Guardian on Gulliver, Swift and satire

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Gulliver's Travels, Swift

We might think of Gulliver’s Travels as a children’s story, but Swift was doing much, much more with his tale — he was satirising the newly emerging scientific method. Rebekah Higgit at The Guardian looks in more detail at the historical context for Gulliver’s explorations:

For historians of science, Jonathan Swift’s book Gulliver’s Travels is well known both as a work of what we might call proto-science fiction and as a satire on the experimental philosophy that was being promoted by the Royal Society at the time of its publication – two years before the death of Isaac Newton.

It’s a fascinating read…

The readers speak…

Reviews of The Aviator are beginning to mount up at Amazon and Goodreads, and I’m very happy to say that they’re all rather complimentary — and they haven’t come from family or friends (honest). At Goodreads, Sam says:

I really loved this book: the funniest thing about it is that it seems hardly far fetched at all… Gareth has created a dystopian future yet it’s a thrilling and heartwarming tale.

And Rory joins in:

This is actually a genuinely interesting book. I picked up this book on the kindle at random, and have been distracted quite happily by it for a good few days…

At Amazon.com, johnnyg comments:

I really enjoyed reading this book. A mix of sci fi and fact. It does certainly paint a possible future for our planet and I applaud Gareth Renowden for creating a good read around this serious issue. Having said that,although the issue is serious I found the style of writing humorous and snappy. It has left me wanting more

Meanwhile on the other side of the pond at Amazon.co.uk, Will B describes it as “a thoroughly enjoyable romp”, while Carol liked Jenny (the airship AI):

A very enjoyable read, both plausible and romantic – there is something romantic about airships,after all. I derived much amusement from the colourful array of characters; especially the last bastion of climate-sceptics. Jenny is a marvellous creation,and I have to commend her taste in music and her forbearance with Lemmy’s relative ignorance in that regard!

Why not see what the fuss is about? You can download the first three and a bit chapters free of charge (see the sidebar). Nothing to risk, plenty to gain…

Captain Benji and the balloon

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Viv Stanshall

Here’s a rarity. A little gem of a story by the former greatest living Englishman (deceased 1995) Viv Stanshall, of provenance unknown. The sound quality counts as “historic” and may have been taped off a BBC radio broadcast in the late 60s or early 70s, but it has Africa, a balloon, camels and Stanshall’s unique voice. To be treasured.

Little known fact: Stanshall and Keith Moon recorded a number of radio playlets for the BBC as “Captain Knut and Lemmy”. So there is an Aviator link, however tenuous…

The surprise sandwich

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SFFANZ, The Aviator

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand (SFFANZ) has just posted a nice review of The Aviator, penned by Simon Litten. Here’s the rub:

Against my will this book charmed me. The world is the world, there was no tub thumping decrying the future to come. Nor is the perfidiousness of politicians lamented or bemoaned; that is taken as just one of the vicissitudes of life. No, it was in the way Mr Renowden has created a believable character in Jenny the airship and her relationship with Lemmy, which was very deftly handled. Also I liked his approach to technology and some of the advances posited in The Aviator – well outside the usual and all the better for it.

The Aviator is a surprise of a book, a smoked salmon, lettuce and tomato sandwich in a fresh mixed grain when one was expecting stale leavings of white bread around egg and vegemite. I look forward to book two with interest piqued.

Makes me hungry. Time for lunch? No smoked salmon, but I have got a tin of tuna in the cupboard and some ciabatta on the go…

Win an exclusive one-off signed poster of The Aviator’s great cover

Whether you’re a fan of comics artist Dylan Horrocks, or you’ve enjoyed The Aviator, a large A3 collector’s edition of the cover would look good on your wall, wouldn’t it? So here’s how you get one…

Try this little quiz: a challenge for lovers of good books. The first paragraph of Chapter Three of The Aviator – where the airship’s AI pilot wakes up after a forced shutdown – is a mash-up of lines from ten literary works. Nearly all of them have something in common, and three are linked by way of pun.

The first person to name all ten works and the links between them wins an exclusive A3 poster of The Aviator cover, signed by its creator, the brilliant comics artist Dylan Horrocks (and the author).

TO ENTER: either buy a copy of the book (links here), or download the free text samples available from Amazon, Apple iBooks, Smashwords and Diesel, or the publisher’s web site (see sidebar). Read the paragraph mentioned above and post your entries as a comment to either the blog post at The Burning World introducing the competition, or on the announcement on The Aviator’s Facebook page.

