REVIEWS/BOOKS
film adaptations of his work–a
sizeable corpus,madeupof65
movies and 30 television shows
–would appear to beauseful
addition to the King bookshelf; a
shame that Ian Nathan’s hand-
somely produced and nicely
illustrated effortfalls shortofwhat
it promises.There’s certainly little
“fresh critical analysis”–this is a
handy companion, notasubstan-
tial study–and theinterviews and
“behind the scenes revelations”
offer nothing particularly new,
deriving fromexisting sources.The
book works better as what Nathan
callsa“biography by stealth”, trac-
ing King’s life and career through
the screen works that bear his
name and tracking the thematic
links between the books and
movies.It’sworth remembering
that for everyShining(and King
hated Kubrick’s masterpiece) or
ShawshankRedemptionthere’s
aSilver Bulletor aDreamcatcher;
the dance between book and film
is not alwaysapredictable or
happy one.Thisisuseful as an
overview,but the lack of indexor
notes doesn’t help, and the whole
thing would havebenefitted from a
firmer editorial hand.Abject Quizzery
The Utterly Depressing Quiz Book
Karl Shaw
Old Street Publishing, 2019
Pb, 340pp, £12.99, ISBN 9781910400661Well, the publishers really should
havegot this one to us in time for
Christmas,shouldn’t they? But it
seems somehow apt thataquiz
book devoted to the depressing
should havearrived so late as to
possess absolutely no appeal in
the middle ofachilly January.It’s
acynical,seasonal novelty item,
with an Eeyore-ish approach and
questions devoted to strange
deaths,horrible diseases and
unpleasant despots through
history,aswell as more topical
reasons to be miserable in the
shape of climate change and
current world politics.Ifyou know
someone who enjoys odd trivia, TV
shows likeQI,orFTsectionslike
Strange Deaths,Mythconceptions
and Classical Corner,thenyou
mightwant tobuythisfor them in
order to castapall of gloom over
their next festiveseason.Seven Years of Grace
TheInspiredMissionofAchsaW
Sprague
SaraRath
University ofWisconsinPress, 2016
Pb, £22.95, 277pp, illus, notes.ISBN 978-0934720663In the decade before the Ameri-
can CivilWar, ayoung woman
named Achsa Sprague toured the
States withalecture programme
promoting women’s rights,the
abolition of slavery,prison reform,
and Spiritualism; one ofasmall
number of itinerant female
lecturers.Oversevenyears,
she would perform alone on
the stage asamedium, singing
hymns and speaking inatrance
state.She attracted audiences
of thousands who followed her
enthusiastically and staunchly
faced the inevitable groups of
hecklers and sceptics also drawn
to such events.Sprague’s story
begins with her asashy,sickly
girl barely tolerated byadrunken
father.One day in November
1852, she hasavision of angels
which boosts her recovery and
gives her the sense of purpose
she longed for.She embraced
the Spiritualist movement and
began lecturing. SaraRath–an
award-winning local historian
–bringsSprague’s life and activi-
ties to life using period documen-
tation from theVermont Historical
Society and other archives,but
asanovel. Asatechnique it
worksvery well and illuminates a
curious but influential strand of
antebellum America.Origins of the Sphinx
Celestial Guardian of Pre-
PharaonicCivilization
RobertMSchochAnd RobertBauval
Inne rTraditions, 2017
Pb, £17.99, 528pp, illus, colour plates, bib, index.
ISBN 9781620555255If anyone is favourite to solvethe
riddle of the Great Sphinx of Giza
it must be Schoch and Bauval.
Both areveteran“Egyptology
outsiders”with many provoca-
tivebooks discussing ancient
civilisations in general and Egypt
in particular and appear here
in what the blurb calls“apro-
vocativecollaboration”exploring
their conviction that the Sphinx
is far older than the acceptedtimeline of Egyptology allows.
This orthodoxview holds that it
waserected around 2500 BC as
amemorial to pharaoh Khafre.
The authors disagree.Theyfirst
show how there is no supportive
evidence for this opinion and set
out to discover the true ‘when’
and, as just as importantly,‘why’
in atightly argued dialogue of
articles.Schoch’supdates his
well-known theory that an earlier
date can be derived from study-
ing thewater-weathering patterns
of the erosion of the monu-
ment, adding new seismic and
geological data. Bauvalextends
his own publicised theory about
the constellations of Orion and
Leo being used in ancient times
to orient important structures.
To gether,they summarise the
significant evidence for an older
construction phase at Giza and
conclude that the original monu-
mentwasrestored and recurved
during the Old Kingdom era. That
earlier construction, they demon-
strate,was by“anadvanced pre-
Pharaonic civilisation thatexisted
circa 12,000yearsago”and
wascontemporaneous with the
fascinating GöbekliTe pe complex
in Turkey.Schochand Bauval pre-
sentawell-written, well-argued
and well-illustrated (including
16 colour plates)thesis which
deservesserious consideration.Resonant Mind
The Science, Myth and Magic of
Suspension
Peter Adey
Reaktion Books, 2017
Hb, £20.00, 296pp, illus, refs, index.
ISBN 9781780237374This wide-ranging and well-
illustrated study is not so much
about incidents of levitation as
about the ideas of floating, rising
up and moving through the air,
drawingexamples from philoso-
phy,religion, magic,science and
popular culture.Author Adey–a
professor of Human Geography
at the University ofLondon –
writes engagingly as he reveals
the remarkable depth andextent
of these ideas,how they have
become embedded in human
society,and how they have
manifested or beenexpressed.
From the power of asceticsaints and surrealist arttoflying
superheroes and astronauts in
null-gravity,through today’sCGI
tricks with cameraorcomputer,
and even further into the future
with hovering cities,Adeykeeps
youthinking.Behind our spiritual,
imaginativeand scientific lives,
the idea of levitationsymbolises
nothing less than an epiphany,
our release from (or triumph
over) those forces that ground us
or hold us back at the same time
revealing the unlimited prospects
ahead of us.Energy,Cold Fusion and
Antigravity
Frank Znidarsic
CreateSpace, 2017
PB, £10.45, 133pp, illus, bib. ISBN 9781480270237As forteans we applaud science
mavericks with their self-pub-
lished theories,whose strident
and self-important tones often
drown out the intended message
of their particular inventions,
creations or discoveries.The
hope is that among the ‘wacky’
and unorthodoxthere might
be,someday,atruly important
insight which will properly chal-
lenge orthodoxscience.Author
Znidarsic isaprofessionalelectri-
cal engineer who,for years,has
monitored claims in the field of
cold fusion and‘anti-gravitational’
experiments.Hereheexplains
why he thinks these might work
and how they might be applied.
Hopefully,somescientists will
read it and respond. If he is
in error,learningpreciselywhy
might be more informativethan
the usual blanking such papers
get from the Establishment.Stephen King at the
Movies
AComplete History of the Film
and Television Adaptations from
the Master of Fiction
Ian Nathan
Palazzo, 2019
Hb, 224pp, illus, bib, £25, ISBN 9781786750815Stephen King may be the biggest
name in horror writing, but as he
has admitted–inhis ownsurvey
of the genre,Danse Macabre,for
example–his early influences
came as often from cinema as
literature.Abookexamining theFT389 63ALSORECEIVEDWE LEAF THROUGHASMALL SELECTION OF THE DOZENS OF BOOKSTHATHAVE ARRIVED AT
FORTEAN TOWERS IN RECENT MONTHS...