Tag Archives: sci-fi

My Porridge & Cream read Lexi Rees @lexi_rees #books #children

Today I’m delighted to welcome children’s author Lexi Rees. Her ‘Porridge & Cream’ read is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

“Thanks so much for inviting me to share my Porridge and Cream book. I actually have a special bookcase for my ‘permanent collection’ – the books I go back to over and over again – and it’s hard to narrow it down to just one but, for a pure comfort read, I’m going to go with Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I’m sure you know it: “So long, and thanks for all the fish” etc; but in a nutshell, Arthur Dent, in his dressing gown, gets whisked onto a spaceship when Earth is demolished for a hyperspace bypass.”Lexi Rees

“I vividly recall stumbling across the radio series on my way home from school one day in the 1980s. My dad and I sat in the car outside the house laughing our heads off so it has happy family memories, and it still makes me laugh. I listened to the rest of the series on the radio, then got a copy from the library. My own copy is from 1992. By the way, I also love the 2005 movie version – no book vs. movie arguments from me. It probably won’t surprise anyone, but Red Dwarf is my Porridge and Cream TV series. Why I don’t write sci-fi is a mystery!”
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Lexi ReesLexi’s Bio
Lexi Rees writes action packed adventures for children. When not writing, she’s usually covered in straw or glitter, and frequently both. The first book in The Relic Hunters Series, Eternal Seas, was awarded a “loved by” badge from LoveReading4Kids and is currently longlisted for a Middle Grade readers award from Chanticleer. It’s best described as fantasy with a hint of dystopia. The sequel, Wild Sky, will be published in November and a Creative Writing Workbook will be out in October. She also runs a free club for kids designed to encourage a love of reading and writing.

Lexi’s links
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

Lexi’s latest book
Lexi ReesSuch a small parcel shouldn’t cause experienced smugglers much trouble. But, as Finn and Aria discover, this is the most dangerous delivery of their lives. Battered by storms and chased across the globe by an evil warlord, they enlist the help of a strange witch-doctor. Together, they struggle to solve the mystery while the fate of an ancient civilisation depends on them, and time is running out…
Eternal Seas [The Relic Hunters book 1] is a thrilling adventure for children aged seven to twelve.
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What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘Love in A Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford. Do you have a favourite read which you return to again and again? If so, please send me a message.

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Toni Jenkins’ choice is ‘Eat Pray Love’ by Elizabeth Gilbert
Jane Davies chooses ‘The Prince of Tides’ by Pat Conroy
The Shell Seekers’ by Rosamunde Pilcher is chosen by Carol Warham

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does children’s author @lexi_rees re-read THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams? #books https://wp.me/p5gEM4-40i via @SandraDanby

Book review: The Fate of the Tearling

Erika JohansenThis is the third of the trilogy by Erika Johansen so do not read this without first reading the other two. It is unpredictable with storylines and time strands which come and go and inter-link, at times incorporating fantasy, sci-fi, time-travel and magic. It is a very different sort of fantasy tale and in that difference lies its awkwardness. There are gaps in the storyline, the timeline, and some thinly sketched characters turn out to be pivotal. Sometimes I had the feeling the author should have written one long book rather than two, or two rather than a trilogy – are authors encouraged to write trilogies with film rights in mind? The first book was the best, the second was intriguing but left me with many questions, the third has left me undecided. I struggled with the first half and would have appreciated a list of characters from the previous two books, but then in the second half the story came alive for me and I finished it one Saturday afternoon.

At the end of the second book, Queen Kelsea surrendered herself to the Red Queen in order to save her kingdom. The third book opens as Kelsea is imprisoned in a Mort dungeon, while her right-hand man, the Mace, has returned to Tearling to run the country. Kelsea is still having visions, now of a teenager called Katie who lives in the Town, the first settlement when the ship arrived at the island. Meanwhile in New London, the Mace is facing an attack by the Church. There are many new characters added here, some of which seem to go nowhere while others turn out to be key to the ending. Katie’s storyline connects with that of New Town now in the time of the Kelsea. Both struggle as William Tear’s vision of an ideal world, the society he wanted to create, fractures amidst suspicion, fear, jealousy, avarice and the rise of religion.

This trilogy will reward re-reading. I finished it with the feeling that I needed to read all three, back-to-back, to understand them better. But some things will remain unexplained.

