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

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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      HALF OF A YELLOW SUN Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Fourth Estate, 2006, ISBN: 9780007200283 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun was, from memory, a very fashionable book to have read some years ago.  It achieved great success worldwide, receiving the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2007 and many positive reviews.  … Continue reading