Terence Eden. He has a beard and is smiling.

Terence Eden’s Blog

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Book Review: The Transgender Issue - An Argument for Justice by Shon Faye

· 3 comments · 900 words · Viewed ~295 times


Book cover of The Transgender Issue.

Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war 'issue'. Despite making up less than one per cent of the country's population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarized 'debate' which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in which trans people…

Book Review: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

· 550 words · Viewed ~233 times


Book cover - a human stands in a massive tube and looks at the sky.

Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organisation was simple: To advocate for the world’s future generations and to protect all living creatures, present and future. It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its story. From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined. Told entirely through f…

Book Review: Bias Interrupted Creating Inclusion for Real and for Good - Joan C. Williams

· 500 words


Book cover.

Companies spend billions of dollars annually on diversity efforts, with remarkably few results. Too often diversity efforts rest on the assumption that all that's needed is an earnest conversation about "privilege." That's not enough. To truly make progress with diversity, equity and inclusion, we must focus less on documenting the problem and more on just stopping the transmission of it. In…

Book Review: Alien 3 - The Unproduced Screenplay

· 500 words · Viewed ~243 times


A grim alien menace.

The first-draft Alien screenplay by William Gibson, the founder of cyberpunk, turned into a novel by Pat Cadigan, the Hugo Award-Winning “Queen of Cyberpunk.” William Gibson’s never-before-adapted screenplay for the direct sequel to Aliens, revealing the fates of Ripley, Newt, the synthetic Bishop, and Corporal Hicks. When the Colonial Marines vessel Sulaco docks with space station and milit…

Book Review: The Man Who Died Twice - Richard Osman

· 300 words


Book cover.

It's the following Thursday. Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life. As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the…

Book Review: The Cabinet - Un-su Kim / 캐비닛 - 김언수

· 350 words


A digital chameleon.

The Cabinet is a story about the documents that record these symptomers and the man who manages the documents in Cabinet 13. This seemingly ordinary, old cabinet is filled with stories that are peculiar, strange, eye-pop- ping, disgusting, enraging, and touching. However, the fast changing world is also full of all sorts of unbelievable things. Perhaps symptomers exist not only in the novel but …

Book Review: The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes by Zoë Playdon

· 600 words


Book cover with a big red cross on it.

Ewan Forbes was born Elizabeth Forbes to a wealthy landowning family in 1912. It quickly became clear that the gender applied to him at birth was not correct, and from the age of six he began to see specialists in Europe for help. With the financial means of procuring synthetic hormones, Ewan was able to live as a boy, and then as man, and was even able to correct the gender on his birth…

Book Review: The End of Bias - How We Change Our Minds by Jessica Nordell

· 600 words · Viewed ~242 times


Book cover for The End of Bias

Unconscious bias: persistent, unintentional prejudiced behaviour that clashes with our consciously held beliefs. We know that it exists, to corrosive and even lethal effect. We see it in medicine, the workplace, education, policing, and beyond. But when it comes to uprooting our prejudices, we still have far to go. With nuance, compassion, and ten years' immersion in the topic, Jessica Nordell …

Book Review: Sinopticon

· 1 comment · 500 words


Spaceships flying over a Chinese city.

A stunning collection of the best in Chinese Science Fiction, from Award-Winning legends to up-and-coming talent, all translated here into English for the first time. This celebration of Chinese Science Fiction — thirteen stories, all translated for the first time into English — represents a unique exploration of the nation’s speculative fiction from the late 20th Century onwards, curated and t…

Book Review: The Happiness Revolution

· 500 words


Book cover.

Maybe I'm an old grump. But this book did not make me happy. It starts off bad - then gets worse. We begin with a series of incorrect assumptions. Apparently, there's no antonym for Doomsday (Errr, how about "Rapture"?) and apparently no one ever investigates why a hospital is performing well (ummm... Yes they do!) and no one is ever described as "stark raving happy" (hello mania! Hello…

Book Review: "Index, A History of the" by Dennis Duncan

· 2 comments · 400 words · Viewed ~334 times


Monks reading books, and pointing at an index.

Most of us give little thought to the back of the book - it's just where you go to look things up. But here, hiding in plain sight, is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. Here we might find Butchers, to be avoided, or Cows that sh-te Fire, or even catch Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne. This is the secret world of the index: an unsung but…

Book Review: Assassin's Orbit by John Appel

· 350 words


Book cover.

Murder makes unlikely allies. On the eve of the planet Ileri's historic vote to join the Commonwealth, the assassination of a government minister threatens to shatter everything. Private investigator Noo Okereke and spy Meiko Ogawa join forces with police chief Toiwa to investigate - and discover clues that point disturbingly toward a threat humanity thought they had escaped. A threat that…