Another Space in Time

This is the second book from the quill of Chance Maree, following the innovative metaphysical delight that is "Alexios, Before Dying". I criticised that wonderful book for a lack of plot and an over-brevity of description, whilst praising it as a truly creative and original work. This book has gone a step further. The plot is detailed, unpredictable, and exquisitely constructed. The reader has to keep the elements together, but the effort of memory is truly worth it. There is still a fashionable under playing of description, which so plagues modern writing; but there is enough structure to free our imaginations without allowing the reader to run away form the author's control. I can never see the point of using such brevity that we can all mould vital scenes as we want, rather than accurately read the mind of the writer. Chance at least gives us most of the colours to fill in the drawing, though she still leaves a little danger of some of her bright contrasts being smu...

This book starts in comedy, drives through humour and tragedy, and all the time maturing into a serious social commentary on early 80's recession hit Scotland. The attempt of a group of adolescents to make a bit of pocket money, even if not a living, by setting up a mobile disco business, makes for a very good major plot-line. The difficulties encountered in achieving this in the town of Kilmarnock of the early 1980's, with a lack of money, difficult private lives and in while continuously falling foul of both local gangsters and the law, seem insurmountable. The dialogue is written in the vernacular of Glaswegian slang, and is further complicated by being in the authentic voice of assertive youth, so that it is sometimes "punctuated" with crude expression. The descriptive writing is in standard British English, so that even those who really struggle with the dialogue aren't in any real danger of for long losing the plot. The mix works very well. Imagine the co...

As the book is subtitled, this is "an odyssey reconciling science to God". That is Rees's ambitious aim at least. I'm not so sure that she succeeds unless we, physical living mankind, are understood to be part of a flow of consciousness that is actually God. That is a difficult place for me to go. I need the division of the soul of man from the divine. However, to the main theme, that on a spiritual level we may already know all that science is steadily revealing to us, that we are all at core a part of a consciousness that is this Universe; I fully concur. I am not a person that finds it easy to connect with poetry, so was never going to find inspiration in the epic poetic story telling that amounts to our total history. I get the concept, and applaud it, but I've such a chaotic, dyslexic and ambidextrously muddled mind that I need the directness of prose. The splitting of the book into separate themes, half to connect with the artistic right hemisphere and...

This is a very exciting story that in my non-expert view is suitable for children of eight and upwards. I'm trying to think back over 40 years to the books I was reading at that age. They were Enid Blyton's Famous Five and later, Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings and Captain W. E. John's Biggles books. Edwards covers some adult topics in a very young person friendly and modern way; whilst in quality and plot style following very much in the footsteps of the best 1940's- 1960's children's authors. The scene is set in rural Otago in New Zealand, with a full array of the elements that life there entails. The landscapes and the farming life of backblock NZ feels very real, and the young townies introduction to rural life hits the tin roof panel nail right on the head. Edwards brings into this environment many of the issues that face any growing child; shifting friendships, adult frailties, substance abuse, abandonment, physical abuse, the nuclear family and the c...