Another Space in Time

A detective mystery set in the 1960s with an authentic feel of the 1960s. The book could so easily have been written then rather than in 2015. The read is nicely scattered with illustrative pictures from the period, which I can see adding a lot to the reading experience of those born later. I felt that I could be reading a period Mickey Spillane novel; the script felt that authentic. I'd even say that there are more than a few similarities between Mike Hammer and Carson Reno — well at least as how I remember the character. Then again, possibly Reno is a more James Garner in the Rockford Files TV series. Okay, that was very 1970s scripted, but the Rockford character could have been slotted seamlessly into any '50s/60s detective series. So then, for me, Carson Reno is possibly best described as a blend of Mike Hammer and Jim Rockford. The writing has a sharp journalistic economy, never burying us in irrelevances and keeping a brisk pace. Some of the bit players are easy to ...

I enjoyed reading this science fiction adventure set in a perhaps actually soon to come time, in which mankind, or what is left of it, has prostituted itself to hedonistic pleasure. The doctrine of the modern right, of the selfish individual that has no cares for any less advantaged soul, is laid bare with a worst outcome. On-line digital space, has seduced nearly everyone at the cost of progress in, or even maintenance of, the real world. Time in reality is despised and avoided in favour of pretend life inside the computer's generated parallel world. When the players aren't in the machine themselves there, 'ghosts', still acting shadows of themselves, still are. For most people it isn't even possible to know if those they interact with in digital space are really in the machine with them or not. Meanwhile, in the real world pollution from the '3D printers' that produce the technological hardware of civilisation, is destroying what little is left of t...

   This is an unusual book, of no genre and many, weirdly paranormal but rooted in reality, psychological drama and yet often cultural history, part travelogue and possibly part true biography, explorative of positive new age philosophies and yet at times strangely nihilistic.    What would you do if strangers you touched randomly fell down dead? I would go and live in an isolated lighthouse or in a very empty desert.    What would you think of what I assumed as I read was a basically non-fiction script, that follows an Australian hippie from one of the last cohorts of the baby-boomers, as he toured the English speaking world on a exploratory rap for most of his life? If you were of his age, which I am, you'd find that interesting. At least I did. Now what would you think if he added what the sane must hope is a fictional reason for his wandering behaviour, that being that he is an unwitting mass killer? Could that work? I was interested by Shank's p...