Cold War in a Country Garden

The new Ant-Man movie reminded me that I wanted to reread Lindsay Gutteridge's Mathew Dilke stories, which I first read when I was at school, and fondly remember, mixing, as they did, several boyhood interests: science fiction, insects and spies.

The story falls into two main parts: We are first introduced to Dilke after he's already completed the mysterious miniaturisation process, now standing at ¼ inch high and, thanks to some departmental joker, bearing the codename 00.25. Dilke's survival training is an excitingly fast-paced series of violent encounters with the micro-beasts that inhabit his suburban English back-garden. Enough detail is given about the development of his survival gear to satisfy curiosity, but not so much that it show more gets bogged down in technical detail. Other micro-characters are introduced and there's a good feeling of macho camaraderie fitting the time it was written (early 70s) and the 'safari' situation. It's not all plain sailing, though!

The second part moves from the garden to the Eastern bloc, as might be expected from the 'Cold War' of the title, where Dilke and his team embark upon their mission of espionage. I found that I'd forgotten a significant part of this section and was pleasantly surprised at the turn of events (though the turn events take is not so pleasant, actually!).

Happily, then, I was justified in keeping this book for the last 36 years. Hopefully, the sequels will be as good as I remember, too. show less

The subject is an enjoyable one: miniaturized men doing espionage work in Romania. Scary side effects in the form of antlions and centipedes. There is not much explanation of how the miniaturization is done, and at times it was hard to visualize what was being described. Still, an entertaining read.