Brother Fish (2004) is a story spanning four continents and eighty years though the story primarily takes place in Australia and Korea.

The story deals with the friendship of Jacko McKenzie, a native of the (fictional) Queen’s Island in the Bass Strait, and James ‘Jimmy’ Pentecost Oldcorn, an orphan American ex-soldier, who have been meeting at the Gallipoli Bar of the ANZAC Hotel, Launceston, Tasmania for 33 years, since their release from a prisoner of war camp in Korea. …

Amazon

Brother Fish is better, I think, than more acclaimed Courtenay’s The Power of One.

Fish perfectly skewers the “White Australia policy“, when African American war hero Jimmy wants to move to Tasmania. (Courtenay was born in South Africa 1933.)

And never have I thought so much about the Korean War. It was horrific. … Sadly, I mainly think of the TV show M.A.S.H. when it’s mentioned.

This is only the third book of Bryce Courtenay‘s I’ve read. It’s amazing. I highly recommend the audio version. Humphrey Bower (Narrator) is superb. He also narrated my favourite book all time, Shantaram.

I should simply buy all the books that Humphrey Bower narrates. He’s that good.

Rocco and Maureen recommend …

The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring (2007) by Richard Preston.

Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained–the coast redwood trees, Sequoia sempervirens.

Ninety-six percent of the ancient redwood forests have been destroyed by logging, but the untouched fragments that remain are among the great wonders of nature. The biggest redwoods have trunks up to thirty feet wide and can rise more than thirty-five stories above the ground, forming cathedral-like structures in the air.

Until recently, redwoods were thought to be virtually impossible to ascend, and the canopy at the tops of these majestic trees was undiscovered. In The Wild Trees, Richard Preston unfolds the spellbinding story of Steve Sillett, Marie Antoine, and the tiny group of daring botanists and amateur naturalists that found a lost world above California, a world that is dangerous, hauntingly beautiful, and unexplored. …

Amazon

It’s a fantastic read. Or ‘listen’ as it’s available on Audio.

Click PLAY or watch it on TED – Richard Preston on the giant trees

related VIDEO – Clip of the Winner of the International Forest Film Festival – Climbing Redwood Giants

Meh.

Speaker for the Dead (1986) is a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card and an indirect sequel to the novel Ender’s Game. …

Like Ender’s Game, the book won the Nebula Award in 1986, and the Hugo Award in 1987, making Card the first author to win both these awards in two consecutive years. …

Some fascinating concepts, but overall I found it too slow and philosophical to hold my interest. I won’t continue with the series.

Ender’s Game is a masterpiece, though.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours listening to all the books in the Dune franchise. Perhaps 16 novels (I lost count) … most read by Scott Brick.

It’s certainly the greatest plot I’ve ever known: the Butlerian Jihad (war against the machines), CHOAM, the spice melange, the Spacing Guild, the Navigators, Bene Gesserit, Missionaria Protectiva, the Imperial Sardaukar, the misnamed Holtzman effect for faster than light travel, Mentats, Kwisatz Haderach,

A great plot needs a great conclusion. I actually liked the ending in Sandworms of Dune though it was criticized as relying ..

… on at least four consecutive deus ex machina bailouts …

When Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson took over, filling in details, their plot additions were equally good.

The best character in their books (as opposed to Brian’s father): Erasmus

But Herbert and Anderson are too wordy. Too repetitive. They needed a more ruthless editor.