By Light Alone

By Light Alone

I picked this up passing the 'recommended' shelf in the library. It's set in a future where we've sorted out hunger by a genetic modification to hair that allows it to photosynthesise. The rich shave their heads to make it perfectly clear that they are wealthy enough to eat real, and extremely expensive, staple foods. The poor lay around in the sun all day. The complication is that the hair sunshine diet isn't enough to sustain a pregnancy through to term, leading to traffic in kidnapped children. George and Marie have just got their daughter, Leah, back after eleven months on the missing list, taken from their hotel during a skiing holiday.

The line on the cover under the title says: “Hunger is a thing of the past but this is no utopia...”

I read a hilarious review today that criticised the author for the lack of scientific rigour and detail of the hair photosynthesis thing. If he was able to produce that, wouldn't there be people already making their own food by laying about in the sun? This is a novel and these are ideas. It's not a science project submission. The same critic would probably pan Ulysses for being complicated, In Search of Lost Time for being overlong, and Malone Dies for lacking plot, chicken vindaloo for being hot and spicy, rain for being wet and The Life of Brian for a number of inaccuracies.

Tarantino wins Wimbledon men's singles

Dexys and Dirty Projectors

One Day I'm Going to Soar and Swing Lo Magellan have been the weekend's listening. Fantastic albums. Both of them. Dexys album was only twenty seven years in the making. Unless Kevin Rowland did nothing at all for twenty six and a bit years and knocked this out in the last couple of weeks. Summer holiday homework programming as it's known in our house. Six weeks from start date to completion, and work begins at midnight on the last day before returns are due. Dirty Projectors don't deal in radio pop, but Swing Lo Magellan isn't exactly hard work. I've also found a workround to get VLC media player to run through the album tracks in the right order. Not a big thing, but one that's been bugging me for months.