Ace of Aces Books

Considering the aerial duds Royal Navy fighter pilots flew, especially in the early war years, it was an eye-opener to discover that 36 RN pilots made ace in World War II! The aerial exploits of this unique group of men is the subject of Andrew Thomas' latest book for Osprey, #75 in their Aces series. It's a wonderfully interesting story that all air combat fans should enjoy.


The Royal Navy only regained control of its Fleet Air Arm from the Royal Air Force in May 1939. Consequently, at war's outbreak, RN fighter squadrons were equipped with the underpowered Blackburn Skua, Gloster Gladiator biplanes and the gun-turreted abortion, the Blackburn Roc! Despite being saddled with these second-stringers, Fleet Air Arm fliers like Skua pilot Bill Lucy used their mounts effectively, Lucy becoming the first Fleet Air Arm ace of the war.

Lumbering Fairey Fulmars were next on the scene and again, enterprising RN pilots used their aircraft to the fullest. The top Fulmar ace, Graham Hogg, scored 12 kills! The subsequent arrival of first-class fighters such as the Wildcat, Sea Hurricane, Seafire, Corsair and Hellcat enabled later RN pilots to score the magic five kills.

Aside from flying an incredible variety of aircraft, RN fighter pilots served in all theaters. Thomas does an excellent job of relating the far-flung exploits of what were some incredible fighter pilots. This is an especially lively entry in the Osprey Aces series due, in part, to the 'characters' that flew RN fighters and Thomas' engaging writing style.

The book includes over 90 photographs and 12 pages of color profiles by Chris Davey.

In short, a very nice piece of work, well-written and informative.

A little-known story of great courage, skill and patriotism! A long awaited publication. Full of interesting details, great photographs and stunning colour plates of World War II planes. A joy to read!

It's Sara Tindall's opening night in London's West end; at last she will see her name in lights. Yet everything looks black to Sara. Once again an unknown danger is stalking her; this time threatening the life of her baby. With deep foreboding she leaves the baby with Max, the man she is going to marry. When her apartment is found bloody and ransacked, with Max and the baby gone, Sara knows there is no escape from the nightmare that has plagued her for years.

Who could hate her so much that he wants to destroy everything she loves? For years, it's been going on. First, there were the anonymous letters aimed at destroying her reputation. Then the mysterious fire that killer her parents, followed by the murder of her fiancee. Somebody wanted to frame her for those deaths, and now somebody wants to kill Sara's baby. Who can it be? The answer to the question is somewhere in her subconscious if she can only find it before it's too late.

This moves a little slower than the parsival books, but Monaco's almost as good as Zelazny at the 'poetic' description of sex, violence, and mysticism. . . if you think they connect. . .

The book contains three stories , all dealing with the Saint's adventures in the West.The best is the first one where the Saint stops a gang of Nazis from mining Uranium in a ranch.The other two stories will also appeal to any reader.

For my money, this is the best of all the Saint books. On one level merely a good thriller, on another level it's a very serious book indeed, because it deals with the horrors of war and what it's worth sacrificing to avoid them; and its great merit is that it makes its points without ever become preachy or leaden.

Kingsley Amis, in his insightful and entertaining opus The James Bond Dossier, expends considerable space on considering what goes into the making of a good villain. Charteris's best villains are easily the equal of Fleming's, and "The Last Hero" has two them!

One may safely invent a sinister arms merchant from any country (although Rayt Marius is much more sinister than most). To present a sinister head of state, however, presents a problem: obviously one can't use a real head of state, for reasons of both plausibility and libel. There are two traditional solutions, both moderately unsatisfactory: to invent a fictional country, which will irritate any reader with the basics of geography; or to be mysterious about which state it actually is. Charteris here opts for the second alternative, and great villain though Marius undoubtedly is, for me Crown Prince Rudolf of ----- is the best in the whole Saint Saga.

