The Website of Karl Wilcox

Lord Valentine's Castle

2026-08-10T00:00:00+01:00

This really is a masterpiece of science fiction. As well as being astonishingly prolific the author has an astounding imagination as big as the planet of Majipoor itself.

We open on a pastoral scene with our hero having nothing of himself other than his name. He becomes a travelling juggler (inspiring me to pick up my own juggling balls again) and from that small beginning attempts to regain the stolen throne, a task that involves travelling across most of the vast landmasses of the giant planet.

The world building is extraordinary, a low-metal planet moving on almost medieval society but with some elements of advanced technology left over from the interstellar colonisation thousands of years ago, and a range of non-human species largely living in peaceful co-existence.

We visit fabulous cities, vast forests, deserts and cross wide oceans encountering all sorts of adventures and picking up retainers and troops on the way. One of the strengths of the book is how immersively real everything feels, helped enormously by a confident use of background details and above all names that roll off the tongue. Cities, plants, animals, races and characters all have convincing nomenclature, starting with Sleat, Carabella, Zalzan Koaal and ending with the 50 cities of Castle Mount, putting us right there in the midst of this fantastic planet.

If he had written nothing else, Robert Silverberg would still be a giant of Science Fiction.

Other Peoples' Houses

2026-08-01T00:00:00+01:00

A female welsh detective and her romantic partner over the border in the Chesire constabulary investigate their own particular crimes (a murder at an outdoor pursuit centre and a series of burglaries from posh houses respectively) and we also get transcripts of a true crime / cold case podcast interspersed - quite a nice touch. Before long all of these cases are tangled together and things get Mackintosh trade-mark twisty.

Quite a few people here are drawn as rather unpleasant and unlikeable characters: estate agents, rich people, ambitious constables, the partner’s ex-wife. What I think that the author did need to do however was give us an actual likeable character to relate to! Both main characters didn’t come across very well, at least in the first three-quartrers of the book, although events started to move quickly in the final part and it did eventually get exciting and I did finally start to root for the heroes - although I think there was some bad, but perhaps understandable, decision making by the partner that unnecessarily triggered the big scene at the end. Although to be fair I’m not sure that I would have done any different in his situation.

Had I not been determined to get to the end of this to keep up my reading stats I might have abandoned this as I didn’t really like anybody but it turned out well in the end and I did enjoy it overall.

Whispers Underground

2026-07-31T00:00:00+01:00

So I have this shelf of Penguin Classics, books that will broaden my mind and improve my self-worth, making me feel smug about my reading habits - but instead I keep picking up the next book in the “Rivers of London” series and reading that instead!

We get a few new characters introduced (or expanded on) here, Abigail the junior apprentice; Kimberley the FBI contact and we are still pursuing the Faceless man but instead uncovering some secrets from London’s literally long buried past.

It’s all good fun and has the usual detailed police procedural, along with some great set piece scenes. I’ve always enjoyed the Thameside fair and can pic†ure the event very clearly.

In terms of developing the overall story arc we don’t get too far, but this is not a problem. This is a great, easy comfort read but I will really try to discipline myself and get back to those classics…

Little House on the Prairie

2026-07-30T00:00:00+01:00

I don’t recall much of the original TV series from my childhood days, other than I didn’t really like it much, and I haven’t read the books so the level of peril and heartache came as something of a surprise! (I’m sure the 1970’s show was really anodyne…)

Lost dogs, lost horses, scary native americans, out of control wild fires, family schisms and truama, a scheming fat controller and a local loose-cannon drunk who looked uncannily like Captain Haddock from the Tintin books - it was all there!

Fortunately there was also a huge amount to like here. Good casting of the main family who all played really well, plenty of warmth and loving moments and some real practical issues to be dealt with. There was no sugar coating of this, I expect it follows the actual books more closely and would perhaps like to add some of them to my reading list.

I understand this has already been renewed for more seasons and long may it continue - this season had a real bittersweet ending (I was expecting a deus-ex-machina moment that never arrived) so I’m genuinely looking forward to the next season and anxious to see how they all get on.

Little Prince

2026-07-29T00:00:00+01:00

Rintaro talked about Saint-Exupéry in The Cat Who Saved Books so I thought I had better read some to broaden my mind!

Memories of school and stories being read out to us in class made me think I had already heard “The Little Prince” but ChatGPT tells me that what I was actually thinking of was Oscar Wilde’s “The Happy Prince” so this story was really new to me.

And what a delight it is. The meditations on the differences between children and adults made me laugh out loud and the meditative ending and reflections on friendship and meaning were surprisingly moving.

I don’t need to tell the story here, it is very short, very readable and something that you should look at yourself, I’m sure everyone will get something out of reading this book, and it may well be a different something for each person. I had a sense of calm, right and connection to the people I care about (those that have “tamed” me, and I them).

An absolute delight.

