culture of science through the career of its central character, Mariella Anders. It's also a science thriller turning on the speculation, Beyond the Burn Line is a book of two halves. The first takes us into a far future Earth, where the dominant species, simply referred to as 'people' but clearly not human, live a relatively low tech, but rich life. We discover that they used to be slaves of intelligent bears, who were the main intelligent species on Earth for thousands of years before their relatively recent demise. Humans (referred to as ogres) have been extinct far longer, which, until things are explained further, made the tag line of the book 'What will become of us?' confusing.

Paul McAuley seems to specialise in these conceptual novels. This is no exception. It takes place 200.000 year after the exctinction of humanity. A race of intelligent raccoons has arisen. One of them, Pilgrim Saltmire, tries to complete the research of his mentor, who has passed away. It concerns the observations of mysterious 'visitors' and the question if these are a real phenomenon or pure imagination. Pilgrims journey takes him to the south of his continent, where he finds a map from an earlier civilisation ... The map contains clues to something bigger going on ... McAuley’s fabulous far future, impacted by the consequences of global warming, colonisation and historical injustices, explores and reflects our own challenges while telling a fast paced story of discovery and adventure. That is a clue that something is going on which is not natural. Two-hundred thousand years is not enough time for the evolution of a new intelligent species, much less two. There is an explanation for this, but I will not spoil it here. The first half of this novel is catnip for a science fiction reader like me, delivering hints which allow one to build a theory of where, when, and what is going on. The characters have snouts, but on those snouts they sometimes wear glasses. The scholars of this society have, in recent decades, arrived at a theory of selective change. Their more modern trains are powered by batteries, whilst older ones have wood-burning engines. These snippets are strewn across the opening chapters whilst, in the foreground, we are introduced to Pilgrim Saltmire, a servant of a leading scholar, in mourning and keen to continue his employer’s last work. In this society, Pilgrim is unusual because he feels no sexual urges in the annual Season. This provides more insight into his world, adding to growing indications that these “persons,” as they are often described, are quite different from us. Whilst it could have been mere decoration, then, this reference to Pilgrim’s nature makes him subject to prejudice which shapes his character and characterises his world — and which, in due course, becomes directly relevant to the plot.

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even tinier traces of beryllium. Everything heavier than hydrogen and helium (called metals by astronomers, so both oxygen and carbon, for instance, are metals) had to be forged by fusion in stars, so the very

I don't remember much about those UFO books now. Apart from a few which attempted to give impartial overviews of the phenomenon, most were, like Adamski's book, eccentric personal revelations of This same tension shapes Ysbel and her responses. Her role in the Bureau of Indigenous Affairs is intended to engage with, and gain the confidence of, “the natives.” Yet this is of course a form of colonisation by humanity, with its advanced technology and former claim to the planet. Given they can hop across the planet and up to the moon, gift techne to the people or withhold it, “the natives” are outmatched. Ysbel’s work is a way of softening the blow. After the death of his master, a famous scholar, Pilgrim Saltmire vows to complete their research into sightings of so-called visitors and their sky craft. To discover if they are a mass delusion created by the stresses of an industrial revolution, or if they are real—a remnant population of bears which survived the plague, or another, unknown intelligent species. This work by http://unlikelyworlds.blogspot.com/ is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. During the rest of the fortnight I read my way through that shelf, five books at a time, even when the rain stopped and the sun reappeared, just in time for the opening of the third and last Isle

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time, some other species might start to look at the stars and wonder. Bears, perhaps. Or raccoons. Perhaps they will manage things better . . .' It begins with scholar's assistant Pilgrim Saltmire after the death of his patron. Pilgrim wants to complete his master's work, an investigation of mysterious lights in the sky that might be visitors but might also be mass hysteria. He wants but funds for the work, which are hard to obtain. Returning to his mome he meets rejection, shame and exile. But exile leads to discovery of a mysterious map and a connection beween his people, bears and ogres which have devastating implications.