📙 Part 2: Describe a story or novel you have read that you found interesting

This episode's vocabulary

Novel (noun) – a long fictional story, usually in book form. → Children of Time is a novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Trilogy (noun) – a series of three related books, movies, or works. → It's the first part of a science fiction trilogy.

Terraform (verb) – to change a planet's environment to make it suitable for humans. → The story is about a planet being terraformed for human life.

Sabotage (noun/verb) – deliberate damage or destruction, often for political or military reasons. → A genetic experiment goes wrong due to sabotage.

Supplant (verb) – to take the place of something, often by force or strategy. → The spiders supplant the monkeys in the experiment.

Arachnid (noun) – a class of joint-legged invertebrates including spiders and scorpions. → The planet is taken over by intelligent arachnids.

Nom de plume (noun) – a pen name or pseudonym used by an author. → Adrian Tchaikovsky writes under a nom de plume.

Saturated (adj) – full or overloaded, often used for markets or conditions. → The book market is pretty saturated these days.

Ancestry (noun) – a person’s lineage or heritage. → He has Polish ancestry, I think.

Slew (noun) – a large number or amount. → He has a slew of other works to his name.

High-concept (adj) – based on a striking or original idea, often easy to summarize. → It’s a high-concept speculative fiction story.

Speculative fiction (noun) – a genre that includes sci-fi, fantasy, and alternate realities. → The book falls into speculative fiction.

Engaging (adj) – interesting and attention-grabbing. → The story has engaging characters and action scenes.

Put oneself in someone’s shoes (idiom) – to imagine being in someone else's situation. → I imagined myself in the characters' shoes.

Miss out (phrasal verb) – to not experience or benefit from something. → If I hadn’t read the book, I’d have missed out.

Page-turner (noun) – a book that is very engaging and hard to put down. → That novel was a real page-turner.

Award-winning (adj) – having received a prize or recognition. → I often choose award-winning novels to read.

Dystopian (adj) – relating to an imagined, often bleak future society. → Many sci-fi books have dystopian settings.

Plot twist (noun) – an unexpected development in the story. → The plot twist in chapter five shocked me.

Character development (noun) – the process by which a character changes throughout a story. → The novel had strong character development.

Questions and Answers

Maria: You should say when you read it, what the story or novel was about, who wrote it, and explain why it was interesting. Rory here is the author of many books.

Rory: I actually loved reading Children of Time, which is a novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's actually the first part in a science fiction trilogy that he wrote over the last decade. And I always find myself thinking about it when I'm a bit bored.

I suppose in a nutshell, it tells the story of a genetic experiment gone wrong on this planet being terraformed for human life. So, after this act of sabotage in a larger conflict, the monkeys that were originally meant to be used to create a civilisation on the planet are supplanted by spiders that grow to these huge sizes and take over the planet. And after a long time, I think it's maybe 1,000 years or so, the survivors of the earlier war show up and they're trying to find a new home. And they come up against these monstrous, intelligent arachnids on this planet. And a whole load of drama unfolds as a result.

When it comes to the guy that wrote it, like I said, his name is Adrian Tchaikovsky, although I think that's just his nom de plume. And he's certainly no relation to the composer. At least I found that out later on, for sure. I think he just chose it to stand out, which is sort of forgivable since the market for novels is pretty saturated, even with an original story like the one he wrote. As far as I'm aware, I think he has Polish ancestry, but I'm not 100% on that. But regardless, he's obviously a very talented author and has a slew of other works to his name and a few awards under his belt as well, I think. And that's originally what drew me to the book, since I'd seen that it had won several awards. But of course, you can't just judge a book based solely on that. It's a high-concept speculative fiction story, which makes it very easy to follow, and there are engaging characters that I found easy enough to imagine and put myself in their shoes to think about the decisions that I might have made in a similar situation. And of course, it has exciting action scenes and complex moral and ethical problems in it that really make you wonder about how we might go about colonising planets in the future.

If I hadn't read the book, I think I'd have really missed out. I bought the sequels as soon as I could, and I'm looking forward to reading more of his stuff in the future.

Maria: And what about your friends? Do they like this book?

