Hey Folks, I’m Alive!

Just dropping in real fast to state the obvious: I haven’t done any reviews for a bit and I just kind of dropped off the Earth there. Sorry about that, and thanks to the friendly reader who checked to make sure I’m okay!

So the truth of the matter is, yeah, I’m doing okay! In some ways the okayest I’ve ever been, actually! I’ve also been pretty busy, which is partly the reason why I’m okay but also a result of being okay, and as a result the blog has fallen a bit by the wayside. I’m very sorry about that! On the plus side, it’s generally been the positive kind of busy: I’m working on myself with my therapist, getting more active with local politics and activism, doing a little bit of gardening, developing an honest-to-god social life, kicking butt at work, and trying to rest when I’m not doing any of those other things. It’s a heck of a bunch of things to start to figure out how to do as I’m approaching forty, but I’m loving it.

So here’s my official announcement that the blog isn’t going anywhere, but that the reviews will be a bit more sporadic for a while, at least until I learn how to incorporate them with the rest of my life. I do have a few exciting-looking paperbacks sitting around that will need discussing, and as we all know, there are always more to find.

Thanks so much for your support and readership for these past 9 1/2 years, and take care of yourselves and each other.

Futuretrack 5

Futuretrack 5 by Robert Westall
Kestrel Books, 1983
Price I paid: none

Henry Kitson makes his first mistake when he scores a hundred per cent in his exams. Not for him therefore the glamorous cushy career pattern of most of his contemporaries. Promoted to Tech, he is equipped with a white coat and a clipboard and becomes one of that small body who keep the country’s computerized living systems going.

His second mistake is going on the razzle. In London, where survival depends on skill and daring and the population is controlled by fear and sensationalism, Kitson becomes pinball champion and meets blond, leather-clad Keri, London’s bike-racing champion of Futuretrack 5.

Together they go north in an uneasy partnership. And what they learn as they go, they don’t like, for this is Britain of the twenty-first century and if you question the system too much you come to regret it. But who does know the answers? And what is Kitson’s destined role? As a fortune teller predicts, “You’ll regret what you’ll do for the rest of your born days. And you’ll have plenty of time to regret it.”

In this major new novel, Robert Westall has brilliantly created a future world which is all too plausible.

Continue reading “Futuretrack 5” →