The Website of Karl Wilcox

Sedimentary Rocks

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100

A pristine orbital landscape

“But what about sedimentary rocks - do you have any of those?”

“Ah!” Said Quarnax keenly, his characteristic enthusiasm suggesting that I’d hit upon a topic of particular interest to him.

Since arriving on the GSV Serious Lack of Commitment some months ago I had started to get over what “call me Serious” had described as, without any apparent irony, my “culture shock” and been let out on my own more, to make my own investigations. I’d also come to realise that the lack of apparent irony was absolutely no indication of whether irony was genuinely present and Serious liked nothing better than to be ironic, sarcastic or downright rude without showing an iota of it in his outward manner.

But when I had asked my companion / guide Esternor about Orbital construction he was somewhat flummoxed. In fact, this wasn’t unusual for him - he wanted to apply to Contact and as part of his appraisal had been assigned to me (as a resident “alien”, non-Culture person) as my guide and mentor. To make the task more challenging Serious had arranged that whenever Esternor was within 10 meters or so of me his neural lace would stop communicating and he had to rely on his own wits and knowledge such as they were. I also suspected that this was another never-to-be-admitted touch of thoughtfulness on the part of Serious - to pair me up with someone who, despite having been born and raised on the GSV, without his lace would occasionally forget where he was or what actual purpose an Auricular Venting Parlour served and was thus nearer my own level of cultural (hard to get away from that word) awareness.

To put Esternor out of his discomfort, and also to avoid him simply saying out what the neural lace planted in his head from the GSV data sphere Serious had put me in touch with the avatar of a fellow GSV, Quarnax.

Just as the Serious Lack of Commitment maintained avatars as guests of dozens of other ships, orbitals, planets and other culture civilizational bits and pieces, Quarnax was a guest of his own from the Continent class GSV Gently Doesn’t Do it. Now all GSV’s could, to a greater or lesser extent do literally anything that the Culture was capable of doing (that was what the “General” meant after all) but there was still benefit to be gained from some degree of specialisation and the Gently was an orbital construction specialist. Not out of any grand plan or master allocation of roles, the ship simply enjoyed doing Orbital Construction so had carved itself a niche and gained something of a reputation as a master of the art. It was made subtly clear to me that the prescence of the Quarnax avatar was both a fortunate chance and a privilege for me (as much as these things existed in the desperately egalitarian Culture).

Actually Quarnax had seemed delighted by the prospect of someone to talk to and had taken the trouble to download a personality update from his home vessel, currently nosing around further down the galactic arm looking for construction candidate solar systems, just so he was right up to date with the latest thinking and techniques.

Like many avatars, Quarnax took the form of an androgynous human in reflective silver but wearing normal outer clothing so from a distance could be taken to be someone wearing a shiny mask and gloves.

We were meeting in small cafe at the upper edge of the Topside park, overlooking the sylvan spring that was the source of the park’s major river. This was an assemblage of rocks out of which squeezed a surprisingly large flow of water which wended its way down the park, offering exciting rapids and sporting opportunities in the upper reaches but settling to a broader more placid experience lower down, before disappearing in a haze of mists at lower falls - presumably into a big tank that was plumbed via massive pumps back up to the spring.

The semi-random weather system had settled on a hot day, the sun line almost at maximum with just a gentle breeze sufficient for the kite flyers in the meadow below. We were sitting in garden chairs beneath large umbrellas and were sipping from some pleasantly cooling glasses of a pale green fizzy concoction the name of which I’d already forgotten, although Quarnax was drinking his out of politeness rather than any physiological need.

“Yes,” he went on, “sedimentary rocks are an interesting topic, subject to quite a bit of debate”.

I could tell he was about to go into “lecture mode” so I settled back to listen.

“I mean volcanic stuff is easy, gather up whatever iron and dust based crap you have lying around in an asteroid belt and melt it - you don’t even need to tap into the infra or ultra-space energy grids, just put up a big focussing mirror and use sun light.”

“But sedimentary, now that takes time, millions of years and freely running water, and if you want something like limestone you really need sea life as well - that’s not going to fit into your typically construction timeline!” He laughed at his own joke and I smiled politely.

“I know some civilisations (and even a couple of my fellow GSV constructors) just fill the orbital with water and slap in a few islands - you can get pretty much all the water you need from the Kuiper Belt but me, I like a good land mass, and you can’t have a decent landscape without at least some sedimentary ‘scaping’”.

