Mawdryn Undead, by Kara Dennison (and Peter Grimwade)

Posted on 1 February 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

I will be at Gallifrey One next weekend, so I’m bunching reviews of my recent Doctor Who reading over the next few days. You have been warned.

I remember well watching Mawdryn Undead on its first broadcast in 1982, and enjoying the return of the Brigadier though a bit mystified by Turlough. When I rewatched it in 2008, I felt the same if not more so:

[I] found that now I had seen so many more Brigadier stories, and indeed listened to numerous audios featuring him, I enjoyed his resurrection in Mawdryn Undead much more than first time round when he was a vague childhood memory and a figure from the Target books. There are essentially two plots here, the Mawdryn plot which is good sf stuff, teleports, spaceships, time shifts and all, and the Turlough/Black Guardian stuff which seems to me as superfluous as Turlough himself. Really, if the Black Guardian wanted to kill the Doctor off, there might be better ways to do it than hiring an unreliable alien posing as a schoolboy! Nyssa and Tegan are good here though, and I really loved the Brigadier flashback which actually incorporates a clip of Hartnell as well as the other three.

In fact, before we go any further, let’s just revisit that superb flashback, and re-experience how it made us feel moored in 19 years of tradition.

I got back to this story in my Great Rewatch in 2011, shortly after the death of Nicholas Courtney, and wrote:

Watching Mawdryn Undead is a slightly wistful experience so soon after the loss of Nicholas Courtney; but it is a real delight to see him back again, playing two slightly different Brigadiers, and again we have the flashbacks which always gratify the heart of us old school fans. The other returning character is the Black Guardian, who for some reason is unable to manifest physically, even to equip his chosen agent with anything other than a prop crystal, but again it is nice to feel a re-connection with the Tom Baker era.

I was a little startled on rewatching it to realise that the plot only starts towards the end of the second episode, but until then we have had quite a lot of decent groundwork, and the actual explanation for what is going on is one of the better sfnal ideas in the whole of Who. Presumably the Doctor is exaggerating when he says that a millisecond either way would have been critical. And perhaps he has some comprehensible but private reason, never explained, for inviting Turlough along as a companion rather than just behaving like an idiot who opens the Tardis up to all comers. (I know that there are fanfic writers who have an answer to that.) Apart from that, it’s another reasonably satisfying tale.

Watching it again now, I appreciated slightly more the performance of David Collings, unrecognisable as Mawdryn, after his previous appearances as the anguished Poul and the treacherous Vorus. He also pops up in the final episode of Blake’s Seven as Blake’s new collaborator on Gauda Prime. On the other hand, the Black Guardian’s constraints feel even more handwavium than on my previous three watches. And speaking of hands, there are a couple too many scenes where the actors’ arms hang limply by their sides, showing a lack of rehearsal or direction or both.

The second paragraph of the third chapter of Peter Grimwade’s novelisation of his own story is:

Tegan didn’t trust Turlough an inch. As if anyone from Earth would just walk into a transmat capsule! Though Nyssa was quick to point out that that was exactly what she had done when she walked into the Doctor’s police box on the Barnet By-pass.

When I first read it in 2008, I was in forgiving mood:

I was bracing myself for another terrible book after the awfulness of Doctor Who – Time Flight. But in fact I was pleasantly surprised; I think it is a better story in the first place, but Grimwade is able to bring in a bit more characterisation to new companion Turlough and the Brigadier, and a bit more background to the public school. Not bad at all.

Nothing much to add to that, on re-reading; it does take me back to the days when the novelisation was the only way you could reliably expect to re-experience the story. I would also say that the cover is probably the least imaginative cover of any Doctor Who book of any era, simply a photograph of the Fifth Doctor in the TARDIS. You can get it here.

Kara Dennison’s monograph on Mawdryn Undead is quite a short Black Archive, at only 93 pages, but it’s good and meaty.

It starts with a personal introduction by Dennison, reflecting on becoming a editor of the series as well as a contributor.

I hope this Archive, like the ones before and the ones to come, helps you find new ways to love this show we all adore.

The first chapter, “The Turlough Dilemma”, looks at the problematic concept of Turlough as a companion, from beginning to end, which certanily tickedsome of my oxes about the story.

The second chapter, “‘Some Shocking Experience'”, looks at the Brigadier’s experience of PTSD, referencing also the 1980-81 BBC series To Serve Them All My Days and the Twelfth Doctor story In The Forest of the Night.

The third chapter, “Regeneration Crisis”, looks at the difficulties that regeneration brings for the faithful viewer. Its second paragraph is:

In an interaction that quickly went viral, Capaldi met with the young fan (who was wearing a Dalek costume at the time) to reassure her that, while his Doctor would be different, things would be all right. ‘[Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman] say it’s okay for me to be the Doctor. I hope you think it would be okay for me to be the Doctor, too.’²
² McCarthy, Tyler, ‘Peter Capaldi Comforts Young Doctor Who Fan With Autism’.

The fourth chapter, “‘Our Endless Voyage'”, compares the travels of Mawdryn with The Flying Dutchman (which Grimwade himself cites as inspiration, quoting it at the start of the novelisation), and also the Marie Celeste and Prometheus.

The fifth chapter, “‘Life Without End or Form'”, looks at immortality in Doctor Who, Swift, Tolkien and manga.

The sixth chapter, “‘Very Much in the Present'”, looks at time paradoxes in Doctor Who with a reflection also on Robert A. Heinlein.

The brief conclusion, “The First Question”, asks “why does this serial feel so much more ‘modern’ than others of its time?” and gives a few answers arising from the topics of the previous chapters.

As I said, it’s a short Black Archive but it’s full of quality thought-provoking analysis. You can get it here.

Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, by Laura Spinney

Posted on 14 January 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Hrozný had just broken the code of the first Indo-European language ever to be written down: Hittite. Though he didn’t know it at the time, the document that had given him the key was the last will and testament of an early Hittite king, Hattushili I, who had ruled in north-central Anatolia in the seventeenth century BCE. Hattushili was a master of spin, especially when it came to himself: ‘his frame is new, his breast is new, his penis is new, his head is of tin, his teeth are those of a lion, his eyes are those of an eagle, and he sees like an eagle’. But he was also an accomplished warrior who had laid the foundations of one of the great empires of the preclassical world. As he lay dying he dictated his plan for his succession, but in the ancient equivalent of the microphone being left on after the interview has concluded, an over-enthusiastic scribe kept scribbling and captured his last words.’ As death rushed up to meet him, Hattushili the Lion was seized by terror: “Wash my corpse well! Hold me to your bosom! Keep me from the earth! Three thousand years after its ancestor was first spoken on the shores of the Black Sea, the first Indo-European cry to reach us is heartrending in its humanity.

I’ve always been fascinated by linguistics, especially the evolution of languages over the millennia, and a friend very rightly recommended this book to me for Christmas. It looks at the history of the Indo-European languages, cross-referencing the evidence from the languages themselves with the latest archaeological findings and, crucially, DNA evidence about the people who lived and died in various places and times.

