Relax, ease your gussets and indulge in a banquet-sized picnic for your brain-gland.Rocket-ships invaded by aliensSecret government satellites plummetingInsane Cold War time-travelVictorian flying-saucersElderly ladies and moon landingsAwfully embarrassing royal "first contact"Edwardian evolution gone splendidly alienLove, icebergs, ocean liners and ghostsCrash-test dogs speaking Latin and KlingonA viral inconvenience escaping from a labExceedingly logical robotic detectives...and even a few adventurous medieval monks.This book is not entirely serious, and it's not entirely not serious. There's only one cat (briefly) mentioned in the whole book, velociducks do not really hunt in packs around English village ponds, and the Moon landing actually cost England a lot more than two hundred and fifty quid. Think Ealing comedy written by chaps in white laboratory coats, some of whom were on psychotropic substances, some of whom were quite sober, and you won't go far wrong. It may be British science fiction, but the science is entirely implausible - and that's really what makes it such fun.
About the Author: Born during tiffin in the sea-side town of Cleethorpes, England, at half-past nineteen-sixty. Whole family immediately moved to Hong Kong where Father worked for the Ministry of Defence, spying on Cold-War Red China by listening in to their radio transmissions. Hutson Minor spoke only Cantonese and some pidgin English and was a complete brat. At the end of the sixties was to be found on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Still a brat. There finally learned to read and write under the strict disciplinarian regime of the Nicolson Institute and one Miss Crichton. Then spent a year living in Banham Zoo in Norfolk, swapping childhood imaginary friends for howler monkeys, penguins. Followed, for want of something better to do and for want of a brain, in Daddy's footsteps and found himself working for the British Civil Service in areas much too foul to be named. Was eventually asked to leave by the Home Secretary. A few years of corporate life earned some more kind invitations to leave. Ran a few businesses, several limited companies, then went down the plug-hole with the global economy and found himself in court, bankrupt with home, car and valuables auctioned off by H.M. Official Receivers. Now lives by candlelight in a hedgerow in rural Lincolnshire as a peacenik vegan hippie drop-out, darning old socks and living on fresh air and a sense of the ridiculous. Dog person not a cat person. Favourite colours include faded tangerine and cobalt blue. Fatally allergic to Penicillin and very nearly so to Jerusalem Artichokes. Loves coffee and loves curry. Has tried his hardest all of his life to ride bicycles but simply looks like a deranged, overweight orang-utan on wheels. Favourite film Blade Runner. Uses the word "splendid" far too much.