Page 28 - Phonebox Magazine December 2014

Book Review Thelma Shacklady
Bookshop, Olney Tel: 01234 714592
of the window, and attempting to save it, Ursula falls to her death. Or does she? In each case the writer gives an alternative outcome which changes events.
We follow Ursula through her life, from 1910, through both World Wars to 1945 when she is reunited with her favourite brother, Teddy, presumed dead after his plane was shot down. In every situation in which she finds herself the reader is given at least one alternative, as the account twists and turns throughout her life. Appropriately enough for such an unusual novel, it ends where it began – with a snowstorm and a birth.
For those who prefer life to be straightforward, and for art to imitate life, this will be a frustrating and irritating read. But for the reader who wonders, ‘What would have happened if ....?’ the novel becomes a delightful and frightful exploration of the possibilities which present themselves to us throughout our lives. To echo Robert Frost, ‘Where would the other road have taken us?’ I thoroughly enjoyed this exploration into alternatives, written in Kate Atkinson’s inimitable style. This book is just the one for a winter’s evening, when darkness comes early and imagination can roam free.
setting and in its ideas about humanity and the nature of civilisation.
And if you want to know where such themes have led, you only have to look at modern films of inter-galactic adventure – which might never have been possible without the ‘foundations’ laid by Asimov’s trilogy.
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference. (Robert Frost)
Those words by the poet Robert Frost might make us wonder what would have happened if we had taken a different road, made a
different choice on our life’s journey. That is the question explored in Kate Atkinson’s latest novel, as she gives various alternatives to Ursula’s life. She begins with her birth: born with the cord tightly wound around her neck, she is pronounced dead in the first version; but version two has the doctor, who has struggled through a snowstorm, arriving in the nick of time to cut the cord and revive the baby.
Throughout her early life she is exposed to danger – paddling in the sea, she and her
Sandra Metcalf
sister Pamela are overwhelmed by a large wave, but an artist painting on the shore sees their distress and saves them. Or does he? Later her teasing brother, Maurice, snatches her beloved doll and hurls it out
Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
The ‘Foundation’ trilogy is set in a distant future where earth exists only as a myth. A galactic empire, which has endured for thousands
of years, is controlled from a central world, Trantor. Here, as with all unwieldy organisations, stagnation has set in: whatever doesn’t change and develop, dies. Mathematician Hari Seldon has developed the statistical science of psychohistory which predicts that within the next 500 years the Empire will collapse catastrophically, sending humanity into a new age of barbarism. Seldon formulates plans to mitigate the worst of the coming disaster, setting up ‘Foundations’ at either end of the galaxy, ostensibly to preserve human knowledge, but in reality as the bases from which the social and political developments predicted by psychohistory can come to fruition and engender a renaissance for mankind.
The narrative in the first part of the book leapfrogs through time at intervals of 30, 50, 100 years or more, so that we see glimpses of how Seldon’s plan is working out. The fact
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that there are ‘gaps’ between these glimpses of the plan’s progress generates a sense of mystery. They also give the book a feel of a series of linked short stories but this gives the reader plenty of opportunities to gather clues and speculate on whether Seldon’s foundations are heading for success – or not.
The book was first published in the 1950s and there are some obvious flaws for a modern reader, including anachronistic technology and some rather clichéd characters. But Asimov’s writing style is clear and accessible and not without humour.
Above all the central idea is such a strong one and, despite the rather dry beginning, that sense of mystery – of not knowing where this is going – will keep you reading. Make no mistake, in spite of its now dated aspects, this was an ambitious and ground- breaking piece of work which has gripped the imagination of generations of readers and has inspired many other science fiction writers.
Its strength lies in the massive sweep of its