THE EARLY POHL (1976) by Frederik Pohl

This time out, I’m going to take a look at a collection of very early stories by one of my favourite SF writers, who also happened to be one of the best editors in the SF industry, and one of the true titans of the SF world, Frederik Pohl. The eight stories and single poem span the years 1937-1944, and there is also a nice introduction and further introductory piece, The Early Pohl, both written by the man himself.

TITLE: THE EARLY POHL
AUTHOR: Frederik Pohl
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Single-Author Collection
FORMAT: Hardback (with dustjacket), US 1st Edition, New York, 1976, 183 pages
PUBLISHER: Doubleday & Co. Inc., New York.

Contents (8 stories, 1 poem):

  • Introduction by Frederik Pohl
  • The Early Pohl by Frederik Pohl
  • “Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna”, originally published as “Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna” under the pseudonym “Elton Andrews”, (poem, Amazing, October 1937)
  • “The Dweller in the Ice”, originally published under the pseudonym “James MacCreigh” (short story, Super Science Stories, January 1941)
  • “The King’s Eye”, originally published under the pseudonym “James MacCreigh”, (short story, Astonishing Stories, February 1941)
  • “It’s a Young World”, originally published under the pseudonym “James MacCreigh”, (novelette, Astonishing Stories, April 1941)
  • “Daughters of Eternity”, originally published under the pseudonym “James MacCreigh” (short story, Astonishing Stories, March 1942)
  • “Earth, Farewell!”, originally published under the pseudonym “James MacCreigh”, (novelette, Astonishing Stories, February 1943)
  • “Conspiracy on Callisto”, originally published under the pseudonym “James MacCreigh”, (short story, Planet Stories, Winter 1943)
  • “Highwayman of the Void”, originally published under the pseudonym “Dirk Wylie”, (novelette, Planet Stories, Fall 1944)
  • “Double-Cross”, originally published under the pseudonym “James MacCreigh”, (short story, Planet Stories, Winter 1944)

Aside from the poem, “Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna”, which was Pohl’s first published work, I haven’t read any of these stories before. The first two Pohl stories that I did read, way back in my early and mid-teens, were also early ones from the same era as these stories, both appearing under the same “James MacCreigh” pseudonym as most of the stories in this collection.

“Wings of the Lightning Land” was a novelette which first appeared in the November 1941 edition of Astonishing Stories, and was the very first Pohl/MacCreigh story that I ever read, in the classic anthology Science Fiction: The Great Years, edited by Carol & Frederik Pohl (who else?). The other one that I read shortly afterwards was “Let the Ants Try”, a short story that first appeared in the Winter 1949 edition of Planet Stories, and which I read in another SF anthology (can’t remember which) back in my mid-teens. Both of these stories had a huge effect on me at that early age, and have remained firm favourites ever since I first read them over forty years ago. They are among a select group of SF stories that have stuck firmly in my mind virtually my entire life.

I’m actually very surprised that both of these stories were not included in this collection, as they’re two of Pohl’s best early stories from this era, and they really should’ve been in this book. They would’ve been a perfect fit for this one. Ah, well, I have them in other anthologies anyway. As I’m a big fan of Pohl’s work, and I always love stories from this time period, I really should enjoy these stories. I think I’ll be in for a real treat with this collection.

Some New Telefantasy Books

In my last couple of posts, I’ve been listing a bunch of Gerry Anderson-related items (mainly DVDs) that I’ve bought recently. Admittedly, I’ve been on a bit of a roll in recent weeks with all things Anderson, but I haven’t been neglecting my other favourite TV shows. I’ve also been picking up a few good Doctor Who books, so it isn’t just Anderson that I’m focusing on at the moment.

Back many years ago, when I started collecting the Virgin Books range of Doctor Who novels, Blood Heat quickly became my favourite novel of all the Virgin books. Well, the author, Jim Mortimore has recently released a greatly revised and expanded version of Blood Heat, and I’ve managed to grab a copy of the lovely hardback edition. At twice the length of the original, this should be a cracking read.

