Neil Hopcroft

I’ve been a bit lax on my book reviews of late – theres a little bit of a backlog, which I’ll try to clear over the next few days. Junk is a book I bought some time ago on the strength of its cover – pure white, showing the works of an addict. Theres something […]

“The age of biological control by the scientists who cloned Dolly.” This book follows the story of the team who made Dolly, the sheep. From the early attempts, through a series of incorrect theories about what was and was not possible, to their eventual understanding of the necessary nuclear transfer process and finally the creation […]

“But see, how did she make the food hot? And how do you know what should be hot and what shouldn’t? ‘cos sometimes we had ham. Cold. And sometimes we had bacon. Hot. And when you buy it they don’t tell you which one is which. I thought they would. I’ve been buying it, but […]

“Journeys of an Underground Philosopher” Though short this is an interesting book. It describes the life and thoughts of a traveller turned station announcer. He mixes mundane snippets of life on the tube with deep thoughts about the structure of society he sees through its expression in those muddling their way through the underground system. […]

Set in a future where refugees have become such a problem they’ve made a special planet for them. Its a nicely balanced book, with nanotech available but only a few things are computationally powerful enough to deal with the complexities of it, meaning much of the setting is relatively lowtech against a background of high […]

…The diaries of David Wojnarowicz… I chose this book purely on the strength of its title, it is, I think, the last book I bought in Tokyo, where you had to take what you could get. It was slow going, mostly because it contained rather more graphic detail than I was comfortable with about some […]