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Recent Biggles books
I have read a truly ridiculous number of these at this point. Making a feeble attempt to reconstruct the most recent ones that I enjoyed best and have the least amount of Period Typical Whatever:
Biggles and the Black Peril - Not, thank God, what it sounds like (you never can tell), this is actually a between-the-wars book and the one that introduces Ginger as a teenage runaway. Lots of fun, exciting scenes of aircraft landing on waterways and remote lakes, A+ use of abandoned bunkers from the war, and some well-intentioned but highly questionable surrogate parenting. (Can you even legally take a stray orphan you found kicking around a rural village out of the country with you?) I raised this point with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scioscribe who, validly, pointed out that "To be fair, Biggles was raised by a guy whose reaction to him going to stake out a crocodile haunt was, 'Well, okay, as long as you bring your schoolbooks, son.'" And, I mean, fair. Biggles would definitely go along with him on the crocodile hunt; he's going to go above and beyond for this whole parent thing! Anyway, I really enjoyed this one.
Biggles Takes it Rough - I regret to inform everyone that the title refers to sleeping rough, as in, camping under primitive conditions, but otherwise a lot of this book is the sort of thing that would have been straight out of my 7-year-old id, in which Biggles and friends are stuck on a remote Scottish island and have to do things like live in an abandoned crofter's hut, collect mismatched china from rubbish heaps to cook with and attempt to live off the land. Spoiler: they are very bad at it. There is an ongoing subplot involving Bertie attempting to catch lobsters that genuinely made me laugh out loud in some places. The author was clearly having a lot of fun with it.
Biggles Sweeps the Desert - Another really enjoyable one! This is a WWII-era book set in the North African desert. I remembered only afterwards that this was the one that was recced to me as the book in which Biggles has to fly in a dogfight while trying not to pass out from a concussion, which was excellent. There are also some A+ presumed-dead and stranded-in-the-desert scenes. In addition to that, Biggles finds himself another German to flirt with, in this case a flying ace who is supposedly undefeatable, which of course Biggles takes as a personal challenge. Then Biggles saves his life, the other pilot returns the favor, and they flirt a bit over the radio while Biggles's friends are no doubt wondering what they did to deserve this. Anyway, I really liked this one.
(This is also pretty early after Bertie joins the group, and I keep forgetting that wartime-era Bertie is absolutely batshit.)
Sergeant Bigglesworth, CID - I read this one afterphilomytha mentioned that it featured the return of flying ace von Zoyton from the previous book (the previous book I'd read, not the previous chronologically; there are several in between). Post-war, Von Zoyton is working as a pilot with a ring of international jewel thieves, and now discovers the inevitable result of flirting with Biggles across enemy lines during wartime, which is that he'll find you after the war and sadly lecture you on all your life choices and how he knows that you're so much better than this. Anyway, the actual plot concerns Biggles & Co. being at loose ends after the war and getting tapped to pursue a gang of thieves who are using an experimental super-fast German prototype plane left over from the war. The plot takes them back to the desert, features exciting desert flying and some very interesting/weird country in the general upper-Nile vicinity, and works very well as a follow-up to the previous. Bertie at one point gets badly hurt, and this made me realize that there is not nearly enough Bertie h/c in the world.
Biggles and the Black Peril - Not, thank God, what it sounds like (you never can tell), this is actually a between-the-wars book and the one that introduces Ginger as a teenage runaway. Lots of fun, exciting scenes of aircraft landing on waterways and remote lakes, A+ use of abandoned bunkers from the war, and some well-intentioned but highly questionable surrogate parenting. (Can you even legally take a stray orphan you found kicking around a rural village out of the country with you?) I raised this point with
scioscribe who, validly, pointed out that "To be fair, Biggles was raised by a guy whose reaction to him going to stake out a crocodile haunt was, 'Well, okay, as long as you bring your schoolbooks, son.'" And, I mean, fair. Biggles would definitely go along with him on the crocodile hunt; he's going to go above and beyond for this whole parent thing! Anyway, I really enjoyed this one.Biggles Takes it Rough - I regret to inform everyone that the title refers to sleeping rough, as in, camping under primitive conditions, but otherwise a lot of this book is the sort of thing that would have been straight out of my 7-year-old id, in which Biggles and friends are stuck on a remote Scottish island and have to do things like live in an abandoned crofter's hut, collect mismatched china from rubbish heaps to cook with and attempt to live off the land. Spoiler: they are very bad at it. There is an ongoing subplot involving Bertie attempting to catch lobsters that genuinely made me laugh out loud in some places. The author was clearly having a lot of fun with it.
Biggles Sweeps the Desert - Another really enjoyable one! This is a WWII-era book set in the North African desert. I remembered only afterwards that this was the one that was recced to me as the book in which Biggles has to fly in a dogfight while trying not to pass out from a concussion, which was excellent. There are also some A+ presumed-dead and stranded-in-the-desert scenes. In addition to that, Biggles finds himself another German to flirt with, in this case a flying ace who is supposedly undefeatable, which of course Biggles takes as a personal challenge. Then Biggles saves his life, the other pilot returns the favor, and they flirt a bit over the radio while Biggles's friends are no doubt wondering what they did to deserve this. Anyway, I really liked this one.
(This is also pretty early after Bertie joins the group, and I keep forgetting that wartime-era Bertie is absolutely batshit.)
Sergeant Bigglesworth, CID - I read this one after
philomytha mentioned that it featured the return of flying ace von Zoyton from the previous book (the previous book I'd read, not the previous chronologically; there are several in between). Post-war, Von Zoyton is working as a pilot with a ring of international jewel thieves, and now discovers the inevitable result of flirting with Biggles across enemy lines during wartime, which is that he'll find you after the war and sadly lecture you on all your life choices and how he knows that you're so much better than this. Anyway, the actual plot concerns Biggles & Co. being at loose ends after the war and getting tapped to pursue a gang of thieves who are using an experimental super-fast German prototype plane left over from the war. The plot takes them back to the desert, features exciting desert flying and some very interesting/weird country in the general upper-Nile vicinity, and works very well as a follow-up to the previous. Bertie at one point gets badly hurt, and this made me realize that there is not nearly enough Bertie h/c in the world.
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What a missed opportunity. XD
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I love Black Peril, it's such good fun, and teenage Ginger is just ridiculously resourceful and adorable. I've got a big illustrated copy, and it's the absolute Best Thing.
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And Ginger isn't even an orphan! I think at one point he plans to send his dad a postcard. Imagine: Dear Dad, having a wonderful time, met some older men who took me on their airplane and we went to Russia and I shot someone dead and we made an emergency landing on the sea in fog but fortunately I foiled the killers' plans, going to London to move in with these guys and they're going to put me through flying school, write soon, love Ginger.
Biggles really is just like that with all the villains!
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Biggles really is just like that with all the villains!
I was about to say they're lucky he only ended up bringing home one stray-kitten former enemy spy, but then I remembered Marie, so, well, two of them. XD But, I mean, he could've ended up running a retirement home for former villains at this rate.
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The author was clearly having so much fun with this.
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