Relax, ease your gussets and indulge in a banquet-sized picnic for your brain-gland. Rocket-ships invaded by aliens Secret government satellites plummeting Insane Cold War time-travel Victorian flying-saucers Elderly ladies and moon landings Awfully embarrassing royal "first contact" Edwardian evolution gone splendidly alien Love, icebergs, ocean liners and ghosts Crash-test dogs speaking Latin and Klingon A viral inconvenience escaping from a lab Exceedingly logical robotic detectives ...and even a few adventurous medieval monks. This book is not entirely serious, and it's not entirely not serious. There's only one cat (briefly) mentioned in the whole book, velociducks do not really hunt in packs around English village ponds, and the Moon landing actually cost England a lot more than two hundred and fifty quid. Think Ealing comedy written by chaps in white laboratory coats, some of whom were on psychotropic substances, some of whom were quite sober, and you won't go far wrong. It may be British science fiction, but the science is entirely implausible - and that's really what makes it such fun.