In this issue . . .
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Working my way through the Millennium SF Masterworks series has proved an excellent excuse to revisit a number of titles I might not have found my way back to. Richard Matheson's - I am Legend falls into that category. "What", you may well ask, is a 1950's Vampire novel doing amongst a collection of 'great' science fiction? Well, Matheson skilfully reworks the old legends and tries (generally successfully) to explain the evident vampirism as a form of plague, perhaps released accidentally by a germ-warfare experimenting
government (a very real concern in the 1950's). The hero, if you can call him that, may be the last pure man left alive. By night he cowers away in his heavily fortified lair, and attempts to ignore the temptations of the semi- naked female vampires and the taunts of "Come out Neville" from his one time neighbour. Whilst by day, he becomes an avenging angel - bent on single-handedly destroying every vampire. Throughout the book there is a
gentle, almost imperceptible perspective and empathy shift, pulling your sympathies away from Neville as heroic survivor and leaving Neville as crazed monster. Charlton Heston appeared in the film version The Omega Man. Which, although I enjoyed it, doesn't hold a candle (or should that be a garlic clove) to the book.
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Having found myself enjoying the vampiric I am Legend I decide it was about time that I pulled Lost Souls - Poppy. Z Brite from the to be read pile where it had been brooding for some time, and I was sort of glad that I did. Miss Brite is continuously compared to Anne Rice, but in my opinion, where Rice portrays vampires as sexy mavericks - simply to pamper to the pathetic desires of sad Goths, Brite portrays them as sad, lonely creatures, whose only escape from the banality of eternal life is into a world of empty hedonism. Incredibly powerful, often violent and occasionally sexy, this book draws you in to the world of a small group of bisexual vampires and two unusual humans who oppose them. It is a world which is vividly and beautifully portrayed, but nevertheless remains one which you don't want to enter. Not for the squeamish.
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Next up is more horror and the charmingly named Swamp Foetus - Poppy. Z Brite . This is a collection of short stories spanning much of her career. The stories are individualy dated and it is noticeable how much improved the later ones are over the early ones. That's not to say that the early ones aren't without merit - because they are, but I tended to enjoy the later ones much more. The stories are on occasion and by turns - dark, violent,
sexy, disturbing and always evocative. A good introduction to the work of a very unusual author.
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On a lighter note - the latest Robert Rankin - Snuff Fiction has popped through the door, only to be instantly devoured. I'm obviously a fan; why else would I have called my 'zine "The Sprouts of Wrath", but even I have had to admit that some of his more recent offerings have left a lot to be desired. Although the tailing off has not been as pronounced as it has been in Mr Pratchett's case. Still, it was a cause for concern. I needn't have worried though; because this collection of rehashed old jokes amuses constantly, without ever reaching the hilarious heights of his previous masterpieces. Snuff Fiction is the biography of one Doveston - Brentford's leading snuff
entrepreneur, free festival organiser (Brentstock) and all round bad egg. It is unashamedly anarchic farce, lovingly told in the style of one huge urban myth or shaggy dog story. I spotted references to, or characters from, every other Rankin novel, but they didn't annoy as this self referential stuff so often does. As ever, running jokes abound. For example the increasingly implausible names for Yo-Yo stunts which peak at the fascinating "Splitting the Beaver". Nothing but delightful old toot. Recommended.
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I've a small pile of books sitting precarious atop of one of my bookcases which contains a select band of five novels that I have started and failed to finish on more than one occasion, but which I nevertheless haven't given up on. These tend to be novels that I should enjoy, but for whatever reason didn't at the time.
The last addition to this pile was Jeff Noon's - Pollen. The first 100 pages of which has entertained and infuriated me in almost equal measures on two separate attempts. Obviously it infuriated me more than it entertained otherwise I might have finished it. So, bearing Pollen in mind, it was with some trepidation that I approached one of my birthday gifts: Pixel Juice - Jeff Noon. A collection of some 50 short stories this book too entertained and infuriated me. Luckily it entertained considerably more than it annoyed, even if I did find some of the stories to be unreadable tosh (any mention of vurt leaves me cold). Particularly entertaining were the Alphabet stories and Junior Pimp - The central ideas behind which are worth the price of the book alone. Leaves me in a bit of a quandary now - Do I give Pollen one more try? Hmm . . . maybe some other time.
