Thirteen Guests
by J. Jefferson Farjeon (Collins, 1936)
audiobook read by David Thorpe (Soundings, 2020)
A relatively simple murder mystery obfuscated through excessive characterisation of players who are dropped without a second thought. Short and accessible but holds back its detective (the energetic, straight-shooting Inspector Kendall) until the race is more than half run. Perfunctory twist ending.
Prelude to Foundation
by Isaac Asimov (Doubleday, 1988)
audiobook read by William Hope (HarperVoyager, 2023)
Self-indulgent. Asimov trades on his name more than his ideas, with middling prose and revelatory twists that survive only through clumsy concealment beneath a glut of character-voiced speculation as to how future society might function. Hope’s Seldon accent is a brave choice.
The Cornish Coast Murder
by John Bude (Skeffington & Son, 1935)
audiobook read by Ben Allen (Soundings, 2016)
A simply told, engaging mystery featuring an amateur detective (a vicar) and a police inspector working in loose collaboration. While Bude rather gropes towards an understanding of the genre, his protagonists do likewise with the crime. The audiobook reading is decidedly Cornish.
Doctor Who: Voyager
by Steve Parkhouse; ill. John Ridgway; colours Gina Hart (Marvel, 1985)
Frobisher is introduced, joining a more proactive, less bombastic Sixth Doctor in an adventure trippy enough to have rounded out The Trial of a Time Lord. A preponderance of dark hues serves to foreground the SF (and make Baker’s coat blend in!).
Stop Making Sense
by Talking Heads; dir. Jonathan Demme (1984) [2023 re-release]
![Film poster: “Stop Making Sense” by Talking Heads; dir. Jonathan Demme (1984) [2023 re-release]](https://www.derelictspacesheep.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Talking-Heads_Stop-Making-Sense-2023.jpg)
A concert film showcasing Talking Heads at the height of their powers as an extended ensemble. Rhythm and energy abound. David Byrne is quirky, neurotic and perhaps a tad too experimental in bringing a visual component to the music. Some songs expurgated.
Inspiration
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Fantasy & Science Fiction, November 1990)
A short Christmas ghost story about a romance novelist and her spirit lover, whom she cannot touch because she was born after he died. The tragic tones give way to ick with the arrival of a rapist/stalker. Somewhat muddled in the denouement.
The Roman Hat Mystery
by Ellery Queen (Frederick A. Stokes, 1929)
audiobook read by Robert Fass (Blackstone, 2013)
An undemanding read in that the prose is straightforward and brooks no abridgement in relating every last action and brainstormed exchange of the investigation. The Queens are well drawn but the mystery conjures indifference, its solution buried beneath piles of mundane detail.
The Decagon House Murders
by Yukito Ayatsuji (1987); trans. Ho-Ling Wong (Locked Room, 2015)
audiobook read by P J Ochlan (Tantor, 2022)
Perhaps this novel suffers in translation. The English version features an ingenuous prose style full of grade-school descriptors and third-person narrative action shoehorned quite blithely into dialogue. The mystery, laboriously solved in recap, works far better conceptually than as a dramatic work.
Nurse Matilda
by Christianna Brand (E.P. Dutton, 1964)
audiobook read by Phyllida Law (BBC Audio, 2009)
Something of a one-note story. Nurse Matilda teaches an unruly horde of children to behave… by magicking them into gross over-indulgences of their original, naughty conduct. The book ends in a wearisome fever-dream recap of preceding events. The children are reformed. Bing.
Scientific Progress Goes “Boink”
by Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel, 1991) [reprinted Sphere, 2007]
![Book cover: “Scientific Progress Goes ‘Boink’” by Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel, 1991) [reprinted Sphere, 2007]](https://www.derelictspacesheep.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Watterson_Scientific-Progress-Goes-Boink.jpg)
The format is a little cramped (three dailies per page, Sunday strips in black-and-white). Watterson remains as creative as ever—the macabre snowmen!—yet the collection as a whole edges a bit too close to melancholy. What place imagination in this world?