Review: Sapphire & Steel Annual 1981 by Peter J. Hammond

Hardcover, 63 pages
Published 1980
Acquired September 2011
Read September 2012

Sapphire & Steel Annual 1981
by Peter J. Hammond

This book is copyrighted to P. J. Hammond, creator of Sapphire & Steel, though he certainly didn't write it. It's mostly a series of illustrated stories loosely based on the television series: Sapphire and Steel investigate various breakages in time, though most of the stories fail to capture the tone of the television series completely, with stories that are (oddly) too sf or too fantastic. A robot rampaging over the countryside is not very Sapphire & Steel, but then neither is out-and-out magic. These tales have a lot of the trappings of the show, but they don't understand what makes it tick. A couple of them could be the foundation for legitimate adventures, though.

I did like the illustrations, though-- moody and in shadow, they're exactly what every Sapphire & Steel story should look like. Except for the one about the giant robot, where the robot itself has been ripped off of Doctor Who's K-1 robot. On the other hand, the "puzzles" and "informational features"-- one of which is about black holes for some reason!-- are as terrible as you might imagine. (The back cover photo is also a nice one.)

A curio for the curious, this book is nothing more. Reading it means I have read every book ever based on Sapphire & Steel (there are three). Audio dramas next, I guess?

Sapphire and Steel Have Been Assigned

Sapphire and Steel

by P. J. Hammond

Mass market paperback, 135 pages. Published 1992 (originally 1979). Acquired October 2010. Read September 2011.

The spookiness of Sapphire & Steel came from the visuals and mood more than anything else, and so Peter Hammond is at a disadvantage in this novelisation of the first television story, given that he's not exactly the world's greatest prose stylist. It's still good, though-- the first story was always the best Sapphire & Steel tale-- and Hammond is able to make up for the lack of visual and auditory cues by entirely filtering the story through the perspective of Rob, the young boy whose parents have been swallowed up by Time. Never since have Sapphire and Steel been so utterly unknowable.