MUCH power that their behaviour, in both their personal and official lives, can only be kept in check by a Becky Sharp or someone like her, willing and able to actually take them down when they transgress. And if all the Becky Sharps are abolished, then the behaviour of the rich and powerful will inevitably get worse and worse with every year that passes, till London becomes like Brussels, then like Moscow and then like Sodom.

Becky by Sarah May is published in the UK by Pan MacMillan on the 26^th of January 2023

Album Review of Collateral ReWired

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An excellent lockdown Rock and Roll album with several guest artists

 

This review is based on a paid-for pre-order copy from the publisher.

Collateral ReWired is more than it seems to be. On the face of it, it is a remixed version of the band’s eponymous debut Album, which was published in 2020, with a (very good) new bonus track and a guest artist added on on each of tracks 1 to 6 and 8 & 9, there being two guest artists on track 7. Which sounds like “the best that could be done under pandemic lockdown rules when they couldn’t go on tour (as was planned) or meet and work together closely enough to produce a new album of completely original material.” In actual fact it is more than the sum of these parts (and Collateral now has five members rather than being a four-man band) so it is better to see it as something good that we wouldn’t have heard if the pandemic had not intervened.

The proliferation of guest artists means that there’s a LOT of talent on this album and I like it better than the first. Dedicated fans will probably spend time listening to both albums back to back and pondering the differences, but new listeners who like their rock and roll to sound like rock and roll would do best to start here.

Published in the UK, October 2022 by Big Shot Management.