The Garden of Time

J.G. Ballard
4th Estate

Recently used as the theme to the cavalcade of shallow excess that is the Met Gala this promotional chapbook (heralding a new series of reissues) of Ballard's short story - originally written in 1962 - of the death of beauty amidst the inexorable advance of the masses and their crass consumerist ways was a delightful read.

The story of a husband and wife holding back the inevitable by plucking the flowers of time from their garden in a knowingly futile attempt to delay the advancing hordes.  These immaculate but anachronistic lovers, with their elaborate clothes, beautiful music, and perfectly curated collections, fearful of change and trapped in the amber of an unchanging, untainted, romanticised past, are eventually swamped by the advance as time marches ever on, trampling all before it except, perhaps, love.

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The People That Time Forgot

Amicus' 1977 direct sequel to 1974s 'The Land That Time Forgot' returned us to Edgar Rice Burroughs' dinosaur riddled antarctic island, 'Caprona' where Doug McClure's 'Bowen Tyler' had been stranded at the end of the previous movie.  Last seen trudging over snowy mountain peaks in the company of Susan Penhaligon's 'Lisa Clayton' to throw the message in a bottle into the sea that has spurred his chldhood friend 'Ben McBride' (Patrick - son of John - Wayne) to mount a rescue mission.  Accompaying him into the unknown are photographer 'Lady Charlotte 'Charly' Cunningham' (Sarah Douglas - 'Ursa' in the first 2 'Superman' movies), paleontologist 'Norfolk' (Thorley Walters), his mechanic 'Hogan' (Shane Rimmer) and, along the way, a cave-woman named 'Ajor' played by singer Dana Gillespie.

Directed, as was 'The Land..', by Kevin Connor - who also sent McClure to both Atlantis and 'The Earth's Core' - this one is every bit as flawed and fun as it's predecessor.  The story is flaccid, the dinosaur effects are risible and the cast are poor (except McClure - I won't have a word said against McClure) with Wayne being boorish and bullying and an unlikeable lead, Douglas overplaying her role, Walters and Rimmer acting as comic relief and Gillespie providing the cleavage. 

Written by future 'Amtrak Wars' author Patrick Tilley it's a pretty by the numbers adaptation that was the last gasp of the Amicus studio but when I was a kid Doug McClure was my absolute favourite and to this day his three Amicus monster movies rank amongst my favourites although I'll admit this one is solidly in third place.

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Underworlds: A Compelling Journey Through Subterranean Realms Real and Imagined

Stephen Ellcock
Thames & Hudson

A darkly evocative compendium of images exploring natural, constructed, imaginary, and subconscious underworlds, curated by renowned image collector and social media figure Stephen Ellcock. Underworlds takes readers on a captivating visual odyssey to the underbelly of everything, beginning with depictions of life and natural systems existing beneath the surface of the Earth and ending with imagery that emanates from the depths of our subconscious. Work by world-renowned artists―from Peter Paul Rubens and René Magritte to contemporary artists such as Kara Walker and Roger Ballen―is featured alongside recently unearthed images from archives around the world.

Split across five chapters - 'Beneath the Surface', Human Habitation and Exploration', Underwter Worlds', 'Imagined Underground Worlds' and 'Subliminal Realms' - this beautiful book explores humanities obsession with what lies below.  Exploring burial chambers and mines, caverns and Charon, Hells, hallucinations, hollow Earth and hermits Ellcock takes us on a fascinating visual journey of everything underneath.

My own interests lean towards the fictional so those chapters on caves, crypts, sewers, quarries and the like were of less interest than those exploring our imaginative relationships but throughout Ellcock has chosen images that present a sumptuous feast of art and photography that encapsulates the creative interplay between the real and the imagined in our eternal need to explore the unknown and the hidden, and our obsessive search beneath and beyond. 

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Fifty-One Tales

Lord Dunsany
Serenity Publishers

I've never really properly dug into Dunsany's writing before beyond an anthology short or two but this collection called to me (despite it's hideous cover art) and proved to be something entirely wonderful.

The title sums up the book concisely and almost perfectly except it could potentially have utilised the word 'Tiny' as most of these tales are very short indeed - between half a page and three pages each. Most are written as a morality fable of sorts, often with an environmental theme, and read as a block they get to feel a little preachy but spaced out, a couple at a time, they proved to be miniature imaginative marvels with some absolute gems amongst them like, 'The Tomb of Pan' and 'The Prayer of the Flowers' that made for a perfect introduction to the worlds of Dunsany's imagnation.

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