I just love the concept of Proto-Indo-European, from which six of the top seven languages in the world are descended (not Chinese, obviously, but Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali and Russian), spoken 5,000 years ago, and some of whose words are eerily similar to ours and some startlingly different.

Spinney goes with the standard theory which has been around for decades, that the speakers of PIE were the Yamnaya culture, a subset of the Kurgan culture, north of the Black Sea, and named after their burial practice of funeral pits (яма, yama) with tumuli on top (курган, kurgan). The latest DNA research strongly supports this, though she gives time to other explanations as well (notably the Anatolian and ‘Out Of India’ theories), and gives personal glimpses of Gimbutas and Renfrew in their debates, also citing David Anthony whose book I enjoyed a few years back.

The movements of population and language were initially driven by climate change as Eurasia recovered from the Ice Age, and then by technology as the horse was domesticated, the wheel was developed and agriculture began to be adopted. (NB that in the story of Cain and Abel, Cain is the bad guy and the farmer, Abel is the good guy and the herder.)

She follows up with individual chapters, each prefaced by a helpful map, on the extinct Anatolian and Tocharian languages, on the western Celtic/Germanic/Italic branch, on the eastern Indo-Iranian languages, on the northern Baltic and Slavic groups, and on the isolated Albanian, Armenian and Greek, the last of which has the longest continuous literary tradition. I love little snippets like the extinct Venetic language, known from a few hundred inscriptions, most of which are dedications to Reitia, the goddess of writing.

There’s interesting stuff in the DNA too. Apparently when the Beaker People arrived in Britain in 2450 BC, the result was that they took over 90% of the British gene pool and 100% of British Y-chromosomes, and the same when they reached Ireland 200 years later. Did they speak Celtic? It’s a little too early from the linguistic change point of view, but otherwise it’s not clear how Celtic language came to Ireland. I actually bought J.P. Mallory’s book to find out more.

This is a great book, filled with history, science and literature. Spinney has gone light on the technicalities of linguistics, so as not to deter the faint-hearted, though I would have been happy with more detailed reconstructions; still, these are easy enough to find. Lots to learn. You can get Proto here.

This was the last book that I finished in 2025, so it’s good to end on a high note. Thanks to Aoife White for the recommendation.

Five Little Pigs, by Agatha Christie; and Bloody Sunday

Posted on 13 January 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

“Have I convinced you that it was a straightforward case?” he said.

You’ll have noticed that I’m going through a bit of an Agatha Christie thing recently. I read maybe half of the total œuvre when was twelve or thirteen, and am fairly sure this was one of them, but I had completely forgotten the details. Poirot is called in to re-investigate a murder of sixteen years earlier (the book was published in 1942, so that would be 1926), by the daughter of the woman who was jailed for the crime. The murder weapon is hemlock, strictly speaking coniine, used to dispatch an unpleasant artist who was flaunting his affair with his latest model in front of his wife and their house guests.

Poirot gets each of the five suspects to write down their memories of the day of the murder. Christie breaks each of those accounts across chapters, which is convenient for keeping up the narrative pace but a bit annoying for the historically trained reader whose instincts are to give each source its own place in the sun. In a dramatic denouement he reveals why the artist’s widow allowed herself to be convicted for a crime she did not commit, and also who the real murderer was, though there is a strong implication that justice will never be served due to the passage of time and paucity of firm evidence.

I have to admit that it did make me go back to the court ruling quashing the prosecution of Soldier F for several of the Bloody Sunday killings, on the grounds, similarly to the witness statements in Five Little Pigs, that the statements of F’s fellow soldiers made at the time and to the Savile Inquiry were not admissible evidence – although the judge condemns Bloody Sunday in the strongest terms. It still doesn’t explain to me why Soldier F was prosecuted for the wrong crimes.

You can get Five Little Pigs here.

The Leviathan, by Rosie Andrews

Posted on 13 January 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

I did not know, then, that fear itself could take form, could become a tangible thing. That lesson lay ahead.

One of the leftovers from the 2023 Clarke Award submissions list which was obviously fantasy rather than sf, but I though might be worth hanging onto for later reading. Unfortunately it put me off at the very beginning, with an intense attempt to portray England in the 17th century which totally failed to convince me on many of the circumstantial details. I gave it fifty pages but no more. You can get The Leviathan here.

The Moon of Gomrath, by Alan Garner

Posted on 12 January 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

“Do you think there was anything in the quarry?” said Susan.

I had read this years ago, of course; it is the sequel to Garner’s first book, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. I see a lot of online reviewers saying that they like The Moon of Gomrath better; I must admit that I still have sharp memories of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, and it must be thirty years since I last re-read it. Still, The Moon of Gomrath is a great fantasy story, with the young protagonists sucked into epic battle with ancient magical forces across the richly depicted landscape of Alderley Edge and Macclesfield. It’s not long since I was near that part of the world myself. You can get it here.

Yet More Penguin Science Fiction, ed. Brian Aldiss

Posted on 9 January 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third story (“Before Eden”, by Arthur C. Clarke):

There was no way forward; neither on its jets nor its tractors could S.₅—to give the Wreck its official name—scale the escarpment that lay ahead. The South Pole of Venus was only thirty miles away, but it might have been on another planet. They would have to turn back, and retrace their four-hundred-mile journey through this nightmare landscape.

An anthology of cutting edge SF as of the year 1964, when the book retailed for three shillings and sixpence, equivalent to 17½ new pence. There are twelve stories, nine first published in the 1950s and three in the 1960s, all by white men, eight Americans (one of whom was the naturalised Canadian-born A.E. van Vogt) and four British. This was the third of a series of Penguin anthologies edited by Aldiss with the intention of bringing new readers into SF.

All of the stories feature memorable concepts, maybe some of them out of date now (eg the magic-using community sealed off from the scientific world, the defeated white Americans who decide to try and conquer Europe), but stimulating for the Penguin reader of 1964. The standout piece is probably Arthur C. Clarke’s “Before Eden”, in which two cynical technicians accidentally discover life on Venus and unwittingly destroy it as they leave.

The stories do not at all reflect the coming New Wave, but I guess that can be forgiven for a collection which was probably assembled in 1962 and 1963, and perhaps the New Wave might not have appealed to the average Penguin reader as much. It’s an interesting snapshot of the genre at a particular time, and from a particular angle. You can still get Yet More Penguin Science Fiction here.

This was both the shortest unread book that I acquired in 2022, and the sf book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next on those piles respectively are The Forgotten and the Fantastical, ed. Teika Bellamy, and Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep, by Philip Reeve.

The Enigma Score, by Sherri S. Tepper

Posted on 8 January 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

‘That acolyte of yours? Jamieson? He was worried about you, so he called me, and we went to your house and found the note she left you, Tas.’ His mother’s hand was dry and frail, yet somehow comforting in this chill, efficient hospital where doctors moved among acolytes of their own. ‘He got a search party out after you right away. They found you in the car, out near the Enigma. You’d been knocked in the head pretty badly. You’ve got some pins and things in your skull.’ She had always talked to him this way, telling him the worst in a calm, unfrightened voice. ‘You’ll be all right, the doctors say.’

