Open main menu

Changes

2,577 bytes removed ,  11:04, 12 November 2016
no edit summary
|summary=Meet Archie Meek. He's about to leave the Venus Islands, where he's lived for the last five years, and return to Sydney, where he'll take his office in the museum and fill it with all the cultural artefacts he's found and wildlife he's plucked or pickled. That's not to ignore the fact he'll count as something quite alien himself, with his filled-out frame, nearly all-over suntan and totemic tattoo, in amongst other changes to his body. But what's this? When he gets back, he finds one of the main Venus Islands artefacts that caused him to go there in the first place, a huge, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined as corporate artwork. And some of the curators he wishes to work alongside have vanished. Is the weird society of the museum he's returning to, perchance, even weirder, stranger and more violent than the cannibalistic society he's waving farewell to?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922079308</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Roman Dirge
|title=The Cat with a Really Big Head
|rating=3.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary= How many picture books are there about cats? And how many do you know that you would really NOT prefer your children to see? If the answer to the second question is 'none – yet', scratch that last word. The title piece in this collection is, by the author's own admission, his imagining of the Joseph Merrick (the 'Elephant Man') of the feline world – who struggles to sneak up behind a mouse when the shadow of his head is a total giveaway, and who can hardly even eat with dignity as bending down to his bowl would break his neck. If that's too dark or oddball for you, try the second major piece, which has a most revealing foreword – ''Dedicated to a certain girl… I hope your life is filled with wonderful accomplishments, love and all the magic you desire… - But I hope your death is slow and horrible.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782762876</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Val Hennessy
|title=Not Far From Dreamland
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ronald Tonks has reached that stage in life which I call upper middle age: you've qualified for your pension but not yet got to the free television licence barrier. What Ronald ''has'' got is a roof that leaks (there's good reason why his home is called 'the shack'), a dog who is going bald (in patches) and money that's in very short supply. On the plus side he has friends, mostly platonic and usually in much the same boat as Ronald. But are they downhearted? Well, they are occasionally, but mostly they're generously optimistic and out to make the most of what they've got, usually bought from charity shops and jumble sales. ''Not Far From Dreamland'' is the story of a year (2012) in the life of Ronald Tonks, his friends and relatives.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373874</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Harry Harrison
|title=Bill, the Galactic Hero
|rating=3.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Meet Bill. He's a simple farmer – well, he ''is'' taking a correspondence course in being a Technical Fertiliser Operator – but fate has something else in store. And so does the mechanised, technological, industrial military, which needs several billion grunts to fight the Chingers, in mankind's first inter-galactic war. Still, at least he gets medals just for signing up. After that it's all downhill, and the likes of Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang can only make that a straight line down. Really, what hope is there?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147320531X</amazonuk>
}}