“There’s a couple of what you might consider artificial approaches. Obviously you could use nano-assemblers, although that sounds a bit silly when you’re talking in the megaton range! I’ve done it a few times but I’m not a fan, it needs a lot of entropy to get a supposedly realistic result and it still never looks right to me. Sometimes it’s your only option if you don’t have good feedstock and have to start from the lower numbered elements…”

“Uh hu”, you say, suspecting that Quarnax could go on for some time like this but it seemed polite to acknowledge him every now and then.

“I’ve had more success with what you might call accelerated accretion and try to reproduce the natural process at a faster pace. So layers of dirt, laid down by flowing water, twiddle the gravity and pressure, hydraulic rams and platforms to get some interesting deformations and then bake for a while. Works nicely and I’ve got a couple of megaton class ovens in a medium bay pretty much dedicated to working on this full time, ready to deploy next time I build an orbital. I tend to stack them down at the bottom of the hull, never seem to be able to make those spaces attractive to the inhabitants so might as well use them for storage, and its easy for the super-lifters to get at them.”

“How many super-lifters do you have?”. I thought I should ask a question at this point.

“Excellent question!”. Quarnax was really pleased with that one, obviously a good way to show I was paying attention. “Most GSVs of my class would think I’ve got way too many! At least three times what is considered a normal complement but with orbital construction you can’t have too many prime movers and I really like to get stuck in as soon as I can! They do get a bit competitive at times though, ‘lifter wrangling can be a bit of handful - damn things are like a herd of …” (something I didn’t catch but assumed to be a cat analogue).

“Anyway, you’re getting me off the subject - as well as the artificial process I really like to use the real stuff. Sometimes you can find it just floating around, especially if you’ve got one of the smaller rocky planets that had a wet phase early in the system formation and then got broken up in a collision or something. Can find some big crustal plates just ready for dropping into the landscape.

“In fact I’ve got feelers out through most of the arm looking to catalogue all the useful potential masses - some of our candidate species like to help us out, build up kudos you know, think it might help get them accepted? Anyway I’ve let it be known that any notification of free floating planetary crustal material could well build up a bit of credibility credit, if you know what I mean? Nonsense of course but it gives them something to do and it’s not like anyone else is using them for anything. I’ve even got a couple of what you might call “not totally adjusted” individuals who never really “gelled” with us and like the solitary life. I try to give them a sense of purpose by sending them out on scouting missions.”

That was interesting - the Culture prided itself on its inclusivity and acceptance and didn’t really like to admit that some people just didn’t fit in no matter how much accommodation they made.

“Sometimes you know an up and coming civ’ will try to get into our good books by offering a particularly juicy landmass for use on an orbital, especially if it is in the way of some project or other they want to do. Couple of times I’ve taken an inconvenient mountain out of someone’s city, or levelled off the top so they can turn it into a spaceport, that kind of thing. Sometimes up in to the giga-tonne range, right out of the gravity well! Of course that’s where all the ‘lifters come in handy and it looks jolly impressive, really puts the wind up the natives seeing a bloody great rock hanging in the air above them like that!”

I was pretty sure you weren’t really supposed to say those bits out loud but Quarnax was still talking. “And then sometimes you do just have to take a planet apart - not inhabited ones obviously! But if I’m building in an asteroid poor system and there’s a little rocky planet just lying there then there’s not really another option. I’m always a bit reluctant to do it, I much prefer working with asteroid junk, after all they’re just hazards to navigation and clearing them up does folk a favour. If I do have to dismantle a planet I’m always careful to preserve as much crust as I can, all those nice weathered edges and stuff that I can re-use. Some constructors will just find another unwanted minor planet, stick some mass drivers on it and redirect the orbits to smash them together but I find that inelegant and it makes a right mess of the surface. My preferred method is to deep drill down through the mantle and put some anti-matter bombs there, blast the crust into space. Quite spectacular to see, you should come watch some time”.

“I’d like that - in fact I find the whole idea of genuine, actual “world building” fascinating, making something that people want to live on…”

“Ah yes, that’s the actual art of it, you know its really nice to talk to someone who really appreciates this stuff - most of you average orbital dwellers just take it all for granted, never even thinking about all that empty space just a k or so under their feet.”