Back around 1990, I went through a real Sherri S. Tepper phase and read as many of her books as I could find, starting with Grass. I didn’t remember this one at all clearly, but once I got into it, it all came back – a settler planet where specially trained singers must pacify the mysterious giant crystals which otherwise explode and kill travellers; the evil capitalists and bigots who want to destroy the entire ecology to make it useful for humans; and the cute cuddly alien viggies, which are in fact more than they seem. And it’s not just about pacifying the crystal Presences, but about opening up communication between the humans and the indigenous inhabitants of the planet. A chunky book, perhaps a bit old-fashioned by twenty-first century standards, but there’s a lot in it. You can get The Enigma Score here.

(Apparently it’s a direct riposte to The Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey, which I have not read.)

This was my top unread book by a woman. Next on that pile is Looking Glass Sound, by Catriona Ward.

Doctor Who: The Adventures After, by Carole Ann Ford et al

Posted on 7 January 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third story (“Demons in Levenshulme”, by Paul Magrs):

Yaz was used to this kind of sudden call-to-arms while with her time-travelling friend. ‘What is it?’

An anthology of sequels to broadcast Doctor Who stories. Some real jewels here, including the first one, “The Verge of Death”, a sequel to The Edge of Destruction credited to Carole Ann Ford, Rob Craine, and Beth Axford; “Demons in Levenshulme”, by Paul Magrs, which is a Thirteenth Doctor sequel to The Dæmons; “Take Our Breath Away”, credited to Katy Manning, a breathless what-happened-to-Jo-Grant story; “Harry Sullivan and the Chalice of Vengeance”, by Mark Griffiths, which is a Fourth Doctor sequel (sorta) to The Christmas Invasion; and “Afterlife”, by Alfie Shaw, expanding on the moving webcast P.S. by Chris Chibnall, about Rory’s father and son awkwardly bonding after the events of The Angels Take Manhattan. The fact that I’ve mentioned more than half of the eight stories as particularly good speaks for itself. You can get The Adventures After here.

I normally like to credit the editors of anthologies, but no editing credit is given here. BBC, please do let your talented editors emerge blinking into the light!

Our Wonderful Selves, by Roland Pertwee

Posted on 6 January 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

“The way ’e notices, you know. Never forgets so much as anything,” she would confide to other nurses as they pursued their way toward the gardens. “Knows ’is own mind, ’e does, and isn’t afraid to let you know it, either.”

I was moved to pick this up by a mention in Jon Pertwee’s autobiography that this was the book which established his father as a successful writer. I am not sure if that is true, but it’s definitely the case that it was published in 1919, the year that Jon was born. (Jon was the younger of two sons; his older brother Michael was an actor and screenwriter, whose most famous credit is probably adapting Stephen Sondheim’s musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum for the cinema.)

Our Wonderful Selves is not a great book, and having recently read all of H.G. Wells’ fictional output from the start of the twentieth century, I think I know what Roland Pertwee was trying and failing to match.

His protagonist is a really unpleasant writer, who manages through arrogance to get a big theatrical opportunity for his Art; he bullies and plans to betray his wife, who has dedicated herself to making it possible for him to promote his talents; and his much smarter uncle saves the day by reconciling them. Really, it’s not a very convincingly happy ending; he is unlikely to reform, and she would be much better off without him. Given the writer’s own shaky marriage, he may have been writing in part to work through his own demons.

Pertwee’s top book on both Goodreads and LibraryThing is The Islanders (1951), for younger readers, about three boys who get to live by themselves on an island in Devon and fight off the Romani. I think I’ll give it a miss.

You can get Our Wonderful Selves here.

This was the non-genre novel that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next on that list is Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution, by James Tipton, but I will leave it until either I finish all the books acquired in 2022, or it bubbles to the top of my 2023 pile, which will probably happen first.

A Wrinkle in the Skin, by John Christopher

Posted on 5 January 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

He turned from that at last, and made his way back inland. He felt empty and light-headed. He supposed he should try to find something to eat—it must be late morning, and he had vomited up the few sardines he had had. But the hunger which had been ravenous then was as markedly absent now. The feeling was something like drunkenness: he contemplated his state with mingled pity and grandeur. The last man left alive? The Robinson Crusoe of planet Earth? It might be so. The silence went on, and the sky stayed blue and vacant.

I had read this as a teenager, and spotted it in Buxton and decided to return to it. I feel it’s an overlooked classic, probably due to the success of the same author’s more optimistic The Death of Grass from a few years earlier.

The premise is that massive global earthquakes destroy civilisation; our protagonist finds himself one of the few survivors on Guernsey, and sets off on a quest to find his daughter in Sussex, made easier by the fact that the English Channel is now dry.

The depiction of the devastated landscape is vivid, but even more so the portrayal of a human society which has degenerated into straggling groups of survivors perpetrating rape and pillage on each other. It does take us some time before we meet a convincing woman character, and there’s a bit of a sense that the worst of the disaster is that the comfortable middle classes have been eradicated, leaving the world to the yobs, but all the same it’s a memorable picture. There were lines that I remembered well from thirty-plus years ago, and there are striking images that will linger with me for a long time.

You can get A Wrinkle in the Skin here.

The Infinity Race, by Simon Messingham

Posted on 2 January 2026 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

The Doctor made a few half-hearted attempts to outmanoeuvre the complex restructuring the saboteur had made to the control units but he knew it would be to no avail. He shone the torch over the sealed magnetic systems box welded to the engine relays. The noise in here was incredible; the power stacks were primed well over maximum. Heat stole the oxygen from the depths of the ship.

Next in the sequence of Eighth Doctor books which I read years ago and failed to write up at the time. The Doctor, Fitz and Anji have slipped into a parallel universe where they encounter the mysterious Sabbath, once again, and get involved with a race that is more than it seems. I’m not a fan of the Sabbath arc, and the racing story has been done better elseWho; also Messingham uses first-person narration from both Fitz and Anji, and doesn’t really get convincing voices for either. Not very memorable, for me anyway. You can get The Infinity Race here (at a price).

My books of 2025

Posted on 31 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

I read 314 books this year, the fourth highest of the twenty-two years that I have been keeping count, and 77,700 pages, which is ninth highest of the twenty-two. That’s about average for my current circumstances.

118 (38%) of those books were by non-male writers, which is the fourth highest number and sixth highest percentage in my records.

44 (11%) were by non-white writers, which is the fourth highest number and fifth highest percentage of the twenty-two years.

My top author of the year was H.G. Wells; as I worked through his less well-known fiction, and a couple of others as well, I read ten of his books.

SF

I read 120 sf books this year, the sixth highest number and tenth highest percentage in my records.

Best of the year
Emily Tesh’s second full novel, The Incandescent, is a brutal look at what a magic school would really be like in today’s England. (Review; get it here.)
I Who Have Never Known Men, by the Belgian writer Jacqueline Harpman, got rediscovered by a lot of people this year, including me. It’s a great creepy post-apocalyptic feminist story. (Review; get it here.)

Welcome rereads
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. (Review; get it here.)
Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke. (Review; get it here.)
The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, by Ted Chiang. (Review; get it here, at a price.)

