The Rat-a-Tat Mystery
by Enid Blyton (Collins, 1956)
The fifth ‘Barney’ mystery is, if anything, even slighter than its predecessors. Not much detecting goes on! Yet the children have fun—overseen on this occasion by Mrs Tickle—and the animals cause their usual mayhem. The story flies by pleasantly enough.
Starhunt
by David Gerrold (Hamlyn, 1985)
Not merely a reprint. Starhunt does encompass Yesterday’s Children but reboots at that story’s conclusion and ups the word count by a third, rewriting Korie from deranged and overambitious fool to master strategist and king of mind games. The psychobabble is unconvincing.
Yesterday’s Children
by David Gerrold (Faber & Faber, 1972)
A grim search for realism in depicting space warfare. Having established his antihero protagonist aboard a tumbledown ship rife with interpersonal tensions—Star Trek in other words but stripped of hope and idealism—Gerrold pins his denouement on mental breakdown and gimmickry.
Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks
by Eric Saward; dir. Matthew Robinson (BBC, 1984)
This serial begins with eerie promise and impressive acting/characterisation but degenerates into a confused mess, redeemed only by the pathos of Tegan’s departure. The Daleks (as so often in Doctor Who) have the intellectual sophistication of tantrum-prone toddlers with no inner monologue.
The Nylon Curtain
by Billy Joel (Columbia, 1982)
No sooner had Joel embraced the 1980s than he abandoned them. Side A is a top-notch 70s-era EP. Side B reaches for the same (mostly failed) experimental indulgence as The Beatles’ White Album. The imbalance now serves as an elegy for vinyl.
Conspiracy
by John Christopher, Authentic Science Fiction Monthly 53 (Jan 1955) [Short Story]
When an eatery waitress picks one of her customers as a foreigner, he wants to know what gave him away. This short story appears at first a simple question of reality versus (SF invasion) paranoia, but Christopher adds his own little twist.
Deathwing Over Veynaa
by Douglas Hill (Victor Gollancz, 1980)
Middle-grade science fiction. Book two of Hill’s Last Legionary quartet/quintet succeeds admirably as both a standalone novel and a progression of the series. Hill’s characterisation may be unambiguous but he knows how to keep a story moving. An exciting single-sitting action adventure.
Johnny and the Dead
by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 1993); audiobook read by Richard Mitchley (Chivers, 2001)
Inspired by the real-life selling off of cemeteries in Westminister, Pratchett brings back middle-grade protagonist Johnny Maxwell (Only You Can Save Mankind) in this droll commentary on modern society (as it was in 1993) and earnest entreaty that history’s value be recognised.
Sapphire & Steel, Assignment 6
by P. J. Hammond (ITV, 1982)
The series’ much-vaunted 4-part conclusion. Hammond takes his characters out in style, concocting an eerie, unsettling scenario for Sapphire and Steel (and Silver) to unravel. Unfortunately, the trap’s convoluted outer layer proves unconnected to the springing of the more deadly trap within.
Deadman Switch
by Timothy Zahn (Baen, 1988)
Zahn melds SF concept (navigation requires a recently deceased pilot; spaceships carry two death-row felons) to moral quandary (one ‘zombie’ pilot has been wrongly convicted). The novel goes through several phase shifts exploring the wider value of maintaining a small human focus.