Tarantula
dir. Jack Arnold (1955)
Marketed like King Kong but much more effective in building suspense and bringing to life a monstrously enlarged terror to run amok. Unfortunately, as with Doctor Who’s The Seeds of Doom, a damp-squib military solution is preferred over the protagonists’ intelligence/scientific know-how.
Indiscretions of Archie
by P. G. Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins, 1921)
audiobook read by Frederick Davidson (Blackstone, 2011)
A novelised reworking of eleven short stories featuring the hapless but well-meaning Englishman Archie Moffam, barely tolerated resident of his American father-in-law’s hotel. Wodehouse’s delivery is gently piquant, the painting into of corners not so intricate or consequential as in later works.
Forever…
by Judy Blume (Bradbury, 1975)
audiobook read by Caitlin Kinnunen (Macmillan Children’s Books, 2023)
A straightforward narrative, groundbreaking when first published. Blume shakes off societal hang-ups in her treatment of love and sex, and though the story is single-minded (perhaps aptly), the subsidiary characters all have depth. Caitlin Kinnunen’s audiobook reading perfectly captures the teen protagonists.
Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?
by Adrian Mourby (BBC Radio 4, 1994)
A Doctor Who wilderness years curiosity, reframing Susan’s adventures in the TARDIS and life thereafter by way of in-character interviews with her, Barbara, Ian, et cetera (none played by the original actors). The script is drolly subversive, and intentionally leery of continuity.
Peril at End House
by Agatha Christie (Dodd, Mead and Company, 1932)
audiobook read by Hugh Fraser (Lamplight, 2014)
Christie does somewhat redeem herself at the denouement, but for the most part this mystery is just Poirot boasting insufferably about deductions that he never sees fit to reveal, and then berating himself for having been so mistaken. Hastings continues to irritate.
The River of Adventure
by Enid Blyton (Macmillan, 1955)
audiobook read by Thomas Judd (Bolinda, 2021)
All the usual adventure elements but peppered with best British bias. The children travel to the Middle East with Bill and ‘his wife’ (aka their aunt/mother!) and win through thanks to the locals—especially the villainous element—being credulous, craven and unchristian.
Blake’s 7, Series 3
(BBC, 1980)
Terry Nation, having scripted replacements for Blake and Jenna, would have done well to cc the other writers in time to do more than just change the names. While Servalan amps out on galactic vamp, the costumes yaw ever-more-brazenly towards glam-rock kitsch.
King Kong
dir. Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack (1933)
Ambitious but poor, of interest mostly as an unintentional critique encapsulating assumptions of white privilege. Kong smacks of goofy claymation, pitted against a plethora of equally unconvincing dinosaurs (mostly rabid herbivores). Robert Armstrong delivers his lines as if caught serenading a teleprompter.
Red Flowers: The Complete Mature Works of Yoshiharu Tsuge, Volume 2
by Yoshiharu Tsuge
ed. Mitsuhiro Asakawa, trans. Ryan Holmberg (Drawn & Quartelry, 2021)
Black-and-white comics in collectible hardcover with a lengthy essay discussing Tsuge’s work in the period 1967-1968. The backdrops of rural Japan are exquisitely detailed, the stories themselves mostly wistful, open-ended mood pieces depicting Tsuge’s travels and characters that stuck in his mind.
Star Wars: Heir to the Empire
by Timothy Zahn (Bantam Spectra, 1991)
audiobook read by Marc Thompson (Random House, 2011)
The novel that triggered a publishing avalanche. Zahn deserves credit for his treatment of old favourites, for developing a subdued, somewhat cynical military/political setting post- Return of the Jedi, and in the person of Thrawn for taking adversaries in a new direction.