Passing Thoughts

Enthusing

You have probably noticed by now that I don't really do reviews. I guess I don't consume my media in an analytical enough way to discuss it clearly afterwards. However I still need to enthuse about things I have read and seen. The holiday has been a great time to catch up on things so here are a couple of favourites:

Chris Moriarty - Spin Control Hard SF with great ideas and a tense, exciting, thriller like plot - what more could you want? Interestingly Chris Moriarty turns out to be a woman. Whats interesting about that I hear you say? and indeed there shouldn't be - there is loads of great womens sci-fi out there. So why on earth is there deliberately no mention of Chris' gender on any of her books? No need to make a big thing about it but aren't we past the time when we have to carefully not mention it in order not to harm sales? Anyway this book (and its predecessor - Spin State) are excellent and well worth checking out. Spin Control also has a rather dangerous ( from my point of view) further reading list which leads to:

Journey to the Ants. . This is an amazing book - the shear enthusiasm the authors have for their subject is very infectious. Ants are an extremely successful form of life and one that is essential to the worlds eco systems. If the human race disappeared tomorrow their would be little negative impact - the biggest change would be that the current mass extinction would halt. If the ants disappeared there would be catastrophe and dramatic changes. Ants live everywhere from the arctic circle to the equator, underfoot and in the tree tops. Their societies are complex and there is some argument for seeing the society as the organism and not the individual ants. It is rare you come across a non fiction book you could describe as a page turner but this is just such a thing. A must read!