Honourable mentions
Three collections of short fiction by women.
Five Ways to Forgiveness, by Ursula Le Guin, has five stories linked by a common setting and shared characters, about revolution and social justice on a twin planet system. (Review; get it here.)
Spirits Abroad, by Zen Cho, is a set of excellent short stories reflecting Malay Chinese culture, some set in Malaysia, some in Britain, some elsewhere, all great. (Review; get it here.)
And back to the classics with The Birds and other stories, by Daphne Du Maurier, six very spooky stories by the author of Rebecca, the title story also made into a Hitchcock film. (Review; get it here.)

The one to avoid
In The Undying Fire, H.G. Wells attempted to rewrite the Book of Job for an English audience in 1919. For the love of God, why? (Review; get it here)

The one you haven’t heard of
As I worked through the 2020 Hugo packet, five years on, one book particularly jumped out: Dark Winds Over Wellington, a collection of short stories by T.L. Wood, set in New Zealand’s capital. A great read. (Review; get it here)

Non-fiction

I read 79 non-fiction books (25%) this year, the fifth highest number and eighth highest percentage of the twenty-two years that I have counted.

A lot of this non-fiction was very good – I went a bit overboard, actually, and I’ve given five stars out of five to 22 non-fiction books on LibraryThing. So whittling these down to a few was quite a tough choice. In the end, I think my top recommendation goes to:

Best of the year
Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, by Lea Ypi, is an Albanian autobiography. Albania has changed a lot in Lea Ypi’s lifetime, and indeed it is changing rapidly now, as I saw when I was there only a month ago. It’s a fascinating story of social control followed by disintegration of old dogmas. (Review; get it here.)

Honourable mentions
Of many good books about history, especially Irish history, I think the best was The Partition: Ireland Divided, 1885-1925, by Charles Townshend, which looks at how the division of the island became inevitable. (Review; get it here.)
It’s an old collection, and you can get all of the contents for free online, but I hugely enjoyed Decline of the English Murder, and other essays, by George Orwell, published by Penguin in 1965. (Review; get it here.)

Two to avoid
The Ancient Paths, by Graham Robb, attempts to unfold Celtic history and prehistory but descends into boring conspiracy theory. (Review; get it here)
Improbable History, ed. Michael Dobson, is a collection of historical essays celebrating “the weird, the obscure and the strangely important”. I tried the first three and they were very dull. (Review; get it here)

The one you haven’t heard of
Ireland in the Renaissance, 1540-1660, eds. Thomas Herron and Michael Potterton, is a jewel of a book: sixteen substantial essays with lovely plates and illustrations, and none of them is a dud, which is really unusual for any book with separately commissioned pieces by that many authors. All of them address the proposition that there are many interesting things to say about Ireland and the Renaissance. (Review; get it here)

Doctor Who

Almost all the other numbers for this year are above my average, but the stats for Doctor Who books are on the lower side; this is simply because I have read almost all of them, and am now mainly just keeping up with new publications, with a little retrospection. My total for all Doctor Who books this year is 57 (18%), the sixteenth highest number and nineteenth highest percentage of all years. For Doctor Who fiction, excluding comics, the number is 31 (10%), the eleventh highest number (thus slightly above the median) and sixteenth highest percentage.

Best of the year
Andrew Orton’s Black Archive analysis of the first Peter Davison story, Castrovalva, takes all the things that intrigued me about it and digs deeper, taking my appreciation to a new level. The best this year of a (mostly) excellent series. (Review; get it here.)

Honourable mentions
BBC spin-off merchandise: The TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual, by Richard Atkinson and Mike Tucker, is a real delight from 2018. (Review; get it here.)
Novelisations: As I had hoped, Doctor Who: Lux, by James Goss, takes the televised story and gives it new depth and warmth. Excellent stuff. (Review; get it here.)
Other non-fiction: Exterminate/Regenerate: The Story of Doctor Who, by John Higgs, is a nice chunky book about the history of Doctor Who, from 1963 to 2024, Doctor by Doctor, in the wider political context. (Review; get it here.)

The one to avoid
In general I am very supportive of the Black Archive series; however the volume on The Mysterious Planet, by Jez Strickley, is a rare but definite miss, filled with incomprehensible jargon. (Review; get it here)

The one you haven’t heard of
I have been very much enjoying Cutaway Comics’ return to classic Doctor Who stories, exploring both the before and after of the plots; the best for my money is Inferno, by Gary Russell and John Ridgway, looking at how the parallel universe got to be like that. (Review; get it here)

Non-genre

I read 43 (14%) non-genre fiction books this year, which is the seventh highest number, but only the thirteenth highest percentage.

Best of the year
Margaret Atwood’s short story collection, Old Babes in the Wood, is full of jewels, and is my top recommendation from a crowded field. (Review; get it here.)

Honourable mentions
Not So Quiet…, by Helen Zenna Smith, is the story of a nurse’s experiences in the first world war, one of the most visceral portrayals of trench warfare that I have read, with also reflections on gender and class. (Review; get it here.)
I can’t decide which of Zen Cho’s contemporary romances to choose, so have both of them, brilliant, funny and moving stories of love between young Asians in today’s London: The Friend Zone Experiment (review; get it here) and Behind Frenemy Lines (review; get it here).

The one to avoid
Glorious Exploits, by Ferdia Lennon, has Ancient Greeks in Sicily being brutal to each other while talking with Irish accents, and that seems to be the point. I gave up. (Review; get it here)

The one you may not have heard of
I loved Our Song, a Dublin-set romance novel by Anna Carey, but it has less than ten owners on LibraryThing so I feel it ought to be better known. It’s doing better on Goodreads, with over 500 ratings as of this writing. (Review; get it here)

Comics

Including Doctor Who comics, I read 36 (11%) comics and graphic novels this year. That’s the same number as last year, equal third highest in my records, and the eighth highest percentage.

Best of the year
One old, one new here.
Alison Bechdel is still on form, with her loosely autobiographical Spent taking a humorous look at life on a goat refuge in rural New England, as the tentacles of fame and social media influencing insert themselves into her world. (Review; get it here.)
I had not previously read Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza, based on research in 2002 and 2003 on the 1956 massacres of hundreds of unarmed civilians in Gaza by Israeli forces. It is a vivid portrayal of life and death in the Strip both at the start of this century and in the middle of the last. (Review; get it here.)

Honourable mentions
Two of this year’s Hugo finalists particularly appealed to me. (Review.) The winner, Star Trek Lower Decks – Warp Your Own Way, by Ryan North and Chris Fenoglio, preserves the parent TV show’s humour and adds a cheeky breach of the usual format for graphic choose-your-own-adventure books. (Get it here.) And The Deep Dark, by Molly Scott Ostertag, is a queer coming-of-age story with a monster in the basement. (Get it here.)

