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Don’t Pay the Theremin – Until It Gets You to the Other Side

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US CONDUCTORSus conductors
Sean Michaels
Bloomsbury, July 2015, RRP $29.95

There are a number of different ways to write a novel based on historical characters. You can go for a modernisation of the characters and follow the general story but change bits of the plot – Susan Kay’s Elizabethan Legacy, which is a total romp and hugely enjoyable despite it’s lack of accuracy.

You can interweave an imaginary character into a historical narrative; Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon introduces Lawrence Waterhouse into the development of the code breaker during WWII to such an extent that I have no longer any idea what really went on because my memory of the history is so tarnished by reading it. Loved that book: I have a cat named after Enoch Root, one of the minor characters. Continue reading

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      English speaking readers might not be familiar with Rébecca Dautremer. It might be informative to think of her as a sort of French Shaun Tan. On the other hand, it might be just as true to say that Shaun Tan is an Australian Rébecca Dautremer. It all depends on one’s perspective. Rébecca Dautremer is the illustrator … Continue reading