The UK Babe Channels Forum

Vet in a Spin
James Herriott 1977 (Pan 2006)



"James Herriott, strapped into the cockpit of a Tiger Moth trainer, has swapped his wellingtons and breeches for sheepskin boots and a baggy flying suit. But he hasn't found a new profession; finally the RAF will come round to his point of view.
From the author whose books inspired the BBC series "All Creatures Great and Small", this sixth volume of unforgettable memoirs sees James dreaming of the day when he can rejoin his wife Helen, little son Jimmy, vetinary partner Siegfried, the eternal student Tristan and all the old Darrowby friends, both two-legged and four." (publishers blurb)

I really enjoy these reminiscences even though I suspect they are 95% fiction. Each chapter starts with a half hearted account of RAF training which then feebly segues into the cosy, sentimental world of disembowelled cats and people who kill themselves when their dog dies. Herriott is a skilfull heartstring tugger and there's a bit more animal and owner suffering and a bit less high jinks and slapstick than the previous instalments.
He is prevented from flying by an unnamed medical condition which intrigued me and I was wondering if it may have been a mental thing. I've just looked him up on wikipedia and it turns out that he had an anal fistula which is nowhere near as pleasant as it sounds.

Austerlitz 1805
David G. Chandler 1990 (Osprey 1990)



"Osprey's examination of one of the most crucial battles of the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815). Austerlitz was the battle that established Napoleon's reputation: a classic example of the general's masterly use of deception to lure his enemy into a carefully devised trap. Beginning with the bold and crushing advance of the French Army from the Rhine to the Danube, David Chandler describes the envelopment of Mack's army at Ulm, the manoeuvres to Austerlitz and the counter-attack that resulted in the decisive defeat for the Austro-Russian Army. Excellent overview illustrations of the battlefield at Austerlitz supplement the text by clearly showing the movements of the opposing armies." (publishers blurb)

Chandler is a distinguished military historian who obviously knows his stuff and writes well. Even so the account of the battle is hard to follow because it was so big with hundreds of regiments involved. The maps only show the deployments at corps level so the divisional and smaller unit maneuvers are given in the text only and quite hard to see in your mind's eye.
Osprey published another Austerlitz book in this series which it says gives a fuller account using allied and not just French sources.

Star Man's Son
Andre Norton 1952 (Gollancz 1968)



"The author of Scarface and Sword In Sheath with another and this time slightly deeper adventure tale- placed in the future and dealing with the plains people, mountain people and Beast Things which inhabited the earth as survivors of the great atomic Blow Up caused by the sins of the "Old Ones". As a youth in the mountain Puma Clan, it is Fors' ambition to be chosen for the group of clan leaders whose job it is also to study the past by visiting the radiation-free bombed cities for information about the Old Ones. Unfortunately the prejudice ridden mountain peoples refuse to accept a boy whose mother was a plains woman. A series of exciting, imaginatively pictured adventures with old ruins, radiation clouds, with the horrible Beast Things who have deviated from human physical characteristics through two hundred years of radiation-permeated heredity, follows Fors' decision to leave his people and precedes a war against the Beast People in which the plains and the mountains find a new unity and Fors gains the recognition of his clan. Good grade science fiction carried by a thought provoking theme. Nicolas Mordvinoff's drawings have a certain power and heaviness that add to the sense of Fors' quest, the urgency of the battle." (from Kirkus Reviews)

This is Norton's first SF novel. The title is misleading in that there's no space travel, the setting being Earth two hundred years after a nuclear holocaust amongst various clans and rat like human mutants. I enjoyed the story and the author doesn't shy away from the brutality and the hardships.
This Gollancz edition was in the village library when I was a youngster and I forked out a fair bit of money for it because of the memorably evocative cover by Alan Brese.

Geordie on the Beer
Scott Dobson & Dick Irwin 1971 (Frank Graham 1971)



Number eight in the Geordie Beuk series. Songs, jokes and fake mythology that do for Scottish & Newcastle Beers what "Geordie at the Club" did for Federation Ales.

Wheels, Life and Other Mathematical Amusements
Martin Gardner 1983 (Freeman 1983)



"If you are already a fan of Martin Gardner's books on accessible mathematics and mathematical recreations, then you will not be disappointed by this one. It is another selection of his monthly columns "Mathematical Games" for the Scientific American magazine. Here are just a few of the themes in his 22 short chapters: curves and envelopes associated with the motions of wheels; Diophantine equations; paper folding combinatorics; discussions of games like Halma, Nim and Hackenbush; chess puzzles and card tricks; and finally three chapters on John Conway's Game of Life. Most of the topics have some related problems for the reader to think about and answers are provided at the end of each chapter, along with updates of progress since the article was first published and suggestions for further reading. Gardner writes lucidly for an educated general readership and explains the mathematics carefully and thoughtfully, keeping technicalities and equations to an essential minimum." (from Amazon)

This is number ten in a fifteen book series, the chapters of which are updated monthly magazine columns from the early seventies. I find most of the subject matter interesting but I have to read it slowly in order to be able to absorb the concepts.