“So is that the average thickness then?”

“Ah, another perceptive question!” I smiled inwardly, secretly pleased to be holding up my end of the conversation. “There’s a funny thing about you planet dwellers, no offence. I can build you a module, totally transparent and put you in space. You’ve got your air, warmth all that stuff but your brain really doesn’t like that lack of something solid. Can’t fight billions of years of evolution - yes, there’s people who will say things like “Oh no, I’m totally cool with it, let me just float man” but its all bollocks, you can see it in the midbrain if you deep-scan, baked-in uneasiness.”

“But then I can take that same module, spray it with a layer of grey paint a couple of molecules thick, leave a nice little porthole to look out of any they are absolutely fine. Back in the cave and all that. Completely same situation, totally different perception.”

“Same with orbitals. True they do need a lot of raw strength so I do have to use a metre or so of base material as the absolute minimum for structural strength and you can support quite a bit a vegetation with just half a meter of dirt but you tell that to a planet dweller and that midbrain lights right up again! Just knowing there’s all that blackness and cold and stuff not much more than an arms length below makes them all twitchy. They even starting taking baby steps, like any sudden movement will crack the whole thing!”

“Anyway, there’s been loads of studies done, cross-species and everything and they all agree that to make a planet dwelling species happy on an orbital you take the number of primary manipulators (that’s usually their counting base) and multiply that by the average adult height and that’s how thick you need to make the shell! Weird eh? So I tell you that the orbital is, what, at least 20 or so meters thick and everything’s cool again, that old midbrain can’t tell the difference between that and an actual planet! We tend to use 50 to 1000 meters as a typical thickness, just to give some decent landscape height variation and to help manage erosion - we want to have plenty of time to fill in the holes before the little people see the base material! There’s usually more over mountains, even though they are mostly hollow and full of ship docks or material storage and stuff and of course we push the base material out to make space for oceans sometimes, but yeah, call it a klick and you aren’t far wrong.”

At this point your head is starting to hurt just trying to take in the scale of things and the sun line is dimming. Quarnax managed to stop talking long enough to realise that I was getting tired, perhaps with a subtle subliminal hint from Serious, who was well used to me by now.

“Well, anyway, I’d best be going. Look, I’d really like to do this again if you want to know more - and if you’ve got any landscaping ideas let me know - anything good on whatever planet you came from? Have a think, always openings for designers!”

I thanked him, genuinely. I’d learned a lot, and actually understood more than I expected and here was something I had not anticipated, a job offer. Well, not a job really, the Culture didn’t really expect any work as such, other than work at enjoying and experiencing as much of everything as possible but there were certainly many people here with vocations. The barista at this cafe didn’t have to do anything but clearly enjoyed the work and met people - top side park was a busy and popular spot. I’d never considered being able to contribute anything, other than being some sort of research subject, able to to give definitive answers about the old home-world (although even that was a bit of a stretch as my knowledge of current affairs and history was shaky at best). But landscapes, yes, I could do that, I’d been around on some good holidays, seen the sights, watched a lot of travel shows. Maybe this was something I could really contribute back to the Culture which had taken me without expecting anything in return (at least, I didn’t think so).

I shook hands with Quarnax, he seemed to recognise the gesture, perhaps it was a common one or he had done a bit of prior research on my species customs. Whatever, it felt to have made my first real friend and maybe found a role, however vague the promise.

Feeling much more confident about things that I had since I arrived, I set off for my apartment, stepping confidently across the park in what, I realised after some time, was completely the wrong direction. I knew the Serious kept a close eye on me lest I make some terrible social faux-pas or get myself killed in some interesting but ultimately rather stupid fashion so they could at least have bipped my terminal pen ten minutes ago. Probably laughing right now. Rude bastard.

Great When

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100

This is what you get when someone with a rich and powerful imagination is able to combine it with a marvellous command of descriptive language.

Set in the immediate post-war period in a heavily bomb scarred London our hero, Dennis, inadvertently takes possession of a book from a bizarre alternate London. In his attempts to return it and thus undo the rift it has opened up he meets a range of brilliantly drawn characters, many of whom speak in a surprisingly readable cockney vernacular, and all of whom have real depth.