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Better known as a movie critic, Life's Lottery author: Kim Newman , is also an accomplished writer in the horror/thriller genre. This book is a departure from that genre, although some characters from
The Quorum do reappear, and altogether an odd creation. Presented in the style of a "choose your own adventure" game-book, it contains 300 numbered sections which allow you to explore the many alternative lives of the protagonist, who was born in the same year as the author. Coincidence? You decide. As is typical in adventure game-books apparently trivial choices can have unpredictable and far reaching consequences. A life of excitement and adventure beckons from down some paths; whilst others end abruptly in death, or the frankly more worrying epitaph "And so on"; indicating the end of that life's choices. Often subtly changed, the same cast of characters weave there way in and out of the various paths. Do you prefer Napoleon Solo or Illya Kuryakin? Do you get your girlfriend to help you with your seatbelt or do you kiss her? On such small decisions Life's Lottery is decided. Not all the decisions are trivial ones though. Do you sleep with your sister? Do you murder a schoolyard bully? And surreally, opening up time travelling possibilities which allow you to switch choice streams – Do you wish you had made a different decision earlier in your life? Do you wish to change it now? At least when you make the wrong choice here, or come to the end of a life's strand, you can always turn back, and try again. Alternatively exhilarating and depressing, it is sometimes tender and frequently violent, but always compulsive. Simply fascinating. Watch out for the 'secret' sections too, scenes which have no way in and no way out. Strongly recommended.
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Now I must offer my thanks to whomever it was that recommended I try: Deep Secret - Diana Wynne Jones ; because reading it made a long train journey seemingly melt away into nothingness. Set on Earth, but with frequent trips to the crumbling empire of Koryfus, this tale superficially concerns the selection of a replacement for one of Earth's Magids. These Magids are sort of like magicians and Earth should have three. They have a secret agenda though, the ‘deep secret' of the title, and they strive to nudge the development of Earth Ayewards, towards magic. Rupert Venables, the junior Earth Magid, decides somewhat unwisely to arrange for the most suitable candidates all to attend a Science Fiction convention in a strange hotel in Wantchester.
The hotel, reminiscent of the Lord Leyster, is the traditional masterpiece of non-Euclidean geometry and couldn't help but conjure memories of this years MasterCon. An enchanting read, even if it took me the best part of 300 pages before I could see Rupert as a man. Which is odd; because I could swear I recognised some of the Con goers as games players. Well worth a look.
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Whilst I don't doubt that if I read The Star Fraction - Ken Macleod again I'd enjoy it more, I found it very difficult to get into first time around.
Don't get me wrong, it is chock full of believable characters and some stunningly imaginative concepts, but for some reason the whole thing fails to gel. It obviously didn't help that I couldn't empathise with one of the central characters until that character was killed. Set in a higher tech, but nevertheless grubby version of our own world, there's more than a hint of the hackneyed cyberpunk jiggery- pokery which I usually hate too. For a change though, it's intelligently handled and not too intrusive. This novel has two successors: The Stone Canal and The Cassini Division . Apparently neither are sequels as such, but both are set in the same reality. Both are lurking in my to-be read pile.
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One central character I didn't have any trouble empathising with is Gabriel Prince, a writer of travel guides turned time traveller. He is the hero of Time on my hands - Peter Delacorte ; A hugely entertaining time travel romp, which sees the aforementioned Gabriel sent back (from 1994) to 1938, his mission - to prevent an obscure B-Movie actor named Dutch Reagan ever becoming president of the USA. Of course things don't go smoothly, in time travel tales they seldom do. Gabriel's problems are many. He doesn't want to kill Reagan, whose 1938 version he befriends, and he also wants to save the life of a beautiful women who is destined to die in 1938. Once he's saved the girl he hits upon a novel way of changing the future Reagan. It involves him first getting a job as a Hollywood screen writer which he does by submitting a treatment based upon High Noon . . . only this time it's called Four o'clock, and then making sure that Reagan appears in nice liberal films with good solid messages. Our version of Reagan's favourite film is the awful King's Row - The moral of which, along with Reagan's presidency, appears to be "Why bother? Everything will turn out just swell." Now, if only Gabriel can get Reagan the starring role in his Spanish Civil War pic . . . Constantly entertaining, perfectly researched (including period photographs in the text) and full of delightful cameos, such as Bogey complaining that all he ever gets are gangster flicks. Has a simply stunning ending. Which, despite my guessing it was coming, still had me shaking my head in disbelief. Amongst the best time travel tales I have ever read. I can't recommend it strongly enough.
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And finally, the amateur critic turns his attentions to a professional one, in the shape of: The dreams our stuff is made of - Thomas M. Disch. After the savaging he gave the world of poetry in: The Castle of Indolence, it is hardly surprising that no punches are pulled in this his critique of the history of Science Fiction, which starts with the unusual choice of Poe. Indeed he treats Science Fiction as serious literature with considerable social and cultural impact so, how could he pull punches. So, who is getting punched? Some soft targets -
anal probe victim Whitley Strieber and soft porn peddler of Gor - John Norman to name but two. There's one big target though - Robert Heinlein gets (rightly in my opinion) savaged for misogynist crap: "Friday" and solipsism: "The Number of the Beast", which Disch describes as: "the freakout to which (Heinlein)'s entitled as a good American, whose right to lie is protected by the Constitution." And it is the idea of America as a culture of liars which is the thread which binds the disparate sections into an entertaining whole. I might be biassed, agreeing as I do, with much of what he says, but I suspect even if you violently disagreed with everything in it this book would still not bore you.
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Back to the top of issue 36
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Come out, Neville.
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