At first glance a book about imaging technology sounds like one of those promotional titles that technology companies make about themselves that no one will ever read - but with a light, approachable touch, Daniel Sodickson takes us from the imaging mechanisms of nature, through the early technology to the present and the potential future - featuring both benefits and risks - with aplomb. It wouldn't have struck me to include eyes in a history of imaging, but Sodickson successfully does so, going back even further to the first biological cells developing. As he asks in his opening '"OK, wait just a second!" I hear you cry. "What does imaging have to do with the first cells?"' - this chatty approach pulls the reader in very effectively. (You'll have to read the book to get the answer.) We then get on to the first augmentation of nature, using lenses to modify the flow of light.  As always there's the potential for a non-historian to distort histor...

There are some big gaps in my SF reading, particularly between mid 80s and the early 2000s - this novel from 1990 is hailed as a masterpiece, but I'm afraid it largely left me cold. I can see why it was well received - it's very clever, but for me it tries much too hard to show just how clever it is. Our central characters are pilgrims, being sent to the planet Hyperion where a monstrous and supernaturally powerful creature (or possibly lots of them) called the Shrike is killing many of the population, who are also due to be attacked by reiver-like characters called Ousters, on the way to devastate the planet. Most pilgrims in a group are killed but one is granted their desire.  Simmons is great at piling on the SF tropes, with lots of exotic-sounding names and genuinely weird flora and fauna (notably tesla trees, that blast everything around them with lightning). And there's no doubt he's a good writer. But one of the particularly clever-clever aspects (alongside the l...