I like that the ostensible “story” (returning the book “McGuffin”) is actually resolved about halfway through and a completely new and unexpected story arc takes over. I also like that, at least in this first volume, there is no real redemption for Dennis; indeed he ends in very much the same state as he started, minus his bad frame. Nothing about this book follows the standard tropes – it is an amalgam of Neverwhere, Rivers of London and Unlundun but arguably better than all of them, at least in terms of imagination and the beauty of language.

I’ve already bought the second volume, in a beautiful special edition Waterstones hardback, and recently found it that another three are planned.

I commend this book to anyone interested in urban fantasy, or just having an appreciation for the craft of writing. Interesting, enjoyable and far from predictable. Great work!

Cut Throat Trial

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100

As you would hope from someone actually practising the trade this is an intimate and detailed exploration of the inner and outer lives of barristers involved in an imaginary trial.

This is a court room drama that almost entirely takes place inside the court buildings, so we see things almost as if we are a member of the legal team; outside events are largely reported after the fact.

We have all the expected legal tropes, a gruesome murder, competent police, unreliable witnesses and hidden motives. There is the obligatory twist at the end, hinging on the not entirely convincing habit of the abbreviations used for defendants in a defendant’s phone, but for me the twist was not actually necessary. What was most interesting was the back and forth of legal argument and the inner thoughts of the barristers and judge that are revealed to us with all their frailties and hang ups, and to see how the trial process actually works.

I read this in a couple of days so it was clearly compelling and I did look forward to reading it. I’ve read the Secret Barrister’s non-fiction so I did have some expectations, but I think it is fair to say that this to some extent did exceed them.

Best of the World

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100

A blandly meaningless title hides a surprisingly moving and interesting show, almost entirely thanks to the genuine likeability and open honesty of the presenter Antoni Porowski.

The Guardian was a bit sniffy about this, reckoning that it was little more than a random collection of city based experiences with no apparent purpose or reason other than many of them being food related. And superficially that is true, there is no real rationale either for the choice of cities or the selection of six or so attractions in each of them, and in less sincere hands this could well have been an exercise in pointlessness.

Antoni however raises this travel show above the ordinary with his infectious enthusiasm for people and places and stories, as well as being very easy on the eye.

He comes across as very real whether he is manfully trying to interview cold water swimmers whilst clearly shivering his ass off; expressing ironic delight at being splashed on the lips by the brown water of the Thames; or greeting his partner at the end of the New York marathon, an event he freely admits to paying no attention previously, despite being a New York resident.

A delightful show. Unfussed, random but with hidden gems – I would gladly watch a second (and third!) series.

Four Seasons

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100

This was something of a disappointment and a huge waste of a talented cast.

It had the occasional funny moment in the earlier episodes but these trailed off. Every character was irritating and unsympathetic. It may have been an attempt to bring more realism in the form of existential angst but all that seemed to manifest in whining, miscommunication, an inability to make decisions and regrets once those decisions were made.

I wasn’t convinced by any of the story lines, starting the B&B, moving to Italy, living from a serial killer (where were the motel staff?), even the marathon. Can an unprepared person really run 26 miles and still hold a normal conversation over the last mile?

The more I think back over the season the less I like it, probably the second half is freshest in my mind but it was just plain dull. The first half did have its moments but not enough and Jack, particularly, was a total dick from the start and just didn’t let up.

It looked promising with the clever transition to the flashback with Steve Carell returning but ultimately that fell flat too (and Jack was still a dick, even in the past) and David Tennant was a nice surprise but wasted in a weird cameo.

I can’t recommend but can’t quite get to suggesting that you avoid it completely.

Roses

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100

An update on the 80’s “War of the Roses” with Olivia Coleman and Benedict Cumberbatch, although it takes a long time for the war to break out and it was all over quite quickly.

So we have a movie that is almost entirely backstory – the architect whose reputation is damaged by a storm, which also causes a food critic to end up trapped in his wife’s bankrupt restaurant and suddenly their roles as celebrated successes are reversed.

There are some funny moments, and Alison Janney has a small but crucial role, as does a beached whale.

Is any of it actually plausible, and does it have anything to say about the state of marriage and the world today? No and no, really. It is light, fluffy and entertaining with a smart ending but nothing more than that. And that is probably fine, it is not an ambitious movie in any sense but passes the time easily with a few laughs along the way and some nice views from the architect designed house.

