Star-Raker - A Book Review

Happy New Year, one and all, and welcome back to TIT! I hope you all had a good festive season.

I managed to catch up with some reading and films over Christmas and the New Year, so there'll be a couple of posts coming up about those but for today, I'll be posting a review for Star-Raker by Donald Gordon.

3'6, a bargain???

Bring on the hyperbole!!! :-)

Some of you may recall Gordon's novel, Flight of the Bat which I reviewed last year here. I liked that novel so was looking forward to reading a previous book. It's not a substantial read, I read it over the course of an afternoon, but it was, overall, rather enjoyable in a lightweight way.

Detailing the prototype flights of a revolutionary British supersonic airliner, it promises both drama and technical accuracy when pilots testing the aircraft start to develop cancer, threatening not only the future of the programme but also the company building the plane.

It is very much a piece of its time (1962) and it takes no imagination whatsoever to see how this could have been filmed in that very clipped, emotionally straight-jacketed British cinema style of the time. It makes the characters feel, if not lifeless, then at least somewhere on the spectrum. Even death brings very little emotional response apart from sniffles into a hanky and a turn of the head.

The story itself moves at a rollicking pace and the sub-plot about politics and the Ministry add a depth that is certainly required. It does tie in nicely and whilst the science of the danger posed by the new aircraft (no spoilers though) is suspect, it's a MacGuffin that serves its purpose well even if, in the final pages, it is used to physically disable a main character is a stupid and pointless manner. (Don't worry, that event is signposted earlier on so you know it's going to happen!).

Still, it's worth a read and won't take up too much of your time. Of the two books of Gordon's I have read, I still much prefer Flight of the Bat.

Speaking of the author, whose full name is Donald Gordon Payne, I must make an apology, in that Star-Raker was his fifth novel, not second. Whoops. He enjoyed later success in having one novel optioned by Disney which was later made into "The Island at the Top of the World"and according to the Wikipedia entry for him, the gentleman celebrates his 93rd birthday today.

Many happy returns, Mr Payne, thank you for two (as read so far), entertaining novels!