Pax and the Forgotten Pincher

 

Second novel from David Barker's London Falling series. 

Out now from Tiny Tree Books

David Barker returns with his YA books which started in 2023 with the first book, Pax and the Missing Head, and is a rip-roaring dystopian set boarding school tale about the eponymous Pax Forby, a workhouse boy who is naturally gifted in robotics and coding. In the first book, he wins a place at the prestigious Scholastic Parliament.

Hoping for a quieter second year, outside the school, New London is as dangerous as ever. Cyber-attacks and drones have intensified causing a climate of fear and uneasiness. During this, Pax and his firm friends - Megan and Samuel - find themselves drawn to the underground resistance movement.

Borrowing from famous English literary titles and evoking the sense of fear and peril that can surround a huge metropolis can towards a young child (aged 9-12) as Pax is meant to be, Barker has again marshalled a story of great thrust and pulsating action.

Keen readers will see nods to the works of Rowling and Tom Brown's Schooldays and the use of Roacher reminded this reader of Batteries Not Included (1986) along with the ever threatening Big Brother-overlord mayor of London who threatens the subjects and citizens of New London.

The Pincher in question is a play on words for youngsters, it actually refers to pensioners, who when people get to an age they are quickly forgotten about and discarded from memory. This is a mark of Barker himself the writer, in his adult thriller series 'Blue Gold' he was very prescient to describe the eventual loss of water that will happen on our planet; and with the heating crisis happening now for our elder population this is a reminder that science fiction always makes the reader have a hard look at their present situation.

Quietly intense and a real joy to read, Barker has again provided a wonderful page turner that is whilst brief does stay with the reader making them look forward to the next instalment with fervour and excitement.

Pax and the Forgotten Pincher is out now from Tiny Tree Books on all formats

My thanks to Tiny Tree Books for giving me a preview copy for an honest review.

The Small Back Room

Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of its first release, the Powell and Pressburger WW2 set film about political intrigue and psychological drama. The 4K restoration will be available on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital from 3rd June and will have a premiere at BFI Southbank on 28th May

Starring David Farrar and Kathleen Byron - two actors who worked with P&P on Black Narcissus in 1940. Farrar portrays Sammy Rice, the finest bomb disposal expert in the army who was injured during the war. He begins an affair with Byron's Susan, a secretary in the war office. However, Sammy is haunted by his failings as a man owing to the injuries he has sustained, and his ability to be a lover to Susan due to his inferiority complex. He drowns his sorrows in whiskey nightly to the detriment of his ability to perform a great service to the continuing war effort.

Nazi Germany is still dropping booby-bombs on Britain, a bomb has exploded causing catastrophic results and another has been found which has not yet exploded. This opportunity provides Sammy with a chance of retribution and to face down his demons.

Based upon the 1943 novel of the same name by Nigel Balchin, the film was received as another win for The Archers, and when released in 1949 it was marked as a slow down for the team after the triumph and masterwork that was The Red Shoes in 1948.

Think of the Coens' A Serious Man or Scorese's Bringing Out The Dead; films that are not as highly thought of in the director's oeuvre yet they are deeply personal and intuitive to the sense of their overall body of work. In The Small Back Room, P&P look at an individual and the psychological complexity that the war will have upon individuals and how it seeped into everyday life and following on from Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend in 1945, this is a serious depiction of alcoholic dependency.

Yet there are archetypes of P&P motifs here - location shooting, issues of class and status, off the wall moments such as Sammy's final descent and lush production design. A film that that serves as a reminder that even a flawed film by masters can still maintain attention and suspense.

Released by Studiocanal in a new restoration led by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker (Powell's widow) from the Film Foundation. The digital release features documentaries on restoring The Small Back Room, Kevin MacDonald on the Small Back Room, Ian Christie 'Defusing the Archers', an audio commentary by film scholar Charles Barr and an interview with the film's cinematographer Christopher Challis.

Out from June 3rd from Studiocanal