Second up is a real classic among Doctor Who reference books. I’ve finally managed to nab a decent condition paperback copy of The Discontinuity Guide, by Paul Cornell, Keith Topping and Martin Day. Even back twenty years ago in the mid-90s, when this book was first published, those three names would’ve featured high on any “Who’s Who” list of the giants of Doctor Who fan writing, and already starting to move onto even bigger things. I’ve been waiting so long to read this one, I can barely contain myself.

Thirdly is a very detailed and comprehensive reference book, the Classic Doctor Who DVD Compendium, written by Paul Smith. A very useful book, indexing every single DVD (up until the book’s publication date in 2014), every episode and every extra on every disc. I’d say that this was a definite “must have” for any Doctor Who fan, and on initial quick flick through, this certainly looks like it will be my main reference on all things to do with Doctor Who DVDs.

Finally, we have not one but two books by the same author, the prolific John Connors, creator of (and contributor to) so many classic fanzines over the years, Top and Faze being two of the most famous (I dunno how this guy ever sleeps). John is also the author of two blogs, Timelines, a Doctor Who blog, and This Way Up, a more general telefantasy blog which also features posts on Top of the Pops and any other non-telefantasy topics that might tickle John’s fancy. The two books collect some of the best articles from both the blogs and the classic Faze zine. Saturday Night Monsters is the Doctor Who-specific book, and Tomorrow Is Now: The Best of This Way Up 2002-2004 covers the best of pretty much everything else. I’m working my way through these books at the moment, and I’m enjoying both of them immensely.

I’ll be making individual posts on each of these books at some point. After I read ’em all, of course. 🙂

Some New Gerry Anderson DVDs

Last time out, I posted about a few new DVDs that I’d recently picked up, namely Nigel Kneale’s creepy 1972 television horror film The Stone Tape, and two DVD box sets comprising the entire twenty-four episode run of Gerry Anderson’s classic sci-fi television series UFO.

Well, this time out, I’ve gotten my hands on two more Gerry Anderson DVDs. First up is the 1969 film Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, and second is The Lost Worlds of Gerry Anderson. I’ve been enjoying both DVDs, for different reasons (I’ll always find something interesting in any Gerry Anderson DVD), and I’ll make more detailed comments on both of them individually in upcoming separate posts.

I’m on a real roll with buying Gerry Anderson DVDs at the moment. I’ll be forking out for a few more Anderson series in the near future – Space: 1999, Captain Scarlet (classic and modern), Thunderbirds and Joe 90 are high on the list. But I have a strong hankering to make my first choice Filmed in Supermarionation. I’ve heard so many good things about this classic Anderson behind-the scenes documentary, but I’ve never actually seen it. So the curiosity is getting the better of me, and it has moved to the top of the list.

I can’t wait to see that one! 🙂

Some New DVDs

Some nice DVDs arrived from Amazon UK today. Two lovely boxsets of Gerry Anderson’s complete classic UFO, all twenty-four episodes (each boxset containing four DVDs), and a BBC ninety-minute television movie from 1972, Nigel Kneale’s classic horror/supernatural tale, The Stone Tape.

UFO has been a huge favourite of mine since I first saw it on local television as a young boy of about nine or ten years old. Up until now, I’ve only ever owned VHS video tapes of a handful of episodes, so it’s nice to finally get the entire series on DVD. I’m going to take my time watching these twenty-four episodes, one at a time.

Nigel Kneale’s classic The Stone Tape is one that I’ve never seen before, and I know of it only by the very high reputation it has acquired over the years. I’m really looking forward to watching this one, as I’ve always been a huge fan of Kneale’s four Quatermass serials, and I’m expecting good things from this one.

Quite a few hours of great telefantasy await my eager attention, so I’m off to watch a DVD. I think I’ll start off with The Stone Tape

Earliest Comics Memories (Part 1)

I was looking through some of my old UK Annuals earlier today, which brought back a lot of old childhood memories for me about the very earliest comics that I ever read. I started buying my first comics when I was about four years old, which would have made that sometime during 1965, and I read and (later) collected comics without a break from that point up until 1982, when I stopped reading them for about a decade.

