Playboy May 1973

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Ten Novels About a Dystopian UK

 APRIL is MORE 'Dystopian Britain Novels' Month

 

Ten Novels About a Dystopian UK

 

So.....after spending some years reading and reviewing novels about a dystopian UK, I've come up with ten such novels that treat the subject. Of these ten, I'd select 'Pendulum,' 'Albion, Albion !,' 'Noah's Castle,' 'Tracer,' and 'Whole Wide World,' as the best.

Pendulum (1968), by John Christopher: in a late 1960s / early 1970s alternate UK, prosperous, middle-aged businessman Rod Gawfrey finds his comfortable existence turned upside-down when the nation’s youth overthrow the government. Gawfrey and his fellow citizens struggle to survive in a society where confrontations with truculent youngsters can have immediate, and quite violent, consequences.

 

Scotch on the Rocks (1968) by Douglas Hurd and Andrew Osmond: it’s the early 1970s, and the Scotts are greatly displeased to see North Sea oil fueling prosperity in England while their own country struggles. The Scottish Liberation Party (SLP) is willing to use violence in an effort to spark a people’s uprising and a chance for independence. Can an undercover operative working for British Intelligence reveal the SLP’s commander in time to prevent bloodshed ?

 

The ‘F’ Certificate (1970), by David Gurney: in an early 70s UK, ever-growing packs of young people who call themselves ‘Drummers’ are wandering the landscape, riding primordial Segways. Even when stoned on a heroin-like drug, the Drummers have an unnerving propensity for sudden violence. Film producer John Breen is aghast to find the Drummers trespassing on his country estate, but the UK government is too hesitant and befuddled to offer much in the way of assistance. 

 

If You Believe the Soldiers (1973), by Alexander Cordell: this novel is set in the UK in the early 1980s. The economic travails of the 1970s have resulted in a coup, carried out by a right-wing Army officer named Colonel 'Bull' Brander. The UK is under authoritarian rule, but the protagonist, a man named Mark Seaton, mounts a quiet defiance in his role as a contracting agent for the government. However, as the country descends into outright fascism, Seaton finds himself committed to more overt actions, and this can be quite dangerous to one’s health. 

 

Albion ! Albion ! (1974) by Dick Moreland (aka Reginald Hill): it’s the early 1990s and the UK has descended into anarchy. Most of the cities are trash-strewn wastelands where no one ventures out after dark, save those with a penchant for mayhem. The country is divided into four ‘quadrants,’ with each quadrant ruled by ‘football’ (i.e., soccer) clubs, whose commands are enforced by squads of hooligans. Journalist Whitey Singleton finds himself stranded in this dystopian Britain, and obliged to form alliances with people for whom savagery is a way of life. 

 

Noah’s Castle (1975) by John Rowe Townsend:  Norman Mortimer, a former Army quartermaster, foresees the economic collapse of the UK and sets his family up in a sturdy, defensible home with a well-stocked basement. When the collapse comes, it awakens the political consciousness of teenager Barry Mortimer and forces him to decide between the welfare of his family, and the ‘greater good.’ Author Townsend is skilled at depicting the slow infiltration of deprivation, hunger, and political violence into a disbelieving society.

 

Survivors (1975) by Terry Nation: this is a novelization of the 1975 – 1977 BBC TV show. The premise: a global pandemic wipes out most of the planet’s population, and civilization collapses. Brits of various classes converge on The Grange, an estate in the country, there to try and rebuild their lives as best they can. Author Nation focuses on the nuts and bolts of living in a post-apocalyptic society, with Modern Man obliged to tackle - often at a disadvantage - the realities of weeds, mud, vermin, and weather.  

  

Quatermass (1979) by Nigel Kneale: this is a novelization of a 1979 ITV show. It’s set in a 1980s UK, where London is a wasteland ruled by vicious street gangs who vie with South African mercenaries for whatever food and goods remain in the destroyed shops. In the countryside, life has regressed to a subsistence level. A hippie cult called the ‘Planet People’ is channeling an End Times religion, one that may be invoking deadly, and otherworldly, forces. Quatermass, now a man in his 80s, embarks on a dangerous search for his granddaughter Hettie; his journeys across a dystopian UK showcase a civilization in collapse.

 

Tracer (1990), by Stuart Jackson: in 1990, mass sickness and death caused by the AIDS epidemic has led to the imposition of a totalitarian government, which requires all infected individuals to report to ‘Special Care Centres’ for indefinite quarantine. Protagonist Nick Gorman is a ‘Tracer,’ assigned to locate and apprehend anyone trying to evade the mandate. The novel’s opening third does a good job of presenting a near-future UK in the grip of fear and loathing over a deadly communicable disease, and brings (uncomfortably) to mind the real-world government policies operating in the initial years of the covid-19 epidemic. 

