Book Review: The Bees - Laline Paull

This is an astoundingly delightful book. It takes Nagel's classic question "What is it like to be a bat?" and takes us in to the heart of the hive.

Humans can only understand our own lived reality. So here we have bees' behaviour translated into schemes and intrigues which would not be out of place in a medieval court. Bees wings are roaring engines, and their enemies are the hoards of traitorous insects and arachnids outside the hive. It wonderfully conveys the "alienness" of the bees' experience in a way that makes us empathise with the insects. This is billed as a "thriller" - but it is a lot more than that. Closer to "Pillars of the Earth" in that it takes us on an epic journey through the upheaval of a civilisation.

It is a first rate story, similar to Zindell's "The Idiot Gods".

Is it an allegory for life in a totalitarian state? Possibly. But I think it is so much more than that. A compelling vision of what a bee might feel as it bumbles its way through your petunias.

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Dr Sally Le Page

@sallylepage

I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH!

Seriously, I recommend it to everyone all the time. And as an evolutionary biologist, it's so clear how much time @LalinePaull took to get the science right.

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

Book Review: The Bees – Laline Paull shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/11/b…

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Laline Paull FRSL

@LalinePaull

Replying to @sallylepage@sallylepage Thank you Terence, thank you Sally! I have a new one out, POD, ocean-immersive and similarly intensively researched for accuracy. Cetacean epic, migration crises, hormonal upheaval… many scientists helped with their specialist species, including changes in humpback whalesong.

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