Author: Alan Burt Akers (aka Kenneth Bulmer)First Published: 1972
Pages: 120
At the age of about 16 or 17 in school I was forced to read Shakespeare for English Literature. I cannot remember which play it was. It might have even been a selection of his work. I would start out full of enthusiasm in each lesson, but rapidly as I started to read the strange words on the pages I would realise that I didn't understand anything of what was going on or was being said by any of the characters. I would complain to our teacher that it was "pointless learning this stuff" and that we would "never use any of this knowledge" after we finished our education.
Reading Transit to Scorpio by Kenneth Bulmer gave me the same feeling I had all those years ago. I cannot see what the attraction is for readers of this series? I started it thinking I was about to read a classic of the Sword and Planet genre, something entertaining and full of action and adventure. What I got was a totally incomprehensible story, at times I even doubted my own sanity. I know Bulmer has written a lot of stuff, hundreds of novels apparently. And some of them are praised as classics. Unfortunately this was my first experience of Bulmer's writing (unless I've read something else of his under a different name and am completely unaware of it). Was this a very early effort? This was one of the most difficult reads I've encountered for many years.