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WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF WHITBOURN
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What's New OR: 'Yo, ladies ... What's happenin ? Whatever Next ? [ Downs Lord Triptych / The Two Confessions / Amy-Faith & the Stronghold] | Dispatch dated 26th June 2004 ****** As of last week I was able to type the traditional celebratory 'Old English' font 36 point 'THE END' to the second in my projected 'Amy-Faith ...' young adults series. Sustained activity to that 'end' is an almost total explanation of recent website procrastination. However, Euro 2004 is also implicated. After a spell of revision 'Amy-Faith & The Enemy of Calm' should be leaving home to go out and do the rounds in the harsh cold world. And there's few worlds either so harsh or cold as publishing ... ****** SFX Magazine number 119 ( July 2004 ) contained my five star ( max. ) rave review of Phil Rickman's 'The Prayer of the Night Shepherd'. This is the sixth in his Merrily Watkins, arch Anglican exorcist, series of 'spiritual procedurals' ( as Mr R calls them ). In my humble opinion it constitutes a major literary event unfolding before our very eyes. SFX made it their lead review, edging even Stephen King into the page margin. Not entirely coincidentally, SFX should be carrying a JAW interview with Mr Rickman in the next few months. For the uninitiated, an earlier appreciation of the Merrily Watkins books may be found at 'A Hymn to Merrily' on this very site and by this very pen. Likewise, for non SFX readers here's what I said in SFX 119: The Prayer of the Night
Shepherd - The Sixth Merrily Watkins Mystery by Phil Rickman. Published by Macmillan. ISBN: 0 333 90806 6 Pages / Price: 535.
£16.99 If this book was a bottle of wine it would be vintage champagne -
exquisitely chilled and intoxicating.
Exquisitely chilled is also how it leaves the lucky reader.
Rickman can evoke evil - supernatural and otherwise - like no other
author around. He has your
neck-hairs at his command. Merrily Watkins is an
Anglican (well, no one's perfect ...) priestess and exorcist (‘Deliverance
Consultant’ in namby-pamby CofE speak) for the Diocese of Hereford on the
Anglo-Welsh border. This is her
sixth outing and, astoundingly, the series just goes on getting better and
better. Collectively, it now
constitutes a major achievement - a likely 'apart from the Bible and
Shakespeare ?' Desert Island Discs literary request This time around a newcomer hotelier is investigating local legends,
hoping a spot of spookiness will draw the punters into his failing enterprise. However, this being the 'Rickmanverse' he thereby manages to
lift some stones, both spiritual and secular, that really shouldn't have
been lifted. Murder and mayhem
ensure - and the grave is absolutely no guarantee of an end to it. Enter, willing or not, the quietly heroic, silk-cut puffing Merrily.
Family links and Christian charity lead to her entanglement in a curse
that's already centuries old when meddling arrivals from 'Off' (anywhere
not local) manage to give it fresh life. Rickman writes akin to one of the spiritualist mediums he describes -
like he's channelling words from a better place.
His characters leap off the page and follow you around when you've
stopped reading - which, given the personalities involved, isn't always
pleasant. The 'sense of place' is
just as good. The plotting's even
better. Add to this a connection to Arthur Conan Doyle and the true (?) prototype for the hound that bothered the Baskervilles; a generation-hopping unclean (and randy and bloodthirsty) 'presence'; plus proper, grown-up, meditations on matters spiritual and criminal, and you have the aforementioned champagne brew. Unreservedly recommended. FIVE STARS. P.S.
******
Post 'Amy-Faith II' I amused myself with a couple of ( sort of ) literary essays - but a brief explanation is required: There's a highly popular set of wargame rules called 'Hordes of the Things' ( HOTT for short ) that allows gamers to fight battles featuring armies inspired by fantasy books, legends, imaginary worlds and so on. For the curious there's a very good website devoted to the rules called 'The Stronghold' ( synchronicities with Amy-Faith's Universe ... ) which may be found at http://www.btinternet.com/~alan.catherine/wargames/strong.htm. Full enlightenment lies within, plus a wealth of entertaining reading, including myriad 'army lists' submitted by enthusiasts. And therein my musings about the world of James Thurber's 'The Thirteen Clocks' may now be found. To follow in due course should be similar spiels regarding J P Martin's six book 'Uncle' series and Anglo-Saxon * 'Men versus Monsters' conflicts.
[ * Actually, I prefer the term 'Old English' since 'Anglo-Saxon' - designedly I think - serves to deny any link between the English and their pre-1066 ancestors. Of course, the English predate the Norman catastrophe by half a millennia and to infer otherwise, namely that 'England' emerged fully formed the day after the Battle of Hastings, is to serve a ruling class agenda. ]
In the meanwhile, all three efforts may be found here:
Warfare in the world of James Thurber's 'The Thirteen Clocks' Warfare in the world of J. P. Martin's 'Uncle' books Warfare in the monster-ridden world of the Old English
If nothing else, consider each as literary incitements - particularly regarding the criminally out-of-print Uncle series, for which see http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/j/j-p-martin.html http://www.video-design.demon.co.uk/jpmartin.html ****** Finally, I've added a couple of spirtually enriching quotes to Quotes Qorner' - Batch the Seventh.
****** Back to
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