I learned here that it isn't easy to turn an early 60s science fiction Theatre play (London's Mermaid Theatre in 1962) into a novel, and most specially one to be released in 1969.But to be fair, you get a warning right from the start, from that title. It should always be in uppercase: ROCKETS IN URSA MAJOR. Because that way you get the mood of the times it was written in, and the tech levels they used.The late 50s and early 60s was a time of great transitions for Science Fiction that dealt with space travel. You went from spacemen to astronauts (which might or might not include female astronauts later on) and from V-2 derived single stage to orbit rockets with huge fins (who went everywhere, from the Moon to Sigma Draconis) to spacecraft which were specialised in their functions, and eventually to starships. Some novelists, like Arthur C. Clarke, made the transition even earlier in the late 40s. Others dragged on til the 60s or never made it and were of course not published at all given their antiquities. The Hoyles, fater and son from a weird exception here.So this "novel" by the Hoyles is a curious, and intellectually fascinating logjam of early concepts, turned out from a stage work of an earlier era. They try at times to make it modern by sidestepping completely issues like getting from one star to another using what seem like ancient rockets. We can just imagine they were "special" rockets, right? At the same time they repeatedly use plot/tech elements which would be more suited for a steampunk story of a gaslamp fantasy written by the Foglios. At one point, for instance, one fo the main characters, a colonel in her Britannic majesty's space forces, decides to have his Star Destroyer brought by rail from an astrodrome near London to an astrodrome near Cambridge, just because he wants to better coordinate the launch of two ships. Oh sorry, I meant two rockets.Note that this isn't a good novel at all. It's a fantastic atomic train crash even if they don't actually say that the trains are atomic and even if they surely would not crash in any circumstance given the efficiency of technology in this future Britain.In short, read this ultra slim novel only if you feel nostalgic for a pre-Arthur C. Clarke British mode of Science Fiction or if you want to see what it feels like to have the equivalent of an early Dan Dare adventure written as a novel by an old fashioned Brit astronomer and his son.
