Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

The Mixture As Before
Phoenixine Eighty, May 1996
I have a secret ambition. One of these months I will read so many books that the entire article will
consist of nothing but a list of titles, authors and publishers, with no room left for any comments abxout
the books at all. I haven't quite made it this month but I'm approaching it asymptotically; so watch out in
the articles to come!
I don't know whether it was an extra long month or an extra boring month, but whatever it was, I got
through more than my fair share of books during it. Partly it can be explained by a business trip to
Brisbane, a city where I know nobody and where, perforce, I can do little but read.
I flew cattle class this time (no luxury on this flight) and I compensated for that with the new Connie
Willis novel Bellwether. For many years she has been amusing us with short stories set in a comically
bureaucratic, inefficient society populated almost totally by untrustworthy vapourheads. These stories
are generally told in the first person by the only sane character among the lot of them. Now she has
extended this technique to a whole novel and I snorted and giggled my way across the Tasman, much to
the consternation of my seat companions.
The story takes place in a research institute. Sandra Foster studies fads (barbie dolls, hula hoops -where
do they come from, why do they die out?). Bennett O'Reilly is a chaos theory investigator.
Together with a flock of sheep they make several startling discoveries -- or rather they would if
Management didn't keep having meetings and the photocopying didn't keep vanishing. This book is well
worthy of your attention.
Being in the mood for amusement, I followed it with Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore. I love
vampire stories. I particularly love funny vampire stories. Jody Stroud is attacked by a vampire in an alley
in San Francisco. She awakes the next night with a fortune in cash stuffed into her clothing, a burned
arm (it has been lying in the sun all day and she has developed a hypersensitivity to light), and a hunger
for the taste of blood. She needs help -- preferably from someone who can go out during the day, which
she no longer can. Her car has been towed away, and the towing company is only open 9 to 5. How is
she going to get it back? Enter Tommy Flood, an unpublished freelance writer who stocks shelves at the
supermarket at night and plays ten pin bowling in the aisles using frozen turkeys as bowling balls...
Over the last twenty years or so, the novels of Patrick O'Brian have become somewhat of a cult. They
are set in the British navy of the early nineteenth century and the characters of Captain Jack Aubrey and
Doctor Stephen Maturin have entered the folklore. The Unknown Shore, an unconnected early novel
dating from 1959 has just been republished. It concerns the adventures of the young midshipman Jack
Byron, and surgeons mate Tobias Barrow on board the Wager, one of the ships in Commodore Anson's
ill-fated squadron that attempted a circumnavigation in 1740. The Wager is shipwrecked on the coast of
Chile, and the bulk of the novel concerns the trials and tribulations of the survivors. In hindsight, Byron
and Barrow can be read as a trial run for Aubrey and Maturin. Their relationship is the same, and so are
their professions. A delightful, eccentric humour permeates the book together with an incredible sense
of place and time and a loving attention to detail. Even that early in his writing career, O'Brian had the skill
of invoking an era so believably that you can smell it, taste it and feel it.
My other great love after vampire stories, is time travel stories. Therefore Time Scout a collaborative
novel by Robert Asprin and Linda Evans appealed to me immediately. It concerns one Kenneth "Kit"
Carson, once one of the best time scouts in the business but now retired and running a small hotel at
the time terminal. Then he is approached by a stunning red-headed girl who wants to be trained as a
time scout. Initially he refuses, but that doesn't put her off. She goes flouncing through an illicit gate,
and Carson has to go after her.
The book is a simple sense of wonder story with no depth at all. That is not criticism, it is praise. Nothing
can beat a simple, exciting story which is simply and excitingly told. I loved it.