(It is of course logically pointless to try and work out what the country really is, but it's quite fun trying anyway, as Charteris obviously realises as he plants clues in various places. It's somewhere around the Balkans. The Saint doesn't yet speak the language, which therefore can't be French, German or Spanish. The Prince is Marius's own prince, and Marius was once a guttersnipe in the slums of Prague; on the other hand, we later learn that the Prince's appendix is in Budapest. The most telling clue [not divulged 'til Getaway] is that the Prince's family owned the Montenegrin crown jewels. [King Nikola of Montenegro might in fact be the prototype of Rudolf's father, were not the time-frame all wrong. This is cool juggling. How many readers are familiar enough with Montenegrin history to know that he didn't in fact have son called Rudolf?] )

Professor K.B. Vargan has invented a weapon called the Electron Cloud, able to incinerate large numbers of people in minimum time. The British Government wants it, and so does Prince Rudolf, who has military ambitions. The story revolves around the efforts of the Saint and his friends to keep the weapon from ever being used at all, for the sake of the men and boys "who'd just be herded into it like dumb cattle to the slaughter, drunk with a miserable and futile heroism, to struggle blindly through a few days of squalid agony and die in the dirt".

The familiar friends - Orace, Pat, Roger, Norman - are all here. Charteris was later dismissive of his early work, as older authors often are. But whatever its deficiencies, this book and its sequel Knight Templar have a drive and fire, and an idealism (eccentric though it be), that lifts them above the mundane.

P.S. For a list of -- and discussion of -- all Charteris's Saint books, see my So You'd Like To... Guide.

"Sargasso of Space" (1955) and its sequel "Plague Ship" (1956) were the first two science fiction novels I ever checked out of our local library (I can still close my eyes and see that one dinky little shelf, crammed with some of SFs' greatest juvenile authors: Norton; Heinlein; Del Rey; Nourse).

The late Andre Norton's 'Solar Queen' stories are told from the viewpoint of Dane Thorson, an apprentice-Cargo Master who is introduced as a "lanky, very young man in an ill-fitting Trader's tunic." Most of this author's heroes and heroines are young, uncertain of themselves, shy, with a tendency to trip over their own enthusiasms and load themselves up with guilt at the slightest opportunity. They are very likeable and their adventures are narrated in remarkably lean prose with just the right touch of description.

After ten years of schooling, orphan Dane Thorson is assigned via a computer analysis of his psychological profile--not to a safe berth on a sleek Company-run starship that his classmates were vying for--but to a battered tramp of a Free Trader. To say that the 'Solar Queen' "lacked a great many refinements and luxurious fittings which the Company ships boasted" was an understatement. But she was a tightly-run ship and what she lacked in refinement, she made up for in adventure. Dane soon settles in under Cargo Master Van Rycke and learns "to his dismay what large gaps unfortunately existed in his training."

Sometimes I just want to give Dane a big hug.

The crew of the 'Solar Queen' risk their meager capital in a gamble at a Survey auction, and win trading rights to a barely explored planet with the unlucky name of Limbo. When they view a microfilm (okay, the technology is a bit dated in these books) of their new prize, it appears as though they have purchased ten years of trading rights to a planet that was burned to cinder during the heyday of the mysterious Forerunners, who predated humans in space.

Just when the 'Queen's fortune seems to be at its lowest ebb, a tough-looking archeologist shows up who is supposedly an expert on Forerunner artifacts, and charters her for a voyage to Limbo.

It might have been better for the free traders if her captain had kept his ship planeted and declared bankruptcy after the disastrous Survey auction.

Be sure to read the next 'Solar Queen' novel, "Plague Ship" if you enjoyed "Sargasso of Space." You may just fall in love with the 'Queen' and her intrepid crew.

"Sargasso of Space" (1955) and its sequel "Plague Ship" (1956) were the first two science fiction novels I ever checked out of our local library (I can still close my eyes and see that one dinky little shelf, crammed with some of SFs' greatest juvenile authors: Norton; Heinlein; Del Rey; Nourse).