Back in 1965 was the prehistoric past, decades before anything like specialised Local Comics Shops and the Direct Market even existed. Back in those dim and distant days, the UK comics industry was flourishing, and every little corner shop and newsagents had dozens of British comics on display. There were comics of all kinds, from the “funnies” like the Beano, the Dandy, Topper, Beezer and others, to war comics like Hotspur and Victor, sports comics like Tiger, and mixed-genre comics like Lion, Valiant and Eagle, containing everything from sci-fi and fantasy, to action adventure, to humour strips.

For me, it all began in back 1965, when I started to spend weekends at my granny’s (I used to spend every weekend with her between the ages of 4-8). Next door to her house was one of those wee corner shops (except it wasn’t actually on a corner), just like the thousands of other similar little shops (what Americans refer to as “Mom and Pop Stores”) so common on almost every street in the UK and Ireland, back in the days before the big supermarkets came along and put them all out of business. This particular shop was run by an elderly brother and sister team, and on my earliest visits to my granny’s, I initially started visiting the shop to buy sweeties, as any normal four year-old would do. But I very quickly learned that there was a heckuva lot more than sweeties in this shop.

Talk about a big Box of Delights. This one little shop had a long counter-top covered with almost every UK comic available during that period, spread out flat to cover an area about six feet deep and twenty feet long. I had never really paid attention to comics before, but, then, I’d never seen so many of them in one place, and so beautifully put on display. It was mesmerising, and very soon, I was completely hooked. I started off buying my first regular comic, the Lion, followed closely by the Valiant, both of which I would pick up every Saturday morning as soon as the shop opened.

The shop had one of those wee bell things above the door that rang every time someone entered or left the shop. The sound of this bell woke me up every Saturday morning at 6.30am on the button, as soon as the shop opened. I was up like a shot, got dressed, ran next door to the shop to pick up my copies of the Lion, Valiant and whatever else I could afford (sadly never anywhere nearly enough, as pocket money was very short back in those days), and then back into my granny’s, where I’d sit at the kitchen table, eating my breakfast and reading my comics. Sheer heaven. 🙂

This is where my life-long comics reading obsession began, and I have some of my fondest memories from this time in my life, when I was so young and innocent, and full of wide-eyed wonderment, and when I discovered comics for the very first time.

Some Good New Movies on Film4 (25th Feb 2016)

Last night was a pretty good night on television for sci-fi films. We had three in a row on favourite channel Film4, which pretty much took up the entire night\’s viewing.

We started off with the Men in Black 2 (2002) sequel, a fun film featuring lots of great action scenes and good character sequences with Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith and the various aliens. It also featured the sexy and evil Lara Flynn Boyle as the main bad girl/alien, and the young and stunningly beautiful Rosario Dawson as Will Smith\’s love interest. Overall, an enjoyable film, if not very original. It is, basically, a rerun of Men in Black 1.

Next out, we had Hellboy (2004), which is one of my favourite comic book-based films, and one of my favourites directed by Guillermo del Toro. It\’s very different from any of the superhero films, and all the better for it, as I much prefer the horror themes of the film, with its Lovecraftian overtones. There\’s a great cast, too. Ron Perlman is absolutely perfect in the title role. I don\’t think they could\’ve found better if they tried. And he had a great supporting cast in John Hurt (Professor Broom), Selma Blair (Liz Sherman), Rupert Evans (John Myers), Doug Jones (Abe Sapien), Jeffrey Tambor (Tom Manning), and bad guys Karel Roden (Rasputin), Ladislav Beran (Karl Ruprecht Kroenen) and Bridget Hodson (Ilsa Haupstein). Cracking film, and a great way to spend a couple of hours.

Lastly, we had a surprise package, one of those foreign movies that just keeps you glued to your seat. Swedish horror vampire classic Let the Right One In (2008) was probably my favourite film of the night, beating even Hellboy. This vampire film is totally unlike any of the Hollywood \”sparkly vampire\” schlock (yes, I\’m pointing the finger at you, Twilight Saga), a grim, gritty and gripping movie that I enjoyed a lot, the story of a relationship and budding romance between a young boy being bullied at school and a young girl, who just happens to be a vampire.