 

Whole Wide World (2001), by Paul McAuley: this novel is set in a UK of the mid-2010s, several years after the 'InfoWar', a mass riot perpetrated by antifas, nearly eliminated the nation's telecommunications grid. An authoritarian government now uses cyber-police agencies to monitor content on the Web and suppress dissent. Protagonist John is a middle-aged policeman whose investigation into the murder of a young woman leads to unpleasant revelations about the bureaucrats who are intent on turning the country into a surveillance state.

***

 

And there you have it. I'm aware that there are other novels out there that could qualify for this list (such as Wilfred Greatorex's '1990'), but getting ahold of some of those is not easy. If anyone wants to nominate some additional entries for this category, drop a Comment ! 

Book Review: Survivors by Terry Nation

 APRIL is MORE 'Dystopian Britain Novels' Month

 

Book Review: 'Survivors' by Terry Nation

5 / 5 Stars

'Survivors' first appeared as a BBC TV series, airing for 38 episodes from April 1975 to June 1977. I first learned of it from the pages of Stephen Brotherstone's 'Scarred for Life,' as the series didn't make it to U.S. television.

(A reboot, airing in 2008, suffered from Wokeness and was not well received.) 

Terry Nation (1930 - 1997) was a UK screenwriter and producer who, during the 1960s and 1970s, worked on a number of science fiction TV series, including Dr. Who and Blake's 7. In 1980 he moved to Los Angeles and wrote scripts for American series such as MacGyver.

In 1976 Futura released Nation's novelization of the series as a paperback. In 2008, to coincide with the reboot, UK publisher Orion released a trade paperback version and this is the one I read and am reviewing.

'Survivors' starts off with a plague depleting the population of the entire world, including the UK. In short order, civilization breaks down, and the few survivors wander the empty landscape scavenging for supplies.

 

Lead character Abby Grant is obliged to abandon her life of upper-class comfort and privilege, but she holds on to the hope that her son Peter may have survived the plague and is alive and well somewhere in the countryside. Jenny Richards, a younger woman from a working-class background, and Greg, an engineer, eventually meet up with Abby and decide to set up camp in a rural household called The Grange. Other survivors join up and assist with establishing a farm, and a foraging system to secure supplies in the wider area.

 

There is tension in this post-apocalyptic UK in the form of a classic 'survivalist' encampment, the 'National Unity Force,' formed by a trade union president named Arthur Wormley (it's very British to have the villain arise from unionism, as opposed to the American practice of having these characters derive from 'survivalist' / right wing origins). 

 

The NUF have a habit of seizing things by force from those unwilling to defend themselves. Other, less organized bands of marauders also pose a threat to the welfare of the Grange colony.  

 

In relating the adventures of Abby, Jenny, and Greg, Nation takes pains to portray how poorly equipped modern society and its denizens are for a collapse. Early on in the novel, Abby has a conversation with the headmaster of her son's boarding school: 

 

He moved quickly to a workbench and picked up a glass test tube. "Look at that. We've been making things of glass for thousands of years. But could you make it ? It's silica, potash, high temperature and a great deal of skill. Don't you see, our civilization has the benefit of knowledge that has been accumulated since the beginning of time, and yet most of us are less practical than Iron Age man." 

 

The struggle to grow enough food to support the Grange, and the battle with the elements and the native flora and fauna who quickly assert themselves in the absence of civilization, is a major theme in 'Survivors.'

 

With only 254 pages to work with in his paperback, Nation obviously could not present all of the storyline from the 38-episode television run. But his narrative is crisp and declarative, and devoid of much in the way of psychological angst; the people in 'Survivors' are too consumed with simply staying warm, and having enough to eat, to indulge much in PTSD.

 

As I indicate above, 'Survivors' adopts a 'British' tone to its post-apocalyptic story. There is limited gunplay and assistant casualties, thus, readers hoping for the gleeful violence of American 'Radioactive Rambo' novels will be disappointed. 'Survivors' also is devoid of the facetious humor that marks the American franchise Fallout. In Nation's novel, the post-plague world is marked by unrelenting bleakness. And it's done well enough for me to grant the novel a Five Star Rating.

 

For another, rather frenetic, take on 'Survivors,' readers are directed to 'The Diesel-Electric Elephant Company blog.  