Well, actually, yes. I gave the books to one of my pals after I finished, and he really liked them too. So at least one of them loves this guy as well.

Discussion

Maria: So, dear listener, you should describe a story or a novel. Like, what's a novel?

Rory: I think people have been talking about that since the beginning of writing. But basically, a novel is an almost self-contained story in a book form, and I think that's as close as we can get to a clear definition of it, because essays have been written about what a novel is and is not. For some people, it's one self-contained story. For others, it could be extended over a longer format, like three or four books, for example. I consider it to be one book with a story.

Maria: So here, pretty much, you can talk about a book. Like a story, like a short story, or a book.

Rory: I suppose another thing about novels is that they have chapters. They're fictional and they have chapters, and they're contained within a book.

Maria: So, a short story or a novel, dear listener. And here, you can use the present perfect, like, I've read it. You use the present perfect at the beginning of the story, of your story, and then you can use the past. And also the present, like, this story is about, this novel is about. And you can start off with, I really loved reading blah-blah-blah by blah-blah-blah. So I really loved reading The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien. Tolkien, yeah? This is how you pronounce his name?

Rory: Yeah, well, here it's Tolkien for the famous author. This one I read was called Tchaikovsky. So all of the names beginning with T.

Maria: It's science fiction or it's fiction, it's a fantasy story. So name the genre, or it's a novel by… In a nutshell, it tells the story of blah-blah-blah. So just briefly speaking to give you a short story, like, in a nutshell, this book is about da-da-da, or this novel is about, or it tells the story of, of what? And then in three sentences, dear listener, three sentences, or three or four sentences, you just say what the book is about. So don't talk about the book for an hour. You don't have time. So just three, four sentences. The monkeys. So these monkeys, oh, okay...

Rory: I think they're chimpanzees, in fact. I read this book about two years ago.

Maria: Yeah, so the book is about monkeys, spiders, oh, oh.

Rory: Well, it's not really about monkeys. It's more about the spiders.

Maria: So huge-sized spiders take over the planet?

Rory: Yes.

Maria: Okay.

Rory: It's not as scary... Like, I like the spiders. I thought the spiders were cool. But it tells the story of the spiders from their perspective, and of course, spiders communicate different things to each other, but they do it in different ways. So there's this exploration of how communication might work between spiders as well, if they became intelligent, because they wouldn't be able to communicate in the same way humans can. They do it by a variety of means.

Maria: It's a very good idea to write down three sentences: what the book is about, because this is a very common IELTS question. And they can ask you about a story, a film, a book. So please write down three sentences what the book is about, clear three sentences, in a very kind of concise, clear way, the story of the book, because this is quite difficult. You can Google it. You can read in your mother tongue what the book is about, and then just have three clear sentences, three or four clear sentences. When it comes to the guy who wrote it, when it comes to the author of the book, the author of the book, the writer. As for the writer, his name is... When it comes to the writer, his name is blah, blah, blah. And then Rory, you use this nom-de-plume, what's that, frère, frère, frèche?

Rory: Oh, nom-de-plume, it's a name for writing.

Maria: What do you mean the name for writing? Nom-de-plume?

Rory: Some authors don't use their real names for writing; they use a different name.

Maria: A nom-de-plume, a name chosen by a writer instead of using their real name. Usually like, writers use different names when they publish a book. Pseudonym is another one. So, she wrote it under a pseudonym. Or, for example, George Orwell was a pseudonym; his real name was Eric Blair. So, nom-de-plume.

Rory: Look at us, teaching French as well as English.

Maria: Magnifique. Yeah, because Tchaikovsky, like, when you hear the name Tchaikovsky, you start thinking of a composer. So, he chose this name to stand out. So, to be different from the other writers, to be noticeable. And yeah, if you choose a famous surname, like Kardashian, Rory Kardashian, there we go. Rory is going to be super famous, or Rory Markle, Maria Markle. Like Meghan Markle. Yeah, it's a pseudonym, so that's the trick.

Rory: Oh, I do. I do have a writer's name as well, because I couldn't fit the whole name on the front of the book, so I just shortened it to R.F. Duncan Goodwillie.

Maria: Really?

Rory: Yeah. And that makes sense, because I can't fit the whole name on the book, like, there's no way.

