In this issue . . .
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Whenever an amateur reviewer starts a new review column, they always start by saying something along the lines of: "OK, so I'm unqualified, but I do read a LOT of books". Well, you can take it as read that I do read a lot of books and that I am dangerously unqualified for the job. Nevertheless, I am an opinionated old grouch, who is more than willing to inflict my thoughts on the masses, unfettered by a conscience or good manners. So, here goes . . .
I've been meaning to start a book review column for some time now, first broaching the idea in Sprout#19, back in my sub zine of Unlimited days. Warren (Editor of Unlimited), was never particularly keen on the idea, so I didn't press the issue, even after he started reviewing comics! Somehow when I took over the main ‘zine, the idea never resurfaced in my mind at the right time. Until now, that is.
Sitting in my bedroom there are two large bookshelves cram packed, oddly enough, with books. These tend to contain books I liked and may want to read again. Whilst books I have read, but which I'm unlikely to want to read again are consigned to numerous boxes and stashed in the loft. Up there they don't add much to the structural integrity of the house, but they do provide much needed insulation. Needless to say, this system tends to fail miserably. Invariably books I wish to read again magic themselves to the loft, only for books I'd never read again if you paid me, to reverse the journey and teleport themselves back to my bedroom. No doubt, the literary equivalent of conservation of momentum at work. Another problem with this filing system is, of course, me. Simply put, I'm too lazy to file the books where they should be put, and even if I was, there isn't any more room in the two bookcases and there hasn't been for about three years now. I solve this problem in the typical and time-honoured male way, and leave everything lying about in great tottering heaps. I do however pay lip service to the concept of organisation and separate out those I have read and those I haven't.
 The pile of read books, more properly piles, are fairly huge now (the ‘to be' read pile is quite impressive too, but we will get to that later) and they are quite unstable. They occasionally and spectacularly fall over. An event which often coincides with my consuming large quantities of a strange amber beverage. Coincidence? I will let my gentle readers be the judges. The last time they fell over, if I recall - a Theakston's Old rat-worrier evening; I found a book in the resulting debris which I thought I'd lost -
Villains! - Ed Mary Gentle & Roz Kaveney . This collection of comedy short stories, told from the villain's point of view contains some gems by a motley collection of famous, nearly famous and obscure authors. My copy is signed by Neil Gaiman of Good Omens fame, which confused me until I remembered he is credited with creating the idea, along with Mary Gentle. When I first read Villains!, I made myself a mental note to check some of the authors other works out, but like cleaning the toilet; somehow I never seemed to quite get around to it. Seeing it again I resolved to not make the same mistake twice and proceeded to look some of them up.
One of the best shorts in Villains! is Bellringers' Overtime by Roz Kaveney. I'd never seen any of her work in bookshops since, although I vaguely recall her contributing the ‘pride' story to a long out of print comic: The Seven Deadly Sins or perhaps just Sin. Confused that such a talent could remain unpublished, I did a quick web search only to find that she barely gets a mention except on David Langford's Ansible web page - http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/ftp/pub/SF-Archives/Ansible
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 To my eyes, although disappointing, this was indeed a bit of serendipity; because David Langford's Critical Mass column was always my favourite part of the early White Dwarf magazine. His tastes often tallied with mine, but what I enjoyed most was that he was willing to call a bad book a bad book. Often being bitingly sarcastic in the bargain. It was nice to reread some of his old reviews (held on the site), and poking about further I spotted he had some first editions for sale (found in his loft - I bet they were once in his bedroom) and quickly ordered:
An Account of a Meeting with Denizens of Another World, 1871 - David Langford. It arrived by return of post.
