Reviews and Comments

A fascinating follow-up that reveals more about the biology of the alien world, and how it can interact and interface with the biology of humans in unexpected ways.

In the first book, Handry gets 'Severed', resulting in his biology reverting to the original state and become unable to interact with the biology on the alien world. He now leads a group of similarly Severed people, and they have come to an accommodation with the villages of people altered to live with the alien planet's biology. But one village still fear the Severed, and it sends out a Champion to challenge and drive away the Severed.

But the Champion is the least of Handry's problems when they discover a bigger threat that has destroyed one village and is threatening another. Handry, his group and the Champion have to discover the threat that the new danger poses; a danger that the reader may be able to guess based on the interludes in the story that looks at the attempts of a group from the first colonist to try to live with the alien biology.

In the end, they all learn a little more about living together on the alien world and maybe discover not to fear each other so much.

A long but interesting history on the period known as the Renaissance, when many of the things that make up modern society, from science to humanism, came out of nowhere: of course not. As the author (a historian and fantasy writer) shows, many of the things and ways of thinking that came out of the Renaissance build on what people did in the Middle Ages (no longer the Dark Ages). These changes would continue into the Enlightenment, and then into the modern world.

The book starts by looking at one particular place: Florence. In an era where most places were ruled by royalty, Florence stood out by being a republic, officially ruled by 'elected' people. But even then, this was no modern democracy: only the elite of the elite could be elected and even then, they were subjects of patronage to various wealthy families, most notably the House of Medici, who 'called the shots' when it came to making (or gaming) the rules to their advantage.

But Florence is only a city, and can be conquered by rival cities or countries. One way to counter this was to make Florence indispensable, by promoting ancient studies and the arts and spreading them far and wide. Other rulers began to accept that acquiring culture and learning from Florence were 'better' ways of showing they were superior to their betters. This gave Florence influence and access to the 'great powers', gaining protecting in return.

The author then shows us the lives of various people during the Renaissance period, mostly from Florence, to give us a view of what life was like for elites (written history usually focus on the elites, few on the peasants) at the time. And life at that time was rough and full of intrigue and conflict. We see the rise and fall of the Medicis and the influence of Florence, and parts of the 'Great Game' as France, the Popes in Rome, the various city states of Italy (Venice, etc.) strive to gain control of Italy and of Europe.

In all of these struggles, the idea that 'there has to be a better way' starts to gain strength and are covered in a section that covers one of the most 'notorious' people in the Renaissance period: Niccolò Machiavelli. His writings on how rulers should rule would lead to modern Political Science. But at the time, his writings were a struggle to understand what the rulers of his time were doing to gain an advantage over others and what could be done to raise the condition of humanity as a whole.

The final section looks at just what the Renaissance really put forth: a lot of questions that need answers. These questions would gradually overturn the idea that ancient authority was always right, and that ideas need to be tested by questioning them and comparing them with evidence. This would lead to the idea of Progress.

Here, the author looks at current times and shows that the idea of Progress as a way to improve humanity is still a work in progress. Technological and social changes have improved mankind but also caused problems (like colonialism and racism). While much has changed, much still has to be done using concepts that rose during the Renaissance. And the author is optimistic that the future will get better, given time.

A fascinating book about Tor (The Onion Routing), starting with its origins in the American military establishment, to its current day usage as a means to anonymously connect to sites over the internet or to covertly 'leak' information. The book doesn't talk much about the technology used in Tor, but concentrates on the organisations and people who developed Tor, manage it and use it. They are the ones who will determine the future of Tor.

The book starts by looking at the Internet and the question of how to anonymously transfer data. In theory, anybody could monitor links at one or more internet service providers and determine who is sending data to whom. This was of concern to the US military, who wanted a way for overseas personnel to send data without other parties being aware of it. There were several solutions proposed, but the one they choose was 'Onion Routing'. In Onion Routing, encrypted data was sent to an entry relay, which passes the data to another relay, which then sends the data to an exit relay and onwards to the destination. Each relay only knows how to pass on the data to the next relay.

