A couple of weeks ago I wrote for the Flash Dogs FlashFeed 1.21 the prompt picture (below) proved serendipitous when I later went into the Liverpool Bold Street branch of Oxfam and found the SF novel 'Time's Eye' with a suitably similar sphere on the cover. The book was written by Arthur C Clark and Stephen Baxter. If I hadn't just written for FlashFeed I may have looked past this book. As it happened I didn't.

I've read a few Stephen Baxter books previously including three he wrote with Terry Pratchett ('The Long Earth', 'The Long War' and 'The Long Mars'). I read the first one so long ago (2012) it's not even showing up on my Goodreads. I haven't read Clarke for years, but back when I lived in sepia toned times I loved 'Rendevous with Rama', 'A Fall of Moondust' and '2001',.

I'm two thirds through Time's Eye and I'm loving it - Ghengis Khan is about to go to war with Alexander the Great and some soldiers from the British Raj for the city of Babylon. Of course. I'm certainly glad I took the opportunity to buy the other two books of the trilogy which were in the Oxfam at the time; else I'd no doubt be searching for them forlornly in second hand shops for a while.



Didn't realise until today that Stephen Baxter is from Liverpool too. Nice that Liverpool has a few links with Pratchett with Josh Kirby, the artist for many of the early Discworld books, coming from Waterloo. Funnily enough one of the few books I've read so far this year was 'The Girl With A Symphony in her Fingers' by Michael Coney; the cover of which was by Josh Kirby (below). Check out some of the artwork from Kirby on the website (click on the Light Fantastic!).