There was also a surprisingly good US remake of this film which came out a couple of years later, Let Me In (2010) starring Chloë Grace Moretz (Hit-Girl from the Kick Ass films) in the role of the vampire. For a Hollywood remake, it kept the essence of the original really well, despite a few plot changes and the Americanization of the location and characters. I actually saw the US version a couple of years ago, before I saw the original, and was very impressed. But the original Swedish version is a cracker, at least as good, if not better, than the excellent remake. Both are great films, and I\’d recommend them to any fans of horror/vampire films.

Overall, a great night\’s viewing. Film4 is definitely one of my favourite TV channels.

Andersonic 20 Is Out Now!

\"Andersonic

The good news is that Issue 20 of my favourite Gerry Anderson fanzine, Andersonic, has just been released, so it\’s time for my usual plug. So, what\’s on the menu this issue?

The current issue features:

  • Brian Johnson interview – a new interview with Space 1999\’s FX director. Brian also talks about his work on Stingray, Thunderbirds, 2001 and Alien/Aliens amongst other things.
  • Mark Harrison interview – CG director on New Captain Scarlet and leader of the Scarlet Team, Mark discusses his work on Gerry\’s last series.
  • Thunderbirds 1965 – We take a trip to Slough and visit the set during the filming of \’The Abominable Snowman\’, the first of the three episodes being made there.
  • Anderson Dream Episodes – Are they clever lateral thinking or a feeble cop-out?
  • Space: 1999/ Another Time, Another Place – Mark Braxton reviews one of the first series\’ weirder episodes.
  • Reviews – We review Alan Shubrook\’s new book, the CD21 interview CDs and \’The Lost Worlds of Gerry Anderson\’ DVD.
  • Strip Story – the Andersonic time machine goes back to 1965 to dissect the first issue of TV Century 21.
  • Thunderbirds Are Go – our \’episode guide\’ for the first 13 instalments of this new series.
  • … plus a few other things we\’ve managed to shoehorn in. The issue also has new art by Richard Smith.

Issue 20 of Andersonic is 44 pages, black & white interiors, and colour front and back covers, both inside and out. There\’s lots of lovely photos and artwork to go with the great articles and reviews, and all of this costs a measly £2.75, including p&p within the UK. Check out the website at www.andersonic.co.uk for details on how to purchase the current issue and back issues, most of which are still in print.

Andersonic is, by far, my favourite Gerry Anderson fanzine. It\’s a genuine, classic, traditional, \”real\” paper/print high quality A5 zine, which is a huge plus in my book. There are very few traditional print zines around these days (almost everyone has gone digital) compared to their classic heyday back in the 1970s-1990s. They\’re a bit of an endangered species, in fact. So a good one like Andersonic is something truly special. Add to that the sheer quality of this zine, consistently, issue after issue, and I can only applaud Richard Farrell and his talented team for producing this great zine .

The zine has been going for ten years now, which is roughly a six-monthly publishing schedule, although that has slowed down in recent years to an almost annual schedule, alternating roughly every six months with its equally high-quality sister Doctor Who publication, Plaything of Sutekh. We still get a zine every six months or so, but it\’s two different zines rather than just the one. It takes a lot of time and effort to put quality zines like this together. I\’d rather have a lengthy wait between issues and get a zine of higher quality, than a more frequent release at a lower quality, or, worse still, Richard giving up altogether because of a far too punishing zine release schedule.

I cannot recommend this fanzine highly enough. It deserves as much support as it can get. Buy it. Now.

Some New Books – January 2016

I haven\’t bought any new SF books in ages now, but, with Christmas behind me and a few quid spare in my pocket, I took the notion over the past couple of weeks to trawl Ebay.co.uk for some books. Actually, none of them are \”new\”, as there\’s not a lot of modern SF that I enjoy, with the exception of some anthologies of short fiction and a very narrow range of authors and sub-genres. But I did find two second hand/used anthologies of classic Golden Age stuff, which is much more my kind of thing, one collection of Isaac Asimov\’s fantasy stories, essays and articles, and, finally, one \”Best of the Year\” SF anthology, from 2007.