If just one person was using Onion Routing, the route would be obvious. But the military envisioned Onion Routing being used by the public. Military traffic would then be mixed in with this traffic, making it much harder to determine which packets of data are being sent by whom. Entities monitoring only the entry or exit points would only know who is using it, but not why. Of course, a 'global entity' could monitor everything, but this can not considered possible at the time (the mid 1990s). This would, of course, change in later years.

Since the military needed the public to use Onion Routing, they had to recruit technologists to 'sell the technology' to their groups. This group of people would be the security hackers and 'technology libertarians / anarchists' of that period, who saw how internet technology was being monitored (or subverted) by the government, and had an idealised vision of the technology being 'free' from government intervention or censorship. From this strange grouping of people (those who want to control the internet and those who want it to be 'free'), Tor was born.

As Tor usage grew, usability would become an issue. The creation of the Tor Browser would provide users with a 'one click' solution to use Tor, helping it to grow in popularity. This would lead to 'The Dark Web', a set of hidden (Tor) services for illegal activities like pornography or drugs. While headlines at the time might lead people to believe most of the Dark Web is Tor based, in reality such transactions are mostly done (protected by encryption) using the standard internet. What Tor did allow was anonymous transactions to be created, leading to a growth in the use of cryptocurrencies for anomymous payment, and for the dumping of information on sites like WikiLeaks.

Later on, another group of people would start to use Tor: the activist, agitating for action and using Tor as a way to hide their activities from organisations that want to stop them. Leaks at the time would also show some governments were trying to achive a 'global view' of the internet by gathering vast amounts of data from numerous providers, causing a change in Tor to counteract such measures.

Which brings us to the present. While Tor is used and does its job, it is still not very widely used, and associated with the Dark Web in the eyes of the public. Tor was initially funded by the military, but now looks to funding from various non-governmental groups and organised in a way to ensure no one person can exert undue influence on it.

In closing, the book argues that Tor is still looking for a 'killer app' that would bring about wider usage of Tor, and help the general public to secure privacy in their communications from governments that seem to want to accumulate more ways to observe when people are doing on the internet.

A lovely book of artwork from various paleoartists, depicting possible views of prehistoric life based on what the fossils can tell us. The artwork range from near realistic depictions of life in prehistoric times to abstract pieces that let the artist's imagination run wild while still featuring recognisable prehistoric life.

Each chapter features the artwork of one paleoartist. A short write-up on the artist is given, followed by the artwork. Each piece of artwork has a description of what is depicted in the art, including some information on the prehistoric animals and / or plants in the art.

What makes these paleoartworks different from other depictions of life in prehistoric time in popular media is their dedication to keeping their depictions of life accurate. They include information on what is known about the prehistoric life based on fossil information. There are speculative parts (like possible hide colouration or depicted behaviour), but these are still based on what the fossil says, unlike media depictions of prehistoric life that can be purely imaginary.

The paleoartists include those that are well known to me (like John Conway and Mark Witton) and others that have created artwork for museums, exhibitions or other works on prehistoric life. The works featured range from digital art to watercolours and other physical media. And they give a fascinating look at how life might have been in prehistoric times.

A nice issue, with good stories by Marissa Lingen, Ai Jiang, Bella Han and Raahem Alvi.

• "A Shaky Bridge" by Marissa Lingen: a father recovers from a stroke with the aid of a neural device. But when the device starts making the father do unconventional things, the family has to decide what to do with it.

• "And The Planet Loved Him" by L Chan: a husband and wife team crash on an unexplored world, with the husband dead. Until the planet's fungal life revives him and gives the wife the choice of whether to join them or not.

• "Sleeper" by R.T. Ester: a 'sleeper' is offered the choice to kill a prophet that may be from the future. But the truth is revealed when the time to do the killing appears.

• "Memories Are Only Valuable if They Can Be Lost" by Ai Jiang: a worker at a 'floating city' struggles to get enough money to afford a train ticket to return home during the Lunar New Year. His attempts reveal the struggles of living in a city where people must work to live, and his memories of his home face away or are 'stolen' by the city.