Terry Carr's Best Science Fiction of the Year
Terry Carr (ed) 1985 (Tor 1985)



"Terry Carr's Best Science Fiction of the Year is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Terry Carr, the fourteenth volume in a series of sixteen. It was first published in paperback by Tor Books in July 1985, and in hardcover and trade paperback by Gollancz in October of the same year, under the alternate title Best SF of the Year #14.
The book collects thirteen novellas, novelettes and short stories by various science fiction authors, with an introduction, notes and concluding essays by Carr and Charles N. Brown. The stories were previously published in 1984 in the magazines Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Omni, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Interzone, and the anthologies Habitats, Universe 14, and Light Years and Dark: Science Fiction and Fantasy Of and For Our Time." (from wikipedia)

Like most Year's Best anthologies this is a mixed bag but mostly good set of stories. The best of the bunch is "Press Enter" by John Varley which won the Nebula and Hugo for best Novella. Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild" was also a double winner in the Novelette category and Gardner Dozois won the nebula for his slightly silly short story "Morning Child".
Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Lucky Strike" made me angry with it's absurd thesis that if Hiroshima had not been atom bombed the Japanese would have surrendered anyway and this would have led to a nuclear free world. What I found particularly loathsome was the implication that the US Army Air Force bomber crews were vicious, genocidal brutes except for the rogue bomb aimer and Robinson avatar who deliberately misses the target.

The Collieries of Durham - Volume 1
David Temple 1994 (TUPS 1994)



"The Collieries of Durham Volume 1 is a historical sketch of eight of the 129 Durham collieries that were natiolised on Vesting Day 1947. Its pages are illustrated with 123 photographs of collieries and underground scenes, many of which have never been previously published. The text describes how the mines were sunk and later developed, how the miners fought for their rights and the disasters they endured.
The author draws heavily from his 20 years experience as a miner at Murton colliery and has produced a book that will bring back memories to ex miners and their families, as well as being of interest to readers from a non mining background" (publishers blurb)

An interesting read despite all the technical language and mining jargon with a great collection of photographs. The pits featured were in the minority that survived into the 1970s with most of the rest closed in the 1960s by the evil Thatcher junta the Wilson Labour government. The book was written by an NUM stalwart so there's a lot of stuff about how in the 1984 strike the miners were fighting pit closues and not as it was in reality, dancing under Scargill's puppet strings as the revolutionary marxist union leadership tried to bring down the government.

Aethelred the Unready
Richard Abels 2018 (Penguin 2021)



"Æthelred's reign of nearly thirty-eight years was the longest of any Anglo-Saxon ruler. If he had died in AD 1000, history would have remembered him more kindly
Few monarchs of the Middle Ages have had a worse popular reputation than Æthelred II, 'the Unready', remembered as the king who lost England to Viking invaders. But, as Richard Abels shows, the failure to defend his realm was not entirely his alone. Æthelred was in many ways an innovative ruler but one whose challenges - a divided court, a fragile nascent kingdom, a voracious, hydra-headed enemy - were ultimately too great to overcome." (publishers blurb)

This is the second in the Penguin Monarchs series which excludes several kings between Athelstan and Aethelred, presumably because there wasn't enough material about them to fill even a hundred page book.
I learnt a couple of things straught off. It's pronounced Athelred not Ethelred and Unready is a distortion of Unraed which is a pun on his name applied to him long after his reign and which means uncounselled.
Abels tries to show that Aethelred wasn't as a bad a king as he is usually painted but he can't escape from the fact that the Danes came raping and pillaging every year and Aethelred paid them off with loot instead of smashing them back into the North Sea. After Aethelred's death his son Edmund took the reigns (geddit) for a few months before some Danish Cnut took over and He's the next in the series.

Secret Water
Arthur Ransome 1939 (Puffin 1979)



"This book is set in and around Hamford Water in Essex, close to the resort town of Walton-on-the-Naze. It brings the Swallows and the Amazons together and introduces a new group of characters, the Eels and the Mastodon.
The Swallows intend to sail in the "Goblin" to Hamford Water and camp with their father, but he is called away on naval business. Instead he maroons them with a small dinghy on an island. Before he leaves, Father gives them an outline map of the area they decide to call Secret Water and suggests they survey and chart the area before he returns to pick them up. For a surprise, he has arranged for the Amazons to come down from the Lake District and join them with another dinghy.
They see some mysterious footprints which turn out to belong to the Mastodon, a local boy. He mistakes them for the Eels, another family who camp in the area regularly. Later the Eels arrive and are initially hostile before they settle down for a friendly war.
It seems that due to the distractions of war and being cut off by the tides, the chart will not be completed, but at the very last minute, it is."
(from en-academic.com)

This is the only one of the series set in Essex. The new gang of children, the eels, are never seen again and nor does the Swallows' youngest sibling Bridget make another appearence. John, who is focused on a mapping project assigned by his father, and Susan who is thirteen going on forty three seem to be keen to lay aside children's games and you can detect them growing apart from the Blackett sisters.
Eight down and four to go.

Vietnam War
Future Publishing 2020



W.H.Smith is full of these bookazines. Fewer than 150 pages, mostly of pictures, which sell for a tenner. At that price I've never been tempted but someone dumped a few on the supermarket charity stall so I picked them up for a pound each. This one is ok - I don't know much about the Vietnam war so I found it moderately interesting. The other two on the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of the Atlantic might be more to my taste.