  • SCIENCE FICTION: THE BEST OF THE YEAR 2007 EDITION edited by Rich Horton (trade paperback, Prime Books, Germantown MD, US, 2007, ISBN-10: 0-8095-6297-9, ISBN-13: 978-0-8095-6297-8)
  • MAGIC: THE FINAL FANTASY COLLECTION by Isaac Asimov (Paperback, Voyager, London, 1997, ISBN: 0-00-648203-1)
  • GREAT TALES OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION edited by Isaac Asimov, Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg (hardback, Galahad Books, New York, 1991, ISBN: 0-88365-772-4)
  • THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION edited by Kingsley Amis (Large Format Paperback, Penguin Books, 1983, first published by Hutchinson & Co., 1981)

The SCIENCE FICTION: THE BEST OF THE YEAR 2007 EDITION trade paperback is a nice anthology of reasonably recent (less than ten years old) stories, twelve in all, five from Asimov\’s SF Magazine, two from F&SF, and the other five from five different sources both magazines and books. I haven\’t read this one yet, but there are a few authors in it that I usually like (Robert Reed, Walter Jon Williams, Ian Watson, Robert Charles Wilson), and Rich Horton rarely puts together a bad \”Best SF\” anthology.

MAGIC: THE FINAL FANTASY COLLECTION is a single-author collection of Isaac Asimov\’s fantasy (as opposed to SF) short fiction. It\’s also notable for collecting a number of Asimov\’s essays and articles about fantasy and other subjects. It\’s a bit of a strange one, this, although I found it an interesting mix of articles and fiction. And Asimov\’s fantasy is just as logical as his science fiction, with its own strict internal rules and limitations, which made it easy for me to read, despite the fact that I\’m not a huge fan of reading fantasy.

GREAT TALES OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION is a cracking anthology of classic Golden Age SF put together by the ever-reliable trio of Isaac Asimov, Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg. Nine stories in all, almost all of them published in Astounding during the 1941-1947 timeframe. Some of the biggest names in SF are in this one – Isaac Asimov, A.E. van Vogt, Jack Williamson, Theodore Sturgeon, Lester del Rey, C.L. Moore, Ross Rocklynne, A. Bertram Chandler, T.L. Sherred – and with some of their most classic stories.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION edited by Kingsley Amis is another cracking anthology, with a completely different group of stories and authors to the previous anthology. Only Asimov appears in both, but with different stories. And there are seventeen stories in this one, almost twice as many as the other anthology. Aside from Isaac Asimov, we\’ve got Arthur C. Clarke, Poul Anderson, Frederik Pohl, Brian W. Aldiss, Cordwainer Smith, H. Beam Piper, Harry Harrison, Damon Knight, Anthony Boucher, James Blish, Robert Sheckley, J.G. Ballard, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Jerome Bixby, F.L. Wallace and Philip Latham. That is a hugely impressive line-up of SF author talent with some of their most classic stories.

The Kingsley Amis anthology is a completely different kind of book to the other one edited by Asimov, Waugh and Greenberg. I wouldn\’t really consider it a real \”Golden Age\” anthology at all, as the stories are from the 1950s and 1960s (there\’s even one from 1979!), rather than the 1940s (the actual \”Golden Age of SF\” is usually considered to be circa 1938-1950, when Campbell\’s Astounding ruled the roost unchallenged, and before the appearance of F&SF and Galaxy). The stories are therefore slightly more sophisticated than those in the other book, with much less of an emphasis on stories from Astounding, and a much higher percentage coming from F&SF, Galaxy and other sources. The stories are of the highest calibre, and the only criticism I would have is none of them actually qualify as \”Golden Age\” SF, as they come from a later period, and there are several of the 1960s stories that even come dangerously close to belonging to the New Wave. I guess Amis\’ interpretation of \”Golden Age\” SF is a bit different to the rest of us, and maybe a bit more of a personal one. 🙂

All in all, a nice little batch of books. I\’ve gotten the bug back again for hunting down SF books. I must get back on Ebay to see if I can find a few more classic anthologies.

