The Secret of Killimooin
by Enid Blyton (Basil Blackwell, 1943); ill. Eileen A. Soper (Armada, 1965)
Another memorable piece of wartime escapism, the children venturing this time to Prince Paul’s homeland. Peggy and Nora are sidelined (becoming nigh interchangeable) but, in mitigation, the hero and most competent person in the story proves to be the blind goatherd Beowald.
The Santa Klaus Murder
by Mavis Doriel Hay (The Bodley Head, 1936)
audiobook read by Gordon Griffin & Anne Dover (Soundings, 2015)
A country house snoozefest with a thoroughly uningenious murder, virtually no actual investigation, a disagreeable cast of characters more pusillanimous than suspicious, and one of the most insipid detectives (Colonel Halstock) in genre history. Griffin’s audiobook reading conspires to add melodramatic hand-wringing.
Flights of Fancy: Defying Gravity by Design and Evolution
by Richard Dawkins (Apollo, 2021); audiobook read by the author (Clipper Audio, 2021)
A short though surprisingly unfocussed account of human aeronautical design (minimal detail) and of how creatures of the natural world achieved flight through evolution. The parallels, needless to say, suggest that natural selection amounts to its own continuous (if unthinking) drafting process.
Monolith
dir. Matt Vesely (2022)
High-quality Australian production with almost no budget (staged like a play, with only one actor physically present). While Lily Sullivan carries off the disquieting intrigue and psychological unravelling centred around her character, the narrative nosedives disappointingly from supernatural mystery into ambiguous metaphor.
Lost Girl, Season 1
(Showcase, 2010)
Like Warehouse 13 (but with adult content), Lost Girl establishes a premise with limitless potential both for supernatural mystery investigations and for incidental humour (liberally deployed). In this first season alone, Kenzi (Ksenia Solo) firms as one of TV’s great sidekicks/support characters.
John Wick 3: Parabellum
dir. Chad Stahelski (2019)
“Every action has consequences.” Or not. Certainly not every John Wick film, except to lay and explode its one-note phoenix egg. The franchise by now constitutes a truly remarkable study in sensory overload indoctrination and the excising of all non-kinetic story elements.
Trickster Magic (Shadows of Otherside #9)
by Whitney Hill (Benu Media, 2023)
With Otherside stripped of its magic, Hill may have misstepped slightly in shifting the focus away from the mundane crisis. Instead, generic quest tropes drag Arden into fantasy realms that are too easily navigated, and less impactful than we’ve come to expect.
Hyperion
by Dan Simmons (Doubleday, 1989)
audiobook read by Allyson Johnson & Marc Vietor (Audible Frontiers, 2008)
Presumably Hyperion won the Hugo Award for its worldbuilding, not its efficaciousness as a novel. The story consists of six SF novellas (all interesting enough but none fully satisfying), strung together by a framing narrative that offers nothing at long journey’s end.
Enola Holmes
dir. Harry Bradbeer (2020)
Bradbeer’s lively direction notwithstanding, the story is too slight to sustain a two-hour film treatment. The best scenes by far are those pairing Millie Bobby Brown (Enola) and Louis Partridge (Tewkesbury), who together could productively be retro-scripted into Attack of the Clones.
Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic
dir. Noriyuki Abe (2017)
Black Butler’s foray into zombie horror offers nothing new to that genre, and actually serves to diminish Sebastian. Notwithstanding one flashback sequence fleshing out his and Ciel’s early relationship, the only meaningful character development comes by way of Lady Elizabeth’s sensational volte-face.