Alastair Dougall

Advantages: Witty and absurd stories
Disadvantages: None

...The adventures of Dougal is allegedly for children, but don’t believe it, as only adults will fully appreciate the humour and wit of this book. This was originally brought out as three books in the 70’s (I still have the originals) and they gather together what I think optimises the Magic Roundabout and that is Eric Thompson’s narrative. The stories in the book are not lifted from the scripts of the Magic Roundabout programs, but have been specially written for these books, but they still have the strange and offbeat slant that the programs had. My favourite of the "three books" is about when Dougal and the others decide that they will be going on a holiday round the world on a magic carpet “driven” by an Arab with a broad Lancashire accent. Not your normal story, but it was never your normal TV series.... Read review

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Advantages: fills in a lot of gaps
Disadvantages: some weaker stories

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Advantages: Spectacularly imaginative space opera
Disadvantages: Slow going at first

...“Space,” as Douglas Adams once wrote, “is big.” And faced with the mind-bogglingly vastness of it, most science-fiction writers will invent a method of faster-than-light travel; thus did hyperspace, ultraspace and the warp drive come into being – not to mention various methods of wormhole creation and manipulation. How else are the writers’ heroes and villains going to travel the vast distances between stars? However, there are a very few authors out there that take Einstein more literally. Alastair Reynolds is one of the few – not surprising really, considering that the Netherlands-based Welshman has also published several scientific papers, has piled higher and deeper in Astronomy, and currently works for the European Space Agency… His debut novel, “Revelation Space”... Read review

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