Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Book Review: 2001: An Odyssey in Words edited by Ian Whates & Tom Hunter

To celebrate the centenary of Arthur C. Clarke’s birth, NewCon Press has produced a volume of stories that all contain exactly 2001 words. It’s a fantastic concept, giving rise to a great selection of brief yet entertaining stories but, even with a page count of around 200 pages, that still amounts to rather a lot of stories for me to cover in a single review. Some of the contributions have a definite Arthur C. Clarke feel to them, others reference various of his well-known works, notably ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, and others are just great Science Fiction. There’s a chance that with so much to comment on, I could end up writing this review in 2001 words, too.





Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.


Saturday, January 12, 2019

Book Review: Rejoice, A Knife to the Heart by Steven Erikson

The arrival of an alien intelligence to intervene in Earth’s affairs signals an end to violence, illness and environmental degradation. You would think this would be good news, but a lot of the rich and powerful, as well as the violent and sadistic, are not very happy at all. As force fields spread across the Earth to protect wildlife habitats and weapons become obsolete, the book cycles between numerous characters to see how their lives are affected.





Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.









Wednesday, January 02, 2019

The Gondolier in Yoruba

It's been quite a while since I had a new translation of The Gondolier, so to start 2019 here is the Gondolier in Yoruba, its 41st language.

Awako oju Omi 

Enu oko oju omi mi la inu ibu omi to dake roro ja. Oko yii ti wulo fun mi fun opo odun, o gbe awon ero yi ilu ka ni abe itoni awon baba nla mi.

Orun n wo ni awon ilu atijo, eyi ti o n yi ibu omi naa si dudu, o wa laarin awon ile alapata ti o dara. Mo min ategun irole sinu.

Nje ibomiran wa wa ti o dara ju ilu iyanu ti onibuomi yi lo bi? Bi oko naa ye wo inu ile ipamo re lo, mo duro lați gbe oju mi soke pelu itelorun lati wo oju orun ti o ti n su.


Ipari