Centerfold: The Secret Archives of Bob Guccione

Centerfold: The Secret Archives of Bob Guccione

Studio 96 Publishing

2024

Here at the PorPor Books Blog, as part of my dedication to showcasing pop culture artifacts from the interval from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, I occasionally post excerpts from various issues of Penthouse magazine.

 

Startling as it may seem, these Penthouse posts are among the most-frequently Viewed pages of my blog..... 

 

It was in that spirit of documentation, for both aging Boomers and a younger generation unfamiliar with the 'men's magazine' landscape of those long-ago decades, that I purchased a copy of 'Centerfold: The Secret Archives of Bob Guccione,' issued by Studio 96 publishing in June, 2024. The text is by Martha Ball, and the editing is by Erica Wagner.

It's a little surprising to realize that a 'coffee table' book on the founder of Penthouse and Omni  magazines has not previously appeared. But then again, the last days of Penthouse circa 2003-2004 were chaotic, and in the last 20+ years, one owner of the franchise after another has wound up declaring bankruptcy. 

 

The current owners of Penthouse are the siblings and French porn magnates Stéphane and Malorie Pacaud, from their base of operations- WebGroup Czech Republic, aka WGCZ Ltd. - in Czechia. In their hands, the magazine solely is digital.

'Centerfold' is a well-made hardcover book of 248 pages, measuring 12 x 9 1/4 inches.

Studio 96 publishing was founded by entrepreneur Aya Abitbul and is owned by New York City firm Creatd, Inc. 'Centerfold' features an 'interactive' component marketed by Studio 96: Similar to how one would scan a QR code, readers use the S96 app to scan images throughout our books. Unfortunately, my innate software paranoia prevents me from downloading and using the S96 app, so I can't say anything constructive about the whole 'image interaction' component of the book. 

It's unclear to what (if any) extent the Pacauds and WebGroup Czech Republic extended permission to include scans of past issues of Penthouse. Indeed, in all of 'Centerfold' there are only scans / reproductions of three or four magazine covers, and few scans of any of the interior contents (editorial masthead, the Forum, interviews, portfolios, illustrations, cartoons, etc.). 

According to Creatd co-founder Jeremy Frommer, most (if not all) of the content in 'Centerfold' was the result of a Storage Wars-type, serendipitous 2012 purchase of a storage unit, within which Frommer found "...magazines, Kodachrome slides, and gold chain necklaces. Together these items represented the forgotten life of Bob Guccione, the publishing magnate and cultural changemaker, and a new opportunity to shine a light on history." Talk about a find ! 

 

This discovery led Frommer to seek out other depositions of Guccione ephemera, and ultimately a consultation with Jane Homlish, Guccione's secretary of over 30 years.

The chapters in 'Centerfold' are arranged chronologically and cover the Guccione publishing empire from its early days in the UK in the mid-1960s, to the launch of the magazine in the US with the September, 1969 issue, and after. Reflecting the nature of the content in the storage locker(s), the emphasis is on material from the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

'Centerfold' takes a somewhat reverential view in its reporting on Guccione, which perhaps is not unexpected for a book of this type. It also provides a more flattering portrait of Kathy Keeton than was given in the 2023 A & E channel documentary, Secrets of Penthouse.

About a third of 'Centerfold' is taken up with Omni magazine, but as is the case with Penthouse, excerpts of actual pages from the magazine are limited (Omni also is owned by WebGroup Czech Republic). 

Who will want a copy of 'Centerfold' ? Well, at $99 from Studio 96, it is pricey, and aimed at  Baby Boomers and vintage adult content aficionados with the disposable income to indulge in coffee table books. If you have good memories of Penthouse and Omni then you may want to take a look at 'Centerfold.' But I suspect that younger people unaccustomed to the print media of long long ago, may not be overly interested in the the story of Guccione and his magazines.

Book Review: Scarred for Life, Vol. 1 by Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence

APRIL is MORE 'Dystopian Britain Novels' Month 

 

Scarred for Life Volume One: the 1970s

by Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence

5 / 5 Stars

 

Here's some pop culture exotica from the UK: 'Scarred for Life,' published in 2017 by LuLu, a print-on-demand publisher. 

 

It's one of three 'Scarred for Life' volumes from Brotherstone and Lawrence, with Volume Two and Volume Three devoted to 1980s TV and pop culture, respectively. All three 'Scarred' books can be ordered online from Lulu, either as print books or ebooks. It took about two weeks from the placement of my order until the book shipped, and then another few days before it arrived in my mailbox.

'Scarred' is, at 740 pages, a thick chunk of a trade paperback. The contents are printed in black and white, and (older people be warned) the font is 5 point, so I needed to use reading glasses when sitting down with this book.

