Michael Davie
Clifford Stoll, an astronomer, was tempor- arily in charge of a sophisticated computer system on the Berkeley campus of the University of California when he became aware that an outsider had penetrated the system. His account in The Cuckoo's Egg (Bodley Head, £12.95) of how he hunts down the intruder, idly at first and then with rising alarm when he realises that someone has unlocked theoretically in- vulnerable networks all across the globe, is enthralling, funny and alarming. For most people, the uncontrolled technological world that Stoll takes them into will be a revelation; and he writes with such manic verve that his fear is catching.
No less ominous in its way is The Life and Death of Sandy Stone by Barry Hum- phries, which contains the complete solilo- quies of the former owner, who died in 1971, of 36 Gallipoli Crescent, Glen Iris, Melbourne. Few living writers understand better than the polymath Humphries the hidden drama and pathos of provincial life, where the High Security Twilight Home is round the corner and passions are stirred by the Hotpoint pop-up toaster and the life-cycle of the rhododendron. Sleepy UK publishers have no plans to publish here; but obtainable from Pan Macmillan (Au- stralia), Houndsmill Industrial Estate, Basingstoke, Hants, for the sterling equivalent of A$29.95.
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