• "Sea of Fertility" by Bella Han: a girl's brother vanishes from the virtual city of Laputa. With all trace of him gone in the city, the girl starts on a journey to locate him, a journey that would go back through the music he wrote virtually, and retrace the entire history of the girl's virtual reality and even past it, back to the world that was there before the virtual one.

• "Heart of Thunder" by Raahem Alvi: a 'retired' augmented soldier is sent to Mars for rehabilitation at a new job. But his military augments start to take over his life, giving him hallucinations from during the war, until the inevitable happens.

• "A Dream of Twin Sunsets" by Ryan Cole: on a deadly world filled with toxic pollen, a man is forced to crash-land in a pollen field. But he is rescued by a deserter from his colony (which is organised along military lines) and develops a relationship before going back. Years later, they meet again, but now they have to put their lives on the line against the colony if they are to save each other.

• "Vwooom!" by Uchechukwu Nwaka: a man who gave up on the education and care given by a man who took him in during a time of crisis decides to pay him back by doing a one-way journey into a space anomaly.

A fascinating collection of stories by a writer concerned with the impact of AI technology, and how cultures and other races are often overlooked or looked down upon by those in the west. Some stories here are standalone, while some form part of a series or are related to each other thematically as a form of 'future history'.

• Ghost Days (2013): a story told in different times and different places: a genetically modified human living on an alien world, a possibly illegal refugee in the USA, and the refugee's grandparents in China. What ties them together is an object passed down from person to person in the story, and a shared feeling about not belonging to the place.

• Maxwell's Demon (2012): a Japanese-American in an internment camp during the war is sent to Japan on a mission to find information on possible Japanese war research. She discovers that her skill at seeing ghosts might be used as part of the war effort. She then helps some ghosts to escape, but she herself may not be able to escape the ongoing conflict and go home.

• The Reborn (2014): aliens have conquered Earth and now live with humans. Xenophobes cause an event that leads to an investigation. But a lead investigator finds clues that lead back to memories of his old life: memories that have been stripped away by the aliens in an attempt to make a better personality.

• Thoughts and Prayers (2019): when a family loses a daughter to a mass shooter, the mother decides to use her death as a rallying call for change. But internet trolls abuse the images of her daughter, until the family realize the only way to remember her daughter is not to remember her at all

• Byzantine Empathy (2018): in a future where the blockchain (the technology that ensures transactions like cryptocurrencies are recorded and distributed) is ubiquitous, one person attempts to sidestep non-profit charities by directly ensuring cryptocurrency payments go directly to refugees and other recipients. But that turns out only to be the first part of her plan to draw attention towards a conflict at the border of Myanmar that the rest of the world would rather forget about, as too much attention could cause a wider conflict.

• The Gods Will Not Be Chained (2014): The story starts out with a girl being bullied on-line. Then, she gets help from an unknown person who only uses emojis to communicate. As the story progresses, a link develops between the person, her father, and a project her father was involved in at his company that involved copying his skill at seeing patterns.

• Staying Behind (2011): the Singularity has arrived, with many people uploading their consciousness into machines. Among those who choose not to upload, life has become hard as civilization breaks down in the 'real world'. One father strives to keep his daughter rooted in the 'real world'. But in the end, he has to live with his daughter's choices.

• Real Artists (2011): a film-maker gets the chance to work at her favourite animated film studio. But then she discovers how the films are made (which do not meet her preconceptions) and her own role in the studio. Now she has to decide whether she really wants to work there as an artist.

• The Gods Will Not Be Slain (2014): continuing the story of "The Gods Will Not Be Chained", semi-sentient programs now roam the world's system. But not is all well, for some programs want to destroy humanity, while others, including the girl's father, work to come to an accommodation with humans. In the end, a global crisis develops that can only be partially resolved.

• Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer (2011): in a future after the Singularity, humanity has moved into virtual space. One day, the mother of a girl comes to say goodbye, for she will be making a physical one way journey. To make the girl understand just what it might be like, they go on one final journey together.

