I read this because I read the 80s novelisation by Arthur Byron Cover and loved it to death, and also because I was curious as to how this version would hold up in comparison. I wasn't disapointed. It was a fun read and had some truly wonderful moments, the little copper robot being just one of them. These novels were based on a cartoon strip that appeared in newspapers way back in the 30s, drawn by Alex Raymond, whose name is credited on the cover. The actual author's name only appears inside however, a 'Con Steffanson'.

It's not high-brow literature by any stretch but rather a fun, fast-paced adventure in a futuristic place as imagined a long time ago(I'm referring the 30s strips the novel is based on rather than the 1974 publication date of the actual novel). It really does hold up well though, a good part of the reason for that being that Flash Gordon was always going to be a pulp-style sci-fi adventure and so fits in quite well with other pulp-style sci-fi no matter when they were written, pulp is still pulp after all whether it was written 100 years ago or 1 year ago.

I loved it, for what it was. It's a good deal less cheeky than the 80s novelisation(Dale, a swinger? Are you sure? OMG!) but I was expecting that anyway, not because it was published in the 70s of course, but because it's based on that 30s cartoon strip I was talking about, so if they're going to base it on that and stick to it as best they can then I suppose there's going to be that air of innocence about it.

OK. I liked it more than I thought I would. It was very enjoyable and had some very cute moments, and whats more, there are 6 in the series that I know of so I'm looking forward to reading the rest.

Very good.
( )

Flash Gordon rewritten as a simple, even simplistic, adventure novel. As is often the case with novelizations of comic strips, the characters are even more cardboardy than in the strip, and without Raymond's gorgeous drawings most of the point is gone. The action feels choppy, but I'm not sure whether that's a feature of the original or if the translation has had parts cut out to fit it into 160 pages (and I'm not interested enough to find out). At least it was a quick read, and only cost me an hour of my life that I would otherwise have used staring out the window on the tube.

Verdict: Read the strip instead. ( )