Family Friend

2026-07-28T00:00:00+01:00

Listened to as an audiobook over several weeks – this sometimes leads to abandonment as I drift off too much but in this case I was to pick up from where I left off and enjoyed the story.

It is about Imogen (“Immy”) who to her great surprise inherits a large house from an artist she and her mother and sister spent a summer with many years ago.

It turns out that there are many secrets from that time, and even earlier, that are gradually revealed by clues left by the artist in her final work.

The red herrings and misdirections that give the plot its twists rely on a few too many coincidences of timing, but each incident on its own is fairly plausible; they all just happen within the compressed timescale of the story.

There’s quite a bit of exposition in the final chapters, and some good twists (many aspects we the reader could see coming but not quite how), and I never liked the boyfriend right from the start.

Not my first Claire Douglas novel and unlikely to be my last.

Cat Who Saved Books

2026-07-28T00:00:00+01:00

On the sruface the story of a hokikimoro stay at home Japanese and his opening up to the outside world and friendships, but actually a meditation on books, reading, publishing and what it means to own a book, to read a book (ane even to be a book!)

This is a quite short, easy read with just a few characters, some simple (real world) locations but has surprising depths. Despite the short length this small cast is well drawn (there’s no wasted words here) and the cat, Tiger the Tabby has a lot of character and agency too.

It is very much an urban fantasy, with no attempt to explain anything - Rintaro our hero accepts the existence of a talking cat in about half a page and so do we, becuase the story itself has a lot to say. The fantasy labyrinths are well imagined and peopled by largely one-dimensional caricatures but they exist to make a point (about books) rather than be “real world” characters.

A short book with surprising depth, this would spark quite a lot of conversation amongst a book group, who we can largely assume are book lovers themselves. Books have great power - and so do book lovers!

Who Wrote the Bible

2026-07-27T00:00:00+01:00

An audiobook available as part of my Audible subscription (I really like this particular perk; it makes the annual £109 price really good value).

I found this very interesting. The author is an engaging speaker really invested in his material. What comes across to me is that the question in the title cannot ever be definitively answered but is absolutely fascinating to investigate and discuss. As the final chapter has it, the Bible isn’t a “book” as we conventionally think of one – it is a library of different works, written, re-written (indeed reassembled) over a period of 2,000 years, and NONE of that material was ever explicitly written to be part of “the Bible”.

One implication of this is that the text of the Bible (in all its different forms) contains a vast range of sources, meanings and purposes, often contradictory, or at least telling the same story different ways. What this means is that there is endless scope for argument and interpretation. (Isaac Asimov said, “Allow me to pick and choose from the whole bible, ignoring whatever I want, believing whatever I want and I can prove anything you want”. He was right and now I know why.

A well spent 10 hours.

Digital Apollo

2026-07-27T00:00:00+01:00

This is a good companion piece to the Apollo Guidance Computer work. That book covered the internal workings of the AGC, whereas this one looked much more at the human factors. It was interesting to read about the initial research into questions of just exactly *how* humans should interact with automation, what sort of interface should be provided and what was the split of responsibilities; and the inevitable conflicts between the “test pilots” and the “engineers”.

I liked the detailed breakdowns of the moon landings, they really did provide some insights into how man and computer worked together. It was also hinted at (but never really explained) that the flexibility of the AGC played a major role in saving the Apollo 13 crew but to be fair the author did suggest that was covered adequately elsewhere. Shame though, it would have made this a more complete account.

I was somewhat surprised on reaching the end as I had barely passed the halfway mark of the page count! There is an enormously comprehensive set of notes, bibliography and index putting this more as a scholarly work rather than a popular account, and probably better for it for a detail nerd like me!

Recommended for anyone interested in the history of space flight and also for its insights into how the aircraft and spacecraft of today work as well.

Granite Harbour

2026-07-25T00:00:00+01:00

This carried on neatly from the previous season (which I had largely forgotten), in that the fallout from the corrupt DI revealed in season two still had a major impact on this story. A good reminder that stories never exist in isolation, even in supposedly episodic TV shows.

This season we have some murdered teenagers, a traveller encampment and the Laird of the estate they are staying on all mixed up in things.

By the end of the second episode it looks like everything is wrapped neatly and plausibly when our prime suspect is found dead! (Fade to black….)

Episode 3 then gets very complicated, with false confessions, misdirections and shock reveals all over the place – even to the extent of confusing me (so who did return the murder weapon to the burnt out caravan and why?)

I did enjoy this – it was not a ground breaking TV event but it was a good story competently told.

Unlike “Shetland” there’s no real sense of place here. If it wasn’t for all the establishing drone shots of oil rig support vessels in the harbour and the Scottish accents you could have seen this story played out anywhere. A bit of a shame as it can be interesting when the locale is almost a character in its own right.

Overall though a pleasant way to pass a few evenings when I was too tired to do anything else. I hope Cora is OK and look forward to seeing her and her colleagues again in season 4.