I recently picked up this gem:
For those unaware, Peter Davison is a British actor, probably best-known for his role of Elmer in The Tomorrow People:
He’s also got a famous daughter who played a character in a show called Doctor Who:
Her character was the genetic child of the main character, known as The Doctor, and ironically enough, in the real world she would end up marrying the actor that played The Doctor. Who, at the time she was in the show, wasn’t this dude:
Because that is – of course – once again Peter Davison in his beloved role as the ‘dish of the day’ in the original 1980’s Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy BBC series.
So, amidst all this co-starring on 1980’s sci-fi shows, Davison managed to put out the abovementioned book, which I read in two sittings.
For starters, the book is just a collection of mostly public domain (ie. from the 1930s and 1940s) science-fiction yarns, none of which were written by Davison himself. For seconder’s, the vast majority of the stories are the usual ‘twist ending’ sci-fi short stories that tend to fill collections such as these. You know what I mean, with lots of hinting and mystery and then a big payoff at the end. I’ll write one such story, in a single paragraph:
On the planet Juiblex, Kron-pirr waited in the grand hall and traced the lines of the artifact using his fifth tentacle. On this, his coming-of-age day, he would finally be allowed into the ranks of the Elevated, and the secrets of his ancestors would be revealed to him. As he considered that he would never again speak with his friend Glork’fth, his attention drifted once again to the artifact. It was said it had been in existence since before his race was born, but in all that time no one had deciphered the strange markings ‘Apple’ and ‘iPhone’ marked on the metallic side.
Not bad eh? The above is positively Arthur C Clarkson in it’s originality, and truth-be-told several of the stories in this selection are interchangeable with the above. Swap an iPhone with a Disney movie, or Kron-pirr with Jal-Gynyr the Myrb.
Speaking of ACC, that man was obsessed with God! One of his stories is about a supernova that caused the Star of David, and another is positively messianic in the way an alien race treats human artifacts.
It’s all wishy washy stuff. Not particularly good, not particularly bad, and absolutely nothing to do with Peter Davison!
Verdict: save your pennies 😉