THE MEN AND THE MIRROR (1973) by Ross Rocklynne

\"Rocklynne,

This time out, we have a single author collection of short fiction by SF Pulps stalwart, Ross Rocklynne (real name Ross Louis Rocklin, February 21, 1913 – October 29, 1988). Rocklynne was very active in the SF magazines from the early-1930s up until the mid-1950s, when he disappeared off the scene for more than a decade (supposedly because of his interest in Dianetics), only returning in the late-1960s, when he wrote a small number of highly regarded stories, including \”Ching Witch!\”, which appeared in Harlan Ellison\’s classic 1972 anthology, AGAIN, DANGEROUS VISIONS.

But it\’s Rocklynne\’s classic 1930s, 1940s and early-1950s stories that he is most remembered for. And this is a nice little collection, spanning 1936-1952, another fairly short book, only 208 pages and six stories, so it shouldn\’t be too hard to get through.

TITLE: THE MEN AND THE MIRROR
AUTHOR: Ross Rocklynne
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Single Author Collection
FORMAT: Paperback, 208 pages
PUBLISHER: Ace Books, First Ace Printing, New York, 1973
ISBN: 0 7278 1221 1

CONTENTS:

  • Introduction by Ross Rocklynne
  • \”At the Center of Gravity\” (Astounding Stories, June 1936)
  • \”Jupiter Trap\” (Astounding Stories, August 1937)
  • \”The Men and the Mirror\” (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1938)
  • Robert D. Swisher letter from Astounding Stories, November 1938
  • \”They Fly So High\” (Amazing Stories, June 1952)
  • \”The Bottled Men\” (Astounding Science Fiction, June 1946)
  • \”And Then There Was One\” (from Astounding Science Fiction, February 1940)

Ross Rocklynne was one of those writers who seemed to pop up regularly in the SF mags during the 1930s-1950s, and who was very popular, but was sadly underappreciated compared to his more famous contemporaries (Heinlein, Van Vogt, Asimov, Del Rey, etc), and so he never achieved the same level of fame as these authors. Perhaps this was because many of the stories were very unusual for that era, less mainstream commercial SF, and in many ways quite a bit ahead of their time. He was certainly a very powerful writer, almost avant-garde, and in many ways was a precursor to the New Wave of the 1960s. Maybe this explains why he was never as big as the likes of Heinlein or Van Vogt.

My own first encounters with Rocklynne\’s work came through reading some of his short fiction in various anthologies of Golden Age SF (I\’ve never read any of his novels). The two that I remember best, and which stick in my mind, are “Into the Darkness” (Astonishing Stories, June 1940) and \”Time Wants a Skeleton\” (Astounding, June 1941). “Into the Darkness”, which spawned several sequel stories, is a fascinating tale with no human characters at all. The main characters are a bunch of ancient, sentient nebulae (not many writers could pull that one off)! \”Time Wants a Skeleton\” is a very clever time paradox/time loop story, which was quite unusual and complex back in 1941, although this type of story has become quite commonplace in recent years.

I\’ve never read any of the stories in this collection before, and all of them are considered classic \”scientific puzzle\” or \”scientific problem\” stories, which were so much in vogue during that era. The first three stories, \”At the Center of Gravity\”, \”Jupiter Trap\” and \”The Men and the Mirror\” were all published in Astounding in June 1936, August 1937 and July 1938 respectively, and were part of the \”cops and robbers\” Colbie and Deverel series, featuring Interplanetary Police Officer Lt. Jack Colbie, and his long time adversary, space pirate Edward Deverel. The third story and title story of the collection, \”The Men and the Mirror\” is followed by a very interesting letter published several months later in Astounding from one Robert D. Swisher, arguing that the calculations in \”The Men and the Mirror\” were completely wrong. Just the kinda thing that John W. Campbell Jr loved to publish, and guaranteed to cause much controversy and discussion! 🙂

