Dr. Chittaranjan Andrade

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K Dick Genre: SF Audience: 16+ Rating: 3 stars out of 5 Review This is a dystopian SF novel set in North America after a nuclear war has devastated the planet and most of the survivors have left to colonize Mars. There are two protagonists. One is a normal human whose job is to destroy rogue androids that travel from Mars to Earth. The other is a human with below average intelligence who lives alone and who tries to help the hunted androids. The plot is rather mixed up and loose threads are not tied together at the end. The bounty hunter starts as a human who views the androids as legitimate prey but later begins to empathize with the androids and question his own motives. The androids are depicted as having feelings when not having feelings is what helps expose them as being androids. The man with below average intelligence is nice but is taken advantage of by androids who turn out to be quite nasty. So there are good humans and bad humans and good androids and bad androids. Added to the confusion is a religion that makes no sense at all, not even at the end. As a pointless subplot, humans keep animals as pets; sheep, goats, cats, ostriches, whatever. These are mostly 'electric', not real because most of the real animals were killed by radiation. The real animals are prohibitively expensive. The bounty hunter starts the novel with an electric sheep. The relevance of the title to androids dreaming of electric sheep is never made clear. The chaotic plot perhaps reflects the mental health challenges that the author was experiencing. The book spawned the movie Blade Runner. Readers who enjoy gloom and doom plots as well as mysticism might enjoy this book.

The Mad Hatter Mystery by John Dickson Carr Genre: Crime/Detection Audience: 14+ Rating: 3 stars out of 5 Review John Dickson Carr is an acclaimed author in the genre of crime and detection and Dr Gideon Fell stars as the detective in much of his output. The Mad Hatter Mystery was written in 1933 and is among Carr's earliest books. The book is an "AnybodyCouldHaveDunIt" novel with a convoluted plot that requires the reader to keep track of a large number of trivial details, as well as a great deal of "who was where and at what time". The reader is also required to have a detailed knowledge of the geography of the Tower of London, and to visualize the movements of victim and suspects there. The plot and writing are both painfully melodramatic with several characters, including Dr Fell, portrayed as caricatures rather than characters. Dr Fell's prescience, all through the book, is not credible. The reader struggles through the initial chapters. There are definitely parts in the book where both writing and plot engage the reader delightfully, encouraging persistence with the novel. The ending, however, is dissatisfying and the overall impression is that the book was not worth reading.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle Genre: Children's SF Audience: 10-12 Rating: 3.3 stars out of 5 Review This is the first book in the Time Quintet by Madeleine L'Engle. It can be read as a standalone novel. It starts with the much parodied line, "It was a dark and stormy night". It tells the story of how Meg, her younger brother Charles Wallace, and a friend Calvin, rescue Meg's father who has time travelled to a faraway planet. The first, and perhaps second and third chapters, are worth reading; they lay the foundation for a promising plot, and five-year-old Charles Wallace emerges as an intriguing character. After the third chapter, the narrative sinks into kiddy melodrama that is very kiddy and very melodramatic, and grown up readers might not want to read further. This book received the Newbery Medal in 1963.

The Happy Prince and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde Genre: "Fairy tales" Audience: 15+ Rating: 3/5 Review This book is published, listed, and promoted as a collection of children's tales and even children's bedtime stories, but the stories are anything but appropriate for children. The writing is elaborately ornamental. The themes deal with a great deal that is nasty in human nature and unfair in life. The content is satirical, depressing, bitter, and even cruel, and these overshadow the moral and religious elements that are introduced. Almost all the stories have unpleasant endings. Yes, the stories hold up a mirror to the world, but why look at the world through a mirror when we see it with our own eyes? With a few exceptions, the stories would fit well in an anthology of horror stories because they do horrify the reader.

