From the Heart of Europe

• Riek Machar and the prophet’s rod
  The return of the sacred dang in 2009.
  (tags: southsudan religion )
• Interactive Map: Four Ways to Look at Carbon Footprints
  14 nations and Europe account for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions.
  (tags: climatechange )

Another of this year's series of Doctor Who ebooks by well-known authors - this time one of the surprisingly numerous alumni of Clare College who have gone into the sff field (China Miéville, Marcel Theroux, Rebecca Levene, going a bit further back Peter Ackroyd). It's an extended story largely consisting of Tenth Doctor stream of consciousness, the Tardis having hit a Time Mine left over from the war and come to rest in, or possibly on, a Welsh village where everyone is called Jones except for Lady Christina de Souza. Not quite as good as the sum of its parts, but there is a lovely reference to Iain Banks near the end.

Next up for my read of BSFA nominations, this is an intricate juxtaposition of narrative segments set in different worlds and time streams, a lot of which draws from Priest's own earlier work. Several chapters are set in a near-future Islamic Republic of Great Britain, rather reminiscent of the Darkening Island of his first book; we revisit the archipelago of The Islanders; and magicians and twins and alternate Second World Wars pop up too.

It didn't quite come off for me. There are a lot of good ideas here, but the Islamic Republic is a bad one; and I had hoped for some actual plot resolution at the end, rather than juyst being expected to admire the pretty pattern of the bits of story put next too each other. (Oddly enough, The Islanders, on its face a more discontinuous text, worked better in that regard.) So I fear that my vote will put it at the end of what is a very good shortlist.

The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Le Guin
Four How to Train Your Dragon books, by Cressida Cowell
Three Hugo nomiees for Best novella
Blackout, by "Mira Grant"
Magic of the Angels, by Jacqueline Rayner
Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
EarthWorld, by Jacqueline Rayner
Something Borrowed, by Richelle Mead
The Ripple Effect, by Malorie Blackman
Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins
Far North, by Sara Maitland
The Crown of Dalemark, by Diana Wynne Jones
Royal Assassin, by Robin Hobb
The Queen's Bastard, by C.E. Murphy
The Year of Intelligent Tigers, by Kate Orman
Returning My Sister's Face, by Eugie Foster
Mortal Clay, Stone Heart, by Eugie Foster
SLEEPY, by Kate Orman
Long Time Dead, by Sarah Pinborough
Two unpublished novels
Patternmaster, by Octavia Butler
City of the Dead, by Lloyd Rose
Walk to the End of the World and Motherlines, by Suzy McKee Charnas
Grimm Reality, by Simon Bucher-Jones and Kelly Hale
The Death Pit, by A.L. Kennedy
God's War, by Kameron Hurley
Into the Nowhere, by Jenny T. Colgan
Ancillary Justice, by Anne Leckie

(Combining the themes of International Women's Day today and World Book Day yesterday.)