Read my reviews of the first two books in the trilogy:
The Queen of the Tearling
The Invasion of the Tearling

If you like this, try:-
‘The Bear and the Nightingale’ by Katherine Arden
‘The Magicians’ by Lev Grossman
‘In Ark’ by Lisa Devaney

‘The Fate of the Tearling’ by Erika Johansen, Tearling #3 [UK: Bantam Press] Buy at Amazon

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
THE FATE OF THE TEARLING by Erika Johansen #bookreview via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2k6

My Porridge & Cream read: Lisa Devaney

Today I’m delighted to welcome clifi novelist Lisa Devaney who will share her ‘Porridge & Cream’ read.

“As winter pends, and the leaves are turning beautifully vibrant colours, before they die off of the trees here in London, UK, I like the idea of turning to a comfort book, that can see me through the days that turn dark early and warm me up in the cold nights. When Sandra Danby invited me to blog about my ‘Porridge & Cream’ favourite book, I had a hard time, at first, picking just one that would qualify as the way she describes it as “It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it.”

Lisa Devaney“Some on my selection list included a non-fiction title of Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us, and the collected stories of Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, but ultimately, I feel I turn most often to the book, that bred the movie that I watch most often as a comfort film. Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep wins my pick for being my ‘Porridge & Cream’ novel. Published first in 1968, this post-apocalyptic near future fictional account is weird and scary enough to keep me turning the pages. The book inspired Ridley Scott’s film classic Blade Runner, which I have watched again and again, as well as reading the book.

“In Dick’s future world, de-constructed by a world nuclear war, we find a robot bounty hunter who is tasked with killing off six defected models – and his hunt of them compels us to question the meaning of life for them and ourselves. Bounty hunter Rick Deckard is fascinated by live animals, as most have been made endangered or extinct in the war, and wants to own one.

“I was first recommended this book by a dear friend who is a science-fiction fan. It was in the late 1990s, and both of us were working hard in the intensity of the dot com boom in New York City’s Silicon Alley. It was all feeling very sci-fi in daily life, as many of the technologies we were working with were shaping the future of things to come – and in fact, many did just that! So I picked up Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and it felt, at that time, all too real that our futures could be filled with human-like robots, and other strange technologies that feature in the book. At the same time, I was also going around the city performing as my alter-ego cartoon self I called (((Futuregirl))) and sharing my odd SLAM-style poetry. Blade Runner fashion gave me inspiration in styling my (((Futuregirl))) costume [below].

I’d say now, especially when the winter sets in, I turn to the book, and the film, once or twice a year, when I want to step back in time and put myself back to that memory of being in the height of the dot com madness, living in an exciting and crazy city like New York and using my imagination to flash-forward a few decades and dream of what might be coming our way.”

About In Ark: A Promise of Survival by Lisa Devaney
Lisa DevaneyIn Ark is set in the year 2044, in New York City, Mya Brand is working as a digital archivist, trying to save the life stories of every human on the planet before climate change makes Earth unliveable.

Keeping laser-focused on her mission is helping her escape the emotional pain she feels from a failed first marriage. Along with support from her actress best friend and bartender buddy, she is rebuilding her life and trying to heal her hard shell. Fraught with daily hardships of survival in the face of climate change, she struggles on to get food, maintain power and protect her delicate skin from the harmful rays of the sun. With little funding for her digital archiving project, she keeps going but dreams of how much more she could do with more resources. Then, one day, she is abducted by an eco-survivalist community that calls itself Ark and promises to make her dreams come true. But is Ark the solution to climate change or the problem?

Read my review of In Ark.

Lisa Devaney’s Bio
Whether it was writing and illustrating her own comic books as a child, creating cartoon-inspired websites in the 90s, taking to the stage in New York City to perform in SLAM-poetry style as her make-believe online character (((Futuregirl))) or even spinning a publicity campaign for a business client, Lisa has been enthralled by storytelling and the mediums that can be used to tell her stories. Her imagination has now led her to writing and self-publishing books, with her debut novel In Ark: A Promise of Survival earning 5* ratings and reviews. But the story isn’t just on pages, follow the hashtag #InArk on Twitter, Instagram  and Facebook to find the transmedia layer of Lisa’s newest storytelling adventure.

Lisa Devaney’s links
Website and blog
Follow Lisa Devaney on Twitter and Facebook

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What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘Love in A Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford. Do you have a favourite read which you return to again and again? If so, please send me a message via the contact form here.

 

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Rosie Dean
Rachel Dove
Judith Field

Lisa Devaney

 

 

‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ by Philip K Dick [UK: Gollancz]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does author @lisadevaney love DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP by Philip K Dick? #books via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1OS