Biggles Forum

[SopwithCamel]

Sadly, I was unable to purchase either Algy in the Gobi or Algy Takes Charge (You know, the actual cost of paper with a few words printed upon them is so much higher than I thought...)

Oh well.

I rather do find Biggles Goes to War something of a pro-Ginger book. Again.

It's not all Ginger this time, which is good.

The tale starts with some Count of some weird little country asking Biggles for help against some weird big country. He wants Biggles and co to start an air force. Biggles says no, and the Count goes away, but a little while later someone from the weird big country comes and threatens Biggles.

Being a fool, Biggles immediately calls up the Count and says "okay, let's start an air force." Sounds like a bad echo of the beginning of Biggles and Co. here.

(Well, one minor detail. The tale really begins with Akgy and Ginger saying they're bored. Biggles says Algy is smoking too much. It's strange having your cousin who smokes like a fireplace telling you you smoke too much. Really!)

So Biggles gets his planes and stuff and goes flying off to the weird little country. On the way, someone he thought was on their side "traps" a landing ground, so one of Biggles' numerous buddies comes up to supply them with juice to refuel.

Biggles shoots down a few enemy planes before landing and the General of the little country makes a big fuss.

Biggles might have fallen in love with the princess whose name is Mariette or something of the sort if the Count's nephew hasn't already fallen in love with her. Really, wej seems to think that all pretty women must have some Mari-sounding name!

I think the parts where Biggles plans to blow up the bridge with the enemy plane is quite good. Almost Biggles WWI style, in fact.

Only when they come back from the raid, Biggles and Algy get caught and taken off to jail where they'll be shot in the morning.

It's a very lucky chance that Ginger didin't get caught, but I can't understand why no one had teh brains to look in the plane. I mean, isn't it usual to look into a plane or car or whatever when you're waiting to catch the people inside/ You'd expect SOMEONE to think about Ginger being in the plane, hiding or something.

And then there's a whole lot about Ginger dashing around trying to get to Biggles and Algy in time. It's Biggles in Spain all over again. Ginger trying to save the world and he's only got 24 hours or whatever to do it in.

On the whole, most of the post WWI pre WWII books are pro-Ginger. I hasten to add that I don't dislike Ginger. It's more of the fact that I happen to like Algy more rather than really disliking Ginger. It's sad that Algy was tossed into teh shadows before he had half a chance at the limelight.

[VickersVandal]

Basically: too much cloak&dagger, not enough pouring tracer into Lovitznians. Still a good read, nonetheless.


Too bad the Lovitznians didn't shoot both Algy and Ginger, then WEJ could have imported some new characters who weren't boring and irritating .

[SopwithCamel]

Well, they should have shot Biggles. Then the series would become the Algy books...*sigh*

[Miss Carstairs]

As much as I like Algy, I object to Biggles getting shot just so he can have his own books! Maybe imprisoned for a long spell?!

For some reason I've never closely analysed I love 'Biggles Goes to War' - i haven't read it in a while, but like Soppy says, some of it really has a WW1-esque feeling to it, and the plans Biggles' makes for Ludwig to foil the Lovitznians, in one place, always make me giggle, as does him tipping over a massive barrow of china - I'd rather love to do it myself, and several other incidents. The Ginger-rescue-ending *is* a bit of a let down, but not too bad. And I may be a bit old fashioned but I like me a good Princess of two for Biggles to heroically rescue, even if they do have Marie-names, alas!

[SopwithCamel]

Well, Biggles liked you, and your name's Stella!

I'd forgotten about the barrow of china. Yes, I love that bit. It is possibly the only place in the entire 98 books where I found myself completely and utterly in love with Ginger. Truth to tell, I've often wondered how it would feel, but I've never had the cash to spare to find out! *sigh*

[Miss Carstairs]

True, it'd be quite interesting to compile a list of all the ladies in Biggles books and see just how many did have the same name though!

Oops, I somehow had got it into my head that it was Biggles that tipped over the china barrow - i must dig out that book for a re-read, I like WEJ's penchant for big noisy diversions, a la Smyth (well I hope I got the right char this time!) crashing in Cruise of the Condor...

[SopwithCamel]

Most big crashes/noises seemed to be Ginger based from what I can remember. Black Peril, for example, has Ginger "lighting a big bonfire" so that Algy can get to bIggles in the house.