Blast From the Past (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

I've come to expect big things from Ben Elton, but this ain't it.

The story is good and the characters are good fun. I suspect he's taking the mickey out of aspects of good friends (including himself), and he brings things to life well, as always.

The plot isn't as complete as others he's written though, and there's nothing to really offer the suprise element that he does usually.

Having said that, his class is still there, and my 3 stars indicates that it's good, not bad or excellent. Many writers would love their best efforts to match Eltons weaker ones.

Following Stark, Gridlock, This Other Eden and Popcorn, Blast From The Past is Ben Elton's fifth novel. It's his worst.

It tells the story of a Polly - a principled 17 year old feminist leftwing peacenik who hates nuclear weapons and campaigns outside Greenham Common in the 1980s - and Jack, a high ranking rightwing US soldier in his 30s. They meet, bizarrely fall in love but then after a summer of love Jack leaves her. Suspense is provided by the 'Bug', a man obsessed by Polly who watches her and is determined to possess her no matter what. The novel charts his obsession as a sideline to Polly and Jack's relationship, his departure and his subsequent surprise arrival on her doorstep 16 years after he left her.

I'm reading Ben Elton's novels in the order they were published and this is his worst to date - why?

It is written adequately enough but the problem is that it is just not funny enough for a comic novel, nor is it gripping enough for a suspense novel. Yes it does have jokes but nowhere near as many as Stark or Gridlock - whole chapters fly by between them - and in a comic novel a joke every 10 to 15 pages is not enough. Moreover, the suspense formed by the Bug wanting Polly only takes off in the last 75 pages of the novel, and this is a BIG problem.

This story would work well as a short story because endless conversations between two people about the same subject ('Why have you returned, Jack?') cannot be sustained over 350 pages. There are only three main characters yet Ben Elton is still afflicted with his problem of excessive wording and poor editing, and whereas Stark is funny but overly long (with huge sections of samey samey leftwing sentiments), Blast From The Past is overly long with fewer jokes and far too much dialogue.

Most of these chapters are conversations going over the same ground, and it would have been far more effective (and less tedious for the reader) had this been accomplished in fewer chapters.

The narrator viewpoint switches at whim from Polly to Jack and back again, so we are never clear who we are supposed to be sympathetic for (if any). To compound matters, instead of showing us how the characters feel through dialogue and body language, we are constantly TOLD what they feel, which is both clumsy and annoying.

It's a shame because Ben Elton can write better suspense (Popcorn) and can also write funnier jokes (Stark). Stick with these and avoid Blast From The Past.

Blast From The Past is a curious book. I deliberately picked it as my next book to read as I was on a business trip and could read the whole thing in the time I was travelling. It is quite a short book and maybe that's where for me, it lets itself down.

The story is set around a phone call Polly received in the early hours of the morning. From here it hives off into a range of story lines, some happening at the present time and some being flashbacks to major characters pasts.

The main interactions in the book are between Polly, Captain Jack Kent and the completely unnecessary "Bug" who Polly has named as such due to his penchant for stalking her. Her attempt to impersonalise him is admirable, but in all honest completely irrelevant, just as he is as a character.

Books like this that only cover a very short space of time often suffer from either going too fast or too slow. An example of a book that avoided these pit falls is Cathedral by Nelson Demille - an excellent read. Blast From The Past in my mind avoids this problem as well by traversing the ages and looking back at characters past lives, this however loses some of the momentum the main story line has and in my mind chips away at the quality of the book. Ben Elton insists on splicing stories chapter by chapter and doesn't really allow me to get into the book, this is where a longer more thoughtful novel could have succeeded

Overall I have read a lot worse, its interesting in concept and certainly entertaining in parts, I have however read better Ben Elton's, and in all honesty, just better books overall.