The one to avoid
Charlotte impératrice, Tome 1: La Princesse et l’Archiduc, by Fabien Nury and Matthieu Bonhomme, takes a rather minor figure from nineteenth-century history and fails to make her very interesting, while also distorting the historical record. (Review; get it here)

The one you haven’t heard of
In Who Killed Nessie?, Paul Cornell and Rachael Wood, both of them creators whose other works I have enjoyed, come together to solve a murder at a convention for mythical creatures. Great fun. (Review; get it here)

Plays and Poetry

I read four works of poetry (counting an anthology which was more poetry than anything else). I strongly recommend Emily Wilson’s translation of The Iliad. (Review; get it here), Also a shout out for Oliver Langmead’s sf novel in verse form, Calypso.(Review; get it here.)

I read one book of scripts this year, The Dramatic Works of Denis Johnston, vol 3: Radio and Television Plays which includes two theatre plays omitted from the two previous volumes. Some of them are good, some have aged less well. (Review; get it here.)

Top book of 2025

I found this a terribly difficult choice. In the end I’m going for Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza, with its reflections on violence, history, experience and truth. Examining events in 1956, researched in 2002-03, published in 2009, it remains horribly relevant today. Strongly recommended. (Review; get it here.)

Previous Books of the Year:

2003 (2 months): The Separation, by Christopher Priest (review; get it here)
2004: (reread) The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (review; get it here)
– Best new read: Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, by Claire Tomalin (review; get it here)
2005: The Island at the Centre of the World, by Russell Shorto (review; get it here)
2006: Lost Lives: The stories of the men, women and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles, by David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton and David McVea (review; get it here)
2007: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Alison Bechdel (review; get it here)
2008: (reread) The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, by Anne Frank (review; get it here)
– Best new read: Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero, by William Makepeace Thackeray (review; get it here)
2009: (had seen it on stage previously) Hamlet, by William Shakespeare (review; get it here)
– Best new read: Persepolis 2: the Story of a Return, by Marjane Satrapi (first volume just pipped by Samuel Pepys in 2004) (review; get it here)
2010: The Bloody Sunday Report, by Lord Savile et al. (review of vol I; get it here)
2011: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon (started in 2009!) (review; get it here)
2012: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë (review; get it here)
2013: A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf (review; get it here)
2014: Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell (review; get it here)
2015: collectively, the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist, in particular the winner, Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel (review; get it here).
– Best book I actually blogged about in 2015: The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, by Claire Tomalin (review; get it here)
2016: Alice in Sunderland, by Bryan Talbot (review; get it here)
2017: Common People: The History of an English Family, by Alison Light (review; get it here)
2018: Factfulness, by Hans Rosling (review; get it here)
2019: Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo (review; get it here)
2020: From A Clear Blue Sky: Surviving the Mountbatten Bomb, by Timothy Knatchbull (review; get it here)
2021: Carrying the Fire, by Michael Collins (review; get it here)
2022: The Sun is Open, by Gail McConnell (review; get it here)
2023: Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman (review; get it here)
2024: The Cazalet Saga, by Elizabeth Jane Howard (reviews; get them here)

Wednesday and December 2025 Books

Posted on 31 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

My last weekly roundup of this year; the next one will be on Thursday 8 January.

Also my last monthly roundup of 2025. Analytical post to follow.

Last books finished
Five Little Pigs, by Agatha Christie
Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, by Laura Spinney

December reading

Non-fiction 3 (Year total 79)
Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo, by Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon
Mawdryn Undead, by Kara Dennison
Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, by Laura Spinney

Non-genre 5 (Year total 43)
Hallowe’en Party, by Agatha Christie
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, by Agatha Christie
Reeds in the Wind, by Grazia Deledda
Our Wonderful Selves, by Roland Pertwee
Five Little Pigs, by Agatha Christie

SF 9 (Year total 120)
If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller, by Italo Calvino
Adventures in Space, eds. Patrick Parrinder and Yao Haijun
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport, by Samit Basu (did not finish)
Elidor, by Alan Garner
A Wrinkle in the Skin, by John Christopher
The Enigma Score, by Sheri S. Tepper
Yet More Penguin Science Fiction, ed. Brian Aldiss
The Moon of Gomrath, by Alan Garner
The Leviathan, by Rosie Andrews (did not finish)

Doctor Who 3 (Year total 31)
The Infinity Race, by Simon Messingham
Doctor Who: The Adventures After, by Carole Ann Ford et al
Doctor Who: Mawdryn Undead, by Peter Grimwade

Comics 1 (Year total 36)
The Terror Beneath, by George Mann et al

5,000 pages (2025 total 77,700)
9/21 (2025 total 118/314) by non-male writers (Dennison, Spinney, Christie x 3, Deledda, Tepper, Andrews, Ford)
2/21 (2024 total 34/314) by non-white writers (Obama, Yu/Yang, Emezi, Falaise)
9 or 10/21 rereads (maybe Hallowe’en Party, definitely Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, Five Little Pigs, Elidor, A Wrinkle in the Skin, The Enigma Score, Yet More Penguin Science Fiction, The Moon of Gomrath, The Infinity Race, Doctor Who: Mawdryn Undead)

193 books currently tagged unread, up 8 from last month, down 68 from December 2024.

Reading now

This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong (And Why It Matters), by Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman
Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships, by Robin Dunbar
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe
Best American Comics 2011, ed. Alison Bechdel

Coming soon (perhaps)

Time Trials: The Wolves of Winter, by Richard Dinnick et al
Domino Effect, by David Bishop
Ghost Stories, ed. George Mann
Renaissance- en barokarchitectuur in België, by Rutger J. Thijs
The Forgotten and the Fantastical: Modern Fables and Ancient Tales: No. 2, ed. Taika Bellamy
Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep, by Philip Reeve
Lost In Time, by A.G. Riddle
Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy, by Christopher R. Hill
River Mumma, by Zalika Reid-Benta
Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath, by Sigrid Undset
Looking Glass Sound, by Catriona Ward
Bruxelles 43, by Patrick Weber and Baudouin Deville
Red Planet, by Robert A. Heinlein
The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Dead Take the A Train, by Richard Kadrey
Stone and Sky, by Ben Aaronovitch
Killing Thatcher: The IRA, the Manhunt and the Long War on the Crown, by Rory Carroll
The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett
The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
Drome, by Jesse Lonergan
Oscar Wilde: A Biography, by Richard Ellmann

Elidor, by Alan Garner

Posted on 30 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

For a while the road passed charred stumps of buildings, and field rank with nettle. Dust, or ash, kicked up under Roland’s feet, muffling his walk and coating his body so aridly that his skin rasped. Flies whined round him, and crawled in his hair, and tried to settle on his lips. The sky was dull, yet there was a brittleness in the light that hurt. It was no longer wonder that led him, but dislike of being alone.

A recently reacquired Alan Garner novel, this one an intensely imagined story of four siblings who are drawn into the mythic struggle of the parallel world of Elidor from their home in early 1960s Manchester. Garner is very good at painting emotional landscapes with few words, and his realisation of Manchester and the surrounding territories in our world and in Elidor are very vivid. Glad to return to this one. You can get Elidor here.

Surprisingly perhaps, a Bechdel pass even though one of the brothers, Roland, is the viewpoint character; his sister Helen and their mother (whose name is I think given only as “Mrs Watson”) have a couple of exchanges which are not about men.