The fourth and fifth stories were originally intended to be part of the Colbie and Deverel series, but for some reason Rocklynne changed the names, backgrounds and personalities of the main male adversaries. But in every other respect, they are still the same \”cops and robbers\” space stories. The final story of the six, \”And Then There Was One\”, is a variation on the classic \”Ten Little Indians\” theme. It breaks (slightly, but not a lot) the trend of the \”cops and robbers\” theme in the previous five tales, and was obviously written to show that the premise of the first story, \”At the Center of Gravity\”, was scientifically incorrect. Rocklynne sounds like a right screwball – quite obviously my type of guy! 🙂

The edition of THE MEN AND THE MIRROR that I have is the Ace Books 1st Paperback edition, and apparently Rocklynne himself was VERY unhappy about how Ace Books handled the publishing of his short story collection. And who could blame him? The stories were published out of chronological order, and, if that wasn\’t bad enough, the break between the fifth and sixth stories was completely omitted, leaving out altogether both the title of the story and the author\’s introductory comments to the final story in the collection, \”And Then There Was One\”. It is so bad that there are many readers who are convinced that there are only five stories in the collection. I\’ve seen comments on Amazon.com complaining about this very thing. But trust me. There are six stories, not five. Just go to page 168 and check it out.

You have to look very carefully to even find where \”And Then There Was One\” begins, as the final paragraph of the previous story, \”The Bottled Men\”, ends about half way down page 168, there is a single paragraph break, and then straight into the first paragraph of \”And Then There Was One\”. There is no title nor any author\’s comments (as there were with the previous five stories) to show where it begins. And this was compounded even further by the fact that there are only five stories listed on the Contents page – \”And Then There Was One\” is omitted from that as well, although, strangely enough, it IS listed on the preceding Copyright/Credits page. All in all, this was a complete printing/publishing cock-up by the Ace Books editors, which, sadly, spoils the enjoyment of this nice collection somewhat. No wonder Ross Rocklynne was absolutely livid.

Just as an addendum, and through judicious use of Google, I\’ve tracked down Rocklynne\’s author comments to \”And Then There Was One\”. They were published for the very first time in a reference book, The Work of Ross Rocklynne: An Annotated Bibliography & Guide**, and I\’ve reprinted the comments here, just in case anyone else has read the collection and might be interested:

\”Sir Isaac Newton provided the idea. He already had Worked out the problem of the hollow planet before I approached it in \”At the Center of Gravity\”. My answer was wrong. A decision was made to set the record straight, even though no complaining remarks about my ancient error had come through. The ten little Indians implied in the title became six big businessmen having a bit of a go at each other under rather strange and, in a manner of speaking, revolutionary conditions. Again, a planet was tailored to fit the problem.\”*

*The Work of Ross Rocklynne: An Annotated Bibliography & Guide p.59

**The Work of Ross Rocklynne: An Annotated Bibliography & Guide
by Douglas Menville
edited by Boden Clarke
Borgo Press, First Edition December 1989
Hardback: ISBN: 0-8095-0511-8 $19.95
Paperback: ISBN: 0-8095-0511-3 $9.95

Doctor Who: Heaven Sent

Now THAT was a cracker! In my opinion, Heaven Sent, written by Steven Moffat, is a great follow-up to Face the Raven, the best Doctor Who episode in a long, long time, and definitely the best episode of Series 9 so far.

It was dark, scary, moody, mindbending, intelligent – it\’s just how I love Doctor Who, and is the kind of episode that we\’ve seen far too little of in recent years. With the exception of Chris Eccleston\’s excellent single season, Series 9 is the nearest that Doctor Who has come in tone (if not quite in quality) to the Tom Baker/Philip Hinchcliffe era, by far my favourite era in either Classic or New Doctor Who. I was glued to the screen for the entire forty-five minutes, although I\’m not too sure if I like the whole \”I am the hybrid\” idea, at the episode\’s climax. If it pans out like that, it would be just a little too silly for my liking.

Peter Capaldi has taken the role of the Doctor by the scruff of its neck and made it his own, and Clara/Jenna Coleman has grown into an excellent companion. I\’ll be sorry to see her go at the end of this series. Despite the multitude of rabid Clara haters I\’ve seen online (fandom makes me sick at times – there are far too many total assholes out there claiming to be fans), I\’m pretty sure that future critics and fans will look back on Clara Oswald as being one of the better companions in the history of either Doctor Who series.

