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I’ve never grown out of that childhood need to hear a story before bedtime. It can be a novel, a histoy, or even just a well rehearsed shaggy-dog tale. ‘Bluebear’, in the similar vein of train-of-thought fiction as Hitchhikers Guide, falls neatly into all three of these categories. Detailing the accounts of a blue bear called Bluebear and his travels through the continent of Zamonia, this is a story without any deeper meaning, told only to conjure images of the hundreds of mythical creatures (like yetis and chimeras, or demons and gnomes) through dozens of far-off locales.
The wonderful thing about this guide to all things gourmet in Victoria is that the writing is so good, just reading can serve as a meal out in itself. But that’s not how I operate, so within minutes of picking up my copy today, I’d flipped through the maps, tagged the thirty restaurants with a two kilometre walk from my house, and begun planning my next couple of years’ worth of fancy eating out. Don’t forget to read up on the stories behind the reviews, including which restaurants are still around since the first Guide was published back in 1980.
Is the personality an evolutionary liability, like the shell of a tortoise? Does our hard emotional shell prevent us from growing? These are the questions of Luke Rhinehart, ‘The Dice Man’. This is Rhinehart’s autobiography, a psychotherapist detailing his experiences as he foregoes his personality, and, through the fall of the die, lets chance dictate all aspects of his life. It’s a very interesting study into the self and how much of that is defined by the routines that we live with and the standards that we conform to; and what would happen if we let our minority urges out.
If you haven’t read the book, but have seen the movie, try to forget it completely. While the movie was a lame excuse to fuse two of Hollywood’s favourites (Will Smith and CGI), the book is a fantastic study into psychological complexities given a basic behavioural framework. The book is broken down into nine short stories, each detailing an apparent breakdown in one of the (now well-known) three laws of robotics, and the unexpected outcomes and resolutions of each. This book revolutionised the science fiction genre and is a must read for anyone interested in robotics, psychology, or artificial intelligence.
A lot of effort has gone into these stories. They’re not just short story jottings that weren’t good enough to get mentioned in the Potter series, these are meticulously crafted fables, written (as per their muggle counterparts) to promote moral living by showing the consequences of greed, avarice, and bigotry. Each fable is followed by notes written by Albus Dumbledore to give the reader an idea of the magical history behind each story. They all have a solid ethical direction and are a great way to return to the magical universe that we left a year and a half ago.
I know it’s sacrilege to give Tolkien anything less than five stars, but I wasn’t completely convinced by this book. I’m aware that it was intended for a different audience from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ series; and for that reason, I don’t think it measures up. Of course, you grant leave of believability for the fantasy world, but even so, some of the “luck” that befalls the characters is just too much. I think that if I’d read this as a kid, before LotR, I would have had a different perspective. But as it was, I didn’t love it.
I’d looked forward to this book for a long time. Unfortunately, it didn’t deliver to me what I was expecting. My partner summed it up best with, “It goes on for too long on things you don’t care about, and doesn’t go into enough depth on things you do.” But I suppose I should have knows that was going to be the case with a book that covers so many topics. A word of warning: if you don’t enjoy reading about geology or anthropology, then this might not be the book for you. Those topics count for at least half.
