Sophie, an orphan, is suffering a major attack of insomnia, brought on, author Roald Dahl suggests, by the magic of moonlight, or perhaps by the fact that she’s living in a dormitory and has lost her parents, when she catches sight of a long dark shadow. It is, as she soon discovers to her terror, the shadow of a giant—a giant with the power to capture dreams and nightmares and bring them to children. And a giant who is initially not at all pleased to be spotted by a child, since the entire point of giant life is not to be seen by humans—or as the giants call them, “Human Beans.” Especially because most giants survive by eating humans, a diet that works only if humans know nothing about them.

This particular giant, however, is just a little different. He is the Big Friendly Giant, or The BFG, refusing to eat humans. So instead of following his biological destiny and eating Sophie, he takes her from the orphanage to the land of giants and dreams.

[Bad and offensive puns, mingled with magical dreams and a bit about the queen.]

Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvelous Medicine is dedicated, rather cruelly, to doctors. I say “rather cruelly,” because much of the book is a fierce indictment of modern medicines, which, in Dahl’s viewpoint, either do not work and are thus completely unnecessary, are filled with toxins and other strange things and are thus not the sorts of things you should be taking, or, on the rare occasions when they do work, prove almost impossible to reproduce. It’s not exactly the sort of book you might expect from an author known for working closely with doctors to care for his own family members, but Dahl had also lost a child to illness, and by the late 1970s, he was experiencing his own medical issues. So it is perhaps not surprising that he chose to deal with these through an often fiercely bitter book.

[The most unpleasant way of making medicine like ever. Spoilers for the rather abrupt ending.]

“I don’t write problems,” said Royden, in rather too high a voice. “And enjoyment is the last thing I expect anyone to feel! If I’ve succeeded in making you think, I shall be satisfied.”

“A noble ideal,” commented Stephen. “But you shouldn’t say it as though you thought it unattainable. Not polite.”

Georgette Heyer’s agreement with the publishers of her mystery novels stipulated that she was to deliver a mystery/suspense novel to them once per year, a schedule she kept with admirable consistency until the outbreak of World War II. Stress over family members, in particular sorrow for a brother-in-law killed in the early years of the war, and fear for the safety of her husband, who had joined the Home Guard, made it difficult for her to write, or focus on something she found absolutely pointless under the circumstances. She procrastinated a bit with the escapist fluff The Corinthian, but she could make excuses for only so long, and eventually she returned to writing Envious Casca in slow bits and pieces. It was to be one of the grimmest yet best of her mystery novels.

[Spoilery, although again in following the dictates of Golden Age fiction, I try not to reveal the identity of the murder.]

Even by the standards of writer Roald Dahl, The Twits starts out on an unusually disgusting note, with a rant about beards followed by an overly detailed description of just what a certain Mr. Twit has in his, since he has not cleaned it for years. 

I have to strongly, strongly suggest not eating during the reading of this passage or indeed the rest of the book, which is filled with enough revolting descriptions to delight the most hardened, YAY THAT’S SO GROSS kid, and turn the stomachs of the rest of us. I’m also not entirely sure what led to this sudden rant against facial hair on the part of Roald Dahl, but I can say that it, and his later descriptions, have the distinct sense of someone really trying to get everything that irritated him (spaghetti, hunting, guns) described in the most disgusting way possible, as if to purge everything nasty from his brain. At least until it came time to write the next book.

[The beard description does give us a bit of a warning to the hellish practical jokes and animal abuse ahead of us.]

“I must admit,” said Mr. Wonka, “that for the first time in my life I find myself at a bit of a loss.”

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator begins by swiftly catching us up with the events from the previous book (summarized in two quick sentences) and a listing of all of the characters now present in the Great Glass Elevator—the not-exactly-entirely-explained apparatus from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that was able to zip through the entire factory at tremendous speed before exploding through the ceiling. It’s the sort of home transportation device we all need but are unlikely to get.

[Read more]

Georgette Heyer wrote The Corinthian a few months after the tragic death of her brother-in-law, a close friend, in one of the early battles of World War II, and under the terrible fear that her husband would soon be following his brother into battle, and that her own brothers would not survive the war. She worried, too, about other family friends, and feared that the war (with its paper rationing, which limited book sales) would make her finances, always straitened, worse than ever. She could not focus, she told her agent, on the book she was supposed to finish (a detective story that would eventually turn into Envious Casca) and for once, she avoided a professional commitment that would earn her money, for a book she could turn to for pure escape. Partly to avoid the need of doing extensive research, and partly to use a historical period that also faced the prospect of war on the European continent, she turned to a period she had already researched in depth for three previous novels: The Regency.

In the process, she accidentally created a genre: The Corinthian, a piece of improbable froth, is the first of her classic Regency romances, the one that would set the tone for her later works, which in turn would spark multiple other works from authors eager to work in the world she created.

[Misunderstandings, silly lovers, cross-dressing and a murder; spoilers.]

You will learn as you get older, just as I learned that autumn, that no father is perfect. Grown-ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets. Some have quirkier quirks and deeper secrets than others, but all of them, including one’s own parents, have two or three private habits hidden up their sleeves that would probably make you gasp if you knew about them.