 

Britons Brotherstone and Lawrence were kids in the 1970s, so the essays collected in the book are observations of UK popular as perceived by children. Affection and nostalgia suffuse their observations, one example being Brotherstone's reminiscences of reading the first issues of 2000 AD comics when these were published in March of 1977. The references to 'scarring' are an acknowledgement that some of the media consumed by Brit Kids in the 1970s was transgressive enough to leave a mark on those youthful psyches. I'm sure anyone can relate to this; for me, watching Monster Movie Matinee as a kid in the mid-1960s left me with plenty of enduring nightmares.........

The first half of the book is devoted to TV and film, while the second half turns its attention to other media: books, comics, board games, and novelties like trading cards.

I should state that many of the essays on the TV shows and Public Information Films (PIF) covered in 'Scarred' are inscrutable for Americans, even if you - like me - had some familiarity with Brit TV from the airings of The Goodies and Monty Python and Dr. Who on PBS in the 1970s and early 1980s (I never, ever watched Upstairs, Downstairs).

There is sufficient crossover in some of these categories with what was present in the US at the time, and thus, while some of the content in 'Scarred' is a bit obscure, there is much that will resonate with American readers. Paperback Fanatics certainly will enjoy the coverage of the 'Pan Book of Horror Stories,' while the chapters on Action and 2000 AD franchises will appeal to the comic book readership.

Much like John Szpunar's own weighty tome, 'Xerox Ferox,' 'Scarred' strikes the right notes of affection and nostalgia for the material in its pages. The authors were gradeschool kids during the 70s, so their memories and perceptions are colored by that child's point of view. Tendentious excursions into 'critical analysis,' and Woke thinking, are gratifyingly thin in the pages of 'Scarred.'  

 

The book has sociological value. In his essay on the rather depressing sitcom Romany Jones, Brotherstone reminisces that his family, who lived in Liverpool, were hardworking and of modest means. As such, not until the late 1970s / early 1980s did they purchase a refrigerator (prior to that time food was stored in the 'outside lavatory') and also, a phone. They never got a microwave oven, and the family car was something called a 'Reliant Robin,' a tiny three-wheeled vehicle that was driven into the ground, as a more comfortable car was simply too expensive. 

These revelations from Brotherstone remind us modern-day readers how much the consumer society has advanced since the 1970s, and how many things are taken for granted in this year of 2026. And, last but not least, 'Scarred' reminds us how so many UK families made do with the economic limitations attendant to life in the second half of the 20th century; they had no sense of entitlement or grievance, and did not complain, but simply 'got on' with it............

 

At the end of the day, 'Scarred' is a must-have for Brits who grew up in the sci-fi and horror pop culture of the 1970s, and curious Americans also will find things of interest in the book. And for those who want to get really, really deep into the 'Scarred' mythology, there is a podcast available at Spotify.

At the library sale April 2026

At the Library Sale

April, 2026

A couple of weeks ago, it was time once again for the bi-annual Friends of the Library Sale, down route 29 in Charlottesville. As always, the opening evening - 5 o'clock on Friday - came with a large number of attendees, and the warm Spring weather meant that it was quite hot and airless in the room. The staff overseeing the sale regularly were calling out "We've got water up front for anyone who needs it ! Water up front !"

By now I have a routine down when it comes to the sci-fi table, so I made my way to one end and slowly shuffled along it, moving in between and around other bibliophiles, looking for paperbacks.

 

And I found them ! Someone had dropped off a large number of first-printing Doc Savage paperbacks, many of these in Good to Very Good condition, and for just a buck each. I grabbed a bunch:

Also there on the table were other vintage paperbacks from the 1960s and early 1970s. I found some treasures, here......some (the Vance novels) were in Acceptable condition, and some were Good condition.

 

With regard to larger books, I grabbed a vintage hardbound 'England Swings SF,' a black-and-white 'Solomon Kane' comics compilation, and a vintage Alfred Hitchcock anthology aimed at the Young Adult readership. 

 

The sale lasts for over a week, so I came one more time mid-week, to look at the vinyl / LPs, and paperbacks in genres other than sci-fi. I was able to get some more vintage paperbacks, including two 'Mod Squad' entries. 

All in all, some nice stuff. And as I always say, you never know just what you'll find, at the Library Sale..........

Book Review: Scotch on the Rocks by Douglas Hurd and Andrew Osmond

APRIL is MORE 'Dystopian Britain Novels' Month

Book Review: 'Scotch on the Rocks' by Douglas Hurd and Andrew Osmond

2 / 5 Stars

'Scotch on the Rocks' first was published in the UK in 1968. This Warner Books UK paperback edition (224 pp.) was issued in 2001.

