History Literature / HulloRussiaGoodbyeEngland

* HufflepuffHouse: Great Britain in the post-Suez era: not an equal partner to the United States' Grifindor, but also opposed to the Slytherin of the Soviet Union. this novel is a postscript to the [=WW2=] novels, acknowledging Britain's fall from superpower status.

* KillEmAll: The usual resolution of the moral quandary - just get out there, "kick the wheels, and start the fires."

* ASpotOfTea: Of course. This is the ''British'' nuclear strike force.

* BadassGrandpa: Flying combat aircraft is a young man's game, right? Anyone over twenty-five is seen as too old to do it? Not in 409 squadron. As experience and maturity are seen as desirable qualities in men whose sole function is to nuke Russia, the average age of 409's Vulcan aircrews is over forty. Grandfathers by RAF standards.

This is a sequel to his novel of Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force in [=WW2=], ''Damned Good Show''.

This is a sequel to his novel of Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force in [=WW2=], ''Damned Good Show''. In the fateful year of 1962, Flight Lieutenant Silk, a twice-decorated Lancaster pilot in WW II, rejoins the R.A.F. and qualifies to fly the Vulcan bomber. Piloting a Vulcan is an unforgettable experience: no other aircraft comes close to matching its all-round performance. And as bombers go, it's drop-dead gorgeous. But there's a catch. The Vulcan has only one role: to make a second strike. To act in retaliation for a Russian nuclear attack. Silk knows that if he ever flies his Vulcan in anger, he'll be flying from a smoking wasteland, a Britain obliterated. But in the mad world of Mutually Assured Destruction, the Vulcan is the last - the only - deterrent. Derek Robinson returns with another rip-roaring, gung-ho R.A.F. adventure, one that exposes and confronts the brinkmanship and sabre-rattling of the Cold War Era.

This is a sequel to his novel of Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force in WW2, ''Damned Good Show''. In the fateful year of 1962, Flight Lieutenant Silk, a twice-decorated Lancaster pilot in WW II, rejoins the R.A.F. and qualifies to fly the Vulcan bomber. Piloting a Vulcan is an unforgettable experience: no other aircraft comes close to matching its all-round performance. And as bombers go, it's drop-dead gorgeous. But there's a catch. The Vulcan has only one role: to make a second strike. To act in retaliation for a Russian nuclear attack. Silk knows that if he ever flies his Vulcan in anger, he'll be flying from a smoking wasteland, a Britain obliterated. But in the mad world of Mutually Assured Destruction, the Vulcan is the last - the only - deterrent. Derek Robinson returns with another rip-roaring, gung-ho R.A.F. adventure, one that exposes and confronts the brinkmanship and sabre-rattling of the Cold War Era.

* AlreadyMetEveryone: Most of the characters here were first encountered in Robinson's previous book on 409 Squadron in WW2, ''Damned Good Show''.

* HufflepuffHouse: Great Britain in the post-Suez era: not an equal partner to the United States' Grifindor, but also opposed to the Slytherin of the Soviet Union. this novel is a postscript to the WW2 novels, acknowledging Britain's fall from superpower status.

* ApocalypseHow: the nuclear option and the people and aircraft who would have delivered it.

* BattleButler: Stevens, the butler to Mrs Silk MP, is more than he seems and is following a different agenda. [[spoiler: He ''really'' works for British Intelligence, and has the dual role of bodyguarding Mr and Mrs Silk against blackmail attempts and of reporting back on their activities and compromising weaknesses]]

* DeathByFallingOver: the fate of the bookie. The punch didn't kill him. Being knocked unconscious into a patch of stinging nettles did. The post-mortem discovered a case of ''urticaria'' - extreme allergic reaction to nettle stings.

* GreyAndGrayMorality: the pilots of 409 Squadron try not to deal with the deeper implications of defending freedom by nuking Russia, or of liberating Eastern European nations from Russia by vaporising their cities.

* KillEmAll: the usual resolution of the moral quandary - just get out there, "kick the wheels, and start the fires."

* WorldWarIII: how it might have looked. A detailed scene takes place in a flight simulator in which everything that could go wrong on a mission goes wrong up to and including premature explosion of the nuke and narrowly evading becoming collateral damage to nuclear explosions going on around them. There is a reason why Vulcan aircrew were issued eyepatches and [[NightmareFuel this]] is graphically explained.

** During the extended prologue, the character of Air Commodore "Baggy" Bletchley is revisted. It is revealed he went [[UnusualEuphemism sand-happy]] in North Africa and in a manner worthy of Creator/GrahamChapman's [[TheBrigadier Brigadier]] in MontyPythonsFlyingCircus, he apparently took to wearing womens' clothing and calling himself "Florence of Arabia". Chapman's Brigadier was a severely pompous senior British officer from the waist up, who wore women's clothing from the waist down.

This is a sequel to his novel of Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force in WW2, ''Damned Good Show''. In the fateful year of 1962, Flight Lieutenant Silk, a twice-decorated Lancaster pilot in WW II, rejoins the R.A.F. and qualifies to fly the Vulcan bomber. Piloting a Vulcan is an unforgettable experience: no other aircraft comes close to matching its all-round performance. And as bombers go, it's drop-dead gorgeous. But there's a catch. The Vulcan has only one role: to make a second strike. To act in retaliation for a Russian nuclear attack. Silk knows that knows that if he ever flies his Vulcan in anger, he'll be flying from a smoking wasteland, a Britain obliterated. But in the mad world of Mutually Assured Destruction, the Vulcan is the last - the only - deterrent. Derek Robinson returns with another rip-roaring, gung-ho R.A.F. adventure, one that exposes and confronts the brinkmanship and sabre-rattling of the Cold War Era.