The late Andre Norton's 'Solar Queen' stories are told from the viewpoint of Dane Thorson, an apprentice-Cargo Master who is introduced as a "lanky, very young man in an ill-fitting Trader's tunic." Most of this author's heroes and heroines are young, uncertain of themselves, shy, with a tendency to trip over their own enthusiasms and load themselves up with guilt at the slightest opportunity. They are very likeable and their adventures are narrated in remarkably lean prose with just the right touch of description.

After ten years of schooling, orphan Dane Thorson is assigned via a computer analysis of his psychological profile--not to a safe berth on a sleek Company-run starship that his classmates were vying for--but to a battered tramp of a Free Trader. To say that the 'Solar Queen' "lacked a great many refinements and luxurious fittings which the Company ships boasted" was an understatement. But she was a tightly-run ship and what she lacked in refinement, she made up for in adventure. Dane soon settles in under Cargo Master Van Rycke and learns "to his dismay what large gaps unfortunately existed in his training."

Sometimes I just want to give Dane a big hug.

The crew of the 'Solar Queen' risk their meager capital in a gamble at a Survey auction, and win trading rights to a barely explored planet with the unlucky name of Limbo. When they view a microfilm (okay, the technology is a bit dated in these books) of their new prize, it appears as though they have purchased ten years of trading rights to a planet that was burned to cinder during the heyday of the mysterious Forerunners, who predated humans in space.

Just when the 'Queen's fortune seems to be at its lowest ebb, a tough-looking archeologist shows up who is supposedly an expert on Forerunner artifacts, and charters her for a voyage to Limbo.

It might have been better for the free traders if her captain had kept his ship planeted and declared bankruptcy after the disastrous Survey auction.

Be sure to read the next 'Solar Queen' novel, "Plague Ship" if you enjoyed "Sargasso of Space." You may just fall in love with the 'Queen' and her intrepid crew.

The Dark Folk, the Ancient people, the Witch People have all been subjugated to the hors-lords. Those not enslaved hide deep in the hills out of fear of captivity. Naeri of the House of the Lady Ashton of the Albur clan hid in the mountains and caves alone foraging for food from the enemy. Eventually she is caught and brought before Chief Ricca to be punished for theft.

She is saved by the smith Gwi, who takes her on as his apprentice though he wants much more form her. The minstrel of the tribe is hers cousin Daui who helps her find a magician who teaches Naeri how to use the stones and earth magic. Once she becomes proficient with its use, Daui directs Ricca and his men to construct a stone circle as a memorial to him at a place where the leylines are numerous and power is stored like a battery. After it is built, Naeri will use her prowess as a geomancer to bring down the horse lords and their tribes. Although frightened Naeri feels obligated to her kin, but believes no good will come of her mission.

THE SARSEN WITCH is a mesmerizing reading experience that depicts life in the Bronze Age of what will eventualy become Britain. Naeri is a survivor who will allows herself to be pushed so far before she goes her own way. It is fascinating to observe how Ricca holds the various horse tribes together using threats and gifts (today we call it an earmark) to keep everyone in line; he is not a bad leader just a product of his time as he is not interested in the welfare of those he conquered (today we call them democrats).

Harriet Klausner

This book is wonderfully simple, a very welcome change to the world of SAT preparation. How to Ace the SAT begins by explaining to the reader how the SAT works and instructing the student in how to read and interpret each question on the exam. Teaching students how to take this particular exam is a key factor in earning a higher score but it is often overlooked. How to Ace the SAT fills this void while instilling confidence in the student.

How to Ace the SAT is presented in a friendly and approachable manner. The book is divided into separate chapters for each subject. Each chapter is further divided into two or three sections consistent throughout the entire book. The consistency of this book is exactly what makes it appealing and accessible to students and is that "something" that other books miss.

Section one, "Know your Opponent", lets the student know exactly what to expect on the exam, giving typical wording of questions, teaching readers how to recognize the audience and so on. Section two, "Know Your Strategies" arms the student with proven steps to ensure performance on each task. Section three, "Practice", presents the student with real SAT questions to work through.

How to Ace the SAT Without Losing Your Cool" is a must-have for all students. I firmly believe that this book should comprise a large part of the curriculum used in the year leading to the test.