The Bridge of Dead Things by Michael Gallagher (My Goodreads Review)

The Bridge of Dead Things by Michael   Gallagher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This story is set in Victorian London of 1885. A 13-year-old girl named Lizzie Blaylock has fits. Just before her fit she always smells rotting pears and finds herself lying on a beautiful hill of lush green waving grass. It is a place of comfort. It is her astral place and somewhere she feels safe. When she emerges from her fit, those around her are shaken by the unsightly experience. Many saying that ghostly manifestations emerge from her chest. Lizzie loses her place at her school because of this. She is given an opportunity by the teacher to be a young maid at a house close by. From here Lizzie stumbles into a bizarre world of charlatans and well-intentioned people when they witness her having another fit.

There is a scientist/psychic investigator named Simeon de Florence who is fascinated by Lizzie’s powers of a medium. He has exposed false mediums in the past and has an interest in electricity. All for more diabolical projects concerning mediums contacting the dead. There is also Miss Otis, a sort of clairvoyant lady who does medium demonstrations before gatherings of people. Lizzie’s school teacher Mrs Smutts continues to be close at hand with all manner of other interesting characters.

Lizzie begins to realise that her strange powers have consequences and others want to use her for their own ends. Gradually the young girl must come of age via adolescence as a young woman and a medium. Lizzie Blaylock is told that she is a conduit. A bridge linking the real world to that of the dead. She is the Bridge of Dead Things.

If you like medium or strange phenomenon style stories, this is an absolute must! As the story progresses, there are some, around the young girl, who are all caught up in some past diabolical wrongs. I can’t say much more without spoiling the story for a future reader. It will all come to an exciting climax - very gripping and compelling all the way.

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The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke (My Goodreads Review)

The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This story was set so far in our future that my mind boggled a little at the distance. The human race as retreated in upon itself and lives in a city called Diaspora. It is on Earth, but the planet is no longer home to vast continents and seas. The people who live in Diaspar are virtually immortal. They can live in the city of Diaspar for hundreds of years and then they return to the computer’s memory banks. Their memories are filtered and they return to new lives every thousand or so years. Many have been reincarnated with new carbon bodies on several occasions. The whole of Diaspora is a place of many delights. No one wants to leave because they are conditioned to want to stay in their city always. What lies beyond the city walls holds no interest to any of its citizens at all. The city has existed for hundreds of thousands of years. Before that, mankind had been part of a huge Galactic empire. Humans had travelled among the stars. That huge empire lasted for almost a million years. The people of Diaspar know of these things but the collapse of the empire is only known vaguely.

On rare occasions, a unique person is born to Diaspar. The biologically enhanced humans are given a twenty-year-old body and sent forth from a waiting room to two guardians who welcome them to their first day. Most have lived before, but now and then on very rare occasions, a unique is sent to Diaspar. A unique is a new person who has not been reincarnated. Uniques have a desire to explore. They want to go beyond the city walls and find out what lies outside. What happened to the humans who travelled to the stars? There are a wealth of wonders to discover outside Diaspar. Alvin is unique and has the strong urge to find out such things. But first, he must escape from the Utopia of Diaspar.

This is set millions of years in our future and is a fine sci-fi read. I enjoyed the beginning and the ending was superb. It flagged at times in the middle. But stay with the story. It is well worth it.

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Dissolution (Matthew Shardlake) My Goodreads Review

Dissolution by C.J. Sansom

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dissolution is the title of the first Matthew Shardlake novel. This man is a hunchback and lives in the time of King Henry VIII’s England. It is the year of 1537 and the month of November. Queen Jane (The King’s third wife) has just died one month earlier.

Our hero is a reformist living in the confined world of religious upheaval. The king has turned against the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church is all but illegal in England.

Within this confined world, Matthew Shardlake is a lawyer who views the reformist acts as a liberation from the corrupt shackles of Catholicism. The new Protestant fundamentalism is perceived as a release, and Mister Shardlake regards ministers like Thomas Cromwell as a moral champion for the good of all English people. He is summoned to Thomas Cromwell’s office in London and sent on a mission to a Benedictine Monastery on the south coast of England.

The last man of Cromwell’s administration to go there has been murdered while investigating the Monastery’s accounts. Matthew Shardlake must find the killer and bring about the Abbott’s supplication to the new reformist laws of Protestant England.

The story is full of intrigue with a very gripping climax. If you enjoy murder mystery and suspense with a colourful period setting, then the first Matthew Shardlake story is a very fine thriller indeed.

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