An Excellent Mystery by Ellis Peters Genre: Crime/Suspense Audience: 16+ Rating: 3.8/5 Review This book belongs to the Brother Cadfael series but, as with the other books, can be read as a standalone novel. Brother Cadfael is a Benedictine monk who works as a herbal healer in an abbey. The setting is a small town in 12th century England. For the first quarter of the book, the reader may be forgiven for wondering what's going on; is this a presentation on medieval English history? By the one-third mark, the astute reader might guess the plot and wonder whether it's worth reading further. By the halfway mark and after, there are so many clues that it begins to seem that the author is going overboard to help the reader solve this "excellent mystery" before Brother Cadfael and the Sheriff's Deputy do so. In short, it is indeed worth reading the book to the last page if only to discover how skilfully the author brings a somewhat tricky situation to an unexpected and satisfying conclusion. All loose ends are tied up, including an unsettling adult-theme subplot. The book is in classical Ellis Peters style: the pace of the narrative is slow, the prose is powerful, the writing is introspective, the characters are vividly portrayed, the content is strongly moral. Although the atmosphere is rather brooding for the most part, the ending is happy. Readers who have enjoyed other books in the series will enjoy this, but this might not be the best book to start the series with.

Billy Bunter's Circus by Frank Richards Genre: Schoolboy/Humor Audience: 10+ Rating: 3.6 stars out of 5 Review Billy Bunter, running away from school, finds an unexpected role as the owner of a circus. Surprisingly, he succeeds in keeping up the charade during the holidays, revelling in an abundance of food and leaving the actual running of the circus to an unscrupulous manager. The writing is classic Frank Richards. The story is entertaining in many places but is repetitive in themes not only in this book but between this and other Bunter books. The nearly 700 page book, spread across 8 issues of the Magnet, could have been cut by half without loss of value to the reader. However, the book ends well.

The Child Garden by Geoff Ryman Genre: Dystopian SF Audience: 18+ Rating: 1 star out of 5 Review The book contains excellent ideas, such as virus-enhancement of mental abilities and genetic engineering of human qualities into animals. The book has interesting characters, such as a female polar bear who composes music and sings opera, a postman with an exceptional memory who delivers messages by word of mouth, and a human hunter who finds his prey by reading minds. The book, however, is poorly written; the writing style is disjointed, and the reader has to struggle to understand the background to the story. The story is itself poor; the reader is tempted to ask, what's going on here and why should I care? The adult rating is because one of the main characters, a human girl, falls in love with another of the main characters, the polar bear who sings opera, and the love is more than platonic. The polar bear has bad teeth, bad breath, bad body odor; and rather early in the book, shaves off all her fur. She also has an alcohol problem. This book is one among the approximately 200 SF Masterworks issued by Gollancz. Many of those masterworks are worth not reading, and this book is one of them.

The Devil's Novice by Edith Mary Pargeter writing as Ellis Peters Genre: Crime Audience: 15+ Rating: 3.8 stars out of 5 Review This book is the eighth in the Cadfael Chronicles series. It can be read as a standalone novel. The story concerns Meriet, a young man who is brought by his father to join a monastery. Meriet appears strongly motivated to take up the cloth but appears to be haunted by something from his past. That something turns out to involve a death, and a plot against the king. The story is set in a monastery and its surroundings in 12th century England. The plot is simple and evolves slowly, However, the narrative holds the attention and the reader looks forward to returning to the book after laying it down. Other positives are the way in which the characters in the book come alive, the insightfulness with which human nature is portrayed, and the kindness, honorableness, and good intentions of Brother Cadfael, Brother Mark, and his associated. The book is worth reading not so much for the story as for the pleasure it gives from the reading.

The 7 cardinal virtues of science fiction Ed, Isaac Asimov, CG Waugh, MH Greenberg Genre: Science Fiction Audience: 16+ Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5 Review Asimov, Waugh, and Greenberg have collaborated in many anthologies, most of which feature excellent content. This anthology, sadly, falls far short of expectations. It contains 7 stories, one representative of each of 7 virtues: temperance, prudence, fortitude, justice, faith, hope, and charity, with love thrown in as an extra. ALL of the stories have good ideas but in none of the stories are the ideas well developed. Some stories start well but end poorly. Some start poorly but have an unexpectedly good ending. Some are mediocre, all through. The authors of the short stories and novellas include Arthur C Clarke, Norman Spinrad, Theodore Sturgeon, Eric Frank Russell, and Asimov, himself. The overall mediocrity of the anthology is surprising, given the high profile of these authors.