Harmless, undemanding fun.

Mars House

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 +0100

Our hero, with the unlikely name of January, is transported semi-willingly from his role of principal in the Royal Ballet (a drowned London) to a partially terraformed Mars, where, after seven generations, native-born Martians are taller and much flimsier than their Earth-born cousins.

To be honest, the actual setup isn’t really convincing – seven generations doesn’t seem enough to expect the changes as described, and the giant flora and fauna of Mars seem to come from Edgar Rice Burroughs. The terraforming isn’t really explained and the side effects of it seem to serve the plot rather than being plausible (mists in the solar collector fields – why? how? Because something needs to happen out of sight of security drones…)

But in reality none of this really matters; the author isn’t trying to write hard science fiction in the Kim Stanley Robinson mould but a social commentary. What happens when two cultures with vastly different physical abilities are forced together? What are the impacts of ubiquitous augmented reality? (Shades of William Gibson’s The Peripheral there.) And what loyalty does a “colony” like Mars have to its “Mother” country?

These themes are all explored well and there is a clever AR plot device. Characters are well drawn, there is some clever banter and the story did hold my attention once I had sufficiently suspended my technical disbelief.

Worth a read; this does extend the boundaries of SF into interesting social commentary.

Amadeus

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 +0100

Another interpretation of the Peter Shaeffer play and hard not to compare with the movie – even though I hadn’t seen it for many years a lot of the scenes are still familiar to me.

There is certainly a bit more depth to the TV show – the extra running time allowing a deeper investigation of Mozart, Salieri and Constanza, all of which is effective.

This Mozart seems more self-destructive and less flippant – he seems deliberately cruel here rather than casually, inadvertently cruel as he did in the film. And Salieri is more tortured than calculating. Constanza at least doesn’t have a dreadful New York accent and does get a lot more screen time and agency.

So this does expand on the movie and the cut to the final scene of the play was very nicely done. As we expect from big budget series on the major streaming platforms the production values are very high – impressive sets and lovely costumes with lots and lots of extras. The only failing in this respect are those scenes later in time in which a brilliantly made-up 90 year old Salieri talks to the same Constanza we saw years earlier, but wearing a grey wig – unconvincing to my eyes.

Well worth a watch and a genuinely interesting expansion of the movie.

This Way Up

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 +0100

You know the Men, and you know the maps from those zany, self-deprecating and terribly witty YouTube videos. Does the format work in printed form?

A qualified “yes” is the answer based on the paperback issue that I picked up in the Waterstones “Buy one get one half price” sale.

This is mostly an easy, breezy read, with lots of side comments, footnotes and footnotes to the footnotes and is almost always amusing, even sometimes actually funny.

Each chapter covers a different map-related topic, some widely known, others less so. Our presenters try to keep things interesting by adopting different styles for some of the chapters. These mostly work but the podcast script and annotations that went on for two chapters about the Donner party didn’t really work for me. The style was laboured, unfunny and the map-adjacent material in the Donner story wasn’t really enough and ended up stretched rather thinly.

Despite that, however, I did enjoy the rest of the book, finishing it just a few days after purchase!

I’m sure that there are enough map fact nuggets out there to justify a second book and I wish Mark and Jay every success with their future endeavours, wherever they end up!

Dark Fire

Thu, 21 May 2026 00:00:00 +0100

This was intended as a bit of a comfort re-read as things have been stressful of late and taking myself out of it back into the world of 16th century London seemed like a good idea at the time!

It was really, but my goodness Shardlake and Barak were pretty much in physical danger the whole time and were attacked and assaulted by both parties in the two cases they were working on, I don’t remember the Scarnsea case (“Dissolution”) being anywhere near as stressful.

As always with the Shardlake books this is masterful writing, the author’s understanding of the legal practices of the time is immense and he works it so well into the fabric of the story.

There is the usual level of misdirection and plausible misunderstanding and Shardlake comes across as a genuinely caring person who is forced by circumstance (and powerful masters) into doing things he is really uncomfortable about. The concept of Greek Fire is very cleverly used in the plotting to explain an unclear element in Cromwell’s real life (and death) and the overall plotting gives a clever urgency to the proceedings with the interest level never flagging.

Next time I am in need of comfort I will probably turn to some more juvenile fare but I’ll still be working my way through the rest of the series as well.