The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport, by Samit Basu

Posted on 30 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Bador and Lina are practiced loiterers: no one would suspect them of any untoward thoughts as they gaze innocently at Tiger Palace, with its immaculate white- brick walls and ever- sparkling rotating dome, at the historical hologram displays of Tiger Central heroes lighting up one by one on Jomidar’s Square, at the government tower complexes on the square’s east side with their sculpted vertical gardens, and the ever- shifting array of Tiger drones doing combat maneuvers in the sky.

One of the remaining books from the 2024 Hugo packet. There’s a nice innovation in that the viewpoint character is a drone-bot, but otherwise I’m afraid I didn’t have the patience for yet another secondary world and dropped it after fifty pages. You can get The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport here.

This was my top unread book by a writer of colour. Next on that pile is The Proposal, by Bae Myung-hoon.

Reeds in the Wind, by Grazia Deledda

Posted on 29 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Donna Ester fece fare il pane apposta, un pane bianco e sottile come ostia, quale si fa solo per le feste, e di nascosto dalle sorelle comprò anche un cestino di biscotti. Dopo tutto era un ospite, che arrivava, e l’ospitalità è sacra. Donna Ruth a sua volta sognava ogni notte l’arrivo del nipote, e ogni giorno verso le tre, ora dell’arrivo della diligenza, spiava dal portone. Ma l’ora passava e tutto restava immoto intorno.

Ester made bread just for the occasion, white and thin as a holy wafer, the kind usually made only for festivities. She also secretly bought a basket of cookies. After all, a guest was coming and hospitality is sacred. Every night Ruth dreamed about their nephew’s arrival, and every day around three, the hour the coach came, she would spy from the doorway. But the hour went by and everything was quiet.

Grazia Deledda won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926, the second woman to get it after Selma Lagerlöf, and the second Italian after Giosuè Carducci (who I must admit I have not otherwise heard of). The citation was “for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general”. She had been nominated almost every year since 1914 by the former Swedish ambassador to Italy, Carl Bildt, whose great-great-great-nephew of the same name served as prime minister and then foreign minister of Sweden.

Reeds in the Wind / Canne al vento, is her best known book, and it’s noticeable that her Nobel nominations started as soon as it was published in 1912. I have to say it’s not very cheerful. It’s about a declining noble family in Sardinia, and the tension between the two surviving sisters, the son of the sister who fled to the mainland years before, and the old retainer who is the guardian of the dark family secret that is eventually revealed.

It reminded me of The Leopard, but the Deledda’s Pintor family are more decayed and less up themselves than di Lampedusa’s Salina family. There are some nice landscape moments, but otherwise I was not overwhelmed by it. You can get Reeds in the Wind here.

I know it’s a small sample, but two out of two European winners of early Nobel Prizes for Literature that I have sampled so far have gone in for rural drama. Next up in this project is Kristin Lavransdottir, by Sigrid Undset, which I fear is going to be more of the same.

Hallowe’en Party, by Agatha Christie

Posted on 27 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

“He had a nasty cold,” said Hercule Poirot, “and no doubt, in spite of the remedies that I have handy here, he would probably have given it to me. It is better that he should not come. Tout de meme,” he added, with a sigh, “it will mean that now I shall pass a dull evening.”

A late Agatha Christie novel, set in a dormitory village in the 1960s. The young people are awful, with long hair and drugs, and the moral fundament of society has been undermined by the abolition of the death penalty (this is mentioned several times). Meanwhile a ten-year-old girl is drowned in a tub at a Hallowe’en party, and Poirot is called in to solve the mystery. Bear in mind that Poirot was already an old man in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written fifty years earlier. But his moustaches endure.

The murderer’s identity is established by a massive clue which we are given at quite an early stage, and at first I felt that this made it a fair puzzle. but having said that, the hapless police had access to the same information, and could surely have put the pieces together a bit more quickly; and the connection of the crime to other recent murders and disappearances leads us to an improbably convoluted plot, with secret identities a plenty.

As well as casting aspersion on the moral decay of the 1960s, there’s quite a lyrical passage describing the Italian sunken garden on Ilnacullin island in Bantry Bay. It obviously inspired one of the strands of the overall plot.

A book that is interesting for reasons the author may not have considered. You can get Hallowe’en Party here.

Time Trials: The Terror Beneath, by George Mann, James Peaty et al

Posted on 26 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second frame of third issue of first story (“Beneath the Waves”):

Compilation of two Titan Twelfth Doctor stories, a four-parter and a one-shot. “Beneath the Waves” by George Mann was an unexpected hit for me, in that I normally bounce off Mann’s writing, but this is a competently done tale of creepy alien seaweed monsters in an English town, with Hattie the future rock star pulled back into the Doctor’s adventures from the previous volume. “The Boy With The Displaced Smile”, by James Peaty, has an alien incursion into a Western American town, another standard enough story, competently done.

You can get The Terror Beneath here.

Next in this sequence: Time Trials: The Wolves of Winter, by Richard Dinnick et al.

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, by Agatha Christie

Posted on 25 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

There was no beauty in her careless, haggard face, but it had distinction. Her voice was charming.

For the day that’s in it, Happy Christmas everyone! And let me take you back to 1938, where Hercule Poirot is called in by the local police to solve the spectacular murder of a patriarch whose children, both acknowledged and unacknowledged, are all conveniently clustered around the crime scene, as the Christmas season unfolds around them.

Agatha Christie’s characterisation isn’t always her strong point, but she has some memorable bit players here – the insecure oldest son who is now an MP, the black sheep who has returned to the fold, the daughters-in-law, the Spanish granddaughter escaping the Civil War.

The actual solution to the crime bends the usual rules a bit, in a way that Christie also used elsewhere, but vital clues are given to the attentive reader from quite an early stage, so it’s fair enough. If you need something to take you out of your own holiday environment, you can get Hercule Poirot’s Christmas here.

Adventures in Space, eds. Patrick Parrinder and Yao Haijun

Posted on 24 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third story (“On the Ship”, by Leah Cypess):

It was as if they knew childhood was all we would ever have.

A collection of thirteen stories by authors writing in Chinese and English, published simultaneously in China and the USA in 2023. I knew three of them already because they had got onto the 2024 Hugo ballot, which I administered, but it was interesting to see them in context.

It’s actually quite an old-fashioned collection – most of the stories are about people on spaceships or on alien planets getting into trouble, which of course a lot of SF is still about, but few of these stories really touch on anything else. “Answerless Journey”, by Han Song, one of the Hugo finalists, takes this in an interesting direction by de-humanising its space travellers (if indeed they are human, which is – deliberately? – not clear). The thirteen stories range in length from 65 pages (“Shine”, by Chen Zijun) to 13 (“The Darkness of Mirror Planet”, by Zhao Haihong), most on the shorter side. Still, it’s an interesting step in intercultural communication.

You can get Adventures in Space here.

Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo, by Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon

Posted on 23 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Surveying the sight, Ambassador William Walker, a seasoned American diplomat who had witnessed his share of atrocities while serving in Central America and who now headed the KVM, described what he had seen: [gory details redacted]

A good full-throated defence of the NATO conflict with Serbia over Kosovo in 1999, written shortly after the event, and coinciding largely with my own views: the conflict was a deliberate, unforced choice by Slobodan Milošević, and western policy rather floundered into NATO participation, but once a ground invasion was seriously being discussed, the Serbian leadership folded and the conflict ended with NATO and the UN, and of course the Kosovars, taking control.

It was written so soon after the conflict that a lot of important later developments are missing because they had not happened yet: the 2001 Macedonia conflict, the 2004 Kosovo riots, the 2006-08 independence process. This last, the future status of Kosovo, is the one point that the authors are a bit mealy-mouthed about, as the Western policy community had not quite got to the stage of comprehending that it was only going in one direction. (I am glad to have been part of the debate pushing that comprehension.)

But otherwise, the authors deal efficiently with a number of counter scenarios as to how the conflict could have been averted; the fact is that the USA and the rest of the western alliance had limited scope for affecting events, and while that limited scope was not always exploited to the full, in particular in the early phase of the NATO bombing campaign, this was not the big problem; the big problem was Milošević and his policies.

You can get Winning Ugly here.

This was my top unread book about Kosovo acquired in 2022. Next on that pile is Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy, by Christopher R. Hill.

If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller, by Italo Calvino

Posted on 22 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of Chapter Three (which is not the third chapter):

Il romanzo che stai leggendo vorrebbe presentarti un mondo corposo, denso, minuzioso. Immerso nella lettura, muovi macchinalmente il tagliacarte nello spessore del volume: a leggere non sei ancora alla fine del primo capitolo, ma a tagliare sei già molto avanti. Ed ecco che, nel momento in cui la tua attenzione è più sospesa, volti il foglio a metà d’una frase decisiva e ti trovi davanti due pagine bianche.

The novel you are reading wants to present to you a corporeal world, thick, detailed. Immersed in your reading, you move the paper knife mechanically in the depth of the volume: your reading has not yet reached the end of the first chapter, but your cutting has already gone far ahead. And there, at the moment when your attention is gripped by the suspense, in the middle of a decisive sentence, you turn the page and find yourself facing two blank sheets.

I had never attempted this previously, but it was one of the books I liberated from Ireland during the summer. It’s a surreal narrative where the sequentially numbered chapters, told in the second person, tell the story of investigating a fictional country and language which have disappeared, interspersed with the opening passages of a dozen fictional novels that tie into the narrative. I think it required more concentration and attention than I was able to give it during my commute and other travels, but at least it was fairly short. You can get If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller, by Italo Calvino here.

This was my top unread sf book; next on that pile is Red Planet, by Robert A. Heinlein.

Spa 1906, by Patrick Weber and Olivier Wozniak

Posted on 20 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second frame of third page:

This is the middle volume of a planned trilogy about early twentieth century Belgian detective Hendrikus Ansor, who Solves Crime. In this case he is brought in by Princess Clémentine (I wasn’t sure if she was a real historical person, but she was) to investigate mysterious deaths – apparently suicides – in the eastern resort town of Spa, which has given its name to an entire way of life.

Ansor obviously owes something to a later fictional Belgian detective, not least his magnificent moustache, but he’s a well-rounded if not always likeable character here, and the classical buildings of Spa and the royals and other celebrities are lovingly depicted by artist Olivier Wozniak. The mood of the book depicts a Belgium morally corroded by the reign of Leopold II rather well. I found the plot a bit convoluted, but I suppose that’s normal enough for a detective novel. It’s a nice one to have on the shelf. You can get Spa 1906 here.

Vanishing Point, by Michaela Roessner

Posted on 19 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

The kitchen crew filled plates with scrambled eggs, scones, and fresh fruit for Renzie and Tuck. They seated themselves in the stark unadorned room that served as the dining commons.

Michaela Roessner won the John W. Campbell Award (as it then was) in 1990 on the strength of her first novel, Walkabout Woman; Vanishing Point was her second novel of four. She was actually first well known as an artist who produced quite a lot of SF illustrations in the first half of the 1980s. She doesn’t seem to have published any new fiction since 2011. I picked this up at Eastercon in 2022 in order to try a new woman writer.

I’m conscious that my last few reviews on here have been somewhat negative, so I’m, glad to say that I thought Vanishing Point was rather good. It is set in California, thirty years after the mysterious vanishing of ninety per cent of the human race. A small community of researchers based in the Winchester House (or something very like it) is trying to work out what actually happened. A woman scientist from farther east joins them after a dangerous trek across country. They are beset by fanatics who think that the Vanishing was the Christian fundamentalist Rapture. Everyone is suffering post-traumatic disorientation and survivors’ guilt. It’s all very nicely and credibly put together. I see a couple of reviewers complaining that the science doesn’t make sense, but really, it’s all handwavium anyway, isn’t it?

You can get Vanishing Point here.

This was my top unread book acquired in 2022. Next on that pile is Elfland, by Freda Warrington.

Charlotte impératrice, Tome 1: La Princesse et l’Archiduc, by Fabien Nury and Matthieu Bonhomme

Posted on 18 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second frame of third page:

King Leopold: You have to do it, all the same.

This is another bande dessinée that I acquired at the Brussels comics festival, the first of five volumes about the life of Princess Charlotte of Belgium, later Empress of Mexico. This volume takes us from the death of Charlotte’s mother in 1850 to her installation in Mexico in 1864, from the age of 10 to the age of 24, including the first years of her marriage at the age of 17 to the Archduke Maximilian, younger brother of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I.

Monarchy has many flaws, and not least is its impact on the actual royals, who are shown here as trapped in a gilded cage of privilege. Maximilian is a womaniser who is sterile because of venereal disease. Napoleon III is a sleazebag. Charlotte is rather obviously a Princess Di figure in this story, though history suggests that she was more assertive. The characterisation is a little stiff but you always know who is who.

Speaking of history, the story here has some serious omissions. It is implied that Maximilian’s term as viceroy of northern Italy was ended by the Battle of Solferino in 1859, which kicked the Hapsburgs out of Lombardy and Venice, but in fact he had been sacked by his brother two months earlier for being too liberal. Also historically Maximilian spent an awful lot of time pursuing his personal interests in Brazil, leaving Charlotte stranded on Madeira, and that simply isn’t mentioned here.

I don’t think I’ll bother with the rest; Charlotte is a tragic historical figure, but in the end her story is marginal to the real sweep of history, and while it’s OK not to let the facts get in the way of a good story, it’s important not to get too far away from them if you’re telling a historical tale. If you want, you can get Charlotte impératrice, Tome 1 here.

Ness: A Story from the Ulster Cycle, by Patrick Brown

Posted on 17 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second frame of third page:

This is an adaptation of the story of Ness from the Ulster Cycle, ending with the birth of the future king Conchobar Mac Nessa. I picked this up at Eastercon, supporting an Irish creator of whom I hadn’t previously been aware, and of course I am always interested in treatments of Irish mythology.

