1996 / Ebook / 89 pages / UK
**
Shorter than these usually are, there wasn't too much to say about the frantic hammering that reminded me of my own freestyling compositions on my daughter's baby piano app (not to brag or anything). It was amusing to read about the diverse and detailed narratives people have hallucinated in there.
2000 / Audiobook / 357 pages / UK
***
One of the better and more accessible Culture books, with its minimalist drama playing out against a gradually expanding background and classic sci-fi extrapolation of relatable human concerns, namely PTSD and other consequences of war, even if it's pyew-pyew star wars with supernovae gigadeaths. But don't worry, SF fans, it's also got mind tampering, AI ghosts and shit. That's what we like!
2002 / Audiobook / 320 pages / UK
**
If Iain M. Banks had written his juvenile novels a few decades later, and actually had them published rather than rewriting them once he got better, I imagine they'd be something like this. Deciding not to take its horny cyberpunk melange too seriously was the only way to get through.
2004 / Audiobook / 118 pages / USA
**
Likely the 33⅓ book that has the least to do with the featured album (though there are other contenders), it's instead a Decemberist's photographic nostalgia about growing up as a teenage rock fan in the '80s. He could've claimed any number of albums under this vague umbrella, so bad luck for Replacements fans, I guess.
John Gaskin, The Long Retreating Day: Tales of Twilight and Borderlands
***
"It's comforting and reassuring. Antiquity safe and tested. You always seemed more at ease in another age."
Wilfully old-fashioned tales of neurotic academics experiencing vague unease. The best could be mistaken for an M. R. James or Robert Aickman. Others are so obscure, they're barely there.
Wilfully old-fashioned tales of neurotic academics experiencing vague unease. The best could be mistaken for an M. R. James or Robert Aickman. Others are so obscure, they're barely there.
Fave: 'Road Closed'
