Cedric Watts (1937–2022)

I went between giving this two and three stars. I settled for three, for in the end I like the concept. It turns out I had read this before years ago; I was probably a teenager when I did it, so remembering back to those days was interesting.

This particular edition collects the Professor Challenger stories written by Conan Doyle. The Lost World is likely the most well-known, and it has been the basis (loosely or otherwise) of other works from Indiana Jones to Crichton's Jurassic Park. If you enjoy those works, you will likely enjoy this book. However, I will say this book is closer in feel and appeal to the works of writes like Jules Verne (for instance, Journey to the Center of the Earth), H.G. Wells, and H. Rider Haggard (King Solomon's Mines). If you enjoy those writers, you will like this book.

The novel is kind of slow in the beginning, so it took me a while to get into it. Once you get into the adventure itself, it moves along like any other adventure yarn. Professor Challenger is quite the obnoxious genius. Brilliant, but not like Sherlock Holmes in terms of personality. This may irritate some readers, but overall, Challenger is a strong character readers will enjoy. I know I did, and I even had a small smile of amusement or two as I read. More irritating to me was the idea of Malone, the reporter, who goes on the expedition with Challenger to impress a woman (and I will not say more of that woman to avoid potential spoilers). I suppose it does show a certain Victorian ideal, of the man going into the wilderness to conquer something and put his name on it, but Conan Doyle could have left her out and the story would have been fine.

So, this is a pretty good book, but it is not a great one. I personally prefer H. Rider Haggard's works for this kind of tale, but this is a good example of the science fiction, or science romance, genre, and thus it is worth reading.… (mer)

Loose ends and red herrings are the stuff of detective fiction, and under the scrutiny of master sleuths John Sutherland and Cedric Watts Shakespeare's plays reveal themselves to be as full of mysteries as any Agatha Christie novel. Is it summer or winter in Elsinore? Do Bottom and Titania make love? Does Lady Macbeth faint, or is she just pretending? How does a man putrefy within minutes of his death? Is Cleopatra a deadbeat Mum? And why doesn't Juliet ask 'O Romeo Montague, wherefore art thou Montague?' As Watts and Sutherland explore these and other puzzles Shakespeare's genuius becomes ever more apparent. Speculative, critical, good-humoured and provocative, their discussions shed light on apparent anachronisms, perfromance and stagecraft, linguistics, Star Trek and much else. Shrewd and entertaining, these essays add a new dimension to the pleasure of reading or watching Shakespeare.… (mer)