More About The Benybooks
BENYBOOKS now available are CHECKPOINT, THE LAKE, and PINKO POLEMICS. More are to follow.
Checkpoint
Checkpoint is a collection of speculative fiction, made up by four stories. Three of them were originally published in magazines, and later collected in a volume of the same title. This was published by the European Institute in 2006, and is now out of print. The other, Dimension Five, was originally the title story in a collection no longer available in print or eBook form The four stories are:
CHECKPOINT is free from KOBO and cheaply at Amazon UK, Amazon USA, and elsewhere.
The title story, Checkpoint, is a speculation on one of the major events of world history. What if events in World War 2 and its preceding and subsequent years had been slightly different and ‘The Wall’ had been built in Paris rather than Berlin? It tells the story of the escape through the checkpoint by a Briton and a Frenchman, with aid from an unexpected quarter.
Dimension Five is an unashamed tribute to that pioneer of speculative fiction, HG Wells. It stems from his first novel, The Time Machine, published in 1895. What is the fifth dimension and how can we travel in it?
New Eden is a short, tongue-in-cheek, take on the Adam and Eve SF cliché.
The Star of Birmingham is fiction based on actual astronomy lectures, popular even now during the festive season.
The Lake
The Lake is a collection of fiction, made up by four stories. Three of them were collected in a volume of the same title. This was published by the KT Publications in 2005, and is now out of print. The other, Stamford Bridge, is a new version of originally on the former Sports Reports section of this website. It is no longer available in print or eBook form. Details of the four stories are as below/
The Lake is free from KOBO and cheaply at Amazon UK, Amazon USA, and elsewhere.
The Lake is a story of a life that went wrong. It is purely imaginary.
It appeared in Cambrensis magazine before it became the title story in a 2006 collection. This is now out of print.
Stamford Bridge appeared in a magazine many years ago. More recently, a version of it was on this website. I really did see the Chelsea v Blackpool match on 15th March 1958, when Stanley Matthews played one of his last games for Blackpool.
The “announcement” incident during the conversation between the boys also took place, although is a heavily fictionalised version of what happened during a match Chelsea had against Cardiff some years later This was Jimmy Greaves last match for Chelsea before he went to play in Italy. The “I” of the story, Richie, is entirely fictional.
May Thirteen also appeared in this collection. The story is fictional, although is based on real happenings in 1987. Events and the background to them have been heavily fictionalised. The tensions left by the events of 13th May 1969 did, however, last for many years afterwards.
Delta appeared in the same collection. An event like the central “island” episode took place in the Danube Delta during the summer of 1988. This was Nicolae Ceauşescu’s final complete year as dictator of Romania.
Pinko Polemics
PINKO POLEMICS is the controversial one, as may be guessed from the titles of the three pieces it comprises:
John Major Balls-up's Train Set.
Brexit: The Last Performance
The Freedom to Wear Silly Red Coats
Pinko Polemics is free from KOBO and cheaply elsewhere.
John Major Balls-up’s Train Set is my take on the events that supposedly led up to the privatisation of the railways.
Obviously, I know nothing about our former Prime Minister’s childhood, and I have no inside knowledge of actual steps leading to the passing of the Railways Act in 1993.
I have therefore invented freely and, I hope, humorously.
We all have our own opinions about the consequences of this denationalisation, especially those of us who need to be rail users. Railways should be the transport of the future in our crowded islands.
Currently (2024), there is a pretence that all the problems of the rail network are a consequence of the festering and seemingly permanent industrial action.
There is far more to it than that. There is a 'straight' account of current events on this website. You can read it by clicking HERE.
Brexit: The Last Performance takes the form of mock notes for a theatre review of a supposed stage performance, supposedly before the referendum on 23rd June 2016. A date to remember for all of us.
At the time, the ‘leave’ vote of under 52% was portrayed by some as a ‘vast majority’. I wonder what it would be portrayed as now?
The Freedom to Wear Silly Red Coats was born of all the hoo-hah about fox-hunting a few decades ago. If you’re a stalwart of either the pro- or anti- foxhunting lobbies, I advise you not to read it.
The real subject is liberty.
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