An Account of a Meeting with Denizens of Another World, 1871 reports to be just that, an account of meeting between William Robert Loosley and ‘perhaps' visitors from another world. It consists of a central essay, supposedly written by Loosley, but found in the papers of a long dead Langford relative. This is surrounded by a short introduction and lengthier following explanation, both courtesy of Mr (or should that be Dr) Langford. The account itself is entertaining enough and encourages the reader to guess at the strange sights reported by the essayist. Some are obvious, such as the Camera device and Holographic projectors, whilst some are fairly cryptic requiring the reader to speculate, with the advantage of 20th Century knowledge, much in the manner that Loosley himself speculates from a 19th Century standpoint. All the sights are then explained, from a slightly sceptical viewpoint in the later sections. In these later sections the book shines. Langford writes with just the right mixture of incredulity and disbelief, and manages to carry off the spoof perfectly. Unquestionably the book is indeed a spoof, which the author now admits, but which has nevertheless fooled many would be believers. Most famously these include Whitley Strieber, of abduction and anal probing fame, who quotes the central narrative, without permission in his 1989 book Majestic. Mr Strieber is one of those charm less ‘Chariot of the Gods' style cranks who, apparently, refuses to believe that this is a work of fiction. Bizarre!
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 A book that won't have many people convinced it is true, not that it tries to, is:
Before & After - Matthew Thomas. This first novel, heavily promoted in both Waterstones and WH Smiths, has a stylish cover featuring an exploding sheep. The presentation and cover blurb try to suggest that Mr Thomas could be the next Pratchett, whose style he painfully attempts to mimic. Even down to the, now tired and tedious use of footnotes throughout. The subject matter - end of the world, demons interacting, often badly, with real world inhabitants is more Tom Holt or Robert Rankin though. After standing reading the prologue in the shop, which concerned the exploding sheep and finding myself suppressing a giggle, I caved in and bought it. Unfortunately, I found little else in the book amusing, although I could see how other people might. One thing I found especially annoying was the over use of Black Adder styled comparisons – opening the book at random - " . . . more full of shit than King Kong's colostomy bag" for example. Admittedly some do raise a smile, but being constantly bombarded soon wears thin. As if things weren't bad enough, the exploding sheep featured on the cover and in the prologue are hardly key to the plot, which concerns immortal Nostrodamus's plan to hide out the apocalypse in the supposed safety of the Welsh hillsides. Unfortunately, he chooses the village of Noddegamra. Oh dear! As a humorous end of the world jape this book fails abysmally and potential readers would be better served by Pratchett and Gainman's Good Omens.
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 Depressed after ploughing through: Before & After, and finding
the humour section of my ‘to be read pile' contained only the unappetizing prospect of the last three Pratchett's, the last two Holt's and Harry Harrison's – The Men from P.I.G and R.O.B.O.T. I took a quick trip down to Waterstones to see if they had something to tempt me. I'll confess, that on the humour front there was very little to tickle my fancy. Although I finally settled for an old short story collection, I'd somehow missed: The Wizards of Odd - Ed Peter Haining. As a collection it's reasonably satisfying, even if the two ‘big name' (at least on the cover) contributions from Pratchett and Adams are amongst the weakest contributions. Best of a variable bunch include - Hell Hath No Fury - John Collier, A Great Deal of Power - Eric Frank Russell, The Ring of Hans Carvel - Frederic Brown, and surprisingly, Playboy and the Slime God - Isaac Asimov.
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The same trip to Waterstones also drew my attention to a new series of classic SF being reprinted by Millennium, who are a part of the Orion publishing group. The series has the rather pompous title: ‘Millennium SF Masterworks', but does seem to contain titles of the highest quality. At first glance, the series appeared to offer me very little, as I already own nine of the first twelve titles (and have read a tenth). Further investigation though revealed that two of them contained significant improvements over earlier UK additions. With a sigh I caved in and bought those two and manfully resisted the others, despite the pretty new covers. No doubt I will succumb to the titles I haven't read very shortly. The first twelve in order are -
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman,
I am legend - Richard Matheson, Cities in Flight - James Blish, Do Androids dream of electric sheep? - Philip K. Dick,
The Stars my Destination - Alfred Bester, Babel-17 - Samuel R. Delany, The Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny,
The Fifth head of Cerebus - Gene Wolfe, Gateway - Frederik Pohl, The Rediscovery of Man - Cordwainer Smith, Last and First Men - Olaf Stapledon, and finally, Earth Abides - George R. Stewart. Future titles should be released at the rate of two per month. Giving a grand total of twenty-four by 2000. Based upon the first twelve my mouth is watering. What price Canticle for Lebowitz . . . being included?
