Month: March 2025

Machine Man by Max Barry

Well, from the simply outstanding to the absolutely bizarre — and I mean that in a good way.

Max Barry delivers a deceptively simple tale of Charles Neumann, a mechanical engineer who suffers the most bizarre workplace accident while trying to retrieve his mobile phone from an industrial clamping press. Following the amputation of his crushed leg, he spends a few weeks coming to terms with his injury while learning to use a prosthetic.

Machine Man

Being an engineer (and I recognise this trait in soooo many people), Charles realises that the artificial leg is not as good as it should be, so sets about designing that will fix a lot of the shortcomings of prosthetic limbs (including the lack of wi-fi). His place of work is impressed; he finds himself in charge of a department dedicated to designing and building replacement parts for people. And while looking at ways to improve on his work, Charles realises that other parts of the body can be replaced with much better mechanical bits.

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Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

It’s really hard to describe how good this book is — but I’m going to try.

Parable of the Sower is told from the first-person perspective of Lauren, a young woman growing to adulthood in the socially, economically, and morally bankrupt United States of America in the not-too-distant future. (I say “not-too-distant”: the story begins in 2024).

The government has all but collapsed, law and order has failed (the police are charging a “fee” to come out and investigate murders; they take the money — and then fail to show up). The addict’s choice narcotic is Pyro: a drug that gives folk an unquenchable desire to commit arson). Theft, murder, and rape run pretty much unchecked, which is unsurprising because much of the crime is being carried out by rogue police forces across the land.

So back to Lauren.

Lauren lives in a small community headed by her pastor father and step mother. Like most communities, they follow a basic set of rules:

  1. Protect what’s yours.
  2. Post watches to guard your community at night.
  3. Don’t interact with the police if you can possibly help it.
  4. Learn to shoot, and learn to shoot accurately.

The last one is especially problematic for Lauren; as an empath (a condition brought about due to her birth mother’s drug problem), she feels the pain and suffering of others.

Inevitably, Lauren’s less-than-comfortable existence comes to a sudden and violent end when her community is torched, and her family and friends are slaughtered.

And so Lauren and a handful of survivors begin the dangerous trek north, where they hope to find sanctuary in Canada.

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