The Book of Beasts by Andrew Screen

(Headpress, 2023)

Reviewed by Stuart Carter

I was born during the 1970s, when Nigel Kneale’s Beasts was on TV, but this was long before I knew who he was. However, I became a fan of his work from a young age after seeing the Quatermass films repeated in various BBC2 science fiction seasons (usually, I seem to recall, around six o‘clock on a weekday).These seasons were mostly composed of Cold War-era US movies, so these films stood out because, well, they weren’t American; but also because they had a middle-aged scientist as the hero, and managed to be subtle yet exciting, in a way that my ten-year-old self—somewhat to his own surprise—loved.

Continue reading…

Review from BSFA Review 23 - Download your copy here.