Sapphire & Steel - Annual 1981

Length: 64 pp "A fracture in time, but not a simple break, something that's causing massive distortion of time and space within a given area, of which this room, the steps, the square outside are all part. I can't quite put my finger on it, but perhaps it's like a crossed circuit; two, maybe more sets of circumstances all trying to crowd into the same time and space, so that we can have both a live President and an assassination, a windy, grey day and a sunny afternoon, all vying for the right to exist simultaneously. Is that too absurd?" - Extract from the book." (Copyright World International 1980) The 1981 Sapphire & Steel annual contained the following short stories: Bid Time Return: (8 pages) A reference to Shakespeare's Richard II, as two actors get pulled out of time. Rogue Robot: (5 pages) A copyright-worrying story as the titular robot has more than a passing resemblance to the creature from Doctor Who's 1974 tale Robot. A £40,000 "X45?, this laser-wielding creation was paid for by "one of those emergent Latin American countries." The story also gives us Sapphire taking time forward... by a whole year! Chamber of Horrors: (5 pages) Six university students celebrate rag week not by smoking copious amounts of illegal substances like you might expect, but by staying overnight in a wax museum. Then the wax dummies come to life, sapping the energy of the students while they sleep... Star Gazing: (9 pages) Sapphire & Steel arrive at an £8 million, ten-year-old observatory, only to find it plagued by echoes of 367AD... Finger of Blood: (7 pages) Here Sapphire & Steel travel to America in order so that President Hennessy will be assassinated. With four converging realities, the odds are against them. Also included were features on The Bermuda Triangle, UFOs, The Mary Celeste (4 pages each), The Lost Colony, Black Holes, Reincarnation (3 pages each) and telepathy/thought photography (2 pages each).