The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop. Very interesting book about the birth of the computer and the invention of the internet.

Good naration by Jamie Renell.

I’m going through Robert Brightwell’s Flashman tales: prequels to George MacDonald Frasier’s Flashman book, featuring the original protagonist’s uncle.

They are very well researched (as were GMF’s) and generally engaging, but having just finished Flashman and Madison’s War, I found it to be the waekest so far - lacking a strong narrative thread to tie the scattered, episodic historical events together. The next in the series is Flashman’s Waterloo, which shouldn’t have that problem.

I am very pleased to see how Brightwell has updated the original conceit - taking the bully from Tom Brown’s Schooldays and using him as a mouthpiece to entertainingly deconstruct the Victorian boy’s-own colonial genre - to fit a more modern audience, whilst retaining the spirit of the originals.

Just finished Nona the Ninth.

I… thought this was a trilogy.

Guess we have to wait for Whoever The Ninth now. Anastasia the Ninth? Alecto the Ninth?

I’ve been listening to the second series of impact winter.

I’m sure it’s fine but I haven’t been able to get into it. I’m going to put it aside and try again another time.