• The Gods Have Not Died in Vain (2015): continuing the story from "The Gods Will Not Be Slain", the girl discovers she has a 'sister' in the digital realm. But that is not all. A movement is starting that would bring about the Singularity, but one that may be able to accommodate humanity.

• Memories of My Mother (2012): a mother of a young girl has only two years to live. She stretches it out by going on relativity trips, returning every seven years to see her daughter. In their brief meetings together, they fight, make up and learn to live a life together, despite the separation in years.

• Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit - Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts (2016): the story follows an ultrarich person who has abandoned her riches on the other planets to live on an Earth that has undergone severe climate change and is now much hotter. She travels the world to see the changes, the drowned cities and the people struggling to live; for change is coming in the form of geoengineering to cool the planet. But is it wise or kind to do so to a world some people have now called home?

• Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard (2019): on a much changed world, a sister struggles to make a living off the remnants of the technological past. But when her brother goes missing, it would need all her skill, and her abilities in a changed form, to try to rescue him, along with two other people who have their own abilities.

• A Chase Beyond the Storms: An excerpt from "The Veiled Throne", Book 3 of the Dandelion Dynasty (2020): a group of ships, having survived the wall of storms that surrounds their lands, is confronted by a larger ship. Using deception to fend off one attack, they now prepare for the next battle with an unusual plan.

• The Hidden Girl (2017): a girl is stolen from her palace and becomes the student of a monk, who teaches her how to use hidden spaces: vital as her training as an assassin. But on her first assassination attempt, she gets a change of heart. And now she has to fend off her fellow assassin sisters sent to finish what her job.

• Seven Birthdays (2016): on seven birthdays of a person that spans immense time and space. But despite the huge changes that have occurred, getting together to celebrate a birthday may never change.

• The Message (2012): an explorer and his daughter explore an enigma: an alien city in the middle of nowhere with a message written on it. When the father eventually deciphers the message and realizes what it means, it might be too late for the daughter, who has decided to explore the city on her own.

• Cutting (2012): monks on a mountain search for meaning in a book by gradually cutting away the extra words.

An interesting story about the relationship between an introvert boy and a cat that can talk, and their adventures in saving books. And while saving the books, he (and the reader) will get a better appreciation about the power of books to affect the world.

At the start, the boy's grandfather, who owns a small bookshop, has passed away, leaving the boy feeling isolated and alone. The boy may have to close the bookshop, his comfort space, to stay with his relatives. But then a talking cat shows up, asking for his help to save books. Together, they journey to three labyrinths, where books are being imprisoned, mutilated and sold as commodities. Using his knowledge and love about books, the boy works to free the books and to convince the people in the labyrinth to love books for what they are, not for what the person can do to the books.

During the adventures, the boy gradually begins to open up and develops a friendship with a school classmate, who is concerned about him not showing up in school. The classmate, unexpectedly, then joins in his adventures.

But there is one more labyrinth, which the boy has to enter on his own. For it contains a formidable opponent with a strong opinion about books. And it would need all the boy's love, and thoughts, about books to change the opponent's opinion about the power of books and what books can do.

In the end, the adventures will convince the boy to open up to the world and to keep the bookshop open; for there will always be a need for books. As for the cat, it will move on to other adventures.

An average issue with some interesting stories by Tia Tashiro, Fiona Moore, Gary Kloster and Bam Bruin

• "Missing Helen" by Tia Tashiro: an interesting story about a man who divorces his wife and then decides to marry her younger clone. The rest of the story tells the story of why the woman allowed a clone of herself to be made and what happens when she decides to meet her clone and the effects it has on them and the man.

• "The Walled Garden" by Fiona Moore: after the collapse of civilisation, a community find that they are running out of plastic sheets used to keep their gardens warm. One person comes up with an idea on how to grow food despite the colder conditions, but it would need her former security robot, now turned helper, to show her an extra step that would help with the gardening.

• "Welcome to Kearney" by Gary Kloster: an artificial being in the form of an otter appears at a reservation that preserves the past. The solitary keeper of the reservation repairs it, and learns it considers itself sentient. While trying to learn more about its past, he finds it avoiding him, but it is only when a scavenging robot tries to reclaim it does he learn why the sentient being ran away, and why it can't stay with him.

