Dark Angel, Season 1
(Fox, 2000-2001)
Near-future SF set in a dystopian Seattle. Dark Angel rests very much upon Jessica Alba (who carries its action intrigue and embodies the broader assumption of female empowerment), yet also develops its minor characters and encompasses near-standalone episodes within the season-spanning arc.
Lords of Uncreation
by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit, 2023); audiobook read by Sophie Aldred (Tor, 2023)
A long book that for its first half promises little progression. Tchaikovsky does, however, repay the faith, escalating the military-political conflict (social commentary turned catharsis) and then plunging his characters deep into the void—and having them all contribute to the resolution.
Dangerous Remedy
dir. Ken Cameron (ABC, 2012)
A disquieting if murky ‘based on’ historical drama centred around Australian abortion laws and police corruption in the late 1960s. Medical campaigner Dr Bertram Wainer (Jeremy Sims) acts almost as an antihero, evincing bullying manipulation in single-minded pursuit of a just cause.
Edges
by Ashley Herring Blake
Fools in Love, ed. Ashley Herring Blake & Rebecca Podos (Running Press Teens, 2021)
A YA short story focussing less on queerness as an identity issue, more on the precariousness of teen romance, and how relationships can be brought undone (self-sabotaged) by faulty preconceptions and negative self-image. As ever, Blake affords her protagonist a cogent backstory.
Legenda Maris
by Tanith Lee (Immanion, 2015)
A collection of fantasy short stories linked by ocean settings, merfolk, otherwordliness and loss, remoteness, death, and the murky, mist-laden borders between realities. Lee writes dreamily and somehow without burdening the reader. Unfortunately the two new stories (five pages total) are non-events.
Sunday’s Fun Day, Charlie Brown
by Charles M. Schulz (Titan Comics, 2021)
[Reproducing the same title published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968]
![Book cover: “Sunday’s Fun Day, Charlie Brown” by Charles M. Schulz (Titan Comics, 2021) [Reproducing the same title published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968]](https://www.derelictspacesheep.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Schulz_Sundays-Fun-Day-Charlie-Brown.jpg)
A small-scale paperback volume collecting Sunday strips (approximately 59% of those published) from 1962-1965. The winnowing results in a strong mix, but Titan Comics have opted for black-and-white facsimiles instead of the colour reproductions that would make this anything but an also-ran.
Sugar Skull
by Charles Burns (Jonathan Cape, 2014)
To his credit, Burns ties all the loose threads together and brings the trilogy to a coherent close. On the downside, everything weird, dark and seemingly portentous in the previous volumes is revealed to have mundane origins, rather cheapening the overall experience.
Father Brown, Series 1
by G.K. Chesterton; dramatised by John Scotney (BBC Radio 4, 1984-1985)
Straightforward radio adaptations of seven Father Brown short stories. Andrew Sachs is soft-spoken and preoccupied in the lead role—which works as characterisation, but then ill-considered fluctuations in the recording volume see him drowned out by louder voices, crosstalk and sound effects.
The Moving Finger
by Agatha Christie (Dodd, Mead and Company, 1942)
audiobook read by Joan Hickson (Lamplight, 2015)
Joan Hickson (TV’s Miss Marple) would seem the perfect audiobook narrator… except that Miss Marple is absent for the first three-quarters and barely present for the remainder, the viewpoint character being a young man. Instead we’re given banal set-up plus egregious instalove.
Opal
by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic, 2018)
audiobook read by Will Patton (Scholastic Audio, 2019)
A wistful, dreamy novelette that serves more as a link between The Raven Cycle and the Dreamer trilogy than as any sort of standalone (non-fans beware). Opal’s POV drips with otherness. Patton’s by-now-familiar drawl lends a seductive quality to the audiobook reading.