Good Reads meta-data is 146 pages, rated 3.11 by 193 litizens
Genre: Sy Fy.
Verdict: Kept me guessing.
Tagline: ‘Gulp!’
The briefings for the 1942 Operation Torch included everything but an encounter with an alien or a trip in its craft (forward a billion years or so in time). Two Allied agents on a secret mission behind enemy lines in Tunisia meet two Germans on a similar quest but before they can kill each other and be done with it by page 10, there is that presence against which they, hesitantly combine forces.
It is the usual suspects in this motley crew, a Scots scientist, an upper-lip-stiffed Brit, a crazed Nasty, and a mercenary woman. When they emerge from the craft they find a strange old world, and the strangeness is very well portrayed, as is the porcelain living doll they find there.
Adventures follow. What they needed was Captain Future and the three Future Men (tricky though because none of the latter trio is a man).
Turns out ’47’ was the right answer. ‘729’ was a close second.
Both the aberrant strangeness of the alien and the old world are the best parts of the book. I found it intriguing and diverting for a few hours. Though there were two women – one wily and one porcelain – in the story, both are ciphers, and disappear in the last two acts.
The date 1 January refers to the publication of the first episode in a serial form of the novel only a few months after Operation Torch.