In this issue . . .
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In 'The Dark Lord of Derkholm' - Diana Wynne Jones starts with such a wonderful premise but ultimately fails to deliver on its early promise. The premise: What might happen if an unscrupulous travel agent from our world could offer tours to another 'more magical' world? Tours where you could wander about the countryside - completing quests, rescuing maidens and generally mucking about before getting down to business and finally 'slaying' the Dark Lord. They'd sell like hot cakes, wouldn't they? Of course no tour can actually be allowed to kill the Dark Lord; because he has got to be there again for the next tour to defeat and what with twenty or more tours on the go simultaneously he better make sure he has a good supply of 'fell beasts', 'foul imps' and other 'expendables' on hand for the tour parties to overcome. As you might expect, it contains constant spoofing of the traditional 'hack and slay' type fantasy. Some of which is quite entertaining, the vain elves and constantly hungry dwarves being my favourites. Unfortunately, at times the pacing seems off and overall something just doesn't quite seem right. It left me with the impression of a good opportunity squandered.
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Free books from the book club usually get short shrift in my house. Normally because they are the titles they just can't shift by any other method, and 'The Third Pandemic' - Pierre Ouellette's was one of those. Unusually though, this one isn't that bad. It is sort of a cross between one of Stephen King's slow build up hack horrors and Michael Crichton's overly detailed and incredibly plausible thrillers. Actually, it reminded me quite a bit of the 'Andromeda Strain'. I will leave it up to you, whether that is a good thing or not. The plot details an all too believable outbreak of a new and highly contagious disease. An air-bourne virus which is resistant to all known antibiotics and which has a 95% fatality rate. Frightening stuff.
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There's not many novels where the narrator is a shopping trolley. In fact, I bet there's only one: Scepticism Inc - Bo Fowler. Another first novel, and one which has been around for a while, but which has recently been re-issued with an 'all new' lurid cover. Why? I'm not sure, but I suspect that they were having problems shifting a religious satire otherwise. Which is a tremendous shame, because this is a bitterly funny and highly intelligent satire of belief and organised religion. It concerns Edgar Malroy, a man with a Nietzsche quote tattooed on his bottom, who founds the worlds first Metaphysical betting shop. A betting shop where you can pop in and place a fiver on the existence (or non-existence) of God. Of course Edgar can't loose, but then he only takes bets on things which can't be proved. Superb stuff from an author to watch.
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Moving from the sublime to the sublimely ridiculous we have: ThiGMOO - Eugene Byrne. A wonderfully entertaining, albeit insane tale of the triumph of Socialism over the forces of Evil (Capitalism, just in case you were wondering). Set in the near future, a collection of virtual personalities, who are historical, but fictional, escape from the 'Museum of the Mind' and cause havoc in a world dependant upon the Internet. They eventually hijack control of the world markets and threaten to destroy everything unless the government brings about world socialism. Unfortunately, there aren't any socialists left . . . Except for one, but he lives in a caravan and is far too busy feeding his obese wife increasingly large amounts of fried food to worry about the 'New World Order'. A first novel which bodes well for the future - Highly recommended. Oh, and just in case you were wondering - ThiGMOO stands for "This Great Movement Of Ours". Which is the traditional way for a pompous comrade to start a speech to the converted masses.
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Another first novel and if there is any justice - his last is: Danny Yates must die - Stephen Walker. Hyped considerably, including adverts in the Guardian and leaflets all over London, this novel is a loosely collected series of farcical characters and scenes. Including Madam Fifi, a toe collecting pedicurist, Arnold Meekly who turns into the unstoppable human tube line when annoyed. (Unstoppable? A tube line - I suspect the author does not frequent the Northern Line.) Not to mention The Great Osmosis (dam, I mentioned him), a theatrically styled villain who always wears a shiny metal bucket on his head, or Destructor, an alien super-fiend, bent on world domination. Unstructured, unfunny and unreadable. Avoid like the plague I hope Mr Walker gets for wasting several hours of my life reading this tosh.
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Resurfacing at a remainder book store near you, like at turd that just wont flush away, comes: The Book of Dead Authors - Emlyn Rees. I'm sorry to say that the blurb: Hot, Sexy & Scary, suckered me in to spending a massive £1.99 on this piece of inane drivel. A serial killer stalks and kills a series of prominent authors in gruesome ways that reflect their hypocrisy. Can we say Dr. Phibes? I think we can. Even at £1.99 I felt mugged. Avoid.
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Another first novel. And again one which claims to be, hip, cool and sexy, is: A White Merc with fins - James Hawes, and surprise, surprise, this one actually is. Stylish, humorous, sexy and at times downright peculiar, I found this tale of a bank robbery strangely engrossing. The hero, an ageing, paranoid, feckless, loser, somehow manages to come up with a fabulous scheme to rob Michael Winner's secret bank. A plan which includes the IRA, a bunch of Reservoir doggies impersonators and of course, a white Merc with fins. Not to mention, a woman who can give men an orgasm using only her stomach muscles. Wonderfully entertaining nonsense which should be made into a Quentin T film.
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Unfortunately, A White Merc with fins isn't going to made into a film, but the rather inferior: Rancid Aluminium - James Hawes, apparently is. Surprising, because this is far inferior. The plot follows a rather rancid thirty-something Londoner with no redeeming features, as he encounters his mid-life crisis and the Russian Mafia more or less at the same time. Devoid of engaging or even believable characters this book is simply awful. I simply couldn't believe that it had come from the same author as A White Merc with fins. Very disappointing.
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The final twelve books of the Millennium SF Masterworks series have been announced, although some are yet to see print. They are : Martian Time Slip - Philip K. Dick, The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester, Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner, The Dispossessed - Ursula Le Guin, The Drowned World - J. G. Ballard, The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut, Emphyrio - Jack Vance, A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick, Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon, Behold the Man - Michael Moorcock, The Book of Skulls - Robert Silverberg, The War of the Worlds & The Time Machine - H.G. Wells. An impressive list, although a touch of Dick overkill in my opinion. Nice to see The Sirens of Titan, Emphyrio and Stand on Zanzibar reprinted, because they have all been out of print far too long.
Enough of the second half of the series, I'm still reading my way through the first half, and this month we have:
Babel-17 - Samuel R. Delany. Still smart, still sexy, and still as sharp as a knife, even thirty years on. Babel-17 is one of those books which just gets better each time that you read it. Not so much of a complicated plot, more a series of clever set pieces, which see Rydra Wong collect a crew of desperate adventurers for glorious romp through the space ways. Inscrutable alien invaders are triggering acts of sabotage using a coded language which apparently can't be broken, cue poetess Rydra and crew who must try to save humanity. Time spent reading Babel-17 just seems to fly by, a product of the almost casual inventiveness dripping off every page: immortality, clone assassins, and a language without the concept of I - to name but three. And in Rydra, we have a heroine that you just immediately fall in love with, failings and all. Highly recommended.
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Also better each time you read it is: The fifth head of Cerebus - Gene Wolfe. Three loosely connected short stories, which play intellectual games with the reader on the subject of identity. Plot threads in the first two tales include, aliens which mimic humans so well that they may have forgotten that they are aliens, and a murderous clone planning the death of their clone parent. The third story is my favourite though, where a political prisoner tries to prove his identity to his captors without really being too sure of it himself. Unusually, for Wolfe, the moralising stays just below the surface, and allows his ideas alone to captivate. Certainly his best work.
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Back to the top of issue 37
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Metaphysics, the science . . . which deals with the fundamental errors of mankind -
but as if they were the fundamental truths.
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