compendium

Thomas Gold The Deep Hot Biosphere, Copernicus, 1999. According to Gold, largely ignored by most biologists, below the deepest ocean vents, another biosphere exists, much vaster in biomass than the conventional `surface' biosphere. Far from some X-Files out-take, this is a clearly and cogently argued case for more serious exploration of the nature and consequences of subsurface life.

Greg Bear Darwin's Radio, Del-Rey, 1999. Return to form for Bear, spooky near-future thriller, reads like a mature version of his classic Blood Music.

Nick Hornby Hi-Fidelity, Riverhead Books, 1996 and About a Boy, Riverhead Books, 1999. Hilarious 30-something angst. Hornby captures something real about being a single male in the 1990s. Hi-Fidelity is a sort of `day in the life' of disaffected small independent record store owner, who can apparently only see his life (and his recent breakup with his girlfriend) through the lens of songs from Elvis Costello to Joy Division. About a Boy continues the same theme, but introduces an intergenerational twist.

Paul Auster Leviathan, Penguin, 1993. Retraces the life of an apparently successful author, reduced to a destroying (Una-bomber style) minature Statue of Liberty replicas in small towns across America.

David Brin The Transparent Society, Addison-Wesley, 1998. Brin in scientist-social-commentator mode, rather than sf author. Interesting speculations on alternative scenarios for the future of cryptography and survelliance and it's long-term social impact. Brin avoids the both doom-and-gloom and Polly-annish extremes and asks some tough questions, like is strong privacy a desirable way for society to go? Couldn't encryption end up making big government and big business less accountable and more powerful ? Give this book to your favourite rabid cypherpunk...

Gregory Benford Cosm Avon, 1998. Benford has finally returned to near future science-thriller mode, after many years crafting the far-future galactic centre novels. I liked them far less than his earlier works such as Artifact and Across the Sea of Suns Doesn't quite live up to the standard of Timescape... but not a bad read anyway.

Greg Bear Queen of Angels, Warner Books, 1990. Bear turns his formidable hard science-fiction talents to the small matter of the human mind. Lots of references to all things nano, which kind of seem a little hokey in 1998 retrospect, given the slow progress of this technology in reality. Excellent and taut reading.

John Birmingham The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco 1997. Is this man Australia's answer to Douglas Coupland? More Gen-X madness much in the vein of He Died with a Felafel in His Hand. There were certainly moments of great hiliarity and resonance with events in my own life, (especially student days which are not yet over for some ;-)) but I think John needs to find a new slant on things for any third effort.

Tim Winton The Riders, Schuster, 1994 Booker prize nominee in that year. The Riders is a dark story of a man's obsession with his vanished wife. Whilst the writing is fine and it certainly is a compulsive page-turner, somehow I came away feeling singularly dissatisfied.

John Horgan The End of Science, Little Brown and Co.,1996. Don't believe him! This is one bitter man with an axe to grind.... Worth reading only for some priceless character sketches.

Peter Hoeg, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, Flamingo, 1995. Fantastic read - chilly and bracing much like the heroine's native Greenland.

Greg Egan, Distress, Millenium, 1995. In an imaginary near-future, an African physicist is on the cusp of the true "TOE" - theory of everything - excellent stuff from an Australian sf writer. Realistic characters, tight narrative, strong science and philosophy - maybe Egan and Horgan should chat sometime.

William Irwin Thompson Imaginary Landcapes, 1988. Ever wondered how the Gaia hypothesis, chaos dynamics and the immune system were connected? Philosopher and poet Thompson weaves an amazing landscape from extraordinarily disparate threads. Highly recommended.

Nicholas Royle Saxophone Dreams, Penguin, 1996. Europe. 1989. Revolutions. Jazz. Surrealism. A handful of jazz musicians from Norway, England, Romania and Czecholslovakia find themselves mysteriously transported to unusual locations whilst the turmoil of revolutions whirls around them. Are the works of Belgian painter Paul Delvaux somehow connected and related?

Richard Powers Galatea 2.2, Abacus,1995. Complex and dense story of a man training a computer to read (and falling in love with his creation) whilst trying to come to terms with his own real life loves; a sort of cyber-era Pygmalion. Mostly fascinating but occasionally turgid; I found myself sometimes wanting to skip ahead to the "good bits". I think I preferred his previous novel, The Goldbug Variations.

John Holland Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity, Addison-Wesley, 1995. Co-founder of the field of genetic algorithms writes clearly and concisely about the emerging science of complex adaptive systems. There's a good sense of a wider social perspective which makes the work suitable for a scientifically-curious but non-specialist audience, but this still leaves plenty of meat in this for those working in the field.