There Is No Antimemetics Division
by qntm (Penguin, 2025); audiobook read by Rebecca Calder (Penguin, 2026)
A rare fix-up novel that actually works in the execution. Qntm postulates creatures whose powers interfere with human memory, perception, and reality itself, thence an organisation mandated to deal with such ‘anomalies’. Much dark twistiness ensues, and thinking (forgetting!) outside the box.
The Martian Hunters
by Philip E. High, New Worlds 112 (November 1961), 71-88.
SF short story in need of a rewrite. Odd that High’s imagination could so effortlessly accommodate Martian technology and even an ethical framework far beyond human values, yet no characters outside his stock range of similarly surnamed (male) British heroes and villains.
Doctor Who: 73 Yards
by Russell T Davies; dir. Dylan Holmes Williams (BBC, 2024)
A beautifully crafted Doctor-light episode exploring life after loss. The horror elements are effective and Ruby’s despair, hopelessness and eventual survival all feel very real. A classic, save that a rushed ending glosses over both looping mechanism and the woman’s terrifying effect.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
dir. Peter Jackson (2001)
Epic in ambition but not outcome. The titular fellowship is remarkably dim, questing through a geo/chronographically elastic Middle Earth. Peter Jackson isn’t quite sure whether he’s making a big emotions music video or a drinking game predicated on wide-eyed closeups of Frodo.
Shetland, Series 7
(BBC, 2021) [Packaged in Australia as Series 6]
![TV poster: “Shetland, Series 7” (BBC, 2021) [Packaged in Australia as Series 6]](https://www.derelictspacesheep.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Shetland-07.jpg)
A fitting end to Douglas Henshall’s run as DI Jimmy Perez. The investigation takes some dark turns but these generally prove the result of interconnectedness and cascading misfortune, not egregious scripting liberties. (That said, the booby trap is rather hard to explain.)
Double Indemnity
by Robert Sheckley, Galaxy 57 (December, 1957), 78-105.
Playful SF novelette in which Sheckley takes the concept of double indemnity insurance and works in a physical double. His protagonist is a base schemer whose time travelling machinations are brought undone by an equally sly main-chancer. The comeuppance is neatly executed.
The Hotel Balzaar
by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick, 2024); audiobook read by Allan Corduner (Listening Library, 2024)
DiCamillo tells tales within tales in this dreamy MG novella, the old world hotel playing host both to the young protagonist’s imagination and desperate sadness, and to stories hinting at genuine magic. Blitzkoff the parrot adds a final, endearing touch of whimsy.
Doctor Who: Boom
by Steven Moffat; dir. Julie Anne Robinson (BBC, 2025)
New Series Doctors share a boundless energy, a defining sense of motion. In contrast, this anti-war bottle episode sees the Fifteenth precariously bemired, balanced atop a landmine. His vulnerability is refreshing, the dialogue exchanges often exquisitely fraught in both scripting and delivery.
Deus X
by Jerry Oltion & Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Fantasy & Science Fiction (October/November 1997), 90-136.
Bloated novella. The central conceit of a rarely perceived, spiritual/physical transference between worlds (resulting in ‘visions’ and thence psychiatric hospitalisation, yet allowing for a new iteration of Immaculate Conception) is conveyed by way of stock characters and a hackneyed political intrigue narrative.
The Peaceful Man
by Timothy Zahn, Fantasy & SF (September 1982), 100-116.
SF novelette. Zahn transplants the non-violent dominance of Aikido onto an alien setting where a might-is-right colonial army is struggling to subdue a race of gender-fluid primitives. The philosophy of oneness, operating within military confines, prevails but achieves only a Pyrrhic victory.