Does farting lower blood pressure?

Well not quite. But according to an article on the BBC’s website researchers in Maryland have linked hydrogen sulphide, which gives flatulence its characteristic foul odour, to blood pressure. Read the full article here.

Reading Update 23/10/08

Trading In Danger – Elizabeth Moon – 2004 – Orbit

Elizabeth Moon is an author I was familiar with in name and reputation only before reading this, the first of her Vatta’s War series. The whole premise of setting the action of the story within trading rather than warfare sounded like an interesting diversion from the usual adventure SF approach. The economics of doing the trading runs seemed properly thought out but at times I felt parts of the set-up were just too convenient, what with the central character Ky Vatta being the daughter of a wealthy and influential interstellar trading family with the resources to get her out of trouble even if she wasn’t aware of it. This to me removed some of the tension from a couple of the more dramatic situations she finds herself in; I read them without feeling she was in any peril. For the most part though it was entertaining, but not essential, SF reading. I might read some more of the series but I doubt they’ll be a priority; there’s just too many other books out there I want to read first.

 

S Is For Space – Ray Bradbury – 1965 – PS Publishing 2005 edition

This is the companion to R Is For Rocket, released by PS Publishing at the same time. As with that volume we get a rather nicely put together hardcover edition of the 1965 anthology, complete with the original cover and many of the interior illustrations. The stories themselves are darker than the ones in Rocket; whereas that collection could be regarded as stories of hopes, dreams and expanding futures, this volume is more the stuff of nightmares and the end of things. But it’s Ray Bradbury so do I really need to say anymore? Certainly worth getting if you don’t have a copy, and even if you do (after all, that old paperback is probably very tatty by now). Go here to order. A contents listing, in alphabetical rather than book order, can be found here.

 

Brass Man – Neal Asher – 2005 – Tor

This is the third of Neal’s Agent Cormac novels, and follows on from the events related in the previous book The Line Of Polity. Cormac is once again on the hunt for another part of the mysterious alien entity known as Dragon, while chasing an old adversary thought dead. Newcomers to Asher’s books would be advised to start with Gridlinked to get the full benefit of the main plot thread running through this series, the rest of us can get stuck into another tale of widescreen action SF, full of trademark Asher touches, including another colonised planet with the now seemingly obligatory hostile and very vicious native fauna.

Reading Update 13/10/08

Snake Agent – Liz Williams – 2005 – Night Shade

With Snake Agent, the first of the Detective Inspector Chen novels (not to be confused with the more mainstream Inspector Chen crime novels by Qiu Xiaolong), Liz Williams takes a different approach to the usual subject matter of the urban fantasy, providing some much needed originality to this over-saturated, albeit popular, sub-genre. Set in the near-future Chinese city of Singapore 3 the story shifts between our world and that of a well-realised Hell, run with bureaucratic efficiency by the resident demons, who are perhaps unsurprisingly behind much of what happens in our world, even able to communicate with us via email. This is a Hell based on Chinese mythology however, rather than the more usual western version, which makes for a more exotic setting. It’s a fast paced detective story with Chen, the central police character interacting with the denizens of Hell in his search to solve his latest case. Highly entertaining, I greatly enjoyed this, and there’s another three for me to look forward to. 

 

9Tail Fox – Jon Courtenay Grimwood – 2005 – Gollancz

Following on from the Chinese theme of the previous read I got stuck into my second Grimwood, having only read his earlier Stamping Butterflies. This one starts initially as police procedural, before taking a slight turn into Chinese mythology and body possession but for the most part keeps within the realms of normality. It’s a much more linear and straightforward read than its predecessor, and the SF is so minimal as to be almost non-existent. Still, I enjoyed it anyway and I like Grimwood’s writing style so I’ll be reading more of his books.

 

The Solaris Book of New Fantasy – ed. George Mann – 2007 – Solaris

Following on from the success of their Book of New SF title, Solaris have applied the same approach to the fantasy genre. As with the SF one we get a collection of well-known and established authors, such as Mark Chadbourn, Mike Resnick, Lucius Shepard and Steven Erikson (with a very amusing non-Malazan piece) sharing space with up-and-coming writers like Tim Pratt (in his TA guise), Hal Duncan and Jay Lake. The more direct takes on what people perceive the fantasy genre to be about, such as the one by Janny Wurts, appealed to me least but there is plenty of others in there to show how varied the genre truly is. Worth checking out.

 

Reading Update 06/10/08

Stealing Light – Gary Gibson – 2007 – Tor

Gary Gibson entered the SF scene with his debut novel Angel Stations in 2004 which I was very impressed with, then lost momentum a bit with his second novel Against Gravity but he’s back on form with this third one, the first of a planned trilogy. This is a great piece of wide-screen action packed SF, set in a well thought out future universe, with a strong and likeable central character in Dakota Merrick. It’s full of the essential ingredients for epic space opera - big ships, neat gadgets and weaponry, and political and military manoeuvrings between alien species, with some snappy dialogue and humour thrown in to lighten things up. There’s a satisfactory conclusion to the main events of the story, rather than just leaving the whole thing on pause as is often the case with trilogies, but with some loose ends left hanging and tantalising hints of what is to come. Roll on the sequel.

 

Dead Earth: The Green Dawn – Mark Justice & David T Wilbanks – 2007 – PS Publishing

PS come up trumps yet again with a wonderful piece of novella-length zombie fiction. Told from the perspective of the main character Jubal, this short tale dwells less on the zombies and more on Jubal himself as the world as he knows it falls apart, and the uneventful small town of Serenity becomes anything but. The story starts off quite slowly, drawing you gradually into the increasingly more threatening circumstances and despite it’s brevity it’s a very intense and powerful read. The ending is quite open-ended, but then as the introduction from Gary Braunbeck says, the authors intend this to be the first of a series. I’ll certainly be awaiting the follow-up.

 

The Scalding Rooms – Conrad Williams – 2007 – PS Publishing

Billed as a sort-of sequel to Nearly People, this novella shares the same nightmarish post-apocalypse world of the former (even if I didn’t pick up on that aspect of the setting of the first one) but moves the action to a different location with different characters, so it’s not necessary to have read the previous one. As I expected it’s a very dark story (does Conrad write any other sort?) and like Dead Earth it’s also very well written, quite intense, and compelling. I hope Conrad finds the time and inspiration to write more tales set in this hellish environment. A worthy winner of this year’s BFS Best Novella award.

 

Space Elevators

Originally proposed, like so many of the inventions we now take for granted, by the late Arthur C Clarke, and picked up on subsequently by many SF authors, the Space Elevator may come one step closer to reality in November when a bunch of the world’s leading science experts meet in Japan to discuss feasibility of such a construction. Full article can be read over on Slice of Sci-Fi.