Australian Year of the Farmer

I'm a country boy. That means I know how to drive most machinery, shoot a gun and kill my own food. It also means that one leg is longer than the other to walk around the hills.

Please spend five minutes seeing how awesome farmers are.

Book Review: Beneath the Dark Ice by Greig Beck

Beneath the Dark Ice by Greig Beck
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Beneath the Dark Ice was on my Amazon recommendations list for ages. Clearly it ticked a lot of boxes for my likes and being written by a fellow Aussie was another big tick. Needless to say, when I was in a bookstore that hadn't been swallowed by a bank, I bought a copy.

For anyone who has read James Rollins' Subterranean, or drowned themselves in HP Lovecraft at any stage in their life, you will see some similar ideas in this techno-thriller. Mix a super soldier and his team, his long time enemy, a band of scientists and a world beneath ours and you have the makings of a fine thriller. I always enjoy playing, "guess who dies next" in these sorts of novels.

So why only 3 stars? Well, I'm not a fan of exposition. Sorry, let me rephrase: you know how everyone loved Steig Larson's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? Well I hated it; because I didn't need the first 50 pages of the book to describe flowers, home renovations and nautical exploits. Greig's book is fast paced and doesn't flounder in blocks of boring detail like Larson, but he does use a style of exposition in his writing that I don't enjoy. Nothing wrong with the story, or the style, just that whilst I enjoyed the story, the style just didn't do it for me.

This was Greig's first book, so I expect his work will be 'tighter'* in the subsequent books (which are rated higher on Goodreads). His super soldier, Alex Hunter, is definitely setup for another adventure. How Greig will top the story in this novel I don't know though.

View all my reviews

*tighter - this is reviewer talk for "I have no idea how to write a book but writers seem to get better at it somehow, I'm assuming magic".

I Don't Care For Cold Chisel

Sometimes I'll be watching the news or listening to the radio and I will be reminded that I am on the fringe of society. It isn't just the education, nor the largish brain, nor my desire to have standards, no it is the fact that apparently I'm un-Australian. You see, I don't like Cold Chisel. To dislike Cold Chisel is un-Australian.

As a result I feel a little like Peter Griffin does about The Godfather.

Australians like to heap superlatives upon Cold Chisel and other "hard rock" bands. They like to hear them on the radio because it reminds them of the time they got drunk in that pub before drinking became illegal. Sorry, not illegal, the driving home afterwards part was what became illegal. Cold Chisel have come out of retirement to tour again, something that made all of the news channels. Why? It is a chance for Aussies to get in touch with their inner bogan.

For non-Aussies, a bogan is what you get when you cross flannelette shirts with mullets and cigarettes. Deep down there is a bogan inside every Australian just trying to get out.

Bogan

My inner bogan allows me to wear tracksuit pants around the house and feel unashamed to listen to AC/DC whilst playing air-guitar. Fortunately my inner bogan stops short of Cold Chisel fandom. That's right, my inner bogan has class.

We have different terms for bogans all over the world: white trash, redneck, guido, hoser, skid, chav, ned, jejemon, scanger, ah beng, raggare, naco, dres, Paris Hilton; but we recognise the traits. Suffice to say, we all need to keep our inner bogan in check. If we don't then the terrorists have won.