Oh, no! They’ll fight
I didn’t want to stay any longer in my room. It was almost time, anyway, for dinner; the early dinner of the séance evenings. I went out on to the stairs. Cynthia was coming up....
Category: Babel Itself
Extracts from Babel Itself
That’s something we’ll have to put a stop to
On the way down I thought about Olivia. She descended the stairs in front of me quite jauntily. I wondered if she was finding her way into some kind of freedom, with or without the...
The moving, meaningless, external world
Piers said restlessly: ‘Any prophecies, Ming?’ The telegraphese from the paranormal spelled out: RID OF BADGER. I heard Britton’s puzzled voice: ‘That’s a funny thing to say.’ Olivia laughed. I imagined it was intended to...
The savagely proliferate years
The Daimler had to follow us the rest of the way. I turned off the main road, watching landmarks of fifty years spring up in postures so convincing that they might never have ceased to...
Winding the clock
I had warned Miss Wistreich that we should be coming; and she appeared at the top of the steps as the cars drew up at the front door. She usually kept one of the children...
The pavilion by the lake
The ground dropped sharply to the lake and the small wooden pavilion on a knoll at its edge. Miss Wistreich’s improvements had extended even here. It was flanked now by a double row of young...
The patronage of charity
I still had the copy of Cutie Stories in my hands. He leaned across and ripped it away from me – the cover tore across a tight red satin rump. ‘And this is what you...
Sam Youd at 101
Better known as John Christopher, author of The Death of Grass and The Tripods tetralogy, Sam Youd started his career writing straight (aka ‘literary’) fiction, very different in tone from the dystopian and genre novels...