— Roald Dahl, Danny the Champion of the World

What do you do when you turn nine—and find out that your father is engaging in criminal activity?

[Read more]

In 1937, with the specter of another hideous European war looming on the horizon, Georgette Heyer’s attention turned to one of the most infamous of earlier British battles: the Battle of Waterloo, in her novel An Infamous Army. It was a far cry from her more recent focus on derring-do, mystery and comedy, and by far her most ambitious project to date, surpassing any of her previous works, even the serious historical The Conqueror. In many ways the most atypical of her works, it is also, oddly enough, perhaps the best known and most widely read Heyer novel for readers who do not generally know or read Heyer, mostly thanks to its meticulous recreation of the battle of Waterloo, which in turn eventually led to its last ten chapters becoming recommended reading at some British military colleges, and a way for others to read and learn about the battle of Waterloo.

I suspect, however, that most readers (and perhaps the military students) find themselves more enthralled by the small emotional details Heyer inserts here and there into her novel: images of men and women desperate for news of family members on the battlefield, the dancing that continues up until the very eve of battle, as the men are marching out to war, the scenes of men dying, quickly or slowly, on the battlefield. And, oh, yes, the complex romance, between an unusually passionate—for Heyer—heroine and one of the military commanders.

[Spoilery for everything, including the results of the Battle of Waterloo, plus the probably obligatory nod to Les Miserables.]

The success of James and the Giant Peach encouraged Roald Dahl to write another children’s book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Filled with Dahl’s fury at multiple aspects of contemporary life (including, not at random, industrial competition, wealthy factory owners, and television), the book is both funny and vicious, a deeply imaginative work combining elements of fantasy (nearly everything to do with chocolate) and science fiction (the bits about television and the glass elevator.)

Thanks to the two films based on the book, most readers are probably already vaguely familiar with the basic plot. Mysterious, secretive chocolate maker Willy Wonka finally agrees to allow five very lucky children—those who find a mysterious Golden Ticket in their chocolate bars—to enter his factory. For four of the kids—all greedy in one way or another—the tour, while magical, does not go at all well. For the fifth, the young Charlie Bucket, near starvation at the beginning of the tour, the trip proves wondrous indeed.

[But even familiarity with the book may leave some surprises for readers who haven’t encountered the book for awhile.]

We interrupt the usual kid’s book reread for an announcement: Santa has fallen out of the sky. Look, sometimes even Santa can have major flying accidents.

Especially when Santa is being chased by Evil Santas who want to shut down his entire operation to make way for human corporations. (These days, almost everyone gets outsourced, even Santa.) So it’s not entirely surprising to hear that Santa—or at least, a Santa—has had a terrible accident, and is going to need some help from children if Christmas is going to be saved.

[Can Christmas be saved? CAN IT? I warn you, I spoil everything in the book, including the end.]

Since it’s a quiet week around here at Tor.com, I’m going to avoid my usual method of following along in publication order, saving Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for next week and focusing on two shorter tales, The Magic Finger and Fantastic Mr. Fox. Both books focus on struggles between talking animals and the humans that hunt them; both books also focus on parents struggling to save their children from severe danger. And both are relatively short.

[Finding yourself turned into a bird, and the moralities of stealing from people who are trying to kill you.]

Heyer wrote The Talisman Ring when she was simultaneously creatively blocked on another, more serious book, and desperate for money. Turning to farce as inspiration worked remarkably well. She wrote the first half in a bubbling, creative rush, telling her agent’s assistant that she thought the book would turn out to be one of her more “amusing” works. She was correct. Although The Talisman Ring, as always, shows signs of her meticulous research, it is also a book that for the most part tosses away any pretense of seriousness. It marks a turning point between her early swashbucklers and works of derring-do to her neatly plotted comedies of manners, combining elements of both. It also happens to be one of her best and most enjoyable books.

[Bumbling police, domestic tyrants and plenty of excellent brandy.]

James and the Giant Peach begins in sudden, shocking tragedy, as young James Henry Trotter loses his parents to a rampaging rhinoceros. (Strikingly unusual deaths would remain a characteristic of Roald Dahl’s work, perhaps to assure children that this was very unlikely to happen to them. I’m not sure how successful this was as a literary technique: I still keep a wary eye out when rhinoceroses are around.) Young James is sent to live with two absolutely awful aunts, whose only saving grace is their capacity to speak in hilarious, egotistical rhymes. All seems doomed, until an unexpected bit of magic arrives, allowing James and some new friends to fly off in a—natch!—giant peach.

[Read more]

Author Roald Dahl lived a life almost as fabulous and unbelievable as the fiction of his books. Born in Wales to Norwegian immigrants, he lost his father and a sister when he was only three, events that would mark him for the rest of his life. After unhappily attending various boarding schools and hiking through Newfoundland, he enjoyed what his biographers would later call the only two normal years of his life, working for Shell Oil in England. Shell later sent him to work in Africa. From there, he joined the Royal Air Force, fought in World War II as a fighter pilot, became a spy in Washington, DC, and worked with Walt Disney to develop a (never completed) film about gremlins, the fantastic creatures that the RAF blamed for causing mechanical destruction. Many of his wartime activities remain classified.

