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Parable Of The Sower by Octavia E. Butler

June 07, 2026

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Maxwell's Demon by Steven Hall

Almost sixteen weeks after I'd woken up on the bedroom floor, the lightbulb box arrived. I am so far behind. So far indeed that, considering I'm so damned lazy, I've taken the unprecedented but topical step to ask ChatGPT to consider my blog as a whole and to write what it considered to be a typical review. Considering. Therefore I present to you a totally unvarnished but transparent (and slightly depressing) review, written by ChatGPT pretending to be me (interestingly, it is convinced I am writer and journalist Paul M M Cooper for some entirely abstruse reason - I mean, I wish!). Feel free to let me know how appalled you all are. Dear reader, I recently had the pleasure of delving into the curious world of "Maxwell's Demon" by Steven Hall, and let me tell you, it was quite the ride. Firstly, let's address the elephant in the room - the title. For those of you who are not well-versed in physics, Maxwell's Demon refers to a hypothetical creature tha...

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S.N.U.F.F. by Victor Pelevin

Nourishing Manitou with blood is a cosmic necessity. Quite how I swung away from the banks of Sorrowland and into the rushing, tumescent waters of Russian dystopian satire is, sadly, lost to the fog of history, but swing away I did, and it gives me the chance to shamelessly court clicks from those pugnacious Homo-Sovieticus -ians, thusly: И снова здравствуйте, мои русские друзья! І привіт усім моїм українським читачам - ти чудово виглядаєш, це взуття нове? One must marvel at Google’s translation function, and all technological advancements of this age (even if Microsoft Word just tried to change the word Google to the contextually appropriate Gogol , naughty Satya Nadella) and worship before the altar of progress like good little consumers, and like the sorry inhabitants of the lower world in this classic dystopian satire: the Orks. For context, the Earth is ruined, we’re led to believe, America and China are no more, and with the remaining inhabitants of the landmass formerly ...

Dress Her In Indigo by John D MacDonald

Knight errant or misogynist pig? Or both - who says you have to choose? One phrase struck me during the reading of this book, another in the 20-odd series featuring everybody's favourite sexual healer Travis McGee, that reminded me of the fantastic lashing John D MacD got at the hands of another reviewer, and if which I made copious use in a previous review . Another of Trav's mysteriously well-connected contacts puts him on to one Enelio Fuentes, whose comportment around women is degraded at best, and whose own sensibilities lead him to pimp out two typists to Trav and hirsute pal Meyer during their stay in Oaxaca, something to which neither of them object. Still there? He repeatedly describes women as either crumpets or chicklets, and Meyer later relates that when he presses Fuentes for the distinction, it's beguilingly vague and horribly sexist at the same time - I'll leave that for you to find and enjoy. So why do I persist in reading w...

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Parable Of The Sower by Octavia E. Butler

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