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Stark
by
Ben Elton
Stark is a secret consortium with more money than God, and the social conscience of a dog on a croquet lawn. What's more, it knows the Earth is dying.
Deep in Western Australia where the Aboriginals used to milk the trees, a planet-sized plot is taking shape. Some green freaks pick up the scent: a pommie poseur; a brain-fried Vietnam vet; Aboriginals who have lost their lan...more
Deep in Western Australia where the Aboriginals used to milk the trees, a planet-sized plot is taking shape. Some green freaks pick up the scent: a pommie poseur; a brain-fried Vietnam vet; Aboriginals who have lost their lan...more
Paperback, 453 pages
Published
1989
by Sphere
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Written some time ago when Global Warming was still the term for Climate Change, this is a hilarious and sometimes prophetic tale of the amoral men conspiring to bring the world to its knees (all in the name of lining their pockets with more cash than they could poke into a spaceship rapidly leaving our de-forested planet). I first read this in the latter years of highschool, and enjoyed it immensely; I re-read it last year but then left my copy at a bus stop with one chapter to go. So I can't r...more
This book was recommended to me by Frankie Seymour, an environmental scientist, since I write in the field. Along with others which I am currently ploughing through :-)
I didn't like its style to begin with, too choppy, moving among the characters too fast. Also there was absolutely no one I could relate to. The "good guys" drove me crazy and the philosophy of the bad guys gave me the absolute horrors. I could see why Frankie recommended it but it was a struggle to get through. Not at all what I...more
I didn't like its style to begin with, too choppy, moving among the characters too fast. Also there was absolutely no one I could relate to. The "good guys" drove me crazy and the philosophy of the bad guys gave me the absolute horrors. I could see why Frankie recommended it but it was a struggle to get through. Not at all what I...more
So I don't read Ben Elton to enlighten myself in any way, his fiction is purely a quick little pleasure which takes a day and gives me the satisfaction of reading a funny, well written, fast paced story. Quick to engage me, and urges me forward I thought I knew what to expect when reading this addition to the bookshelf.
However,yes Stark is all of the above; yet somehow it has tricked me into making links between his fictional characters and our rogue runners of the world, questioning my use of f...more
However,yes Stark is all of the above; yet somehow it has tricked me into making links between his fictional characters and our rogue runners of the world, questioning my use of f...more
I like the overall tone of the book and the characters were interesting if not particularily likable. In fact, by the end of the book I found one of the villains far more human than the heroes and I wished that they'd been portrayed as people in their own right rather than "I bring this element to the group so that on the whole we're more balanced".
It has a good message but I found it to be far too heavyhanded. Usually I like my messages woven into the story a lot better (like Sheri Tepper's boo...more
It has a good message but I found it to be far too heavyhanded. Usually I like my messages woven into the story a lot better (like Sheri Tepper's boo...more
the themes of climate change and a dying planet seem very relevant for our modern times, which is surprising because this was written long before the true effects of greenhouse and 'An Inconvenient Truth' and other scary facts became well known. the book is full of the usual and expected ben elton wit and style, but at almost 500 pages is a bit long in places. i enjoy his short punchy chapters and sub-chapters style, it makes his books a quicker and easier read and, more often then not, pageturn...more
Though it took me twenty years to discover that Ben Elton wrote books (I knew of him through TV's The Young Ones, Blackadder, and The Thin Blue Line), I've always loved his acerbic wit aimed at the stupidity and indifference of people. His stand-up and television sitcom scripts have always been on my desert island favourites, so imagine my joy at discovering that he's had an equally successful career in writing narratives for the last two decades.
It's scary knowing that when this book came out i...more
It's scary knowing that when this book came out i...more
After the past few soul searching books I decided to pick up an old time favourite author... Ben Elton.
Once again he's taken a social conspiracy theory, applied some seriously British dry humour and voila! We have a masterpiece of epic witty proportions. Elton is perhaps well know for writing scripts for both Black Adder and The Young Ones, but he had me hooked when he wrote "Gridlock". I've yet to be disappointed by one of his novels since . I would be remiss if I didn't attach a warning though...more
Once again he's taken a social conspiracy theory, applied some seriously British dry humour and voila! We have a masterpiece of epic witty proportions. Elton is perhaps well know for writing scripts for both Black Adder and The Young Ones, but he had me hooked when he wrote "Gridlock". I've yet to be disappointed by one of his novels since . I would be remiss if I didn't attach a warning though...more
This is a brilliant first novel for well-known comedian Ben Elton, that deals with a topic as relevant now as it was then, in 1989. It deals heavily with the issue of pollution and the environment, however the theme cannot be said to be subtle or underlying. It is the main focus of the book, and everything revolves around the subject. But Elton is also capable of making intelligent, funny, acute comments on everyday things that I had not thought of before.
Despite the enthralling story, the only...more
Despite the enthralling story, the only...more
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This is a slight disappointment from Ben Elton. The storyline, our damage to the planet, was handled better in This Other Eden and is subsequently a tad predictable. The characters are well delineated but also a little on the generic side which also detracts a little from the novel. Overall it's a great read and I'd recommend it to anyone who is a fan of ironic satire but this is not Ben Elton's best work.