As a special competition, there's a free issue to the first person who can guess which three I don't own and which one of the other nine I'd sooner never read again. To help you a little I will review the two I bought.
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 First purchase was the superb: The Forever War - Joe Haldeman. Easily the best antiwar book I've ever read and a pleasure to read again. The change from previous UK editions consists of an additional section, which was excluded from the magazine serialisation, (and subsequently the novel), when it was first published in the UK. I'm assuming the section was a little too horrifying for 1974, but that the British public has become sufficiently desensitised in the intervening twenty-five years to handle it now. Even if the book itself has lost none of its power during that time. The way Haldeman depicts the unglamorous, inglorious futility of it all, with eerie echoes of the Vietnam war makes this a masterpiece. Which would have, and should have, earned mainstream critical acclaim had it not been science fiction and years ahead of its time. Believe it or not, editor John Campbell, who thought the idea of American women fighting and dying in wars would be too unbelievable, famously turned it down. A fact, Mr Haldeman chooses to remind us of by dedicating his recent novel: Forever Peace to Campbell and Ben Bova, who, fortunately for the rest of us, disagreed. "Today we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man." Reads the attention grabbing first line, excellent stuff.
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 Another book with a stunning introduction, despite it breaking the: ‘Show, don't explain' rule; is the second of my purchases, and one of my favourite novels: The Stars my destination- Alfred Bester. The text has been returned to something like Bester intended, with: "Vorga, I kill you filthy", replacing the: "Vorga, I kill you deadly" that polluted earlier British editions. (Note – In the UK it was published as Tiger! Tiger!). This is a fast moving, action packed, head trip of a story, that must have influenced the likes of Gibson and the Cyberpunk crowd. Set sometime in the future, the world is wracked with the turmoil caused by the socioeconomic implications of mans newly found ability to jaunte/teleport (later stolen by the writers of ‘The Tomorrow People') short distances. Against this backdrop Gully Foyle, a half-witted thug, relentlessly pursues the crew of the starship Vorga which left him marooned in deep space. A mysterious ‘flaming man' hounds him in turn. Throw in, many more demented characters, and enough savvy to still appear streetwise thirty years on, and you have an excellent read. Highly recommended.
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 After reading again: The Forever War, I felt it only fair of me to pull: Forever Peace - Joe Haldeman, from the pile next. Even though its title suggests otherwise, this isn't a sequel to The Forever war, although the introduction explains it is for the author, but not the reader. Coming so soon after reading The Forever War, it did not compare well. I may have to read it again much later to fully appreciate the story. It is set in the not too distant future, where the Alliance (read USA) wages a guerilla war without end against rebel forces in a number of supposedly allied countries. This war is effectively economic and conducted secondhand, at least from the Alliance's point of view, by high-tech remote fighting machines called soldierboys. These machines are controlled from the relative safety of the US by draftees who are collectively ‘jacked in' together with each other and the machines. Most of the US casualties are caused by burnout or heart attacks which coincide with particularly gross things happening to their machines. It's a most unfair and pointless war. Which the Alliance is forced to fight so it can maintain control over miracle nanoforge technology. These nanoforges are capable of quickly producing anything you could imagine, simply from the raw materials, and at no energy cost. Want a diamond? Simply chuck in a lump of coal and wait, simple huh? Of course to remain superior they need to keep this technology from the rest of the world, even going as far a nuking half of Nevada to keep the secret.
Where The Forever War was Vietnam, it is rather obvious that Forever Peace reflects the hands off style of conflict that USA seems only too willing to conduct these days. In that respect it is a sequel and it works well on that level. Where it falls down is that Haldeman suggests the logical effect on the troops using the soldierboys (and being linked to one another) is that they gradually become unable to kill for any reason. He contrasts this with Gavrila, a ruthless female assassin who carves her way through the final third of the book without an ounce of mercy or a shadow of remorse. She seems only too real, whilst the gestalt peace-loving draftees have all the hall marks of a happy ending hastily brought in before the page count hits 600. Still, the novel captured my attention and was finished at two sittings. Usually a very good sign.
Back to the top of issue 35
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Today we're going to show you eight
silent ways to kill a man.
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