There\’s been a certain amount of moaning and groaning on Facebook and elsewhere that, if we see many more episodes like Heaven Sent, \”we\’ll lose the general audience\”. I disagree. Fans who have grown up with NuWho, TRUE fans, and not the \”flyby brigade\”, who only watch it if there\’s nothing better on the other channels, will still stick to the show like glue. I do agree that there has to be a certain amount of balance between the lightness and humour vs the grimness and serious stories, to vary the pace in between the individual episodes, and give us an entire range of the spectrum between extreme the dark, scary stuff and the lightweight fluffy episodes. But this kind of story is so much more my idea of what Doctor Who should REALLY be like. Others may have their own ideas of what Doctor Who should be like, but Heaven Sent is mine.

However, I do concede that there has to be a balance. But the moaners who can\’t tolerate ANY heavy, serious episodes at all really get my goat up. They should just clear off and watch airhead sitcoms or soap operas, if all they want is non-stop, upbeat nonsense. We really do need these \”deep\” stories occasionally, to balance out the lighter, more dumbed down, all flash and no substance single episodes, that supposedly are aimed at the \”general\” audience and kids (who, these days, aren\’t as stupid as the marketers seem to think). Thankfully, with all the two-parters, Series 9 has seen only a couple of these single episodes, and even they were linked. A big improvement on previous years, in my opinion, and I hope that this trend in favour of two-parters continues.

The David Tennant and Matt Smith eras had FAR too many of those dumb single episodes, far too much old silliness, with the totally ridiculous romance nonsense between the Doctor and human female companions, other completely irrelevant, soap-opera-ish, non-Who-ish distractions, and simply too much bad writing. The Matt Smith era, in particular, was virtually unwatchable at times, despite the fact that he himself was an absolutely AMAZING Doctor. He carried the show most of the time, to be honest, and I continued watching it just for him. In my opinion, Capaldi\’s arrival, and the complete change in tone of the series, has revitalised Doctor Who, although there are still too many dodgy stories. But hell, that\’s always been true of Doctor Who. Lest the rose-tinted glasses crowd forget, the Classic series also had more than its fair share of total clunkers.

It\’s not 1966 any more, fer cryin\’ out loud. It\’s almost 2016, and modern audiences (including kids) are far more sophisticated than they were back in the 1960s and 1970s. And the show is no longer aired at 5.15pm in the evening, but a full three hours later, sometimes not ending until after the 9pm watershed. I can no longer understand the endless obsession with forcing the show into a shoebox where it has to appeal to five year-olds as well as fifty-five year olds. That approach just doesn\’t seem relevant any more.

In most cases, instead of more challenging stories, in recent years we\’ve ended up with far too many middle-of-the-road, lightweight \”fluff\” single episodes aimed at keeping kids and general viewers who are not hardcore Doctor Who fans happy, what I refer to as the \”Popcorn Who\” audience. Personally, given Doctor Who\’s current late timeslot, and the fact that the typical modern audience is much more varied and sophisticated than it was forty or fifty years ago, I really think the series should be written accordingly today, and aimed at a similar audience to Steven Moffat\’s other excellent show, Sherlock.

I know those \”popcorn\” episodes are for keeping up the general audience figures, but too many of them and you lose the hardcore fans (like myself). They are just too bland and lightweight, and while I can take the odd one in between the more intelligent, serious episodes, string more than two or three of them together and I\’ll give up on that season as a lost cause. Thankfully Heaven Sent was way over at the other extreme, where I prefer my Doctor Who to be. I like my Doctor Who dark, scary and serious.

I\’m hoping Hell Bent lives up to the quality of Heaven Sent (and that Moffat will be able to do it two episodes in a row, as this has been a weakness of his with two-parters). If it\’s even half as good, it\’ll be a decent series finale. And if it\’s on the same level of quality, we\’re in for one of the greatest series endings in modern Doctor Who.