Fungi are an incredibly diverse group of organisms that play a vital role in many ecosystems. They are essential to the functioning of many ecosystems because they are responsible for breaking down dead plant and animal material, which helps to recycle nutrients back into the soil. Additionally, many species of fungi form symbiotic relationships with …
Continue reading Everything you wanted to know about fungi but were afraid to ask
A monster story Mary Shelly would be proud of. The Undertaker’s Daughter is a chilling horror novel that follows the story of Anna Dingel, a socially awkward teenager who is raised in a family funeral home. The author does an excellent job of setting the right atmosphere from the beginning and keeps the tension high …
Continue reading The Undertaker’s Daughter by John James Minster
Clint Eastwood has a pet bird, like in Beastmaster, or was it Ladyhawke? Anyway, the bird is a big juicy hawk, and it’s his best friend and everything, but then it dies. It turns out that this was only a flashback, and Clint was saved from a nasty man, so that’s alright for him, but …
They say there is only a finite number of stories in the world. They say that as few as seven, or six, or three narratives exist and that these are simply told again and again, with the names and places changed to protect the storyteller from overly observant readers. They will tell you that the …
Trigger Warning: there are boats in this, and water, and people, but no dogs. This is about a bunch of people who like messing about on boats. It’s based in olden times, so the boats are wooden and hardly ever work properly. There’s not even any motors, and they have to go where the wind …
All very well, if you like vacuum cleaners. I don’t. There was a Hoover salesman in Cuba who became a secret agent but then he drew some pictures of a nozzle and pretended it was a communist death star. His masters in Blightly liked the look of it and sent him loads of money for …
You know how there’s a nasty alien thingy in almost every part of space these days, well this is just like that, but completely different. The alien thingy isn’t what you expect. It lives inside a spaceship that likes bees and that, and it does lambing and it grows things. Mat Damon grew a potato …
It’s really good this. It’s like Game of Thrones in space. There’s even the same characters, so it’s easy. There’s like that Drogo person, you know the one with the horse and the big pecs, except now he’s in a spaceship. The plot is really clever too. There’s this fat bloke right, who wants all …
My faithful canine makes herself clear on a large variety of matters. She tells me if she is happy or sad (easy - just a wag of the tail, or not), when she is tired (impossible not to catch the yawn), and when she is scared (jumps into my lap, winding me, or worse). She …
Continue reading What would your dog tell you if it had the chance?
The Bennets won't even see us coming I was with my father when he once asked Ian (M) Banks wether his preference was to write novels set in the real world, or to write his very much loved space operas. The cherished, but late, author replied that it was a constant effort for him not …
David J Harrison 