Memories are real

Philip K Dick is a smart sassy writer and his short stories are ideal for film. But book versus film is always going to be a futile question. They are different. Get over it. They can both be great. Both be bad. One great and one bad.
What interests me is how your anticipation or retrospective memory are slightly different for each of these forms. How we feel about the experience is important to whether we react positively or not. It is the same with memories. If we had a bad experience with something we are unlikely to want to repeat it and yet the facts of the experience may or may not support whether it was good or not. So, TripAdvisors, how do you rate your trip to Mars? Was it a good holiday, a nightmare or a bit of both? Can you trust your memory? Are you Arnold Schwarzenegger or Colin Farrell? Are you both and someone has tampered with your memory? We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.

The war is over but the battle repeats

HG Wells' stories continue to inspire film, theatre, music and art high and low.

It's not hard to work out why as he was a rattling good story teller. He had imaginative plots, lots of action and some good twists. Whether you get to know the characters in depth and can overcome some of the jarring historical references (servants and stuff) is another matter.

Some of his tales, and War of the Worlds is definitely one of them, do fare better with reinterpretation and I'm not talking Tom Cruise here. Still it's refreshing now and then to get back to the source.

Fishing for compliments

I had some difficulty enjoying this book. I had no problem with the cultural location - a family in Nigeria to which I'd had some remote exposure through studies, friends and colleagues - and liked the expression and some great turns of phrase. What I struggled with was something much more familiar to readers of generational literature from the UK south west. This was the Thomas Hardy fateful doom that is obvious and inevitable as these youngsters grow up and come of age. But don't let me put you off. There is even a happy ending. I just didn't like the "something bad is going to happen" and then surprise, surprise it does.

Mountain madness

Simon Ingram manifests all the classic symptoms of a man possessed by the completely irrational desire to walk and climb up mountains in all weathers, at all times of the day and night and try to explain himself to rational humans, Between the Sunset and the Sea is a poetically titled book that eloquently captures the moods of the mountains and their tiny assailants. But he still can't convince me that staying overnight with midges, ticks and storm conditions are all part of the fun or that obsession with brands of cagoule is healthy in a grown man. But I can see the sense of self-worth and tranquillity that cresting that summit in beautiful light brings and how dangerously addictive it can become.

People, places and plants

Roy Lancaster's memory is phenomenal. I know the secret. He carries around a small A5 notebook in his jacket at all times. Within it are the people, places and plants he has visited. Some of them anyway as his travels have been prodigious and he has had at least 80 years to amass an incredible volume(s) of friendships and stories. I was lucky enough to obtain a dedicated copy of his autobiography 'My life with plants' and to walk around Hilliers garden along with a few others to listen to him recount the memories that each plant reveals. Not only could he remember where in the world a particular plant was collected, and the species taxonomy, he could remember the time of day, date, who he was with and probably give you their family history as well. He says that he could shut his eyes on a train and imagine all the places he has been and people he has met. He clearly doesn't need an MP3 player or iPad to keep him entertained. But the best thing - which has come across in all his TV, radio and personal appearances - is his infectious enthusiasm for all things natural. It's a mistake to think of him as a gardener. He isn't one for topical tips and double digging. He is, at core, a natural historian in the very best and encyclopedic sense of that noble and somewhat neglected professional term. Happy days all round. 

The road less travelled but most busy

 

We see history and culture through a very localised lens but what Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads teaches us is that the lens is a kaleidoscope of rich images that have often travelled further than we think.
There are many things that surprised me about the contents of this book. Like many people in my locale I was brought up with a Eurocentric view of history that there were a few Kings and Queens and then we had a couple of World Wars. I don't suppose it is that different in the States or in some parts of Africa for that matter.
The publishers have given this book a rather pretentious claim to be "A New History of the World". It is. As long as you recognise that it is still going to be one view (although curiously echoed by Sam Willis' excellent BBC documentary The Silk Road) then The Silk Roads gives a welcome, refreshing and fascinating view from the Asian end of the road and in particular the "stans" and other partially lost cultures, nations and religions of the vast lands above India between Turkey and China. These nations and people became partially eclipsed by conquest but their mineral wealth will probably bring them (or at least their oligarchs) back into view as the Silk Roads remain open for business.

Reach the Border and climb upside down

Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation is speculative fiction at its best. I hesitate to call it science fiction because the genre carries such a weight of comic book action heroes. There is some shooting and running about but character and description are the core of this story which forms the first part of the Southern Reach series of books. The lead character is a biologist who is sent across the border into alien territory where very little is known about the inhabitants and their world. What she encounters there challenges her understanding and, at times, the description of the author. That is what I like about it - that Vandermeer tries to describe something which is indescribable. That trope used to be the mainstay of horror: that there was something lurking in the dark rather some psycho with a chainsaw in the full glare of light. So it is with this genre that the speculation about alien ecosystems is so alien that we struggle to describe it. Even the architecture is strangely symbiotic and contradictory as we have a lighthouse tower but the main tower in the story is really an underground tunnel. The only thing I didn't like was the fact that we were so obviously setting up a sequel and maybe even a prequel. I felt that all the stories in any sequence should be able to stand alone as self-contained. Publishers disagree. They want the repeat of the familiar but that isn't what this kind of fiction is about.