20 August 2017

In 2014 Fondazione Rosellini , an Italian publisher , printed in book form those last Jeff Hawke stories omitted from the otherwise complete Milano libri collection. Together the two Rosellini volumes covered all the remainig stories up to SONG FOR METHUSELAH and at the back of the last volume  also printed a complete Chronology of the  Hawke corpus. Intriguingly, at the very end of the list, after SONG FOR METHUSELAH, two more  titles  were listed  and both were marked  ” Non Realizata” ( not produced). They were  called ICE NEEDLE  and DIRE STRAITS and Duncan Lunan, Sydney’s collaborator in many of the later Hawke stories , was mentioned as the c0-writer of  both.  I contacted Duncan in the hope that he could shed some light on these and after some searching  he very kindly sent me  a complete  story synopsis for both titles together with concept sketches   and an outline of how he and his co-writer  came to light upon these themes.

The first story, DIRE STRAITS  introduces more Vikings, similar to those seen in PHAROAH’S ARMY  but this time from the New World and the second, ICE NEEDLE  concerns a Japanese expedition to Uranus using  a craft powered by concentrated solar energy. Future posts will unfold both these stories in greater detail. Skipper Prossitt