Book Review: “Under the Mountain” by Maurice Gee

Reviewed by Octavia. Gee, Maurice. Under the Mountain. Auckland: Puffin Books, 2006. First published 1979. Under the Mountain has had the dubious pleasure of horrifying me twice in one lifetime. As a child, I was scared silly by the thought of the Wilberforces and what it would take to defeat them. As an adult, the [...]

Book Review: Peter Høeg’s “The Woman and the Ape” by Octavia

No-one likes to be called an animal, yet animals are what we inescapably are. And from poor frightened stuffy old Bishop Wilberforce on there have always been people who think that being an ape is worse, somehow, than being any animal at all. Yet apes we are, and apes we remain. Walking down the street [...]

Book Review: Louise M. Antony’s “Philosophers Without Gods” – by Octavia

Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life Edited by Louise M. Antony In my trawl through the atheism section of the local library, I’ve learned to try and keep my distance from anything with “philosophy” in the title. Ignoring this rule leads to frustrating sessions with books full of gibberish; books only [...]

Book Review: Bernard Beckett’s “Genesis” – by Octavia

Taking its cue from Plato’s Republic, and with more than a hint of George Orwell, Genesis outlines a world where society is split by genetic identity. I the future resulting from climate change, terrorism, the rise of religious fundamentalism and the onset of World War Three, New Zealand cuts itself off from the rest of [...]

Book Review: Terry Pratchett’s “Nation” – by Writer@Large

Terry Pratchett’s Nation is his first non-Discworld novel in something like twenty years. Set in an alternate Victorian Era Earth, this quasi-fantasy novel takes place primarily on a South Seas island with no true name—it is just The Island, home of The Nation. The novel begins with a tragedy: a giant tidal wave sweeps the [...]