The Prince in Waiting
by John Christopher (Hamish Hamilton, 1970; reprinted 1973)
Book one of a grim, post-apocalyptic fantasy trilogy to match Christopher’s Tripods series. The worldbuilding is astute, each chapter unhurried yet serving as a stepping stone for some significant stride forward (albeit the protagonist is left still to cross his personal Rubicon).
Spoil of Yesterday
by John Brunner, Science Fiction Adventures 25 (March 1962), 2-40.
Understated novelette. Brunner explores the ramifications of time travel, partly through discussion between characters themselves coming to terms with causality and potentially being temporal aberrations, but mostly through presenting, without exposition, a society where the Spanish Armada was victorious over the English.
Doctor Who: The Paradise of Death
by Barry Letts (BBC Radio 5, 1993)
This five-part radio serial carries an aura of Pertwee-era authenticity, though broadcast two decades later. It’s also unambitious, concerned more with finding its audio feet, reuniting old favourites and riffing on familiar plot elements than with pushing any sort of creative envelope.
Five Have a Puzzling Time and Other Stories
by Enid Blyton (Red Fox, 1995); republished as “The Famous Five Short Story Collection” (Bolinda, 2021)
For completists only. These short stories are aimed at very young readers, and the mystery/adventure elements are slight at best. The audiobook omits dialogue tags in favour of multiple voice actors, of whom Julian in particular sounds like a self-parodying boarding-school pretzel.
A Pocket Full of Rye
by Agatha Christie (Collins Crime Club, 1953); audiobook read by Joan Hickson (Lamplight, 2015)
Miss Marple is again something of a peripheral presence, the investigation itself being carried out by Inspector Neele. Still, she cuts to the salient facts and reaches a conclusion hidden artfully in plain sight. By no means a riveting tale, but clever.
Jeeves & Wooster, Series 3
adapted by Clive Exton; dir. Ferdinand Fairfax (ITV, 1992)
Three episodes set in New York, three in England. Bertie is equally in the soup in both environments, being put upon by uninvited guests, overbearing aunts, gormless chums and unwanted love interests, to an extent that even Jeeves cannot always save him.
Blind as a Bat
by Philip E. High, Science Fiction Adventures 25 (March 1962), 41-72.
Oddly ineffectual novelette. High drafts in a psychological prodigy to counter the telepathic advantage of alien invaders. After a largely unintelligible space battle, it transpires that the prodigy didn’t need to be and the formerly all-conquering aliens shouldn’t have defeated anyone, ever.
Pugwash and the Midnight Feast
by John Ryan (The Bodley Head, 1984)
A heavily illustrated early reader in which Captain Pugwash and company are saved, not by Tom’s wits but rather friendly natives they’d all (except Tom) assumed to be cannibals. The moral against groundless assumptions is itself understated, dressed up as pirate shenanigans.
The Drop
by John Christopher, Galaxy (March 1953)
reprinted Science Fiction Stories, ed. Tom Boardman Jr. (Octopus, 1979)
SF short story where a clunky disquiet reveals itself as dystopia (masquerading as tightly regulated survival colonisation). Christopher hints at a greater storyline, and one can imagine this as a much longer work. The ending, however, proves a banal sort of twist.
Battlefield Earth
by L. Ron Hubbard (St. Martin’s Press, 1982)
audiobook read by various narrators (Galaxy Audio, 2024)
A truly enormous novel (47 hours in audiobook form!) in which Hubbard plumps hard for the plough-ahead fecundity of pulp writing. Generic exertion grunts and Terl’s constant mutterings of ‘Leverage, leverage’ notwithstanding, Stockholm syndrome does ultimately inure the reader to its charms.