The concept here is interesting enough – always up for a spunky girl warrior, who takes revenge on the bad guys when her royal father is unable to mete out as justice. But I’m afraid I wasn’t a fan of the art – red monochrome sketching, where I found some of the characters difficult to distinguish and a few more colours would have helped me to follow the plot a bit more. Apparently there is also a sequel covering the Cattle Raid of Cooley, the much more famous part of the Ulster Cycle. If I see it in passing I’ll probably get it.

You may be able to get Ness here.

Camp Damascus, by Chuck Tingle

Posted on 16 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

“Yes, I know . . . well, it’s not an exact science . . .” the familiar voice explains, anxious but assured. “There’s variation in every breed . . . yes, I know. Understood.”

I am familiar with Chuck Tingle’s short fiction, but this novel is a step in a different direction; Rose, our protagonist, lives in a Christian cult somewhere around Montana, but is neurodiverse and gay, and also infested with satanic flies. Camp Damascus, run by her church, is a gay conversion camp which is secretly being run for the benefit of demons.

The book’s heart is in the right place, but the execution isn’t quite there. Gay conversion camps are of course evil, but in the real world they are not actually demonic, and I would rather have the religious zealots exposed for their vicious lack of compassion and failure of empathy than just make fun of them for worshipping the wrong supernatural being. And Rose’s emotional journey zigzags a bit, with the One Who Got Away emerging rather late in the plot. Work in progress, I feel. You can get Camp Damascus here.

Scotland, Épisode 1, by Rodolphe, Leo and Marchal

Posted on 15 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second and third frames of third page.

Kathy: Are you leaving?
Driver: I’m taking a client to Kilwood

I have hugely enjoyed the Aldebaran cycle of bandes dessinées by Leo (Luiz Eduardo de Oliveira) and thought this might be worth a try. The story is by Leo and Rodolphe (Rodolphe Daniel Jacquette) and art by Bertrand Marchal. I had not realised that it’s actually the start of a fourth series of albums about the adventures of Kathy Austin, a British secret agent at the end of the 1940s; previously she has visited Kenya, Namibia and the Amazon.

Here she goes to Scotland to visit the house that she has inherited from her aunt, only to discover that it has been badly damaged by a fire and that her aunt’s suspicious death has not been investigated properly; incidentally there are Soviet agents and alien artifacts hanging around too.

It would be very easy for a (mostly) French creative team to slip into stereotypes here, and I’m glad to say that they have avoided it at least with regard to the humans of Scotland, with a reasonably sensitive depiction of rural and small-town folks dealing with Kathy’s return from years away. The landscapes are beautifully done, with Kathy brooding in front of a loch on the cover. The first four of the five in this series are out, and I’ll work through them. You can get Scotland, Épisode 1 here.

Metropolis, by Thea von Harbou and film by Fritz Lang

Posted on 13 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter of novel:

Menschen, gierig nach dem Gewinn von Sekunden, stürzten zu ihm herein und, Stockwerke höher, tiefer wieder hinaus. Keiner achtete seiner. Der eine, die andere erkannte ihn wohl. Aber noch deutete niemand die Tropfen an seinen Schläfen anders als gleiche Gier nach dem Gewinn von Sekunden. Gut, er wollte warten, bis man es besser wußte, bis man ihn packte und aus der Zelle stieß: Was nimmst du uns den Platz weg, Lump, der du Zeit hast? Krieche die Treppen hinunter oder die Feuerleitern …

Persons, greedy to gain a few seconds, stumbled in with him, and stories higher, or lower, out again. Nobody paid the least attention to him. One or two certainly recognised him. But, as yet, nobody interpreted the drops on his temples as being anything but a similar greed for the gain of a few seconds. All right – he would wait until they knew better, until they took him and threw him out of the cell: What are you taking up space for, you fool, if you’ve got so much time? Crawl down the stairs, or the fire escape…

Every year since 2020 I’ve done a round-up blog post detailing what science fiction has been set in the year to come. There is surprisingly little for 2026. Literally the only sf novel that I have found which is entirely set in that year is Metropolis, published in 1925 by Thea von Harbou. Even there, I didn’t find anything in the text of the book that explicitly references the year; but people have been writing that it is set in 2026 since soon after publication, so I am guessing that the original blurb may have said so.

The film and book have the same plot, which is not surprising as von Harbou wrote them both. A future heavily industrialised city depends on the labour of the underclass. Freder, the son and heir of the city’s founder Joh, falls in love with Maria, a women from the depths; meanwhile Rotwang, the city’s chief inventor, creates a robot version of Maria which incites the workers to rebellion. After near-disaster, the robot is destroyed and Freder reconciles his father with the workers.

I may have been unlucky with the translation, but I found the novel rather clunky and not at all subtle; of course it’s firmly rooted in the political ferment of the Weimar Republic, and it’s about von Harbou’s hope that social upheaval could be contained by a grand bargain between workers and rulers, provided that they avoid the snares of populism. This was not of course what actually happened in Germany, and the workers don’t actually seem to get much out of the grand bargain; the rulers are still the rulers at the end of the book. Earnest but not super well executed. You can get it here.

The film has the same plot, but the plot is not the point: under Fritz Lang’s direction, it’s a cinematic masterpiece, even if the version we have is stitched together from the surviving theatrical release and off-cuts found in Argentina. The activation of the robot Maria is the iconic scene, but almost all of it looks brilliant – the vast machinery, the city-scape, the crowd scenes of the workers, the fleeing children, the erotic frenzy of the posh chaps at the night club, the climactic battle on the roof top. The sophistication of the special effects sets a standard that was rarely equalled for decades after. And Birgitte Helm is unforgettable as the two Marias.

I watched it on my iPad in three chunks – during my recent trip to Montenegro – but I would happily pay to see it on a big screen, and I am inclined to seek out some more of von Harbou and Lang’s collaborations.

The Ray Bradbury Chronicles, Volume 3, by Ray Bradbury et al

Posted on 12 December 2025 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second frame of third story (“Gotcha”, adapted by Ray Zone with art by Chuck Roblin):

This is one of a series of seven albums published in 1992-93 by Byron Preiss, where various artists were asked to do illustrated versions of various Bradbury stories. Here there are six adaptations of five stories: “The Aqueduct”, “The Veldt”, “Gotcha”, “Homecoming” and two different versions of “There Will Come Soft Rains”, each with a short introduction by Bradbury himself.

The standout adaptations for me are Timothy Truman‘s “The Veldt” and Wally Wood‘s “There Will Come Soft Rains” (originally published in Weird Fantasy in 1953; the others are all original commissions for this book); but actually Bradbury was such a good story-teller that it’s hard for a competent artist to go wrong with one of his stories, and Bruce Jensen‘s “The Aqueduct”, Chuck Roblin’s “Gotcha” and Steve Leialoha‘s “The Homecoming” are all good.

On the other hand, the other adaptation of “There Will Come Soft Rains is by Lebbeus Woods, best known as an architect, and is remarkable for having illustrations which bear almost no visible relevance to the story. An odd choice, but Byron Preiss, the overall editor, is clearly marching to his own drum. Truman, Woods and Wood are named on the front cover.

You can get The Ray Bradbury Chronicles, volume 3 here.