Peanuts: The Loves of Snoopy
by Charles M. Schulz (Hodder & Stoughton, 1978)
A slim (46-page) hardcover collection of Sunday strips affording plenty of space to each panel but paying only lip service to the title. The inking is often quite shoddy, at its most bizarre assigning variable hair colours to several of the characters!
Raumpatrouille: Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion
(ARD, 1966)
This seminal German SF series (complete at only seven episodes) features groovy mod-club music, memorable sets (even in black-and-white), edgy interpersonal conflict and a winning marriage of ideas-based science fiction and action/adventure, undercut by an over-the-top, rather petulant Kirk-like lead character (McLane).
The Owl Service (1967)
by Alan Garner (William Collins, 1967); audiobook read by Wayne Forester (Naxos, 2008)
Eerie, immersive but ultimately unsatisfying, as if Garner dreamed a novel idea while wintering in Wales, and when he woke up there was nothing to it, but he went ahead anyway. An unfocussed tangle of character, class, mystery and myth, laughably unresolved.
Beware of the Trains
by Edmund Crispin (Gollancz, 1953)
audiobook read by Paul Panting (Collins Crime Club, 2023)
Gervase Fen proves more palatable in the shorter form, though still exhibits little personality beyond brusque impatience and a Sherlock-like propensity for the conjurer’s reveal. Crispin’s mysteries—generally of the impossible type—are intellectual studies as much as sops to reader enjoyment.
It Walks By Night
by John Dickson Carr (Grosset & Dunlap, 1930)
audiobook read by John Teller (Soundings, 2020)
Bencolin himself has potential but the viewpoint narrative is mostly slush-ridden, pseudo-poetic waffle disguising a paper-thin solution. The conspirators’ plan to hatch alibis—and thus the crime’s apparent impossibility—relies entirely on there existing an unusually observant witness with a slow watch!
Death of a Busybody
by George Bellairs (John Gifford, 1942)
audiobook read by Ric Jerrom (Isis, 2017)
Bellairs often seems quite pleased with his trenchant vignettes and depictions of village life. Punching down aside, these hardly make up for a lack of substance elsewhere. The mystery is straightforward and slight, the amiable Inspector Littlejohn engaging in precious little brainwork.
The Naked Sun
by Isaac Asimov (Doubleday, 1957)
audiobook read by William Hope (HarperVoyager, 2024)
A short story’s worth of mystery spread rather too thin across a novel-length exploration. With Earth detective Elijah Baley as his mouthpiece, Asimov pits two extremes against one another and thus postulates his way deeper into the sociological implications of robot dependency.
Carpe Jugulum
by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 1998)
audiobook read by Nigel Planer (Isis, 2000)
A perfectly respectable Discworld novel. The vampires pose a serious threat; Agnes Nitt evinces personality(ies). Still, there are rather more characters than focus, and thus a nagging sense of Pratchett extemporising a skyscraper and pulling it into place at the pointy end.
The French Powder Mystery
by Ellery Queen (Frederick A. Stokes, 1930)
audiobook read by Robert Fass (Blackstone, 2013)
More of the same. Ellery pontificates upon every detail in a manner contrived to suggest great intelligence (while painstakingly running through deductions). The investigation plays out blow-by-mundane-blow with much repetition, asking little of the reader save incredulity at the culprit’s day job.
A Book for Kids
by C.J. Dennis (Angus & Robertson, 1921)
audiobook read by Colin Friels (ABC Audio, 2016)
Supposedly unabridged, this audiobook in fact omits the stories, leaving only Dennis’s verse—short, rather dated bush ballads, their rhyme too simple for adults, the language too sophisticated for children. Colin Friels revisits his Play School days but fights a losing battle.