• "Serpent Carriers" by K.A. Teryna, translated by Alex Shvartsman: starting off as tales told around a campfire, the stories would turn out to involve one person at the fire, who left a fungal farm where she was a captive, only now possibly made a captive of another form of farm involving Words that may be woven into DNA.

• "Bits and Pieces on This Floor" by Eric Del Carlo: on a world about to be abandoned, one person goes in search of a related person, to discover that one skill had been passed on by their relative.

• "A Land Called Folly" by Amal Singh: a boy journeys to other worlds that involves teleportation that the boy feels turns you into a different person. But when the time comes for him to return home, he learns that teleportation might not change the person.

• "Hunter Harvester" by Bam Bruin: on an alien world, some colonist harvest alien 'lettuce' for nourishment. The lettuce fields are occasionally protected by aliens. But it is only when they retrieve the latest harvest, which includes an especially large lettuce, do they realise what they are harvesting.

A fantastical tale that further expands the world inhabited by Miss Cassidy. Goddesses and female spirits (and the occasional male ones) from various western and Asian pantheons mix in this story about the relationship between a terrible spirit that wants to be loved by her 'daughters' and her daughters desire for their freedom from her. Into this conflict steps Miss Cassidy and her mortal 'companion', Mr. Kay, whose efforts may help to resolve it; or not.

Unlike the previous book, which is a linear tale mainly told from Miss Cassidy's viewpoint, this one is multilayered in both time (past and present) and with multiple viewpoints. It starts off with the first person viewpoint of Madam Ingram, who travels to Singapore to find Madam Kay (the daughter of Mr. Kay) for help with her ailment that has caused her to be labelled a madwoman in the west. The story then skips backwards in time as Madam Ingram starts recalling her past life with her mother and father, including events that she has strangely forgotten about.

The story then alternates with third person viewpoints from Miss Cassidy and Mr. Kay. As the story develops, it turns out that Miss Cassidy has encountered Madam Ingram and her mother in the past, while Mr. Kay is pulled into the half-world between the mortal and spiritual realms in an effort to resolve the mystery around a bizarre dancing spirit that may be related to Madam Ingram.

As the past (and present) slowly comes into focus for Madam Ingram, Miss Cassidy and Mr. Kay, it becomes apparent that they are facing a possessive and powerful spirit that wants her daughters to return to her and will not let Miss Cassidy (or others) get in her way. It would require all the help Madam Ingram can get from Miss Cassidy, Mr. Kay and others to face her mother and decide her own fate.

While the main tale is mysterious and grim in the telling, the atmosphere of the book itself is light-hearted and humorous, especially the bantering between Mr. Kay and Miss Cassidy. The goddesses featured in the book also inject some fun in the story via their interactions with Miss Cassidy. In this world, there are rules about how the various gods, goddesses and spirits can interact with each other and with the human world: breaking (or bending) the rules will eventually land Miss Cassidy in a lot of trouble.

By the end, the tale would involve journeys to the British Isles, France and India before returning to Singapore to focus on the final confrontation. It would also (somewhat unexpectedly) involve characters and situations encountered by Miss Cassidy in the first book, before being resolved in a manner that would leave both mother and Madam Ingram content with the resolution.

This is a story that starts with a mystery and ends with a mighty resolution that, of course, sets things up for the third part of the series.

A fascinating book that the traces the evolution of plants and the relationship plants have with animals, via a series of vignettes that look at the life of plants and animals at different periods of time. An appendix of information is also given to provide the scientific background to the vignettes, followed by a list of references.

While fossils of animals (especially dinosaurs) fascinate the public and are the usual 'stars' of palaeontology, plants are the ones that fuel those bodies directly or indirectly. Without plants, there would be no animals, and plants determine what kinds of animals can exist in areas of the world. So it is worthwhile to get an understanding of how plants evolved to understand more of the world that prehistoric animals inhabit.