Maria: Yeah, kind of. You have, like, seven different names, of course.

Rory: I don't have seven different names. I have one name, but...

Maria: Yeah, one name plus Fergus, Duncan, that's already three.

Rory: And Goodwillie.

Maria: Yeah, and, like, two more.

Rory: No, that's it.

Maria: That's what I said. I said seven. Seven, five. What's the difference? You should say something about the writer, okay? So, he wrote under a pseudonym, or he published many novels. If the writer is dead, then you use the past simple. So, he published many novels. He was popular. He was poor.

Rory: And that's it.

Maria: He had, like, Polish ancestry. He was born, like, where was he born, right? He was very talented. And Adrian Tchaikovsky is alive, right?

Rory: Oh, yes. He's older. I think he's in his 40s or his 50s, but he's very much alive.

Maria: Oh, 52 years old. Okay, all right. Yeah, that's why Rory used the present simple. Like, he has Polish ancestry. He's a very talented author. And he has a slew of other works to his name. What do you mean, like, a slew of?

Rory: A lot of.

Maria: Hmm. A slew of other works, a lot of other works. And he has a few awards under his belt, so he has won lots of awards. And if the writer is alive, you use the present perfect, okay? So he's won many awards, or he won many awards if the writer is dead. What drew me to the book was the plot. So something draws you to the book, something attracts you to the book, makes you interested in the book.

Rory: Yes!

Maria: And what drew me to this book was an original plot, or what drew me to the book was an unusual story. And the fact that the book has won different awards, was originally what drew me to the novel. And then, dear listener, you say that you can't judge a book based solely on the awards. And actually, the idiom is...

Rory: Well, you can't judge a book by its cover. But I thought that might be a bit too cliché, so I just changed it.

Maria: Yeah. And it's okay, it's Band 9 Way. We take this cliché and we change it. So you can't judge a book only by awards.

Rory: I mean, you could say that to your examiner, just say, some people say you can't judge a book based on its cover. But I did, because I picked it up due to the nice cover. And then I was surprised to find that it's got an interesting story, as well as a nice cover.

Maria: It's a high-concept, speculative fiction story. Rory, why is it a high-concept, like spiders invade the world, huge-sized spiders invade the world? How is it speculative?

Rory: Well, high-concept is just to do... It's not to do with a complex idea. It just means it's one that's very easy to communicate to people. So the high-concept in this book was: what if spiders were genetically engineered and became intelligent on a different planet? And that's it. And then from there, the plot develops. And speculative fiction is just a new term to describe science fiction, because speculative fiction just asks, what if these kinds of things happened?

Maria: And you can say that the book is easy to follow. So it's easy to follow the story. The book has engaging characters. So the people who are described in the book have engaging characters. And it's easy to imagine this situation when the world is taken over by huge-sized spiders. Yeah, it's very easy to imagine this situation, right? Giant spiders invade the world, and you can put yourself in the shoes of spiders. So if you put yourself in someone's shoes, you experience the situation through these people or creatures. The book has exciting action scenes, like in a film, we have action scenes, moments. And the book has complex moral problems or ethical problems, like ethical problems concerning ethics. Ethical - relating to beliefs about what is morally right or wrong. Actually, C2 level, Band 9. Ethical dilemmas. Genetic research, for example. Yeah, ethical, C2.

Rory: Oh, wow. Okay. Cool.

Maria: So yeah, the book has some ethical problems, and the moral dilemmas make you wonder. Make you wonder about how we live, about our life, about colonising planets in the future. So the book makes you wonder. It's good food for thought. While you're reading the book, you're thinking, you're speculating. And the book could be a sequel, like one, two, three, four books on the same story. And you can say that I'm looking forward to reading more in the future, or I'm looking forward to rereading the book, or I'd like to reread the book. Or if I had more time, I'd reread the book. Sweet. Thank you very much for listening, and we'll get back to you in our speaking part three about novels, reading preferences, and storytelling. Okay? Bye!

Rory: Bye!

Make sure to subscribe to our social media to see some of the “behind the scenes” stuff:

Our Instagram: bit.ly/instagramswi

Our Telegram: bit.ly/telegramswi