This book chronicles the author's voyage of rediscovery of his childhood love for the science fiction and fantasy TV shows and movies of his youth. In his thirties he finds the manuscript of a story he wrote as an eight year old: The Battle to Save Earth. Prompted by this he spends several months going to science fiction and fantasy conventions in the UK. Sometimes he goes alone, sometimes he goes with friends, and sometimes he goes with his girlfriend, the delightfully- and intriguingly-named Sorcha.
The book is divided into eleven sections, each dealing with one of the TV shows or film series that he remembers fondly from his youth:
Each section mixes accounts of what happens at each of the conventions he attends with scenes of nostalgia from his own life, recounting how he first became interested in the show or an otherwise noteworthy event from his youth related to the show.
In between the sections are page-long extracts from The Battle to Save Earth. This story draws heavily on Star Wars and Flash Gordon, and ends in a curiously bathetic manner.
Such a book would of major interest to people like me with a fanish personality anyway, but what elevates this book from merely interesting to great is the humour. I found myself smiling the whole way through: sometimes because of my own fond memories of the shows he discusses, sometimes because of the witty way he recounts even the most prosaic of events, frequently because of the arguments he has with Sorcha, and sometimes because of the zingers he comes up with ("...the hallway has been filled with seemingly the entire annual output of Wales's thriving nationalised trestle-table industry...", "...the largest water pistol I've ever seen in my life. It's the size of the average Shetland pony, and just as capable of squirting out nasty liquids at high velocity.").
This is a terrific book, and likely to be of great interest to anyone who considers themselves an SF/F fan.
Wiffle Lever to Full! is by Bob Fischer.