 

A five-episode BBC Scotland TV series based on the novel aired in the spring of 1973. A source of some controversy back then, the series never was re-run. According to a 2023 BBC article, apparently the reels for two episodes are lost, making a present-day re-airing difficult, if not impossible.

 

Author Hurd (b. 1930) is a UK politician, and former Foreign Secretary (1989 - 1995). He has published 8 fiction works (some of these with Osmond as a co-author) in the political thriller genre, as well as a number of nonfiction works on foreign policy, and biographies of prominent Britons.

 

'Scotch' is set in the 1970s, in an alternate UK where conditions for many Scots are grim, as the authors make clear in a vignette about an urban renewal project in Glasgow's Gorbals district that has gone awry:

 

 ...The sandstone tenements, blackened by a century of smog, still stood - though some barely, their facades slipping and crumbling into asymmetry, and others not at all, demolished before they collapsed, leaving an impression of a recent bombing raid: patches of exposed wallpaper, fireplaces hanging four floors up, jettisoned furniture and piles of rubble in the empty spaces....All but a few of the shops were boarded up, their clients evacuated to the suburbs.

 

But people still lived here, pensioners and Pakistanis, huddled together in the half-empty buildings. Here and there a touch of paint or a lace curtain was evidence of human survival. Some of these curtains twitched aside as the car drew up and shadowy faces watched the two men go into an abandoned laundry. It was assumed they came from Housing Department.

 

...They stood without speaking for another five minutes. Rennie was straining to catch the roar from Ibrox which would mean a goal for Rangers. Hart's eyes followed a girl across the clinker, unshaven legs lurching in ill-fitting shoes, face pop-eyed and knobby with deprivation. Oxfam would have thrown her clothes away.  

 

Angry over Britain's enrichment from North Sea oil revenues while their own country gets little from said resource, Scots have embraced the Scottish National Party (SNP) and its platform of independence. Also in the mix is the clandestine Scottish Liberation Party (SLP) which is partial to Marxist doctrine. The head of the SNP, a profoundly uncharismatic but crafty politician named James Henderson, takes care to disavow the SLP, preferring to use politics (as opposed to a Liberation Struggle) to chart a path to independence. 

 

Henderson's stance is not reassuring to the British, who have ordered an intelligence operative named Graham Hart to team up with Chief Inspector Rennie of the Glasgow police to insert a double agent into the ranks of the SLP. A 'hard man' and former Royal Army sapper named MacNair proves able to the task.

 

The novel's first 60 pages are occupied with introducing the large cast of characters and laying out the political machinations deployed by the Prime Minister, Patrick Harvey, and Henderson, prior to a spring general election. 

 

However, when the SNP fails to capture a majority, this catalyzes plans by the SLP to reject further negotiations and stage an insurrection. The goal: force both Harvey and Henderson to accept independence as a consequence of a popular uprising, rather than backroom wheeling and dealing. And because their cause is just, naturally, the SLP leadership isn't averse to sponsoring martyrs whose deaths will be a source of inspiration to the Struggle......

 

'Scotch' is not an easy read. Perhaps as a consequence of being co-written, the narrative has an abrupt, choppy quality. I often was forced to re-read sentences and sometime entire paragraphs to figure out what was happening to who, because of the terse nature of the prose. 

 

Readers hoping for depictions of bloody street battles between Royal Army forces and wild-eyed Scots, with RAF bombing runs on border towns, fields strewn with corpses, and Saracen armored cars set afire by Molotovs tossed by beret-wearing college students chanting in Gaelic, will be disappointed in 'Scotch.' The novel revolves around political dramas, with most action sequences (including sabotage of bridges) taking place off-screen. It's only in the novel's closing chapters that any sort of violence ensues, but this is subordinate to discussions and arguments between bureaucrats clustered in board rooms.    

 

Summing up, 'Scotch on the Rocks' has the restrained quality common in literature about near-future British dystopias. Maybe it's the restrictions imposed by the UK on personal firearms ownership, or perhaps the erratic psychologies induced by intergenerational vitamin D deficiency*, but the manic energy of American dystopias is quite absent in British treatments of the theme. If gun battles and mayhem are your 'cuppa,' then 'Scotch' likely will disappoint.

  

*According to a 2022 journal paper, a survey of 351,320 UK ‘Biobank’ blood samples taken from individuals aged 40 to 70 indicated that 53.75% of these individuals had serum vitamin D levels in the ‘insufficient’ and ‘deficient’ categories (i.e., < 50 nM / L). Vitamin D deficiency is linked to delirium.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7902418/