Our first stop is at the beginning, when the first plants appeared. At some point in time, single-celled organisms in an ocean swallowed cyanobacteria, leading to the first multicellular organisms that could produce food from sunlight. These organisms become more than just a group of cells by differentiating and taking on different roles that benefit the organism as a hold; like cells that hold on fast on to rocks, and helping the organism to reach higher in the water for sunlight. Sex would also arise from differentiation, leading to more variations in subsequent organisms.

Plants now begin to line the shoreline and their growing numbers begin to affect the environment. One of the biggest of these would be the creation of free oxygen molecules, and freeing minerals like calcium from the rocks. They also begin to suck carbon dioxide from the air, resulting in a cooling climate.

Moving on to the Carboniferous, plants now dominate the landscape. The plants now found are not the plants we know, but consist mainly of giant liverworts and ferns that tower metres into the air. Plants achieve this ability to grow tall by repurposing lignin for support (lignin may have originally evolved to protect plants from ultraviolet rays). These plants support an increasingly complex ecosystem made up of giant insects and proto mammals and reptiles, supported by the excess oxygen created by plants. Insects, especially those with an aquatic life cycle, grew big as a response to the extra oxygen, which can be toxic at higher concentrations: a larger body is better able to handle the excess oxygen. Plants grew so rapidly that there wasn't time for dead plants to be decomposed before getting buried, leading to the large coal seams that we find today.

Next, we go to the Triassic, a period of extremes due to the volcanic activity, causing high levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. The climate now has hot seasons and wet ones, causing wildfires and deluges that bury the burnt wood; when fossilised, this wood would become petrified forests found in some areas.

We move to the Jurassic, the era of giant sauropod dinosaurs that need to feed on many plants to fuel their bodies, like ferns, conifers and ginkgos. Sauropods start out small, and they need to grow quickly to avoid being targeted by predators. Their huge bodies also help them digest plants, for sauropods cannot chew and just swallow the plants they eat, along with unlucky small animals.

Now in the Cretaceous period, a new type of plant develops: angiosperms, or flowering plants. They probably grew mainly in watery areas due to competition from ferns and other gymnosperms that are already established.

The Cretaceous period is also one where plants have spread widely, nearly reaching the poles. Large numbers of conifer trees produce resin, which turn into amber when fossilised. These preserve insects or parts of animals that have been trapped within them.

A large asteroid strike that ends the reign of the dinosaurs moves us past the Cretaceous. The destruction does not spare plants. But it gives the angiosperms a chance to spread, and they eventually dominate in the new landscape. The climate after the asteroid strike remains hot, giving rise to large storm that can sweep whole groups of trees out into the oceans. Some of these 'rafts' include stowaways, and this was probably how monkeys made the leap across the ocean from Africa to South America.

The climate now starts to cool, bringing with it seasons and a reduction in rainfall. Forests starts to retreat, opening the ground for grasses and a new environment for animals. Forests gives cover for predators to hide in ambush, but on grassy plains with no cover, predators have to adapt to chase after their prey. One way prey animals can respond is by becoming faster, like horses, which move to grassy plains to take advantage of the new environment.

The author now looks at the relationship between plants and animals by looking at plant pollinators like bats. Some plants also evolved from being general pollination to specialised one, developing plant parts that only some animals can reach as a reward for pollination. This ensures that plants have a higher change of receiving the correct pollen. But if the specialised pollinator goes extinct, the plant is also in danger of becoming extinct, unless it can find a new pollinator to fit the role.

The interesting effects of catnip on cats is also looked at, with a look at a possible behaviour of prehistoric sabre-tooth cats to catnip. Catnip plants developed a chemical to deter animals from eating it. But cats instead find the chemical attractive.

Moving back to grass plains, it also attracts another animal: primates. Some come down from the trees to move on the ground, develop an upright stance. And some would go on to become humans.

Finally, nearing modern times, the author looks at mastodons and mammoths. The changing seasons would also cause season, with fall causing a shedding of leaves. This blanket of fallen leaves would be an aid for small animals to survive the winter, by providing insulation on the ground. A look at parasitic plants that live off fungi and other plants is also given.