Note: If you don’t have an ebook reader, or ebook reader software on your computer, tablet or phone, download Amazon’s Kindle reader software, which is free and available for Mac/PC/Android/iOS. Or you can read the free sample text online at Smashwords.

The competition will CLOSE AT MIDNIGHT ON NOVEMBER 30TH (NZ time). In the event that no-one has successfully named all ten works, the poster will go to the person who gets most correct. I won’t be giving away any clues…

Anyone who shares this post on Facebook or Twitter will go in to win a free signed copy of the paperback version of the book!

Good luck!

Laden likes blimps…

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Greg Laden, Iain M Banks, The Aviator

Science blogger Greg Laden — one of the doyens of Scienceblogs — has been reading The Aviator, and I’m glad (and more than a little relieved) to find that he likes it. He’s posted a thoughtful review at his blog and at Amazon:

The story itself is an excellent read and even qualifies as a page turner. But there is another element that readers don’t need to know, but would enjoy knowing: The author has the science on climate change right.

The truth is, a future Earth with continued climate change could end up in a number of different states, but the planet a la The Aviator is a reasonable approximation of a switched-over climate, brought to us by someone who knows the science well.

The best bit of the review, in my humble opinion, is the last line:

I have truly enjoyed it.

Greg’s got his own new novel on the way, and it’s queued up inside my iPad waiting for me to finish The Hydrogen Sonata. Titled Sungudogo, it’s a tale of derring-do in darkest Africa:

Sometimes called the “fourth African ape,” Sungudogo is not a Gorilla, not a Chimpanzee, not a Bonobo, and possibly not even real. […] They were to learn things that went beyond their wildest imaginations, and they would discover secrets about the expedition, about the rift valley, about themselves, about humanity, that they would never be able to share.

… Until now …

It’ll make a change from whizzing around the galaxy in the company of Minds and undecagonstrings.

Introducing: the all-new theme for The Aviator (perhaps)

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Andy Partridge, Peter Blegvad, The Aviator, XTC

Sometimes it seems as if there’s a bleak inevitability about our descent into The Burning World. Here’s a new song that captures that mood perfectly — the lugubrious tones of Peter Blegvad over the musical stylings of Andy Partridge (of XTC fame), in the closing number from their soon-to-be-released album Gonwards. You would not describe it as upbeat about the future:

As blind as a window
as closed as a door
as high as a ceiling
as low as a floor.
Pestlience, death, famine, and war —
It’s helpful to know
just what life has in store.

And yes, it is raining outside…

Why research is fun…

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D'Urville Island, The Aviator

This is where Lemmy lives: D’Urville Island, at the top of the South Island of New Zealand. There are a couple of large harbours winding back into the hills that make up the spine of the island. This is one of them – Greville Harbour. Not exactly where Croft built his retreat, but you get the general impression… Photo taken by me, before breakfast, on a summer sailing trip a few years ago. I like to know whereof I write.

Vonnegut on good writing

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kurt vonnegut, literature, writing

I found this little video yesterday, here. Worth a couple of minutes of any writer — or readers — time. I cut my teeth on Kurt Vonnegut as a teenager (a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away). A wonderful writer, and cheerfully idiosyncratic. Something to aspire to.

Enthralling, entertaining, humorous … a definite page-turner

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alex smith, books

Gavin Webber of Australian blog The Greening Of Gavin has just published a rather nice review of The Aviator. Here’s the punchline:

Without giving away any more spoilers, I found the story enthralling, entertaining, humorous, chilling in places, and believable. It was also a definite page-turner. I couldn’t put it down once I started and it took me a day to finish. Normally a work of fiction would take a week or two to get through, especially then it weighs in at over 100,000 words.

It even featured goats, with magical cheese, and they even stumble upon what is left of the Heartland Institute which has a hilarious twist.

Well written, well thought through, and well edited. This book is a must read and well worth the asking price of US$4.99.

Gavin has also posted a nice (but much shorter) review at the Australian iBooks store. Thanks Gavin, and thanks also to Alex Smith at Radio Ecoshock for giving me the chance to plug the book on a recent show. You can also hear me talking about the book with Glenn Williams in the latest edition of The Climate Show (about 30 minutes in, after much discussion of this year’s dramatic meltdown in the Arctic).