[Read more]

The Wombles to the Rescue opens with happy news indeed: thanks to changes in the Big Road, the Wombles of Wimbledon can at last return to their comfortable burrow in Wimbledon, allowing them to be the Wombles of Wimbledon again. For all of Hyde Park’s many advantages, it just Wasn’t Home, nor was it part of the Womble song. And, further happy news on the environmental front: Human Beings, after the terrors of the last book, are at last learning how to pick up after themselves and not throw quite so much away in random littering places. Of course, as Tobermory notes gloomily, this is in part because Human Beings have been so wasteful that they are now running short on multiple items, forcing them to conserve. And, as Madame Cholet and Great Uncle Bavaria note, with rising alarm, this unforeseen tidiness and conservation means less tossed away food for the Wombles to gather—this just as Human Beings are also merrily cutting back on natural areas, turning these areas into concrete and boring lawns that humans can walk on. Oh, it’s understandable enough that Humans prefer lawns to brambles and woods, but in the meantime, what will Wombles eat?

[Will the Wombles solve this latest crisis? Will they? Will they?]

Having been rather harsh on Georgette Heyer’s first three mystery novels, I thought it was only fair to chat about Death in the Stocks, her first entirely successful mystery novel—and one which, probably not coincidentally, features the same sort of sparkling dialogue that would later mark the best of her Regency novels.

[Here be spoilers, though in a kindly nod to the Golden Age of British Detective Fiction, I only hint at the murderer’s identity, never naming the Dastardly Villain. Although I will say it wasn’t the butler.]

‘But, old friend, we Wombles must do what we can. I agree with you entirely that Human Beings are quite ridiculous. They seem to be determined to choke themselves to death, but it’s up to us Wombles — as it always has been — to try and stop them. Doomsday is coming, Tobermory, unless WE do something.’

- Great Uncle Bulgaria, in The Wombles at Work (1973)

The Wombles are now facing their most dire threat yet: human pollution. This may seem counterintuitive—after all, the Wombles have always survived by picking up and reusing human trash. But their diet also consists of wild plants, and the vanishing parklands and wilderness areas have raised real concerns about their continued ability to eat. The real issue, however, is the ever increasing trash and pollution, which is making trash collection not just a misery, but actively dangerous.

[When you have to clean up after hippies in Hyde Park, and glimpses of other Wombles in the world.]

After publishing eighteen books, ten of them historical, Georgette Heyer finally turned to the period that she would make her own: the Regency, in a book titled, appropriately enough, Regency Buck.

And oh, it’s awful.

Well, maybe not awful. Let us just say not very good.

[How this book is probably the worst thing that ever happened to Georgette Heyer’s reputation. Major spoilers]

Being a brave explorer was one thing. Keeping fit quite another.

- The Wandering Wombles

The Wandering Wombles begins with a crisis moment for the Wimbledon Womble community: a new road, combined with ever larger and louder lorries, is causing so much noise within their Burrow that the very tunnels are shaking and falling apart. Great Uncle Bulgaria initially indulges in the overly optimistic hope that perhaps—just perhaps—the noise will also irritate the Human Beings so much that they will decide that they really don’t need all of those things in the lorries, and shut down the road. Great Uncle Bulgaria may well be the wisest of the Wombles. But truth be told, he doesn’t always have strong insights into humans.

Fortunately, his creator does.

[The truth behind the Loch Ness Monster at last! You’ll never guess! Ok, perhaps you will.]

It was a relief to discover that, as Great Uncle Bulgaria had predicted, the Human Beings all about him took no notice of the fact that he was a Womble. They were all far too busy about their own affairs, and Bungo, who had never before been so close to so many people, decided that beside being dreadfully wasteful they were also remarkably unobservant.

‘Funny creatures,’ he muttered to himself.

— The Wombles

Elizabeth Beresford reportedly got the idea for the Wombles, bear-like (later raccoon-like) creatures who live beneath Wimbledon Common and scurry around picking up human trash, during a Christmas walk in Wimbledon—a place one of her children called “Wombledon.” Intended as merely a humorous children’s story about the delightful Wombles, the book instead became more of a commentary on human society as well as a passionate cry for saving the planet. It also eventually sparked a children’s television show, an almost compulsively singable Wombling Song (that is, if you are six) which if you were very lucky, you could sometimes hear on the BBC World Service, some stuffed Wombles currently for sale over at Amazon’s United Kingdom division, and even some McDonald’s Happy Meal toys which I very much fear some small children may have tossed into the trash, largely missing the point.

Despite all this, the Wombles remain almost completely unknown in the United States. (I blame the inept scheduling of the BBC World Service for this, but that may just be residual bitterness talking.) So unknown that after my return to the States, I was almost convinced that the books and the song were nothing more than figments of my imagination. Almost. Which is a shame, since the Womble books certainly deserve a more worldwide audience, and are now easily available in the U.S. in both print and ebook editions.

So, for British readers and viewers who might have forgotten, and others who never knew, what are the Wombles?

[I’m so glad you asked. Wombles of Wimbledon, Wombles are WE!]