Skip to content
Elite: Mostly Harmless charts the story of Commander Angel Rose, space-trading this and that to eke out a living, shooting into hyperspace across the galaxies, and trying to avoid not only vicious pirates out to destroy her, but even worse… having to return back to Slough Orbital, her home-based space station where her ignorant father and overbearing mother hold high authority.
Throughout the 28 chapters, she meets a number of sometimes nefarious characters, most notably Spanish-sounding Dredd Catherine, the weasley Captain Riley – a ghastly and repellent individual, and Mental Eddie, whose name speaks for itself.
And Kate also puts Slough on the map with this novel – alongside John Betjeman’s poem and the fact that The Office was set there.
There are references to the economy, such as to why Angel can’t afford to immediately replace the space station’s aerial, which broke off from her Cobra after she had another inadvertent poor docking, and it’s certainly a help if you’re familiar with the world of Elite – the space-set trading videogame – but if not, Kate certanly paints a detailed picture of everything which would be seen, if this were a movie. In addition, even before I put the CD in my car, I imagined there would be the hum of Commander Angel Rose’s spaceship in the background, and there was.
In fact, it’s great to listen to while you’re driving along the motorway and can imagine Angel Rose motoring along across the solar system at the same time, and whenever she’s having problems controlling her ship, I liken it to my own car feeling a little sluggish (it *really* needs a service!)
Elite: Mostly Harmless occasionally drops in slight elements of Douglas Adams, not least because of the title – which was also the rating of a ship commander in the original Elite game, but this novel stands in its own right. And while Kate has been presenting on our television screens for many a moon, and may look like butter wouldn’t melt, there are a number of particularly gruesome scenes on display (or in your head, of course), one of which reminded me of something I once saw on the now-defunct website, Ogrish, which specialised in showing fatalities and near-fatalities.
Yes, you’ll need a strong stomach occasionally.
When listening to Elite: Mostly Harmless, I originally thought, “Wouldn’t this make a great movie?”, well, yes it would, but 2hrs wouldn’t be long enough to tell the whole tale, and these days multi-part TV series are ‘the new movies’ – with the likes of Breaking Bad, The Killing, House of Cards et al, all grabbing the attention of millions viewers from start to finish, whilst telling a full story – and it also means we get more to watch than we would with a film. But who to play Angel?
I thought first of a US actress – the newly-single Emma Stone, but then a UK actress appeared on my radar (to continue the Elite theme), who I’d seen before but not since listening to this audiobook. On balance, I think she would actually be a better fit for the role, too. That actress is Justine Cain (below-left), best known as Charlie from BBC3’s excellent comedy, Some Girls, although what drew me to her attention more recently was her guest appearance in BBC1’s Doctors, which is my guilty pleasure, and the only soap on TV worth watching, in my view. Her episode was called Perfect Match, although it may well have dropped off the BBC iPlayer by the time you read this. If there’s another way to somehow watch it online, I would very much recommend it.
Also, I’d recommend Mental Eddie to be played by either Tony Way (below-centre – Sightseers, Edge of Tomorrow) or Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Alien Resurrection). As for Catherine – Gina Gershon (Bound), Salma Hayek (Desperado, Everly), or VerĂ³nica Echegui (below-right), aka Elena from Fortitude.
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the audiobook, and click on the book cover above for the full-size version.
All voices are performed by Kate (below) – from Angel Rose (right) to even the male characters, which is very amusing at times. Just one is not provided by Kate, and that is for a special cameo from Elite‘s creator, David Braben – and out of all those few people who get voiceover work, I’d far rather hear Kate’s lilting and sensual voice eminating from a zillion adverts than certain individuals who dominate the adverts, mentioning no names… (*ahem* Craig Kelly *ahem*). Oh, and I did enjoy hearing Kate drop in the occasional strong language from time to time đŸ™‚
Oh, and there’s even a reference to 2 Girls 1 Cup!
I was very much looking forward to Kate’s first novel, as I’ve been following career since I first saw her on Sky One’s Gamesworld, with Big Boy Barry – including one episode, dressed as “Pixie Kate”, and while there is footage online of her on the show in general, alas I only have a memory in my head of Pixie Kate đŸ˜‰
More recently, she has presented the Webscape segment of BBC’s flagship technology programme, Click for over ten years, but I also have great memories of [.tv] – formerly The Computer Channel – where she presented Chips With Everything, and the channel also featured Will Hanrahan and fellow Click presenter/producer Chris Long. I miss the heady days of that channel, which ran from September 1st 1996, up to September 2nd 2001. I even changed over from regular Sky to Sky Digital, partly so that I could get the then-extended daily hours, from two to twelve, although obviously Sky Digital had more channels overall and I’m certain Sky, themselves, purposely downgraded their analogue signal to make people switch over, but anyway…
On the final day, the last week of which had been only repeats, the channel headed towards midnight with a repeat of of Games Chart, followed by a few adverts, the [.tv] logo, the usual audio flourish, and then…. the SkyDigital blue screen and “There is a technical fault with this channel. Please try later.”
Oh, but when?? (Well, by Monday afternoon, the channel number was no longer available anyway)
But I digress… đŸ˜‰
(Note: The Angel Rose artwork is (c) Ramon Marett, and click on the image for the full-size version)
Elite: Mostly Harmless is the first book I’ve ‘read’ in years, and I can’t wait for Mostly Harmless 2. I’m not really one for reading books as I tend to wait for the movie version, and the last physical book I read was 1984, when I was at school (around that year, too, and coincidentally, the year the original Elite game was released). However, with this one, I was fascinated by it and, with it also being my first audiobook, I’m intrigued to check out more audiobooks, too.
Elite: Mostly Harmless is an official Elite: Dangerous novel and is published by Fantastic Books Publishing and is available on Kindle to name but one format, but also Paperback*, Hardback*, USB, Audio CD*, MP3 and you can also buy a collector’s set of 9 cards. (* denotes autographed version available)
Kate’s previous book, Working the Cloud: The Ultimate Guide To Making The Internet Work For You And Your Business is also available in Paperback and Kindle, from Crimson Publishing.
Click on the Audio CD image below for the full-size versions.
Overall Score: 10/10
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
| 1 | 2 |