Jul 29, 2011
Laura Macdonald
added it
I was a big fan of Ben Elton when he did Saturday night live during my late teens and read these books by him then and in my early twenties. Quite amusing and this one I think was the best of the bunch, though I enjoyed also the one which was about Big Brother (Dead Famous). However after a while, I think his style begins to grate and I stopped buying his new stuff as it seemed to be the same old material. This one though I think was quite ahead of its time, very environment conscious and a good...more
I loved this book when I was a teenager, and I re-read it when I was staying at home at Christmas. I don't love it as much as I did, but it's still very enjoyable - the story of a consortium of the super-rich plotting to abandon the dying earth that they have destroyed, and a band of environmentalists who try to stop them. It's not a particularly uplifting book - there is no hopeful ending - but it is very funny in parts (if you find jokes about camel farts amusing, which I happen do).
An earlier version of his other story on environmental catastrophe 'This Other Eden', this one is more thoroughly fleshed out, with more interesting characters and detailed plot. The jokes are also funnier, while the idea of an ecological 'vanishing point' of no return for the Earth is very prescient for a book written in 1989 - when the threat of Nuclear Armageddon was of higher concern than environmental destruction. Sadly, the intervening two decades since then has only seen the situation det...more
Not as polished as Ben Elton's more recent novels, more raw somehow, but just as funny and quirky. What makes this one stand out for me is that the storyline, no matter how far fetched, really is the current state of the world taken to its logical conclusion. I think of it every time there's a news item about big business interests killing the planet.
Read whilst on holiday in Torquay (that holiday, in my mind, is defined by this book and the ubiquitous Batman posters). Can't remember a great deal of it - perhaps more from the TV adaption - and can't see myself ever reading it again since, in 1989, I thought Elton was brilliant. Now, in 2011, I think he's terrible.
Ben Elton is excellent. And this book is excellent. I've read lots of his books and would recommend them all -- especially "This Other Eden." He's intense and funny, satirical. "Stark" was written in the late '80s, but it's about an ecological disaster, and it feels crazy relevant right now.
The scariest thing about this book is that I believe it could happen. I wasn't entirely sure what "it" was during most of the book but once I knew I believed, and certainly the events leading up to it are wholly believable.
Well worth reading!
Well worth reading!
Elton's first novel and it genuinely was novel at the time. Enjoyable enough, his heart is in the right place, etc etc - but it ain't much cop. He has churned out roughly one a year ever since and they never get any better!
Write a review...I just did not like this book. I think it is a tim thing and would have enjoyed it had I read it when it was written. I have loved all of his other books so was disappointed.
Jul 15, 2011
Michaela Shea
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
everyone who likes a laugh
Recommended to Michaela by:
can't remember
When someone tells me I can have anything to eat that I like, I always order swan.
You can never accuse Ben of being unoriginal. What an imagination. What a great writer. Go Ben!
You can never accuse Ben of being unoriginal. What an imagination. What a great writer. Go Ben!
This was overall another enjoyable, slightly wacky and laugh out loud book. Although i have to admit to cringing constantly at the 'Aussie' characters and much of the slang.
Love Ben Elton books,this is his first set novel,set Perth,WA. He always writes about very controversial moral dilemmas in a very funny and sarcastic way - this book covers the whole Eco dying planet controversy,with the rich people controlling the fates of everyone. Makes you wonder how much is really fiction!
This book reminded me a little of Kurt Vonnegut's novels, particularly "Galapagos". It was funny and at times scathingly accurate in describing human nature and its weaknesses.
Having been written 18 years ago it is interesting to see some of the relevance to today. In general it was an exercise in hopelessness, even where hope springs eternal.
A good premise that perhaps without the jokey overtones could've been a modern classic. As it is, it's readable, enjoyable but not amazingly memorable.
Took me a while to get through this one. Not sure how I missed this one of Ben's earlier (I believe it was his first). Clever, funny, thoughtful, but a bit hard to engage with. Maybe I was too distracted and the print too small for my ageing eyes:)
Ben Elton has a great sense of humor and captures the not so subtle absurdities of wealth, environmentalism and sex appeal.
Ben Elton's humour is pushed and over the top for my taste. His first book and definitely my last of Ben Elton's.
Amazing take on the impending ecological disaster. Who knew that end of the world could be fun?
Funny book by the guy who plays Black Adder's sidekick on the TV show.
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Ben Elton was born on 3 May 1959, in Catford, South London. The youngest of four, he went to Godalming Grammar school, joined amateur dramatic societies and wrote his first play at 15. He wanted to be a stagehand at the local theatre, but instead did A-Level Theatre Studies and studied drama at Manchester University in 1977.
His career as both performer and writer encompasses some of the most memo...more
More about Ben Elton...
His career as both performer and writer encompasses some of the most memo...more
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“Beyond love, beyond unrequited love, perhaps even beyond any other passion known to humanity, deep, deep in the depths of the turgid, clinging, swamplike pit of despair that lies dormant within every soul, lurks JEALOUSY. Jealousy, that most demeaning and debilitating of emotions. Jealousy, which can double the strength of the love upon which it is based, but whilst doubling it, warp and pervert it, untill it is no longer recognizable as the thing of beauty it once was. Jealous love is no more like true love than Mr Hyde was like Dr Jekyll or a stagnant swamp is like a freshwater lake.”
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